Still having this issue on iOS 14.4.2
iPhone storage is a solid grey bar, not breaking down into categories. At one point I had “negative” storage being used by messages. My pictures for most threads have finally been coaxed into appearing in info box, although some are still missing. I am missing almost all the links as well as voice messages. Is there any way to force messages to index everything? The phone claims messages is currently only taking up 5 GB on my phone, but then claims I have attachments of 25 GB. Yet the device is supposedly only using 17 GB including 10 GB for system. These attachments are all stored on my device, as all are accessible without an internet connection.
I have tried restoring, backing up and restoring, restoring to factory etc, setting up as new iPhone, I’ve tried everything. It seems to have downloaded most of the pictures but not indexed anything. At one point it said it was indexing but it stopped before anything showed up. If I attempt to toggle off iMessages in iCloud, it says it is not finished downloading, but the bar on iMessage app is gone. I have let it sit overnight plugged in and connected to wifi and I found the only difference was about 200 of the almost 5000 photos it HAD indexed, were moved to iCloud, and required me to tap “download” under each conversation info box to regain those few. As well, I’ve noticed that if you go to the search bar in the messages app, click “see all” under photos, it will display all of the ones it has indexed. If you long press on one of them to pop it open, the click on it, rather than taking you to the spot in the conversation that it was sent, the pop and click will allow you to view them all one by one. Then, at the bottom right, there is an icon that lets you view all of them in list view. It was here I noticed a few things. Some of the ones it had actually indexed, did not even appear in the list of attachments in settings. I have circled the ones that do not appear. Other attempts to restore and back up have resulted in those photos being displayed in settings but not in the messages info box. This time it is reversed. As well, I have circled all “Live Photos.” For some nonsensical reason, the device claims they take up “zero KB.”