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iOS bug causes Messages to crash, iPhone to reboot when a certain text is received

741ab017-2036-4a05-98cf-cf1582b4acd3_Messages

Update: Apple has issued a statement to us on the matter

A newly found bug surrounding iOS and Messages has emerged that causes the app to continuously crash when a certain text is received. If the text is received while the phone is on the lock screen, it also causes your iPhone to reboot without any notice or explanation. This is obviously a very big problem for iPhone users, especially those with mischievous friends and enemies.

How to fix the iOS text message bug causing iPhone crash/reboot

This isn’t the first time a bug like this has emerged; in fact, it has happened several times in the past. Apple usually fixes the issue in a timely matter, but until it’s fixed, it is a rather malicious problem. Thankfully, the ability to crash Messages and reboot someone’s iPhone is limited to iPhone-to-iPhone communication (Update: Android to iPhone as well) and a certain specific strand of text. Since the character strand is so specific, most people should never accidentally experience the crashing. Anyone who does experience the crashing was likely singled out on purpose as a target.

If you want to see examples of the problem, a simple Twitter search will return results from hundreds of people who can’t access their Messages app because of it. As you can see, it is already being used maliciously by many, so hopefully Apple rolls out a fix for it soon.

In the meantime, several workarounds are possible. We’ve built a page with all of the details:You can have the person who sent you the malicious message send another message effectively canceling out the initial strand. Another option is to send yourself a message via Siri, the share sheet, or from your Mac.

We’ll be updating as developments beak out on this, follow our feeds below to find out the latest.

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Comments

  1. srgmac - 9 years ago

    Lol, I remember back in the AOL days there were so many punt strings to kick someone offline…funny that bugs like this are still happening in 2015.

    • TL (@TL) - 9 years ago

      rofl aohell, pepsi, fate, yep… those were the days. ……………………

      • Cole Minor - 9 years ago

        lol I know pepsi and cane from the metallica progz

    • joeboomeronline - 9 years ago

      Those were the greatest days ever. or whatever. WaReZ & Progs! Brings a tear to my eye.

  2. PhilBoogie - 9 years ago

    Thank you for not posting the string itself. That’d go viral like the Spanish laughing man
    https://youtu.be/KHZ8ek-6ccc

  3. copying and pasting the text into telegram for mac crashes the app, so I don’t think its iOS specific

  4. Bodom_ - 9 years ago

    effective.
    Power
    لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ

    • craplord5000 - 9 years ago

      Remove effective. I broke my entire group chats text app including mine. Non of the above fixes work.

      • Paul B Harney - 9 years ago

        Send yourself a message using Siri, or send a message to the person who sent the original test to you by sending any picture from your photo library using its in app send via text. That works for just about everyone.

        If none of that works for you, go to setting and change the “keep text until” setting for 30 days. Then set your phones date 31 days ahead. Then delete messages.

        You will lose the texts you have saved on the phone but one of them will be the text that crashed it. That will reset your issue and should fix it. Reset your test saved setting and proper date and send yourself, or have someone else send you, a message to test ti.

      • not4lucas - 9 years ago

        The way to fix the crash on the messaging app is to go to your camera roll and send a picture to the person who sent you the effective power text. It worked everytime for me and people I told.

  5. Abdulaziz Almukhaylid - 9 years ago

    It seems the preview on the notification causes the overflow crash. To avoid this bug just turn off the banners and previews from the notification settings. Also, What’sapp causes the same issue.

  6. mikemansor - 9 years ago

    Sent the text string to my partner’s iPhone and nothing happened. And sent it from his to mine and still nothing. And then sent it from my phone to his iPad and then from his iPhone to my MBP and from my MBP to his MBA and then from his to our iMac. I’m running out of Apple device to send to and fro yet I can’t reproduce the bug. I’m thinking of ordering the watch just to see if I can somehow make this happen.

    • Larry Bloom - 9 years ago

      You need to be in the iMessage root where is shows a list of all of the people who message you… then have someone send the message…

      also if you have iMessage show on the lock screen it can cause problems if you phone is turned off and locked…

      I played with this last night…

      • countingpitches - 9 years ago

        What kinds of problems? I think that may have happened to me and now my phone keeps rebooting, going to the lockscreen, then rebooting again. Does anyone have any idea how to fix this???

  7. AeronPeryton - 9 years ago

    Didn’t this happen before? Wasn’t there another string of Arabic or some other skrit that used to crash iMessage?

  8. Charlie Howell - 9 years ago

    Doesn’t turn my iPhone off. Smh

  9. 89p13 - 9 years ago

    Probably an NSA “Backdoor” to kill the Middle-East Terrorists iPhones.

