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Jonathan Brady/PA Wire

There's an iOS bug that lets you crash other iPhones with a single text

In some cases, the bug can force an iPhone to reboot.

THERE’S A NASTY new iPhone bug doing the rounds: It’s a string of characters that, when sent in a message, crashes the recipient’s phone.

We first heard about the issue on 9to5Mac, and it apparently affects only iPhone-to-iPhone communication. After receiving a text with the particular string of characters, Messages will reportedly crash repeatedly. It can also force iPhones to reboot in some circumstances.

Here’s the text that is reportedly causing the bug:

effective. Power لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ 冗

For what it’s worth, we’ve tried to replicate the bug and can’t manage it – suggesting that it doesn’t necessarily affect all iPhones. But comments on social media show that it’s definitely for an issue for many:

On Reddit, one user theorises that it’s caused by a failure to render unicode properly — “[causing] messages to take up a lot more memory than normal, leading to iOS killing the largest process,” and thus crashing.

And as 9to5Mac notes, this isn’t the first time this has happened. In 2013, the tech blog reported on how certain Arabic characters could cause issues in both iOS 6 and OS X 10.8.

If you’ve been affected, Forbes has a suggestion on how to fix the issue and let you reopen Messages: Either “have the person who pranked you send another message,” or “send yourself a message through Siri or your Mac.”

Apple told Business Insider it had no comment at this time.

- Rob Price

Read: Is your phone overheating regularly? Here’s how you can fix it >

Read: Why this Irish company’s plans for global expansion is leaving the US for last >

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    Mute Goldberg
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    May 10th 2014, 4:54 PM

    There is something about writing that creates a more personal connection – bit like reading a book on paper rather than kindle

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    Mute Mal
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    May 10th 2014, 10:06 PM

    I agree with you 100% with the whole writing vs typing thing. But paper vs Kindle?? I really can’t see the difference, except with technical books where the pages are generally bigger than a kindle page. But for casual reading, novels and the like Kindle is great. Screens in general on the other hand are terrible IMO. If I need to read something in depth I’ll print it out rather than read it on a screen.

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    Mute Tony
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    May 10th 2014, 5:02 PM

    Always did hand written notes first.

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    Mute Jimbo
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    May 10th 2014, 4:59 PM

    I’ve barely written anything with a pen since I got my first PC in 1992. My hand writing looks like that of a 12 year old.

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    Mute Bob Goodbear
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    May 11th 2014, 1:41 AM

    Mine too! I scribble notes a lot and use my own short hand when typing notes. Not sure half the time what I wrote let alone typed :)

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    Mute Cannabis Freedom
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    May 10th 2014, 5:04 PM

    I work in marketing and I’ve always found that writing ideas down and doodling in general is a great way to stimulate creativity and not just from a work point of view, you can apply it to almost anything that you have going on in your life.

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    Mute Dylan
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    May 10th 2014, 4:40 PM

    They’ve essentially just encouraged people to use Comic Sans MS more, the end is nigh.

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    Mute Clar Ni Threinfhir
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    May 10th 2014, 7:03 PM

    Comic sans is easier to read. It has more highs and lows like handwriting. It’s easier for people with dyslexia to read.

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    Mute Archtographer
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    May 10th 2014, 6:37 PM

    I literally just took a break from converting my written college notes to typed, thanks Journal for ruining my life… ;)

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    Mute Daniel Dudek Corrigan
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    May 10th 2014, 4:45 PM

    While I can see reasoning the problem is that if I write my notes I can’t read them back later…

    Not a problem with typing: I can read, search, share, format, edit…

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    Mute Mal
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    May 10th 2014, 10:14 PM

    I write to a notebook when taking notes, then type them up later. best of both! :-D

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    Mute Clar Ni Threinfhir
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    May 10th 2014, 7:02 PM

    What’s new about any of this?

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