Over the past few weeks, after updating my Mac’s macOS, I’ve been unable to log into iMessage or FaceTime with my Apple ID. After logging in, I keep seeing the message “An error occurred during activation. Try again. Could not sign in to iMessage (or FaceTime).”
And I knew it was a problem with my Mac alone. My Apple ID worked everywhere else, like on my iPhone and iPad, but iMessage and FaceTime would absolutely NOT WORK on my Mac!
And when I follow the advice to try again, it keeps happening and I’m still not able to log into iMessage or FaceTime with my Apple ID! At this point, I tried to login in over 50 times–at all times of the day and all days of the week, including weekends. But no luck! Still nothing.
But finally, after what feels like a million different tries, I found something that worked for me (see section Delete your Mac’s Push Notification for iMessage and FaceTime to learn what finally did the trick for my Mac!)
And now I have both iMessage and FaceTime working flawlessly on my MacBook.
So let’s get to it!
Updated Your macOS or OS X?
Sadly, I’m not the only one whose Mac keeps popping up with “an error occurred during activation” every time I try and sign in to iMessage or FaceTime. This problem seems to particularly hit folks who updated macOS. Many readers tell us that iMessage (or FaceTime) worked a few days ago, but after upgrading the Mac, it just stopped working!
Try These Quick Tips to Fix iMessage and FaceTime Activation Issues on Your Mac
Check that your Apple ID account in both the Messages and FaceTime Apps is enabled
Connect to your fastest WiFi or via Ethernet and try again
Make sure there isn’t an outage on Apple’s System Services
Verify your Mac’s Date & Time, ensuring your time zone is accurate to your current location
Update your macOS or Mac OS X to the latest version for your Mac
Check that your Apple ID is correct by logging into your Apple ID via a browser
Reset the NVRAM or PRAM
Temporarily disable any third-party firewall or security software
Open iMessage or FaceTime from your Mac’s Application Folder–not the Dock or Launchpad
If you migrated a user account, delete your Apple ID’s IDS AuthToken from Keychain Access
Turn off iCloud Keychain
Remove your iMessage and FaceTime password keys in Keychain
Delete the push notification apsd file from your preference library
Call Apple Support and ask them to check if there is a block (also called a spamblock) on iMessages Servers with your Apple ID and your Mac
Go to Preferences > Accounts from the Top Messages Menu
Select iMessage from the left sidebar
If your Apple ID information shows up, check the box for Enable this account If already checked, uncheck, wait 30 seconds and tick that box again
Check for an Apple Service Outage
Check the Apple System Status page for any current outages impacting iMessage or FaceTime.
If you see yellow next to iMessage or FaceTime, that means there is a current issue, and Apple is working to remedy it. The only solution? Wait it out.
Check your Date & Time settings
Go to the Apple Menu > System Preferences > Date & Time and verify that the date, time, and time zone are all correct
Check the box for ”Set date and time automatically.”
If the checkbox is already selected, deselect it, wait 30 seconds, and pick it again
If the checkbox is dimmed, click the lock icon and enter an administrator password
Check your Apple ID
Let’s confirm that your Apple ID and password are correct.
Visit in a browser your Apple ID account page and sign in with the same Apple ID that you’re using with Messages and FaceTime
If you can sign in, move to step 2
If you cannot sign in, try again and if necessary follow the on-screen instructions to reset your password or visit Apple’s site iForgot
On your Mac, open Messages > Preferences > Accounts
Select your iMessage account and click Sign Out, if necessary
Try to sign in again with the same Apple ID you just used to sign in to your Apple ID account
Again, on your MacBook, open FaceTime > Preferences > Settings
Select Sign Out, if needed
Sign in again with that same Apple ID you just used to sign in to your Apple ID account
Reset NVRAM
Sometimes, problems with iMessage and FaceTime are related to the settings stored in your Mac’s NVRAM (also called PRAM on older Macs.) So let’s reset that!
Settings that are stored in NVRAM include sound volume, display resolution, startup disk selection, time zone, and recent kernel panic information.
