Unread messages in a single conversation can not be marked as read on iPhone. #6147
Description
- I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates
- I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended
- This isn't a feature request or a discussion topic
Bug description
This started a few weeks ago when I received a text message that when I tried to read it, the app crashed. After that Signal would consistently crash every time I tried opening that specific conversation. Other conversations were unaffected.
In a desperate attempt to try and break the cycle I tried installing the desktop client on my laptop and linked it to the IOS app. It did not crash when entering the conversation but it also seems to have not migrated this message over.
A side effect of linking the desktop app now was that opening the conversation on IOS no longer crashes the app.
But now it seems I have a conversation in an inconsistent state that the app cannot update the unread count of. The only way to affect the unread count is to open it in the desktop app and then it only goes down to 2 as it would seem the desktop client has no knowledge of those corrupt messages in it's local database.
Now I did have a look myself at the logs and found two interesting sections. The first one is from the point in time where opening the conversation was crashing and it looks pretty straight forwards, i.e. the conversation is corrupted in the db.
2025/10/15 10:46:20:146 INF💛 [StorageService.swift:689 storageRequest(withMethod:endpoint:body:chatServiceAuth:)]: HTTP 204 <- SS GET v1/storage/manifest/version/362
2025/10/15 10:46:20:217 INF💛 [OWSChatConnection.swift:425 makeRequest(_:)]: HTTP 200 <- ID GET v2/keys […563]
2025/10/15 10:46:20:218 INF💛 [OWSChatConnection.swift:409 makeRequest(_:)]: Sending… -> ID GET v2/keys?identity=pni […813]
2025/10/15 10:46:20:315 INF💛 [MessageSendLog.swift:396 cleanUpExpiredEntries()]: Deleted 3 stale MSL entries
2025/10/15 10:46:20:365 INF💛 [OWSChatConnection.swift:425 makeRequest(_:)]: HTTP 200 <- ID GET v2/keys?identity=pni […813]
2025/10/15 10:46:20:471 INF💛 [SSKKeychainStorage.swift:106 removeValue(service:key:)]: Removing TSKeyChainService/TSDatabasePass
2025/10/15 10:46:20:474 INF💛 [SSKKeychainStorage.swift:106 removeValue(service:key:)]: Removing TSKeyChainService/OWSDatabaseCipherKeySpec
2025/10/15 10:46:21:415 ERR❤️ [MentionFinder.swift:80 messagesMentioning(aci:in:includeReadMessages:tx:)]: unexpected error SQLite error 11: database disk image is malformed - while executing `SELECT interaction.*
FROM model_TSInteraction as interaction
INNER JOIN model_TSMention as mention
ON mention.uniqueMessageId = interaction.uniqueId
AND mention.uuidString = ?
WHERE interaction.uniqueThreadId = ? AND interaction.read IS 0 AND interaction.isGroupStoryReply IS 0
ORDER BY id`
2025/10/15 10:46:21:459 ERR❤️ [OWSSwiftUtils.swift:67 owsFail(_:logger:file:function:line:)]: 0 SignalServiceKit 0x…148 block_destroy_helper.16 + 96280
1 SignalServiceKit 0x…04c block_destroy_helper + 96352
2 SignalServiceKit 0x…f68 block_destroy_helper + 96124
3 SignalServiceKit 0x…d40 block_destroy_helper.16 + 87056
4 SignalServiceKit 0x…c64 swift_willThrowTyped + 27360
5 SignalServiceKit 0x…5c8 swift_willThrowTyped + 13380
6 SignalServiceKit 0x…418 swift_willThrowTyped + 12948
7 Signal 0x…af8 Signal + 2632440
8 Signal 0x…7e4 Signal + 2127844
9 Signal 0x…964 Signal + 2128228
10 UIKitCore 0x…6d0 xxxx-xx-xx-xxx744 + 16660176
11 UIKitCore 0x…050 xxxx-xx-xx-xxx744 + 16658512
12 UIKitCore 0x…94c xxxx-xx-xx-xxx744 + 16660812
13 UIKitCore 0x…1e4 xxxx-xx-xx-xxx744 + 3195364
14 UIKitCore 0x…714 xxxx-xx-xx-xxx744 + 2258708
15 UIKitCore 0x…e54 xxxx-xx-xx-xxx744 + 1400404
16 UIKitCore 0x…520 xxxx-xx-xx-xxx744 + 1402144
17 UIKitCore 0x…6ec xxxx-xx-xx-xxx744 + 1402604
18 CoreFoundation 0x…76c xxxx-xx-xx-xxxEE8 + 255852
19 CoreFoundation 0x…974 xxxx-xx-xx-xxxEE8 + 63860
20 CoreFoundation 0x…efc xxxx-xx-xx-xxxEE8 + 44796
21 CoreFoundation 0x…174 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 572
22 GraphicsServices 0x…988 GSEventRunModal + 160
