u/solacend

I am troubleshooting an MMS issue on an HMD Vibe (TA-1590) running Android 14 on Tracfone and was wondering if anyone has encountered this, especially on the HMD Vibe.

Normal cellular data works. With Wi-Fi turned off, the phone can browse the web over LTE. Regular SMS also works, and Google Messages RCS works normally, including sending/receiving pictures over RCS.

The problem seems to be specifically with traditional MMS. I disabled RCS on an iPhone and sent a picture to the HMD Vibe. The Android phone correctly recognizes that an MMS arrived and displays “Downloading MMS attachment.” It spins for many minutes, then eventually changes to “Can’t load MMS attachment.”

Auto-download MMS is enabled, and I already ran TracFone's official APN update by texting APN to 611611 and rebooted the phone, but the problem remains.

Has anyone else run into this issue using an HMD Vibe on TracFone? If so, how did you solve it?

I am fairly new to applying through USAJobs and had a question about resume gaps and their impact on being considered by HR/hiring managers.

For some background, I graduated from a small private engineering-focused university in New England, which many people may not have heard about if they are not from the area, with undergraduate and Master's degrees in Computer Science. I have roughly a one-year resume gap between graduation (May 2025) and the start of an unpaid internship that I am doing right now, which I began in May 2026.

For context, I actively searched for jobs after graduation from May to September 2025 and had a few interviews during the summer but did not manage to land an offer. From September 2025, I decided to pivot and started researching/applying to PhD programs, mostly due to pressure from my parents, and partly because I genuinely would not have minded doing a PhD, as you get paid a stipend and I would have just viewed it as a job. I had some research experience from my undergrad/MS, which would help establish my interest in research/academia for my applications.

Due to this pivot, I had to scale back job hunting/interview prepping quite a bit. I was still applying here and there but not to the same extent as I had been before because PhD apps were very time-consuming (more than I expected).

I was also interviewing for some companies in October and November, but unfortunately I didn't manage to receive any offers.

After my last job interview of 2025 in November 2025 until early March 2026, I spent most of my time preparing and submitting my PhD applications, and I did not apply to any jobs or do any interview prep (primarily LeetCode for my major).

I think I was applying to too many PhD programs, combined with starting the entire PhD program search and application process very late compared to what is generally recommended (since most people start planning and reaching out to potential advisors during the summer before the application cycle opens).

That process ended up taking much more time than I expected and took away from time I could have spent applying for jobs, practicing LeetCode, networking, and preparing for interviews.

In the end, I didn't receive a PhD offer, which I kind of expected, since I didn't think my applications/profile were strong enough, and the school I went to is not ranked very high nationally for my major and also is not known as the best research institution that I could have or should have attended for my undergraduate and Master's degrees if I wanted to set myself up for success with pursuing a PhD in the future. However, I wasn't really thinking about a PhD when my parents and I were deciding where to go for my undergrad.

Moreover, I realized that I wasn't fully invested in doing a PhD and primarily applied due to parental pressure (my parents are very overbearing/controlling, and I have very little control over my own life, but that is beyond the scope of this post).

I started applying to jobs again in March 2026, but obviously not with the same momentum that I had during the summer and fall of 2025. Also, for my field, most of the hiring is complete in the fall and early winter, at least for private companies, which I missed due to PhD applications.

I had a few interviews here and there but didn't manage to land anything by May 2026. At this point, I started getting concerned about the gap on my resume because it had been a year since I graduated, and I had no job or PhD offer lined up and nothing to show on my resume since graduation.

In May 2026, I started an unpaid software engineering internship at a startup that is so early-stage that it isn't even officially registered as a company and has no funding whatsoever because I happened to vaguely know the person who started it.

I only took this position to stop the gap on my resume from growing bigger while continuing to search for a full-time role.

Only in June 2026 did I learn about USAJobs and start applying to federal positions.

Will this one-year gap hurt my chances for Recent Graduate, GS-7, or GS-9 positions?

Do hiring managers or HR generally view this negatively?

Has anyone here had a similar experience and still been successful?

Apologies for the long post. I would really appreciate any and all advice.

I recently started applying through USAJOBS, primarily for entry-level and Recent Graduates positions related to IT, IT support, Computer Science, software development, and Data Science. For anyone who has interviewed for these types of Federal roles, what was the interview process like?

Were the interviews mostly behavioral questions, or did they also include technical questions?

For IT support or customer support positions, were you given troubleshooting scenarios involving users, hardware, software, networking, security, or ticket prioritization?

For Computer Science, software development, or Data Science positions, were you asked coding questions similar to LeetCode? Were there any system design, database, statistics, machine learning, code-review, or technical-concept questions?

Also, how many interview rounds were there, and was there ever a technical assessment or take-home assignment? So far, I have only completed the USA Hire Assessment, but I don't think I see how that is a relevant measure of competency for the types of roles I am primarily applying to.

What would you recommend reviewing or preparing before receiving an interview invitation?

I do not have much experience with the Federal hiring process because I only recently began applying through USAJOBS. I would be very grateful for any experiences, preparation advice, or resources that could help me understand the process and prepare effectively.