Messages not appearing after transferring data to new phone

[Achiever]

I recently upgraded from an iPhone 13 Pro to a 17 Pro and, as I have done previously, I transferred the data over wifi by placing the phones next to each other. I find this the best approach as it transfers the most data in the easiest way to maintain the experience. A few days after the transfer, I was scrolling through Messages when I noticed the oldest Message threads were about 90 days old. For reference, I have 48+ gb of Messages which date back to 2013, which I have set on all devices to keep forever and all sync through iCloud. My old phone and all of my various Macs (4 of them) show all of these Messages.

When I scrolled to the bottom of the Messages, the app would continually freeze up. I would quit the app, check again, I turned the phone off and on (nope), hit "Sync Messages" in Settings>Account>iCloud>Messages (nada), deselected "Use on this iPhone" in Messages waited a bit, then re-selected and allowed Messages to re-sync. This only added 2 or 3 new Message threads which did not previously appear, but added the oddity of re-installing about a hundred old Spammy threads of political ads, 2FA texts, rideshare notifications, old flight gate info, etc. The kind of stuff which I had deleted in real time years earlier and it somehow re-appeared.

I tried this multiple times to no avail. Interestingly, when I do search for an older thread, it *does* appear on the screen. It will then show up where it should in the Messages app for a day or so before disappearing from view again. So it appears none of these are deleted in any way, they are just not showing on the screen if more than 90 days old.

I started working with Apple Support. So far they had me reset network settings and deselect the "Use on this iPhone" again but that did not work. They now want me to wipe the phone and re-install everything from an iCloud backup, which I would prefer not to do as I find that doesn't transfer over everything as well as the phone to phone version does.

Anyone go through something similar and find a fix? Open to suggestions.

P.S. My wife is having a similar issue w her 17 Pro having transferred the data the same way.

 

[arc of the universe]

I recently upgraded from an iPhone 13 Pro to a 17 Pro and, as I have done previously, I transferred the data over wifi by placing the phones next to each other. I find this the best approach as it transfers the most data in the easiest way to maintain the experience. A few days after the transfer, I was scrolling through Messages when I noticed the oldest Message threads were about 90 days old. For reference, I have 48+ gb of Messages which date back to 2013, which I have set on all devices to keep forever and all sync through iCloud. My old phone and all of my various Macs (4 of them) show all of these Messages.

When I scrolled to the bottom of the Messages, the app would continually freeze up. I would quit the app, check again, I turned the phone off and on (nope), hit "Sync Messages" in Settings>Account>iCloud>Messages (nada), deselected "Use on this iPhone" in Messages waited a bit, then re-selected and allowed Messages to re-sync. This only added 2 or 3 new Message threads which did not previously appear, but added the oddity of re-installing about a hundred old Spammy threads of political ads, 2FA texts, rideshare notifications, old flight gate info, etc. The kind of stuff which I had deleted in real time years earlier and it somehow re-appeared.

I tried this multiple times to no avail. Interestingly, when I do search for an older thread, it *does* appear on the screen. It will then show up where it should in the Messages app for a day or so before disappearing from view again. So it appears none of these are deleted in any way, they are just not showing on the screen if more than 90 days old.

I started working with Apple Support. So far they had me reset network settings and deselect the "Use on this iPhone" again but that did not work. They now want me to wipe the phone and re-install everything from an iCloud backup, which I would prefer not to do as I find that doesn't transfer over everything as well as the phone to phone version does.

Anyone go through something similar and find a fix? Open to suggestions.

P.S. My wife is having a similar issue w her 17 Pro having transferred the data the same way.

if you and your wife are both experiencing this, its likely the same cause.
before i follow apple's advice to reinstall from an iCloud backup, i would try these two things:

1 is it as simple as your unseen messages are being filtered by the "Filter Unknown Senders" filter ( Messages / (top right 3 line icon) / Unknown senders ??

2 if it wasn't that, then i would think that iCloud sync had some sort of mismatch problem due to the sheer total size of your Messages, and i would do following:
1 do an iCloud backup so you have a latest version in the iCloud
2 sign out of Messages on all devices registered to your apple ID
3 make sure you are signed in to all your devices using the same apple ID (even though you can sign in to devices using various alias, sign in to all devices with exactly the same apple ID
4 sign into Messages on all devices.
5 leave it plugged in / connected to MagSafe overnight.

if the above doesn't work then i would add an additional step the next time: sign out fully from yr apple account and then sign back into your apple account. but i would only do this if you are comfortable with this: if you sign out you should be sure to close the option to leave your data on your phone.