NowSMS Release – 2010.02.09

Posted by on Feb 9, 2010 in Software Updates

This document provides release history information for the current release version of the Now SMS & MMS Gateway, which can be downloaded at https://nowsms.com/download-free-trial.

This document covers changes between the last major 2009 release and version 2010.02.09.  An interim update may be available at the following link:   https://nowsms.com/nowsms-update.

The release history information provides additional information on configuration settings that have been added to address unusual configuration requirements.

2010-02-03:

* Fixes for UseRouteQueues=Yes setting when “SMSCRoute=” is set by a PreAuth SMS Accounting callback.

2010-01-27:

* 2-way SMS: Fix for problem where SMPPOptions settings and service type were not preserved when recombining a received multipart SMS for passing to a 2-way command.

* MMS Gateway/MM1: Fix for problems routing MMS delivery reports back to an MM7 connection if the MMSC host name is not configured (which is always the case in NowSMS Lite). Also fix a problem where MMS delivery reports were not automatically routed to the default route configured for the modem’s MMS receive settings.

* SMS Gateway/SMPP Client: Update configuration parameter that allows the “users” directory to be moved to another location other than beneath the NowSMS program directory. This directory contains queues of received messages waiting for SMPP or POP3 clients, as well as user specific log files. Under the [SMSGW] header in SMSGW.INI, use UsersDir=d:\path\ or UsersDir=\\Server\Volume\path\ to specify the location of the SMS “users” directory. When this parameter is set, the “SMS Users” database files (SMSUSERS.D2A and SMSUSERS.D2I) will also be located in this directory (by default, when this parameter is not set, these files are in the NowSMS program directory). With this release, it is now possible to separate the queued messages and log files from other user related data. Under the [SMSGW] header, use UsersQDir=d:\path\ or UsersQDir=\\Server\Volume\path\ to specify the location of the user directories that will hold queued messages only. Under the [SMSGW] header, use UsersLogDir=d:\path\ or UsersLogDir=\\Server\Volume\path\ to specify the location of the user directories that will hold log files. Other user directories and files will be stored relative to the “UsersDir=” setting, or in their default location if “UsersDir=” is not present.

* SMPP: Add SMSC specific configuration option to suppress TLV receipt parameters when delivery receipts are routed to an outbound SMSC connection (this would generally only happen when the ReRouteReceived option is used). Under the [SMPP – server:port] header of SMSGW.INI, if you want to suppress the receipt TLV parameters for messages routed to this server, add IgnoreReceiptTLV=Yes.

2010-01-19:

* SMS Gateway: Add a configuration option to add separate queues for explicitly routed messages. In SMSGW.INI, under the [SMSGW] header, add UseRouteQueues=Yes.

* SMS Gateway: Add a configuration option to possibly speed up receiving of SMS messages when accounting callbacks are enabled and SMPP async mode is enabled for a connection. When this configuration option is enabled, inbound SMS message processing and accounting callbacks are moved to a separate thread. To enable this setting, edit SMSGW.INI, and under the [SMSGW] header add AsyncReceiveMessages=Yes. (Note: This setting is still considered experimental.)

2010-01-06:

* MMSC: Fix for problem with MSISDN header parsing where the MMSC was looking for both the X-MSISDN header and a value configured for the “MSISDNHeader=” setting, when it should only be looking for the “MSISDNHeader=” setting.

2009-12-24:

* SMS Gateway: Fix for problem where if “Separate outbound message queues” for each user is not enabled, NowSMS would not send out any SMS messages that originated via SMTP.

2009-12-22:

* SMS Gateway: Fix for problem where NowSMS would keep re-initialising a modem if the user had never edited and saved properties for the modem after the initial add.

2009-12-21:

* SMPP: If routing a delivery receipt via an outbind SMSC connection, use esm_class of 8 in submit_sm. (Previously, a value of 4 was being used, which is not valid in submit_sm.) Also add a configuration option to suppress TLV paramters (message_state and receipted_message_id) for delivery receipts routed via an outbind SMSC connection. To suppress these TLV parameters, edit SMSGW.INI, and under the appropriate [SMPP – server:port] section header, add IgnoreReceiptTLV=Yes.

* SMPP: Add message_id to data_sm_resp if we receive a data_sm from an outbind SMSC connection, and the message is rerouted to another outbind SMSC connection because of a “ReRouteReceived” configuration setting.

