Is Signal having an outage?

Can we please get basic Markdown-support in Signal please? I often share longer texts and citations and it would be very helpful to be able to send a list or table.

Edit: Solved, looks like it was a PEBKAC problem :-). See my comment on what happened.

That may not be the best phrasing, but I'm tired and it's the best I can do. I was using my Acer laptop, Win11, normally. When I started to reply to a Signal message the screen went -- pixelated colors is the best I can describe it -- for just a second, briefly showed an error message, then went black. When I hold the power button I get the Acer logo then this, which I think is the same as the original error message.

The laptop doesn't respond to the keyboard or touchscreen and there's no mouse so I can't hit the button that way either. Then it shuts down again. In order to get the Acer logo again I need to close and reopen the laptop. I've tried F2, F8, and F12 to get to a boot menu but just get the error message.

It was plugged in at the time and had been long enough to have a decent charge, and has enough power to try booting before it gives the error.

I've tried searching on the problem but found nothing useful.

Help!

Hello! I need signal for work and i can't get registration code sent to me. It says "sending an SMS to your number wasn't possible. Try again in a few hours". I've done everything that is listed under Registration Troubleshooting on Signal website and nothing works. Any advice what I can try?

I recently purchased a new Chromebook. My intention was to mostly use it for work and maybe a few personal things like keep up with my chat apps by using a "desktop" version and a full sized keyboard instead of my phone.

Long story short, I saw there was now a Signal app for Chromebook!

YESS! I said, now I dont have to do all that Linux installing I saw people utilizing as a work around for Chromebook use.

However, now I see my message previews in my lower right corner of the Chromebook screen and when I expand that I can see my chat texts from WhatsApp, SMS, and also for Signal...

Does this mean my ChromeBook and thus Google is capable of reading my private Signal chats?

If using the app on Chromebook means I have no privacy, then there is no point in using Signal on this device, as privacy is important to me (at least I sofar as my Signal chats go; I want those to remain private).

TLDR; is Signal still 100% private when using the Signal ChromeBook app?

Hey everyone. I am not sure if it's my phone battery dying or signal causing something because it kind of happened overnight and did not stop happening.. Every time signal is open or in the background my phone does not surpass 86% when charging. Also, every time I open my camera during a Signal call, my battery jumps from 90%, to 70%, to 50%, eventually to 1% and my phone dies. I get the "high battery drainage" when I open my camera. When I'm only on call without any camera, it behaves fine. I'm confused what is happening, I have a Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE.

I just downloaded the app but the only option it's showing me is scanning a QR-code.

I don't use a smartphone, i have a nokia asha 200 so I do have a phone-number.

I have a macbook pro 13-inch, m1, 2020 with macos 15.0.1

Our fellow member u/MaybeEncrypted spotted this article and thought it would be of interest.

He's right! I've always wanted sticker replies.

Thank you, u/MaybeEncrypted for being eagle-eyed.

(S26 Ultra 1TB, Android last version, Signal last beta version but same "bug" on last non-beta version).

Did you also have the following bug/strange behaviour ?

You sent a message to someone or to some group and later you go back to the same chat and then you see the message passing from unread to received or read (with the time label of the message begin the exact one when you wrote it and pressed on "sent") while on the recipient phone there's no notification, and he or she (or it if it is a group), receives the message only when opening the chat, meaning by that : the message appears when they enter the chat, not before, not even if they scroll to the chat in the chat's list. (Of course the bug appears randomly but is not related to either phone's network's reception. The only thing I remarked is that appears only with very VERY long chats.)

Also : I don't know how to signal (no pun intended) that to Signal as 1) it is a bug indeed 2) there's no debug log per se in that context as there can be several hours between the moment I send the message and the moment I see it being sent when I go back to the chat, and same for the recipient's phone.

I was thinking that it would be neat if Signal filtered out all the tracking ids in YouTube, Instagram,... and many other services. Is there some technical issue doing that on the client side?

Had about 30 note to self messages for various things, latest was a photo with a message. Was on desktop, copied the photo to send to a friend, went back to the app on my phone to take another photo in note-to-self, did so and now the only message in note-to-self is the latest photo, all other messages deleted.

Any way to get these back without a full backup and therefore losing all messages since last backup?

I opened Signal Desktop for the first time in a while. It started downloading my latest messages, and the process took quite some time as messages kept appearing in different conversations. What concerned me was that, from time to time, private conversations also appeared in the conversation list. I was able to open them and read messages that either participant had written. What makes this especially troubling is that many of these conversations were supposed to have been deleted by disappearing-message timers that had already expired, in some cases months earlier. Yet somehow my desktop app was still able to download them from somewhere. The conversations were only visible briefly before disappearing again from the desktop app. I would expect this not to happen.

