Latest iOS 11 bug crashes devices sent Indian-language character [u]

Posted:
in iOS edited February 2018
A bug in iOS 11 is causing devices sent a particular character in Messages to crash, and/or disabling some third-party messaging and email apps, but Apple has already fixed the problem in the latest round of iOS, macOS, and watchOS betas.




The character is in India's Telugu language, and if received through Messages will not only cause the iOS Springboard to crash but prevent Messages from opening again until another person sends a benign message, at which point it should be possible to delete the offending thread, The Verge noted. The glitch was originally discovered by the Italian-language site Mobile World.

Another iOS bug is crashing iPhones and disabling access to iMessage https://t.co/9do0xyz7k4 pic.twitter.com/15Ripq7PP8

-- Tom Warren (@tomwarren)


Affected third-party apps include Gmail, Outlook, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger. It can potentially be harder to remove contaminated messaging threads, depending on the software.

At the same time, some other messaging apps like Skype and Telegram seem to be immune. The bug is also absent from the iOS 11.3 beta, suggesting that Apple might be aware of the problem and have a fix.

Given the severity of the issue, the company could be forced to push out an emergency point release -- presumably iOS 11.2.6 -- ahead of time.

Update: The glitch also appears to affect the Apple Watch and Macs, crashing native macOS apps such as Safari and the Mac App Store.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 35
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    This software project management revamp can’t come quickly enough. 


    JanNLwbmnetmagedysamoria
  • Reply 2 of 35
    JanNLJanNL Posts: 327member
    True! But how did the Italians find this bug??
    wbmviclauyyc
  • Reply 3 of 35
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member
    Are any of you are old enough to remember how we Macintosh fans used to ridicule Windows for it's buggy software? 
    edited February 2018 wbmdysamoriatokyojimu
  • Reply 4 of 35
    spice-boy said:
    Are any of you are old enough to remember how we Macintosh fans us to ridicule Windows for it's buggy software? 
    Dude the fact is no one even cares about Android & Windows bugs.
    This is because they are already trash.
    i have seen bugs on Android phones that haven’t even been reported in forums.
    Its just that when there is a bug on iOS or macOS it’s newsworthy.
    lkrupplordjohnwhorfinwatto_cobrajahbladeStrangeDayssuddenly newton
  • Reply 5 of 35
    spice-boy said:
    Are any of you are old enough to remember how we Macintosh fans us to ridicule Windows for it's buggy software? 
    Dude the fact is no one even cares about Android & Windows bugs.
    This is because they are already trash.
    i have seen bugs on Android phones that haven’t even been reported in forums.
    Its just that when there is a bug on iOS or macOS it’s newsworthy.
    Truth. The fact that it’s news says more about the superiority of the platform than anything. 
    lkruppwatto_cobrajahbladeracerhomie3StrangeDays
  • Reply 6 of 35
    wbmwbm Posts: 12unconfirmed, member
    Every piece of software has some bugs in it. That is just the price of life in the fast lane. I would hope that Apple would take more of a focus on software quality. It seems that iOS11 has had a lot of embarrassing little bugs like this. Hopefully the upcoming pm changes will help.
    watto_cobrajahbladewillcropoint
  • Reply 7 of 35
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    JanNL said:
    True! But how did the Italians find this bug??
    Believe it or not there are weirdly strange people in this world that sit around all day , every day fiddling with software and hardware trying to find stuff like this. No one else could possibly come up with the strange keystrokes, button pushes, swipes and whatnot that trigger a bug.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 35
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member

    spice-boy said:
    Are any of you are old enough to remember how we Macintosh fans us to ridicule Windows for it's buggy software? 
    And yet macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS are still vastly superior to Windows and Android in terms of security and stability. Oh, and I still ridicule Windows to this day because of that fact.
    watto_cobrajahbladedfelmlee2racerhomie3StrangeDaysjony0
  • Reply 9 of 35
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,624member
    People care about any bug capable of locking up their devices, especially if they could be impacted by it. The system that has the bug isn't so relevant although some will try to paint a different picture on that point.

    Whether or not the bug should ever have got through QA in the first place is another story.
  • Reply 10 of 35
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    wbm said:
    Every piece of software has some bugs in it. That is just the price of life in the fast lane. I would hope that Apple would take more of a focus on software quality. It seems that iOS11 has had a lot of embarrassing little bugs like this. Hopefully the upcoming pm changes will help.
    This is absolutely true: every piece of software has bugs. 

    But why aren’t Apple writing the software in such a way to prevent bugs in the APIs from bringing down the whole phone?

    This sounds like some kind of memory overrun. 
  • Reply 11 of 35
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member
    spice-boy said:
    Are any of you are old enough to remember how we Macintosh fans us to ridicule Windows for it's buggy software? 
    Dude the fact is no one even cares about Android & Windows bugs.
    This is because they are already trash.
    i have seen bugs on Android phones that haven’t even been reported in forums.
    Its just that when there is a bug on iOS or macOS it’s newsworthy.
    Good dodge from answering the question. Apple has gotten too big and it's software's quality is sliding the way M$ was at it's peak. 
    teaearlegreyhot
  • Reply 12 of 35
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member

