Issue with iMessage contact key verification

[ManuCH]

So I've been using iMessage contact key verification since it was introduced. It had a bit of a flaky introduction but in the end it worked.

Now I have one specific contact (who happens to have upgraded to iOS 17.4 beta 4) where I get the error message "An unrecognized device may have been added to <person>'s account". I am on iOS 17.3.1.

I get the choice to clear the issue, or verify the contact. I tried both, the error remains on all my devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac).

I also tried all the following things:

• remove the contact key from the person's account manually, then re-verify him
• log out of iMessage on all devices, wait, and log back in
• disable contact key verification in iCloud settings on all devices, wait, then re-enable it
• reboot everything
• I even tried to go to appleid.apple.com to follow Apple's instructions to reset contact key verification, but the menu they mention (Sign in & security -> Contact key verification) does not exist in the menu
• I used all my Google-fu skills and any ChatGPT-like AI to search for the relevant Keychain entries to delete, to no avail (it's completely undocumented and nobody talks about this)

Has anyone ever experienced this, or even better, solved it? And does it have anything to do with the beta (as they are introducing the new encryption)?

 

[ManuCH]

This was solved by the other contact. He disabled contact key verification on all devices and re-enabled it. That fixed it right away on my side. It must be some sort of bug.