Photomoji not working in Google Messages? Try the latest beta

Photomoji, the Google Messages feature that lets you turn photos into reusable stickers or message reactions, has been acting up lately. User reports say that for the past week or so, Messages has been showing an error message when photomoji is opened. Google’s already on the case, though, with a fix in progress.

As spotted by PiunikaWeb, Messages has been showing an unhelpful error dialog when users try to accessing photomoji, only saying that “Something happened” with the feature and instructing the user to try restarting the Messages app. Users say following that instruction doesn’t solve the problem. The latest beta version of Messages does seem to resolve the issue, indicating that a solution should be around the corner for the stable release version of the app, too.

The photomoji issue seems to be widespread, with reports gathered by PiunikaWeb describing the same problem across devices from Google, Samsung, and OnePlus. Evidently, the age-old default solution for misbehaving Android apps, clearing the app’s cache and data, can cause the photomoji feature to disappear from Messages entirely in the current stable release.

In the newest beta build of Messages, though, photomoji is back up and running the way it’s supposed to. If you can wait it out, this fix should be bound for the stable release in the near future, as well. Otherwise, you can always sign up for the Messages beta on the Play Store — once you do, you should have photomoji back as soon as you get your first beta update.