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Curious iPhone Bug Causing Non-iMessage Texts to Display Extra + Character, Breaking Conversations

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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An unusual bug is affecting text messages between some iPhone and Android users in the United States, with the iPhone seemingly adding an extra "+" character to the beginning of phone numbers belonging to Android and Google Voice users.

text-message-bug-iphone.jpg
Image via Reddit​

This character causes the iPhone to think the text is coming from an international number, which results in issues with text messages. A number that is normally 858-867-5309, for example, is being displayed on the iPhone as +85 88675309.

There have been numerous complaints about the issue as of about an hour ago, with several threads on Reddit from confused users who have suddenly broken chat threads. It is not known what is causing the bug, but many of the reports seem to be from AT&T users.

Resetting network settings may fix the issue, and there are currently mixed reports on whether the bug has been addressed server side. Adding a +1 to the number may also fix the problem for those who are continuing to see formatting problems.

Article Link: Curious iPhone Bug Causing Non-iMessage Texts to Display Extra + Character, Breaking Conversations
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/18/iphone-text-bug-non-imessage/
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Breaking: Minutes after the Official ChatGPT app was made available for download from the App Store, chat's start displaying extra characters. Human chats are removed from Apple iPhones. ChatGPT begins to learn, at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. eastern time, May 29. In a panic, they try to pull the USB C dongle.

Also Breaking:
Apple Releases New Ringtone
 
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I haven’t seen this particular one yet. But my texts from my Pixel 7a go to my husband’s iPhone, which then chooses my IPhone 14 Pro Max phone number to reply to. And shows my Pixel text as coming from my iPhone as an iMessage. As long as he or anyone else has both of my phone numbers entered in their contacts, any texts from my Pixel will get replies routed to my iOS devices, namely iPhone and Apple Watch.
 
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I've seen this on occasion for at least 5 years in iOS with phone calls on T-Mobile. Family members have also had it happen. It is a carrier or network issue. I get this sometimes when the caller is a spammer/scammer overseas using VoIP but sometimes I've seen it when it is someone I know who is in my contacts list. In that case, instead of their area code, it's looked like the calls were coming from Europe or Canada or somewhere else.

There might be some new text bug but this bug isn't limited to iOS 16, texting, or iPhones.

For example: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/222038/phone-shows-foreign-phone-numbers-as-domestic

Local calls showing up as international. - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com discussions.apple.com

community.verizon.com

why are local numbers coming up international instead

My daughter is having issues with making calls. She tried to call someone yesterday that is local but came up you do not have international calling. She tried again this morning, the same number came up the persons name, but number in Brazil. Is this problem her phone, (iPhone 7) or Verizon...
community.verizon.com community.verizon.com

community.verizon.com

Re: Caller ID showing wrong country

Due to the age of this thread, it will be locked in order to keep discussions current. If you have the same or a similar question/issue we invite you to start a new thread on the topic.
community.verizon.com community.verizon.com

Local calls being marked as international - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com discussions.apple.com
 
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MacRumors said:
There have been numerous complaints about the issue as of about an hour ago, with several threads on Reddit from confused users who have suddenly broken chat threads. It is not known what is causing the bug, but many of the reports seem to be from AT&T users.
Click to expand...
An hour ago. Hmm... didn't iOS 16.5 get released about an hour ago? Coincidence?

www.macrumors.com

Apple Releases iOS 16.5 and iPadOS 16.5 With Sports Tab in Apple News, Bug Fixes and More

Apple today released iOS 16.5 and iPadOS 16.5, the fifth updates to the iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 operating systems that came out last September. iOS 16.5...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com
 
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This likely has nothing to do with the iPhone, but the carrier or routing. My office routinely would call out to people (Usually on T-Mo), and get flagged as from Poland due to our area code. Our switch guy always had to get Level3 involved to get T-Mo to fix it. So this is likely on AT&T's end today.
 
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Apple Fan 2008 said:
They really need to iron out bugs better on iOS
Click to expand...
How? When Apple decided xrOS' for AR/BR headsets taking over priority over iOS 16/17 features.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1612091879662780416

9to5mac.com

Report: 'xrOS' for AR/VR headset takes priority over iOS 17 features, augmented reality Apple Store experience coming soon - 9to5Mac

Mark Gurman reports that Apple has prioritized development of the operating system for its upcoming AR/VR headset, which is expected...
9to5mac.com 9to5mac.com
 
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Candy Apple+ Nutz said:

Expected iPhone Bug Causing Non-iMessage Texts to Display Extra + Character, Breaking Conversations​


Fixed it

I haven’t seen this…yet. But I know Siri has been repeating back some weird stuff when confirming what I said before sending.
Click to expand...
You need to text non-iMessage people to find out. Where are your Android (Green bubble) friends at? :p
 
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DBZmusicboy01 said:
iOS 16 has been extremely buggy for its entire release 😤
Click to expand...
iOS has been buggy for the past versions.
Apple has let its quality control decrease as it appears to be more focused on creating and selling more Apple products, probably to keep profit margins high in lieu of poor quality control for its products.
It's already preparing for iOS 17 reportedly. Maybe it should slow the heck down and concentrate to improve iOS 16 instead!
 
stars_fan said:
E164+ is a thing macrumors :rolleyes:

The USA is +1 because you know we're the best
Click to expand...

+1 is all of North America, including Canada.

This is clearly a formatting issue. There's nothing strange about phone numbers starting with the "+" symbol. But I'd hold the jury on blaming iOS for this. It's more likely a carrier/server-side issue.

We live in a world where 3rd-party, open-source libraries are used extensively in software development, and sometimes these libraries may introduce bugs that go undetected by software developers. That could be the case here.

Google maintains a very powerful phone number formatting library used by many programming languages:
github.com

GitHub - google/libphonenumber: Google's common Java, C++ and JavaScript library for parsing, formatting, and validating international phone numbers.

Google's common Java, C++ and JavaScript library for parsing, formatting, and validating international phone numbers. - google/libphonenumber
github.com github.com
 
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