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

if i may ask, did you recently get a notification on your iphone that your carrier settings needed to be updated?

And separate from that, i seem to have fixed the problem for us. On each phone i went to Settings/messages/send&receive - on the top where it shows your Apple ID click on it. One of the popup choices is to sign out. Go ahead and do that. It's safe - you don't lose any messages and you can always sign back in.

You then have to delete ALL threads that are inadvertently combined and delete them. That was sad for us because those threads had been long-running ones with our kids but you have to. Hard power down your phone and then restart. Do that with all the effect phones. Then try to text again and please let me know...

jim

if i may ask, did you recently get a notification on your iphone that your carrier settings needed to be updated?

And separate from that, i seem to have fixed the problem for us. On each phone i went to Settings/messages/send&receive - on the top where it shows your Apple ID click on it. One of the popup choices is to sign out. Go ahead and do that. It's safe - you don't lose any messages and you can always sign back in.

You then have to delete ALL threads that are inadvertently combined and delete them. That was sad for us because those threads had been long-running ones with our kids but you have to. Hard power down your phone and then restart. Do that with all the effect phones. Then try to text again and please let me know...

jim

Adding to this: "iMessage combining two contacts into one thread. I can only text back the last one that messaged me. This started with iOS 12" The two contacts being combined are NOT people I share an Apple ID with. I'm having a problem with my 2 children and I get why that is happening since we share....but why am I seeing the same with 2 people whom I DO NOT SHARE an Apple ID with. I message John and the recipient automatically switches to Jane, since Jane is the last of the two to have messaged me. If John messages me last, and I message Jane, the recipient automatically switches to John. The conversation history between the 3 of us is merged....so frustrating. John and Jane think everything is good and don't see any of this. I'm so happy spent a small fortune on the XS and upgrading to iOS12. I want my iPhone5 back!

Same exact issue here. My wife’s texts to our daughters are merged and cannot be separated. She just updated to iOS 12. I haven’t yet on mine and won’t as this is a big mess. Apple, please send and update to fix ASAP!

I can confidently confirm that when I performed the upgrade to ios12 on both my iPhone 7 and my wife’s iPhone 6, I received the prompt to update carrier settings. I responded in the affirmative.

And by the way, thanks for asking the question in the spirit of troubleshooting.

Hi all, I hope everyone who’s had the issue here has emails being sent for the discussion notifications. Just wanted to let you know that I found a fix in an article. Really simple. All you have to do is deactivate iMessage and reactivate it. It will take a while for it to reactivate so don’t do this if you’re having an important conversation with someone and need to talk to them right away. Awhile was ~10 minutes for me on school WiFi. It may have been faster if I was at home but I’m not sure. This is simple solution for all that would like to keep message history! All my texts and photos remained unharmed and the conversations that happened during the merge separated as well. Worked for me and I hope it works for you!

TLDR; deactivate and reactivate iMessage through messages settings to fix this issue we’ve all been having.

Ok, riddle me this Batman.... if IOS12 is working how it’s supposed to and not a bug, what about those of us who have 5 iPhones, all 5 on separate Apple ID’s, yet it’s happening to us too? I’ve talked with Apple too and wiping phones did NOT help the issue.

I have had my family setup on the same Apple ID for 6 or 7 years and iMessage worked fine. Now after iOS 12 it combined my son's and wife's messages into one thread. Can't even text my son now. This is an Apple issue that they should fix.

Just as a workaround for now, my wife, myself, and my kids (2 of them) are using Facebook Messenger for now so we can at least text each other. (this seems to be working)

By no means is this the overall solution though as I am now seeing texts/messages that are intended for my wife on my phone with iMessage! (ugh!)

This is happening to me as well. My wife and two teenagers shared my Apple ID. I went thru the giant hassle of creating them their own apple ID's and getting their devices all set up w/ Family Sharing. Deleted my Imessage thread that was combining and started new threads w/ them all and this worked for a whopping day and a half. My wife messaged me and it came thru on her thread. I responded no problem. All of a sudden my thread w/ my son was gone...so I went to open a new message to him and it displayed the recent conversation w/ my wife. I don't want to have to delete the threads I have with my family every time I message with them. This has been super inconvenient and very short-sighted on Apple's part.

I have another observation!

I've noticed that when I receive certain text messages (e.g. an Amazon shipment update), I hear multiple notification alert tones but there is only one text message received and only one iPhone notification.

Anyone experiencing this same symptom?

I have a question for the people that suggest everyone has their own apple id. I am fine with this if it works but then as a family we can't use Find My iPhone. For Find My iPhone to work everyone needs to be on the same account. As a parent I like being able to see where my family is. If Apple says that each person should have a separate apple account why do require all users to be on same apple account to use Find My iPhone?

GoDawgs1994: I initially had the same conclusion. However, I did not fully understand how FindMyPhone works under the new IOS12. Read about it. While I think you will be pleased with some aspects, others you will not. For example, and I think it’s ludacrous, is that you will need your family members ‘permission’ to track their location. That’s nuts. I’m a dad and I certainly don’t need my 15 year old son making the call on whether or not I know where he is. Also, if you have an older unsupported device (eg iPhone 5 or iipad2) there is no way to provide authorization to share location as those devices are unable to run IOS12. Without authorization, the new findmyphone will not be able to show location.

I have this issue too. We recently added two iPhone Xs’s, and it is only happening with one of them. Addditionally, my wife’s iPad Pro which is NOT updated yet to iOs 12 uses the “messed” up phone to text is NOT combining the people. It’s only happening with texts from me, my son and my daughter to one of the iPhone Xs’s which is my wife’s phone.

And GoDawgs, we just added TWO new iPhone Xss to our account and it is only happening with ONE of them so there is something weird going on. We have had one iPhone i’d since the first iPhone and currently have about 20 devices on it (half of which are shoved in a cabinet and not used anymore). Yes it’s a nightmare but it is for Find My iPhone and sharing.