- Google Messages has been hit by a group chat bug
- Users describe it as "frustrating" and "irritating"
- Google says it's now working on rolling out a fix
When you're got an app that's as essential as Google Messages is, bugs are even more frustrating than usual — and Google just acknowledged an issue with the app that annoyed users have been grappling with for several weeks.
The bug in question (via Android Authority) causes group chats to suddenly split up into separate threads. Someone replies to the group, and a new group chat is created, with the same participants but without all the past message history.
According to reports on the Google Messages support forums, group chats can be split until multiple ongoing conversations — which of course makes it tricky to keep track of what's being said, and isn't how group chats should work at all.
As you can imagine, users aren't too impressed with the ongoing issue. "I am so done with this happening!" writes one upset commenter on Reddit, while multiple others are chiming in to call the problem "frustrating", "irritating", and "weird".
Make your feedback heard
Commentfrom r/GoogleMessages
"We are aware of the issue where group chats are splitting into separate threads, and our team is actively looking into it," a Google representative has now announced on Reddit, encouraging affected users to send a feedback report through the Google Messages app.
To do that, open Google Messages on your phone, tap your profile picture (top right), then choose Help and feedback > Send Feedback. Tap Get started, and you'll then be able to describe the problem — just add #splittingthreads to the text before you send it.
Considering the first reports of this issue cropped up three weeks ago, Google has taken its time in getting around to addressing it. Multiple phone models seem to be affected, though many of the users reporting the bug seem to have recently switched phones.
If you are affected by this, there are no reported workarounds as of yet — so you can't really do much except report the problem to Google, then sit tight and wait for a fix to roll out, which will now hopefully be sooner rather than later.
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