How To Reset Your Mac’s NVRAM
Shut down your Mac, then turn it on and immediately press and hold these four keys together: Option, Command, P, and R
Release these keys after about 20-30 seconds. Your Mac might appear to restart while pressing the keys
If your Mac typically plays a startup chime, release the keys after the second startup sound
For iMac Pros, release the keys after the Apple logo appears and disappears a second time
If you use a firmware password, you must first turn off the firmware password to reset NVRAM
After resetting the NVRAM, update these setting to your personal preference
Sound volume
Display resolution
Startup disk selection
Time zone
Check Any Third-Party Networking or Security
If your Mac has any firewall, security, VPN, or other third-party networking software, verify that it isn’t blocking any of the network ports that iMessage and FaceTime use. Temporarily disable that software. Once disabled, try signing in to iMessage or FaceTime again.
Open iMessage and FaceTime from the Applications Folder
Sometimes, the simple things really do the trick. In this case, let’s try to open the Messages or FaceTime app from the Applications folder on your hard drive. Double-Click on either Messages or FaceTime and see if that launches it and you can sign in.
Some of our readers report that Messages and FaceTime immediately started working!
If these apps work, we recommend removing the old icons from your Dock and then dragging them back to the Dock from your Applications folder.
Recently Migrated a Mac User Account?
If you migrated your Mac User account, you might have information associated with your ID that’s no longer valid.
In that case, let’s open up your Mac’s Keychain and reset some information.
Close the Messages or FaceTime App on your Mac
Go to Applications> Utilities > Keychain Access
Select Login from the top-left sidebar and Passwords from the lower-left sidebar
In the Spotlight search field type in IDS
Look for an item that shows your unique AppleID with “-AuthToken” at the end
IDS-AuthTokens are your Mac’s iMessage encryption keys, removing these forces your Mac and Apple Servers to rebuild them
Delete that one file
If you have more than one, delete only the one that contains the Apple ID you’re having problems with
Close Keychain
It’s also a good idea to reboot your Mac
Launch Messages or FaceTime
Try signing in again
Still Unable to Sign In?
If FaceTime or iMessage still give you the error “Could not sign in to iMessage. An error occurred during activation. Try again,” let’s delete additional IDS entries from your Keychain.
First, look for these additional two files in Applications> Utilities > Keychain Access
ids: identity-rsa-private-key
ids: identity-rsa-public-key
If your Mac rebuilt your IDS AuthToken, select that too!
Delete these, close Keychain, reboot your Mac and try signing in to iMessage or FaceTime again
Still Not Able to Sign Into iMessage or FaceTime on your Mac?
If deleting the above referenced IDS files didn’t work for you, open Applications> Utilities > Keychain Access back up.
And then use spotlight search to find all files that contain IDS. Delete all those files (they should list as application passwords under the Kind category.)
Once you delete all the IDS files in your Keychain, close it and restart your Mac. Then open iMessage or FaceTime and try signing in again.
Turn Off iCloud Keychain
iCloud Keychain is meant to sync your usernames and passwords, credit card information, and WiFi network information across all devices that are signed in with the same Apple ID (for devices using at least iOS 7.0.3 or OS X Mavericks.) Usually, iCloud Keychain does not include or sync any of your system keychain items, including your iMessage encryption keys.
But sometimes, iCloud Keychain confuses your Mac’s Keychain and things become a mess!
Turning off iCloud Keychain on your Mac often helps!
Close the Apps for iMessage and FaceTime
Open System Preferences > iCloud
Untick the box for Keychain
Choose Keep on This Mac to keep a copy of your Safari passwords and credit cards on this Mac
Select Delete from Mac only if you’re sure you don’t want this info on your computer
Close System Preferences
Restart your Mac
Open iMessage or FaceTime and try signing in again
Remove your iMessage and FaceTime keys in Mac’s Keychain
You might need to refresh your encryption keys and FaceTime registration on your Mac.
