We first broke the news earlier in the week that a bug in iOS could cause the Messages app to crash and the iPhone to reboot/respring after you get a text with a string of Unicode/Arabic characters.

The problem is quite widespread as users started sending the message to their family and friends as a prank.

Apple has just published a knowledge base article, which provides steps to fix the Messages app crashing issue. Apple has also acknowledged that it is aware of the iMessage issue, and will release a software update to fix the issue.

Apple is aware of an iMessage issue caused by a specific series of unicode characters and we will make a fix available in a software update. Until the update is available, you can use these steps to re-open the Messages app.

Here are instructions that Apple has provided to temporarily fix the issue:

• Ask Siri to “read unread messages.”
• Use Siri to reply to the malicious message. After you reply, you’ll be able to open Messages again.
• 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.

It is one of the solutions that we had recommended in our post on how to fix the issue.

You can also check out our video walkthrough where we explain how to fix the issue:

Update:

Jailbreakers can install the IneffectivePower jailbreak tweak to fix the issue permanently. Check this post for more details. Thanks Erick121 for the tip!

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks everyone for the tip!