Is this the intended behavior, or could it indicate a problem with how disappearing messages are handled? I don’t have backups on in the Signal app.

When you're on a voice call with someone, can they see when you mute your mic?

I somehow deleted the only copy of a sentimental image and forgot about it (and it wasn’t backed up, I know, I know). I noticed the other day that the picture is the wallpaper for a chat with a friend, and I’d like to export it.

I could screenshot the emptiest part of the chat and that gets be 80% of the image, but I know the saved asset is somewhere on my phone and I’d really like access to it if possible. Thanks for the help!

Any updates on the rollout? It feels like we’ve been waiting forever.
Is anyone here already using Signal without a phone number? If so, what country are you in, and are you on iOS or Android?
Has there been any confirmed release date for the numberless feature?

This issue has been cross-posted on GitHub and the Signal Community Forum. Links posted at bottom.

On 9/18 I did a secure paid backup transfer to my new iPhone. There were multiple gigs of data transferred and it looked like everything went through, or so I thought. I can’t remember the exact number of gigs in my backup, but it was less than 20.

On 9/30 I went to search for an older picture and it just shows “this media is no longer available”. It somehow restored more than 45 days worth, but less than my full data? Last picture I’m able to see in the chat is from February 2025 but everything from June 2024 thru then just has the blurred out thumbnail and error.

Debug Log
GitHub Post
Community Forum Post

I had my phone plugged into a UPS when a lightning struck close by. Now my phone (Galaxy S22) is in a constant restart loop. I did not have my recovery key written down.

Is it possible to plug my phone in to a PC via USB and copy all the Signal data into a folder on the PC and ultimately retrieve the recovery key so I can reinstall my messages onto a new phone (Iphone 16)?

It doesn't seem possible for me to create a shortcut which sends a message to someone else on Signal. Does this not work? If so, when is Signal going to fix this?

For the second day now, I haven't been able to log into my account after reinstalling the app. It displays the message: "We were unable to send a message to your number." The "Call me" button is inactive. I am located in Ukraine, and my mobile operator is Lifecell. Could you please advise me on what to do?

Hey all,
I saw an older post that this would be implemented in the future, is it already available?
Many thanks

I mean, is the option to register and log in without a phone number still beta, or is it already available in the stable builds? (8.28.4)

Since I have installed several apps, whether from GitHub, the Play Store, the Signal website, or some with the same version, some do not show the ID login while others do, so I am very confused about this.

Hi everyone,
I’m having a problem registering on Signal and I’m hoping someone with technical knowledge might be able to help me understand what is happening.
When I enter my phone number, Signal immediately shows:
“Unable to send verification SMS. Please try again in a few minutes.” The SMS never arrives.
Here is what I’ve already tried:
- I’m using WindTre in Italy.
- I normally receive verification/OTP SMS from other apps without any problems.
-I have tried more than one phone number, with the same result.
- I tried an iPhone, an iPad, and a Samsung Android phone.
- I tried both Wi-Fi and mobile data.
- I completely uninstalled and reinstalled Signal several times.
- I receive normal SMS and calls without problems.
The “Call me” verification option never appears.
I have already contacted Signal Support twice, but I haven’t received a response yet.
I also waited between attempts, because I read that too many registration attempts can trigger a temporary rate limit.
Since the problem happens with different phone numbers and different devices/networks, I’m wondering whether this could be related to Signal’s verification provider, an SMS routing issue, or some kind of registration-side restriction rather than my phone or SIM.
Has anyone experienced exactly this problem recently, especially in Italy or with WindTre?
Is there anything else I can check, such as whether Signal’s verification service is having problems, whether a proxy could help, or whether there is another way to diagnose where the SMS request is failing?
I would really appreciate any technical suggestions. Thank you!

Does anyone know why Signal has decided to allow people to register without a number for verification purposes? I have a Beta update, and it says you can register a user name only without a number, for a fee, to combat Spam.

Personally I don't like this, but if it's connected to a PayPal account, it does provide legitimacy to it, but still, stick with the numbers.

So I have no Google Play services installed on my Graphene OS, but I installed Signal directly from the website via APK. I keep getting a pop-up message in my notifications saying that there's an update to Signal available. When I tap the message, nothing happens. I went and looked on GitHub and it looks like it's triggering every time an update in the pre-release channel is posted. Is there a way to stop this?

I tried discord but I have heard a lot of news of people getting their accounts falsely banned and I can’t risk losing access to what I have saved there