Using RCS with Google Messages on GrapheneOS

Syberkonda

One interesting tidbit: on the most current version of messages (286376063), attempting to use "Report RCS Connection State" in the debug menu causes the app to crash. In 242499063, I can see that "Carrier RCS is not set up" and that the ACS URL shows "not connected."

Years ago, there was a way to add an ACS URL to force messages to connect to google's servers and enable RCS, but the corresponding flag is no longer available and can't be set in Activity Launcher. I wonder if there's an alternative way to set the ACS URL to force a connection.

Syberkonda

cb474 echoing what you're saying here about making Google-independent RCS implementation a priority. Graphene obviously doesn't have the resources to do this, but we badly need an open source implementation of RCS if RCS is going to be a serious replacement for SMS. Even if it doesn't fully replace SMS, RCS will become the de facto standard and I for one can attest to the fact that any person living in the real world would have some serious difficulty being able to communicate without it. RCS breaking has broken some work chats for me and Google for some reason decided it was a good idea to not allow for MMS fallback; now, my work chats have 30 days left before they are deleted.

I wonder if this is something FUTO can give a grant to work on or help get some contributors on such a project...

cb474

Syberkonda Yeah, the way I discovered RCS wasn't working is because an image wouldn't send and Messages wasn't falling back to MMS. I had to send a text first, so that it switched the thread to SMS and only then could I send an image.

GrapheneOS

Syberkonda We won't include an app not under a true open source license.

de0u

Syberkonda echoing what you're saying here about making Google-independent RCS implementation a priority. Graphene obviously doesn't have the resources to do this, but we badly need an open source implementation of RCS if RCS is going to be a serious replacement for SMS.

It's not yet clear, but that might be impossible. There isn't an open-source implementation of iMessage, or WhatsApp, because those are designed to be closed systems. If Google and carriers decide to deploy enough "verification" that RCS clients are running their code on their OS, then this won't be solvable. Or perhaps it will be possible to shim or spoof enough to make it work. Right now it's not known.

Lilac6044

More a curiosity point, are most of you from the US? Only reason I am asking is that I know no one who uses SMS for anything except for stuff like 2FA. Just wondering if SMS is more common outside of the country in Europe I belong to.

5rlyn

Lilac6044 when I was stationed in Italy, the cell phone plans we could buy only had a certain amount of minutes and messages attached to them, but had unlimited data. Whatsapp was just starting to come on the scene around that time, so a lot of people used that to circumvent. In the US, it's the opposite. Very rare to see a phone plan that doesn't include unlimited text and calling, but there are many out there (especially lower cost MNVOs) that have a monthly limit to data plans.

It seems like there's a lot of RCS trouble to go around, just horrible timing in the sense that it all kicked off at the same time as a GrapheneOS update.

GrapheneOS

new-graphene-user Their service and verification requirements aren't under our control. It's essentially a Google service even though carriers are expected to provide the low-level communication protocol. We don't know how they verify users.

GrapheneOS

cb474 It was not broken by the 2025090800 update. The last changes which could have impacted it were in 2025090600.

cvsickle

GrapheneOS Is it possible something in the 20250906 update broke it, but the symptoms only showed up on a subsequent reboot?

cb474

GrapheneOS As I said in my post, I'm using 20250813_00_RC02. That's the latest version supplied to me by Google Play. I'm not in the beta program. RCS was working fine for me, until this Tuesday, 09/09/2025. The only obvious change at that time was an update from GrapheneOS. Rebooting was not the issue, because I've had many reboots since 08/13/2025 when my version of Messages was released. I don't know what is causing the problem with RCS, but my experience is not consistent with the details you have provided.

eatinggrumble84 I'm on version 20250813_00_RC02 (286630063). I'm having the experience you describe, where RCS shows connected, but everything is falling back to SMS now. I do not have a "Profile" section appearing in the Messages' settings. RCS stopped working for me two days ago, 09/09/2025. I have never had a problem in almost two years on Graphene, until now.

new-graphene-user

jeffcodes

I checked this morning after doing a few things like enable all permissions, etc. The damn thing is now doing the same as yours, goes from connecting/registering to failed to register trying again.

