We love using iMessage! It makes communicating with friends and family so much easier, especially in times where having a conversation is not possible or not recommended (think movies or workplaces.) So when you stumble across iMessage not working, it’s very frustrating.
Several of our readers report an issue in which iMessage service is not working properly on the iPhone, iPod Touch and/or iPad. For instance, iMessage doesn’t send or receive messages.
Yes, There is a Difference Between SMS and iMessage!
This one we all forget–sometimes. iMessages work between Apple Products only–and they appear in BLUE text bubbles.
SMS or MMS messages work with all types of mobile products & manufacturers, from Android to Windows, and appear in GREEN text bubbles.
To send SMS/MMS from your iPhone, you need a text-messaging plan from a mobile wireless carrier.
Another Big Difference?
iMessages and SMS messages include texts, photos, or videos. BUT iMessages are always encrypted while SMS and MMS messages are not encrypted. So, if you have a choice, always stick with BLUE (encrypted.)
Apple’s Golden Rule
When facing any issue such as iMessage not working, always check if an iOS update or macOS update is available for your device. If so, Apple recommends updating your iOS as a first step.
Speaking of updates
Also, check if your mobile or cellular carrier as a carrier settings update. This setting is obviously for iDevices that support mobile plans–iPhones and iPads.
Carrier settings updates let your provider update its carrier network and related settings to improve cellular network connectivity and performance or add support for features like VoLTE or Wi-Fi. So it’s a good idea to keep these updated and to check regularly for any updates.
To check for and install a carrier settings update
Make sure you connect your device to a WiFi or cellular network
Tap Settings > General > About
If an update is available, you see an option to update your carrier settings
When you insert a new SIM card into your iPhone or iPad, you always need to download these carrier settings for your new carrier.
Pressing the Send Button 411
Believe it or not, how you press the send button matters! Check that you apply pressure and press firmly on the send button for 3D Touch iPhones and iDevices
For non-3D Touch iDevices, a long press on the send button often does the trick (the upward pointing arrow icon to the right of your message)
Check Apple Server Status
The problem might be on Apple’s end. So before spending a lot of time troubleshooting, make sure that Apple’s Servers are in tip-top shape!
Visit Apple’s System Status Site to get a snapshot of performance. If you see any currently reported issues, wait until they resolve and then try again.
If problems persist when Apple’s system site shows no current issues, then begin troubleshooting your device.
Wondering how to change iMessage password?
Your iMessage password is the SAME as your Apple ID’s password.
Usually, when you enter your updated Apple ID’s password on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod, the Message app applies that new password to your iMessage account.
However, if you are not able to get iMessage working due to a password change, go to Settings > Messages and see if you need to enter your Apple ID and password again.
Changing iMessage password on a Mac
Launch the Messages app
From the Messages App’s menu bar, choose Message > Preferences
Select the iMessage tab or Accounts tab
Update your Apple ID password, if needed
How to Resolve iMessage Not Working
1. Toggle iMessage Off and On
Go to Settings > Messages and toggle iMessage off. Restart your device and then return to those same settings and toggle iMessage back on.
If that didn’t do the trick, try signing out of iMessage and then signing back in with your Apple ID.
Go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive. Tap your Apple ID and choose Sign Out.
Wait a few seconds, and then sign back in with your Apple ID or use another Apple ID, if desired.
2. Check Your Internet Connection
Go to Settings > WiFi and toggle WiFi Off, wait a few seconds, and toggle it back on.
Or use Cellular Data instead by toggling WiFi off and trying again using only your mobile data.
3. Restart or Force Restart
Turn off and on (restart) your iOS device. Wait 20-30 seconds and then power back on.
How to restart
Press and hold the Side/Sleep/Wake button until the red slider appears
Drag the slider to turn your device completely off
After the device turns off, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button again until you see the Apple logo
source: apple
Restart Using iOS 11 or above
If you use iOS 11 or higher, there’s another way to restart your device via the Settings Menu!
Go to Settings > General > Shut Down. Once your device turns off, wait 20-30 seconds, and then power back up.
If a restart didn’t do the trick, then try a forced restart with your iDevice. Apple recommends only performing a force restart on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touches as a last resort and only if it’s not responding.
How to force restart
On an iPhone X Series, iPad with no Home Button, iPhone 8, or iPhone 8 Plus: Press and quickly release the Volume Up button. Press and immediately release the Volume Down button. Then, press and hold the Side button until you see the Apple logo
On an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus: Press and hold both the Sleep/Wake and Volume Down buttons for at least ten seconds, until you see the Apple logo
On an iPhone 6s and earlier, iPad with Home Button, or iPod touch: Press and hold both the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons for at least ten seconds, until you see the Apple logo
If Restarting Didn’t Fix your iMessage not working
1. Reset Your Network
Often your iDevice has problems connecting to the internet. So refreshing its connection to your network helps.
Go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings
You need to re-enter your WiFi passcodes, so have these on-hand before proceeding.
2. Often, changing your DNS settings fixes this issue.
To change DNS servers, follow these instructions for iOS devices (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad)
Tap Settings > WiFi
Tap the blue arrow next to your current Wi-Fi network
Choose the “DNS” field and enter the DNS servers; 8.8.4.4 and 8.8.8.8 (Google’s Public DNS). For more information about Google’s public DNS
Top Tips That Fix Most iMessage Issues
Often, our iMessage problems are due to a changed setting, so let’s get those back to working order.
1. Check Your Settings
Check that you are signed in with your Apple ID. Go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive and verify that you’re signed in with your Apple ID
Ensure you apply sufficient finger or stylus pressure when pressing the send button (the upward pointing arrow icon to the right of your message.) For iOS 10 and above, make sure that you hold your touch longer than usual to allow the send with effects menu to appear
iFolks with 3D Touch, a light touch is all you need
No 3D Touch? No problem, use a firm and long touch–that’s what it needs to work
Restart (also called force closing) the Messages app by double tapping the Home button (or swiping up the Home Gesture Bar) and then swipe up to force quit the app. As an FYI, no data or messages are lost when restarting. Once closed, wait 10-20 seconds and then open the Messages app again
Toggle Airplane Mode ON and OFF by going to Settings > Airplane Mode
Toggle OFF and ON iMessage by going to Settings > Messages
2. Check Your Connections & Reset
Reset your network by tapping Settings > General > Reset > choose Reset Network Settings
Turn off WiFi Assist by tapping Settings > Cellular > and turn off Wi-Fi Assist
Check your that Date and Time setting is “Set Automatically” by going to Settings > General > Date & Time
Reset All Settings by opening up Settings > General. Scroll down and tap on Reset. Choose Reset All Settings. Enter your passcode if asked and choose Reset All Settings again. This resets all the settings on your iDevice. But, it won’t delete any media or data
A Reader Tip!!
Henry discovered his 6th generation iPod Touch iMessage wasn’t working. The send button was dead. So he tried a couple of things.
And ultimately, Henry fixed the problem of his iMessage not working by going to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive.
Under “start new conversations from,” he changed it from his Gmail account to his iCloud address ([email protected]) And wouldn’t you know, iMessage started working again.
Seeing Red Exclamation Point?
When you send a message, do you see a red exclamation point followed with an alert saying “Not Delivered?”
Tap the red exclamation point then tap Try Again
If your message still isn’t delivered, touch the red exclamation point then tap Send as Text Message.
