iMessage "activation"

I just replaced an iPhone 6 with a 6s. No problem installing IOS 10, Beta 2 after going through the necessary steps. The phone activated with ATT without difficulty. But, I am having a weird problem with iMessage, that I didn't have before. Apparently iMessage needs to be activated when it is first turned on in Settings. (It's on by default, but never seemed to get activated). So now, I'm trying to get it activated and it has been stuck for several days now with "Waiting for Activation" or "Activation Failed" messages. The send and receive messages shows my phone number greyed out and unchecked. I can manually check it, and the gear wheel just starts to turn but nothing happens except there is a sense of something trying to happen but its not happening.


This ramifies downstream to all my other devices, iPad, Mac, iPod Touch in that I don't receive messages on all the devices when they are sent directly to my phone. Regular SMS seems to work when I'm on the cellular network, and I can send and receive text messages from my OS and IOS devices as long as I am on a wi-fi network.


ATT cannot see a problem, but then I'm also using Beta software. They want to blame Apple and IOS 10, but I was using IOS 10 on my iPhone 6 without any difficulty, so I don't think it is a problem necessarily with IOS 10, but I'm somewhat at a loss to figure out what to do and where to go.


Any thoughts?

Accepted Reply

Nevermind. Did another install of IOS 10, B2 over the existing one. It resolved the problem.

Replies

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vz312pfhlgk0eff/iMessage%20Could%20Not%20Activate.PNG?dl=0


I see a "!" on my messages icon, alerting me that I need to resolve the issue

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t6fzmk5w784glb2/Messages%20Error%20Icon.jpg?dl=0


When I tap on a message, I'm alerted with a banner that iMessage is Signed Out

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4tx8b67apkdjlgi/iMessage%20is%20Signed%20Out.PNG?dl=0


Tapping settings navigates me to the Messages settings page. The iMessage boolean toggle is switched off (it was switched on prior to upgrating to iOS 10) with "Activation unsuccessful. Turn on iMessage to try again." visible below.


When I tap the iMessage boolean toggle to turn it on, I am presented with a "Waiting for activation" message below the iMessage boolean toggle (now switched on)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7nin8xtcwl8a7ap/Waiting%20for%20activation.PNG?dl=0


From here, I've taken 2 different approches, both unsucessful.

If I tap the Use your Apple ID for iMessage, I am prompted to enter my Apple ID, after a few seconds I am presented with an alert pop up stating, "iMessage Activation - An error occured during activation. Try again."

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vz312pfhlgk0eff/iMessage%20Could%20Not%20Activate.PNG?dl=0


If I do nothing and "Wait for Activation" I am presented with the same alert pop up.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vz312pfhlgk0eff/iMessage%20Could%20Not%20Activate.PNG?dl=0


Within FaceTime's settings screen, I repeat these same steps and am getting the same results when attempting to activate FaceTime.


It's quite interesting though, becuase I am only able to send/receive iMessages in my Messages app on my Macbook Pro on Sierra (and NOT SMS messages). So I'm seeing opposite behavior than my iPhone 6, as I am only able to send/receive SMS messages and NOT iMessages

Nevermind. Did another install of IOS 10, B2 over the existing one. It resolved the problem.

Did you do a restore or setup as a new phone to get it to work. I am encountering the same issue.

I had these exact symptoms. It seemed to happen after I changed my email address on appleid.apple.com. I tried a bunch of things, mainly signing out of iCloud, iTunes Store, App Store, FaceTime, Messages, Home Sharing, Apple TV, etc. and signing back in using the new email address. Nothing worked to allow FaceTime and Messages activation. Finally I went back to appleid.apple.com and changed my email address back and now everything works again. I reported this on bugreport.apple.com as bug #

27035144.