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

Same here. I’ve experienced this on my iPhone 16 Pro, 15 Pro Max and 15. I haven’t been able to find a fix yet. Definitely seems to be a problem on Apple’s end. This seems to be ann issue with only certain people in my contacts list. Often times the message will fail to send all together until I manually send it as an SMS message. Hope Apple fixes this soon!

Having the same problem. iOS 18.2, iPhone 14 Pro Max. One contact who is using Google Messages on a Galaxy S22 or newer. My replies are always SMS, the incoming texts are always RCS. Text bubbles and read receipts are seen from their end.

EmBarry13 wrote:

I’m still having this problem with only ONE contact. It’s SUPER annoying. Still isn’t resolved after the newest update. Any help would be much appreciated!

If the problem is only with one contact, the issue may be on their end.

Same. It’s with my mother who has a galaxy S24. So now I have to use WhatsApp to talk to her because I refuse to be downgraded back to 20 year old technology. This whole line of iOS 18 updates just brings new annoying bugs each time and is really wearing on my willingness to stay a loyal iPhone user. Ugh

Same issue. Pixel 9 Pro XL (latest updates) trying to message iPhone 13 (latest updates). My messages from a Pixel go through as RCS, but responses from the iPhone are Text. Makes for a very annoying conversation. I have also noticed that at many points throughout the day my messages get stuck sending, and sometimes I receive a message indicating that they will go through when they "come back online". But at same time I'm sending other RCS messages to the same contact without issue. But unfortunately, typically receiving responses in text.

Most of the people I message via text/rcs are using Android, and RCS works fine for them. So I'm not sure if this is only impacting a single contact of mine or not.

Educatorsu wrote:

Me, too, and I do not know how to fix it? Where is messages in the settings?

Settings>Apps>Messages

Settings also has a search box at the top of the main page that's really handy when you can't remember exactly where something is.

I have an iPhone 15 iOS 18 (updated to 18.2 to try to resolve, no help) and this issue just started happening to me two days ago, with one contact who I text the most, who just from an iPhone to a Samsung galaxy Z flip 6 three weeks ago. It was completely fine texting with RCS until I went to text him two days ago and it wouldn’t send as an RCS so I sent it as an SMS but now even those don’t send to him at all, I get a “not delivered” error every time I go to text him but I receive all of his texts both RCS and SMS.

I can text my other contacts through RCS and SMS who have androids. We have both reset our network settings, power cycled our phones multiple times. We’ve contacted our carriers who say it all looks fine from both ends, he has disentangled his phone number (same as it was for his iPhone) from his iMessage, we spoke to apple and Samsung and nothing. We’re using WhatsApp right now, but any tips or suggestions/resolve would be so welcome. Incredibly frustrating.

That is exactly when it happened for me. I made the mistake of changing one message to SMS to get it to go through and now no matter what I try I cannot send RCS to this person only receive. Did you ever find a solution? Thanks!

I’m having this same issue too with just one contact. I’ve tried resetting network settings, message settings etc and nothing keeps the RCS stable. I did the 18.3 update yesterday and it went back to RCS for one text and then back again to SMS again this morning. Has anyone figured this out? It’s so frustrating!

I’m having the same issue and it just started since I installed iOS 18.3.1. The person I was receiving RCS messages from continues to come in as RCS but as of this morning, after an overnight 18.3.1 update, the box at the bottom of the iMessage app will only indicate “Text Message • SMS” and only allows me to send SMS… I’ve tried turning off RCS, restarting the iPhone13 and turning RCS back on but it’s still stuck on SMS. Is there a new solution?

I'm having a similar issue. Just one contact. I'm receiving RCS messages, but only send SMS. I can see bubbles while the contact is typing, but can't see that my messages have been delivered or read. I've tried updating network settings, had my contact reboot their phone. I'm on an iPhone 15 Pro Max running iOS 18.3.1. It started 2 days ago after i tried sending a photo, it wouldn't send so I sent it SMS. It's been stuck there ever since. If any one has other potential fixes, I'd appreciate hearing them. Thanks!

Same! I was trying to send a message to my best friend. She has an android and I have iPhone 14 Pro Max and it’s updated to 18.3.1. All my other android friends it says rcs message except for my best friend…and it goes back n forth to sms and rcs it’s pretty annoying.

I’m having the same issue after the update—none of my husband’s text messages are coming to my iPhone 16 pro max anymore (but they’re showing up on iMessage in my iPad and Mac Mini). Going to the Verizon store to see if they can help (I also had issues on vacation with accessing streaming and social media). Will update in a day or two!

Same problem. Just with my boyfriend. I even thought it was because we text a lot and deleted almost all our messages. Worked for a minute. Reset my network settings, which deletes all my wifi passwords, which super sucks because that didn’t work either. Come on Apple. Help us out here. It is almost enough to make me switch from Apple to Samsung.

Same exact issue with my iPhone 16 Pro Max

as well as my wife’s iPhone 16 Pro. My mom no matter if I remove the contact, re add it, turn off settings etc it still gets sent as a text message instead of RCS. Is there any fix for this?