Nokia 700 not receiving SMS until power cycled

Question

I have not had any replies to a lot of SMS messages for a few days. Then I turned the phone off and back on and a load of messages were delivered within a few minutes.
However I had been using the phone for phone calls throughout that time.
It sounds like a bug...
It is latest firmware and on Vodafone.

Answer 1

My Vodafone SIM card is brand new.
Looking at the above post, it does sound like a bug.
This explanation was posted in usenet and is very interesting:
Most people are aware that it is store and forward in that the message
doesn't go from your mobile to the destination one but rather via
something akin to a post office (the SMSC) which works out how to
deliver it to the destination mobile,  delivers it if it can and if not
holds it until it can deliver it.
As ever, the devil is in the detail, first of all deliveries to
destination mobiles are not universally successful (1% or so seem to
fail even if you know the mobile is available and has full signal) and
in general (although not always) SMSCs have a timer based retry to get
around that,  but sometimes the error specifies that the mobile is
really not there and hence the SMSC needs to set what is known as the
Message Waiting Data (MWD) in the Home Location Register (HLR) (the
database in the network that is always queried for your profile and
settings when you come into service in a new area).
When you next appear in a new area,  the Visited Location Register (VLR
- the local database at your new location,  generally controls roughly
100 cell sites or so) queries the HLR for your details and this query is
meant to cause the HLR to Alert the SMSC that you have appeared and to
make a new attempt to deliver the messages.
However, notice the occurrence of "new" area - if you hadn't actually
left the area and there was just a routing issue or a momentary loss of
signal then it can be hours (or potentially days) until a regular update
to the HLR occurs and you'll get your messages.
Now, also, all of these things have addresses in the network that need
to be configured and routed correctly,  and if 99%+ of the traffic is
successful (as it goes down a delivery route that works right) then it's
often very difficult for the networks to track down (particularly if it
only causes an unwanted delay and they get their revenue eventually anyway).
Of course, it could also be a phone bug that tries to say to the SMSC
"not right now",  but actually comes out with something like "my memory
is full and I'll tell you when I have space" (and it never does the the
latter).
None of that has anything to do with data and BB services though - data
is another can of worms that is very much a case of standards by committee.
I wonder if a phone firmware bug can cause this network behaviour?