This Text Message Can Crash Any iPhone [Video]

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Posted May 27, 2015 at 5:56am by iClarified

A bug in the way iOS handles certain unicode text causes the iPhone to crash when receiving a message. The string of text has been making its way around the Internet after it was first discovered on Reddit earlier this afternoon.

effective.
Power
لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ
冗

If you send the string of text to anyone with an iPhone, the device will respring and reboot. Jailbroken users will be forced in Safe Mode. If the Messages app was opened to the list view, then the Messages app will become useless as opening it will always result in a crash.

Oddly enough, if you have the conversation window open already and receive the text, the phone will not crash; therefore, in order for the crash to work, the user must not have the conversation thread open (the crash works everywhere else including the lock screen, notification center, and banners).

Speculation on Reddit leads many to believe the bug is caused by the way iOS process unicode text, specifically in notification banners. The banner reportedly attempts to present the incoming text and then "gives up" thus causing the crash.

If you're stuck with your Messages app constantly crashing after receiving the text there are a couple of fixes. Most involve sending a message outside of the messages app (through Share sheets or through Siri). Below are two examples of ways to solve the issue:

1) Launch the photos app, send a random photo to the person who sent you the text, then go into iMessage and delete the conversation.

2) Use Siri to send a message to the person who just sent you the string. After Siri confirms and sends the message, open the Messages app and the problem should be resolved.

To prevent anyone from restarting your iPhone through the message again, you can turn off alert/banner message previews, or completely turn off message notification banners (Settings > Notifications > Message).

No word on how long this bug has been present in iOS but we're sure Apple will release a fix soon.

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Update: An Apple spokesperson provided the following statement to iClarified:

“We are aware of an iMessage issue caused by a specific series of unicode characters and we will make a fix available in a software update.”

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iPhoneNinja - May 30, 2015 at 6:24am

There is a fix in Cydia called "ineffective power" in Karen's repo. Nice to be jailbroken for up-to-date fixes!

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Araab - May 29, 2015 at 7:30pm

This doesn't work I tried sending to a friend it's bs

Musawer - May 29, 2015 at 9:34am

Great info, but its not working for all the users I found another way First to to settings general and change the date manimum 1 month forward Than Than go to settings > Messages In message history change it to 30 days You will loose all messages but you will fix the issue iclarified should share this with my name

Huh.. - May 29, 2015 at 6:19am

I'm kinda surprised there's Arabic characters. And surprisingly the last 4 characters of the Arabic part mean patience صبر

cowsforsale - May 29, 2015 at 12:40am

Awesome. Helped me too, good explanation.

Hackfest - May 28, 2015 at 9:17pm

Seems to be an IOS 8 issue. I'm on a jailbroken 5S on IOS 7 and it did not work.... Thank God as my son thought he was being funny.....

AntonioMadeira - May 28, 2015 at 8:30pm

Ir doesn't work...

Clock - May 28, 2015 at 10:00am

Yes the problem comes if a person who sent the text in "unicode" format with the message below, From an online webpage - to mobile SMS that doesn't allow replies. Entire organizations could be without SMS services on their Apple devices. Message: لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ 冗

Carsten - May 28, 2015 at 9:39am

What I find most annoying is that all these tech sites mentioning this bug blatantly mention the string you need to enter. My wife's youngest found it very funny to send me this text this morning. I was pissed as hell. Good thing he messaged me again shortly after because that resolved the issue. But why do sites think they do us a favour by mention what exactly can cause a bug. Good for them I don't live in the U.S., because I would have sued them all on a drop of a dime.

JollySonX - May 29, 2015 at 11:15am

Because if I had received this message before reading iclarified I wouldn't know what was going on, and might not of thought the txt was related to it crashing, then I could of restored my phone only for it to happen again, and again.

Guy928292 - May 28, 2015 at 9:38am

I dont know if this has been found before or not. But i think i stepped on something totoally unsual. If you recieve a text message from att domain your text message app will never open again. Try texting yourself example yournumber@txt.att.net from email account. Your text app will keep crashing not sure if this is IOS bug but happen to my three different iphones.

Hashh - May 28, 2015 at 5:08am

My friend sent it through imsg to me and it rebooted my phone. But when another friend sent it to me on whatsapp and i opened it in list form it permanently crashed my messages app. I tried everything these people have listed below.. No luck :(

moussa tohme - May 28, 2015 at 5:19am

remove and reinstall the app without restoring conversation.(but you will loose all conversation data)

moussa tohme - May 28, 2015 at 5:01am

1- set your date 2 month forward. 2- go to settings > messages > (under message history, select keep messages 3o day). NB: this will fix the problem but will delete all your messages inbox

Wadester - May 28, 2015 at 4:55am

This is a really interesting glitch. I did notice that it does not seem to work if your iPhone is in Do Not Disturb mode tho. I suspect that it is because it is not presenting the banner

Gio - May 28, 2015 at 4:49am

My voicemail stopped working.

Francesco - May 28, 2015 at 4:47am

The string crash also translate App

usmanattique - May 28, 2015 at 3:59am

yes it crashes message app

Aloysiusan - May 28, 2015 at 1:22am

If you delete the "effective. Power" part it gets worse, the messages app won't open again

Logan - May 27, 2015 at 9:10pm

My phone is jailbroken and this doesn't do anything at all too it. I can make other peoples phones crash from my phone, but nobody could get my phone to crash from their phone.

ShadowOne - May 28, 2015 at 12:18am

My iphone is jailbroken too and it still crashes when I get the message as a notification.(Perhaps you didn't turn on notification for those apps.) I've tried the Message app, WhatsApp, Google Voice and all of them managed to crash the phone.

tmel4198 - May 27, 2015 at 6:41pm

Reading is a great thing:

Mikkel - May 27, 2015 at 7:40pm

Hej

kitty - May 27, 2015 at 6:35pm

I received this message a couple of different times today and not once did my phone restart.

tmel4198 - May 27, 2015 at 6:42pm

Because you have to have the messages app not open and you also have to have the person saved as a contact

Banana Man - May 27, 2015 at 10:01pm

It only works on iOS 8 people with iOS 7 is useless to do

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