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Melodeath

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 9, 2009
580
48
I'm running iOS9 on an iPhone 6 and OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Yesterday I shut my computer down in the early evening, and then used my phone for all texting that night and this morning. When I turned on my computer and checked iMessage this morning, only some of my texts were synced to the mac. One conversation took a few minutes to update, and others simply weren't updated to match the most recent texts at all. What causes this? I've signed out of iMessage on phone and mac (and signed back in) to "be sure," but how do I prevent this from happening? Is it inevitable?
 

Blujelly

macrumors 65816
Sep 2, 2012
1,275
477
South East England
To be honest mine updates normally within 1 minute, but it can sometimes it does take time to update.

The main cause could be poor connection, download speed and or content of messages for example pictures/movies. I'd say leave it running a bit longer and it should, make sure your account is activated and your number is accounted for on your MacBook
 

e93to

macrumors 6502a
Jan 23, 2015
824
184
Toronto
Truth be told, the iMessages never synced perfectly between my iPhone and my Mac since its introduction on Mountain Lion. Sometimes it works wonderfully, while other times it refuses to sync/update messages.

One trick to sync across all devices is to send a message on Mac. Just send a random message on your Mac, and you will see it downloading all the messages. Also, make sure "send & receive" addresses are identical on all devices
 

Woodcrest64

macrumors 65816
Aug 14, 2006
1,310
526
The other annoying this is, is you can't go back 6 months using the search/spotlight to find specific text messages. Only works for messages 2-3 months old :(
 

Melodeath

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 9, 2009
580
48
Truth be told, the iMessages never synced perfectly between my iPhone and my Mac since its introduction on Mountain Lion. Sometimes it works wonderfully, while other times it refuses to sync/update messages.

One trick to sync across all devices is to send a message on Mac. Just send a random message on your Mac, and you will see it downloading all the messages. Also, make sure "send & receive" addresses are identical on all devices
Thanks for the info. Yes, I believe the one conversation that DID update occurred after I sent a message (in a different convo) using the mac. But none of the other conversations ever updated, unfortunately.

send and receive addresses are identical on mac and iphone. One time I was getting texts on my mac, but not my iphone. Signing out on both devices seemed to have fixed that.

I was mostly curious because I've been stuck on OS X 10.6.8 (no iMessages) up until I got this mac a few weeks ago, and I wasn't sure how common this iMessage syncing issue was.
 

teknikal90

macrumors 68040
Jan 28, 2008
3,384
1,945
Vancouver, BC
this is because imessage is not 'synced'.
The way it works is that each imessage 'machine' that you have, whether it be iphone, ipad or mac, is a separate agent for your imessage account.
this means that if you have 3 machines, when someone sends an imessage to your account, 3 separate messages are actually sent to the three different devices.
There isn't an 'imessage hub' out there that the devices sync to, as such, it is very hard to keep them synced to each other.
 

Melodeath

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 9, 2009
580
48
this is because imessage is not 'synced'.
The way it works is that each imessage 'machine' that you have, whether it be iphone, ipad or mac, is a separate agent for your imessage account.
this means that if you have 3 machines, when someone sends an imessage to your account, 3 separate messages are actually sent to the three different devices.
There isn't an 'imessage hub' out there that the devices sync to, as such, it is very hard to keep them synced to each other.
Yes, perhaps "sync" is the wrong word to use. But it still doesn't make much sense why sometimes the iMessage server forgets to deliver messages to one of your iMessage machines.

Also, how does the SMS forwarding work in regards to the mac?
 

Melodeath

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 9, 2009
580
48
Hmm.... this whole issue just happened again. It seems when I turn my computer off, text a decent amount from phone, and then turn my comp back on, most texts will be missing from the computer and never "update" properly. Maybe it would be fine if it's only a couple texts during the time the computer is off, but it can't seem to handle when there is a bunch
 

VSMacOne

macrumors 603
Oct 18, 2008
5,935
2,894
One of my biggest gripes about Apple is iMessage for Mac. It's a huge pile of crap. There's no way to delete more than one conversation at a time, there's no way to sync deleted conversations between all devices. Add to that issues with content syncing and it's an even bigger headache. I've stopped using iMessage on the Mac even though I sit at my desk all day long.
 

