Using RCS with Google Messages on GrapheneOS

FJT2

My carrier is T-Mobile in the US
I am running a Pixel 6a with sandboxed google play and most of the permissions that let me use it like any other android phone. I’m a much more average user. I have a lot of google apps installed and logged in with my google account (Yes im trying to move off of it but getting graphene OS and using it like a normal human being is the first step and an important one). I have Google messages installed and could text in RCS DM and RCS group chats without issue since it first became an option in google messages like a year or so ago.

On the evening of September 3rd my RCS chats switched to SMS and I didn’t think much of it because sometimes RCS doesn’t work from time to time when at remote cell towers, whatever.

The next day I realized it was a deeper issue as I could not send RCS group chat texts. The RCS toggle in Google Messages was ON but the connection status would read "setting up” and separately “trying to verify your phone number". Toggling off and on again didn’t work and neither did turning my phone off and on again :(... I first ran through some stuff listed in the major thread:
OG Post: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/20980-if-rcs-just-broke-on-you-do-this/15

jeffcodes https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/1353-using-rcs-with-google-messages-on-grapheneos/507

Novastatic https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/1353-using-rcs-with-google-messages-on-grapheneos/571

DirtyDan https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/1353-using-rcs-with-google-messages-on-grapheneos/609

DirtyDan https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/1353-using-rcs-with-google-messages-on-grapheneos/621

nowcircumscribeyahoo https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/1353-using-rcs-with-google-messages-on-grapheneos/672

whoiswes https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/1353-using-rcs-with-google-messages-on-grapheneos/741

cb474 https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/1353-using-rcs-with-google-messages-on-grapheneos/771

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24090-rcs-stuck-on-setting-up

Phone number verification was already enabled (Settings -> Apps -> Sandboxed Google Play -> Google Settings -> All Services -> Phone number verification)
myaccount.google.com/phone showed my phone number validated and my active devices detected. Toggling that on and off gave a weird error message but I didn’t think much of it because after reloading the page and toggling multiple times, it seemed to stay in the position I had last toggled.

I feel i've followed @DirtyDan 's guide(s), and the variations other users have created, to the T, however I am simply back to square 1, stuck with RCS toggled on (i could turn it off) and status reading: Setting up... trying to verify your device.

I think this matches with what

Judgeadam

said, and this is simply a google/carrier issue. so sad. Thanks to the people who I'm reaplying to and to others who have documented their success and failures.

new-graphene-user

FJT2 It's a google issue because almost all (havent heard about att) are having the same issue. Google sucks

de0u

GrapheneOS new-graphene-user I spoke with a former coworker, he's on a samsung phone with spyware-riddled android 16 and his rcs is also broken.

This Android Authority article is interesting: Lost RCS support in Google Messages since last month? You're not alone.

usatlsmyers

Pixel 9 w/ latest GOS & updates, RCS have been working fine for a long time -- since before the latest Android update -- but recently stopped working for me. I see nothing wrong in my settings and nothing related has changed on my end. Not coincident with GOS updates, but "something" has happened. It seems I'm not alone. If anyone has insight on the issue or its resolution, please do share. It's highly annoying, for sure!

RockHyrax

usatlsmyers insight on the issue: this entire thread.

5rlyn

DirtyDan somehow it wouldn't surprise me if Google found a way to disable RCS and still collect data...

jeffcodes

5rlyn
Agreed. Surely they know we have modified systems and can respond to that.
Who knows.

new-graphene-user

I nuked my p9p and reinstalled GOS. I noticed one thing, you need to download play services and play store from the GOS app store.

Logged in to the damn google acct (i wish I could sideload all my corpo apps) and I saw that there was updates for play store/services.

So I started thinking, could it be an issue that rcs and my case push notifications are broken because Im not using the oe/spyware versions instead?

new-graphene-user

new-graphene-user Is there a reason why I cant edit my own posts? When I do the radio buttons and edit, I get an error saying I cant, not authorized or something. Anywho, after doing all that, I did the 2424 version of messages, followed the allow read device identifiers, and its on setting up under RCS option.

I did get a txt msg from google saying its "verifying phone# of this device as part of setup"
shrug

GrapheneOS

new-graphene-user Firebase Cloud Messaging push works fine on GrapheneOS and there are no known issues with them. You have something set up incorrectly or a network issue. It's not related to this.

cap9qd

Im on ATT and I have had the same issues with showing connected and not sending RCS starting late on 9/9/25. Did all the things that have worked before to no avail. Mine just shows it can't connect at all with message "Trouble connecting. Awaiting retry...". I'm on messages open beta but have not gotten the messages about not being supported or secure like others.

Judgeadam

Hey all, tried the latest update to messages but no dice.

Now I messaged all my friends and im using it as an excuse to get them on to, at the very least, WhatsApp or similar. Fortunately most have agreed and grabbed that or signal because they see a lot of other people they know on it. So that's a small silver lining.