* SMS Gateway: Update preferred service_type handling for routing particular service_type values to specific SMSC connections to support pattern matching and “best match”. See https://nowsms.com/discus/messages/1/42107.htm and https://nowsms.com/discus/messages/1/24460.html.

* Add option to disable writing anything to the Windows Event Log. Add DisableEventLog=Yes under [SMSGW] header in SMSGW.INI.

* SMS Gateway: Allow retry parameters to be specified on a per-SMSC connection basis, so that different connections can have different retry settings. If any of the following retry parameters is found in the SMSC specific section of SMSGW.INI, it will override the default setting under the [SMSGW] header: RetryDelay, RetryDelayMultiplier, RetryDelayAfterAttempts, RetryDelayMax, RetryMaxAttempts, InitRetryDelay, InitRetryDelayMultiplier, InitRetryDelayAfterAttempts, InitRetryDelayMax.

2009-12-08:

* MMSC/MM4: Implement checks to prevent circular routing for MM4 interconnects. If a message is received via an MM4 connection, and the MMSC determines that its delivery path to the recipient is via that same MM4 connection, the message will be rejected with a negative response in the MM4_forward.RES. For compatibility with previous releases, this check can be disabled with the setting DisableCircularRoutingCheck=Yes in MMSC.INI.

2009-12-01:

* MMSC: Fix for MMSUSER.EXE -quotareport listing up to 1000 blank user entries after the last user.

2009-11-25:

* SMS Gateway: Fix for a problem where individual parts of a multipart message were not routed out via the same SMSC connection if NowSMS was able to fully route one part before the next part was received.

* SMPP: Add a configuration option to override the character set for received SMS messages. A customer encountered a situation where the SMSC was encoding text using the iso-8859-1 character set. However, the SMSC was setting the character set flag in the message to indicate that text was using the GSM character set. NowSMS was configured to use the iso-8859-1 character set with this SMSC, however, since the character set was explicitly set as GSM in the received message, NowSMS could not decode the text properly. To address this issue, it is possible to add SMSCCharsetReceiveTextOverride=Yes under the [SMPP – server:port] section of SMSGW.INI. When this parameter is present, NowSMS will always interpret received text messages as being encoded in the character set configured for the connection.

* SMPP: Add a configuration setting to allow a default PID value to be used for all messages routed to a specific SMSC connection. Under the [SMPP – server:port] section of SMSGW.INI, add DefaultPID=XX, where XX is the PID value in hex.

2009-11-04:

* MMSC: When the sender of an MMS message is an e-mail address (instead of a short code or phone number), and the message arrives via a VASP connection, requesting a delivery receipt, the MMSC would always try to send the delivery receipt back via e-mail. This was only an issue if the MMSC was delivering the message directly, if it was routing to an upstream MMSC connection, delivery receipts back to an e-mail recipient would be routed correctly.

* SMS Gateway: Add a configuration option to use 16-bit reference numbers when generating concatenated multipart messages. By default, NowSMS uses 8-bit reference numbers, which allows the most characters to be fit in a single SMS. However, a customer observed that when sending binary messages to a Java application on many Motorola phones, one byte of data per message segment would be lost when using 8-bit reference numbers due to a bug in the phone software. When 16-bit reference numbers are used, message length per segment rules change. For long text messages, instead of 153 characters per segment, only 152 characters per segment can be achieved. For Unicode messages, instead of 67 characters per segment, only 66 characters per segment can be achieved. For binary messages, 133 bytes of binary data can be included per segment, instead of 134 bytes. To enable 16-bit reference numbers, edit SMSGW.INI, and under the [SMSGW] section header, add ConcatRef16Bit=Yes. Note that when this setting is applied, 16-bit reference numbers are only used when NowSMS performs the segmentation (message submitted either via HTTP, or via SMPP using a single message_payload submission) … NowSMS does not resegment messages that have already been segmented by the submitting client.

2009-10-28:

* SMPP: Add SMPP character support for an unusual “Roman-8” character set needed for a specific SMSC.

2009-10-23:

* GSM Modem: Add code to detect a system waking up from sleep or hibernation where we may need to reset the modem.

