iMessage on iPhone not working after updating to iOS 18.5

My iMessage stopped working after the update. I have tried all the “fixes” above but nothing is working. I can receive from iMessage but sending reverts to green and sends as SMS.

I have signed out, and back in.

Turned iMessage on and off.

checked to see if my numbers was “checked” under send and receive.

turned airplane mode on/off.

Nothing is working. Now I am missing important messages for work.

Strange how my 16 Pro, MB Air, iMac & iPad all have big problems sending attachments w/ iMessage to either groups or individuals... then it got better, then bad again. Gotta be an issue with iOS 18.5 AND  iCloud services.

Hoping the real fix will be 18.5.1 ASAP!

This issue is currently happening to me on my phone NOW. It has been like this since I noticed the update happened on my phone on 6/5/25. My iMessages stopped working as well as phone calls. Now believe it or not, I can get the iMessages from other people on my MacBook and Apple Watch but not my phone. I even purchased a brand new Iphone 16 pro max and it still isn’t working. I pray that Apple fixes this with its next update.

Yes, I am also having this issue. I have 16e and am running iOS 18.5. iMessage isn't working right. Text only messages will go through just fine, but anything multimedia hangs up and fails to send. This happens for videos, photos and voice messages. I also tried to send a photo to a non-imessage number and it still failed. I'm hoping Apple will send an update soon for this issue ASAP.

I did not see any old messages suddenly populate. The messaging app just started working as designed and I did a check-in with all the group-chat members. All bubbles blue. Delivered/Read messages began appearing in individual messages. And all members of the iPhone group chat confirmed they were getting messages again. (I did not test the group chat that included an Android. It is one that is only used once every month or two. So, I don't know if the Android group messaging works or not).

I contacted  senior support, they remoted-in, tried everything. Nothing worked.

*A final step I tried that helped (not fixed):

Turned off FaceTime and iMessage.

Did a HARD REBOOT (Volume up & down, quickly, then press and HOLD power button, ignore 'Slide to power off" screen and wait for a hard reboot. Certainly helped,  support did not.

Waiting for 18.6... :-(

I finally called Apple after trying everything and they said I was on a spam caller list (I’ve seen someone post they got put on that after the update) which is what happened to me but the rep gave me a little attitude and said I would be blocked forever next time if I spammed again I mentioned I saw people post this error on the forum and she just tried to change the subject

thanks. Done.

I called them w/ same issue. They remoted-in, tried everything, sent info to  engineers, never heard back.

Oddly enough, the issue went away on it's own... now, today, back with a vengeance - to group texts in particular.

ERRRrrrrrrr.

Yes this sounds like a ios 18.5 glitch more than apple putting numbers on the spam list. Like for instance if u update to ios 18.5 then your number is on the spam list. Hopefully they fixed it with 18.6 we shall see. Im surprised this issue isnt in the news. Maybe report it to the feedback page? Just a thought. The only issue im having currently which just started yesterday is I keep getting locked out of my account. I think I had this issue years ago on a different ios system and eventually it got fixed when the new ios verison came out.

Me too! I find the group texts are all being sent RCS, while one-on-one text messages are going through as iMessages. I am also able to send iMessages to the group via my Mac, but not my phone. And since the group messages are going through as RCS, they're not showing up in my Mac's iMessages. I am running IOS 18.5, but this only started an hour ago.

Yes i am also sharing the same issue after ios 18.5 update, first my iMessages stopped working than my rcs messages stopped working and now my iMessages and rcs both are completely shut down, i have tried every possible solution, resetting, rebooting, deleting e-sim etc etc but still my iMessages are not working. I have lost 100s of dollars just bcuz of this glitch

Omg I’m having the same issue!! I even got a new phone and still the same issue. I’ve spoke with apple senior tech support and I have to call them back because it’s still happening. I’m so frustrated. I’m like do I need to change my phone number, gosh!

Thank you!!! I went to Apple support after seeing your comment and it told me I was blocked as well!!!! Im

the only person I know that has had this issue and I’m so glad to learn I’m not the only one. I’ve been infuriated for days!

I was on SAR duty this past weekend and it was working fine. Then it started going down hill. I've always been able to send and receive messages to my wife's android phone. Then it required I send messages as SMS text (it gave me the option). NOW it doesn't even give me the option. I ran through a bunch of tests with Spectrum and their assertion was that Androids use a Samsung message system. But my wife's phone uses Google message.

My phone number also got added to the SPAM list and my iMessage works again on the iPhone after talking to the Apple support. I was still getting iMessages on my iPad in case someone else is wondering about that. It makes me worried now that someone might be using my phone number for spoofing or spamming something like that. Apple really needs to find a better way to deal with this. The tech guy told me that they can only unblock your number once. It just seems also like anyone could just maliciously report someone’s phone number on purpose. I am glad it works again and I had a good conversation with the tech guy at Apple support. Apple support seems pretty good to me overall.