23 UIKitCore 0x…a88 xxxx-xx-xx-xxx744 + 5134984
24 UIKitCore 0x…f78 UIApplicationMain + 336
25 libswiftUIKit.dylib 0x…ee4 $s5UIKit17UIApplicationMainys5Int32VAD_SpySpys4Int8VGGSgSSSgAJtF + 100
26 Signal 0x…da4 Signal + 191908
27 dyld 0x…4d0 start + 444
2025/10/15 10:46:21:459 ERR❤️ [SDSDatabaseStorage.swift:246 read(file:function:line:block:)]: error: SQLite error 11: Optional("database disk image is malformed") (extended result code: 11)
2025/10/15 10:46:22:862 WRN🧡 [AppDelegate.swift:186 application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:)]: Launching…
2025/10/15 10:46:22:872 INF💛 [DeviceTransferService+Restore.swift:298 launchCleanup()]: hasBeenRestored: false
2025/10/15 10:46:22:893 INF💛 [AppVersion.swift:253 dumpToLog()]: firstAppVersion: 5_47_0
2025/10/15 10:46:22:893 INF💛 [AppVersion.swift:260 dumpToLog()]: lastAppVersion: 7_74_0_972
2025/10/15 10:46:22:893 INF💛 [AppVersion.swift:261 dumpToLog()]: currentAppVersion: 7_74_0_972
The second one is from after the crash was resolved by linking the desktop app. These few lines basically always show up when I try and mark that previously crashing conversation as "Read"
2025/10/15 11:09:25:902 INF💛 [MessageSender:1204 performMessageSendAttempt]: Sending message: OWSReceiptsForSenderMessage; timestamp: 1760526565887; serviceId: <ACI:xxxx-xx-xx-xxx9fe>
2025/10/15 11:09:25:906 INF💛 [OWSChatConnection:391 makeRequest]: Sending… -> UD PUT v1/messages/xxxx-xx-xx-xxx9fe?story=false […866]
2025/10/15 11:09:26:053 INF💛 [OWSReceiptManager:644 markAsReadLocally]: Marking received messages and sent messages with reactions as read locally (in batches of 500)
2025/10/15 11:09:26:056 ERR❤️ [SDSDeserialization:27 required]: Missing required field: serverDeliveryTimestamp.
2025/10/15 11:09:26:057 ERR❤️ [OWSReceiptManager:662 markAsReadLocally]: unexpected failure fetching unread messages: SDSError: missingRequiredField(fieldName:_:_:_:): unspecified at SignalServiceKit/TSInteraction+SDS.swift#fromRecord(_:):1702
2025/10/15 11:09:26:096 INF💛 [MessageSender:362 sendMessage]: Sending OWSReadReceiptsForLinkedDevicesMessage, timestamp: 1760526566093
2025/10/15 11:09:26:103 INF💛 [MessageSender:1204 performMessageSendAttempt]: Sending message: OWSReadReceiptsForLinkedDevicesMessage; timestamp: 1760526566093; serviceId: <ACI:xxxx-xx-xx-xxxbe6>
In short the way I understand this is that those messages that used to crash the ios client are now preventing the whole marking as read process from going through, making it exit early for this conversation.
Now I'm not a Swift programmer but reading these lines and the associated code they refer to there seems to be no mechanism to gracefully handle message entries with missing data or are otherwise malformed in that code path.
I say this code path since there seems to be some more resilience in other areas since I can now use the conversation again, send and receive messages. Those malformed ones just don't show up, on any client. The only thing they interfere with is the process of marking messages as read.
Hope this was detailed enough and not too confusing. If anything is still unclear please don't hesitate to comment and ask.
Steps to reproduce
- Dragging conversation to the right and selecting "Read", or any of the other methods to mark all as read etc.
Actual result: Unread count for conversation is not updated
Expected result: Invalid/Malformed messages simply get marked as read or better yet, cleaned up. They cannot even be seen in any client so they can just as well be erased from the db.
Device info
Device: iPhone 7
iOS version: 15.8.5
Signal version: 7.74
Link to debug log
Here are the 3 debug logs I generated when testing a few hypotheses myself.
Crash log was also sent at the time when the app was crashing but I have no reference myself to it at this point.
https://debuglogs.org/ios/7.80.0/bc771eaea9e25bcd5e58d0f35a2f8290aae88f26da8377a427c200a5bad34dc8.zip
https://debuglogs.org/ios/7.80.0/54e9923d2e9de575bed0e0d9d2ed73756e30fa61009da931f6bf71c4754cc857.zip
https://debuglogs.org/ios/7.80.0/a32bad58f6ecff4827a4fecfdfae75d5926e33ca0a1cc47f5eb462f893382533.zip