Let’s go back to Keychain Access
Close the Messages or FaceTime App on your Mac
Go to Applications> Utilities > Keychain Access
Select Login from the top-left sidebar and All Items from the lower-left sidebar
In spotlight search, type in FaceTime
Delete the file(s )
Repeat but this time type in iMessage into spotlight search
Delete those files
Close Keychain
It’s also a good idea to reboot your Mac
Launch Messages or FaceTime
Try signing in again
Delete your Mac’s Push Notification for iMessage and FaceTime
Sometimes your iMessage or FaceTime becomes unresponsive due to problems with your Mac’s APSD plist file (Apple Push Notification Service Daemon.) It’s this apsd file that your Mac uses to log into and send message alerts to iMessage and FaceTime with Apple’s network.
Look in your Mac’s main Library folder, not your user library
This APSD file is in your main library, not your user library so check this location: Macintosh HD > Library folder > Preferences folder > com.apple.apsd.plist
Check the last time your APSD file updated
If you notice that the last time FaceTime or iMessage synced was a while ago and the aspd.plist is not updating with today’s date, there’s a high chance that your APSD file is the problem.
Before deleting this file, it’s essential to backup your system via Time Machine or your preferred backup method, just in case something goes wonky.
Once you remove the APSD file, your Mac automatically recreates it when you try logging into iMessage or FaceTime again.
Remove Your Mac’s aspd.plist
Via Terminal using command: sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.apsd.plist
Or manually remove by going your Hard Drive/Library/Preferences and drag the item com.apple.apsd.plist to the Trash
Enter Admin account password to remove this file
Restart your Mac
Try logging into iMessage and FaceTime again–hopefully, it works!
For me, deleting the apsd.plist file did the trick!
Check if Apple Placed a Block on iMessages or FaceTime Servers
Occasionally, Apple Servers end up blocking your Mac’s Apple ID access to iMessage or FaceTime. This problem usually occurs when you’ve traveled outside your home country, entered in the wrong password too many times, or log in using different Apple IDs on your Mac.
If Apple suspects your account is being hacked, it will, at the server end, block your Mac’s use of the Apple ID for iMessage, FaceTime, and sometimes, even other iCloud services.
So if nothing worked, give Apple Support a call and request that they check the iMessages/FaceTime Server and see if your Apple ID is blocked for your Mac’s use of that ID. If the first-tier support person can’t assist you, ask for an engineer or higher level support person.
Reader Tips
Call Apple Support and ask them to check for any kind of block or spam block on your account. I called and the Apple customer service person found a “spam block” on my account. Once removed, presto iMessage and FaceTime activated!
Try logging into iTunes and then log into iMessage/FaceTime
Check that in System Preferences > Date and Time, it’s ticked on Set date and time automatically. Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime Servers check these to ensure your Mac’s location data matches the date and time information. This information is then stored in the .plist file that holds all your logging information to Apple’s iMessages server. So if the date or time on your Mac is wrong, then the Apple Server’s security system blocks out your Mac’s use of that Apple ID. So you can’t use it in Messages or FaceTime
Deleting com.apple.iChat.plist from my user Library > Preferences worked for me
Try logging in with a different Apple ID in Messages or use/create a different Mac User account
iMessages servers are standalone, so you could still log in to iCloud services but not iMessage. When the iMessage Servers block you, it’s almost always device-specific–so you can still log into iMessage with different devices. Fix this by phoning Apple Support and make sure to mention that it’s an issue with your Apple ID. Apple ID issues are always free to troubleshoot–even without AppleCare
Check that your Mac’s Serial Number appears in About this Mac (under the Apple Icon Menu in the top left.) If your serial number is missing, call Apple Support or make an appointment in an Apple Store to have your serial number placed back onto your Mac. You’ll need proof of purchase and some form of identification to prove the Mac is yours and so they can look up the serial number of your Mac. Your serial number is on the original packaging
I just reset my iPhone that used the same Apple ID and that was all I needed. Once you reboot your iPhone, return to your Mac and adjust your settings on iMessage to receive and send SMS
For most of her professional life, Amanda Elizabeth (Liz for short) trained all sorts of folks on how to use media as a tool to tell their own unique stories. She knows a thing or two about teaching others and creating how-to guides!
Her clients include Edutopia, Scribe Video Center, Third Path Institute, Bracket, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Big Picture Alliance.
