Several people have reported an issue in which iMessage service is not working properly on iPhone, iPod Touch and/or iPad. For instance, iMessage doesn’t send or receive messages.
How to resolve this problem:
Turn off and on (restart) your iOS device (press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds, then slide the slider.)
If restarting doesn’t fix it:
It has been reported that changing your DNS settings fixes this issue. To change DNS servers, follow these instructions for iOS devices (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad):
- Tap Settings
- Tap Wi-Fi on the left-hand side
- Tap the blue arrow next to your current Wi-Fi network
- Tap the “DNS” field and enter the DNS servers; 8.8.8.8 (Google’s Public DNS). For more information about Google’s public DNS, please see this: http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/
August 28, 2012 at 2:36 AM
I have a 4 th generation iPod touch and I can message someone with an iPod fine but when I message a iPhone 4s it sends but never gets delivered and when the iphone4s send to me it sends but never gets delivered I used to be able to message it fine but it just suddenly stopped working. I have Reyes restarting it and the DSN but it dosnt work
October 9, 2012 at 5:06 PM
i just fixed mine. go to imessage to make sure that the check mark is on your email account that is registered with apple and if you have a phone number. also check the iphone to make sure both are checked marked. also go to facetime to make sure both are checked also. if that doesnt work i have to log out of my apple account through imessage and facetime. then logged back in and it worked. i could not receive imessage at all or send them out until i did this.
November 10, 2012 at 10:22 AM
this didn’t work for me. don’t know what else to do.
April 14, 2013 at 6:20 PM
it didnt wrk for me i dont know what to do now
January 13, 2013 at 4:15 AM
What is check mark option doesnt come ? -.-
March 9, 2013 at 3:59 PM
Drive the car and charge in your car did work yyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeessssssssss
April 16, 2013 at 6:51 PM
Thank you! So simple!
December 7, 2012 at 7:29 PM
The same thing happend to me and got it working after about 3 months I tried getting rid of a lot of apps so I have heeps of space on my iPod and now it works fine again I was so happy!!!
January 4, 2013 at 10:05 AM
I was having iMessage problems between myself and my girlfriends iPhone. We both attempted to turn iMessage on/off and logging back into the Apple accounts. Still nothing. So I made the mistake of calling Apple support. I have an iPhone 4 and my girlfriend has the iPhone 4S. Of course they told me that this is a common problem that thye can fix but I would have to sign up for a 2 year tech support contract for $99 per month x 3 months (in other words $300). And that apparently was the Xmas special. Anyways I didnt buy it because they couldnt tell me if the problem was with my phone or my girlfriend’s phone. Then she would also have to spend $300 for tech support.
So…… here is the solution to the problem. Double click the home buttom and close off all apps. Then power the phone off by holding the power button at the top of the phone and then moving the slider to power off. The when it restarts, WITHOUT UNLOCKING the phone or using the phone, immediately press and hold down the home and power button until the apple sign appears. And voila, after that there should be no further iMessage issues. Ultimately the problem was with my phone and not my girlfriend’s so she didnt have to do the procedure.
Hope this helps everyone!!!
January 11, 2013 at 8:11 AM
This solution worked for me! Not sure WHY it did work but it’s working right now. Surprised that this issue isn’t more widespread reported.
January 28, 2013 at 8:40 PM
It worked!!! So happy! Thank you
February 2, 2013 at 7:24 AM
it worked for me as well. before i have sent 100 SMS with hope “lets grab this iMessages”. thanks a lot.
February 7, 2013 at 8:14 PM
this is the only thing that worked! thanks.and i didnt even have to turn my apps off
March 25, 2013 at 7:06 PM
This seems to have worked for me too. Thanks so much for sharing this tip
April 9, 2013 at 6:35 PM
G, Your suggestion worked for me… not the original Toolbox suggestion. Thank you!
April 9, 2013 at 11:09 PM
This worked for me great….. after looking at all the advice on the internet I am so desperate I was about to start my phone from scratch. I live abroad so keeoing i touch with my daughter by imessage is a necessity. Thanks again.
April 10, 2013 at 12:17 PM
I have the same exact problem, but I tried what you said and I guess I’m the only who it didn’t work for.
any more ideas?