This send your message as an SMS or MMS
Message and Screen Effects do not show up
The message is not encrypted–so be mindful of what you send
Are your contacts seeing your email address and not your phone number?
This happens a lot. I mean A LOT! So you are most certainly not alone. Luckily, this is an easy one to get straightened out.
The chances are that your iMessage settings are set to receive iMessages and start conversations from your Apple ID instead of your phone number.
So let’s check those iMessage settings and see if your phone number is set (or not set) to send and receive messages
Go to Settings > Messages
Tap Send & Receive
Verify that your phone number is listed and selectedunder “You Can Be Reached By iMessage At” AND under “Start New Conversations From.”
If you don’t see your phone number listed, let’s add it
On all of your iDevices, go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive
Tap your Apple ID, then tap Sign Out
On your iPhone, go back to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive
Tap Use your Apple ID for iMessage and sign in with your Apple ID
Verify that your phone number and Apple ID are listed under “You Can Be Reached By iMessage At.”
On all your other iDevices,open Settings > Messages > Send & Receive
Tap Use your Apple ID for iMessage then sign in with your Apple ID
Are Your Messages Not Showing Up on Other Devices?
If you want to receive messages on other devices, like an iPad, iPod, or Mac & MacBook Pro, make sure you toggle on Text Message Forwarding services for all devices.
Go to Settings > Messages > Text Message Forwarding
Toggle on this setting for all devices (using the same Apple ID) that you want your messages sent to
If you DON’T want those messages forwarded, toggle this service off
Obsessed with tech since the early arrival of A/UX on Apple, Sudz (SK) is responsible for the original editorial direction of AppleToolBox. He is based out of Los Angeles, CA.
Sudz specializes in covering all things macOS, having reviewed dozens of OS X and macOS developments over the years.
In a former life, Sudz worked helping Fortune 100 companies with their technology and business transformation aspirations.
If you use the Messages app, start typing a message in the box labeled Text Message. As soon as you add in text, a blue or green arrow should appear–that’s the send button!
Adding text into the Subject line also works to show the send button.
This article is very informative for iPhone users. There are very helpful tricks to solve imessages problem.
I will share your blog in my group. Thanks and keep it up.
After a software update, I was able send messages from my iPhone, but not to the same person from my MacBook Pro. Here is how I fixed it:
Go to: Settings > Messages > Text Message Forwarding
It will show you a list of all message-capable devices signed into your Apple ID. Make sure all of them are enabled. In my case, the update somehow turned off the MacBook Pro. I enabled it and that solved the problem.
Thank you so much for this spent hours trying to figure out, came across this and my issue was the last one send and receive was doing it through email instead of number ty
can’t turn imessage on in settings. It says there is no cellular data, but cellular data is already on and it has to be working since I can browse safari w no wifi connection. I tried restarting, no change. >:[
First, make sure you activate SMS/MMS messaging on your phone. Go to Settings > Messages and toggle on Send as SMS and MMS Messaging.
Also, go to Settings > General > Date & Time and make sure that your time zone is set correctly or on set automatically.
Try going to Settings > Cellular Data, then scroll down the list to locate Messages and toggle it on, then turn iMessage on.
If that doesn’t work, try to reset your Network settings on your iPhone. Tap on Settings > General > Reset Network Settings. Once the device is reset, check and see if you can activate iMessage.
Finally, if nothing helps. Go to a place with WiFi available (like a coffee shop) and try activating iMessage using WiFi.
Have you updated the Apple ID on your device? Your main Apple ID (Settings > Apple ID Profile at the top of your screen) should be the same as the Apple ID you want to use for iMessage.
If it’s not the same, update your Main Apple ID to the one with your iCloud email address.
If they are the same, go to Settings > Messages and toggle off iMessage, wait 20-30 seconds, and toggle this setting back on to start a new activation. If it activates, scroll to Send&Receive and check that your Apple ID iCloud email address is listed with a checkmark next to it.
If you haven’t updated to the latest iOS version, updating might also help. Go to Settings > General > Software Update to check if an update is available. If it is, backup first and then if possible, update via iTunes. If iTunes is not available, update via Settings > General > Software Update.
My 6 gen iPod message send button was dead. Fixed by going to: Settings > messages > send & receive. Under “start new conversations from” I had my gmail address. I changed it to my iCloud address ([email protected]) and It started working.
I just bought the new I pod everything works except I message and FaceTime it says recheck your connection try again I also bought son new I pad mini today his setup worked fine . Under settings when u go to messages there isn’t a place to switch it on it just says enter Apple password
My iMessage and face time say I need to set up my accounts but when I put in my Apple ID password it says activation unavailable please check you wifi but I have full bars on my ipad
My daughters iMessage not working right. Her name is in blue & when I send it it’s blue but don’t say delivered then it goes to green. Her iMessage is on. What to do next?
Tried to send a video to grandson, message said I needed Imessage, Purchased imessage but it just shows a big green and black mess. Tried swiping to move it, nothing. Followed every direction in here, nothing, still can’t send the video to my grandson.
Turned it off. Back on, tried to re-send pix to my brother. Got this info: “iMessage needs to be enabled to send this message.”
1. Okay, going into “settings” again. There goes the message, NOT SAVED in unsent messages.
2. Went into “settings” and put “8.8.8.8”. There were already two other addresses there…then what? There’s no “enter”. Close out? What to do next? These directions are vague. So, I’ll do that (close out) and re-try sending the message, for the 4th time…doubting it’ll work, because I didn’t really get instructed on what to do…
3. GUESS WHAT?! It says, once again, “iMessage needs to be enabled to send this message.” Wow, thanks apple. Sort of wanting a different smart phone due to this constant pain. You are NOT helpful. Would love you to contact me, but I know you won’t.
Double tap “Unsent message”? No, it doesn’t even give the courtesy of saying that. Mine just closes out and leads me to believe that it’s been sent. Or, it’ll close and then say that my “i message” is turned off. NO it isn’t! I even lost the pictures I took and included in the messages to family last night. This ALL has happened since I downloaded the latest IOS fix. Too bad for me.
hi on ipod i cant send messages it keeps saying “message send failure” can someone please help with this its been like 1 year and i cant get it to work
Double tap unsent message … Progress bar will be unfinished and in blue .. and in contextual pop up menu choose send as text message .. Progress bar and message will turn green to show this is an SMS and not an iMessage 🙂
I also was having problems with my iMessage and FaceTime not working and this has fixed the issues surrounding iMessage (and FaceTime, too). In order to do this, go to Settings -> General -> Date & Time and toggle the switch on Set Automatically to ON. It worked. I have been working on it for almost a week.
I have a iPod touch 4th gen and it died on me. So I charged it back up and go to IMessage and try sending a message but it won’t send. The little bar stops right at the end. I also can’t receive messages, I know I was sent messages while it was dead. I have tried EVERYTHING to get it working. Sighing out of iMessage, checking and in checking things, powering it off and on a million times. It’s dont this before but not for this long. If anyone has any different suggestions they would be much appreciated.
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!
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?
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.
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. 🙂
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
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.
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. -,-
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.
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 🙂
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!
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.
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)
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?
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!!!
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…
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!
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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?
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!
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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…
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
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??
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??
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
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
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.
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
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.
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!!!
