Android MessagesSource: Android Central

What you need to know

  • Several users in the U.S. received old text messages on their phones overnight due to a buggy "maintenance update."
  • Majority of the messages were originally sent on or around Valentine's Day.
  • The delayed text messages were sent from and received by users across all the four major U.S. carriers.

Thousands of people across the U.S. were left confused late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning after they received text messages that were sent to them months back.

As reported by The Verge, the delayed text messages were originally sent on or around Valentine's Day this year. They were sent from and received by Android as well as iPhone users across all the major carriers in the United States. However, some users have also mentioned a few regional U.S. carriers as well as Google Voice.

A large number of users reported about receiving delayed messages on social media platforms such as Reddit and Twitter. While some said that they received messages from their ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends, others said they had received messages from friends or relatives who are now dead.


According to a Sprint spokesperson, the issue was caused due to a "maintenance update" and was resolved soon after it occurred. T-Mobile, however, blamed it on a "third party vendor." Verizon and AT&T haven't issued any statement so far. Since none of the carriers have shared any details, it isn't clear exactly why the text messages were delayed for so long.

Syniverse, which provides technology and business services to several U.S. telecommunications firms, says a total of 168,149 messages were sent due to the "internal maintenance cycle." Since the glitch has been fixed by the carriers, it is now unlikely that you will receive any similar zombie text anytime soon.

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