    :)

  10. joannbendzsas - 9 years ago

    لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ

    • mytawalbeh - 9 years ago

      oh !! this is arabic letters !! who on earth would try to type this kind of string !?
      I don’t blame ios if crashes. heheheh
      However, it is funny. I will try it with on my friend’s iPhone.

  11. Leif Paul Ashley - 9 years ago

    lol was kinda funny when my son got me with it. It softboots, not hard reboots.

  12. aepowell04 - 9 years ago

    I received this as regular text message from someone with a android last night, and it still crashed my messages app. It wasn’t until I sent a picture back to the sender that I got the message app to start working.

  13. Gaïtano Boeraeve - 9 years ago

    I found my Apple watch rebooting as well :o

  14. Essener (@FrankMouwer) - 9 years ago

    it works android to iphone aswell. you just have to set your sms message settings to unicode ;)

  15. stymyx - 9 years ago

    A friend of mine just sent this to my Apple Watch, and my Watch rebooted!

  16. Dianna Sewell Brown - 9 years ago

    It didn’t turn our phone off but it DID screw up messaging on the iPhone 6, the iPad Air and the iPad 2. Somebody told me if you go into pictures, send a random photo to the person who sent you the text, and then go into messaging and delete the conversation, it fixes the issue. We had already restored the iPhone and iPad Air and this didn’t work on the iPad 2… but just in case somebody wants to try it.

  17. Dianna Sewell Brown - 9 years ago

    “You can have the person who sent you the malicious message send another message effectively canceling out the initial strand. Another option is to send yourself a message via Siri, the share sheet, or from your Mac.” What text do they send? Not the same one because that certainly didn’t work.

  18. countingpitches - 9 years ago

    DOES ANYBODY KNOW HOW TO FIX IT WHEN THE PHONE KEEPS REBOOTING, GOING TO THE LOCK SCREEN, THEN REBOOTING AGAIN?? IT MAKES ME UNABLE TO GET ON MY PHONE

  19. Terry Ambrose - 9 years ago

    I want to know who the hell has the time and the ambition to find THE text string that does this to a phone. Who the crap sits home and says “I think I’ll find out if a really odd text string will crash a messages app”. Who does that?

  20. KaosuM (@kaosum) - 9 years ago

    And here I thought, Apple had no bugs.

  21. If you screenshot your homescreen and set it to the person who sent you the bug it will fix the problem automatically! It is really one of the only ways to fix it.

  22. Daniel Cienava - 9 years ago

    I got unicoded and since i have an apple watch, it forwarded the code there and restarted my watch! WTF

  23. I got hit with this stupid thing last night when i was sleeping from my dumb idiot friend. After i saw him this morning now I owe him a new iPhone 6 plus. 2015 and this stupid prank still can effect the phone just by a text and with this whole its very hard due to strict security is bs. Now I’m out $800. Thanks.

  24. jacobsides2015 - 9 years ago

    If your messages crash when you open it up simply do the following to fix it

    1) go into your pictures
    2) send a random picture from your picture library to the PERSON WHO SENT THE ARABIC TEXT OR WHOEVER YOU SENT IT TO WHEN IT HAPPENED
    3) you should be able to open up messages now

  25. bata684 - 9 years ago

    The only thing that I experienced yesterday was when you double tap the home button, it froze for a couple seconds then reboot! This happens 4 times in a roll! This is so freaking annoying!!!

  26. ricky7blog - 9 years ago

    Use Siri to send that person an iMessage and then it will let you open the messages app

  27. colter101 - 9 years ago

    Heard if you send a picture message to the person that sent you it, then it might work. Sent through your photo library

  28. Richard Capone - 9 years ago

    Sent this to my Friend’s IPhone and it restarted his phone then he was unable to open his messenger app. I sent him a few more texts and he was able to open it again and delete it.

  29. Josiah Anderson - 9 years ago

    Does this only apply to latest OS version, or are older versions susceptible to it too? I would like to avoid this, but I also don’t want to lose my jailbreak

  30. Scott Peterson - 9 years ago

    Nothing for me on any of my devices. It just doesn’t work for me.

  31. Actually, it does not reboot iPhone completely. It just crashes UI service. When iOS is trying to start service again, iPhone shows Apple logo because there is no UI. Therefore, we think that it is restarting.

  32. Andrew (@cansky909) - 9 years ago

    Okay everyone I have the fix. Basically if you send a picture to the person who send you the bug, and they text you back, it fixes it. If you have some idiot friends however you may find yourself sending a decent amount of pictures.

