iMessages to an iPhone occasionally appears with words cut off from end

Question

Level 1

8 points

iMessages to an iPhone occasionally appears with words cut off from end

When sending texts from iMessages to an iPhone, the text occasionally appears on their iPhone with a couple words cut off from the end. It appears fine in the iMessages display/history. Here's a few things I've noticed:

- It's repeatable. For example, the following message always causes the issue: "man, why are you here? Two are in testing places". On the iPhone it appears as "man, why are you here? Two are in testing".

- It's a problem with iMessages. If I send the exact same text from the iPhone, it goes through just fine. The message has to originate from MacOS iMessages. (I'm using the latest Mountain Lion and all updates as of 12/21/12)

- The full message is actually being successfully transferred to the phone; it just does not display correctly. There are two pieces of evidence for this. If on the iPhone, the user copies the truncated message and pastes it somewhere else, the full message is pasted! Moreover, on the top level the messages app (where you see the last message from all the recent people you texted with), the full message displays.

- It can happen with both short and longer messages. Here's another longer message I noticed got cut off: "That's funny that you though I was joking when I said I was debugging. Why is that so weird?"

- It has something to do with the length of the message or how it is being wrapped. I can create modifications of those texts with the same length, and they will cut off. (That said, some modifications will not cause the problem, so it's more than just length. Maybe it has something to do with how it wraps the words?) Usually adding a few words to the message will allow it to go through.

- It always cuts off at a space. In other words, it will not truncate something in the middle of a word.

- I have only seen it cut off one or two words before.

Apple really needs to make this a high priority fix. Unreliable messaging of this sort is a deal-breaker for iMessages, IMO. My guess is that they haven't had more reports for this because people simply don't notice unless the last word or two totally ruins the meaning of a text and the other person points it out.

Can people try to recreate this on their machines? If so, please do so and file a bug report (http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html). All you have to do is get on your iMessage app and text one of those two messages to your phone. If it appears truncated on your phone, you've confirmed it. You're welcome to use any of my post in any bug report.

iMessage-OTHER, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 21, 2012 6:54 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 2, 2017 6:24 AM in response to Mazzlefizz

This happens to me, often when I change the font, whether I change the size or turn on "bold font". But it fixes if I re open the app. The only real problem occurs mostly when I choose the smallest font size, with bold font turned on. Even restarting the phone and the app doesn't fix it. Occasionally I change it to the small setting with bold font on and for some reason it will decide to work and I don't know why...

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Answer 2

Sep 24, 2017 9:19 PM in response to Mazzlefizz

This happens to me some what. It’s always when it’s set to the smallest font size and Bold Text is turned on. And it always does one of two things:

1. Cuts of the end of every text I’ve sent or received, and every future text I send.

2. Cuts of the end of every text I’ve sent or received, but doesn’t cut off any new messages I’ve sent or received after changing the font.

It’s really annoying because I like having the bold font. It looks nice.

EDIT: just wanted to mention It happened to me on iOS 10, and still happens on iOS 11. Also whoops, just noticed I already commented on this a while back

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Answer 3

ffaubert

Level 1

5 points

Dec 22, 2012 5:30 AM in response to Mazzlefizz

This happens to me all of the time as well. I can confirm that your first test case is reproducable on my hardware as well.

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Answer 4

Dec 22, 2012 12:22 PM in response to Mazzlefizz

HI,

There are at least two other threads on this.

As Messages is iChat+ and the Version numbers continue where iChat left Off I would use http://www.apple.com/feedback/ichat.html (you will have to enter the OS and App Version info in the Free text area.)

One of the other posters said it only happened once you were over 100 characters.

I have not been able to test this.

8:22 PM Saturday; December 22, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

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Answer 5

Dec 23, 2012 4:52 AM in response to ffaubert

Have you by any chance set the text size to be larger than default (Under accessibility) on your iPhone? As I've seen this happen on an iPhone using larger text. My theory is the bubble size is calculated on the default font size and not the larger one.

