Possible fix?
Apologies if someone's already pointed this out, but I wanted to pop back into the thread to update on a fix that, for now, seems to be working.
Recap:
1. I have six family phones on my account, each logged in under its own unique Apple ID for quite some time before IOS 12 and the cross-texting issue. The "get your own Apple ID" suggestion was not a solution for me.
2. Only three of the six lines in the family were having an issue.
3. We discovered that, despite the affected three phones displaying a unique Apple ID (Settings>>select Apple ID under the picture on the first screen), when looking at the "Send & Receive" screen in the iMessages app (the screen that allows you to select the phone numbers used by the phone), the three impacted phones were all still displaying the same primary Apple ID (the one on my phone from back in the pre-Family Sharing days when we all shared one Apple ID).
4. The other three non-affected family phones correctly displayed the user's unique Apple ID inside the iMessage app.
5. From the iMessages setting, we logged out the two affected phone and re-logged them in under their correct Apple ID.
6. The problem seems to have resolved itself for now.
So, even if you switch your phones to unique Apple IDs (or already had them set that way before IOS 12), try double-checking:
Settings>>iMessage>>Send & Receive. Make each phone is in fact on its individual Apple ID inside the Messaging app.
Hope this helps.
p.s. When we switched to unique Apple IDs some time ago, none of us individually set the iMessage "Send & Receive" screen. For some reason, two of the six phones didn't switch over (mine never changed as it was the original primary/shared Apple ID).
I started getting this problem all of a sudden 3 days ago with my husband and my son. I went into the contacts and deleted the home number, which was shared, by my husband and son. Deleted the home number from my son's contact and viola, it fixed the problem. I hope this helps other users.
Thomas, one of the geniuses in Sydney, and his team fixed my problem, which was identical to yours.
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.
Don't use the same AppleID for more than one person.
Get everyone their own and use Family Sharing.
The fix is for everyone to use their own free separate Apple ID. Here are helpful links to get you started -
Set up Family Sharing - Apple Support
I wouldn't suggest sharing an Apple ID on iOS 12. I would recommend everyone has their own Apple ID.
Do YOU share an ID with anyone? Does she?
I was following is thread as I had this issue too.
Last night I had all 3 phones updated iOS12.1 and it has fixed this issue. 😀
[edit]
...just read the above replies! See you all knew that! 😕
Update the device to iOS 12.1. That was supposed to fix the combining of the threads.
Update your IOS to 12.1.
captainjacksparrow wrote:
Accept giving them separate accounts after they’ve had the same id, doesn’t fix it. So there isn’t a fix for this, until Apple comes out with one.
Yes. It DOES fix it, if you properly wipe the devices to eradicate all ties to the formerly shared ID.
I believe I have discovered a “fix” from another person that was having the same issue.
1) Completely delete the contacts and all message threads they are associated with.
2) Restart your device.
3) Start a new message thread with each contact by manually entering the number and send them.
4) Once each message is sent then you can create a new contact for each.
Not sure if this will work for you, but it worked for me and this other individual.
Just reporting back that since yesterday evening, after I set all of our phones to stop using our apple ids (the option in the send-receive section under settings/message when you tap on your Apple ID at top), no other threads have been combined. This after dozens of messages today with the same phones that had previously combined. I don’t know the downside of setting it that way but my phone and all other apps and functions continued to use my I’d and operated in the typical manner. We do not use the iCloud for backups or storage but the laptop backups I did today stored the messages as usual. As an aside I still haven’t heard this happening to any other provider than ATT. The ATT rep that I spoke to last night looked up the carrier version currently used (33.2) and stated it primarily had to do with improving the data flow of graphics...
This screwed my family up, spend 12 hours with multiple apple support telling me it's my fault for having shared an apple ID and it's imposible to fix.
Had a friend send an inappropriate joke pic wich went to my 13 year old daughter. another friend was making a joke about his and my wife and it went to my wife directly even though he sent it to me.
I spend about 20 hours having to create new ID's and split out into family and move everyones stuff... now the texts are mostly working but it still happens occasionally and we've lost the ability to share things because "Family Share" is not ready for prime time.. no way to automatically share photos, no way to share notes, sharing location through find my iphone has to be manually turned on via messages, yet my child can just turn it off, and I can't share storage, so I had to PAY more for 200GB plan
This is an epic disaster and a serious issue... I'm most ****** about the inappropriate pic going to my daughter, and the fact that I'm taking care of my father on Hospice and had to rebuild 7 family devices remotely. I know this is apples HARD-FORCE to get everyone off of a shared ID so they can charge more money...
This problem was driving me crazy too — but I think I’ve found a solution: Turn off iCloud backup (Settings > iCloud > iCloud Backup > Off).
I had tried setting up separate Apple IDs but that didn’t solve the problem — was still getting merged threads from my family. I had gotten OS12 a while ago (not Beta) but had not had this problem until I turned iCloud backup on — which required changing the toggle on the phone, not just in iTunes.
Hope that helps people. Still a major bug as far as I’m concerned.
An update for anyone following; I contacted Apple support and explained my situation. That two people that I know share an Apple ID and it has caused problems on my phone and not theirs. Their recommendation to me was - those people are going to see this problem more and more as people update their IOS and that they really shouldn't share an Apple ID. I explained that I didn't have any control over how they used their Apple ID's and my phone is the one being changed. Then they recommended - and I kid you not - that I disable iMessage on all my devises.
It's really not a problem for me.... Bye-bye iMessage.
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