Elizabeth received her Master of Fine Arts degree in media making from Temple University, where she also taught undergrads as an adjunct faculty member in their department of Film and Media Arts.
You saved me! I’ve been having issues with my new MacBook Pro M1 Max and Mac Mini M1 for the past couple of months.
Deleting the com.apple.apsd.plist file helped on the MacBook Pro! THANK YOU!
I will have to wait until tomorrow when I get to the office and try the same on my Mac Mini.
THANK YOU!! After three weeks trying to troubleshoot this every day… hours on Apple chat and just about to go into the store I went through your article and I had done everything already up to deleting the APSD file. Did that and it finally works!
Liz – than you for this. It helped me solve this issue after a long support call with Apple that did NOT resolve this. My process was a bit different, so am putting it here to help anyone else! It’s not the serial number on your Mac if you are told that…. 😉
1. Delete IDS with apple user id from keychain that is used to sign in with iCloud. IDS:[email protected] (as in your post)
2. Rename Mac’s Push Notification for iMessage and FaceTime from : Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/com.apple.apsd.plist to com.apple.apsd.plist.sav (may require sudo or admin password)
3. Copy an OLD com.apple.apsd.plist from backup to the Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/ folder (essential replacing the previous non-working one with one that worked from a backup.)
4. Shutdown the computer.
5. Clearn the NVRAM on restart CMD-OPT-P-R then reboot
6. Open iMessage (immediately connected and logged in.)
7. Open Facetime (put in user ID and pw for iCLoud, connects and logs in.)
In the end, this process took 5 minutes and worked perfectly. It also saved me from the Apple store technician costs! Many thanks!
I am not having any particular issue but happened to go into my Keychain and saw this
ids: unregistered-message-protection-key application password Date 5/12/20
I have no idea what this is and do not want to delete until seeking an answer – it does not show a password.
Is it okay to delete this and all other IDS – the only other ones appear from an entry in 2015 and say rsa public, private, etc.
This is an iMessage encryption key to keep your messages private and unreadable. Frankly, we recommend leaving this as is since it is not harming your system or its performance.
If you choose to delete these keys, follow this process:
1) Quit Messages app
2) Open Keychain
3) Delete the key(s)
4) Restart your Mac
When you restart, macOS will automatically generate new keys if needed for iMessage encryption
Thanks for a great post. I’ve tried everything short of calling apple, which is next on my list. However, I was not able to locate the apsd plist. I’m running 10.15.4 with the latest security update. Did the push service get renamed with Catalina?
This file is in your main library, not your user library so check this location: Macintosh HD > Library folder > Preferences folder > com.apple.apsd.plist
See if it’s there!
We use macOS Catalina 10.15.5 (Beta) and it’s there!
Thanks again for your awesome guide! I’ve spent more time than I like to think about trying to solve this issue. Now it seems to be working again, after I deleted the apsd plist. Yessss..
For anyone else reading this: My symptoms started with unstable iMessage transactions: iMessages would sometimes revert to sms, other times iMessage was back to normal. This went on for about one week, before iMessage firmly went down. Tried “everything” else, but this was the fix..
NVRAM reset did it for me, also – after having tried almost everything else (both above and below NVRAM reset) on the list.
BTW, the problem began after I firmware-upgraded my 2009 MacPro 4,1 to the 5,1 firmware. I’d say maybe anyone else who does this same firmware upgrade should just go ahead and reset the NVRAM after successfully doing this procedure – I mean, why not?
Thank you SO much. Deleting the apsd.plist file finally worked, after trying everything under the sun! Never would have figured that one out on my own.
My messages just suddenly stopped working the other day.
I first noticed my messages were not sending and it said the sendees did not use messages but the names were still blue – then they were red and I got the error on trying to sign in.
Then I saw that same problem with FT.
I swear this happened to me before and I can’t remember how I resolved it.
Thanks for your comprehensive list.
I have now tried everything on your list but the one that worked for you because I didn’t have a com.apple.apsd.plist to trash.
There is only a com.apple.apsd.launchd.
I assume I shouldn’t delete that.
Anyway – I shall now resort to calling apple support.