    spice-boy said:
    Are any of you are old enough to remember how we Macintosh fans us to ridicule Windows for it's buggy software? 
    Dude the fact is no one even cares about Android & Windows bugs.
    This is because they are already trash.
    i have seen bugs on Android phones that haven’t even been reported in forums.
    Its just that when there is a bug on iOS or macOS it’s newsworthy.
    Truth. The fact that it’s news says more about the superiority of the platform than anything. 
    ? How exactly?
  • Reply 13 of 35
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    lkrupp said:
    JanNL said:
    True! But how did the Italians find this bug??
    Believe it or not there are weirdly strange people in this world that sit around all day , every day fiddling with software and hardware trying to find stuff like this. No one else could possibly come up with the strange keystrokes, button pushes, swipes and whatnot that trigger a bug.
    Yes, Apple cannot test for every single situation the Phone, Mac, Watch, etc is placed in. This is impossible. Every piece of software written by anyone whether its Apple, Microsoft, Google, Adobe, etc, etc is going to have bugs and I'm sure the bug fix will possibly create another bug that may go unfound for a period of time. Then, when you add new features and updates to your software, that has bugs. Its a never ending cycle and no one company is immune to it. 

    To us sitting at home, sure it seems like a stupid bug that shouldn't have ever existed, but the large majority of us are not software engineers working for a Fortune 500 company with specific deadlines, multiple teams working around you that you have the collaborate with, etc. So its very easy for us (Armchair Software Engineers) to sit here and say well this shouldn't have ever happened or this never happen before. Sure it did...we just have short-term memories for certain things, or we forget about these things and only think about the good things that happened. 
    watto_cobraStrangeDays
  • Reply 14 of 35
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,455member
    Rayz2016 said:
    wbm said:
    Every piece of software has some bugs in it. That is just the price of life in the fast lane. I would hope that Apple would take more of a focus on software quality. It seems that iOS11 has had a lot of embarrassing little bugs like this. Hopefully the upcoming pm changes will help.
    This is absolutely true: every piece of software has bugs. 

    But why aren’t Apple writing the software in such a way to prevent bugs in the APIs from bringing down the whole phone?

    This sounds like some kind of memory overrun. 
    Days of buffer overflows are pretty much gone (unless you have a continuous memory leak and the watchdog shuts you down). This is most likely an unhandled character with CoreText or something in foundation. Ironically we ran into this yesterday in our own app with an unhandled character in a font set.
    Rayz2016
  • Reply 15 of 35
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member

    wbm said:
    Every piece of software has some bugs in it. That is just the price of life in the fast lane. I would hope that Apple would take more of a focus on software quality. It seems that iOS11 has had a lot of embarrassing little bugs like this. Hopefully the upcoming pm changes will help.
    Glad to hear you are an optimist but Apple has let it's customers down the past couple of years regarding software too many times. I love the platform and bought only Apple products since 1994 but these days the software is embarrassing. Too many people here make excuses for Apple, the richest company in the world with all the resources needed to release near perfect software as they did before. 
    netmagetokyojimu
  • Reply 16 of 35
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member

    lkrupp said:

    spice-boy said:
    Are any of you are old enough to remember how we Macintosh fans us to ridicule Windows for it's buggy software? 
    And yet macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS are still vastly superior to Windows and Android in terms of security and stability. Oh, and I still ridicule Windows to this day because of that fact.
    I don't care if these are vastly superior to the other I just want my device to work the way Apple intended. Stop making excuses and demand more from Apple. 
    edited February 2018 xamax
  • Reply 17 of 35
    spice-boy said:
    spice-boy said:
    Are any of you are old enough to remember how we Macintosh fans us to ridicule Windows for it's buggy software? 
    Dude the fact is no one even cares about Android & Windows bugs.
    This is because they are already trash.
    i have seen bugs on Android phones that haven’t even been reported in forums.
    Its just that when there is a bug on iOS or macOS it’s newsworthy.
    Good dodge from answering the question. Apple has gotten too big and it's software's quality is sliding the way M$ was at it's peak. 
    For crying out loud, it's not THAT difficult and it's a skill that should be mastered by the time you complete elementary school. https://data.grammarbook.com/blog/pronouns/1-grammar-error/

  • Reply 18 of 35
    spice-boy said:
    Glad to hear you are an optimist but Apple has let it's customers down the past couple of years regarding software too many times. I love the platform and bought only Apple products since 1994 but these days the software is embarrassing. Too many people here make excuses for Apple, the richest company in the world with all the resources needed to release near perfect software as they did before. 
    Surely, you read this recent Twitter thread by Steven Sinofsky about Apple's software development quality problems? According to him, the reality of developing software used by over a billion people is a lot more nuanced: 
    edited February 2018 racerhomie3
  • Reply 19 of 35
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member
    spice-boy said:
    spice-boy said:
    Are any of you are old enough to remember how we Macintosh fans us to ridicule Windows for it's buggy software? 
    Dude the fact is no one even cares about Android & Windows bugs.
    This is because they are already trash.
    i have seen bugs on Android phones that haven’t even been reported in forums.
    Its just that when there is a bug on iOS or macOS it’s newsworthy.
    Good dodge from answering the question. Apple has gotten too big and it's software's quality is sliding the way M$ was at it's peak. 
    For crying out loud, it's not THAT difficult and it's a skill that should be mastered by the time you complete elementary school. https://data.grammarbook.com/blog/pronouns/1-grammar-error/

    When someone cannot rebut a comment they usually go down the "grammar rabbit hole". 
  • Reply 20 of 35
    Apple has recognized that their quality has slipped, and as a result they’re focusing on speed and reliability (over features) in iOS12.

    Next...
    racerhomie3spice-boy
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