Group chat not working properly after upgrading to IOS 18.4
About a month ago, I upgraded my iPhone 15 to IOS 18.4 and started having issues with group chats that I've been using for a while prior. These group chats include iPhone users as well as Samsung users. I'm on Spectrum Mobile, which I believe is using Verizon network. Here are the symptoms:
- Some participants are excluded from the chat messages, mostly the Samsung users who prefers to use Samsung Messages app as default.
- My message went out as *separate* and *individual* texts to EACH member, causing them to question if I've sent the message by mistake. The recipients saw them as such and so do I on my iPhone.
- Sometimes, the group chat message appears as "SMS", then turns to "RCS" for a while, then back to "SMS", unexplainably.
- I also use my iPad Air 5th generation as secondary device for texting, tethered to my iPhone cellular service, and the problem occurred intermittently, for no apparent reason.
I've researched all over the internet and on this Community and didn't see a suitable answer/solution. I've tried several suggestions to (obviously) turn on/off cellular service, RCS message setting, WiFi connection, etc... and rebooted countless of times, but nothing seems to work.
I've asked the group chat participants about their phone settings and here's what I got:
- Some iPhone users are still on IOS 18.3, and don't have the same problem, while the ones, like me, on IOS 18.4 do.
- Some saw the symptom #2 above, especially when my text went out as SMS, but became OK when back to RCS, as per symptom #3.
It's now mid-April 2025 and I thought that Apple had the RCS roll-out all worked out by now, but alas it hasn't. Does anyone have ANY suggestion for me to try? Or simply to hold my breath and wait for IOS 18.5?
TIA.
P.S.: I'm hesitant to downgrade to IOS 18.3 at this time, unless there is a supported procedure provided somewhere by Apply Support officially.
iPhone 15
