iMessage notifications won’t go away

I'm glad I didn't follow the suggestion to back up and restore my iPad. What a ridiculous amount of time and work that would have been! Here's what worked for me:

Turned off notifications

Force quit all apps

Hard reboot

Turned on notifications

Info gleaned from postings with respect to the same problem in Facebook messages led me to believe that the problem was being caused by emoticons. Not wanting to purge and restore my iPad I pursued that solution. I found a message containing an emoticon or emoji in the inbox column that could not be read in the main message area. That must have been the culprit because the problem was solved after I completely deleted the string of messages with that contact and rebooted. Previous reboots had no effect at all. I hope this helps.

Hello cg21734,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities!
I understand from your post that the badge app icon on the Message app will not go away even though you have no messages. You have done some great troubleshooting so far. The next steps I would recommend would be to backup and reinstall the software.

The following article has the steps on how to backup your iPad:

How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support

By using the steps as listed from the following article you can reinstall the software on your iPad:
If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Put your device in recovery mode and set it up again

1. Make sure that you're using the latest version of iTunes.
2. If iTunes is already open, close it. Connect your device to your computer and open iTunes. If you don't have a computer, borrow one from a friend or go to an Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider for help.
3. While your device is connected, force restart it with these steps:
   • On an iPhone 6s and earlier, iPad, or iPod touch: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons at the same time. Don't release the buttons when you see the Apple logo. Keep holding both buttons until you see the recovery mode screen.
   • On an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake and Volume Down buttons at the same time. Don't release the buttons when you see the Apple logo. Keep holding both buttons until you see the recovery mode screen.
4. When you see the option to Restore or Update, choose Update. iTunes will try to reinstall iOS without erasing your data. Wait while iTunes downloads the software for your device. If the download takes more than 15 minutes and your device exits recovery mode, let the download finish, then repeat these steps.
5. After the Update or Restore completes, set up your device.

Best Regards.

So I tried becky_s22’s suggestion and sadly that didn’t solve the problem. Anyone else experiencing this issue. Just got this iPad...literally only had it about 3 hours and already there’s a bug/issue. Really don’t want to have to wipe it and set it up all over again. There has got to be a better solution.

A normal reboot didn't work for me. I had to follow the force restart directions to get it to work. I included the link to force restart.

Regular reboot - Restart your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Forced restart - If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch won't turn on or is frozen - Apple Support

Go to your settings, click your notification settings then find your I message. Then click “allow notifications” and make sure it’s off. Then turn it back on and it should go away. Did for me anyways on an iPod.

I have a 5th gen iPad 9.7 inch running iOS 11.3 with a “ghost” notification for a message that does not exist. It was delivered to both my phone and tablet and for some reason didn’t clear the notification on the opposite device, after it was read. I tried turning on and off every setting for messages, notifications, I re-read every message, cleared all from the notification center, deleted old failed to send messages, restarted the app, restarted the device, hard reset the device, I tried messaging myself and opening them and then deleting them. I refuse to do a complete factory reset and restore my entire device over an issue as simple as this. That’s Apple’s easy fix for everything. Just wipe the whole thing. That’s so unrealistic to do as small issues like this come up almost weekly, and a complete restore is honestly a giant pain in the butt, and they should have fixes for bugs like this.

Anyway, what ended up working for me was, thankfully there was a software update for iOS 11.3.1 available and installing that somehow fixed the problem and cleared the notification. I doubt there was a fix for it in the update, it probably just coincidentally fixed it.

For anyone else having this issue with annoying badge app icon notifications that won’t go away, try checking to see if a software update is available and maybe it will fix it. I wasted two hours trying to get that annoying little thing to disappear.

Well the first time I encountered this issue the only option I had was to wipe the iPad and set up as new. But now the issue is back. I have again tried every suggested solution on here. I agree with the previous post that wiping the iPad is is a ridiculous solution to such a simple small issue. That’s always Apple solution and that’s ridiculous. So if anyone knows of anything else let me know because again I’ve tried everything that’s been suggested.

Becky, Same issue with my 6S. I turned off Notifications, powered down, powered up, turned on Notifications, then was able to SEE the message I had not read before…it was only about a week old. All is well with the world now!

After troubleshooting for 30 minutes I decided to try logging out of my Apple ID. At first glance it didn’t appear to do anything for the messages badge icon showing 3 uread messages. So I did a hard reboot by holding down the power button and home button simultaneously until I saw the Apple symbol. Badge icon clear. Be sure you have done a fresh backup to your iCloud so you don’t lose anything... when logging out of my Apple ID I was asked to keep or delete from my iPad, I chose delete because everything was safe on the iCloud and would be redownloaded/connected once I logged back in.

I held the power button and home button until a force reboot. This fixed it for me.

I did sign out of iCloud First, and delete all messages and this didn’t help. I force rebooted and it Fixed it.

Is this the only fix? I have the same issue. Can I delete and reinstall the app?

I have an iPod 6, I also rebooted, but I have messenger in a folder and had to bring the app into the forground and reboot twice. and that worked.