* SMPP: Add configuration setting to prevent NowSMS from remapping GSM message class DCS values which are invalid in SMPP to valid SMPP values. To apply this setting for a specific SMSC, edit SMSGW.INI, and under the SMSC specific section (e.g., [SMPP – server:port]), add emapMessageClassDCS=No.

2009-10-21:

* SMS/GSM Modem: For messages received via GSM modem, if a phone number property is not set for the modem, read the phone number from the modem and apply it as the received phone number.

* SMSLite: Configuration program was not allowing the “Route SMS to local user” setting to select users.

2009-10-19:

* SMS/GSM Modem: Fix for problem initialising Telit HSPA Modem. Previously, attempts to initialise modem were returning error: “Error initializing modem – 0”

2009-10-12:

* MMSC: EnableReadReceipt=No was disabling read receipts from being generated by local recipients, but it was not disabling the read receipt request from being routed to external recipients. It now blocks both.

2009-10-07:

* SMPP Server: Fix for change in 2009.10.01 version which caused server to accept messages from an SMPP client even if a user was over quota.

2009-10-01:

* GSM Modem: More GSM modem handling updates.  Added code to reset the modem after persistent errors sending SMS or MMS messages to try to recover “hung” modems. MMS sending updated to address an issue where if a modem was removed/reinserted, the MMS part of NowSMS could not recognize the modem again until the service restarted. (This could also happen with buggy modems that restart themselves periodically.) An additional option was added to the GSM modem configuration to trigger NowSMS to restart the server if a modem becomes unresponsive and NowSMS is unable to access the modem. (Note: NowSMS retries for about 15 minutes before triggering a reboot when this option is enabled.)

* SMPP/WDP Adaptation: Fix for 2009.06.30 change. If BinaryDCS override is not specified for the SMPP connection, and WDP Adaptation is being used, continue to remap DCS value 0xF5 to 4, as was done in earlier releases.

* SMPP Server: When accepting messages from an SMPP client, if the client specifies TON=1 (international), but the address starts with “0”, assume that the number is in local format, not international.

2009-09-16:

* MMSC/MM4: Work-around for situation where MM4 delivery reports were not being accepted because the recipient address (original sender) for the delivery report was not being specified in the “RCPT TO:” command. Instead, the other MMSC was specifying the MMSC system address in the “RCPT TO:” command and only included the original recipient in the “To:” header of the message.

2009-09-15:

* SMS Gateway: Fix for an exception error that could occur with segmented SMS messages submitted to recipient phone numbers longer than 70 characters. Problem most frequently occurred with multiple outbound SMSC connections.

* Receiving MMS via GPRS Modem: Fix for problem where when received SMS messages are being routed to a local user, NowSMS would also route MMS notifications to that local user account instead of processing them as received MMS messages.

2009-09-08:

* MM7: Add configuration option to allow selected MM7 status codes to be classified as success or retry status codes. By default, NowSMS accepts only StatusCode 1000 as an inidication of successful message submission. To add additional status codes, edit VASPOUT\accountname\VASP.INI, and under the [VASP] header, define SuccessStatusCodes=1000,1001,1002 (comma delimited list of status codes). Similarly, NowSMS considers all errors except 2001, 3003, 4000, 4006 and 4007 to be permanent status errors. If NowSMS receives a StatusCode response with any other value, the message submission will not be reattempted (3003 is a special status code case indicating that the MMSC only accepts one recipient at a time). To add additional StatusCode responses that should be treated as temporary errors, edit VASPOUT\accountname\VASP.INI, and under the [VASP] header, add RetryStatusCodes=2001,4000,4006,4007 (comma delimited list of status codes, include the default StatusCodes that should be retried).

2009-08-31:

* SMPP: Add SMPP character support for the unusual “ASCII 437” code page that is used by Telstra.

* SMPP: Add configuration setting to set the initial SMPP sequence_number value to be used by a connection as a random value. To enable this setting, edit SMSGW.INI, and under the [SMSGW] header add SMPPSeqRandom=Yes.

2009-08-26:

* GSM Modem Handling: If errors occurred when sending MMS messages via a modem route, the MMSC would not timely release the modem to allow SMS sending to continue.

* SMPP: Fix for improper sequence_number generation issues.

* Add “BCC” option for sending an MMS message via the web interface. If using NowSMS proprietary URL submission, include “MMSBCC=Yes” to force recipients to be BCC.

