Help - iMessage problem, not sure how to start!

[donawalt]

So I was happily working away this morning, looked at my iPhone, and noticed one of my biggest threads all of a sudden was missing every message from 2018 thru last night!

I checked my iPad - same; primary MacBook Pro - same. The backup MacBook Pro still has all the messages! I checked the Recently Deleted messages, they are not there.

So I have tried turning off iCloud Messages on all devices except the backup MacBook Pro which was ok - restart the backup MacBook Pro then Sync Messages, then restart my iPhone, turning on iCloud Messages, let it sync - but the problem still looks the same - no messages from 2018 to yesterday!

I don't know how to even google this problem. Anybody have any ideas what to try, or how to research it?

thanks! What a weird problem!

 

[SpaceGrayAlways]

Is it just the one thread or all threads that were previous?

 

[donawalt]

Thanks for the reply @SpaceGrayAlways (I have a space gray MacBook Pro too lol)!

If I understand your question, yes it's just one group thread in Messages - everything from 2018 to Jan 5 was gone. Jan 6 messages resumed. It affected 1 MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPad. One MacBook Pro was not affected!

So I spent all day yesterday on this. I tried turning off iCloud Messages (and doing all the standard close, reboot, etc.) - with no change.

Then, I signed out of my Apple ID/iCloud on all devices - then, that thread appeared as two separate threads - one as before (no 2018-2024), one just with Jan 6 on as I recall. The two threads showed on every device mentioned above, the 1 MacBook Pro was still fine.

So I finally bit the bullet, and on each of the 4 devices I erased all and restored from backup of Jan 5. That fixed it, Messages is now fine on all devices. That was quite an effort and quite a mess, luckily this was a Saturday with snowy weather outside, so it was a good day to keep things progressing while I did other things around the house. But I wouldn't wish this on anybody! It also proved that the data win iCloud is good - it's the software on the device or the software getting the data to the device that is buggy.

 

[SpaceGrayAlways]

So odd that it only affected the single thread. Was the thread an iMessage thread or did it have those green bubbles?

Either way, glad that it resolved with a reset... When in doubt!

 

[donawalt]

Yeah, it was just one thread!