iOS 4.3 bug - Deleted All Text Messages

OK so last night the phone deleted all my text messages several times. This morning I got confirmation of my worst fear. I hear a text message come in. I saw the alert message on the front screen to tell me a text message had come in. But when I went to read the message it was already deleted.

So now I have no idea what that person was trying to say to me. (BTW, it was from a friend of mind who is going in for an operation in hospital this morning)

Right now I have just received a txt rom my girl friend, I managed to read it in time. But I cannot replay because the thing deleted the message at the point I try and send it.

I have rung my phone provider and they will deliver a replacement hand set tomorrow. So I guess I will see whether this is handset fault or weather it is a software fault over the coming days or weeks!

(The phone has also taken to deleting all my contacts too!)

replacment handset delivered. Software backup up from the old handset and reinstalled on the new handset. Absolutly no improvment at all.

Next set, the guys from the apply line told me to do use Itunes and do a factroy restor to the phone. I am in the middle of this now.

BTW just to explain how this kinda of think affectects rel life. I became an uncle on saturday. Only I didn't find out till Sunday. I heard the phone go off with a text message late Saturday night. But as the text message deleted itself straight away I didnt get the read it. I found out when I took a call fromthe family the next day. Shame huh those are the kinda messages one likes to hold on to for life eh!

Factory reset and full restor did nothing! :-(

Have a call tonight from one of the apple tech support people.

Same thing just happened me. Sending MMS, phone froze, Apple icon appeared and when restarted all text messages gone. Too late for me, but I now know what to do if it happens again. Open iTunes BEFORE you plug in your phone to your computer. In Preferences, turn OFF Automatic Sync. Now plug in your phone. Click Factory. When this is done, it will give you option of restoring from LAST sync of phone. CLICK. This will restore all messages to the point of your last sync. All your messages will reappear. Unfortunately, I plugged my phone in as soon as it wiped everything, thus making my last sync AFTER it happened. Lost a lot of important stuff. Lesson learned. As a journalist I will highlight this problem in the media. Shame on you Apple for remaining so quiet on these boards. After-service is important, too.

Same story with me today. I sent a picture text and received another text just as it was sending. I got the Apple, startup screen and POOF: All my text messages gone.

Mine did exactly the same. Sent pic via MMS then tried to go back to text message the phone reset it took a split second, asked me for my password and all text messages were gone. Have not synced yet, going to the apple store and see what those clowns have to say.

OK i should update this thread. The problem is now gone from my phone.

With the help of an apple person who called me at home on Thursday night at 5.30pm for a 45min call. I had to do a factory reset of the phone, then I had to reinstall all my apps.

She had not seen this problem before but she suspected that some how the software on the phone was corrupted. So restoring from a back up was not fixing the problem as this was simply re-writing the same corrupt data to the phone each time. In particular she was surprised that the pre installed apps, like picture viewing and text message sending, where failing. This, to her, meant the problem was not with a specific app.

BUT

I have lost every setting on the phone. noises alarms, backgrounds etc etc

I have lost every setting on every app. So that’s all the favourites on the Tom Tom app, all the notes I had stored, all the account settings for various forums I was part of, (including a silly game I had been playing for months and I can no longer access the account so I have lost my game)

So problem solved. Bloody relived about that.

Still really nervous about sending a picture message (have not done this so far)

Very impressed with the polite and helpful way that lady on the pone talked me through the process, "A" star to her

Very un impressed with Apples total lack of response to this issue on this forum or more generally.

Note to Apple: My brother has just received an HTC smart phone using Android. I will monitor his feeling on this and if he has no problems I will swap to this system soon. This iPhone is the first Apple product I have ever had. Your lack of support on his issue has put me right off your company.

same thing just happened to me as everybody else.

got a cool picture so felt like taking one and sending one back and poof, phone goes black, apple logo, passcode log-in, then no texts at all!

i was one of the people that synced automatically too so i got double-screwed.

never had something happen like this to me with an apple product and i had been so happy until now..

the lack of reply by an apple official on this thread is even more of a disappointment..

so much for getting the iphone 5 now...

bye bye text messages lol

Is there any way to extract the SMS.db from the backup iTunes creates and put it back on the iPhone? (without having to sync the iPhone to iTunes)

Same story as everyone, lost all my texts. Some are extremely important....

I did a backup yesterday, but if I plug in my phone I think it will immediately start backing up.

Is there any way to just restore my phone to yesterday's backup??

I really need my texts, and it's really urgent!! Thanks so much.

This EXACT thing happened to me !!! the thiung is if i search for a message from homescreen it will show that it is there then i select it and it goes to my messages and it isn't there soo it must be there somewhere do you know where ??

Same thing happened to me this morning. Tried sending a picture from the photo app which caused my phone to have a meltdown and reset. And now all my texts are gone. I am stunned by apple's lack of response on this issue.

Same issue here just now... Tried to send a picture via MMS from within the photo album, the Apple Screen of Death, then no text messages. I've sent a few text messages since the erasure and no problems (including an MMS from within the photo album; the one I originally tried to send). And you can see that the text messages are there in the search, but when you click on them, it just takes you to the text message app rather than the actual message. Everything else on the phone appears to be intact.

I have iPhone 4, on Version 4.3 (8F190), carrier is AT&T.

Along with badtz, I do wonder if there's a way to extract the data and put it back, since it just looks like a display problem.

And the issue strikes again. Sent a picture, the black Apple screen, home screen, no more messages ... they show up in the Spotlight search, too. It's disappointing (and a little frightening) that Apple hasn't taken any visible steps to solve this issue.

To add to this post, I had the same issue today. Very dissapointed in Apple.

I was sending a video to a friend via MMS and the iPhone froze for about 1 minute. When the iPhone came back to life all, my text messages were deleted. ALL OF THEM. Every message I had sent in the past 3-4 years was deleted. FAIL. Huge FAIL.

I tried to do a restore, as per the comments in this thread, and was delightfully surprised with NO RESTORATION OF MY TEXT MESSAGES!!!!!

What the heck APPLE?!

GO F*@#$ YOURSELF