* SMS Gateway/SMPP Client: Update configuration parameter that allows the “users” directory to be moved to another location other than beneath the NowSMS program directory. This directory contains queues of received messages waiting for SMPP or POP3 clients, as well as user specific log files. Under the [SMSGW] header in SMSGW.INI, use UsersDir=d:\path\ or UsersDir=\\Server\Volume\path\ to specify the location of the SMS “users” directory. When this parameter is set, the “SMS Users” database files (SMSUSERS.D2A and SMSUSERS.D2I) will also be located in this directory (by default, when this parameter is not set, these files are in the NowSMS program directory). With this release, it is now possible to separate the queued messages from other user related data and logs. Under the [SMSGW] header, use UsersQDir=d:\path\ or UsersQDir=\\Server\Volume\path\ to specify the location of the user directories that will hold queued messages only. Other user directories and files will be stored relative to the “UsersDir=” setting, or in their default location if “UsersDir=” is not present.

* MMSC/MM4: Add the ability to use different source/sender domain names for different groups of users. This may be useful when multiple mobile operator networks are serviced by a single MMSC. To specify the outbound domain name, edit VASPOUT\accountname\VASP.INI for the outbound MM4 connection … creating a [DomainMapping] section. Within this section, specify address pattern to domain name mappings using the following format addresspattern=domain.name (e.g., +111*=domain1.com). Note: To support these additional domain names when receiving messages, add domain name alias settings under the [MMSC] section of MMSC.INI using the format DomainNameAlias1=domain1.com … DomainNameAlias2=domain2.com … etc.

2009-08-20:

* GSM Modem Handling: Internal updates for improved performance and compatiblity. Change the default receive polling interval to 3 seconds when “Direct to Modem” is the “SMS Message Storage” type. The polling interval is set to 2 seconds for other “SMS Message Storage” types (prior to NowSMS 2009, it was always 1 second). To change the default add ReceivePoll=##, where ## is the number of seconds, under the appropriate [Modem – driver name] section header of SMSGW.INI. Modem polling logic also optimised to be less resource intensive on the modem. If this change causes problems receiving messages with older phone modem implementations that worked with previous version of NowSMS, add OldPollingLogic=Yes under the appropriate [Modem – driver name] section header of SMSGW.INI.

* MMSC: When routing MM7 to MM1, do not encode “Content-Disposition:” headers in the MM1 message, as this seems to confuse some operator MMSCs.

2009-08-15:

* 2-way SMS processing: Non-delivery receipts generated by NowSMS when an SMSC connection rejected a message were being marked with a “.IN” extension instead of a “.REC” extension. While not necessarily a problem, this could cause delays for other “.IN” messages being processed. These receipts are now marked with a “.REC” extension so that they will be processed in the 2-way SMS receipt queue instead of the normal inbound message queue.

2009-08-14:

* Multimedia Content Push: WML format is used by default. HTML format is only used if the receiving client does not support WML.

* Internal changes (updated debug log information) for 2-way SMS processing in the SMS-IN directory.

* GSM Modem Handler: Improved compatibility with SonyEricsson USB modems (especially MD300).

2009-08-05:

* Multimedia Content Push: Fix XHTML generated for multimedia content push. Update install to include missing CSS file for XHTML version of multimedia content push.

* SMS Gateway: Modem handling – Change “Default” and “Direct to Modem” handling to prefer SIM message storage.

2009-07-29:

* Fix for 2009 changes to multimedia WAP push causing problems displaying content that includes Unicode text.

2009-07-23:

* SMS Gateway: When NowSMS generates a non-delivery receipt because an upstream SMSC connection has rejected a message, the non-delivery receipt was not being logged. It is now logged to the SMSIN log file.

* SMS Gateway: Add configuration option to suppress the creation of “.ERR” files when an SMSC connection rejects a message. To suppress these files, edit SMSGW.INI, and under the [SMSGW] header, add ErrorQRetainDays=0.

2009-07-21:

* MMSC: Fix for AccountingKeepAlive=No and RoutingKeepAlive=No settings not working for MMS accounting and routing callbacks. Use of these settings would cause a handle leak and after a period of time, the MMSC would no longer be able to accept or initiate connections.


For comments and further discussion, please click here to visit the NowSMS Technical Forums (Discussion Board)...