iOS 11 is going to go down in Apple history has one of its most problematic releases ever. This OS version cannot seem to catch a break and lots of features have been breaking. Apple fixes them in the next update of course but the next update comes with its own bugs. At present, users on iOS 11.2+ might be getting iMessages out of order. The bug appears to have been patched in iOS 11.3 but it’s still in beta. A new bug, dubbed the Telugu character bug has now been discovered and it affects the Messages app, and almost all other messaging apps installed on your phone including Facebook Messenger. This bug isn’t Apple’s fault as it has to do with unicode characters. It’s just one of those things that you can’t catch even even through rigorous testing.
The Telugu Character Crash
If you send a particular Telugu character to someone over Messages, it will crash the app as well as other messaging apps on their phone. The problem is with the character so any app that tries to display it, whether it’s the Messaging app or the Facebook app, it will crash said app. The problem can escalate though if iOS tries to display the character in say, a notification. This will cause springboard to reload or your device to crash. If you so much as type the character in say the Notes app, it will crash the app and possibly your phone.
Fortunately, the fix for the Telugu character bug is pretty simple. Also, Apple is aware of the problem and the bug has already been patched in iOS 11.3 (beta).
Fix Telugu Character Bug Crash
If you’ve received the Telugu character and your Messages app, including other messaging apps won’t stop crashing each time you launch them, you need to do two things to fix the problem.
First, have a friend send you a message. It’s best if they send an iMessage but an SMS will do the trick as well. This will fix the problem with apps crashing and your device crashing. The second thing you need to do once your device and apps are stable is delete the message with the text. This might be tricky given how you’re going to access the app again and it will try to render the character again.
If the character was sent over an app like Facebook Messenger, you could try going to the Messenger web interface and deleting it there. Obviously this will be a bit more difficult with Messages so it’s best to just delete the problematic conversation thread instead of opening it again.