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.
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.
I tried restarting my iPod and that didn’t work. I also tried changing the DSN to 8.8.8.8 and that didn’t work either!! My problem is that I type my apple ID in and I type the password and I click next then I click verify then it says verifying and then it it brings me back to the screen where it asks u to type ur password and ID!! What should I do?!!?!?
I started having this problem yesterday which happened all of a sudden! So I cannot connect to youtube, as well as iMessage doesn’t work. I restarted many times, did some of the recommendations on here, and still no luck at all 🙁
I have an ipod touch, and when i go to open imessages, a screen pops up saying “get started” so i click the button and it tells me to type in my apple id password(my email is already there) so i do, then it verifys, and goes back to the page that tells me to type in my password. I cant logg in! What should i do?
so i have an ipod touch with the messages app and i cant recieve any texts also when i send them they never get delivered. i tried the 8.8.8.8 thing and restarted my ipod. nothing is working. please help.
I have an iPod touch and I Wanted to sent my friend a message and it says try again I do so and it still dose that I turn it off then back on still isn’t working I go on setting then wifi and change the DNS to 8.8.8.8 and still it isn’t working, could someone please help me??
So I have an iPod touch 4 and my friend borrowed it to log into her iTunes account. After, I logged back into mine. Since then, iMessage has not worked. It proms me to log into iMessage because I had been logged out of iTunes, which really doesn’t make any sense because it should still stay logged in whether or not you log out of your iTunes account. So I went to log into the iMessage account and it accepted my password and then went to the next screen to ask which email I wanted to receive the messages at. This is a differen email than my iTunes account email so I was changing it when suddenly it went back to the previous log in screen. One time managed to type my email really fast and press the verify button and it said that my email could not be verified and that a verification link had been sent to my email. Nothing ever arrived. Does anyone have any ideas before I have to someplace and get it fixed? Thanks!
This worked for me, thanks Pom!
I had this issue with my kid’s ipod touch. imessage would not work when the send button was pressed. I fixed it by going into setting, messages and then turning off the show subject field setting. Only took 2 hours to figure out!
had the problem for AGES did the dns thing, changed sim cards tried it with 3g and restarted heaps of timesand…… after FRICKIN AGES it finally works screw it all the same im gettin an htc one x for my birthday
I had this issue with my kid’s ipod touch. imessage would not work when the send button was pressed. I fixed it by going into setting, messages and then turning off the show subject field setting. Only took 2 hours to figure out!
I have an iPhone 4, not jailbroken..version 5.1.1 and the iMessage doesn’t work..
FaceTime works good but I can’t even turn on IMessage, as I turn it on, it goes back to off..!!
DNS thingy didn’t worked, what should I do ?
Hi all,
Um im not sure. But here’s what i did. I am using 5.1.1. My imessage, push service did not work. So i dl SAM activation from cyd Followed its instruction and disactivated my phine and reactivated it with itune. Then relogin your imessage. Try that if you have no more idea.
But i should warn you, SAM act. need to temp change your phone ICID. Kinda long procedure but it worked for me. Good luck.
I have a iphone and just bought my child a ipod touch and eveything seems fine ( after several tries ) but now when ever I send several text out at the same time in the To: field my daughters touch does not get it, if i text her by herself it works and if I group message she still doesnt get it. All have Imessage turn on. My iphone has a on/off slide for MMs and Group message to turn on,hers does not. I’m believing that Itouch can’t group message.
Help
First off mms and group msging function tabs has nothing to do with imessage. It’s a internal separate program, similar to msn but only built in.
I understand your problem, but i have no solution for it. Cuz i sometimes encounter that too. It’s a glitch i think. My brother and i are techs, i work in korea and he works in toronto. We imessage all the time. But for some reason, not all our msges goes thru.. Imessage is very unstable.
But logically speaking, ipod touch imessage is exactly the same as iphones’. It’s just another msn software.
Maybe when you group msg, try entering in her number imstead of her comtact number, probably crashing with someone else. Or delete her contact and re-add her with a different name.(just to make sure the pointer is not collide with another contact)
Hi all,
Um im not sure. But here’s what i did. I am using 5.1.1. My imessage, push service did not work. So i dl SAM activation from cydia. Followed its instruction and disactivated my phine and reactivated it with itune. Then relogin your imessage. Try that if you have no more idea.
But i should warn you, SAM act. need to temp change your phone ICID. Kinda long procedure but it worked for me. Good luck.
I have tried everything. Changing the DNS, turnin off iMessage and even turning my wi fi off and on a number of times changing the DNS every time. Is there anything else I can try.
Hi Gemma,
Did you ever successfully sent a msg using imessage to that particular number? Because, not all iphone users are registered to use imessage. And also, if that person updated their IOS and needed reactivation with their imessage, you will not be able to sent imessage to that person. Hence, this maybe the other person problem and not your imessage problem. Ask that user to check to see if their imessage is working or not.
When I click on iMessage, it asks me to log in. I log in and it takes me to the next screen, which verifies my email. Then it takes me back to the log in screen, asking me to login and verify my email. My software is up to date and I don’t know how to fix it. It has had this problem since I first bought my iPod.
Hi all
i have done EVERYTHING here and myimessages on my ipod is still playing up and not allowing me to send a message to one particular number but to every other number it is fine.. can SOMEONE please HELP ME
The iMessage stopped working for me since yesterday. I have gotten 3 message that failed to go through with Red ! next to it. I have turned it off for a few seconds, then turned it on, whomever I speak to uses iMessage on their cell phone, and 8.8.8.8 will not work because I already tried that. The wifi works great because if it isn’t, I wouldn’t be able to get notifications on it and check my mail. I even turned off the iMessage and restarted it just now. It still isn’t working.
My iPod touch has iMessage but whenever I try to send a message to my friend, it always says not delivered and I try again and again but it doesnt work. What my friend sees is me ofline and a text that says random message.For it to work for me and my friend, she has to send me a picture text for it to work again. Please fix. Thanks so much ! (:
My iPod touch has iMessage but whenever I try to send a message to my friend, it always says not delivered and I try again and again but it doesnt work. What my friend sees is me ofline and a text that says random message.For it to work for me and my friend, she has to send me a picture text for it to work again. Please fix. Thanks so much ! (: ❤
My iPod touch has iMessage but whenever I try to send a message to my friend, it always says not delivered and I try again and again but it doesnt work. What my friend sees is me ofline and a text that says random message.For it to work for me and my friend, she has to send me a picture text for it to work again. Please fix. Thanks so much ! (: ❤
I lost my Internet at my old house and connected at my new house now my iMessage app says it can’t verify my email cuz its already in use. How do I fix it?
Hello!!! ok so I have tried eveything. I have turned my iPod off then back on. I have turned my time to “set automatically”. I have done the 8.8.8.8. thing but nothing works. I have version 5.1.1 and when ever I go into messages it goes to my messages screen then another screen pops up that says ” enter ur apple id”. I have used iMessages before on my iPod. I was just using it this morning!! when I do enter my apple Id it goes to the screen where it tells u to put ur email or address or what ever but after like 2 seconds it goes right back to the apple Id screen there is no alert tht comes up it just goes strait back to that screen!! I have no IDEA what to do so please help me!!!
Ok I have a problem, I go on iMessage and it says I have to retype my password for my ID when I do that it asks what email address I would like to use but I can’t get past that it keeps going back without me doing anything
Help??
