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A bug was recently discovered in iOS that will reboot an iPhone
and crash the Messages app whenever a certain string of text is
received by a user. It’s mostly harmless, but quite annoying. Apple,
however, has posted some temporary fixes until they can release an
official patch to fix the bug.
The string of text includes “Power” followed by some random foreign
characters, some of which are in Arabic. Supposedly receiving this
message on your iPhone can suddenly reboot your device and render
iMessage unusable, as it’s said to crash constantly.
Again, it’s mostly harmless as far as security is concerned, but it’s
simply a bug that can be really annoying and cause a lot of
frustration, especially if you have friends that enjoy pulling
pranks. However, several fixes have been discovered, and Apple has
officially posted about them on their support website.
If you find yourself a victim of this annoying little bug, here’s how
you can temporarily fix the issue until Apple releases a patch in an
upcoming update.
How to Fix the iMessage Bug
In Apple’s support document,
the company lists a few methods for temporarily fixing the iMessage
bug, all of which are really easy to do and take little time.
The first option is that you can simply ask Siri to “read unread
messages.” You can also use Siri to reply to the bugged message, and
after you reply, you’ll be able to open Messages again.
Another fix is opening up the Messages app, swipe left to delete the entire thread. Or tap and hold the bugged message, tap More, and delete that specific message from the thread.
Other iMessage Problems
Of course, this bug isn’t the only iMessage problem that users have
come across. There are a handful of other issues that users experience,
including connectivity issues and syncing problems.
A very common problem with iMessage is that messages may not properly send or get received, even when you have good service.
First off, you’ll want to check Apple’s System Status site
to make sure that iMessage isn’t down. If it is, then the problem most
likely isn’t on your end, but if iMessage appears that it’s working
properly on Apple’s end, then it’s most likely on your end where you’re
seeing trouble.
If you ever come across a message that you’re trying to send, but it
simply won’t go out even when you have a decent WiFi or data signal, try
turning off WiFi and LTE on your device and turning it back on again,
or just reboot your iPhone or iPad. This usually fixes the trick, but if
not, you can turn off iMessage and turn it back on, which sometimes
does the trick. Go to Settings > Messages and toggle iMessage off and back on.
If that doesn’t work, go into Settings > Messages and turn on Send as SMS. This will send a message as a regular text message if iMessage can’t send it as an iMessage.
If that still doesn’t fix it, it’s time to reset your network settings. Go into Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings.
This will wipe all of your network settings, so you’ll have to re-enter
saved WiFi passwords, but it just might fix the problem.
As for syncing problems, if you’re receiving iMessages on your
iPhone, but not on your iPad or other Apple device, then there’s a
problem with the syncing.
It’s possible that you’re not setting up iMessage properly, which is
why the service may not be syncing up correctly. Head to our guide on how to set up iMessage and see if that fixes the problem.
If you’re still having problems, a quick fix is to disable iMessage
on all devices that have iMessage, and then re-enable it on each device
one at a time. To do this, go to Settings > Messages and toggle iMessage off on all of your devices. Then go back to each device and turn iMessage on.
