Predictive text randomly stops working

[ManuCH]

So I've been chasing this bug for a while and I have now decided to post about it, after the hours spent troubleshooting it.

tl;dr: predictive text on the iOS keyboard suddenly stops working, and I just see 3 empty suggestion boxes with the 2 vertical separation lines shown above the keyboard when it happens, with no actual suggested words in them.

It started happening since iOS 26.0. Usually, after a fresh reboot it takes longer to happen, but once it starts creeping in, it will keep happening after 30-60 seconds of consistent typing. Meaning: whenever I start to type, predictive text is there and works properly. Then after a while, it just stops working. No predictive text suggestions appear anymore. To reset/fix it, I just need to change the keyboard to a different one (a different language or the emoji keyboard) and then back, and it will work again for another minute or so.

To troubleshoot it, I did all the following things:

• switched to monolingual keyboards (I usually use bilingual keyboards)
• deleted all keyboards except 1, rebooted, re-added them
• deleted all dictionaries (not that I think that's relevant but you never know)
• did a "reset keyboard dictionary"
• deleted all my custom text replacement entries
• turned iCloud Drive off (and left it off for a while) as that's apparently responsible to synchronize keyboard text replacement
• tried to add or delete third party keyboards (those work and don't have the bug, it's an iOS integrated keyboard bug only)
• disabled "show predictions inline"
• disabled predictive text, rebooted, and re-enabled it
• disabled slide to type

Absolutely nothing helps or affects it in any way. I'm starting to think some database on my iOS installation is borked, and that starting from scratch would help, but that's just such a huge effort to go through, I'm not sure I wanna do that.

So here's my question: has anyone else experienced this bug, or am I the only one with this issue? Any other potential solutions I might be missing?

 

[JabberingJoshua]

I’m facing the same issue. I recently upgraded from a 13 Pro Max to the 17 Pro and was thinking it was a borked transfer.

I also run into an issue where the keyboard appears to type, I start typing, and no input is immediately recorded (it’s like the screen freezes for a few moments). Then suddenly everything I was typing shows up.

I don’t have swipe text, I only have two keyboards (English and GIF Keyboard), and I tried resetting the dictionary.

I’m seeing a movie today but think I’ll do a clean install when I get home. Mine doesn’t always have a trigger to what causes it to disappear, the suggestions just randomly do, so I’ll see if that improves anything.

 

[zach-coleman]

This happens to me as well. Killing the app it is occurring in seems to fix it, but it is very frustrating and I've been encountering it far more than the issue of incorrect inputs that got a lot of press earlier this year.

It seems more common on apps not updated for 26, like Discord, but I've had it happen in Messages as well.

 

[ManuCH]

This happens to me as well. Killing the app it is occurring in seems to fix it, but it is very frustrating and I've been encountering it far more than the issue of incorrect inputs that got a lot of press earlier this year.

It seems more common on apps not updated for 26, like Discord, but I've had it happen in Messages as well.

Actually, I noticed that the app most commonly doing it for me is Telegram, but I also have it in other apps. It happens less with Apple-native apps to me (for example, I can write a way longer text in Pages than Telegram before the bug triggers).

 

[ManuCH]

I’m facing the same issue. I recently upgraded from a 13 Pro Max to the 17 Pro and was thinking it was a borked transfer.

I also run into an issue where the keyboard appears to type, I start typing, and no input is immediately recorded (it’s like the screen freezes for a few moments). Then suddenly everything I was typing shows up.

I don’t have swipe text, I only have two keyboards (English and GIF Keyboard), and I tried resetting the dictionary.

I’m seeing a movie today but think I’ll do a clean install when I get home. Mine doesn’t always have a trigger to what causes it to disappear, the suggestions just randomly do, so I’ll see if that improves anything.

Did you manage to do a clean install? Could you please report back if/when you decide to do it? I'm curious to hear if it solves the problem.

 

[thepyrate]

Yeah, happens to me all the time as well. I notice it mostly in Reddit where once anything reaches longer than a sentence or so autocorrect just completely disengages and typing becomes utterly laborious.

 

[JabberingJoshua]

Did you manage to do a clean install? Could you please report back if/when you decide to do it? I'm curious to hear if it solves the problem.

I didn’t get around to it yet - I started cleaning up some apps but it was a busy weekend. I start a new job tomorrow so I’ll get it done tonight and then test it this next week. Should have a report by Friday unless it doesn’t resolve the issue.

 

[JabberingJoshua]

Did you manage to do a clean install? Could you please report back if/when you decide to do it? I'm curious to hear if it solves the problem.

Good morning bud. So I cleaned up some space because I’m tired of paying $1 every month for extra space on the cloud lol, then I did a backup and full reset as if I was getting rid of the phone. Then I downloaded my stuff from the backup. I’ve had zero issues throughout the week after doing so, even from using Reddit or texting back and forth with multiple people.

 

[JabberingJoshua]

I sit corrected… I was typing a text response to a friend that was literally two sentences long. I deleted part of it and then the suggestions went away. RIP

 

[ManuCH]

I sit corrected… I was typing a text response to a friend that was literally two sentences long. I deleted part of it and then the suggestions went away. RIP

Dang it, sorry to hear that not even a full reset solved this. Thank you for getting back.

This is such an annoying bug, but so hard to report because it needs to be reproduced properly etc. I will try to file a feedback.