Phone freezes up every time I open Messages

A regular iOS update won’t solve it. Try upgrading to the public test version of the NEXT release of iOS, which fixes it permanently. It’s commonly referred to using the second letter of the Greek alphabet.

glad to hear that the issue is fixed in the release that has the second letter of the greek alphabet in it. As I mentioned, the issue went away on my phone and I am on 17.6. Not saying that 17.6 fixed the issue, I just don't have it anymore. Upgrading to the next release, that has the second letter of the greek alphabet in it, might have many other issues though and one should search for currently known issues in that release before you upgrade. You might be trading one issue for many other.

August 15, 2024: This was happening as recent as a week ago for my family of 4. None of us could use Messages and we had to resort to using a different messaging app to community. As of today (8/15/24), nobody in my family has this issue anymore. Can anyone else confirm the issue is fixed for them too?

Hi all, i have had this issue since immediately upon upgrading to iOS 17.5.1 and has persisted to current latest version. Extensive apple store visits and tech support calls yielded no help and no result. Then the 5th technical support person I talked to said, Oh, let's just try one more thing: try deleting your VPN configurations (Settings -> General -> VPN & Device Management). This seems to have fixed it. It was interesting to discover that I deleted several VPNs with no effect, then deleted a certain one and the Settings app crashed. But then when re-opened, it was working.

I am going to try adding my VPNs back today, hope this fix helps y'all however.

I should note that I have used 1.1.1.1, WireGuard, and Mullvad VPN clients on the same phone at various times. The configuration I deleted was a Mullvad config for WireGuard app, unused for over a year, which I installed before there was a mullvad client available.

Solution for me: Look in your address book for an entry with many (hundreds) of telephone numbers, such as SPAM or Mr Number or some other blocked list. Deleted that address book listing that holds so many numbers. After doing that, my similar problem was solved.

What was Matt's suggestion? I don't see it in the thread.

This worked for me!!! Thanks so much for the suggestion - no issues since!

Updated to 17.6 but the problem persists….

really annoying

I had the same issues and it was resolved✅

either you contact (iphone support) to go through some procedures or try updating the iphone to latest version using MacBook & cable charger.

I have found that logging out and back in to iCloud on my iphone seems to work. Updating to later iOS 17.6.1 did not work.

my iPhone 12 keep frozen when I try to edit message that I send. Please 🙏🏻 fix

Is there a solution to this problem?

I had the same problem. I turned off iCloud syncing for messages, then turned it on again and clicked the "sync now" button. It seems to be working ok now.

I have an iPhone 16 and my dad has an iPhone 14 and both of our phones are doing the exact same thing can’t open them can’t close them can’t view them. Everything‘s frozen.

Why I can not receive message messages or send out messages