I’m receiving messages RCS but then my reply is SMS

Update since my last post here: I took someone's advice and reset all networks on my 15Pro and now it is holding RCS as it should for all conversations that require it. The downside was I lost all wifi passwords.

To reset your iPhone or iPad's network settings, you can do the following: 

1. Open Settings
2. Select General
3. Select Transfer or Reset iPhone or Reset
4. Select Reset Network Settings
5. Enter your passcode if prompted
6. Select Reset Network Settings again

Possible fix!

This happens to me too, only with my husband who has an android on the same network. I decided to try the following, and it instantly fixed it although we’ll see if it stays fixed. Turning RCS/phone/network off and back on was no longer doing anything for me.

Delete the person’s number from their contact card (Contacts-> Select contact name-> Edit-> Delete “Phone”-> Done). Then go back to your text conversation and reconnect it (Select phone number/contact-> Info-> Add to Existing Contact-> Select contact name-> Update).

Simply deleting the number from their contact card will not delete your message history or anything else. It only severs the link. But it seems to trigger something!

It’s possible that blocking/unblocking a contact may also work the same way, but I did not test it. If the issue reoccurs, I will.

Omg this same thing was happening to me with my messages with my boyfriend. I got all his messages RCS all mine sent to him SMS for a good week after I had one message go through to him as SMS it was like it was permanently shut off for him. I tried restarting my phone, resetting my network settings, turning RCS off, restarting phone, then RCS back on. Nothing worked. Contacted Apple support who offered me basically no suggestions and said I would need to contact my carrier as this wasn’t something they could fix. RCS messaging was still working fine for other contacts. Thank god I found a comment in this thread about deleting his number off his contact. That fixed it! I didn’t have to delete his full contact or anything, just the phone number. Phew! Saved it with no number. Then went back in and re-added the number and it fixed everything. I told the Apple support person maybe you should let people know this simple fix in the future as there are clearly hundreds of apple users having this same issue. After I told them what I did to fix it the person literally said back to me “I am sorry the steps were not shared before. But, yes deleting the contact and re-adding would resolve the issue.” Okay then why did you not give me this tip before? And also I didn’t have to delete his full contact! Just the number! Problem solved without losing all the things his contact was linked to or our message history that I absolutely did not want to lose. Thank you people of this forum for saving the day!

I tried everything. Only thing that worked for me is turn off rcs then reset network settings then turn on rcs. Wait 5 mins. Send message to an android then reply from android and then wait another 5 mins. Working properly after that. *** is that you lose your wifi saved passwords…

I was able to fix this by adding the country code to a contact's phone number. Once I changed the phone number from (0*****00 to 1 (00*****00 the messages going forward then showed as all being RCS with the contact.

[Edited by Moderator]

I was able to fix my issue with the one contact by removing the “+” from in front of their contact number. None of my other contacts have the + in their numbers saved and their RCS work fine. Once I edited their contact, it immediately switched over to RCS.

before that I tried rebooting, turning RCS on and off, deleting the message thread…..everything. Editing the contact number so far seems to have helped at least three of us for sure.

I was able to fix this by adding the country code to a contact's phone number. Once I changed the phone number from 10-digit to 11-digit the messages going forward then showed as all being RCS with the contact.

I had the same issue with one contact I turned off RCS restarted iPhone and when I first went back to that contact, it showed SMS but after about two minutes, it changed and updated to RCS. I’m using a iPhone 15 Pro with iOS 18.2.

i did the exact same thing last week. And I would receive RCS but always send SMS for only the contact I changed the message on. I finally just deleted the contact and then added them back and it fixed the problem.

I have an iPhone 14, I had the same issue for 2 days. With one contact, I finally got tired of it and contacted Apple, they told me to retry everything I’ve found online including in this question and issue thread. They then said they couldn’t figure out the issue and sent me to a senior supervisor, or something like that. He told since it’s only with one contact, it might be an issue with the shared thread they have with android uses (the RCS texting feature). He told me he would contact them and it should be fixed within a day, told me he was in charge of my complaint and to contact him with any updates. In 8 hours the issue was fixed, so I highly recommend contacting Apple.

I’m on 18.2.1 and I had the same issue.

I’ve tried to turn RCS on and off, same issue.

I restarted my phone, same issue.

I asked my friend on Android to restart their phone and that worked… so it could be an Android issue. Hopefully this gets fixed.

I had the same issue after sending one text that wasn’t going through as SMS, it was just one contact. Finally I asked the contact to restart their phone, then I shut RCS off, restarted my phone, and turned RCS back on. That finally seems to have fixed it, at least for now.

Turning off the VPN fixed it for me.

What worked for me was: Settings > General > Reset iPhone > Reset Network Settings

Reset, basically go to settings, general, transfer and reset phone, the click reset network, surprisingly it doesn’t get rid of anything it just resets the network, then once it powers back on you should have RCS again.