I ended up deleting the com.apple.iChat.plist and doing a soft restart. iMessage was automatically logged in after that. I still logged out and back in. Now I am having a problem sending texts to contacts without iPhones. I despise iMessage on MacOS. It sucks!!
I didn’t have a /Library/Preferences/com.apple.apsd.plist
Ran into this bug tonight on my wife’s Mac on Sierra. Discovered that her Messages have been dead there for two years! (She usually uses the iPhone and barely noticed.)
Ran all the technical solutions contained here to no effect. Problem turned out to be the spam block at the Apple end.
I want to thank you for publishing a COMPREHENSIVE treatment of this syndrome. Most other sources on the web were useless, including Apple’s own discussions.apple.com, which didn’t even hint at the existence of such a spam block.
JONES ……………..
THANK YOU !
I spent a couple of HOURS over the past TWO to THREE weeks TRYING TO figure-out how to fix the problem.
Last night I went to your site and I WENT THRU THE CORRECTION -:-:-:- ITEM BY ITEM…………..
About 30-minutes ago is took com.apple.apsd.plist to the Trash – RESTARTED the COMPUTER and then FACE TIME………….. IT WORKED !
THANK YOU for making it SIMPLE for a NON-IT PERSON to understand.
Had the apple support remove the “spam block” for me and it works. I did everything else and it didn’t work but the spam block thing did. In fact the higher up tech said it did not look like a spam block on the onset, but when he went line by line he recognized it.
You have no idea how helpful this was! I spent probably 5 hours on this issue and you’re thorough explanation was great. The Spam Block thing is real!
Give Apple Support a call and see if there is a block on your Apple ID for iMessage or FaceTime. Make sure you say the problem is related to your Apple ID–these type of support calls are always free of cost.
If your account doesn’t show any kind of block, ask them for a senior technician to walk you through other possibilities.
Thank you very much for this detailed summary. I tried everything, what Apple says and what you suggest, with no result.
As I can sign in from another partition, which is useless because I don’t use it, I suppose it makes no sense to call Apple and pay the 29 Euro they want, because my cloud account cannot be closed.
Your apple ID may be blocked due to an incomprehensible situation. I called many operators and wrote off many and no one could help me. I am from Ukraine and wrote to Russia, and then they contacted me and unblocked my apple. Great thanks to them.
In the event this helps someone else in the future as I lost an hour of work to this…
After chatting to Apple on the phone they asked me to use a personal hotspot/different Wifi network. I was connected to my work Wifi and it must not have allowed authentication on this. Connected to a hotspot on my phone and it went all okay. Put network back to normal after the authentication and messages still send so it was restricting the authentication only.
I had to call Apple Support and have them remove me from their blocked list. They said there was a “commercial spam block” on my account because I had unwittingly been looped into a scam text messaging system.
It is frustrating that they do not let you know that this is why it won’t work in the beginning, instead of wasting my time and Apple Support’s time trying to figure out why it won’t work in the first place.
A simple “Please call Apple Support for further information on this issue” would be fantastic and a huge time saver on both ends. Blargh!
I went through exactly the same thing…iCloud works perfectly fine on my MacBook other than the iMessage and FaceTime, which are both fine on my other devices.
I tried troubleshooting but nothing worked for me.
It wasn’t a huge deal other than a bit annoying since I can still text/FaceTime using my phone…
I just gave up and thought there was something wrong with my settings, etc.
However, I recently had to reset my MacBook and erase everything on the disk, which literally wiped out everything, but it didn’t solve the problem.
So I suspected it’s a problem with my account rather than the device itself.
I called the Apple Support and they indeed found a “spam block” on my account…not sure why. I definitely never spammed anyone. ;(
But after they removed the block, it went back to normal immediately.
Possible explanations: I did travel out of the country quite a few times. My friend once used my device to log into his iCloud to check iMessage.
In the beginning you wrote “But finally, after what feels like a million different tries, I found something that worked for me! And now I have both iMessage and FaceTime working flawlessly on my MacBook.”
What was that something that worked for you? You just gave us million things to try..
Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately, it is trial and error since there is no one common reason why this happens–instead, there are a bunch of things that “could” go wrong.
So what works for one person doesn’t necessarily do the trick for someone else. Yes, it’s frustrating!
What did work for me was removing the Mac’s aspd.plist–I have added that reference into my comment about a million tries to help point people to what worked for me.
Hope something works for you and I appreciate the feedback. Adding that bit in makes total sense.
Thanks for this! Deleting all the IDS files from Keychain did the trick! I was then able to sign on to both iMessage and FaceTime with no problems. Yippee!
Rango says
You saved me! I’ve been having issues with my new MacBook Pro M1 Max and Mac Mini M1 for the past couple of months.
Deleting the com.apple.apsd.plist file helped on the MacBook Pro! THANK YOU!
I will have to wait until tomorrow when I get to the office and try the same on my Mac Mini.
Thanks a TON!!!
Mat Kramer says
Thanks! Deleting the ids entries from the keychain did the trick!
Jeff says
Deleting the APSD file worked for me as well, many thanks!
Alie says
THANK YOU!! After three weeks trying to troubleshoot this every day… hours on Apple chat and just about to go into the store I went through your article and I had done everything already up to deleting the APSD file. Did that and it finally works!
Jason says
Liz – than you for this. It helped me solve this issue after a long support call with Apple that did NOT resolve this. My process was a bit different, so am putting it here to help anyone else! It’s not the serial number on your Mac if you are told that…. 😉
1. Delete IDS with apple user id from keychain that is used to sign in with iCloud. IDS:[email protected] (as in your post)
2. Rename Mac’s Push Notification for iMessage and FaceTime from : Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/com.apple.apsd.plist to com.apple.apsd.plist.sav (may require sudo or admin password)
3. Copy an OLD com.apple.apsd.plist from backup to the Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences/ folder (essential replacing the previous non-working one with one that worked from a backup.)
4. Shutdown the computer.
5. Clearn the NVRAM on restart CMD-OPT-P-R then reboot
6. Open iMessage (immediately connected and logged in.)
7. Open Facetime (put in user ID and pw for iCLoud, connects and logs in.)
In the end, this process took 5 minutes and worked perfectly. It also saved me from the Apple store technician costs! Many thanks!
Andrea says
The ids tip worked! Thanks!!!
Andrea says
I am not having any particular issue but happened to go into my Keychain and saw this
ids: unregistered-message-protection-key application password Date 5/12/20
I have no idea what this is and do not want to delete until seeking an answer – it does not show a password.
Is it okay to delete this and all other IDS – the only other ones appear from an entry in 2015 and say rsa public, private, etc.
Elizabeth Jones says
Hi Andrea,
This is an iMessage encryption key to keep your messages private and unreadable. Frankly, we recommend leaving this as is since it is not harming your system or its performance.
If you choose to delete these keys, follow this process:
1) Quit Messages app
2) Open Keychain
3) Delete the key(s)
4) Restart your Mac
When you restart, macOS will automatically generate new keys if needed for iMessage encryption
Morten says
Hi!
Thanks for a great post. I’ve tried everything short of calling apple, which is next on my list. However, I was not able to locate the apsd plist. I’m running 10.15.4 with the latest security update. Did the push service get renamed with Catalina?
Morten
Elizabeth Jones says
Hi Morten,
This file is in your main library, not your user library so check this location: Macintosh HD > Library folder > Preferences folder > com.apple.apsd.plist
See if it’s there!
We use macOS Catalina 10.15.5 (Beta) and it’s there!
Morten says
Haha!
Thanks. The search didn’t find it and I evidently don’t qualify for the title “thorough”. Thanks again – let’s see what happens..
Morten
Morten says
Liz,
Thanks again for your awesome guide! I’ve spent more time than I like to think about trying to solve this issue. Now it seems to be working again, after I deleted the apsd plist. Yessss..
For anyone else reading this: My symptoms started with unstable iMessage transactions: iMessages would sometimes revert to sms, other times iMessage was back to normal. This went on for about one week, before iMessage firmly went down. Tried “everything” else, but this was the fix..
Morten
TRAJ says
The NVRAM fix worked for me.
