iMessage thread stuck on satellite

I HAVE A FIX:

After a very long chat with Apple Support, this is what ended up working:

Open Settings > Apps > Messages > Send & Receive

Remember your settings here.

Tap your Apple Account (it's a small blue link at the bottom).

Tap Sign Out.

Tap Use your Apple Account for iMessage.

Tap Sign In

Sign back in with your Apple Account.

Once you're back on the Send & Receive screen, double check that your settings here are correct.

Try having a friend text you, it should be working as normal.

Not deleting a thread that’s been years in the making, fix this Apple. I can send all the photos I want to my wife. But every time my wife goes to text me. It says I’m in satellite mode. I sent my wife a text when that Verizon debacle was happening. I was at Sam’s Club in the parking lot. I guess the beta testers didn’t catch this one.

So I had the same issue with my wife and our text thread. She could text me fine but when I texted her it would only say satellite and I couldn’t send any media. I tried idkmanwhatever’s strategy and it didn’t work at first. Then I tried logging out of iMessage again (using the Apple account link at the bottom of the send and receive part of message settings). Waiting a bit and actually sending a text message. It didn’t clear until I tried sending a message while logged out. Then I logged back in and it’s working fine. Hope this helps someone. I was also not about to delete a thread with my wife that spans 15 years…

Sorry if my fix doesn’t work for you. My gut feeling is that the issue isn’t with iOS but with the iMessage backend. I probably just got lucky in that signing out and back in reset the value on my account on Apple’s servers telling others that I was in satellite mode.

If you haven’t already, use the Support app to get Apple to notice this problem. Odds are you’ll have to escalate to at least tier 2. If enough people contact them about this they’ll be more likely to push a fix.

I found a fix from Apple Support.

The agent told both parties (both the sender and receiver) to complete the following steps.

1) Go to SETTINGS—> FOCUS —> Share Across Devices (Toggle Off)

2) Restart Device.

This worked and fixed the iMessage thread as being ‘stuck on satellite’.

The agent said that they had seen this problem 3 times before and each time this seemed to fix the issue.

The agent said that IF this did not work, to follow up by turning Airplane Mode ON, then OFF and completing another restart, however steps 1 and 2 fixed the issue and this was not necessary.

I hope this helps everyone like it helped us.

I’ll give it a go. We both deleted the message thread, but didn’t think to delete it from recently deleted. Maybe that the trick. We assumed the same thing that the issue is with the messaging thread itself not with either device.

It did not work for me. We both signed out. Still shows satellite only for my friend. The strange thing is it goes through iMessage normally if I add him to a group.

I believe I sent a message while I was signed out too. That’s probably the key to it resetting the message thread. Good catch!

Had same problem, I looked for an update

updated … and it worked . Coincidence? Not sure !! But it worked !!

I had same problem… went to software updates , there was one , so I updated .

it fixed the problem for me . Apple support was no help . Nothing they suggested worked

is this actually working for you after a few texts? i did this (as well as the avoe tips) and at first it looked all good, but after a few texts it went back to saying I’m on satellite (on my end I’m fine but anyone with an iPhone 14 and above can’t send me photos because it says I’m on satellite)

I tried a combo of bjs19781978 & idkmanwhatever solutions and it seems to be working. 1st delete the message thread and delete it from the recent deleted. THEN follow idkman's steps to sign out of your apple account in messaging and sign back in. Then cross your fingers, jump on 1 foot and sacrifice an android phone to the apple gods. Done and Done.

Same thing here. Only one contact is affected, but of course it’s the person I talk to the most.

It claims he’s connected to satellite but he’s not and never has been. I’m unable to call/Facetime/send media and messages have a character limit but things are normal on his end. Also, he uses a 16 Pro and everything was fine until I updated to iOS 18. (iPhone 15 Pro Max).

I spent hours with Apple yesterday with no help. We have both reset phones, reset network/location settings, logged out/in as stated in this thread, updated software to 18.0.1. Unwilling to delete the thread.

Apple…help!

Try only signing out of iMessage with IDKMan’s instructions. Then send a message to your friend while you are signed out. Then sign back in. I suspect that’s what is actually resetting the thread in the iMessage backend, not the thread deletion.