stickers not working after switching to iphone 16 and updating to ios 26

So I switched from an iPhone 13 to and iPhone 16 yesterday and I have not been able to create or use stickers since switching. Now, I didn't try to use stickers after the transfer because I was prompted to update to iOS 26. But since then I lost the stickers from my old phone and haven't been able to use or create any new ones since the upgrade and update.

I tried just about everything: shutting down and turning back on, resetting the keyboard, toggling iCloud, syncing iCloud. I did try deleting the messages app itself but all that does is just remove it from the home screen.

Anybody have another workaround??