Apple: How to Fix the iMessage Unicode Bug and Re-open Messages App

Earlier this week it was discovered a bug in iOS 8 can cause a friend’s iPhone to reboot or restring by sending them a string of Arabic characters.

If a friend decided to ‘prank’ you and send you the message, your Messages app may keep on crashing. Apple has posted a support doc detailing how to re-open the Messages app by using Siri. The steps are below:

  1. Ask Siri to “read unread messages.”
  2. Use Siri to reply to the malicious message. After you reply, you’ll be able to open Messages again.
  3. In Messages, swipe left to delete the entire thread. Or tap and hold the malicious message, tap More, and delete the message from the thread.

Apple has stated it will be working on a fix for this in the next iOS 8 update, so stay tuned. Let us know if this workaround was able to help you or not.

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