First it was memory management issues, then missing photos and now it’s missing text messages, at least that’s what some Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL owners are seeing.
First spotted by Android Police there are several threads on reddit with multiple respondents advising they too are seeing – or rather not seeing text messages missing. Some users are seeing the messages removed before their eyes, while some are finding their text messages missing after a restart.
The issue has been around for a while, with one user commenting it happened to them nine days ago and a reply to them advising reverting to an older version of Android Messages resolved the issue. Based on this it’s possibly related to either the November security update which rolled out last week, or the Android Messages app itself.
If you own a Pixel 3 or Pixel 3 XL you’re probably best off ensuring you perform a manual backup to Google Drive which includes your SMS data.
There’s so far been no response from Google on the issue, though Android Police have sought comment. Pixel 3 owners are eagerly awaiting several fixes for the phones addressing multiple issues and hopefully they won’t have too much longer to wait.
Update: Google has responded to a query from The Verge to say they are aware of the problem and working on a fix, with a spokesperson saying
We recently discovered a bug affecting SMS/MMS on a small number of Pixel 3s and are rolling out a fix soon.
