bigboy29

Q: Siri tries to send messages to _$!<mobile>!$_

Ever since iOS 10, I have really strange problem. If I tell Siri over BT/voice to send a message to (firstname, lastname), she asks me "What would you like to say". Then I say my message and she asks me if I am ready to send. I say yes. She says she is sending it. I then immediately get a message that the message failed to send. When I look, it seems like she tried to send a message to "_$!<mobile>!$_" as a text (SMS):

 

Image1.jpg

The (firstname, lastname) is a person in my contacts. She correctly identified the person. The person has cell phone number populated. And in fact - also uses an iPhone.

 

My messages shows this:

Image2.jpg

 

The 'contact' she tries to send to is:

Image3.jpg

This happens ONLY on Bluetooth or when I speak directly to the phone. It does not seem to happen 100% of the time, though; I am pretty sure I sent to the same person over BT a few days ago. So if I browse to Contact and send a message from there or reply to a thread I already have in my message history - no problems, ever.

 

Tried:
- backed up the phone completely using my PC; nuked it completely, restored backup
- removed the Contact sync from all email accounts, re-enabled contact sync
- verified that there is nothing strange in the contact "mobile' fields...

 

At a loss.

iPhone 6s, iOS 10

Posted on Sep 21, 2016 8:47 AM

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Q: Siri tries to send messages to _$!<mobile>!$_

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  • Helpful answers

  • by bronxs15,

    bronxs15 bronxs15 Sep 25, 2016 6:59 AM in response to bigboy29
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iPhone
    Sep 25, 2016 6:59 AM in response to bigboy29

    This happens to me if I use voice and say hey Siri send a text to contact.

  • by Cityschredder,

    Cityschredder Cityschredder Sep 28, 2016 3:26 PM in response to bigboy29
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iPhone
    Sep 28, 2016 3:26 PM in response to bigboy29

    Bump for the same issue. Watch os 3 and Phone Ios 10.0.2

  • by Gork,

    Gork Gork Oct 4, 2016 1:23 PM in response to bigboy29
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iPhone
    Oct 4, 2016 1:23 PM in response to bigboy29

    This happened to me all during the iOS 10 beta.

     

    The most egregious problem with this bug is that it is actually sending these SMS messages to the short code "MOBILE" or 662453 which has very obvious privacy implications.

     

    I know these messages are being sent because prior to the GA release of iOS 10, I would receive a reply from this short code with an error message. After iOS 10 was released, the short code has stopped sending replies. Perhaps this is due to the high message volume in/out of this short code.

     

    It is a very frustrating bug; it only happens with certain contacts, and I have not been able to solve it or work around it in any way.

  • by bronxs15,

    bronxs15 bronxs15 Oct 4, 2016 5:41 PM in response to Gork
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iPhone
    Oct 4, 2016 5:41 PM in response to Gork

    I was able to resolve the issues on my iPhone.  it turns out there were multiple entries for the same contact name, and issues voice commands to siri to text Jane or call Jane seemed to get confused.I had contacts in gmail and outlook that were syncing with the contacts app.  What i needed to do was stop syncing those accounts and create and maintain my contact list using iCloud contacts. 

     

    prior to that i was using outlook as my main default contact list.  i don't think you necessarily need to use iCloud for it to work, but it would helping cleaning up your different contact list.  i my cause i tried to maintain using outlook as my default contact list, but found that the way outlook managed contacts in the "people" app was too confusing.  it confused even my, i had contacts under "contacts" then contacts under "my contacts" then "windows live contacts" which were ancient.  also Skype contacts which i don't use.  i also found that deleting them didn't really delete them because they would come back after i logged in again.