For years I happily used iMessage both on my tablet and my desktop with nary an issue or problem. NOW I find I am getting quite annoyed at what used to work fine seems to be so broken. Had a few inklings before they “moved it” to iCloud, but since then it’s a total mess. I have ongoing “conversations” with several folks and the issues are that there is zero synchronization any more. I send a message on one device, it never shows up on the other one. Or it shows up a few hours later. Or it shows up completely out of any time based sorting. Someone can send me a message while my tablet is in the other room and I have no clue they sent it because I get NO notice on my desktop. EVEN if I launch the app and actually LOOK.
I am upset because this stuff used to work 100% reliably, and now it seems a complete mess. I keep thinking of all the YEARS I used to promote Mac OS because it always worked 100% of the time… and today it really seems no different than old version of the M$ OS. BUT the question is, is what I’m seeing also affecting others? I’d find it hard to believe it’s just me as it happens on multiple devices… and I’ve run out of ideas of how to try and fix the issue!
I’m having the same issues on all my devices (desktop, iPad, iPhone). I’m also noticing that texts that aren’t from Apple products are showing up with the wrong time, sometimes the wrong date, and often are addressed only to me when it’s a group text. For me to “reply all”, I have to start a new group message, but when the non-Apple person replies, it drops everyone else again. I have no clue who I’m chatting with any longer. It’s frustrating.
I had the issue a while back that PaulC is experiencing. I don’t remember what started it but the fix was to logout of iCloud on every device (Mac, iPad(s), iPhone) and then of course log back in making sure to use the same AppleID across all devices. That fixed it for me.
These issues have been reported for years. Depending on your symptoms, devices and specific settings, the issue can be easily resolved with a settings change on one device, or require a little more digging.
Google phrases like “imessage doesn’t sync”, “imessage problems”, "missing imessages”, “imessage shows up on iphone but not on computer”, etc… and you should be able to find a solution that matches your issue.
I had to do this a few months ago, turns out that somehow (just like in Mail for the poorly named setting “Automatically detect and maintain account settings”) the setting for where I want to receive iMessages got changed. I set it back and it immediately worked as intended again and hasn’t had a problem since. I also had a similar issue just yesterday where suddenly my emails started showing as being sent to a company name instead of my personal name, and I had to go into Contacts and change “My Card” back to the correct one. I believe these kind of issues, especially considering how long they’ve been around, point to something systemically wrong, but I certainly don’t know what it is.
Frustrating? Yes. Should it “just work”? Yes. Am I leaving Mac for Windows? Hell no.
Ha, never said I was leaving Mac OS, but it is kinda tempting me in that a whole bunch of stuff that USED to “just work 100%” seems or “just work 50%,” this is actually only one of the issues I am not happy about. Honestly, “google and you should be able to find a solution” sure sounds like life in M$ land!
Forgot to mention it, but I have not really experienced any issues with my calendar or contacts list… I DID see issues with photos, I think I got that fixed with the log out and back in… or maybe I only did that only on my tablet… sing out of both at the same time I will try!
I WAS forced into re-doing my apple id password recently, which did involve re-signing in to the cloud, but did not involved actually signing out. AND the issues happened before that even happened. AND my “universe” is probably a lot smaller than most of you, I text with exactly 3 people, all of whom have ifones.
Hmmm, may need some advice here. The tablet seems set to use iCloud for Photos, it SAYS they will all be stored in the cloud. If I try and “Sign Out” of iCloud, it SAYS that Photos stored ON the tablet will be deleted FROM it. No issue there, although the logic of deleted locally stored files by signing out of the cloud seems just wrong… especially as it seems I have no choice in the matter.
HOWEVER, on the desktop, in order to sign out of iCloud, it asks about keeping a copy of the data on the local machine… no issue there EXCEPT the selection for Photos is grayed out. It DOES seem to imply that the photos still stay in the cloud, but being grayed out does make me nervous. The check box has a horizontal line and looking at options, I have Library checked but NOT Photo Stream or Sharing (neither of which have anything to do with me as I only have my 2 Apple devices to deal with). It LOOKS like the option is to have PHOTOS ONLY in the cloud with no backup ON my desktop. I KNOW I had the photos stored on the desktop when I started using the cloud… what happens here?
Before I DO any of this signing out, need to find out some stuff. What I WANT is everything that is stored in the cloud to exist ON my desktop (which has it’s own backups). I WOULD also like everything in the cloud to be stored ON my tablet (it was a present and my benfacter bought it with 256G of storage, so zero issue there!). Not sure I really see options o do what I want, can someone tell me how…