Why is iMessage combining two contacts into one thread. I can only text back the last one that messaged me. This started with iOS 12

sjvivian wrote:

Good luck... Just to reiterate one settings change that has worked thus far for us (4 or 5 days now) - in "Send & Receive" select "start new conversation from" - and pick the email associated with the AppleID for that phone. For receive, choose both the AppleID and the phone #. You indicated you are on separate AppleIDs, so maybe this will help if its not your current settings across all phones. We have 4 on the same AppleID, and now only one phone with that setting (all others just send/receive from # associated with SIM card for that phone) and it appears to have worked after also deleting all old individual and group threads. This was the advice given when I called Apple late last week - to make sure "start new conversation from" was the email associated with the AppleID.

I've tried about every suggestion on the board, and this has been the first that's worked....been about 6 hours now.

sholden wrote:

All four of use my Apple ID.

The following is copied from an sberman post…

This is the cause of your issues. Stop doing this immediately.

Each person receiving a new Apple ID should thoroughly cleanse her/his iOS device(s) as follows:

What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Here is guidance on setting up new Apple IDs:

Help your child set up an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Family Sharing and Apple ID for your child - Apple Support

updated to ios12.0.1 and problem solved. I did find that a person on a different phone service was linked to my 3 phones and when we unlinked it in address book the problem stopped . all phones working great now. He was linked because he was family , had to unlink.

Not sure if this solution will worked everyone but it’s working for me in the short term:

Original setup:

My mother (iPad), spouse (iPhone) and I (multiple devices) all shared an Id when we updated to io12. Like many other people, the texts to my mother (to email) and my spouse (to phone number) merged and I could only send to whoever texted me last.

First attempt:

I created a separate Apple ID account for my spouse and removed all the references I could find on that phone to my account. This didn’t work and the messages still got merged

Current solution:

I started texting to the email address associated with spouse’s account (rather than phone number) and so far it’s working and there has been no merging.

I still want to get the other conversations separated when apple solves this problem they created but this seems workable right now. If things change, I’ll send an update.

The problem likely lies in old ties from prior linkages somewhere in the software / communications database ether. But unless you factory reset every Apple device with any prior linkage, delete every contact with linkage, every old iMessage thread, every tie of prior AppleID possible linkage, restart on separate AppleIDs, etc., etc. it will be hard to know. A solution that has worked for our family (where we share AppleIDs across a few people) has been to (1) update to latest iOS release 12.0.1 (2) ensure one phone (and only one phone but you need one) is set up to "start a new conversation" from the AppleID email address in messaging settings (in our case it's my phone), and all others linked to same ID send/receive from the carrier phone # from their SIM card for the phone and (3) delete all old thread where the linked issues were taking place. This has worked for others in this discussion thread as well. Ours has been fine now for over a week.

In the for what it's worth category, I will repeat again one person's opinion (my own) since the only posts in recent days have been from the other side - Apple does indeed not recommend using the same AppleID for more than one human, that is true. It can lead to issues like these. It clearly was not designed at the outset for more than one human per AppleID. For a lot of reasons, but one simple financial one is people cheat and have 50+ friends and family "sharing" music and other content rather than paying for it.

That said, they know people do it, and several people I have spoken to in support at various levels understand why in the case of parents, etc. folks do it. As a parent of a child who has suffered with depression and anxiety, I would do it again and feel if this is what parents want to do, they should go ahead and do it - regardless of what others in this thread think. Is it subject to risk of issues such as this? Yes. Does Apple know it happens and do they try to "support" where they can - yes, they do. They do not recommend it, but they acknowledge it and will try to help you if you call - keep asking for a higher level of support until you reach someone who is senior enough to be both knowledgeable and a solution driven support person.

No matter what some other post said, it is NOT OK to share an Apple ID, and Apple has been clear about that for years.

See: https://appleid.apple.com/faq/#!&page=faq

Specifically:

Can I share an Apple ID with someone else?

Your Apple ID should not be shared with anyone else. It provides access to personal information including contacts, photos, device backups, and more. Sharing your Apple ID with someone else means you are giving them access to all your personal content and may lead to confusion over who actually owns the account. To share iTunes & App Store purchases, photos, a calendar, and more with someone else, try Family Sharing, iCloud Photo Sharing, or other easy-to-use sharing features.

barbara159 wrote:

The thing is ... once we noticed the problem, the two others who shared my AppleId ... created their own. Still happening. And only on MY phone, not theirs.

Once the mistake has been made, simply eliminating the sharing will not fix the problem. There are issues "under the hood" and further action is necessary for all affected phones:

What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Then reload all apps, music, movies, etc. You will not be charged.

FIRST, if you upgrade to 12.1.1 it may fix the problem.

SECOND, you should not be sharing an Apple ID. It will cause a whole range of problems, this being only one of them. And you can continue to share photos and other content (e.g. calendars) if you have separate Apple IDs and add Family Sharing. See item 4 in this Apple Knowledge Base article: https://appleid.apple.com/faq/#!&page=faq

And this link for Family Sharing --> Family Sharing - Apple Support

If your problem, as you described, started with one person having the same apple id signed into different devices (i.e. one with an international sim card or something) then the only solution is not only to delete the contacts on every one of your devices but to also delete every thread that includes that person, at the international or domestic number. Otherwise, your phone “remembers” the numbers belong together (i.e, same person) on the new unified thread function and forces them back together, over riding any attempt to manually type in a different number. Then very carefully try to communicate with that person only at the number you want...although in most cases, the problem is encountered when family members share an apple id, it can happen without knowing with strangers that have signed in with same id to different numbers...

Thomas, one of the geniuses in Sydney, and his team fixed my problem, which was identical to yours.

1. Make sure iTunes up to date
2. sign out of iCloud
3. Back the phone up to iTunes, NOT iCloud
4. sign out of FaceTime and iMessage
5. Restart phone
6. restore from iTunes backup.

It takes awhile, but it was worth it to save all of my husband’s messages! Both message threads separated and I was able to keep both. Most other answers involved deleting the entire message stream.

Less

new release iOS 12.0.1 , It fixes this problem. I had the same thing

Well the update to iOS 12.1 fixed the bug.

There are two steps to fixing it:

1. Stop sharing an Apple ID
2. Update to iOS 12.1

Someone suggested this solution, which seems to be working when I tried it. Give it a try, I forgot his/her name and can't find the posting to give him/her credit for this post.

I have a family of five, and two of our phones experienced this glitch when updating to iOS 12. I call it the "Frankenstein-chat". What happens when the phone is affected by this glitch, it takes all phone numbers and emails that are linked to iMessage on your Apple ID and merges them into one Frankenstein-chat.

In your case, it took the iMessage chat with your daughter and iMessage chat with your husband and made them one. It will only show up under one of their names at a time, so it won't look like a group message. Very deceiving.

To fix this, simply identify this Frankenstein-chat on the main menu of the Messages app (it should display either your daughter's name or your husband's name). Once found, slide the chat from right to left to reveal a Delete button. Delete this faulty chat and then send a message to your daughter and husband's contacts separately as if they're new people. They should be effectively separated by now, assuming that neither of their phones were also affected by this glitch.

*be sure to save any precious photos or media that you don't want to lose when deleting the old chat in Messages

Do their contacts share any information in common (e.g. address, home phone number)? If so, try deleting that common data.