iMessages intended for one parent mixed up with going/coming from other parent

[uptownnyc]

I've trying to resolve a problem I have sending iMessages to my parents. My mom and dad each have an iPad and an iPhone. As far as I know, they're logged into each with their own unique Apple IDs on these devices, though at least one of the devices used to be logged into the other parents' account. But I'm experiencing problems sending and receiving messages to individual parents.

When I send messages from my iPhone, they seem to go to the proper recipient. But when I send and receive messages from my Mac, there are problems.

As an example, if I initiate an iMessage by clicking "Message" from my mom's contact sheet in Contacts.app it will show her photo in iMessages as I type, but once I hit send, it will not go into the message history and she won't receive it. It shows that it went to my father's #.

Furthermore, when she sends me an iMessage, my father's chat thread in Messages.app shows the dot to indicate that there's a new message, and jumps to the top of the Messages.app window, but there is no message shown there. If I show my mom's message thread, the message appears there.

They share an email account -- and I have that linked to both in Contacts.app.

I'm struggling to figure out how to resolve this, and trying to understand whether the misconfiguration is on my end of theirs. Furthermore, how is Messages.app showing a "new message" indicator on the wrong thread entirely?

If I look at Messages on my iPhone, everything winds up in the proper threads and to/from the correct recipients.

I'm using iCloud messages.

 

[bertimus2002]

If they are sharing an Apple ID, that will be the cause. We had a similar situation on the beta and had to create new Apple ids, delete the combined threads and then it worked again as everyone had their own Apple ID for messages and FaceTime.

 

[NoBoMac]

^^^This. Try turning off iCloud Messages. But should really setup Family Sharing to avoid this.

 

[arkhanjel]

I’ve got an open ticket right now for this same thing with apple support. It’s an issue they’ve seen and are doing a bunch of research to try to figure out what’s going on. I know for sure with the people it’s happening with for me it’s unique IDs and phone numbers. I suggest calling in and going through the same process I am so they have more data points to fix the problem. I ran the beta all the way through up to getting my Max and never saw the issue.

 

[uptownnyc]

^^^This. Try turning off iCloud Messages. But should really setup Family Sharing to avoid this.

Nah - we’re all adults. I’ve got my own family share with my wife. I believe their devices are connected to each other with their own family share linkage.

 

[uptownnyc]

I’ve got an open ticket right now for this same thing with apple support. It’s an issue they’ve seen and are doing a bunch of research to try to figure out what’s going on. I know for sure with the people it’s happening with for me it’s unique IDs and phone numbers. I suggest calling in and going through the same process I am so they have more data points to fix the problem. I ran the beta all the way through up to getting my Max and never saw the issue.

It's a complicated one to describe. Were you able to do-so over the phone? I'll wait to see if Mojave has any impact (don't expect it to help) but we'll see.

 

[arkhanjel]

It's a complicated one to describe. Were you able to do-so over the phone? I'll wait to see if Mojave has any impact (don't expect it to help) but we'll see.

Yeah I started out in the chat support in the app and was quickly switched over to a phone call. It’s definitely tricky to explain but they picked up on it pretty quick.

 

[uptownnyc]

Mojave seems to have fixed it. I also disabled iCloud Messages before the install. Not sure if that was a factor or not.

 

[arkhanjel]

Mojave seems to have fixed it. I also disabled iCloud Messages before the install. Not sure if that was a factor or not.

I don’t think macOS was/is a factor at all. My messages on the Mac show the two contacts receiving messages. It’s when the message is initiated from the iPhone that it’s happening. It’s good though that Mojave seems to have fixed it for you though.