Thanks a Million !!
Im using Mac Pro (2009) with High Sierra
an tran says
same here, NVRAM reset works for me. Thank you.
Brad Crawford says
NVRAM reset did it for me, also – after having tried almost everything else (both above and below NVRAM reset) on the list.
BTW, the problem began after I firmware-upgraded my 2009 MacPro 4,1 to the 5,1 firmware. I’d say maybe anyone else who does this same firmware upgrade should just go ahead and reset the NVRAM after successfully doing this procedure – I mean, why not?
TyC says
WORKED FOR ME!!! THANKS A MILLION
Sue says
Thank you SO much. Deleting the apsd.plist file finally worked, after trying everything under the sun! Never would have figured that one out on my own.
Angie says
My messages just suddenly stopped working the other day.
I first noticed my messages were not sending and it said the sendees did not use messages but the names were still blue – then they were red and I got the error on trying to sign in.
Then I saw that same problem with FT.
I swear this happened to me before and I can’t remember how I resolved it.
Thanks for your comprehensive list.
I have now tried everything on your list but the one that worked for you because I didn’t have a com.apple.apsd.plist to trash.
There is only a com.apple.apsd.launchd.
I assume I shouldn’t delete that.
Anyway – I shall now resort to calling apple support.
I miss my old 2007 iMac.
Angie says
Update – calling Apple support was what worked for me – they had to reset or something. Thanks for your help.
Michael Dennis says
I ended up deleting the com.apple.iChat.plist and doing a soft restart. iMessage was automatically logged in after that. I still logged out and back in. Now I am having a problem sending texts to contacts without iPhones. I despise iMessage on MacOS. It sucks!!
I didn’t have a /Library/Preferences/com.apple.apsd.plist
–M
Macs R We says
Ran into this bug tonight on my wife’s Mac on Sierra. Discovered that her Messages have been dead there for two years! (She usually uses the iPhone and barely noticed.)
Ran all the technical solutions contained here to no effect. Problem turned out to be the spam block at the Apple end.
I want to thank you for publishing a COMPREHENSIVE treatment of this syndrome. Most other sources on the web were useless, including Apple’s own discussions.apple.com, which didn’t even hint at the existence of such a spam block.
Rossi says
What did the trick for me was deleting the com.apple.apsd.plist file.
I’m sorry, but since OS X Yosemite, Apple has really bungled OS X.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. If I could, I would send you a cake …or something.
PS! It seems you’re the only one mentioning the APSD plist file. Kudos.
J
Rick says
JONES ……………..
THANK YOU !
I spent a couple of HOURS over the past TWO to THREE weeks TRYING TO figure-out how to fix the problem.
Last night I went to your site and I WENT THRU THE CORRECTION -:-:-:- ITEM BY ITEM…………..
About 30-minutes ago is took com.apple.apsd.plist to the Trash – RESTARTED the COMPUTER and then FACE TIME………….. IT WORKED !
THANK YOU for making it SIMPLE for a NON-IT PERSON to understand.
THANK YOU,
Rick
Michael says
Had the apple support remove the “spam block” for me and it works. I did everything else and it didn’t work but the spam block thing did. In fact the higher up tech said it did not look like a spam block on the onset, but when he went line by line he recognized it.
You have no idea how helpful this was! I spent probably 5 hours on this issue and you’re thorough explanation was great. The Spam Block thing is real!
Jacqui says
This really helped me. Thank you so much.
Peter says
Deleting the apsd file helped me.
Thanks!
Nathan says
Yeh so I tried this method and it worked. Deleting the apsd was the trick.
Thank you so much for posting this!
Mike says
I did ALL that you suggested, from the Keychain access advice onwards and it worked briefly for 3 seconds.
All my history showed up on the FaceTime page before suddenly cutting off and reverting to the Login again.
I have tried repeatedly but not able to log in.
Any idea what my problem could be?
SK says
Hi Mike,
Sorry, these steps didn’t help.
Give Apple Support a call and see if there is a block on your Apple ID for iMessage or FaceTime. Make sure you say the problem is related to your Apple ID–these type of support calls are always free of cost.
