Ahhhh that'll explain never receiving messages and my friends not getting them. Some bust scenarios I experience:
1. I will call my wife using Hangouts - she won't be notified on her phone.
2. I chat with someone via Google Talk on my old phone - if they're using Hangouts, they may or may not receive the message.
3. Someone will chat with me via Hangouts. My phone with Google Talk may or may not receive it; BUT! if I open the web browser version on a laptop, it'll receive it (and makes me look like an ignorant weirdo when I reply to messages that have been "there" for days...
Mobile hangouts to mobile hangouts mostly works (apart from the video call at intermittent times). Oddly, the Hangouts client will say that the person was not available for a video call (ie, they didn't pick up) but they didn't receive any alert or ANYTHING to state that there was a call coming in.
No offence to the team there, but it's a piece of junk. Video calling and voice calling and text all worked fine under Google Talk; under Hangouts, I might as well be putting messages in bottles and hoping they will reach the destination...
Even MSN Messenger was more reliable, and that was 15+ years ago; I am not sure how this is not a solved problem! (Not sure if they've fixed the lack of online/offline presence in Hangouts yet; if not, it is STUPID. "Are you there?" Who knows!)
Long before I hangouts I had lots of issues with Google talk. I started numbering my messages as in
1 Hey Joe
2 How are things in SG
3 Are you going to meet me at the airport?
4 Or shall I take a cab?
5 In any case I'll be into the city by 7pm so we can grab dinner
etc.
What we found was that Google talk was dropping messages. Lots of them.
With no way to complain and no way to prove it I just stopped using Google Talk. It was really disappointing to see it do so poorly though. Like most of the rest of you it seemed like chat was a solved issue.
What did you switch to using? My mum has an iPad, my wife has an iPad and also an Android phone, I have a Mac, my brothers have Android phones; do I just spam everyone on each network (Messages / Talk / Hangouts / Skype)? I tend to now SMS everyone - at least that's mostly universal (but my mum will never get any messages).
I would use Skype but it enjoys eating battery as a hobby on both mobile and desktop/laptop.
1. I will call my wife using Hangouts - she won't be notified on her phone.
2. I chat with someone via Google Talk on my old phone - if they're using Hangouts, they may or may not receive the message.
3. Someone will chat with me via Hangouts. My phone with Google Talk may or may not receive it; BUT! if I open the web browser version on a laptop, it'll receive it (and makes me look like an ignorant weirdo when I reply to messages that have been "there" for days...
Mobile hangouts to mobile hangouts mostly works (apart from the video call at intermittent times). Oddly, the Hangouts client will say that the person was not available for a video call (ie, they didn't pick up) but they didn't receive any alert or ANYTHING to state that there was a call coming in.
No offence to the team there, but it's a piece of junk. Video calling and voice calling and text all worked fine under Google Talk; under Hangouts, I might as well be putting messages in bottles and hoping they will reach the destination...
Even MSN Messenger was more reliable, and that was 15+ years ago; I am not sure how this is not a solved problem! (Not sure if they've fixed the lack of online/offline presence in Hangouts yet; if not, it is STUPID. "Are you there?" Who knows!)