How to avoid an iMessage crashing bug in iOS 18 and potential data loss
Apple’s latest iO 18 software has an iMessage bug that can cause the iPhone’s Messages app to crash repeatedly, but it’s avoidable and here’s how.
The Messages app on iOS 189 has been found to repeatedly crash after receiving a specific type of iMessage, which can cause frustration. Apple will fix this bug in a future update. Until a fix arrives, you can avoid it by not replying in a threaded message if someone shares a watch face with you from their Apple Watch.
9to5Mac speculates that Apple’s fix could cause some data from the Messages database to be lost. Therefore, avoiding the bug in the first place may help prevent potential data loss before a fix is in place. The iOS 18.1 update coming in October doesn’t suffer from this bug.
How to avoid iOS 18’s iMessage crashing bug
The watchOS software lets Apple Watch owners create custom Apple Watch faces that match their style and share them with friends and family via iMessage.
“For now, the bug is triggered when someone replies to a shared watch face in a thread on Messages in iOS 18,” according to 9to5Mac‘s Zac Hall. In other words, don’t use the threaded response feature where you touch and hold an inline message bubble and choose the Reply option.
“If this happens, Messages will repeatedly crash if the user tries to open the conversation in the app,” Zac writes. Opening the thread also crashes the app.
When the bug raises its ugly head, both sides are affected. Not being able to clear the problematic thread because Messages is repeatedly crashing is annoying. Plus, your recipient must do the same on their device. However, this solution results “in all conversation history being removed,” including all attachments.
Clearing the chat moves it into the Recently Deleted section of the Messages so you can restore it. However, “Restoring the deleted thread from the recently deleted location on Messages reintroduces the crashing bug.” On the plus side, sharing watch faces isn’t a mainstream feature so this bug won’t affect too many people. At any rate, we expect a fix from Apple soon.
Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/09/19/how-to-avoid-apple-ios-18-imessage-crashing-bug/
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