April 25, 2013 at 9:00 PM
thanks G your solution worked!!
May 9, 2013 at 7:16 AM
It didn’t work for me
August 29, 2012 at 4:03 AM
My friend sent a very very very long message (we were competing) and now my iMessage won’t open??! I’ve tried deleting it from the recently used apps screen, (pressing the home button twice, holding the icon until it jiggles and tapping the red remove symbol) and it worked for about 5 minutes, and I closed the app to check another app, it wouldn’t open again. How can I fix this??
October 29, 2012 at 7:27 PM
Exactly what happened to mine too! How do i fix it?
November 15, 2012 at 1:16 PM
Youu just keeping tapping it till comes up and delete that convoo
December 11, 2012 at 2:15 PM
This is what happened to me. Please tell me how you fixed it.
April 17, 2013 at 4:39 AM
Try turning the message setting on and off. Look for the (activate) to connect. Redo again if the activate doesn’t take. You can reboot so the brain of the computer syncs with programs. Good Luck
December 20, 2012 at 1:59 PM
That’s what happend to me right after I cracked it but everything else is working fine I don’t get it nothing’s working!!!! I tried to click it over and over but nothing shoes up not even a word
March 9, 2013 at 4:04 PM
Put it in your car then take it in your car for 5sec take it out of the car ???? Easy
December 23, 2012 at 5:25 PM
The same thing happened to me! Please, someone tell me how to fix this!
December 23, 2012 at 7:07 PM
Oh wait, I found a solution. Open the messaging app, then hold the home screen for 7+ seconds. Let go and wait. Delete the conversation when it loads!
December 30, 2012 at 9:11 AM
What you can do i got to settings click message then slide the messages off then on again and it should work hope i helped
x
March 30, 2013 at 6:47 PM
We have the same situation as whoever said that sending a zillion emoticons back & forth made the message app crash. Someone suggested going to settings, choosing messages, and sliding the imessage to “off.” Went into the message screen, back out, back into settings and turned imessage back on. When I went into the message screen again, everything loaded and I deleted the conversation that contained the zillion emoticons.
January 20, 2013 at 8:45 PM
Omg happened to me too, i was doing an emoticon contest with my friend, and i sent it so long it wouldn’t fit in the bubble, so now its frozen….. :/
February 5, 2013 at 7:51 PM
HOW DID U FIX THE PROBLEM SAME THING IS GOING ON WITH MY iPhone 5
August 30, 2012 at 3:07 AM
I sent a group message to 73 people today and it shows the message failed to send but I started receiving replies from some people. How can I tell if it didn’t get sent to particular people? I don’t want to send it again if everyone received it or would it only try to send again to those who didn’t receive it??
September 3, 2012 at 3:13 PM
I use my iPod to message people and I can message people with iPhone 4 & iPhone 4s but it says my gfs phone isn’t registered, she has the iPhone 4.
September 3, 2012 at 6:44 PM
never works on my new iPad. Send button doesn’t do anything, doesn’t light up. Just nothing. I can’t even find the app on the apple store to reload it? Like it he idea of it but it and face time is disipointing.
October 30, 2012 at 3:39 AM
Theres solutions for everything and about imessage its a struggle if your push notifications arent working but if its never been jb than its like baby steps…
December 30, 2012 at 9:14 AM
That happened to me but if you go into settings then click the message option then click imessage off and on again it worked fine
no problems after that xx
September 4, 2012 at 11:39 AM
Thank you so much. I was having trouble with it for quite some time…
March 9, 2013 at 4:07 PM
Charge it in the tv IMessage well work ???????
September 8, 2012 at 7:14 AM
I massage notwork
September 17, 2012 at 4:24 AM
I have been able to get imessage to work using my data but it doesn’t work when i just use wi-fi. I have tried all of the above suggestions but nothing has worked. Does anyone know how to fix it?
September 17, 2012 at 8:18 PM
Hi Jos, yes the cell data will always work. However, if you are using wifi, make sure the server firewall is not blocking the port. Some private server limits the internet for basic browsing only. Check the wifi router and the server. I too sometimes experience this problem too, depending on wifi routers and server, sometimes i need to turn on my cell data to get imessage.
