Tons of smartphone owners, no matter if they use Android or iOS devices, got a strange surprise overnight. Reports have trickled in all day on Thursday of long-delayed text messages (from around February, specifically Valentine’s Day, this year) finally arriving. Weirder still, they appear to be messages that were never sent in the first place and are only just now showing up on the phones of their intended recipients.
As if that wasn’t weird enough, the problem seems to span every major carrier. Social media is replete with mentions about the issue from customers of T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon — in addition to Canadian carriers as well as Google Voice users, to name just a few. And that doesn’t even cover them all.
What’s the problem? Well, as if this news wasn’t weird enough, the answer to that question is just as — you guessed it — weird. The Verge rounded up statements from various carriers who tried to identify the problem, with a Sprint spokesperson blaming a “maintenance update.” T-Mobile’s answer? A problem with a “third-party vendor.” Of course, it’s not only weird that these answers sound a bit mysterious and aren’t the same, even though the problem very much is the same across those and other companies. But it also doesn’t explain why the issue manifested itself last night in addition to happening in the first place back in February, when the texts never got sent in the first place.
As you can probably imagine, there are a variety of issues (some light-hearted, others downright upsetting) that crop up when we talk about delaying the receipt of text messages until months later.
Apparently this is a nationwide issue…
I guess I could have it worse 💀💀💀 pic.twitter.com/Fojxh4jxqo— jamie 💖 (@PBandJamiee) November 7, 2019
A number of users took to Twitter to lament either receiving a text from an ex (and vice versa, realizing an old text had just been sent to an ex). Other people, as you can see in the tweet above, actually got texts sent back in February from a person who has since passed away.
I just got a text from my bestfriends phone only issue is she’s been dead since February
— KuribHoe (@FU_GaryOak) November 7, 2019
I'm relieved that I no longer need to discuss putting my dad in an old age home after getting a 5am text from him about a pizza I ate in February. https://t.co/3ILAKMzCRf
— Eric Goldschein (@ericgoldschein) November 7, 2019
Tech is so good that last night it re-sent me a random old text from a woman I went on two dates with in February
— ZJ Thorne (@ZeeJayThorne) November 7, 2019
So far, there don’t seem to have been official comments from AT&T and Verizon. Hopefully the problem has been fixed for good so no one gets woken up in the night again with a text from an ex — or worse.
