iPhone 4S - No "Load Earlier Messages" Button

I'm having the same problem. They appear to have just been deleted, and so far I don't have a "load earlier messages" on any of my conversations..

Hello,

I have the same problem but with my iphone 3gs. After the new upgrade to 5.0.1 I realized that all of my old text messages disappear after every new one I receive. I just spoke to an engineer at Apple support and he said he will be calling me back in a few days, once their team finds out what the underlying issue with the software is, that is causing this. As soon as I hear back I will post the outcome. Until then, I suggest you all call and make it apparent to the support line, because when I told them the issue I was having they had no idea, and said it was good that I brought it to heir attention otherwise they hadn't heard about such a situation until now. Hope tha helps :-)

Hello, I believe I figured outthe issue with the LOAD EARLIER MESSAGE BUTTON. Bare with me please. This is going to be kind of lengthy but I will try to explain the problem the best I can.

First, I think the PROBLEM is because iMessage is turned ON for your device. When iMessage isactivated it only allows you to view and scroll 50 messages on the screen. Youcan count the messages to make sure. Once iMessage is turned on, it will notallow the user to view or scroll more than 50 messages; however, your messagesfrom months ago are still there unless you deleted them. They appear to behidden.

This is a test which allows youto see an older message to make sure that they are still there. First theconversation between you and your friend must have more than 50 messages in the log.

Now go to the top of themessage screen. You should see the buttons (Call, Facetime, and Contact) Youwill notice that LOAD EARLIER MESSAGE BUTTON is missing.

NOTE: Remember your First message.

If you delete a recent message,one of your older messages will appear at the top of the screen.

You will notice that the first messagethat you had before has now become your second. Basically, the messages shifteddown.

In contrast if you receive anew message the your oldest message on top will shift up making you think youlost your message on top; however, they are still there. Do not worry. They arehidden, but they are still there. This was the test.

NOW the important part. How tofix the problem? Some people like reading messages from months back. To read all your old messages you must have the LOAD EARLIER MESSAGE BUTTON. In order to make this appear, make sure your iMessage is turned OFF. By turning OFF iMessage, you will not receive any iMessagesanymore. Your messages sent will not be BLUE but GREEN SMS messages.

This may be bad for those of youor your friends who do not have an unlimited text messaging plan

Since the recipient turned off their iMessage every message sent and received will be a SMS text message. Tell your friends that you turned OFF iMessaging, otherwise when they text you, they may be charged for sending you text messages if they go over their plan notknowing that it is not Free. MOST people have unlimited text messaging plansanyways so it does not really matter much.

NOTE: iMessaging is only FREE ifboth you and your friend have an iphone 4/4S with ios5 with iMessaging turned ON.

Just a reminder.

They may think that sending atext to you is free because both of you have an iPhone 4/4S while it is not.

If your friend sends you a textmessage when you have your iMessage turned OFF, the message sent will from yourfriend will be a SMS message. This cost money depending on your friends plan.

NOTE: If someone sends an iMessage,there should be an iMessage notification on top of the conversation.

Now to make the Load Earlier Messagebutton appear, with iMessage turned OFF, you must send out a message to yourfriend for example: How are you? This message will be sent as a SMS textmessage. Also remember, the conversation with this friend must have more than 50 messages otherwise you would not have any earlier messages to be shown.

Sorry, I apologize but I do notremember if you have to receive a message from your friend as well to make theLoad Earlier Message appear.

Either way with iMessage turnedOFF, once you send and receive a text from your friend, Load Earlier Messageappears.

There is probably a bug in thesystem. Since I have unlimited text messaging, I do not even bother withturning iMessage on anymore. I think, but I am not certain for those that just use SMS text messaging and have never ever used iMessage they will not have this problem. However, if you went from iMessage to SMS in a conversation whichI did for some individuals you might see some messages that are blue and green.This means that some were iMessages and others were SMS. To read your oldmessages you must unlock the LOAD EARLIER MESSAGE BUTTON.

I followed the steps that Imentioned earlier and my LOAD EARLIER MESSAGE BUTTON appeared for ONE of my friend's conversations. Now I have to fix it for the other ones. I think once the LOAD EARLIER MESSAGE BUTTON appears you can turn iMessage back ON and your LOAD EARLIER MESSAGE BUTTON should still be present. I am not a 100% sure though.

I hope this helps.

I have the "load earlier messages" button on my 4S, however, it only scrolls back through the last couple of weeks of messages (this is somebody I regularly message), messages sent and received back in June/July and which hold a lot of sentimental value appear to have been deleted?! It looks like each time I get a new message, the oldest message gets deleted. My iphone is nowhere near full, so why is this happening?! Are these messages permanently deleted???

I do not believe that your messages are deleted. It is just hidden. If you search in the iPhone Search bar and type in the name of the contact, you should see the texts are still there; however, you will NOT be able to OPEN the texts from the search bar. Sorry, this was just for reassurance that your texts are still there.

Once I got the LOAD EARLIER MESSAGES to appear, it only scrolled back to a certain point and not to the beginning of time when I first got the phone. This was strange I thought. Basically, I backed up my phone with iTunes (apps, Pics, and etc) first. I then restored my phone back to factory using iTunes later.

NOTE: YOU MUST BACKUP YOUR DATA FIRST OTHERWISE YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR TEXTS AND etc.

After restoring my phone I was able to use the LOAD EARLIER MESSAGES button to access all my texts from the beginning of time. There is probably a bug in the phone which disables the LOAD EARLIER MESSAGES from showing all your texts. You can try to update the phone first and then restore it. BACK UP the PHONE FIRST OTHERWISE YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR TEXTS AND etc.

Hope This Helps

any updates to this? My wife and I both have the 4s. Mine has a blue message button on top while looking at txt however my wife's button isnt there. Any info is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

This happened to me today. I just upgraded from a 3GS to a 4S yesterday. Never had the problem before. Anyway, I came to this forum because of it. After reading through most of these, I decided to something that's worked for other computer related issues: I turned off the iPhone, waited about 5 seconds, and turned it back on. Seems to have solved the problem.

im having the EXACT same problem :/

Hi, I have 4S and experiencing the same issues i.e. no "Load Earlier Messages" for every contact. I attempted the fix suggested by vinchu48 and this only worked for one (1) contact! Tried the same process over and over again with many different combinations and still that same contact has that "Load Earlier Messages" while none of the other contacts do, even with iMessages still back on? I guess we'll need to wait for a fix to patch that issue?