San Francisco (CNN Business) Text messages received overnight on Wednesday caused confusion, misunderstandings and even alarm for some recipients.

The text messages appear to have originally been sent on February 14, Valentine's Day, but were received more than eight months later with Wednesday's time stamp. The total number of messages sent due to what's being called an "internal maintenance cycle" was 168,149, according to Syniverse, which provides technology and business services for a number of telecommunications companies.

Apple AAPL The issue occurred across all four major carriers in the United States and affected bothand Android devices.

People shared their experiences about receiving delayed messages on social media and Reddit. Some said they received text messages from ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends that led to awkward conversations. Others said the messages came from relatives or friends who had since passed away. One person complained to Sprint's Twitter account that her phone had sent a text to her boss in the middle of the night.

@sprint @sprintcare can you explain why MY PHONE sent a random text message at 1 am to my boss? And I received a random text at 4 AM from someone else? And a family member experienced the same?

That's unacceptable.@sprint that could've cost me my job. — janeibrahim (@janeibrahim1) November 7, 2019

The person who originally sent the text should have a record of the message in their archives.

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