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Answer 6

Mazzlefizz Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 23, 2012 9:44 AM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Ralph, thanks for the tip. I always search first and did find one other thread (as well as some on other non-apple forums), but that thread started talking about other issues and then the discussion died. I thought a more specific, more methodical one would be more useful. I did link that thread to this more specific one, though.

As for the 100 character thing, I gave two recreatable examples above that are under 100 characters. One is 49, while the other is 93. I'm fairly certain I can find examples both shorter and longer.

Do you really think people should post feedback under the iChat category? There were a lot of feedback subject areas that seemed to be for deprecated products that current products have evolved from. Moreover, the iChat forum doesn't seem to be used much any more, while there's lots of threads about iMessage in this forum. I was worried that feedback for a product that was already deprecated would be ignored or very low priority.

David, I agree with your intuition that it has to do with how Messages wraps words and perhaps bubble size. I think that's why adding/deleting words or changing several words can change whether the bug occurs. That said, I don't think it has anything to do with the default size of the text though. I don't have my text size changed nor do any of the several people that I've tested the above examples with. And it occurred with everybody I tried sending those test messages to. I bet if you try texting the above examples from iMessage to your phone, you'll be able to recreate the issue too.

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Answer 7

Dec 23, 2012 12:59 PM in response to david.knight

HI,

Interesting thought.

I set my iPhone to 40 pt.

I then type this Messages on my Mac and sent it.

Hi Ralph on the iPhone, this is yourself on the Mac and this is a test of some writing that might go over one hundred characters and get truncated

It appears it is over 100 characters and by either criteria I can't replicate either the 100 character idea of the Oversized text idea you have.

I have to Scroll to read it but the whole message is there

8:59 PM Sunday; December 23, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 8

Mazzlefizz Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 23, 2012 1:13 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

I never thought either of those ideas held, since neither I nor any of the people I sent the message to changed the font size on our phones nor were any of the problem messages over 100 characters.

Ralph, just try setting your iPhone font back to default and then sending one of these two texts verbatim from iMessages on your Mac to your iPhone:

"man, why are you here? Two are in testing places"

"That's funny that you though I was joking when I said I was debugging. Why is that so weird?"

(note that the last message has "thought" mispelled as "though")

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Answer 9

Dec 23, 2012 1:25 PM in response to Mazzlefizz

HI,

On the Feedback front the team that created iChat are the same ones that have morphed into Messages.

You will notice in the drop downs after the Free Text area that the OS Level of 10.8.2 is there but that the iChat versions do not get to iChat 6.

It does list the OS Name each version is supposed to go with but not the Specific sub version (i.e iChat 5.0.3 will only work with Snow Leopard at 10.6.8)

In fact there are more iChat versions than the OS Version list deals with as the OS list start with late Snow Leopard versions.

I have pointed out this sort of issue with that page many times with the Hosts so that they can push it on to the people that update the page.

It is only with the last 18 months that each OS update gets listed when it comes out.

I also believe that the Feedback is still read and is a better route that the more generic starting point of http://www.apple.com/feedback/ partly as the Messages Versions have carried on from the iChat version numbering as well.

As I have just posted above I cannot replicate this myself (font size or Message length)

9:25 PM Sunday; December 23, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 10

Dec 23, 2012 1:57 PM in response to Mazzlefizz

That's weird !!!

Messages on Mac showing Syncing as well. (Send and Receive)

iPhone Truncated.

AS you can see I sent both.

Both are truncated.

However nothing else I have sent has been.

The only common factor seems to be the ? mark.

I sent an iMessage with a ? mark and it went through without being truncated.

Then I thought it might be the double spaces after the full stop but it does not seem to be that either.

Combining both ideas does not explain it either.

I resent " That's funny that you though I was joking when I said I was debugging. Why is that so weird? " and it was truncated again.

I am lost. I have no more ideas.

9:56 PM Sunday; December 23, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 11

Dec 23, 2012 2:03 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Even odder.

My iPad 2 is not syncing properly but is not truncating them.

