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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

25 replies

Dec 25, 2012 12:45 PM in response to Mazzlefizz

Hi,

some entries had ¬†¬† (tabs probably)

I had seen these in Quicklook at the point where the Message appeared to show double spaces after a Full Stop or Question Mark.

You are right that it have not dawned on me that I had not seen them between words.

It was TextEdit as well (Not sure why I said QuickLook)

29723AE1-6D8B-4932-8353-875164302786man, why are you here?¬†¬†Two are in testing placesn streamtypedÅË Ñ @ÑÑÑ NSMutableAttributedStringÑÑ NSAttributedStringÑÑ NSObjectÖíÑÑÑ NSMutableString ÑÑ NSString ïÑ +3man, why are you here?¬†¬†Two are in testing placesÜÑ iI 1íÑÑÑ

Part of this means the iMessages sent out.

The "repeat" is the sync back from the the ID the iPhone is using.

I am presuming the leading numbers are the iMessage identifier that iMessages uses to tell whether it has been Synced

Messages on the Mac is trying to enclose this in Coloured Balloon (or other style) and lists a Font and it's colour

NSDictionaryïÑ i íÑòò __kIMBoldAttributeNameÜíÑÑÑ NSNumberÑÑ NSValueïÑ *ÑÑ cü ÜíÑòò __kIMFontSizeAttributeNameÜíÑùûÑÑ q† ÜíÑòò __kIMFontFamilyAttributeNameÜíÑòò Arial BlackÜíÑòò&__kIMBaseWritingDirectionAttributeNameÜíÑùû

The sync from the iOS device lists

¢†ˇÜíÑòò(__kIMMessageForegroundColorAttributeNameÜíÑòò #000000ÜíÑòò(__kIMMessageBackgroundColorAttributeNameÜíÑòò #2ba92dÜíÑòò __kIMMessagePartAttributeNameÜíÑùû¢†ÜÜÜ

( A less complicated "Balloon")

It is unlikely to be the Tab key as this changes Fields in Messages (From Text Entry spot, to Search spot, to the "To" spot.)

8:43 PM Tuesday; December 25, 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

Mazzlefizz Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 25, 2012 2:30 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

It's a sqlite database, so you'll see exactly what all of those things are, if you just open it up in a db program. I wouldn't try to parse the raw data too much. 🙂 The only thing that you might miss when looking at in a database program is the tab versus space thing or any other hidden or non-printing characters.

I'm not sure how up to date this is, but here's an explanation of the various tables/columns you'll find in the database: http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/IMessage

Dec 26, 2012 11:23 AM in response to Mazzlefizz

Not sure that is helpful as those characters appear on the Mac Database as the messages sent and the synced messages returning as well.

They appear from the Copy and Paste I did from your post rather than the double spaces I tried when typing my own message.

7:23 PM Wednesday; December 26, 2012

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

ffaubert

Level 1

5 points

Jan 29, 2013 6:17 AM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

This appears to be fixed in iOS 6.1 -- at least on my phone. Can others confirm?

Jan 29, 2013 12:41 PM in response to ffaubert

Hi,

Not yet.

My iTunes is telling me I have stuff on the iPhone that is not in iTunes and I don't know how to sync in this direction.

8:41 PM Tuesday; January 29, 2013

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

Apr 26, 2013 3:56 PM in response to Mazzlefizz

I'm unable to replicate this issue. Using an iPhone 4S with iOS 6.1.3 on AT&T in the US.

Mazzlefizz Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 26, 2013 5:41 PM in response to JohnBradshaw

It was fixed in one of the iOS updates since this post. (6.1?)

That said, I think they fixed it on the phone side but not on the sender side. So, if you send a message from your mac to an iPhone that doesn't have an updated iOS, the message might still be truncated. I could be wrong, though. To be honest, nobody has told me that they've gotten a truncated message in quite some time. Maybe they fixed it on the mac side too now or perhaps everyone I know has updated their iOS.

Eric D.

Level 2

210 points

Apr 26, 2013 6:58 PM in response to Mazzlefizz

There was a post today on MacRumors that said it's still an issue in a very specific case. It has something to do with word spacing. From my experience, it was pretty much fixed in the 6.1 update but I guess there is still a specific scenario where it will occur. You can check out the post for the specifics but it has something to do iMessage not showing the last line in some word spacing situations which makes the text look hidden or missing.

Mazzlefizz Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 27, 2013 9:30 AM in response to Eric D.

Nice find, Eric. And, you're right. The bug is still there, even with the latest iOS. It just seems to be slightly different. Here's a message that still will truncate (from that thread):

The best prize is a surprise "

Make sure you have the extra return and space at the end, i.e.

"<return>

The best prize is a surprise<space>"

The people in that thread have made a few good observations that agrees with our previous assessment that it is a wrapping issue. I do wonder why the old messages that used to get truncated aren't any more...

Apr 28, 2013 2:46 AM in response to Mazzlefizz

I could not repeat the bug when the iPhone 5 language was set to Finnish.

But if I switch the language to English, then the last word of certain phrases is dropped off.

For example, I send the following iMessage (without quotation marks, notice the trailing space at the end) from iPhone 5 (iOS 6.1.3). If the iPhone is set to Finnish, it displays OK in the sent blue bubble. But if I switch to English, then the last word is not displayed (I can copy the whole text from the bubble, though):

"I could be the next Obama "

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