Melodeath

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 9, 2009
580
48
One of my biggest gripes about Apple is iMessage for Mac. It's a huge pile of crap. There's no way to delete more than one conversation at a time, there's no way to sync deleted conversations between all devices. Add to that issues with content syncing and it's an even bigger headache. I've stopped using iMessage on the Mac even though I sit at my desk all day long.
Interesting. iMessage on the mac was one of the reasons I was looking forward to finally moving past 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, and overall it's good, but these "sync" issues are really frustrating. I thought it would have been better.
 

ron7624

macrumors 68020
Oct 14, 2011
2,228
437
Houston, Texas area
I'm running iOS9 on an iPhone 6 and OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Yesterday I shut my computer down in the early evening, and then used my phone for all texting that night and this morning. When I turned on my computer and checked iMessage this morning, only some of my texts were synced to the mac. One conversation took a few minutes to update, and others simply weren't updated to match the most recent texts at all. What causes this? I've signed out of iMessage on phone and mac (and signed back in) to "be sure," but how do I prevent this from happening? Is it inevitable?
I have no solution, but can only affirm and say that when I shut down a mac, the same thing happens. I have 2 - one that is always on and the other that I shut down on occasion. The always on Mac is in sync - the shut down machine usually loses texts from the period it was shut down. I don't like it either.
OTH - it seems like my iOS devices keep up, shut down or not.
 

Melodeath

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 9, 2009
580
48
I have no solution, but can only affirm and say that when I shut down a mac, the same thing happens. I have 2 - one that is always on and the other that I shut down on occasion. The always on Mac is in sync - the shut down machine usually loses texts from the period it was shut down. I don't like it either.
OTH - it seems like my iOS devices keep up, shut down or not.
Thanks for confirming the behavior
 
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bushido

Suspended
Mar 26, 2008
8,070
2,755
Germany
if your mac is turned off it obviously cant deliver the messages until u turn it back on ...

i have an old iPhone 5 i barely use anymore. once i turn it back on it can take over an hour to get up to date on iMessages
 

ron7624

macrumors 68020
Oct 14, 2011
2,228
437
Houston, Texas area
if your mac is turned off it obviously cant deliver the messages until u turn it back on ...

i have an old iPhone 5 i barely use anymore. once i turn it back on it can take over an hour to get up to date on iMessages
Agreed, but as I pointed out, it is not an iOS problem, this happens in OS X and never 'catches up'.
 

andyw715

macrumors 68000
Oct 25, 2013
1,844
1,404
this is because imessage is not 'synced'.
The way it works is that each imessage 'machine' that you have, whether it be iphone, ipad or mac, is a separate agent for your imessage account.
this means that if you have 3 machines, when someone sends an imessage to your account, 3 separate messages are actually sent to the three different devices.
There isn't an 'imessage hub' out there that the devices sync to, as such, it is very hard to keep them synced to each other.

This is annoying, especially since deleting a message (or a group of messages) on one device doesn't do it on others.
I spend a lot of time cleaning up messages I don't want, yet I do want the delivered to the devices.
 

Mlrollin91

macrumors G5
Nov 20, 2008
14,172
10,187
Agreed, but as I pointed out, it is not an iOS problem, this happens in OS X and never 'catches up'.

It is too a problem on iOS and WatchOS. If you turn off the device and send a bunch of messages, then turn on the device, it can take 1 minute, up to 30 minutes for the device to catch up in the conversation.