And just stays there. I dont want to go back to spyware android but this is aggravating, ugh.

eatinggrumble84

I do believe that some of this is probably due to Google Messages server side updates. I started having issues with RCS about a week and a half ago and was able to fix it by downgrading to the previous version 242499063. My RCS was able to reconnect and was working fine for a few days at that point up until about two or three days ago. I started having issues that some people are reporting now where it says RCS is connected, but messages are just automatically sending as SMS. It was that this time that I had also noticed there was some sort of new "Profile" settings in Google Messages underneath RCS that was not previously there, and my app version has remained on the previous 242499063. In trying to troubleshoot the issue I disabled RCS and that Profile Setting disappeared. I have not been able to get RCS to reconnect, and it's been stuck trying to verify.
So I'm assuming that they've been making server side updates that can affect people's RCS connections even if they're remaining on the old versions of messages.

Syberkonda

Update: just got an indication on the messages beta that my device does not meet security requirements for RCS. This is a Google issue and it's probably intentional.

cb474

Syberkonda Given that one of the things RCS provides is better security, including end to end encrypted messages, Google is basically undermining security in the name of security. Obviously apps like Signal do not require low level system permissions and all of this verification stuff, but are more secure than Messages. I wonder what Google's real reason is for this? More data collection?

seaside

Judgeadam This method didn't work for me in the US on AT&T. Curious to know what country and carrier you're using? Also, have you verified that you are actually able to send/receive RCS? Before I started all of this troubleshooting, mine said connected but was sending as SMS anyway so want to confirm yours actually works.

Syberkonda I'm hoping that Google isn't intentionally targeting Graphene/non-standard OS's, otherwise it doesn't seem like Graphene will be viable in the long-term as RCS becomes more and more dominant over SMS and MMS, unless Google opens up RCS, which I am highly doubtful they will. It's possible that Google made some changes to their verification method that Graphene has simply been caught up in, which might be unintentionally resolved with the upcoming Graphene releases that affect cellular. I say hopefully...

new-graphene-user I tried installing from both Aurora and APK Mirror, neither worked for me (they're probably the same, but I was just desperately hoping one might work.) If you want to give it a shot from Aurora, you can do a manual install of version 285853100.

Judgeadam

Mine is now saying device not supported on newer messages app versions. Anyone else? Even on older message versions. Beginning of August versions still have "verifying..."

Judgeadam

This is using messages version com.google.android.apps.messaging_messages.android_20250804_01_RC00.phone.openbeta_dynamic-285853100_minAPI26(arm64-v8a,armeabi-v7a,x86,x86_64)(nodpi)_apkmirror.com.apk

Well. I got it to connect. Here's what I did.
Go into Google account settings personal info phone and take out all phone numbers but your cell. Also turn off auto verify on that phone number.

Then go on cell data only no wifi

Turn off rcs in messages settings

Delete messages app data and cache

Reboot phone

Sign into to the message app and turn it on. Mine now says connected. Hopefully it works for you guys. How long or how good it's gong to work remains to be seen.

Interesting fact, it now says RCS is controlled by the carriers. Not Google. On a little info bubble, next to "connected."

cb474

Judgeadam Interesting fact, it now says RCS is controlled by the carriers. Not Google. On a little info bubble, next to "connected."

In my version of Messages, there is an info bubble that says: "RCS is provided by your mobile carrier under their terms of service." I don't think this is anything new. RCS has always required that the carrier system supports it. Maybe Google is just trying to pass the buck, when things don't work.

nineTHRTY

Judgeadam I'm not entirely sure why you would open the messages app to change a setting and then clear the storage. This would reset the app to default, no?

Syberkonda

Judgeadam just attempted this, no luck. Getting a message saying "Your device does not meet security requirements." Guess it's back to stock OS for me.

new-graphene-user

Judgeadam
I'll try this. Can you get this version from "official" channels and not apkmirror? Dont feel like dealing with 35 parts to the file.

whats the version code? gonna look it up in aurora

GrapheneOS

cb474 RCS currently only provides end-to-end encryption between Google Messages and itself. That's a Google Messages feature.

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