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New iOS Bug Crashing iPhones Simply by Receiving a Text Message [Includes Fix]
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It is a mix of arabic, devanagari, some plain ASCII and a Chinese character. I'd guess the problem is combining right-to-left and left-to-right characters. Arabic and devanagari are more complicated anyway because the display of a character depends on which characters are to the left and the right of it.
Nope. It's your own stupid fault. Hope none them actually need their text for anything important. Domme Eikel.
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HA, brilliant.
I'm pretty sure the fix is to not be a little prick to your friends and their families. But sounds like you might be a little to late to implement it now - bad luck.
Confirmed. Crashes the apple watch as well. It reboots instantly upon receiving the message.
After rebooting, the messages app will crash when viewing the message. What's interesting is that, while the message is رً ॣ ॣ ॣ and renders as ॣ ॣ ॣرً in the message, shortly before it crashes it will look like the attached screenshot. (Taken on an iPad).
After rebooting, the messages app will crash when viewing the message. What's interesting is that, while the message is رً ॣ ॣ ॣ and renders as ॣ ॣ ॣرً in the message, shortly before it crashes it will look like the attached screenshot. (Taken on an iPad).
Attachments
Also do not under any circumstances change the name of your iOS device to رً ॣ ॣ ॣ
Haha, can't change it back now as it crashes settings every time.
Arabic? Another attack by Muslim terrorists on our treasured Western values!
<Bet you see this rant for real at least a few times in the blogosphere>
<Bet you see this rant for real at least a few times in the blogosphere>
Sorry but bugs have existed and exist in pretty much any software by anyone really.
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Like what?
Has anyone tried resetting the iPhone? Would that help? I cannot fix that problem.
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This is freaking annoying. Can somebody send this to Tim or Angela so that the bug will be fixed ASAP?
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This is freaking annoying. Can somebody send this to Tim or Angela so that the bug will be fixed ASAP?
It took me awhile but if your iMessage stops working because of this go to your settings>messages> from here go to send and receive, if you have your receive as a phone number enter your apple account as well, after doing this add it and after delete it so it's just your number again, this worked for me I found it on accident
That is just freaky... Does that string mean anything? I mean, other than 'Hah hah, your messages app crashed'.
Weird...
It makes me wonder how people find out about these things? If it really is a random string, how did anyone just 'hit' it?
It's like those hacks for video games. How did someone find out about them...
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Would Angela care? Isn't she just retail?
Weird...
It makes me wonder how people find out about these things? If it really is a random string, how did anyone just 'hit' it?
It's like those hacks for video games. How did someone find out about them...
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Would Angela care? Isn't she just retail?
Easy, iMessage is running the text message through an algorithm looking for whatever the programmer is looking for. Searching a text for certain keywords like grabbing metadata from phone calls/emails, etc. The scanning algorithm/code boo boo.
If any text is not scanned/messed with, this shouldn't happen.
Also might be decryption, sending doesn't affect the sender. Only when receiving and it's being decrypted on the receiver side. After you fix it by sending a new text, you create a new message that is scanned but the old one that boo boo iMessage doesn't need to be decrypted/scanned again. It gets moved down the memory slot.
If you're asking how they found this particular line of text to break it you have to ask the person who found it, decompiling, monitoring packets, cat walking on keyboard and sent a iMessage, etc...
Very sloppy answer, hope it helps.
No kidding! Who in their right mind would post copyable text online? And for MacRumors to actively link to that instead of posting an image only... shameful!
Prevent malicious string from crashing phone
This is a cut and paste of my Apple post on the topic:
Settings -> Notifications -> Messages -> Show Previews -> OFF (gray switch, NOT green).
Alert style when unlocked set to "none"..
iIf what has been reported on Reddit is true and it is the text string being fed to banners that is crashing the phones, these are the settings I've had on my phone that kept it from effecting me when my son tested it on my phone.
Do the above and the malicious text string can not crash your phone.
This is a cut and paste of my Apple post on the topic:
Settings -> Notifications -> Messages -> Show Previews -> OFF (gray switch, NOT green).
Alert style when unlocked set to "none"..
iIf what has been reported on Reddit is true and it is the text string being fed to banners that is crashing the phones, these are the settings I've had on my phone that kept it from effecting me when my son tested it on my phone.
Do the above and the malicious text string can not crash your phone.
Oh boy, that comment sets the stage for so much interpretation that would not be in your favour.
Simply its sent in unicode and when the phone revives it it opens it up and try's to put it into a notification. The notification system try's to show it but as its not been coded right it causes the OS to freeze and thinks its an attack and closes the system down.
This could have been a thing done in testing to make sure that the crash system works.
Oh and by the way it doesn't cause a complete crash on JailBroken devices as it causes safe mode to start
It also crashes the watch as it use the same system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing
Fuzz testing or fuzzing is a software testing technique, often automated or semi-automated, that involves providing invalid, unexpected, or random data to the inputs of a computer program.