My iPod touch 5.1.1, and I tried both of the things restarting it and changed the DNN, and it still doesnt send my message! It would get half way of sending then fail, I try to resend it and it never sends! I want to use this but I cant!
So, my messages app is working great! The only problem is it won’t let me send a message to a certain iPhone number. It lets me send messages to other iPhone numbers but not this 1 for some reason. It is not an invalid number because I have texted it before on a texting app and have called it many times, but for some reason it just won’t let me send a text through messages! Can anybody help?!
i tried each and everyone ofthese on my iPad 3 and nothing works yet….hopefully they will give update tofix this problem. My iPad 2 had no problems with imessage at all.
Mine still doesn’t work. The number listed on my received at is from other sim card which is a temp sim card when i was abroad and i cannot change them to my regular number. Please help. Thanks.
Click on who u want to send the message to and Click on them at the top of the screen and make sure its not red with an exclamation point (!). If it is it means the other person is not registered with IMessage. Hope that solves ur problem.
So I have an iPod touch and I want to use iMessage, I open it, I can type something in and type who to send it to, but the send button is dark grey and won’t let my click it. I have iOS 5.1.1
I have an iPod touch too, and my iMessage wasn’t working until I changed my DNS settings. So
1. Tap Settings
2. Tap Wi-Fi on the left-hand side
3. Tap the blue arrow next to your current Wi-Fi network
4. Tap the “DNS” field and enter the DNS servers 8.8.8.8 (Google’s Public DNS).
Hey everyone so as I found out that DNS crap every site tells us to change doesn’t work. I found a different way to fix it and it worked. It might seem silly but it worked for me 🙂 Follow the steps below
Go to your settings on your ipod/iphone/ipad
Click general
date & time
Most people set their own date and time like I did.
Change it to set automatically 🙂
choose where you live then go back to Imessage and try again.
It should work. It worked for me. If it works you can then go back to your date and time and change it back to how you had it set before. I know this sounds silly but it actually fixed my problem so please give it a go and let me know if it worked.
Hi
So my problem is imessage has been working fine until last night. We both have iphone on ios5, he’s in America and I’m in UK. I’ve tried all the options, like dns, vpn, logged in again using apple ID and even restarted the device. The imessage blue send button won’t appear, and when it does “message send failure” or it’s just the standard message in green.
Help would be so appreciated
Thank you
This was very helpful, we weren’t able to send imessage or make an FT call from an iphone 4 to my iphone 4s, we just changed the DNS (default is same with router) to 8.8.8.8 and we immediately made succesful imessages and FT calls.
Hey, I’ve had my iPod for a while now and I’ve used iMessage ever since I’ve got it and it worked fine, but just recently I’ve tried sending one of my friends a message and when I click send it automatically says that the message hasn’t been delivered. It would be great if I could get some solutions. Thank you
I was having trouble sending and receiving iMessages do I followed the advice on this page and rebooted my iPhone4 and not only did I receive the text I was expecting but about 10 voicemails from the past two weeks! Now I have to explain to friends and business associates that I did not blow off their calls but my iPhone failed to deliver their message. Very disappointing I hope Apple addresses this.
Hey
Can someone help me pleaseee
My iMessage won’t let me sign in it says verifying but it’s just going to the previous page
Dammm it’s sooooo annoying….
I’m having the same problem. It won’t let me sign up for imessage. Facetime works perfectly fine and I didn’t even need to sign up for that, it done it it’s self. I have been told to change my DNS to 8.8.8.8 but that doesn’t work. This is really driving me crazy. Please help? Would much appreciate if you replied back to me on my blog. Thanks.
Okay so I was having the Problem with my iMessage too it’s. It working on my iPod. So I did what it said above. But I was really weary about turning it off and then on again. Mainly just turning it off. Because its jail broken through cydia and now my safari won’t open and the cydia app won’t open and neither will this app that is apart of cydia. So if you have any info I would greatly appreciate it. Like lots and lots. Thank you.
I have tried restarting my iDevice it didn’t work then I tried changing the DNS to 8.8.8.8 it’s still didn’t work and I know the other person has iOS5 because I could talk to her last night but now the messages won’t send and I can not receive any messages from her while the other people I message will receive and reply to the messages. Help?
had the same problem,
go to settings > messages > there is on off for imessage, just switch it to on and it should works perfectly.
mine didn’t work after i updated my iphone4 but now it works.
hope this help :))
If like me you have been overseas and used another sim you may need to go into the settings undre messages and turn imessage back on. Mine probably turned itself off when I turned off mobile data or when I swapped simcards.
Rob,
I am overseas and use a different sim. My trouble is that I have 1 contact that the messages won’t say delivered. All others work its just the one. It seems like it takes hours to deliver and sometimes days. Ever run into that problem? Also I’m on and iPhone 4 5.1.1(9B206) not 208(I’m a GSM iPhone from AT&T) never had this until the update. And sometimes they go through no problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
My iPod touch the I messaging worked fine then it just say not delivered. I cut it off in so many times I logged n and out it says it is on but won’t send messages called apple gave a forum but it didn’t work
Hi
My iMessage and FaceTime just suddenly stopped working.when I click on iMessage it just shows log in, but after I click next, it says verifies and then goes to the home screen. I’ve tried everything but nothing works plz help!
Had found out that at times, 2 different addresses were used to send me text messages, and therefore there were some I never received (my email address as the destination never was received, perhaps because I didn’t have iMessage enabled). Then, when I added the DNS entry to the iMessage config, I noticed there were 2 email addresses, the appleID and an additional (both are my email address). Thus, I disabled that, somehow and attempted to send a text using iMessage. It still didn’t go through, so I simply turned it off. I am sending from an iPhone 4S to and iPhone 3S.
even when i change it to 8.8.8.8 it wont work! ive reseted my phone and turned it off and on and when i go to imessage in setting all it says is “waiting for activation” some one please help me 🙁
My ipad will only send imessages to some people. It use to work with my husbands iphone but its now stopped and comes up with a red ! On his name, none of the suggestions on here have worked anyone else got any idea what i can do?
I have an iPad 2, and use iMessage and Facetime to chat w/ my girlfriend who has an iPhone 4. Both applications have been randomly stop working for days. Changing the DNS server has gotten it working again, so this solution worked for me.
Hi both my wife and I have iPhone 4’s and are using software 5.1 but iMessage does not work between our phones even though we have no problem using it with other iPhones.any suggestions would be really helpful
I had the iPad 2 and my iMessages worked great, but since I got the iPad 3, it does not work. When I type in someone’s name it puts up red highlight and ! and then I type message but it won’t light up send…so I can’t send message. I’ve tried off/on and reset…neither has worked. Any other suggestions?
Hi instead of clicking on iMessage go to your contacts and click on the person you want to send your message to and click on share contact and finally click message.
Omg thank you so much doing this worked!!! I got a new iPod the other day and couldn’t get into iMessage or facetime but now i can so thanks sooooo much!!!!
entered the alternative DNS server address and got somebody to text me from thier 4s and at last received it! i was able to send imessages but the reply i never got although the persons phone said it was delivered, all ok now though at least at the moment
my messages on my iPod will work at school but when i get home it works occasionally but most of the time i can’t send anything. i gan go on google and the app store and bomb… but not messages 🙁
Hi, not the same problem, but doesn anyone know why the imessage option is not available at all ? when going into settings, messages, i just see MMS/SMS settings ?
