The firewall appears to be blocking outgoing text messages from my phone ...
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 @NineEyes Keep us posted if you find a solution. There have been many reports of problems with Samsung, but I'm not sure it has ever been tracked down to a specific issue, other than the availability of IPv6 makes it choke. For me, disabling IPv6 to workaround what a believe is a Samsung problem makes no sense. If it is a Samsung phone problem, then the solution is to ditch Samsung and keep using IPv6. Although I know getting rid of a new phone is painful. 
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 @NineEyes - have you tried the suggestion here yet, i.e. changing the Firewall Optimization to conservative? https://forum.netgate.com/topic/155113/wifi-calling-issue A family member also has a Samsung Galaxy Android phone - this change seems to have resolved all issues (WiFi calling and SMS related) for us. Hope this helps. 
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 @tman222 - Your link looks promising. Thank you! I will definitely try it and report back when I have some solid data. 
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 After 22 days of solid SMS performance with my Galaxy S10, I'm ready to call changing "Firewall Optimization Options" to "Conservative" a roaring success. Thanks @tman222! I also like @MagneticMuffin 's explanation enough that I do not intend to research this further. Thanks all! 
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 Wow! I started this thread over a year and a half ago, and it looks like we may finally have a definitive solution. Three of the four members of my family still use Samsung phones, so I'm excited to give this a shot. Is there any downside to changing the firewall optimization to "Conservative"? What exactly does this setting do? 
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 @gweempose said in The firewall appears to be blocking outgoing text messages from my phone ...: Wow! I started this thread over a year and a half ago, and it looks like we may finally have a definitive solution. Three of the four members of my family still use Samsung phones, so I'm excited to give this a shot. Is there any downside to changing the firewall optimization to "Conservative"? What exactly does this setting do? Hi @gweempose - please check out the link below for some more info - essentially the difference between the various optimization modes is how quickly the firewall expires entries in the state table (i.e. in conservative mode this would happen more slowly): https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/config/advanced-firewall-nat.html#firewall-optimization-options Hope this helps. 
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 I am also able to confirm firewall optimization option set to conservative fixed the Samsung phone problem on my network as well. Even though I have long since disposed of the only Samsung phone in our household as a workaround for this vexing problem, a relative has a Samsung phone. Previously it failed, now with the revised pfsense firewall configuration it works reliably. I can't help but wonder if conservative is the more-appropriate default option for pfsense as installed. 
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 I have now been using the new "Coservative" firewall settings for over two weeks, and I can say with confidence that it 100% fixed the problem with my Samsung Galaxy S8+. No more issue with texts. No more issue with wi-fi calling. Everything works exactly as it should.  
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