stevejobs1234
Level 1 (8 points)
iPhone

Q: iMessage issues

Had a weird issue last night. Mom and dad have separate iPhones. Different numbers. Mom and dad share comcast e-mail address, but I believe I only had that e-mail listed for dad.

So I sent mom a text, Dad was in other room. On his phone. Contact/Imessage clearly said Mom on my phone. She never received the message. But got the 3 dots on my screen that someone was typing. Went into the other room. My dad is on his phone, replying to the message. The message on his screen wasnt out of the ordinary. It acted like I had sent a message to him, as opposed to my mom.

How did this happen? I removed the shared email address/comcast from my mom's contact (is my dad's name@comcast), and moved it over to my dad's contact.

And it worked normal again.

What is up with this.

First time Ive ever had this issue, ever.

My dad does read his e-mail on his phone. My mom doesn't. My dad signs into iCloud too. My mom doesnt. Do you think this impacts it?

Ive had the e-mail address listed for my dad, since I got this phone (6s September), never had an issue before.

iPhone 6s, iOS 9.3.2

Posted on Jun 12, 2016 11:54 AM

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stevejobs1234

Q: iMessage issues

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  • by Lindsay_B.,

    Lindsay_B. Lindsay_B. Jun 13, 2016 9:58 AM in response to stevejobs1234
    Community Specialists
    Jun 13, 2016 9:58 AM in response to stevejobs1234

    Hi there, stevejobs1234!

     

    It sounds like your parents are sharing an email address from their provider. From my understanding, only your dad is using it for email and iCloud on his iPhone, though. If they also share this email address as their Apple ID for iTunes and App Store purchases, it's possible your mom may have used it to sign into iMessage.

     

    I recommend suggesting your parents use separate Apple IDs on their iPhone devices for all Apple services (iMessage, FaceTime, iTunes and App Stores, iCloud, etc). If they want to share purchases, they can set up Family Sharing using the instructions in the article linked below:

     

    Family Sharing

     

    If they don't want to use Family Sharing, that's OK.  Just make sure that at least one of them is not using the shared email address in iMessage.

     

    1. Go into Settings > Messages > Send & Receive on each iPhone. Under the "You can be reached by iMessage at" section, check to see if they are both signed into the same Apple ID (at the top of the screen). If they are, you can have one of them sign out by tapping the Apple ID and choosing Sign Out from the popup menu.
       
    2. You can also uncheck the email address under "You can be reached by iMessage at" (based on your post, you'd probably want to do this on your mom's iPhone). This will allow messages to be sent only to the phone number of that device. See the graphic below for a visual.

     

     

     

    Happy messaging!