Messages frozen and crashes on iOS 17.5.1

The workaround was only helpful for less than a day. I’ve tried all of these workarounds and nothing sticks. It’s all native apple apps that are failing. I spoke to Apple 2nd level of support this morning, he said they’re aware of it, he personally voted for a fix and that the more people that call Apple support the more likely the fix will be coming via the next update. He said he believes we’ll have to wait for the next software update and thanked me for being patient. I stressed how inconvenient this is for myself and my wife.

It worked for me for two weeks once I disabled forwarding messages to my iPad. Then it just died when I was using CarPlay. I disabled car play, unpaired Apple Watch and nothing works.

Finally I installed release candidate for iOS 17.6 and the problem is gone and the phone appears to be running faster. Will report again if there are any issues.

Update and potential fix: (whether it lasts or not is another thing)

I noticed a post where someone deactivated the "Focus" button at the top of Messages settings, however, that has never been activated for me.

I have various focus types set up throughout the day, so my thoughts were that it SHOULD be activated. I have now turned that button to ON, and so far, so good - I can use my messages as normal on my phone. If this does continue working, then the issue could be as simple as a disconnection between Messages and Focus.

I can't get into my iPad the same way yet but I'm wondering if that might be because it was currently in a focus mode when I tried. When I try again later, I will turn off all focus modes then try and access the settings and see if that works.

Hopefully this works for someone else! :)

Called Apple Support. May have fixed things. Here’s how.

Settings > General > Transfer or Reset Phone (scroll to the bottom to find it) > Reset > Reset All Settings.

It won’t wipe your phone completely, but you’ll have to adjust your settings after it restarts including display settings, Face ID, credit cards in your wallet, etc). The CC restoration was faster than expected.

after this I’ve not been dealing with an unusable messages app or getting frozen messages settings.

I had to ‘catch it’ after doing a few hard resets. Go directly to Settings -> Messages -> Focus off.

i had to do the hard reset 2-3 times before I was able to actually get into Settings -> Messages -> Focus off

Its really frustrating, so just be persistent until you’re successful.

I had a frozen text message between me and my wife. Took it to the Apple Store and after trying all af the resets on settings and completely erasing and restoring the iPhone nothing worked to fix it. Finally they told me to delete the message because the thread was a 10+ year text message. So I begrudgingly deleted the message and was able to text again just fine. After about 4 days I went to Edit button in the messages app and restored the 10+ year message and was still able to text. It has been about a week now and it is still working fine. Might seem harsh to delete a text thread but the message app does save them for 30 days. So if you can get your thread working again it is a potential fix. Hope this helps someone because it frustrated me greatly.

I also had the same exact problem both on iPhone 15 pro & iPad Pro, both were running IOS/iPadOS 17.5.1. My solution was to update the OS to 17.6B2, worked for me and hope this helps!

I just got off the phone with Apple Support on this issue, and at least for me shutting my phone down and leaving it shut down for 30+ seconds (I timed it) appears to have, at least temporarily, resolved the problem. I had already tried shutting my phone down, but I had immediately turned it back on afterward. The phone support agent mentioned that the phone’s RAM may not clear if you don’t leave it off for long enough. Anyway, at least this allows me to access my text messages again and I have a workaround in case the issue crops up again. It’s certainly easier than resetting the phone completely.

I saw on here a suggestion to go under general settings-> messages-> toggle off Focus. Can only do this when texting is working so try it first thing. SO FAR THIS HAS WORKED. Going on 10 days!

This has now happened repeatedly on my phone and iPad for weeks. The only fix I've found that even temporarily addresses the problem is a full wipe and restore of the affected device. I've had to to this on both my phone and iPad several times in the past few weeks, and the black/white screen crash loop problem has affected both Messages and Photos. I'm at the point where if I start to see this, I just wipe and restore the affected device right away. At this point, restoring from a backup seems to work and it doesn't seem to require starting again as a new device. When this issue crops up on one device, it causes slowdowns / reliability issues on my other devices (including my Macs), but those have been clearing up as soon as the affected device is restored.

Tried this. So far so good. I saw that focus button and thought that couldn’t be the culprit. I then saw your post and tried it. Thank you for the tip!!

(turn off the focus in message settings)

The only solution my Apple Store had was a complete reset and set up as new. Can’t restore from a backup because that brings back the error too. Apple needs to roll out an update fast, but they’re not even acknowledging this is a known issue.

Do you have an Apple Watch?

I had this issue with messages on my iPhone after 17.1.5

i unlinked the watch from find my, and my Apple account. Reset the watch. Then linked it up again - and it solved the messages app on my phone immediately.

My issue resolved i hope it’s permanent i got this from apple support team

Go to Settings > [your name] > Sign Out, and then sign back in with your Apple ID. This can help re-establish any connection issues with iMessage.

Sign out of your Apple ID on your device and sign back in. This resolved the issue for me on my iPhone 11.