Why do pictures in backed up Messages show question mark?

This didn’t fix anything - what’s next?

I have tried all the steps including taking my phone to the At&T, speaking with Apple tech and still no one could fix the issues. I have the iPhone 13 Pro max. this do not happen on my IPhone 11 pro max. So i'm thinking it the 5g issue. can someone please explain.

I am reassured to have found this thread. I thought I was going crazy. Last week I was looking for an older message thread on my phone only to discover that 3 whole years of message threads had disappeared. I have since been able to get them to intermittently reappear on my phone by marking those threads as “unread” on my MacBook, but they disappear again in a matter of hours.

Apple support had me turn on iCloud Messages which did nothing to help, and since I did that I have question marks for random images everywhere.

I even have question marks for photos in threads from last month.

I’ve owned iPhones and upgraded every 2 years, transferring all my data, since 2014 and I’ve never had anything like this happen. This is very disappointing. I’ve wasted so much time and energy trying to fix, but everything I do seems to make something else worse.

I am not having any problems with message threads or images on my 2017 MacBook. Everything seems to be there.

I’d ask for further advice but everyone seems to be perplexed just like me.

Same here just called Tech Support today and apple still has absolutely no idea what the issue is. Or at least the support rep didn’t.

I have same issues

i have same problems also most of my messages it’s not coming back

Spoke with Apple support and was simply told that after a substantial amount of time has passed the pictures/images in your text will automatically offload them. So I guess it’s best to save to your camera roll or risk going back to a old picture/Image in your text only to find that blue question mark

I was on phone call with customer support for 45 minutes and they basically told me this was the only option. Did ALL of your question marked pictures come back to normal after the restore? I want to do this now but I am worried. Thank you!

This happens to me all the time and I think it *might* be related to storage? I don't even have the option to tap to download the photos, it's just a question mark. And if I clear out some storage, it's back to normal. Try clearing recently deleted in Photos or deleting some texts?

Has anyone figured out what’s caused this? I sent pictures yesterday and they said they were delivered but I noticed today it was all question marks, I’m currently up to date with my IOS at 15.5 in oregon USA.

A relative texted me photos of the family burying my recently deceased father.

After about 3 days, the pictures on my iPhone turned into question marks.

Obviously, we tried tracking down the relative and that is still going on (92 years old, lives on a farm with no internet).

Anyway, I found the photos on my iPad's text messages. So, we are relieved.

What a screwed-up problem. Why doesn't Apple fix it?

I’ll do it for the not so funny people. Settings - iCloud ( hahaha) - apps using iCloud ( hahahaha) - show all ( hahahah) - turn on messages ( Hahahaha)

and that is your problem sorted in the funnest way 👌🏻💪🏻

My meassages are synced with my iCloud and photos are still showing as “?”. And it’s not all of them…just some. This only started after the most recent update. Is there perhaps something else I need to sync as well? The update turned off stuff randomly which I thought was strange. Perhaps something else got turned off I just am not figuring out.🤷🏽‍♀️

My pics are also turning to question marks with no way to view to retrieve them. It is unreal that Apple has not fixed this bug over a year after it has been reported. I have a new Iphone 13 max pro with 256 gigs of memory.

I have a brand new iphone 13 max plus with 256 gigs of memory. Every since I got it my pics in messages are turning i to question marks. It is unreal that apple has not fixed this bug after all this time.