A newly discovered iOS bug is crashing iPhones and leaving users without access to the Messages app.
Users who receive a mysterious string of characters in a text are noticing their Messages app will consequently crash, and in some cases, the phone will automatically reboot, according to 9to5Mac. The issue was first posted to Reddit.
The text is partially in Arabic and includes unicode. It's not so much about what the text says, but rather how Apple's iOS handles the unicode sequence.
People who are sending the sequence are likely doing so either as a joke or with nefarious intent to lock the recipient's Messages app and block incoming texts. It’s not limited to communications between iPhones; a normal SMS text can trigger the bug, as well.
If one more person sends me that stupid turn off your iPhone text I'm gonna be so mad— Sarah Margo (@sarahcmargo) May 27, 2015
The good news: If you received the text sequence, you can undo the damage by replying with a message. In addition, if you have a Mac with iMessage enabled, you can open the message and reply to the sender this way, too.
This is the latest scary iOS bug to make the rounds. In September, Apple pulled an iOS update that disabled the cellular connection and Touch ID fingerprint reader. A glitch affiliated with Touch ID surfaced again just last month.
UPDATE, May 27, 12:45 p.m. ET: Apple said in a statement that it was aware of the issue and would make a fix for the bug available in a software update.