10:03 PM Sunday; December 23, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 12

Mazzlefizz Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 23, 2012 6:49 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

I've never seen it do what you're saying, where it works one time and didn't another. I've sent those messages a kajillion times now, and it always displays truncated on the iPhone.

I do find it interesting that the iPad doesn't have this issue, which lends credence to the possibility that it's a wrapping/bubble size miscalculation, assuming Messages is a the same app on the iPhone and iPad and the only difference is that the bubbles on the iPad would be much wider and would wrap on different words. I would not be surprised if we could find different messages that would truncate on the iPad but not on the iPhone.

My theory is that iMessages is adding some sort of meta-data or non-printing characters that is throwing off the wrapping calculations in Messages. As I said in the first post, the full message IS getting through. If you hold down on the truncated message and copy it, you can then paste it somewhere else and the full message will be pasted, even though it wasn't visible when you copied it! And then if you send that same message to another iPhone, it goes through fine. That tells me that there's nothing inherently problematic about the words in those texts. Messages can display them fine. iMessages must be adding something when it's sending those texts that Messages does not add when it sends them.

(Actually, someone might be able to confirm this by looking at the underlying database that holds the SMS history to see if there are any weird characters in there.)

The fact that iMessages can do text formatting (bold, italics, colors, etc.) to other iMessage clients also points to the possibility that it adds meta-data to what it sends out. (Messages of course either does not get or does not display that formatting info.)

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Answer 13

Eric D.

Level 2

210 points

Dec 24, 2012 7:12 AM in response to Mazzlefizz

Thanks for all the detailed analysis. This truncation problem happens to me daily and it's very hard to know when it will occur. I literally have to keep my iPhone next to the computer to read each message I send to make sure it didn't get truncated. Very frustrating bug. It's part of a long list of bugs that Apple seems to be slow responding to:

1. Truncated messages sent from Mac to iPhone

2. iMessages out of time sync on Mac, iPad

3. Delivery status varies (shows undelivered on iPad but delivered on Mac)

4. Picture icons only pull from local Address Book files, not FaceBook pictures unless manually synced.

5. Limited Emoji support from within iMessages on Mac

6. No Camera button to take or add pictures to iMessages on Mac client

Those are just a few off the top of my head. I hope we see some fixes soon.

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Answer 14

Dec 24, 2012 12:46 PM in response to Mazzlefizz

HI,

I looked at chat-db using QuickLook but cannot se any differences in the messages I sent yesterday to my iPhone.

The double spaces are the same characters in the truncated ones (before they left) and the iPhone version as they are in non truncated versions.

The Messages App on the Mac can Add Formatting and the Balloon (background) to the IMs or iMessages but the iPhone only sees that Text and adds the Balloon colour based on SMS or iMessages contact.

The same goes for the Formatting (Text, Font Size and Colour)

8:46 PM Monday; December 24, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Reply

Answer 15

Mazzlefizz Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 25, 2012 11:45 AM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

I'm impressed you actually looked at the file, Ralph! 🙂 That said, it's possible that you can't properly see the differences using QuickLook. I don't think it will show the underlying representation of the characters or the related fields in the database that may have other information. It might make more sense to check out sms.db out in a hex editor and a database program. Your initiative motivated me to do both 😉

In the hex editor, I did indeed see a difference in the 'text' field when showing hidden characters. For the problem text "That's funny that you though I was joking when I said I was debugging. Why is that so weird?", some entries had ¬†¬† (tabs probably) after the initial period, while others had spaces. And that wasn't the only difference. In the database program, I also noticed that some of the entries had a slightly different 'attributedBody" field, which the iPhone wiki theorizes contains some sort of meta-data in it. I'm not sure which one of these differences is the important one, but there definitely is a difference.

Anyway, at this point we're probably not going to be able to get more out of this. Hopefully this thread will encourage more people to file a detailed bug report when they see that's it's a repeatable and real issue, not something that just happens sporadically for no perceptible reason. 🙂

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