If your account doesn’t show any kind of block, ask them for a senior technician to walk you through other possibilities.
Liz
Yannis says
Thank you very much for this detailed summary. I tried everything, what Apple says and what you suggest, with no result.
As I can sign in from another partition, which is useless because I don’t use it, I suppose it makes no sense to call Apple and pay the 29 Euro they want, because my cloud account cannot be closed.
Elizabeth Jones says
Hi Yannis,
I would definitely call Apple Support and let them know the problem is with your Apple ID working on FaceTime and/or iMessage.
Calls and assistance for Apple IDs are usually free of cost, so it can’t hurt to give them a call.
It’s likely you will be handed off to a few different support level team members, especially since none of the suggested tips worked for you.
Keep us posted if you have the chance,
Liz
Hecc says
After spending so much time on this I still can’t get it to work… There might be restrictions to iMessage and FaceTime but thanks for the suggestions…
Oleg says
Your apple ID may be blocked due to an incomprehensible situation. I called many operators and wrote off many and no one could help me. I am from Ukraine and wrote to Russia, and then they contacted me and unblocked my apple. Great thanks to them.
Jim says
In the event this helps someone else in the future as I lost an hour of work to this…
After chatting to Apple on the phone they asked me to use a personal hotspot/different Wifi network. I was connected to my work Wifi and it must not have allowed authentication on this. Connected to a hotspot on my phone and it went all okay. Put network back to normal after the authentication and messages still send so it was restricting the authentication only.
katie says
thank you very much for you help! it was driving me CRAZY.
Darcy says
Thank you for this comprehensive list!
I had to call Apple Support and have them remove me from their blocked list. They said there was a “commercial spam block” on my account because I had unwittingly been looped into a scam text messaging system.
It is frustrating that they do not let you know that this is why it won’t work in the beginning, instead of wasting my time and Apple Support’s time trying to figure out why it won’t work in the first place.
A simple “Please call Apple Support for further information on this issue” would be fantastic and a huge time saver on both ends. Blargh!
Hattie says
Hi,
I was wondering, while you were on the block list were you able to text from other devices?
My iMessage works fine on my phone, just not on my MacBook.
I’m not sure if I need to call Apple, so I thought I’d ask what it was like for you before I did.
XD says
I went through exactly the same thing…iCloud works perfectly fine on my MacBook other than the iMessage and FaceTime, which are both fine on my other devices.
I tried troubleshooting but nothing worked for me.
It wasn’t a huge deal other than a bit annoying since I can still text/FaceTime using my phone…
I just gave up and thought there was something wrong with my settings, etc.
However, I recently had to reset my MacBook and erase everything on the disk, which literally wiped out everything, but it didn’t solve the problem.
So I suspected it’s a problem with my account rather than the device itself.
I called the Apple Support and they indeed found a “spam block” on my account…not sure why. I definitely never spammed anyone. ;(
But after they removed the block, it went back to normal immediately.
Possible explanations: I did travel out of the country quite a few times. My friend once used my device to log into his iCloud to check iMessage.
I hope it helps!
stas says
In the beginning you wrote “But finally, after what feels like a million different tries, I found something that worked for me! And now I have both iMessage and FaceTime working flawlessly on my MacBook.”
What was that something that worked for you? You just gave us million things to try..
Basically it’s a trial and error, thanks.
SK says
Hi Stas,
Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately, it is trial and error since there is no one common reason why this happens–instead, there are a bunch of things that “could” go wrong.
So what works for one person doesn’t necessarily do the trick for someone else. Yes, it’s frustrating!
What did work for me was removing the Mac’s aspd.plist–I have added that reference into my comment about a million tries to help point people to what worked for me.
Hope something works for you and I appreciate the feedback. Adding that bit in makes total sense.
Liz
Lissa says
Thanks for this! Deleting all the IDS files from Keychain did the trick! I was then able to sign on to both iMessage and FaceTime with no problems. Yippee!
Kudos for figuring it out.
alex says
where can i find the ids files?
Johnson says
Click on the launchpad and type keychain.
Then type IDS on the search bar