Group Messaging Problems

[VictoryHighway]

So, I’m not sure if this is iOS 18 related, but I’m having some weird issues with group messaging. I have a long-existing group message thread with the rest of my family. We’re all on iPhones and the whole thread was via iMessage (blue bubbles). Over the last couple of days, I’ve seen this message thread get splintered into separate threads (including cases where one member of the group is listed twice and another member is not even listed). So in don’t know who is or is not getting the messages. It also seems to be randomly switching between iMessage and SMS. It’s driving me bananas. Has anyone else seen this? I’m at my wits end. We really need the ability to merge group iMessage threads.

 

[TimFL1]

The listed twice thing has me thinking that your contacts probably lost iMessage for their phone number.

I had a similar incident a while ago where my whole family suddenly found themselves with only their mail addresses signed up for iMessage. That caused them to keep being added to the group chat with their mail. There were no additional group chats created though (probably cause MMS is dead here / phased out for the vast majority of providers), messages just failed being sent.

This is the reason why we started using mails to start iMessage group chats, they never lose iMessage state (whereas numbers can occasionally become unregistered for whatever reason).

TL/DR: check if their numbers are still ticked in iMessage settings.

 

[AbSoluTc]

I'm having the reverse problem lol. I have a single conversation that was fine up until yesterday morning. After around 11 AM EST the problem started.

The person has a contact, picture and name. That's how it used to come in. "John Doe - hey what's up?". Now how it shows up, "800-555-1212 to me and John - hey, what's up?" Here's the kicker, 800-555-1212 is John. John is 800-555-1212. I have no clue why it started doing that or what is going on. Nothing has changed.