iMessage - gray bar covering text entry field

Mine is doing the same it's driving me insane, hopefully we can both get an answer.

I have it too. Seems to only shows up (for me) when I am trying to text non-Apple device users or when an Apple device user chooses not to have i-message turned on. It does go away for awhile if I delete the current message string and start again but thats not too great when you are trying to have a conversation.

Waiting for a solution from Apple. Not holding my breath though.

Same problem with the same odd 0:00 for:

iPhone 5s

Upgraded to iOS9

Not using iMessage for texting

When using the Messages app.

Restarting also fixed this, but this is clearly a bug with the new OS and it needs to be fixed.

Thank you for starting a thread on this st_sf.

I'm also having this problem, just since I installed the new iOS. For me it's only happened in group chats so far.

Go to Character Count in Settings and turn on. I don't see the logic in this but it worked for me!!!

Wow, not sure why that worked, but it did make the 0:00 go away! Thanks! (Fingers crossed it keeps working!)

Now the grey bar appears on all messages no matter who it is to. Yesterday I downloaded the patch hoping maybe that this issue was one of the ones being addressed but no- go. I have found several other iphone users with this problem so I would think they are aware of it.

Maybe?

Getting to be a real pain.

This worked for me.. finger crossed it wont happen again

Same problem here. I've seen posts suggesting turning on character count. Mine is turned on but I still get the grey bar. Not sure what triggers it. For now it seems random and infrequent. Restarting the phone definitely gets rid of it but not permanently. And restarting is certainly inconvenient, especially in the middle of a conversation.

I just noticed this today for the first time. I was out of town all weekend. When I got back to my home city of Denver, I wanted to text a friend of my arrival, who is not in Denver, and found the 0:00 in the text field. I couldn't see anything I was typing on my iPhone 5s. I did the reset (Home and On/Off button) on the way home, and it did clear the 0:00, but the texts still didn't go through. She has an iPhone 5, though not sure what iOS she's running, and none of my texted would go through until I got home and reconnected to my home WiFi. Very strange, but not my only problem.

Several times over the weekend, I, and many others who were attending the wedding I was at, had their iPhones acting glitchy. We'd tap ANY app and the phone would black out for a second then return to the home screen. I did the reset and it cleared that issue for me, so I passed it along to others. This was a problem in iOS 8 versions too. Seems upgrading to iOS 9 and 9.0.1 didn't change this. Will report it to Apple.

Having the exact same issue on my brand new iPhone 6s... seriously not impressed. The character count trick worked but not sure if thats a permanent fix. Getting tired of Apples fan fair for every new product only to find out that its actually flakey. Another issue Samsung and Windows fans can use to embarrass Apple users for spending more money for a so called "premium" product.

Since I did the phone reset on Sunday, with the Home and On/Off buttons, I have not seen the grey bar with 0:00 come back. I just turned on the Character Count in Settings>Messages after reading this here, but not sure it will change anything, since the issue hasn't returned for me anyway. I really don't know why turning it on or off would make a difference either.

where is character count, can't find in settings?