  33. jtsfuzz - 9 years ago

    If this happens to you, go take a picture of a random thing. Then go to your camera album and go send that picture to the person who sent you the virus. (If more than one person sent it to you, send to all of them separately that same picture. Then go to your messages and they will show again. And you will have to delete the entire thread of the people who sent them to you. Hope this helps! I was on the phone for hours to fix this and it finally worked.

    • heather4599 - 9 years ago

      I cant go to my imessage

      • joel suarez (@jojo761) - 9 years ago

        I can’t open my message app either. How the hell am i suppose to send a message back fools

      • nflcricket - 9 years ago

        You can tell Siri to send a message for you.

  34. My Iphone wont turn on. It’s been sitting plugged into my computer for an hour now and it is just turning off and on, and vibrating. Without me even touching it. I need help now!!!!!!

    • someone is trolling you, HARD, just remove the SIM card and then they won’t be able to send you messages anymore and then just block them until a fix is made.

  35. Zayn Shour - 9 years ago

    I am trying to help a friend I sent the message to, can you delete the messages through a mac?

  36. heather4599 - 9 years ago

    My friend thought it was funny to send me the text, when he did it shut down and restarted my phone and when I try to go to my imessage it pop up then disappears. 😡 so now I cant text

  37. Paul B Harney - 9 years ago

    The resolution to the problem, until Apple comes up with a fix, is to turn off Preview and Banners in Messages,

    Go to Settings > Notifications > Messages

    set “Alert Style” to “none’ and turn off the switch for “Show Previews”.

    This will prevent the malicious text from being sent to the screen, which then fails to be able to complete the subroutine, causing a respring that then causes the iPhone to reboot and occasionally crash Messages.

    You will still know when you are getting an incoming text from the “ding” [or what ever other noise you have assigned it} and the icon badge showing a new text message has come in… you just won’t see a preview of it.

    When Apple gets the fix distributed you can turn the setting back on.

  38. DM Salcido - 9 years ago

    I just unlocked my iPhone 6!!!! Ask Siri “who recently sent me a text message” she will show you recent contacts who sent you text messages (including the one who sent the malicious message). Then ask her to reply to that contact, when she does it will open the text with the malicious message. DELETE THE ENTIRE CONVERSATION and block that idiot!! Hope Apple comes up with a solution to this annoying problem!!!! FOR THOSE OF YOU DOING THAT….GET A LIFE!!!!

  39. Michael Musella Sr. - 9 years ago

    Here’s a fix from another thread….worked like a charm!

    …….
    the Solution 2 step:
    1-put your iPhone date two month forward
    2-go to settings > Messages >(under Message History, select keep messages 30 day)
    NB: this will fix the problem but will delete all your messages inbox.

    • Michelle Alewine - 9 years ago

      You have to do in this order step 1 then 2, but when you tap 30 days tap it until a banner goes up on the bottom and asks if you want to delete all messages from 30 days ago. Click delete.

  40. pipe (@pipefsb) - 9 years ago

    my phone keeps on rebooting and wont stop what do i do?

  41. Rander Nova - 9 years ago

    The Bug and the fix, both works. lol

  42. Alina Meadows - 9 years ago

    My daughter got this Virus at school all the kids thought it was a cute prank so they kept sending it over and over to each other!! Her phone would do nothing but crash and restart could not be used at all! I went on my Verizon account and changed her number! It was not an instant fix but, a couple hours later I called the new number over and over until it rang once it did I could answer it and the phone was back to normal! didn’t lose anything but the phone number! Then we deleted all text messages!!! Worked for us….

  43. This happens with iOS 8 only btw. If you are iOS 7 u are good.

  44. Elijah Gentry - 9 years ago

    effective.
    Power
    لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ
    冗 (send this to someone on I message!)

  45. Benson Mutton - 9 years ago

    Just published an android app to easily send crash messages to iPhone owners. Have fun. Demonstrate what an overpriced turd they have.

  46. George Lyristis - 9 years ago

    just ask SIRI to open your text messages and it will open then delete the text

  47. patgarcia - 9 years ago

    Reblogged this on Garcia Talks about the How To's of the iPhone,iPad,MacBook & Apple Products for Non-Technical Users and commented:
    Hi Everyone,

    I am reblogging 9 to 5MAC article on an IOS bug that causes Messages to crash and your iPhone to reboot when a certain text is received, after one of my readers asked me for more information.

    I, also recommend you, if you have an Apple product, to start following 9to5Mac. These people are really cool and are always on top of things concerning Apple products.

