Blue threads in messaging app

[Dave-in-Decatur]

I have a Samsung Stratosphere, and in the stock messaging app some of the thread names (i.e., the names of the contacts to/from whom the texts are written) are listed in blue, some in white. I've checked the manual and can't find a reference to this. Anybody know what (if anything) the blue color means?

[Ann154]

Is there any pattern to who is colored blue or not? Saved as Google contacts? Other Verizon Wireless customers?

[Dave-in-Decatur]

Nope. The current blue items (they change!) include a couple of alerts (Amber, Severe) and various friends and family members, but other friends and family are not in blue. Just about all the texts are to/from people in my Google contacts, but some are blue, some are not. For instance, my wife's name is in blue, but our daughters are not. Some of the blue ones are contacts with two people, some with just one; the same is true of non-blue. Some of the blue ones may be on Verizon, some are definitely not.

Oh, and while I've been writing this post the entire list, except for 3 names, just turned blue.

[Ann154]

Very interesting and puzzling!

I don't have any more thoughts yet. Hopefully someone else will contribute an idea.

[Dave-in-Decatur]

Ann, I presume this means that you don't see any blue threads in your list of text messages (or perhaps you're not using the stock app). It seems to me that I didn't use to see them either, but I can't pinpoint exactly when this started happening. I never really watched this before, but now I see that each time I go to the messaging app a different configuration of threads is blue. It doesn't seem to cause any harm, but it's just inexplicable; and if it does mean something, it'd be nice to know what!

[Ann154]

I don't own a Samsung Stratosphere. I have a Galaxy Nexus and HTC Thunderbolt. On both, I used the stock text message app and never seen text messages a different color then the standard color.

[Dave-in-Decatur]

OK, thanks. I'm going to post this on a Stratosphere forum on Android Central and see if anybody there experiences it. Weird. Another in the long list of tech problems I've had that no one else ever heard of.

[Kate721]

I have a Samsung Statosphere and I have the same issue. Some of the contact names/phone numbers appear in blue while most are in white. There is no consistancy in the coloring and they change. For example, "Mom" will be in blue now and when I check my messages later "Mom" will be in white. It makes no sense and kind of drives me crazy. I wish I knew why. Just one of the MANY problems I have with my Samsung.

[Dave-in-Decatur]

So glad to know I'm not alone!! That describes my experience exactly. So far I've found no explanation for it. I wouldn't say it drives me crazy; I'm used to it now, but the apparent pointlessness of it is annoying.

[Dave-in-Decatur]

BTW, I went to Samsung's hard-to-navigate support site. I posted this question in the forum there. It has yet to actually appear in the topics list, and the most recent topic that does show up there is from 7 months ago, so I'm not hopeful of any help at all there. I also e-mailed Samsung tech support. They suggested it might be to distinguish messages from me and messages from someone else. But that's not it, since some threads whose most recent message is from me are blue, some are white, and some threads whose first message is from are are blue, some are white. And I've actually seen almost the entire list turn blue sometimes with no activity on my part.

So, no help from Samsung. They don't seem to have any idea what it's about. Kate721, looks like you and I are alone in a cold, cruel world.

[Ann154]

Dave,

Has there been any responses to your question in the Android Central forum?

[Dave-in-Decatur]

One person did respond that the blue threads were also happening on his wife's Strat. So it seems to happen to a few people, maybe only on Stratospheres, and no one can explain or even interpret it. I took another look at the Settings in the Messaging app, and there's nothing about it there either.

[vzw_customer_support]

Sorry for the delay in responding to your post.  The color codes are for sent and received messages. This helps decipher the messages. Let us know if this helps.

[Dave-in-Decatur]

Can you explain further? That distinction may be what is intended, but it's not how it's working on my phone. As I said, some threads in which the last message was "sent" are blue, some are white; and some in which the first message was "sent" are blue, some are white; and likewise with threads in which the last or first message was "received": some are blue, some are white, and I cannot make out any pattern at all. The whole thing seems completely random. And, also as I indicated, I've seen almost the entire list of threads turn blue while I'm looking at the app, not doing anything with it at all.

Is this feature available on all Android phones, or just Stratospheres? Ann has never seen it on her Nexus or Thunderbolt, and both of the other two people who do report it have Strats, as I do.

[Dave-in-Decatur]

Thought it might help to give an example of what I'm talking about. See the attached screenshots. In #1, the 1st and 7th items in the message list are blue, the rest white. In #2, the 3RD and 7th items are blue. The only thing that happened between the two screenshots is that I scrolled down the list to the bottom and then scrolled back to the top. I neither sent nor received any messages, and neither the 1st nor the 3rd thread was changed in any way. This is the randomness that I'm talking about.

#1:

#2:

[RS40]

I noticed that my blue text disappeared from my stratosphere after I deleted my amber alert. Maybe it is a reminder to look at the amber alert or its a glitch. All mine are back white now. Hope this helps.

[Dave-in-Decatur · Accepted solution]

Interesting. I just deleted my Amber Alert thread (which was blue, along with a random bunch of others). I quit the Messaging app and went back to it, and still found two seemingly random threads in blue. Then I deleted the weather alert thread, left Messaging and came back and indeed nothing was blue. I've done it a couple more times, and still no blue! Thanks! I hope it sticks. Whatever it's supposed to be accomplishing, it's failing. It's so random that I just ignore it, and actually wasn't even noticing it any more.

[purpleruby]

I  have the same problem after I get an alert on my phone. I have to delete the alert message and restart my phone..then it's all good.:)

[RPDare]

Apparently it's a bug in the system. After receiving and "Emergency Message" (weather, Amber Alert, etc), some of my text messages turned blue from some contacts with no pattern at all. After deleting the Emergency Message, and backing out of messages, all messages turned white again when I went back into my text messages. No idea why it happens, but that's your simple fix.

[theskirbys]

I was just told by a Verizon Representative that the contacts highlighted in blue are the ones on the Verizon network that have the Messages+ App installed. I don't know if that's true or not, but my husband, son, and daughter are all in blue and have the app. Hope this helps. 

[KH-Michael]

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