Thank you.
If its your iPhone it is already set up with your mobile number.
If its your iPod touch then (older than the latest version, 4th gen.) have you updated the software recently?
If iPad then only the recent one (the one after the 2nd gen) the it needs to be updated.
My imessage says Could not sign in . please check your network connection and try again but my safari and everything else works except for facetime and imessage . i have tried everything but still nothing happens . help me out here !
Both myself and my partner have iPhones. I’m on a 4S she has my old 3GS. Since we both updated to 5.1 iMessage doesn’t work, anyone I know who hasn’t upgraded past 5.0, iMessage still works. Any ideas. Auto time update is on, on both handsets, it’s strange as it was working for a few days after the update then it suddenly stopped one afternoon and hasn’t worked since.
I have the same problem. Just stopped working this morning. I’m running iOS 5.1.1. Thanks a lot of for the “update” Apple. No FaceTime no iMessenger…I am out of the country with the military and this is important to me. I tried rebooting, tried to reset to factory settings, tried the DNS 8.8.8.8 trick, nothing has worked.
Both myself and my partner have iPhones. I’m on a 4S she has my old 3GS. Since we both updated to 5.1 iMessage doesn’t work, anyone I know who hasn’t upgraded past 5.0, iMessage still works. Any ideas. Auto time update is on, on both handsets, it’s strange as it was working for a few days after the update then it suddenly stopped one afternoon and hasn’t worked since. Getting pretty sick of each Apple update feeling like a downgrade!
I’ve tried everything everyone’s suggested (imessages on, DNS change, date/time to auto, etc…). I have an iPhone 3GS and my iMessages stopped working when I updated to 5.1. When I logged back into iPhone it now permanently says waiting for activation under the iMessages section. I’m beyond frustrated. And yes I’ve tried turning the phone off and on since then. Help!!!
ivd tried changing my DNS to 8.8.8.8 but it doesnt work I even made sure tht my iMessages was on does the person I txt have to have iMessages set up? pleaz help mi!
My imessages just stopped working about a week ago. I’ve been in Australia and disconnected from 3g for the last 2 weeks but using imessages over wifi.
I tried changing the DNS, tried reactivating by turning off imessage, disconnecting and reconnecting to wifi then reactivating imessage but it just says “Waiting for activation…” forever.
I’ve been looking for the answer for a week. Here’s what worked for me. And I tried all the suggestions out there. My problem was that my phone had been sending/receiving imessages and stopped doing so, probably when I got the last update.
Apple wants everyone to have and use their own itunes account because it’s more profitable for them and is necessary for icloud. So the last update made it so you had to be signed in under your own itunes account to make imessage work. I had my own, but I share itunes with my roommate so I was often signed in under that account. Anyway:
1. get an itunes account
2. In your phone go to settings, messages, then you’ll see imessage with a little on off thing, turn it off or on or whatever it’s not, then back to on. At some point here it will prompt you to sign in, then they made me authenticate emails and wait a while for it to turn on. About ten minutes later i was sending and receiving imessages again.
Ive tried everything on here. When I did the original fix of changing the DSN to 8.8.8.8 it fixed it and I was able to message. 24 hours later I’m having the same problem again. I can’t even select someone to send a message to. Whenever I put someone’s name in it just turns red with an exclamation point. This is so annoying. Especially because I am not a Mac lover. Should have gotten a Droid tablet. PLEASE someone, let me know if there is some other magical combination of settings that has to be selected in order to make a preloaded application do what it is supposed to do. Thanks
I have the same problem, NOTHING works. I have the latest update, iMessage is turned on, google DNS is on, SMS sending option is turned off and it starts out as iMessage, then gets converted into SMS and turns green.
And he’s on, I believe, 5.1. I believe he updated. This separation issue has been happening since before I jailbroke though. Jailbreak seemingly didn’t affect it at all.
I talk with my bro on iMessage. I sent him a text to his phone number, he replied to THAT message, ad I received it from his email address, which should be fine on iMessage, however, it came up as another entry from”Scott”. So, you look at my list of messages, and everyone I talk to using iMessage, has duplicate entries. One from phone number, one from email address. The messages from the phone are green, and the email blue, like it’s supposed to be, but for so,e reason it’s separating them. Wtf.
Also:
I sent a group message to my bro and sis. Bro has iMessage, sis doesn’t. I sent the text, got a separate, not in the group, reply from my sis, which I expected, but then got the same from my bro, which I didn’t expect. Funny part was, my bro sent me a pic showing that he was in fact texting to the group, and I sent him a pic showing it wasn’t showing up in the group. It obviously is the same issue with iMessage separating the email/phone texts, but I don’t know why it’s doing that.
I have the same problem. My wifes on 5.1 I’m on jailbroken 5.0.1 worked fine till SHE updated now her iMessages are from email and texts are green 2 separate lists
omg the date and time thing worked – my date and time were correct but as I had just gone from the UK to Saudi I decided to set it to auto date/time as suggested above then went into my settings and turned imessages on and viola it worked right away yay!!! Thanks :):):)
I recently got the latest iPod touch for my birthday and when I try to iMessage with my friend it says on mine that he isn’t registered and on his it says I am not registered when we both are! I have wifi as well and restarted the iPod and I changed dns and I have iMessage turned on but nothing works! Help?
Went on holiday my i message didn’t work so i just used normal text got back and my phone hasn’t got back to normal i message will it do it automatically or do i have to do something ????
I have tried all this, changed DNS settings and activated iMessage from settings. It shows that iMessage is on, but I really don’t know how exactly to send messages through iMessage. Can someone tell me how to verify that iMessage is on, and how to send messages through iMessage? 🙂
I have changed the DNS setting to 8.8.8.8 but it has not helped : iMessage still not working. It had worked for a couple on months until some time last December and I have never understood why it stopped working. Any other idea than the DNS change?
Thanks
If this fails you will need to reactivate your imessages by turning off imessages and turn off any wifi connection you may have,once that is done turn off your devices and turn them on again. switch on your wifi connections then reactivate your imessages in that order, by doing this your device will ask for your apple password to reactivate imessages. hope this helps.
Mine wasn’t letting me login. Kept going back to login screen. Fixed it after noticing date was wrong on iPad. Changed time/date to auto update and it worked. I let the iPad die and somehow it was not on auto for time and date function.
I have just spent the better part of the weekend trying to sort this out.
Finally, I had switched off FaceTime. As soon as I reenabled this app iMessage allowed me to log in and started working.
Please Help! I have tried everything and it still doesn’t work. When I go yo Settings then messages there is no on/off switch for messaging and it says my apple ID is wrong but it is right!:(
so my problem was i updated my time manually, if by chance you have changed any settings recently revert to the previous one and it should work. i updated the time because it was daylight savings and because of that i couldn’t use imessage or facetime. hopefully, you’ve changed something and that will work for you
Mine is still not working. I go to settings/message and it tells me to sign in with my Apple ID but when I do and hit next it says verifying and goes back to sign in.
