search Messages iOS8 on iPhone 5s not working right

Well, I wish I had a "here's the fix" workaround, but after getting in touch with my senior rep, I was told that they have confirmed the issue and are working on a fix. There isn't an eta, but it is being worked on. Normally this would frustrate me, but they were really thorough in unpacking it with me and I trust that it's actually being looked at. The fact that they wanted to let me know this over the phone is a big plus in my book, as I used to work for a large tech company's call center, and we would often just send the "known issue" email response.

Hopefully this this news comes as some comfort to anyone else that finds this thread. Know that it's at least confirmed and in the pipeline for a fix. 🙂

HEllo, thanks for the post!

we know at least that apple is aware on the issue, hopping they will fix it in the next release.

keep us informed of you have any feedback again.

many thanks

Hello All,

Try this discussion. Look up how I got to get it working. A few other folks got good success following how I fixed it. Link below:

cannot search messages after upgrading to iOS8!!!

Here's my post there:

"After relentlessly switching languages back and forth out of sheer anger and desperation (Lol), it finally worked for me. But I did something different at the last time. After switching to Spanish, I waited 30 seconds. Then toggled off and on Messages in Spotlight. Then while still in Spanish, did a search and it started to search of all 1.3GB of Messages worth that I have. Switched back to English, started to search, it seems to restart the indexing all over again, but rebuilt pretty fast and now all is back to normal - meaning I can search all of my 1.3GB of Messages again. I know, I have tons of texts, but that's another topic. Finally, I removed the Spanish keyboard. I'm a happy Apple customer again."

Best of luck!

-Joel

Thanks for the post.

still doesn't work for me!

my hope is that Apple will finally take this bug seriously and launch a quick fix soon.

I did the 'fix' of turning off spotlight, changing language to spanish, restart, switching language back to english, restart again, remove spanish keyboard.

It works briefly to search all my text messages, then after a time, it stops searching again. This is really frustrating. I use text message to keep track of everything I do. I am able to find people who I do business with through searching. Now, I cant find anyone. I have to do it manually which is very time consuming.

I can only say that I have the same problem and cannot stand it, tried everything that was advised here 😟

Even though this probably wouldn't help alleviate frustration now, I hear that this bug is fixed in the 8.1 developer builds. Here's to hoping it's released soon!

I tried all the above fixes with changing language settings etc but none worked.

Just now went into settings-general-spotlight search and unticked messages. Opened up the messages app and now I can search all my messages successfully. I went back to spotlight search ticked messages. All seems to be working for time being.

THANKS,

I had to change it to Spanish and that didn't work changed it to Chinese (sorry not sure what one) and that worked.

Ha, I guess I will try a different language then. This is really affecting my business and my productivity. I can not find people who I need to communicate with.

I changed to Italian this time, hard restart, then changed back to English, hard restart, open messaging app, and search for old texts, and its finding everything now. It is now functioning fine for the past 5 minutes of doing this. The last time, if functioned fine, but then the next day, it was back to the same problem again. Let me see how long it lasts this time.

This worked for me! I am hoping it lasts though. Thanks! 🙂

SI, when I did mine, I was happy, but then mid-afternoon the next day, it stopped working again. For me, it works for about 24 hrs then back to being broken again. It will find the first 7-8 recent messages, however it won't search any of the old messages. I really hope this is resolved soon.

hi, these steps work well for few days but it bounces back to not searching again, now repeatedly do this setting to get the search engine running, can we compel APPLE for a final solution or a update cos searching is one important thing in my business at least.

RReading that apple will probably release IOS8.1 after tonight's keynote.

let's hope we will find a solution...