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Text messages delayed days on iPhone

I have an iPhone 8 Plus, and for the past month I've experienced at random times multiple days delays in receiving text messages. They will usually come in in a batch when I restart my phone, but today I just open my phone and see "missing" text messages I never received from several different conversations. It will show in these conversations that the person I was texting indeed sent it days ago. Since having this issue, I'm trying to restart my phone more, but that's a pain and leaves you wondering if you're missing texts from people...

Here are a few things I've tried to help it.

  • phone is updated on iOS 14.4
  • toggled on and off the iMessage app
  • today I did a factory reset of "all settings"
  • I also reset network settings

Any other ideas how to fix this?


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Feb 14, 2021 12:37 PM

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Posted on Apr 23, 2021 6:42 AM

I’ve been having the same issues! I’m up to date as of today on software, I have the iPhone 11, also with cricket.. I miss texts on iMessage that come in days later, and I miss calls. Like the call won’t even show up on my end. Would really love a solution to this.

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Apr 23, 2021 6:42 AM in response to smb112

I’ve been having the same issues! I’m up to date as of today on software, I have the iPhone 11, also with cricket.. I miss texts on iMessage that come in days later, and I miss calls. Like the call won’t even show up on my end. Would really love a solution to this.

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Apr 15, 2021 5:57 PM in response to smb112

My household is also experiencing the same issues with text messages being extremely delayed in delivery or just not coming through at all. We have two iphone 6s's, a 7s and a new XR so both old and new phones are having issues. This has to be a software situation. It would sure be nice for an Apple solution. It is a problem when a family member or your boss sends you a message and doesn't realize that your phone didn't receive it. We also have our service plan through Cricket.

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Jun 7, 2021 10:24 AM in response to smb112

I'm having this problem with some texts being delivered 2 or 3 days late. Apple needs to solve this since so many communications are via text these days. People assume I've received texts asking for information or action. Most texts coming through on time does not cut it when some do not. Sporadic delivery of some texts is simply unacceptable.

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May 10, 2021 7:55 PM in response to smb112

I posed this question on Apple Communities as well. Apple didn’t know what to do aside from telling me to rest factory settings, reset network, power off and on, change FaceTime id, etc.


This is hard to pinpoint as it happens randomly. I can’t ever show a solid example. I work in Healthcare so timely text messages are important. This only happens with iMessages. It seems to ha e started when I updated around December 2020. The days are now not just hours but days

Help us Apple, I may also move to Android if there’s not a fix soon.

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Feb 14, 2021 12:51 PM in response to smb112

iMessages are Apple's version of SMS texts. They can only be sent/received between Apple devices. SMS messages, on the other hand, can be sent / received between Apple and non-Apple devices.


Ref:

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Mar 28, 2021 3:35 PM in response to smb112

Hey there!


Any luck with the factory reset?


I've had this same issue since updating to iOS 14, around October 2020. It's been a frustrating 6 months lol. I notice that a network reset *sometimes* helps pull in missing messages, but not always. In any case, it hasn't solved the problem. I'm using an iPhone 8 with Cricket as the carrier. This only occurs with iMessages, so I don't think it's an issue with the carrier though.


I've spoken to Apple twice, and they suggested a factory reset; and if that doesn't work, replacing the phone. I've read from other users on this topic that neither of those actions solved the problem. I'm also very hesitant in general to turn my phone into E-Waste if this is a software issue Apple hasn't acknowledged or solved yet.

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Apr 12, 2021 1:43 PM in response to laneka211

ive had this problem with two phones first my iphone 11pro max and then I switched to my iphone 8 because they told me it was the phone that i had to switch so i did and still haveing problems smh probs going to be switching to samsung im tired of resetting my phone every day smh

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Apr 21, 2021 8:36 AM in response to tammyfromflint

I’ve been having the same problem with my iPhone 8. I have Consumer Cellular. I have instances where I will get the iMessage on my Apple Watch, but it doesn’t show up on my phone. I’ve also had instances where the iMessage appears on my iPad, but not on my iPhone or iWatch. Very frustrating!!!

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May 16, 2021 12:24 PM in response to MorganM

I’ve had the iPhone SE 2020 since Dec 2020 with AT&T being carrier. All of a sudden on 5/15/2021 I know have a delay in receiving TEXT messages. I know it’s TEXT messages for now because my family members are non-iPhone users. Sometimes to point where the text messages are not received at all. I’ve deleted all my old, saved text messages and still a delay. I’ve turned off iMessages and no better. When there is no delay, I can volley up to 3 messages before the delay starts up again. I took out the chip and that didn’t work. I just updated last night to iOS14.5.1 and this has been going on before and after update.


Please help!

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May 19, 2021 6:48 AM in response to CJonesie1980

I called AT&T today and not receiving text messages of non-iPhone users had to do with the wifi. Even though I had the wifi icon, it didn’t work. I had to turn off my phone and AT&T did something on their end then I turned my phone back on and saw the word wifi is added (see screenshot) and now I can receive messages from non iPhone users. I hope this helps others.

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Feb 14, 2021 1:00 PM in response to smb112

Ok, thanks for clarifying that they are iMessages. Does this issue happen with all of your iMessage contacts or just a specific one? If it is just one, then the issue may be on their end.


iMessages are sent either by Wi-Fi (thru the Internet) or via your cellular data plan. Are you having any issues with either of these connections when you are seeing these delays? Try sending an iMessage, first with your iPhone connected to your local Wi-Fi network, and then again to the same contact, over a cellular-only connection. Ask the recipient to reply back on both. See if there are any significant delays with either or between delivery types.

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Mar 28, 2021 6:19 PM in response to MorganM

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, the factory reset did not fix this issue. I still have been experiencing this issue as recently as two weeks ago. That's interesting though because I have an 8 Plus, I also have Cricket as the carrier, and it only occurs with iMessages. I still do restart my phone periodically in hopes any delayed messages will come in then. I hate that their response is to replace the phone, as I just got this one last year!

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May 10, 2021 9:10 PM in response to myriah256

I posted on this thread awhile ago with the same issue, and wanted to post an update.


I reached out to my provider, Cricket, with the issue, and they suggested I get a new SIM card. I was already looking to switch providers, so I got a new SIM card with Visible. Since then this issue has only happened once in maybe 2 months (vs every other day prior to making the change). I don't know that it means it was a Cricket issue, since other people seem to have this issue with different providers. But I'd suggest getting a new SIM card as a next step, perhaps! Or reaching out to your provider for other options.

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Text messages delayed days on iPhone

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