I seem to be having the same problem as a lot of people, my iMessage is turned on, but it randomly sends my iMessages as text messages when I know the other people are using iPhone’s etc…any ideas would be great thanks
Once I turned my iMessage back on, I went to my text screen and deleted the text messages from other iPhone users. When I started a new text it showed up as iMessage again. I’m not sure if that will work for you as well, but I thought it might be worth a try.
Mine had the same problem, tried everything… and it fixed it – turning on FaceTime!!! Now it works perfectly. Unbelievable, 3 days nothing and now this!
My iPod 4G is jailbroken,iOS 5.0.1. I tried using my iMessage after jailbreaking,it asks me to Sign In with my Apple ID. After signing in it says “iMessage Activation Could not sign in. Please check your network connection and try again.” My Wifi is fine. I have rebooted the device,turned off Wifi and turned back on,I even just tried using Google’s Public DNS (8.8.8.8). My Facetime is the same way. Please help,soon. Idk what else to do My Apple ID works when I download apps via App Store and iTunes,it being jailbroken isn’t the reason why it isn’t working.
hey… thnx alot it really helped me and now i can message as long as nothing else goes wrong…
P.S. do you have to do the same thing to get your facetime working too??
i don’t see a button like it. my device is new so i have to sign into my apple ID and such. When i already keyed in everything, it says verifying for 3 seconds then it goes back to the login page. It’s the same for my facetime. help?
ive tried everything i can find on the net and nothing is working at all help please. When i turn it on it says an error activating or it just says waiting to activate and when i send a message its blue for the imessages and it says its delivered but the other person doesnt get it. My partner and mother in law have the same problem
Reset your settings, it will not delete any data at all. I just fixed mine 10 minutes ago and it’s a very fast process, it should only take about 5 minutes. Hope it helps!
I tried by changing the DNS number to 8.8.8.8.8 as recommended but it didn’t not only work but I can’t remember the original DNS number. Can someone help ?
I have tried everything, restoring factory settings, sim card, DNS change. Was working for months up till couple days ago. Extremely disappointed apple I am a staunch supporter but your letting me down big time lately!
Hey, thanks!
I have an iPhone 4 and since I woke up this morning it didn’t send iMessages.
This bums me out because my boyfriend, best friend, and mother all use iMessage and to me it’s way better than normal text messaging. My boyfriends’ wasn’t working either. So I typed in 8.8.8.8 and it didn’t work the first couple of times with the school wifi. It worked from my home wifi 🙂
thanks again!
I have an iPod touch 4 an I recently updated my iPod to the new iOS 5. I was also using the app that comes with it called “Messages”. It was working at first. Then, when I sent a message to my friend one day, who also has an iPod touch 4 with iOS 5, it said “Not Delivered”. I sent a lot of messages to him before and that one message said that error. I kept sending and sending. The same problem kept happening. I tried all of these methods to fix it, but none of them worked. My iPod is not jailbroken, so that isn’t the problem. PLEASE HELP!!!!!
IMessage worked for 1 week and has now stopped. I tried the suggestions and it’s still NOT working. This is very frustrating!!! Not sure what to do now.
I had a problem with iMesssage & Facetime…. it stated.. validation problem… and I Follow Russell instructions & finally they are operational again !!!.. thanks…
Follow Russell easy steps..
1.) Go to Date and Time settings and turn ON Set Automatically (if you had turned it off)
2.) Make sure under Restrictions setting you have it set OFF and Facetime should be ON.
I’ve had problems with iMessage on my iPhone4 for the past 2 weeks and have gone through Tier-2 Apple tech support team who couldn’t fix my problem. I’ve been playing around with my settings and I think I figured out a few things that may help fix the issue. Try a few of these and see if it fixes your iMessage issue.
1.) Go to Date and Time settings and turn ON Set Automatically (if you had turned it off)
2.) Make sure under Restrictions setting you have it set OFF and Facetime should be ON.
3.) Changing the DNS number did not work for me but did work for some on the forum so you can try that.
thank-you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much i have tried everything adn this is genious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :):):):):):):):):):)
My wife and I both have an iPad 2, but not iPhones. We have used Face Time, but when I try to message her it doesn’t work. I’ve changed the DSN number on my iPad . Guess she needs to change hers also? Does everyone that wants to use iMessage need to do this?
Bro u finally made my day happy! I thought it was hopeless but yeah it’s the dns code thing that solved everything. Bro I just wanna give ya $100 but I’m underage for overseas mail. You’re my hero!
Brother has iPod Touch with ios5 but we can’t find iMessage on it. When you go to Settings> there is no option for Messages, so no way to turn “On” as some have suggested… anyone know a solution?
This could lead to any broken manufacture in the software check if you have an update. Settings > General > Update If its up to date you will have no access to update. You can reset your IOS device. Just simply hold the Sleep/Wake Button and the home button at the same time until you see the Apple logo. If that dosent work you can try resetting your brothers iPod If any of these soultions dosent work you can make a appointment at the Genius Bar at your nearest Apple Retail Store.
I have an iPhone 4 and found over the past few weeks that iMessage was no longer working. Just solved the problem … iMessage was set to “off”. Try turning iMessage “on” by going to Settings > Messages > and is iMessage (which should be at the top) is off, simply turn it on and enter your Apple ID password if prompted.
Brother has iPod Touch with ios5 but we can’t find iMessage on it. When you go to Settings> there is no option for Messages, so no way to turn “On”… do you know the solution? He does have Facetime and it works fine.
@MikeThompson I have tried multiple times turning it on but i do and i go to the messages it automatically turns it off. and i know that my friend has an iPhone with iMessage
It worked for my son’s ipod touch. I was then able to change the DNS back to the router (default one) and it continued to work. It also sorted out the “find my ipod touch” and face time calling which had never worked before. Thanks.
The fact that you have to turn off your phone/ipad every 5 minutes proves that this is a serious issue. my phone works most of the time but i cannot view the messages or receive them via my iPad.
Ahhh THANK YOU SOO MUCH. I just bought my iPad 3 days ago and have been having this problem. I took it back to Best Buy to let the Geek Squad figure it out twice, and they did something and fixed it, but it didn’t fix it for long..it kept going back to not working. This fixed the problem!! I was actually thinking about just returning it because of this…hopefully other people will find this helpful also!
I am using an iPad. How do I send a message? There is no submit button
Hi JF,
If you use the Messages app, start typing a message in the box labeled Text Message. As soon as you add in text, a blue or green arrow should appear–that’s the send button!
Adding text into the Subject line also works to show the send button.
Hope that helps
Liz
Set up groups in icloud, email works but text does not, reviewed everything on line nothing worked.
This article is very informative for iPhone users. There are very helpful tricks to solve imessages problem.
I will share your blog in my group. Thanks and keep it up.
After a software update, I was able send messages from my iPhone, but not to the same person from my MacBook Pro. Here is how I fixed it:
Go to: Settings > Messages > Text Message Forwarding
It will show you a list of all message-capable devices signed into your Apple ID. Make sure all of them are enabled. In my case, the update somehow turned off the MacBook Pro. I enabled it and that solved the problem.
Thank you so much for this spent hours trying to figure out, came across this and my issue was the last one send and receive was doing it through email instead of number ty
forgot to provide – I have iphone 5c
can’t turn imessage on in settings. It says there is no cellular data, but cellular data is already on and it has to be working since I can browse safari w no wifi connection. I tried restarting, no change. >:[
Hi Stephan,
First, make sure you activate SMS/MMS messaging on your phone. Go to Settings > Messages and toggle on Send as SMS and MMS Messaging.
