Google Messages has another chat problem users didn’t ask for

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Google Messages users haven’t exactly had a quiet summer. Google recently acknowledged an RCS connection bug affecting some users, and the company is still working with its carrier partners to get that problem under control. Now, another Messages problem has surfaced, and this one can leave your conversations scattered across multiple threads.

Google has confirmed that it is investigating an issue where group chats split into separate threads. Responding to an affected user on Reddit, Google said its team is actively looking into the problem and asked users to submit feedback through the Messages app with the hashtag #splittingthreads to help engineers investigate.

The problem appears to have been around for months. Users on Google’s Messages support forums describe existing group conversations suddenly creating new threads with the same participants , but without the previous message history. This can happen repeatedly during a single conversation, leaving seven or more separate chats involving the same people.

That sounds frustrating enough, but there’s another version of this problem that may hit even closer to home.

Several users on Reddit and the Google Messages community report that individual RCS conversations are also splitting into multiple threads , with replies from the same contact suddenly landing in a new conversation . The duplicate thread can show the same phone number, contact photo, and RCS status as the original, making it difficult to understand what Messages is actually doing.

Deleting the duplicate doesn’t necessarily help, either. The next incoming reply simply brings the second thread back. Others have noticed that Messages for Web and Phone Link can combine the supposedly separate conversations, while the Android app continues treating them as different threads.

The reports span Pixel and Samsung phones, including users who recently upgraded through Samsung’s Smart Switch. Others say the problem appeared without a device change. Some have also noticed Messages switching between RCS and SMS/MMS around the time conversations split, although there’s no confirmation that this is responsible.