14 DAY TRIAL // According to a report from AppleInsider, it would appear that there's a bug in Apple's macOS High Sierra 10.13 operating system that causes significant delays in receiving messages via either iMessage or SMS texts.
Apple launched the macOS High Sierra 10.13 update on September 25, 2017, and users started reporting the issue over at Apple Support forums from day one. At the moment there are a lot of complaints there, and the thread is now having four pages of comments, growing exponentially every day.
The bug is quite interesting because it would appear it silences notifications of iMessage and SMS text messages on other devices that you might own, such as an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. According to the bug report, messages are showing up in these devices immediately, but not on macOS.
"Receiving messages on my Mac are now extremely delayed since installing High Sierra," said the user who started the thread on September 26, 2017. "They will show up on my iPhone, but without a notification so I can't see or hear it. Then several minutes later it will pop up on the Mac. I didn't have this issue with Sierra."
Users receiving the messages hours after they were sent
Because of this issue, users are receiving the messages hours after they were sent, which isn't good for an operating system that wants to "elevate your Mac." For now, Apple didn't show any signs that they are working on a fix for this macOS bug, yet users have found some temporary workarounds for it.
One workaround is to completely disable the receipt of messages, but you can also choose to downgrade to macOS Sierra, which doesn't include the bug. Other possible workarounds are sending messages directly from your Mac or disabling and re-enabling messages, but the issue will return after a while.
Unfortunately, it looks like Apple's macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 Beta 3 development release doesn't fix the issue, so we hope that Apple is reading these complaints and will take action as soon as possible. The macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 point release should include a fix for this pesky bug when it launches later this fall.