"A new bug has been discovered in the Messages app, allowing a string of characters sent to a person via iMessage or SMS to crash an iPhone and cause the Messages app to crash after being opened. The bug, which requires a specific string of symbols and Arabic characters to be sent, was first noticed on reddit earlier this afternoon and has been spreading around the Internet since then.
Sending the string of characters to an iPhone results in an immediate respring, causing an iPhone to crash and quickly reboot. From there, if the Messages app was opened at a list view, the Messages app crashes automatically when you try to open it. If it was opened to the conversation where you received the message, the app will open, but attempting to go to another conversation causes Messages to crash."
-Sending a reply message may fix the problem.
-If Messages was opened to the conversation list view, the app will crash when you attempt to open it. You can fix this by having someone send you a message or by sending a message to yourself. There are several options for sending a message to yourself, including sending yourself a message via Siri or through the Share sheet in any app such as notes.
-Another method that may work is “sending a photo to the contact via the Photos app can allow them to access the message history and delete the conversation”
-If message was sent in a group message, have someone remove user from the group message and re-add the user.
-if customer is able to get into the effected thread, try holding a bubble>selecting more>select all>trash
-if none of these methods work, restore from a back-up from before the message was received
-if no back up is available, transfer purchases, import photos, screenshot important messages(if possible), erase and set up as new, sync content back.
-If customer have a contact or phone # that is doing this repeatedly, have customer block contact from contacting them.
The bug only works when the message has to be abbreviated with ‘…’. This is usually on the lock screen and main menu of Messages.app.
In order to keep customers safe from this bug, you can have them turn off lock screen and banner notifications in the Settings application.
Settings >Notifications>Messages>Turn off ‘Show on Lock Screen’
Also, turn ‘Alert Style When Unlocked’ to ‘None’
The above fix should keep the customer safe until Apple releases the update with the official bug fix.
