Had to switch back to iPhone - Group Chat Issues

bset

Been using GOS on Pixel8a consistently for about a week and a half. I've really enjoyed all the customizability and learning about permissions and all that, but the native messenger app cannot handle group messages. My family and friends communicate with group chats in their native OS messenger apps. They do not use anything like Signal or Whatsapp and it seems silly to try and tell 20 people to change their phone habits to accomodate me. The native messenger in GOS simply cannot handle group chats - I got a few of the messages here and there, but nothing consistent and 99% of the messages simply never appear for me. Tried installing a different app (Textra) as my default messenger, but same issue of not recieving them.I will have to switch back to iphone so that I dont miss out on all the family/friend chats, but if anyone recognizes this issue and can help with it I'd love to give GOS another go. [yes, i turned off imessage on my sim before switching and confirmed my sim was deregistered from imessage so thats not the messenger issue.. i think]

WestQuester

I had the same problem (it was RCS messages that weren't getting through) and switched to using Google Messages and all my missing messages appeared. I had to use a previous version of Messages though, from August or September of last year.

I don't know if it was related but I deregistered my phone number from iMessages and then made sure I de-registered from RCS on Google and re-registered.

I don't like having Google apps on my phone but it's at least working. Like you, I can't make everyone switch to Signal just to communicate with me (their only contact that uses Signal).

All that said, it's possible to move over to GOS and not miss out on group chats with iPhone users, but if you want to go back to iPhone that's a reasonable choice as well and I get that. Tradeoffs either way.

bset

WestQuester
I think I was hoping someone would come in here and get me with a 'don't give up!'. I just put google messages on the GOS pixel phone and the group chats immediately came through. It hurts a little to use a google service in my de-googling process, but you're right that at least its working! Thanks for the response and hopefully we can find some non-google options in the future.

userofgos

bset de-googling

De-googling is not the purpose of GrapheneOS. Yes you CAN use it without Google, but it is up to the user to decide.

WestQuester

bset Thanks for the response and hopefully we can find some non-google options in the future.

Absolutely! After switching from iPhone (and having been essentially de-googled) I ended up installing several Google apps:

Gboard, which is the only one I've found that does swipe typing with minimal time correcting (used without network permission)
Google Camera, which does panoramic photos very, very well, among other things. AOSP camera doesn't even have a pano option and other apps didn't work well. Also used without network permission.
Google Maps, which I keep disabled until I need it, but Magic earth, and anything based on OpenStreetMaps doesn't have good information for businesses in my area.
Google Messages, for RCS messaging.

I'm hopeful that there will eventually be feature-parity non-Google alternatives to most if not all of these.

wuseman

It seems odd that you came here AFTER switching back rather than BEFORE.

LGgos

Yeah I'm like others in that I just keep on Re-Googling it bit by bit lol. Even though it's not the "purpose" of GOS per se (I've even seen argument that privacy isn't its purpose either, but rather security) that's basically what a lot of us were hoping to achieve in order to get to those privacy goals. But many of us soon start just relenting and installing Google stuff for convenience

I'm at a 50/50 myself whether to just jump ship to Apple (again) for the balance of privacy and convenience, but the biggest annoyances for me are that you can't easily install modified YouTube clients onto their phones for Sponsorblock and that Apple feel they shouldn't allow you to join NSFW servers on popular chat clients AT ALL from an iDevice, even if it's all legal and even if you did relent and hand over your ID. It's better to use a separate device for anything NSFW, but that's not the point, it's mine! I should be able to make my own mistakes.

Unfortunately Apple are very "law wants to sniff your messages"-compliant - but that's not actually my risk profile, at least until our government decides that being gay should be illegal again. My profile isn't "I'd get arrested", it's "I'm tired of my (UK) government treating all 66-ish million of its citizens as suspects and want to shut the curtains". Like a certain YouTuber put it in relation to similar EU things in the pipeline, it's getting to be like having a policeman with a sniffer dog following you around at all times. In other words I know they'd still report me if I was a terrorist or CSAM connoisseur and I dislike that it means they keep looking to slip in pre-encryption scanning, but at least they're resistant to most routine surveillance.

The other thing I wanted to get away from is algorithms feeding me content based on literally everything you do and everywhere you go but honestly the worst offender for that is Google/YouTube.... and that's mostly if you don't go into the privacy settings and just turn all that shit off.

But yeah message clients, in that scenario I'd just install the Google one. I'm "lucky" in that my family settled on Whatsapp.

bset

LGgos
You summarized my feelings on GOS as well (Im in the States, so here the tech company execs are literally being sworn in as lieutenants in the military). But yea, it seems that google messages might be the only big compromise I've had to make so far but I don't use my phone for much more than music/message/gps. GPS I've got MagicEarth and it works fine, and music I setup tailscale+navidrome to stream my own music.

lost_cause

LGgos
I would just like to correct one point. Privacy is the purpose of GrapheneOS. And security is a key component in protecting privacy. GrapheneOS excels at both.

starglider

It's a bit of effort to get it working, but this is a great solution if most of your contacts are iMessage :https://bluebubbles.app/

mar2112

I use Textra and have no issues with group chats.