Apple rolled out the big iOS 18 update to all users of compatible iPhone earlier this week. Though the new version iOS contained many shiny new features and a huge number of upgrades to existing apps, not every iPhone owner is delighted.
Only a few days after release some users were reporting a bug that was crashing the popular Messages app on iPhones that had upgraded to the new version.
The peculiar bug is triggered by an iPhone user sharing a watch face from an Apple Watch. The Apple Watch includes a feature that lets you share a watch face easily over the Messages app directly from the WatchOS. The idea is to allow users who have created their own custom or personalized watch faces to easily share them with friends and family.
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However, anyone who replies to a shared watch face in a thread on the Messages app in iOS 18 will trigger the bug. If this happens, Messages will crash repeatedly every time the user tries to open the conversation in the Messages app.
Once triggered, the app affects both users in the conversation. This affects iOS 18, iPadOS 18.1 beta and macOS 15.1 beta. Once the bug has been triggered, the Messages app becomes very unstable, and even sending or responding to other chats may cause crashes.
The solution to the bug unfortunately requires losing some data. If the thread containing the shared Apple Watch face is deleted then this does fix the issue. However, this does mean removing all conversation history being removed, including attachments such as videos and photos. If these have not been saved externally from the Messages app, then they are lost.
Trying to restore the deleted thread will cause the bug to pop back up again as well.
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It is likely that Apple are working on a patch that will resolve the issue without losing any precious user data, but until this solution is rolled out, users will be stuck with an unusable app.
For now, prevention is the best cure. Avoid sharing any apple Watch faces in Messages, and definitely avoid replying to any shared watch faces in a thread. Spreading the word far and wide is the best way to avoid more people being hit by this bug, so be sure to let your friends, colleagues and family know.