iMessage issues after iOS 27

Hi there

Please try this

Re-trigger iCloud Sync: Go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > Show All (under Saved to iCloud) > Messages, toggle it Off, wait a minute, and toggle it back On. This forces the local SQLite chat database to rebuild and pull missing thread histories from Apple’s servers. 

Deep Reset iMessage & FaceTime: Go to Settings > Apps > Messages (or Settings > Messages), toggle iMessage off, then do the same for FaceTime under its settings menu. Restart your iPhone 14 Pro, then turn both iMessage and FaceTime back on to re-establish a clean token registration with Apple activation servers. 

Verify Send & Return Routing: In Settings > Apps > Messages > Send & Receive, make sure your correct phone number has a checkmark and isn't greyed out or overridden by an email address. If it is glitching, sign out of your Apple ID at the top of Settings and sign back in to refresh authorization credentials. 

I think we have a fix for this now that just came out.

I just put the 27.2.1 update and this appears to fix the iMessage issues. And it opens the app fast. Let's give it a few more days, but this looks good.

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If you are cautiosly waiting before installing the patch, then use this workaround:

1. Go to Settings and Search.
2. Turn off "Show Related Content"
3. Go back to messages and it’s back to normal

That flag will keep turning itself back on, so if it acts up again later on, then repeat the steps above.

After updating my iPhone 17 to iOS 27.0.1, I experienced serious delays sending photos through Messages. Photos sometimes failed to send or took several minutes to appear on my Mac. Even ordinary text messages were delayed.

Here’s what worked for me:

1. On the iPhone, go to Settings > [your name] > iCloud > Messages in iCloud and confirm “Use on this iPhone” is enabled.
2. On the Mac, open Messages > Settings > iMessage.
3. Check “Enable Messages in iCloud.”
4. Click “Sync Now” if available.

On my Mac, this setting had been disabled.

After enabling it, both text messages and photos appeared almost immediately. Emailing photos also worked normally afterward.

I can’t confirm this will fix everyone’s problem, but it resolved mine without resetting network settings or reinstalling anything.

My phone is finally working after Apple finally decided to try something hardware related - the replaced the motherboard which also has the antenna.

Before this I had tried all of the trouble shooting here. The only thing that worked for a few days was DFU restore as new phone. The problems went away until it updated to iOS 27.2 overnight. Problems immediately returned after the update. I spent another 2 hours at the Apple Store plus 6 hours waiting for the repair for them to finally issue a hardware repair. Problem has not happened since and it’s been over a week. I had 4-5 technicians huddled around me at the Apple Store flabbergasted by what was going on and scratching their heads. They all still seem to think it must be firmware hardware related but trying a new motherboard might clear out unwanted bugs 🤷. IDK Seemed like they were semi just shooting in the dark but I’m so glad they tried something.

Here’s a workaround for the hanging iMessage issue:

Go to Settings and Search.

Turn off Show Related Content

Go back to messages and it’s back to

Settings for some reason continues to turn that flag on, so it isn’t a one time fix, but it works fine while messages is open and may have to be done again leaving and coming back. I suspect turning that flag off somehow clears a cache or stops indexing all your messages or whatever.

All I know is it works and has something to do with search, so I suspect the indexing as the problem.

I hope this works for everyone else. It definitely does for me, so give it a shot.

Upgrading to iOS 27.0.1 (from 27.0.0) seems to have resolved this issue for me. Will keep monitoring. Others in this thread have reported that this has not fixed their issues, so I don't want to promote this as a definitive solution.

I’m having the exact same issue, and it’s been happening ever since updating to iOS 27. It’s incredibly frustrating.

I’ve tried just about everything at this point:

• Restarting my iPhone multiple times

• Turning iMessage and FaceTime off and back on

• Resetting network settings

• Deleting entire message conversations

• Checking and reselecting my phone number under Send & Receive

• Troubleshooting with both Apple and Verizon

• Having Verizon issue and activate an entirely new eSIM

• Checking my Apple Account settings and attempting to remove and re-add my phone number

The most frustrating part is that some of these fixes temporarily work. iMessage and FaceTime will successfully activate with my phone number, everything will function normally for a while, and then, seemingly at random, the activation fails again. My phone number becomes unchecked under Send & Receive, messages to other iPhone users switch to RCS, and FaceTime stops working properly.

This can happen even when I’m connected to Wi-Fi.

Verizon has confirmed that everything looks fine on their end and has already replaced my eSIM, but the problem persists.

Apple Support has been equally frustrating. They’ve told me that they can only escalate the issue if I call while it’s actively happening. Since the problem is intermittent, I’m apparently expected to wait for it to break again and then immediately contact support.

At this point, I’ve spent hours troubleshooting something that worked perfectly before the update. It’s ridiculous that such a basic function of the iPhone has become this unreliable.