    Shalom,
    Pat Garcia

  48. Hayate Testarossa - 9 years ago

    How am I supposed to solve the problem when my phone restarts continuously and there’s no time for me to do anything?? I tried taking out the SIM card and my friend with the same problem tried factory restart, nothing works.

  49. emiliaandkatieleigh - 9 years ago

    omg this im soo gunna find out what the text message is and text my enimies
    – katieleigh

  50. theunifixer - 9 years ago

    I’m writing this blog to tell everyone searching on the internet how to fix the uni death code bug whatever it is I struggled all night trying to figure out what kind of person really came up with this and in my struggles found no real answer in his to fix it !! Look telling Siri to send a text didn’t work for me having the person who sent me the text re send me a different text didn’t work either yes I could text through voice or in my notifications box but it’s not convenient in fact this is all an inconvenience so here it is the final answer while ur waiting for Apple to come out with an update you can simply yes inconveniently settle this by doing these next few steps

    The first thing I did was save all my wanted photos to my email by sending those photos to myself be sure if you have photos u want to keep you do this before anything **** back up ur phone iCloud gmail etc

    so go into your settings click general scroll down to reset yes reset

    Hit reset, click option two erase all settings and content just do it it’s ok

    Type in your password and delete or reset ur phone when it comes back on you must choose option to start as a new iPhone or however it’s worded don’t click on the automatic back up option or sign in with your email don’t do this yet trust me you can get it back later

    as soon as your phone turns on default you won’t have anything no apps no contacts no photos that’s ok for now do your self a favor click on your messages and send an I love you baby to your girlfriends phone number she’ll appreciate it

    you have now discovered you can send text messages that’s great !! Now go to your settings and sign ur phone back in to your email or gmail account if your contacts were backed up they will all come back all of your emails will come back I noticed my photos were gone but luckily I sent the ones I wanted first tony personal gmail account I reduced them to my album and started over this worked for me and others I talked to hope it helps save the iPhone universe

  51. Samuel P. Royer - 9 years ago

    Does anyone know what to do if the phone keeps turning on and off? I cannot get into the phone at all. The stupid kid that sent it sent another text to try to “break the chain” but nothing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    • flygliea113 - 9 years ago

      Just turn off your iMessage notifications, that the band-aid until Apple comes up with a fix :)

  52. C.P.H. Productions - 9 years ago

    Be careful, if you try to send that text, there’s a chance that it could backfire on yourself as well. I sent it to my friend and then my iMessage crashed. I tried going on iMessage, but it kept crashing. I sent a pic to myself through the “Photos” app and I was able to access iMessage. I deleted the conversation and it works now. Just be careful when sending the text, it could backfire.

  53. Ellie❤️ (@elliiee16) - 9 years ago

    Somebody sent me the text, and i have no clue who it was as i wasnt on my phone at the time i saw it turn off in the corner of my eye and knew it was this thread message thing, and i cant open my messages, so i dont know the f*cker that sent it and idk how to fix it

  54. mfocht79 - 9 years ago

    I can confirm that this will affect other apps such as mail. Since mail is effected, the bug can be activated from a pc, android, and even some primative phones that don’t have android, but do have email

  55. Just change ur date to 30+ # of days before u got the crashing Unicode, then from message settings choose delete 30 days older msgs, thus deleting removing those malicious codes and returning to normal.

  56. Jason Tiew - 9 years ago

    There is one very easy solution to retrieve the problematic message:
    1) At the home screen, swipe downwards to bring out the Message Search screen
    2) Key in the word Power in the search field
    3) Then you will see the message, together with the person who sent you the message
    4) Select the message
    5) When you are in the message, long press and delete it
    6) Done, now you can access to your message inbox

    Hope this will help.

    Jason Tiew
    Owner of
    1) GoGadgets Online Store (www.gogadgets.com.my)
    2) Evolution of Engineering Forum (www.evo-engineering.net)

  57. Send this message to someone with an iphone
    لُلُصّبُلُرً ॣ ॣh3nryh0ng ॣ ॣ

  58. Kensie Pringle - 9 years ago

    My iPhone 5c has completely broken now,don’t send it to anyone because it’s not even funny.

  59. azziriss - 9 years ago

    can somebody help me? my iphone won’t start anymore, it just keeps restarting..

  60. Adam Wong - 9 years ago

    my phone refused to start and keeps on restarting. wth

  61. Alexis Meow - 9 years ago

    someone sent it to me and now i can not open my text message app, it just crashes every time. i can not open it in any way.

  62. Emma Spriggs - 9 years ago

    Does it work for ipod’s? Because I am scared..

  63. apexgraal21 - 9 years ago

    How the hell am i signed in

Author

Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

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