Google Messages is having trouble sending media files over RCS

Google Messages just took a step closer to supporting a long-desired feature, RCS video calls. While it’s still very much a work in progress, it’s nice to know that it’s something that could come down the road. But before Google even thinks about rolling out such a feature, it will need to iron out a new wrinkle that’s causing trouble with media sent over RCS.

Over on Reddit (1, 2, 3), users are reporting an issue with Google Messages. When RCS is enabled in the app, these users are unable to send media files to other Android phones, such as GIFs, pictures, photomoji, and stickers. It appears that switching to SMS/MMS solves the problem for most of the affected users.

What’s strange is that the reports claim that there is no problem with sending RCS media over to an iPhone that has RCS enabled. The problem only occurs in exchanges between Android devices.

It appears that troubleshooting steps such as restarting the phone, clearing cache, force-stopping the app, resetting the network, and toggling the RCS connection do not fix the problem. However, one user says that the problem went away after clearing their storage. The user adds that they lost the Photomoji tab in the process and can no longer create them.

It’s unclear how widespread the problem is. We have reached out to Google for comment. This article will be updated when new information becomes available.