OP: I have noticed that if you quit the message app on OS X and open it a few times it gets it to sync faster. YMMV
 

bushido

Suspended
Mar 26, 2008
8,070
2,755
Germany
Agreed, but as I pointed out, it is not an iOS problem, this happens in OS X and never 'catches up'.

this also happens on iOS. i was in the US for a month and when i got back home i reached my data limit of the month in like 20 minutes cuz the iPhone tried to catch up with all the iMessages that were sent to my other device that was actually turned on
 

teknikal90

macrumors 68040
Jan 28, 2008
3,384
1,945
Vancouver, BC
This is annoying, especially since deleting a message (or a group of messages) on one device doesn't do it on others.
I spend a lot of time cleaning up messages I don't want, yet I do want the delivered to the devices.
all in the name of security. If someone hacks apple they wouldnt be able to download a cache of your imessages even if apple lets them. The imessages reside only on your existing imessage machines.
 

andyw715

macrumors 68000
Oct 25, 2013
1,844
1,404
all in the name of security. If someone hacks apple they wouldnt be able to download a cache of your imessages even if apple lets them. The imessages reside only on your existing imessage machines.

I guess.
Not really sure how it affects security though. When someone send me a message (either via my phone number or appleId), each of my devices is registered to receive that message. Each device gets it. What is so hard about notifying the other devices to delete messageId = someGUID ?
 

TouchedByAl

macrumors regular
Sep 12, 2007
153
173
Salt Lake City
I've had iMessages stop syncing several times before. It most recently happened between when my phone updated to iOS 9 and El Capitan was released. For whatever reason I lost several days worth of messages between the two. I had to go back and turn iMessages on and off several times on both devices for it to "sync" again. I really love the functionality when it works but it's frustrating when it doesn't. Also I've noticed that SMS messages are taking longer and longer to send sometimes from both devices. Is anyone else experiencing this? Usually I'll turn on airplane mode, reset my router and sometimes my device and I can eventually get it to send but it's incredibly annoying. Seems to happen more when sending pictures presumably because of file size constraints.
 

Melodeath

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 9, 2009
580
48
This keeps happening, and it's very frustrating when it happens the other way around (i.e. texts start coming to the computer only and your phone doesn't update.) This is potentially dangerous as you could be waiting for a text while you're out and about, and little did you know it only got delivered to your computer for some unknown reason. I'm just about fed up with iMessage on the mac.
 

andyw715

macrumors 68000
Oct 25, 2013
1,844
1,404
This keeps happening, and it's very frustrating when it happens the other way around (i.e. texts start coming to the computer only and your phone doesn't update.) This is potentially dangerous as you could be waiting for a text while you're out and about, and little did you know it only got delivered to your computer for some unknown reason. I'm just about fed up with iMessage on the mac.


Potentially dangerous? How?

SMS isn't guaranteed delivery.
 

-BigMac-

macrumors 68020
Apr 15, 2011
2,490
2,833
Melbourne, Australia
i too experience this sometimes.

Never had that happen using imessage, but when forwarding my texts to the mac messages app though, my sent texts show but the replies dont, thats the only time i can think of this happening to me using the messages app on mac.
 

titans1127

macrumors 65816
Mar 10, 2009
1,179
414
I'm finding over the last week or two that I'm missing iMessages that aren't going to my phone at all and don't show up until I check them on my Mac.

I got an iMessage this afternoon while at work and my phone never went off and didn't even have a notification bubble for it. Opened up my Mac when I got home and saw the 1 sitting on the messages app icon in my dock. Message was sent to me 8 hours earlier.

Same thing the other day at work as well, coworker who was pretty much 10 feet away sent me a message and I never got it on my phone at all.
 

Melodeath

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 9, 2009
580
48
Potentially dangerous? How?

SMS isn't guaranteed delivery.

If you are expecting a text while you are out, and it only goes to your computer, which is at home, that's a problem. I don't mean physically dangerous, although a scenario like that IS possible. The only time I've had delayed/un-delivered iMessages was once I set up this Mac. When I had only an iPhone, everything worked great
 
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