Hope it helps
September 21, 2012 at 4:44 AM
Thanks for your response.
How would I check if my router or server were blocking it?
September 21, 2012 at 7:23 AM
Well the only way is if you have access to the router or server, disable all firewalls or filter. If that doesn’t work, then try other public wifi. If public wifi works but you wifi doesn’t it means somewhere along the way it got blocked. But if even public wifi doesn’t work for you than maybe you should disactivate and reactivate your imessage.
September 22, 2012 at 8:16 PM
Back in April, I had an iPhone 3gs, and it worked perfectly with iMessage. In May, I upgraded to an iPhone 4, and neither iMessage nor FaceTime worked anymore. I have tried everything from turning on and off my phone, to resetting the DNS, to resetting the time. Nothing has worked. All it says is “Waiting for activation” and when I go to sign in with my Apple ID, it says, “Could not sign in. Please check your network connection, and try again.”. I’ve even created a whole new Apple ID to see if that would work, and it doesn’t. I am so unbelievably frustrated with these dead ends. Please help.
September 22, 2012 at 9:24 PM
Wish i could help, but i’ve never seen such a case before. Hum, usually when you change iphone, to transfer over the account you would need to reactivate the account in your new iphone using itune, but im sure you did that already right. Hum.. Maybe you bought a fake china iphone hahaha joking…
If even making a new apple account and that doesn’t solve it, then i think you all the customer rights to exchange for a new one, or at least get higher level tech support, not just walk in apple store tech, but lvl 2 or 3 tech support.
Good luck
October 25, 2012 at 3:06 PM
This is exactly what’s happening to my iPhone and i have no idea what to do! I’ve tried the DNS thing too but no luck:(
November 18, 2012 at 4:04 PM
This is happening to me how do u fix it.
September 23, 2012 at 5:41 PM
this still didnt work, my entire 6a sized school uses this to get in touch with teachers and other students and we are all miserable, this hasnt worked for anyone i go to school with and we were all required to get the update! please find a real way to fix the problem!
Sincerly, Hoover High School
September 28, 2012 at 8:12 AM
It works! Thanks.
October 15, 2012 at 2:10 PM
While texting a contact today the imessage stopped functioning ONLY for that contact. It works fine with every other contact with iphone. iPhone 4S with iOS6. Rebooted, turned imessage off and then back on. Not using wifi, full 4G signal. any thoughts?
October 16, 2012 at 5:19 PM
Mine is doing the same thing! Ive tried to correct it all day with no luck.
November 18, 2012 at 8:33 PM
mine does that also! what can i do?! D:
January 14, 2013 at 6:54 AM
Mine just started doing that, has anbody fixed it?
April 26, 2013 at 10:25 AM
Other persons iMessage isnt working
October 18, 2012 at 3:49 AM
iMessage not acivate in my iphone 4s ios6
Face time is avtivate and it work good
October 22, 2012 at 10:41 PM
Hey man,thanks a lot….it works for me on my ipad 2.. I followed your instruction to change my DNS to 8.8.8.8 and now it works perfectly smooth,before i have an error on imessage and also on facetime and now i really enjoyed it a lot.thank you thank you thank you….your amazing man.
October 27, 2012 at 3:25 PM
Thanks a lot! Changing the DNS worked!
October 29, 2012 at 6:29 PM
I’ve done all options and its still not working!
October 30, 2012 at 3:28 PM
I can’t choose my mobile number when i am going to choose that in the “send and recieve” mode. Anyone else who have this problem an dhow they solved it??
I’m sorry for my bad english…
November 9, 2012 at 6:04 AM
My messages will not follow thru to the person I sent it to . Keep getting a triangle with a explanation inside it.
November 17, 2012 at 1:50 PM
This worked for me after trying everything else.
November 18, 2012 at 2:06 PM
my ipod gets to the end then it wont load and send my message. i have an ipod 5th generation
November 18, 2012 at 5:40 PM
I am using iPhone 3G with latest update. SMS stopped working suddenly, probably due to someone was sending me text messages in a different language that isn’t installed. I see 11 unread messages but I cannot open them.
