iPhone Crashing Text Will Also Shut Down Twitter, Slack, WhatsApp, Snapchat

A bug that can crash any iPhone through a line of text also affects a number of apps that rely on push notifications on the smartphone. Twitter, Slack and a number of others are among those affected.

The bug -- which was discovered by several users on Reddit -- requires a specific string of text containing Arabic, Chinese and Marathi characters to be sent. The receiving iPhone will then crash upon receiving the message and reboot. Users that receive the text through the iPhone’s messages app need to perform a workaround to gain access to the app again.

Snapchat reportedly experiences similar symptoms, according to the Guardian. But in International Business Times’ tests the app crashes immediately when the text is pasted into a chat window.

The offending string of text:

Power
لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ
冗

The same text can also be sent over social media apps such as Twitter through mentions or direct messages, causing an iPhone to reboot. Other messaging apps that rely on the iPhone’s banner or lockscreen notifications -- such as WhatsApp and Slack -- are also affected. But users are still able to get into the apps afterwards.

In the case of Facebook Messenger, the social networking site has proactively blocked the text from being sent and Google Hangouts will immediately crash if the text is pasted into a text field, as IBTimes found in our tests.

Apple has issued its own support document, detailing a workaround that involves using Siri to send a message to reopen the Messages app. But an official software update has yet to be released.

“We are aware of an iMessage issue caused by a specific series of unicode characters and we will make a fix available in a software update," said an Apple representative in statement.

Until the software update is issued, users can turn off text previews in Messages or shut off banner and lockscreen notifications for apps affected by the text bug.