iphone 1.1.3 – SMS sorting by time bug

UPDATE (27 Feb 2007) – SMS bug is fixed now in 1.1.4

It looks like there’s a bug with software version 1.1.3 that affects most people but only under a few certain conditions:

  1. If you send short SMS to people and they reply very quickly
  2. The clock on your iPhone is set slighlty off true “atomic” time (GMT) in my case.

I have taken a few photos to demonstrate this to you but to give an overview, the new software seems to sort outgoing SMS by the iPhone time it was sent but sorts incoming messages by the time on the SMS server of the 3rd party. If you’re iphone time happened to be 1 minute behind the time of the SMS server, then if your 3rd party replies and you send another message out in under 1 minute, initially the SMS will look ok on the screen, but exit to all SMS list and then re-view the thread and your messages will all be out of sync.

Trust me it’s much easier to visual in the photos and try replicating by sending yourself some SMS:

I then tried updating my iPhone clock to exact GMT but it doesn’t allow me to set seconds, although seconds may set to zero when hitting save. As you can see in the last two image, I must have set the phone a little ahead of GMT as the problem was reversed with my messages grouping after the replies!

6 Replies to “iphone 1.1.3 – SMS sorting by time bug”

  1. Hello people,

    After testing all solutions what i belive is just put your time GMT +5 hrs and you will have no problems, it worked with me i hope it will work for you. If it dont then i am sorry, i just try to help by giving me solution. May be you will have to calculate the difference between time at your place and server………!!!

    Mona!!

  2. Hey guys,
    Im not usually one to comment. but I had this same issue and im in Kiwiland (aka. New Zealand)
    and the way I fixed it was (after a loonnggg time testing every other method) was to turn auto time update OFF permanately, delete all your messages, and set your timezone, (in my case, wellington, New Zealand)
    I am running a;
    8GB iPhone
    1.1.3, Jailbroken.
    If you have any other issues or you cannot seem to get my method working, then i apologise. (This may only work for me, or maybe just people in NZ). But so far, it seems to be stable, and working better (well, just working.) compared to other methods.

  3. lebanon, thanks for the comment, I have heard that

    chmod 777 /var/db/timezone

    does solve the problem for a few users but only those with Jailbroken / hacked iPhones.

  4. connect with ssh then issue command

    chmod 777 /var/db/timezone

    restart iphone

    hopefully “timezone freeze” lets go

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