November 19, 2012 at 9:23 AM
I have never been able to register my FaceTime and imesasage on my iPad. When I enter the apple ID and the password, it goes as of it is loading and gets back to the same page. What should I do. Someone help me please.
November 22, 2012 at 7:32 AM
I tried everything but nothing works what should I do???
November 28, 2012 at 8:28 AM
I tried everything on these posts and still could not get imessage to work ,no send button. Finally I turned imessage off and tried to send a message and the imessage dialogue box popped up. I followed the prompts and it did the trick. imessage works fine now.
November 28, 2012 at 1:15 PM
Hello. One day, my iPod touch 3rd Gen. wouldn’t send OR recieve messages AT ALL. So I turned off iMessages and back on, then I signed into my apple ID. It asked for my email, and I put that in, too. It says ‘verifying’ then stops and goes right back to the ‘sign in to your Apple ID’ page. I’ve tried rebooting my iPod, but that doesnt work at all. I changed the DNS, but of course that didn’t work, either. Can someone PLEASE help me? I use my iMessages to keep in touch with my relatives around the USA.
December 1, 2012 at 6:30 PM
iMessage has suddenly decided it won’t work with the internet I have at home. It worked previously, but not anymore. All other apps that use wifi work fine. Any thoughts?
December 23, 2012 at 3:13 PM
Mine has done the exact same thing. It’s killing me.
December 9, 2012 at 3:35 PM
I sent a imessage to a friend yesterday, but it went so slow i decided to push to text box and click on “Send as Textmessage”.
After that i haven’t been able to imessage him, what should i do?
December 10, 2012 at 8:46 PM
Ipad 2 ios 5, wifi only, suddenly stopped sending/receiving imessages.
Changed DNS setting as described, instant fix. Thanks. I spent hours trying to sort this out.
December 12, 2012 at 5:07 AM
I also sent a very long text (iMessage) and now my messages will just open and crash. How do I fix it?
December 30, 2012 at 9:15 AM
I have a question can you block people on imessage i know this has nothing to do with it but long story short this person is bullying me and i want to block them. Thanks!
December 13, 2012 at 6:01 PM
Finally updated to ios6 last night cause an app that I have needed it. Imessage stopped working when I did that, spent a long time today going through stuff on the internet… trying different things, done the full restart/shutdown thing about 6 times…
Just went back to messages, and it became imessage
despite still saying that it’s trying to activate imessage.
I think what fied it was going into imessage, and signing out with apple ID, verifying a new apple id email, restarting (as in hold down both buttons) again, then signing back in.
My phone number was greyed out in the recieving number bit, but when I signed back in, the box was ticked, although it isn’t now…
I only have the new email adress checked now, but I’ve sent a message, waiting to see if I get a response/if it actually reached someone…
December 15, 2012 at 11:02 AM
I have an iPod touch 4th g and I can’t log back in to iMessage and FaceTime it says when I try to activate it, it says cannot conect to iMessage/ FaceTime server. HELP!!!
January 1, 2013 at 3:19 PM
My iMessage is not working on my iPod 4th gen. It looks fine but I send a message and get back a “send failure” message. I have tried turning iMessage off and on again and it’s still not working. Help please?
January 4, 2013 at 4:40 AM
My daughter has an iPod touch 4 and we were having the same problems. Her sister’s was working fine so I knew it wasn’t our wifi. I tried every suggestion I could find and nothing fixed it. I then decided I would plug it into the computer and run iTunes so I could back up everything she had on it, then I was going to wipe it clean and start over to see if that fixed it. When I plugged it in to the computer and started iTunes, it started to automatically sync, as soon as the sync started her iMessages lit up with the new messages from her friends that she hadn’t been recieiving! I have no idea why syncing her iPod unlocked herr iMessages, but it was a vey simple fix. So before panicking, try it and see if it works. If here iMessages locks up again, I will definitely just try syncing it first.
January 5, 2013 at 7:14 AM
When you sync your ipod to itune, its not unlocking, its called activating your ipod. Most ppl didnt know they need to activate their iphone or ipod inorder to use imessage. Default, the device does not come activated, you must register or re-register when using imessage on the device. (changing email or ios version may need to re-register and activate thru itune)
January 5, 2013 at 8:15 PM
Did all that DIDN’T WORK, but it was working early but not anymore and it’s done this before.
