I’m receiving messages RCS but then my reply is SMS

Having the same problem. iOS 18.2, iPhone 14 Pro Max. One contact who is using Google Messages on a Galaxy S22 or newer. My replies are always SMS, the incoming texts are always RCS. Text bubbles and read receipts are seen from their end.

EmBarry13 wrote:

I’m still having this problem with only ONE contact. It’s SUPER annoying. Still isn’t resolved after the newest update. Any help would be much appreciated!

If the problem is only with one contact, the issue may be on their end.

Same. It’s with my mother who has a galaxy S24. So now I have to use WhatsApp to talk to her because I refuse to be downgraded back to 20 year old technology. This whole line of iOS 18 updates just brings new annoying bugs each time and is really wearing on my willingness to stay a loyal iPhone user. Ugh

I was having the same issue. What I found worked was:

go into your settings and toggle OFF rcs messaging. Then turn your phone off. After it’s powered back on, go into the settings again and toggle rcs back on. It seems to have fixed it for me. For now anyways.

I have an iPhone 15 iOS 18 (updated to 18.2 to try to resolve, no help) and this issue just started happening to me two days ago, with one contact who I text the most, who just from an iPhone to a Samsung galaxy Z flip 6 three weeks ago. It was completely fine texting with RCS until I went to text him two days ago and it wouldn’t send as an RCS so I sent it as an SMS but now even those don’t send to him at all, I get a “not delivered” error every time I go to text him but I receive all of his texts both RCS and SMS.

I can text my other contacts through RCS and SMS who have androids. We have both reset our network settings, power cycled our phones multiple times. We’ve contacted our carriers who say it all looks fine from both ends, he has disentangled his phone number (same as it was for his iPhone) from his iMessage, we spoke to apple and Samsung and nothing. We’re using WhatsApp right now, but any tips or suggestions/resolve would be so welcome. Incredibly frustrating.

I’m on 18.2.1 and I had the same issue.

I’ve tried to turn RCS on and off, same issue.

I restarted my phone, same issue.

I asked my friend on Android to restart their phone and that worked… so it could be an Android issue. Hopefully this gets fixed.

Same. I made the mistake of changing a message to SMS to get an image to go through to an Android user. His messages still come through as RCS but mine are stuck on SMS now. I’ve toggled the RCS setting, etc, with no look.

That is exactly when it happened for me. I made the mistake of changing one message to SMS to get it to go through and now no matter what I try I cannot send RCS to this person only receive. Did you ever find a solution? Thanks!

Did you try this? (don't worry it won't wipe your phone.)

To reset your iPhone or iPad's network settings, you can do the following: 

1. Open Settings
2. Select General
3. Select Transfer or Reset iPhone or Reset
4. Select Reset Network Settings
5. Enter your passcode if prompted
6. Select Reset Network Settings again

I’m having this same issue too with just one contact. I’ve tried resetting network settings, message settings etc and nothing keeps the RCS stable. I did the 18.3 update yesterday and it went back to RCS for one text and then back again to SMS again this morning. Has anyone figured this out? It’s so frustrating!

I’m having the same issue and it just started since I installed iOS 18.3.1. The person I was receiving RCS messages from continues to come in as RCS but as of this morning, after an overnight 18.3.1 update, the box at the bottom of the iMessage app will only indicate “Text Message • SMS” and only allows me to send SMS… I’ve tried turning off RCS, restarting the iPhone13 and turning RCS back on but it’s still stuck on SMS. Is there a new solution?

I'm having a similar issue. Just one contact. I'm receiving RCS messages, but only send SMS. I can see bubbles while the contact is typing, but can't see that my messages have been delivered or read. I've tried updating network settings, had my contact reboot their phone. I'm on an iPhone 15 Pro Max running iOS 18.3.1. It started 2 days ago after i tried sending a photo, it wouldn't send so I sent it SMS. It's been stuck there ever since. If any one has other potential fixes, I'd appreciate hearing them. Thanks!

This also happened to me after I pushed a photo through as SMS. All outgoing messages after would only send as SMS. Tried all the recommended fixes. The only one that worked was deleting the phone number from the contact info, save, and then add the number back. All is working perfect now :)

Same problem. Just with my boyfriend. I even thought it was because we text a lot and deleted almost all our messages. Worked for a minute. Reset my network settings, which deletes all my wifi passwords, which super sucks because that didn’t work either. Come on Apple. Help us out here. It is almost enough to make me switch from Apple to Samsung.

Unreal I’m having this same issue again. Boyfriend was flying I sent a text to him close to when he took off so my phone went rogue and decided to send one message to him SMS and now once again his messages come to me RCS mine send to him SMS. I tried the contact trick I used above that fixed it last time and it did not work this time. Have tried restarting my phone and turning off and on RCS and nothing is working. Really don’t wanna reset my network settings again and lose all my WiFi passwords when this didn’t even work to fix it last time. This is honestly becoming a very irritating and now recurring issue. Come on Apple please fix this!