Also, go to Settings > General > Date & Time and make sure that your time zone is set correctly or on set automatically.
Try going to Settings > Cellular Data, then scroll down the list to locate Messages and toggle it on, then turn iMessage on.
If that doesn’t work, try to reset your Network settings on your iPhone. Tap on Settings > General > Reset Network Settings. Once the device is reset, check and see if you can activate iMessage.
Finally, if nothing helps. Go to a place with WiFi available (like a coffee shop) and try activating iMessage using WiFi.
Sam
I changed my Apple ID to an iCloud email address but when I use iMessage it doesn’t work
Hi Kaya,
Have you updated the Apple ID on your device? Your main Apple ID (Settings > Apple ID Profile at the top of your screen) should be the same as the Apple ID you want to use for iMessage.
If it’s not the same, update your Main Apple ID to the one with your iCloud email address.
If they are the same, go to Settings > Messages and toggle off iMessage, wait 20-30 seconds, and toggle this setting back on to start a new activation. If it activates, scroll to Send&Receive and check that your Apple ID iCloud email address is listed with a checkmark next to it.
If you haven’t updated to the latest iOS version, updating might also help. Go to Settings > General > Software Update to check if an update is available. If it is, backup first and then if possible, update via iTunes. If iTunes is not available, update via Settings > General > Software Update.
Hope something helps,
SK
My 6 gen iPod message send button was dead. Fixed by going to: Settings > messages > send & receive. Under “start new conversations from” I had my gmail address. I changed it to my iCloud address ([email protected]) and It started working.
Hope this helps someone.
Thank you for the suggestion Henry! Love its simplicty. We’ll add it to the article. I’m sure it helps!
Cheers,
Liz
My problem was the switch that turns iMessage on did not turn on.I kept on trying the steps but it doesn’t work.
I found out that if you go to settings on iMessages then accounts you might not be signed in that’s how I found how to fix the problem Lol
I just bought the new I pod everything works except I message and FaceTime it says recheck your connection try again I also bought son new I pad mini today his setup worked fine . Under settings when u go to messages there isn’t a place to switch it on it just says enter Apple password
My iMessage and face time say I need to set up my accounts but when I put in my Apple ID password it says activation unavailable please check you wifi but I have full bars on my ipad
Go to settings-> i messages -> set iMessage on/off to on.
This works just in case if your iMessage was reset to off, which happens most of the time automatically without our notice.
RUBBISH I cannot work my imessage still
this worked I am super stoked!!!! finally can text my girlfriend!
My daughters iMessage not working right. Her name is in blue & when I send it it’s blue but don’t say delivered then it goes to green. Her iMessage is on. What to do next?
Tried to send a video to grandson, message said I needed Imessage, Purchased imessage but it just shows a big green and black mess. Tried swiping to move it, nothing. Followed every direction in here, nothing, still can’t send the video to my grandson.
Turned it off. Back on, tried to re-send pix to my brother. Got this info: “iMessage needs to be enabled to send this message.”
1. Okay, going into “settings” again. There goes the message, NOT SAVED in unsent messages.
2. Went into “settings” and put “8.8.8.8”. There were already two other addresses there…then what? There’s no “enter”. Close out? What to do next? These directions are vague. So, I’ll do that (close out) and re-try sending the message, for the 4th time…doubting it’ll work, because I didn’t really get instructed on what to do…
3. GUESS WHAT?! It says, once again, “iMessage needs to be enabled to send this message.” Wow, thanks apple. Sort of wanting a different smart phone due to this constant pain. You are NOT helpful. Would love you to contact me, but I know you won’t.
Double tap “Unsent message”? No, it doesn’t even give the courtesy of saying that. Mine just closes out and leads me to believe that it’s been sent. Or, it’ll close and then say that my “i message” is turned off. NO it isn’t! I even lost the pictures I took and included in the messages to family last night. This ALL has happened since I downloaded the latest IOS fix. Too bad for me.
Thanks this worked for me.
hi on ipod i cant send messages it keeps saying “message send failure” can someone please help with this its been like 1 year and i cant get it to work
Double tap unsent message … Progress bar will be unfinished and in blue .. and in contextual pop up menu choose send as text message .. Progress bar and message will turn green to show this is an SMS and not an iMessage 🙂
After downloading ios7 (big regret) my email is not sending or receiving from my iPad…please help
Worked great..
I also was having problems with my iMessage and FaceTime not working and this has fixed the issues surrounding iMessage (and FaceTime, too). In order to do this, go to Settings -> General -> Date & Time and toggle the switch on Set Automatically to ON. It worked. I have been working on it for almost a week.
this worked i wish i had read this sooner
This helped thanks!!
This did not work for me. Thanks for trying though.
Didnt work
Thank you so much, this worked for me
I plugged it into the computer and IT WORKED. I received all the messages I couldn’t get before and am now able to send them.
I have a iPod touch 4th gen and it died on me. So I charged it back up and go to IMessage and try sending a message but it won’t send. The little bar stops right at the end. I also can’t receive messages, I know I was sent messages while it was dead. I have tried EVERYTHING to get it working. Sighing out of iMessage, checking and in checking things, powering it off and on a million times. It’s dont this before but not for this long. If anyone has any different suggestions they would be much appreciated.
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.
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!
Hi
I have tried all the steps this website told me and it still doesn’t work. HELP ME NOW
Johnny
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?
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.
Plz help my friend and I where having this contest by sending the longest
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. 🙂
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
None of the above worked. Not even the DNS !!!
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!
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. -,-
this worked!!! thank you so much!
Then charge it intell 100
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.
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 🙂
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!
This worked. Thanks
Did all that DIDN’T WORK, but it was working early but not anymore and it’s done this before.
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.
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)
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?
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!!!
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…
I also sent a very long text (iMessage) and now my messages will just open and crash. How do I fix it?
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!
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.
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?
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?
Mine has done the exact same thing. It’s killing me.
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.
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.
I tried everything but nothing works what should I do???
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.
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.
my ipod gets to the end then it wont load and send my message. i have an ipod 5th generation
This worked for me after trying everything else.
My messages will not follow thru to the person I sent it to . Keep getting a triangle with a explanation inside it.
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…
I’ve done all options and its still not working!
Thanks a lot! Changing the DNS worked!
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.
iMessage not acivate in my iphone 4s ios6
Face time is avtivate and it work good
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?
Mine is doing the same thing! Ive tried to correct it all day with no luck.
mine does that also! what can i do?! D:
Mine just started doing that, has anbody fixed it?
Other persons iMessage isnt working
It works! Thanks.
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
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.
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
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:(
This is happening to me how do u fix it.
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?
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
Thanks for your response.
How would I check if my router or server were blocking it?
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.
I massage notwork
Thank you so much. I was having trouble with it for quite some time…
Charge it in the tv IMessage well work ???????
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.
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…
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
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.
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??
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??
Exactly what happened to mine too! How do i fix it?
Youu just keeping tapping it till comes up and delete that convoo
This is what happened to me. Please tell me how you fixed it.
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
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
Put it in your car then take it in your car for 5sec take it out of the car ???? Easy
The same thing happened to me! Please, someone tell me how to fix this!
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!
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
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.
