Android Messages update just ruined notifications for a lot of people

It isn't often we hear of an update to a core Google apps going terribly awry, but that's just what's happening to Messages as we begin the week. At the end of last week, Google pushed a new update to Messages, bringing it to version 2.5.207. While the update only contained bug fixes and stability improvements, it also tossed a massive bug into the mix.

As it turns out, this new update is breaking notifications for a lot of people. Android Police first spotted the problem, and it points to the Google Play Store, where a lot of users are leaving negative reviews now that they're not getting notified of new messages. This, as you can imagine, is about as frustrating as a bug can be for those folks.

The update seems to disable notifications in every form – users are reporting the absences of push notifications, sounds, and vibrations, leaving them no way of knowing that they've received a new message until they actually open the app. Making matters worse, there doesn't seem to be a way to solve this problem yet.

Indeed, users have tried changing notifications settings, uninstalling and then reinstalling, and even performing a device reset, all to no avail. Switching to another SMS app while this bug persists seems to be the only workaround, but of course, that isn't a very satisfactory solution. It seems like those who don't want to migrate to another SMS app will just have to wait until Google pushes a fix.

The hope is that since this is such an inconvenient bug, it won't be long before Google quashes it in another update. We'll keep our eyes peeled for such an update, so for now, head down to the comments section and let us know if you're having this problem in Android Messages.