I’m curious how many other people are experiencing this and whether Apple has even acknowledged that there’s a larger issue.

Had to restore from a pc backup, not had the issue since

On a whim I wondered if the indexing for searches might be a contributing factor. I turned off the show related content in Search and that seemed to fix it. But, the odd part is that Settings keeps turning it back on. There’s no obvious way to actually turn it off. But, turning if off (even if it still resets to on) may clear a cache or something. I’m probably wrong, but I suspect that the AI indexing of messages could be at least a factor. I need to seriously prune my old messages anyway, and I wonder if that may resolve this or at least help. I wouldn’t think that the old message would be indexed more than once, but it’s worth a try and I do need some serious pruning anyway.

Thanks. I’ve actually already tried the iCloud Messages toggle, iMessage toggle, Send & Receive checks, Airplane Mode, and restarting. Restarting is the only thing that temporarily fixes it. The issue comes back when I go offline and reconnect, so I’m trying to find a fix beyond the usual sync/activation steps.

This is also happening for me on my iPhone 15 pro. The only way I can find the messages is on my mac, but I have to know that I'm missing a message.

I've tried the deep reset of imessage and icloud to no avail.

I began experiencing this same issue during an iOS 27 beta and was hoping the final release would address. I have tried all of the suggestions and sometime it will temporarily resolve the issue but ultimately comes back and nothing shared to date resolves the issue. I am using an iPhone 17 Pro Max for reference.

Having the same issue on my iPhone 16 Pro.

> Thanks. I’ve actually already tried the iCloud Messages toggle, iMessage toggle, Send & Receive checks, Airplane Mode, and restarting. Restarting is the only thing that temporarily fixes it. The issue comes back when I go offline and reconnect, so I’m trying to find a fix beyond the usual sync/activation steps.

^^ exact same commentary applies here. Have also already tried factory resetting network settings (mentioned on a reddit thread somewhere) to no avail.

My iphone 13 still has my messages (but for a second may flash empty message warning). But my iPhone refuses to sync with my Mac. It has synced for years with no issues, not Mac is empty. I tried disabling Mac "device" then enabling and clicking "sync now"; nothing yet. Really frustrating that the most bsic regression testing isn't followed at Apple anymore. Update to 26 last year has similar big issues with FaceTime and wallet.

I have the same issue of messaging and it’s saying not delivered but yet the person received it. This is very frustrating. I’ve done all the up fixes that it says to do. Nothing seems to fix my issue.

I also tried all of the above and noticed that messages would go through iPhone users, but not to android users. I also noticed when I type in the name, I noticed that iPhone user’s name is blue and when I type in an android’s name, it is red. I also noticed when I type in the name, I noticed that iPhone user‘s name is blue and when I type in an android’s name, it is red. It cross my mind that I cannot send group text messages because some of the names are android users. Can you please resolve this issue as I think it is a software problem. Please send an update for this problem.

I’m having similar issues. I’m using the iPhone 17 Pro Max running iOS 27.2. Messages are sitting idle when sent and eventually send as SMS rather than iMessage. When receiving iMessages they are delayed by up to 10 minutes. The iMessage will deliver to my inbox but will be time stamped 10 minutes prior. It’s VERY aggravating that a $1,200 phone sold by Apple performs so poorly. Apple didn’t used to be this way and it’s a shame really. I have friends that have the Samsung S26 Ultra and they have zero issues. Sadly, it’s time for me to walk away from Apple. I’ve lost faith in their quality. The fact that they can’t even acknowledge the issue and reassure loyal customers a fix is on the way says a lot. They’re not loyal so I’m no longer loyal. I’ll be using my Nextup at AT&T to trade UP for the Samsung. Sorry Apple.

*I’ve tried every trick posted in the forums. Nothing has fixed the issues.

I only had this issue after the 27.2 update. I’ll try the suggestions provided and hopefully that will help. Closing and reopening seems to help for me, but I still get some lag I didn’t have in past updates.

I'm not going to disable my VPN, though, as sensitive sites where I need the VPN often text confirmation codes. Most of those tend to work, but I have had to request sending another code at times.

That sounds backwards. A software fix for a hardware/firmware issue is one thing, but a hardware/firmware fix for a software upgrade seems odd. If software introduced the problem, then one would expect a software update to fix it. Hopefully, this will be resolved by other means without requiring a visit to the Apple Store.

Exact same thing is happening to me on my 18 pro max

After the ios 27 update I can't go to Photos and send to someone using the Message app, but if i start in the Message app i can use the + button to add a photo to the text message and send it

Me too, but only after 27.01, which suggest it's not only NOT fixed, but it's worst now!

it's the worse! none of the workarounds have worked. come on Apple! you can do better than this.

27.2 f*cking f*cked imessages.

i spend too much f*cking money on this piece of sh*t 18 pro to have to deal with this f*cking sh*t