I even tried as a last resort, BTW, doing the full wipe (what a pain in the ass) with the latest everything and it still is "setting up..." Spoke to my contact at Verizon ceo's team from a previous issue I had and she said she will check it an get back to me so if I get any more info I'll let you guys know. Don't know what else to try though. You'd think Google would say something already.

de0u

Judgeadam Spoke to my contact at Verizon ceo's team from a previous issue I had and she said she will check it an get back to me so if I get any more info I'll let you guys know. Don't know what else to try though. You'd think Google would say something already.

Perhaps bring the Android Authority article to the attention of your Verizon contact: Lost RCS support in Google Messages since last month? You're not alone. Perhaps Verizon could get Google to make a statement.

One might hope Google might notice if the fraction of previously verified numbers dropped and continued to drop.

DirtyDan

Does this RCS breakage possibly have anything to do with Apple's rollout of encrypted RCS? This article says that it's possible for it to be released with iOS 26, which is being released tomorrow (September 15th). The timing is very suspicious.

Maybe Google is shuffling things around and refusing to say anything due to legal agreements with Apple? Apple does like to keep hardware/software releases a secret for marketing and other business purposes, so it wouldn't be surprising if they compelled Google to not say anything. Apple could also be silencing carriers or indirectly causing Google to not communicate with carriers about this issue until the feature is officially released. Maybe the Jibe servers wouldn't work with the GSMA encryption Apple wanted to use and this is why they're switching everything?

Just shooting in the dark here. I think we try to explain too much of big techs decisions with purposeful malice when we're likely not even on their immediate radar given how tiny the custom Android OS marketshare is. Even stock Pixel users are an extreme minority compared to the overall Android market and we represent a tiny nothing percent of Pixel users. I think it's a real possibility that we're just getting stuck in the crossfire of a much more noteworthy business decision...

I guess we'll find out relatively soon?

de0u

DirtyDan Does this RCS breakage possibly have anything to do with Apple's rollout of encrypted RCS?

Maybe? Or maybe the situation is about to get a lot worse once Apples rollout gets going.

DirtyDan Even stock Pixel users are an extreme minority compared to the overall Android market and we represent a tiny nothing percent of Pixel users.

Maybe, but we do have the report about a Samsung user, presumably stock (new-graphene-user).

DirtyDan

de0u yes, the normal android users also having problems adds suspicion that this has little to do with targeting custom Android OS's specifically, which is often a sentiment on here.

I think Google is just being really sloppy.

Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

WestQuester

DirtyDan Though, I'm hesitating on disabling RCS because I believe it may permanently break all of my current RCS groups and don't want to do that if a fix is coming any day now.

On another related note, without Google Messages installed, what is your recommendation to users for an SMS/MMS client? The last time I used the default GrapheneOS one, it said it was built for an older version of android.

I decided to take this opportunity to turn off RCS entirely and hopefully in a month or so every message will route to me via SMS. That's the idea anyway. I was always uncomfortable using Google Messages since I'd made a concerted effort to degoogle years ago.

I installed QUIK SMS from F-droid. I tried Fossify and Textra (even paid for the ad-free version) but I liked Quik the best due to better settings options.

jeffcodes

muskrat
Adding encryption for any existing app is a big lift. There is an huge infrastructure lift if you are going to build the full stack yourself. A smaller life if you choose to tap into someone else's infrastructure, if it exists, and it will come at a cost. Likely a cost that a small FOSS Project could afford, especially if theirs usage picked up quickly without charging a fee.

RCS, as a specific example, interfaces with cellular/mobile carriers directly so you can contact those people on T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, etc. Each carrier has it's own infrastructure that registers users and then opens up to the wider RCS network. Essentially, this is a federation of sorts. Now, QUIK, for example, could skip creating their own stack and use Twilio's stack, but that isn't free. Each message sent will have a Twilio fee to cover their costs and profits, and it will also pick up a carrier charge. QUIK cannot eat that, and they would have to charge a fee to their users for this "premium" feature.

Source: I'm a developer who works directly with Twilio integrations into applications for SMS solutions, who researched RCS implementations using Twilio's Business RCS offerings. https://www.twilio.com/docs/rcs

WestQuester

jeffcodes Is there currently any paid service/app for for individuals to use?

new-graphene-user

So another data point. I was on 2424093 whatever version, the rcs message never went past "setting up". I updated to the latest version on aurora, now rcs message says connecting status code 3000, please wait activation is ongoing.

So shrugs?

new-graphene-user

new-graphene-user So to muddy the waters more, my coworker is on a zfold7 with att, his rcs is working perfectly fine

new-graphene-user

WestQuester
Signal

jeffcodes

WestQuester
Not that I know of.
OpenRCS is a group working on stuff, but they seem to be more targeting business use cases.
I have to image the cost to build, server, and maintain an individual based system would be unsustainable without a hefty fee.
For example, it would cost me about $30 per month to send 1,000 messages across various SMS providers. That's just SMS. I am not exactly sure how RCS is structures to know how it would fit into that framework, though I can say it's probably a bit more expense. That is hard to swallow when that is the only service I offer, and I would also have to pay for my infrastructure and my time to support my customers.
It only gets cheaper in the aggregate.

WestQuester

new-graphene-user
That's not a helpful comment. I've been a Signal user for years, but that is incompatible with people using RCS and who (for various reasons) will not use Signal.

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