If you woke up to a weird text that seemed totally out of place, you aren’t alone. A mysterious wave of missives swept America’s phones overnight, delivering confusing messages from friends, family and the occasional ex.
Friends who hadn’t talked to each other in months were jolted into chatting. Others briefly panicked.
A telecom vendor called Syniverse said a server failed on Feb. 14, and nearly 170,000 messages from multiple carriers didn’t go through. When that server was reactivated Thursday, those messages got sent. In a statement sent to The Associated Press by Verizon, Syniverse said it is reviewing internal procedures so this doesn’t happen again. Syniverse typically deletes messages that don’t go through. Syniverse didn’t immediately respond to a request for more details.
The sudden release of messages sometimes had a dramatic effect.
Stephanie Bovee, a 28-year-old from Portland, Oregon, woke up at 5 a.m. to a text from her sister that said just “omg.” She immediately thought something had happened to her newborn nephew at the hospital.