January 7, 2013 at 9:06 PM
FIX: Go into your contacts, choose a different contact and “send message” (If they have an apple device), simply go back to your messages and delete the one from the person who sent that incredibly long message to freeze iMessage
March 1, 2013 at 9:06 AM
This morning my son had a competition with someone else, who could send the most smileys.His ipad froze.He’s had it less than a week! so you can imagine my thoughts, and not ever having owned an i device before. After reading several “fixes”,yours sounded very simple and yes IT WORKED!! so thankyou for giving me my sanity back and a happy son who has learnt his lesson . Needless to say he can now pass this new found knowledge onto his friends to try!
March 10, 2013 at 12:31 PM
This worked. Thanks
January 8, 2013 at 6:52 PM
Same problem with my son’s new Ipod Touch. Turned out that one of his cousins sent him a message with 1000′s of “smiley faces”. Hooked Ipod up to PC (Microsoft Windows, of course!), downloaded everything and erased. While still connected, was able to delete the aforementioned “smiley” message, and everything worked just fine. My guess is that certain messages kill imessage.
January 11, 2013 at 6:58 AM
this worked!!! thank you so much!
March 9, 2013 at 4:06 PM
Then charge it intell 100
January 13, 2013 at 4:25 AM
Okay, its really weird . My ipad’s imessage wont work. I tried making new accounts and signing in , it then went to the next box stating ‘would you like people to contact you on the given id below, i click verify , it takes time and goes back to sign in box,
It doesnt even show the check mark option infront of the email id i want to use. -,-
January 14, 2013 at 8:45 PM
Nothing seemed to work for us, until we did the following:
- Reset all iPhone settings:
1. Tap Settings > General > Reset.
2. Tap Erase All Content and Settings.
NOTE: Tap Reset all settings to restore all factory options, but keep your accounts, apps, and media.
3. To confirm reset, tap Erase iPhone.
4. After a second prompt, confirm by tapping Erase iPhone.
- After the iPhone restarted, we went into the message app, listed the messages, clicked “Edit”, selected the long message, and deleted it.
Seemed to fix it for us. Good luck!
January 16, 2013 at 6:46 PM
None of the above worked. Not even the DNS !!!
January 26, 2013 at 11:05 PM
Well when I go on iMessage on my iPad whenever I go on it, it tells me to sign in so I do then it says what do you want to been known bye? So I write that in then Peres next and after loading it goes back to signing in
January 27, 2013 at 7:43 PM
I tried everything above and nothing worked. Then I had a friend send me a text, as soon as it appeared on the top of my phone (banner) I clicked on it and it brought me to all of my messages. Now it works fine.
February 4, 2013 at 3:15 AM
Plz help my friend and I where having this contest by sending the longest
February 21, 2013 at 6:33 AM
I have a gen4 iPod and I have imessage but when I try to sign in to my apple ID, it says verifying then it takes me back to that screen where you type your apple ID again. It won’t let me past signing in.
March 6, 2013 at 1:09 AM
I have an iPod 4th gen and I have been wanting to send messages to my friend who has an iPhone 5. When I go to send a message, I type in his contact but then it comes out red telling me that “this contact is not registered with imessage” but he swears that it is. Mine is definitely activated as in my imessage settings my email is “ticked”. I don’t know how to fix this issue. Could it be an iOS update affecting it?
March 21, 2013 at 2:00 AM
Hi
I have tried all the steps this website told me and it still doesn’t work. HELP ME NOW
Johnny
April 22, 2013 at 4:42 PM
So my iMessage on my iPhone 4 was out for about 9 hours because my friend and I had a contest to see who could send the most emoji in one minuet. I tried every remidy on the web with no sucsess… Long story short, I turned off al Internet connection restarted my phone and reconnected… I text myself from my IPad and unlocked into a working iMessage! Hope this helps!
May 11, 2013 at 4:39 PM
changing the DNS to 8.8.8.8 worked on my ipod touch 4th gen. in very 1st try.
thanks alot.
keep up the good work.