Unable to text my Mother to her Android phone from my iPhone 13 post iOS 18 update.

It’s the eSIM for phones that have two. Switch to the other one and your problem is solved. The technician said that I could probably switch back to the first since the issue, as he understands it, is that the iOS needs to be reset with the eSIM. You may have to do some research for all of the information required as I didn’t see the exact procedure step by step but the solution is in the Cellular settings. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this yourself then take your phone to your sales person and tell them what needs to be done. I hope this helps!

For phones that have more than one eSIM you have to switch from one to the other to reset the iOS. I don’t know exactly how to do this, but you can tell your technician that this is the problem and it will be fixed.

I’m right there with you. Can’t text Android users (which includes my mother). Husband and I each bought new iPhone 16 pro max. His has no problems with sms messages. Mine won’t send or receive. We’re in the same plan. Went to AT&T store. They called tech support. Two hours later they fixed it but no one knows what they did. A week later it stopped working. I have since spent days on the phone with Apple and AT&T tech support only to be told they don’t know what’s wrong. (They went through all the troubleshooting steps several times). They even sent me a replacement phone which did not fix the issue. I get the ‘waiting for activation’ message in my RCS messages. eSIM says it cannot transfer because ‘account is ineligible’. ATT have confirmed there is nothing wrong with my account. Why does one phone work perfectly but the other can’t send or receive sms messages?! So much time and money spent for no solution. This is infuriating

Same thing with me. And in my group texts it will sometimes “remove me from the conversation” and then the text box disappears. Someone has to delete me from the group then re add me. And now texts from my ipad aren’t going through. SO frustrating!!

iOS 18.1 destroyed my ability to respond to group chats with mixed users.

I can no longer respond to group chats with RCS or SMS users bc it forces me to send SMS, which doesn't work (I get the red exclamation box and it won't send even after I choose retry). I called my carrier and Apple and neither of them can figure out the issue despite having tried everything possible on my end with both senior tech support teams. This started randomly about a week after installing iOS 18.1. It's possible that the update pushed to my phone is no longer compatible with a recent update that Android users may have received that day.

I reset everything multiple times. The carrier installed a fresh eSIM. I toggled every last relevant setting on and off in Settings.

Nothing works. Which leads me to believe my carrier's senior support staff, who pointed out that:

1) this is a trending issue and...

2) that the next iOS patch (he said it's coming on November 20, 2024 - not sure how he has this info) will have an RCS fix in it due to the number of reported bugs.

This is, in my opinion, unacceptable. Whatever (or whoever) caused this, it's crazy that it wiped the ability to communicate en masse to mixed groups when this has never been an issue before. I'm now at the mercy of a potential patch coming out in a week, which may not even fix the problem. This is affecting my personal and professional life due to the impact.

I like to text using my Macbook Pro, and ever since the 18.1 update, I've been unable to text using my Mac. What I did was turn off RCS messaging, and it still wouldn't fix the issue. I realized that the update signed my Apple ID out of iMessage despite being logged in to Apple ID otherwise. Once I did that, I got a message on my Macbook saying iMessage is now able to send and receive text messages. Hope this helps.

This is what helped me. I wasn't having an issue with my iPhone not sending to Android, but it was iMessage on my Mac and iPad. I like to text using my Macbook Pro, and ever since the 18.1 update, I've been unable to text using my Mac. What I did was turn off RCS messaging to no avail. I realized that the update signed my Apple ID out of iMessage despite being logged into Apple ID otherwise. Once I did that, I got a message on my Macbook saying iMessage is now able to send and receive text messages. I hope this helps.

Shortcut to iMessage settings

iPhone 14Pro, iOS 18.1 and iPad Air 13" iOS 18.1 both have the same problem - I have found that I can toggle iMessage off, and use SMS in a group text, and also can then switch iMessage back on and iMessage the group for a short time before the reply text block diapears again. All group memeber are iMessage users. No mixed SMS,RCS users in this group. I too have ran through all the resets (network, phone...) with Apple support and do not have a fix.

Creating a shortcut to the message settings has helped to workaround this issue flipping iMessage on and off.

I just wasted two hours of my time trying to fix my iPhone. My iPhone iMessage is working with other iPhones, but when I try to text a few devices My messages will not go through. After two hours of trying everything with apple support nothingwork out. This is so frustrating. I still cannot text a few androids.

So you’ve gone from inside the message, pressed their profile icon at the top and clicked the info button? Cuz that’s all o had to do.. I had 2 numbers that wouldn’t send messages.. alternatively call that contact and tell them tho message you first, once they do, you can reply and it will send the message like iMessage if iOS phone or RCS.

Apple resolved my issue. I could not text Android users direct, as well as any group chat with an Android user. This started to happen (I believe) after I updated to 18.0.1.

I spoke with a very helpful representative at Apple that had me contact my carrier (T-mobile) to create a ticket number that I could (call back and share) with a senior representative at Apple, who in turn did the same. If Im not mistaken it was so an engineer at T-mobile and Apple can share their notes and work on a resolve. But it was the senior representative at Apple that had called back to share the ticket number with that had me do a series of steps (a lot of steps) including sending screen grabs of the failed messages and chats. Then was advised that it may take the weekend into Monday evening to be rectified. But it was fixed the next morning upon waking up! Im not quite sure what the actual cause was but Im very happy to be able to communicate again with all avail platforms. Thankful to Apple's diligent employees.

Hopefully the above can help another frustrated Apple user. Best of wishes!

Now the issue is solved. Thank you

What did you do to solve this? I am having the exact same issue

Thanks

I cannot receive SMS messages from Duo Mobile/authenticator since the ios 18 update. Anyone with this issue?

Same thing here 🙄