Android 13 is breaking RCS for some Google Fi users

Following the public release of Android 13 earlier this week, a resulting issue originally spotted back in May has resurfaced and prompted a response from Google. The problem affects RCS connectivity for a small number of Google Fi customers where RCS disconnects upon the phone switching from WiFi to cellular and getting stuck in “Connecting…” status until the user gets back on WiFi.

As mentioned by 9to5Google, the problem has been around since Android 13 Beta when a bug report was filed. At the time, a Google employee responded to the bug report and provided a temporary solution, which involved:

• Turning on airplane mode
• Going to Settings > Storage and clearing storage for Carrier Services and Messages
• Turning off airplane mode
• Opening Messages and trying again

Understandably, this solution was quite frustrating for the affected users. Even though Google acknowledged the problem and responded to that bug report advising that the issue had been reported to the product and engineering team, Android 13 continued to make it through all the Beta releases with no fix in sight for it.

Google has again responded by having a spokesperson relay to 9to5 that they are aware of the issue and are actively working to resolve it. Furthermore, Google states that this only affects a small number of Google Fi customers.

Texting a friend with a different phone than you should be no problem… Right? @Apple? #GetTheMessage pic.twitter.com/Qa1TDkmUSK

— Android (@Android) August 9, 2022

Regardless of the number of users, the timing couldn’t be worse. Google is in the middle of a marketing campaign to get Apple to adopt RCS in its messaging app, which Google states will eliminate many of the pain points of messaging between Android and iPhones. RCS issues like this that get through beta-testing unresolved only give more fuel to the skeptics of RCS and whether it is really as good as Google says. Let’s hope this gets resolved soon.