iPhone iMessage contact photos coming in and out randomly

Hi all,

I have an iPhone 16e running iOS 18.7.8. Ever since I got an iPad running some kind of iOS 26 my contact photos on my iPhone have been coming in and out on iMessage. Sometimes they appear, sometimes they don’t. When they don’t, they are the person’s initials.

I have attempted to reindex iMessage to no avail. Sometimes, it appears in my list of messages but not in the actual message and vice versa. Very strange.

any help? Thank you!

kind regards

mdp1101