After Security Update 2020-006 iMessages from only 1 person disappeared from both iPhone and Mac

[pullman]

I don't know if this belongs in this forum or somewhere else, so please let me know. Here's what's happened.

My 82yo mother updated her Mac Mini running High Sierra with the 2020-006 Security Update on Friday.

On the same day all pre-Friday iMessages from my brother disappeared from both her Mac and from her iPhone. Messages from other persons are still present on both devices.

Over the phone (I'm in a different country) I've tried to help her. We've tried restarting the phone and the computer, deactivating and reactivating iMessages and logging out and back in on iCloud. Nothing works unfortunately.

Does anyone have an idea what could have happened to the pre-Security Update 2020-006 iMessages?

Thank you very kindly in advance.

 

[Minorite]

Random bug... Apple has some major issues with Messages lately. The only option I can think of is to restore an iTunes backup of the phone if she has it (no messages in iCloud backup due to enabled sync) to a spare device, then sync it to other devices.

 

[pullman]

Thank you for the reply. Just so I understand - you mean restore the backup on the computer to a second phone and then sync that phone with icloud (presumably first having turned off iCloud on her current phone). Then hope that the current phone 'picks up' the lost messages when it is later synced with icloud?

Random bug... Apple has some major issues with Messages lately. The only option I can think of is to restore an iTunes backup of the phone if she has it (no messages in iCloud backup due to enabled sync) to a spare device, then sync it to other devices.

 

[Minorite]

No need to turn iCloud sync on the current phone. If under a backup on the computer you mean iTunes backup or a backup with a third-party app -- yes. She will need to tap "Merge" after enabling iCloud sync for messages on the spare device after the restore.

She can check if the messages are in the backup with iMazing trial first. If it's there, she can also extract it in PDF if it will be enough, but this works only with the license.

 

[pullman]

Thank you very much for the explanation and also for mentioning imazing.com. I didn't know that exists.

No need to turn iCloud sync on the current phone. If under a backup on the computer you mean iTunes backup or a backup with a third-party app -- yes. She will need to tap "Merge" after enabling iCloud sync for messages on the spare device after the restore.

She can check if the messages are in the backup with iMazing trial first. If it's there, she can also extract it in PDF if it will be enough, but this works only with the license.