issues with receiving links and group messages on third party messenger

I have an S23 thats on the latest update. I have been using a third party texting app called Textra, for years now with no issues. Just last week, some of my friends have been trying to send me links but they just don't go through anymore. It can be any link, Google maps, youtube, Amazon link etc. I also found out that my friends started a group chat with me, but I never received any of the messages. My friends are mostly iphone but some use android also. I found out that if I enable Google messages as my default, everything works fine. And after I enabled Google Messages as my default, the group chats came through in Textra, but the address was an email address

d4vtcnzrhezdkmrrhe4dqh2gifbucqkcgjas2n2giq4s2nbtgmzc2obvizcc2rjqimzumqkggrcukmkf@rcs.google.com

Is this an issue between RCS and SMS? Am I forced to use Google Messages now? I've uninstalled and reinstalled Textra and I installed a different third party messenger and no change.