iOS 11 Bug: Receiving Indian Character Disables Access To iPhone Messages App

Apple has already faced several bugs that could disable access to the Messages app on iOS devices. Now a new one has emerged for iOS 11 and this time the culprit appears to be a specific Telugu (Indian) character.

The iOS bug was first spotted by the Italian site Mobile World. Apparently, the bug will be triggered when users receive a specific Indian character in the Messages app. When users try to open Messages, it will simply crash and refuse to open. The Verge’s Tom Warren was able to replicate the bug and even shared a short video on his Twitter page.

The bug appears to be only affecting iPhones running iOS 11.2.5. The Verge also tried it on multiple iPhones running that specific version of iOS and the bug also appears to be affecting third-party apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Gmail and Outlook. Access to these apps may be disabled when users receive the text. The only messaging apps that don’t appear to be affected by the bug are Telegram and Skype.

Users won’t even have to open the cursed message to trigger the bug. According to Mobile World, the bug seems to be a lot worse when iOS displays the message in a notification. When that happens, the entire Springboard of iOS will be blocked. The site says that users will have to wait for Springboard to restart so that it can be usable once again. If users force a full reboot, their iOS device could be stuck in a boot-loop, in which the device continuously restarts on its own, according to 9To5Mac.

For users running the public beta of iOS 11.3, their iPhones, iPads or iPod touches won’t be affected by this bug. It’s very likely that Apple has already been made aware of this issue and a fix for this bug will be available once the final version of iOS 11.3 is released to everyone sometime this spring.

So far, the only possible way to regain access to the Messages app is by having another friend send the user a message. When the user receives his or her friend’s message, they may be able to have access to the Messages app once again and delete the thread that contains the Indian character. There’s no guarantee that this will work for everyone, but The Verge says it worked for them.