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….. :/
HOW DID U FIX THE PROBLEM SAME THING IS GOING ON WITH MY iPhone 5
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
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.
this didn’t work for me. don’t know what else to do.
it didnt wrk for me i dont know what to do now
What is check mark option doesnt come ? -.-
Drive the car and charge in your car did work yyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeessssssssss
Thank you! So simple!
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!!!
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!!!
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.
It worked!!! So happy! Thank you
it worked for me as well. before i have sent 100 SMS with hope “lets grab this iMessages”. thanks a lot.
this is the only thing that worked! thanks.and i didnt even have to turn my apps off
This seems to have worked for me too. Thanks so much for sharing this tip 🙂
G, Your suggestion worked for me… not the original Toolbox suggestion. Thank you!
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.
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?
thanks G your solution worked!!
It didn’t work for me
Thanks! This worked for me 🙂
Huh, worked for me too. Go figure. Thanks for the tip.
Thanks – fixed my problem as well
Thanks for this! This is working on my iPhone & iPad (:
My problem is that my iNessage won’t let me send or receive photos. I’ve tried everything but restoring it. Someone help?
I tried restarting my iPod and that didn’t work. I also tried changing the DSN to 8.8.8.8 and that didn’t work either!! My problem is that I type my apple ID in and I type the password and I click next then I click verify then it says verifying and then it it brings me back to the screen where it asks u to type ur password and ID!! What should I do?!!?!?
Help!!
Hi everyone,
I started having this problem yesterday which happened all of a sudden! So I cannot connect to youtube, as well as iMessage doesn’t work. I restarted many times, did some of the recommendations on here, and still no luck at all 🙁
Any further help is really appreciated!
I have an ipod touch, and when i go to open imessages, a screen pops up saying “get started” so i click the button and it tells me to type in my apple id password(my email is already there) so i do, then it verifys, and goes back to the page that tells me to type in my password. I cant logg in! What should i do?
I have an iPod touch too and when I click iMessage and I type my email adress and I type my apple id password it didn’t work
hey i did all of this to and it doesnt work i have iphone4
its all about the e-mail address registered, it has to be the same as the registered apple account
so i have an ipod touch with the messages app and i cant recieve any texts also when i send them they never get delivered. i tried the 8.8.8.8 thing and restarted my ipod. nothing is working. please help.
So I have a iPod touch and I don’t have imessage at all. How can I get it on my iPod most of my friends have it so can some one help me please
How do you register a number to imessege
This solution worked for me. It also fixed the problem I was having with Facetime.
I have an iPod touch and I Wanted to sent my friend a message and it says try again I do so and it still dose that I turn it off then back on still isn’t working I go on setting then wifi and change the DNS to 8.8.8.8 and still it isn’t working, could someone please help me??
So I have an iPod touch 4 and my friend borrowed it to log into her iTunes account. After, I logged back into mine. Since then, iMessage has not worked. It proms me to log into iMessage because I had been logged out of iTunes, which really doesn’t make any sense because it should still stay logged in whether or not you log out of your iTunes account. So I went to log into the iMessage account and it accepted my password and then went to the next screen to ask which email I wanted to receive the messages at. This is a differen email than my iTunes account email so I was changing it when suddenly it went back to the previous log in screen. One time managed to type my email really fast and press the verify button and it said that my email could not be verified and that a verification link had been sent to my email. Nothing ever arrived. Does anyone have any ideas before I have to someplace and get it fixed? Thanks!
Very helpful! I have mine fixed in second! Thank you very much!
This worked for me, thanks Pom!
I had this issue with my kid’s ipod touch. imessage would not work when the send button was pressed. I fixed it by going into setting, messages and then turning off the show subject field setting. Only took 2 hours to figure out!
I just turned the phone off and back on (as suggested) and that did it for mine.
had the problem for AGES did the dns thing, changed sim cards tried it with 3g and restarted heaps of timesand…… after FRICKIN AGES it finally works screw it all the same im gettin an htc one x for my birthday
I had this issue with my kid’s ipod touch. imessage would not work when the send button was pressed. I fixed it by going into setting, messages and then turning off the show subject field setting. Only took 2 hours to figure out!
I have an iPhone 4, not jailbroken..version 5.1.1 and the iMessage doesn’t work..
FaceTime works good but I can’t even turn on IMessage, as I turn it on, it goes back to off..!!
DNS thingy didn’t worked, what should I do ?
Hi all,
Um im not sure. But here’s what i did. I am using 5.1.1. My imessage, push service did not work. So i dl SAM activation from cyd Followed its instruction and disactivated my phine and reactivated it with itune. Then relogin your imessage. Try that if you have no more idea.
But i should warn you, SAM act. need to temp change your phone ICID. Kinda long procedure but it worked for me. Good luck.
I have a iphone and just bought my child a ipod touch and eveything seems fine ( after several tries ) but now when ever I send several text out at the same time in the To: field my daughters touch does not get it, if i text her by herself it works and if I group message she still doesnt get it. All have Imessage turn on. My iphone has a on/off slide for MMs and Group message to turn on,hers does not. I’m believing that Itouch can’t group message.
Help
Hi bob,
First off mms and group msging function tabs has nothing to do with imessage. It’s a internal separate program, similar to msn but only built in.
I understand your problem, but i have no solution for it. Cuz i sometimes encounter that too. It’s a glitch i think. My brother and i are techs, i work in korea and he works in toronto. We imessage all the time. But for some reason, not all our msges goes thru.. Imessage is very unstable.
But logically speaking, ipod touch imessage is exactly the same as iphones’. It’s just another msn software.
Maybe when you group msg, try entering in her number imstead of her comtact number, probably crashing with someone else. Or delete her contact and re-add her with a different name.(just to make sure the pointer is not collide with another contact)
Sorry i can’t be much help on this one.
Hi all,
Um im not sure. But here’s what i did. I am using 5.1.1. My imessage, push service did not work. So i dl SAM activation from cydia. Followed its instruction and disactivated my phine and reactivated it with itune. Then relogin your imessage. Try that if you have no more idea.
But i should warn you, SAM act. need to temp change your phone ICID. Kinda long procedure but it worked for me. Good luck.
I cant activate my imessage, turned off and on and still ” waiting for activation”
Help.
I have tried everything. Changing the DNS, turnin off iMessage and even turning my wi fi off and on a number of times changing the DNS every time. Is there anything else I can try.
Plz help
Hi Gemma,
Did you ever successfully sent a msg using imessage to that particular number? Because, not all iphone users are registered to use imessage. And also, if that person updated their IOS and needed reactivation with their imessage, you will not be able to sent imessage to that person. Hence, this maybe the other person problem and not your imessage problem. Ask that user to check to see if their imessage is working or not.
Hope it helps
When I click on iMessage, it asks me to log in. I log in and it takes me to the next screen, which verifies my email. Then it takes me back to the log in screen, asking me to login and verify my email. My software is up to date and I don’t know how to fix it. It has had this problem since I first bought my iPod.
The same with my iPod!!!! Ugh it sucks!
Hi all
i have done EVERYTHING here and myimessages on my ipod is still playing up and not allowing me to send a message to one particular number but to every other number it is fine.. can SOMEONE please HELP ME
It’s because that one person isn’t registered with iMessage, they need to update their phone.
The iMessage stopped working for me since yesterday. I have gotten 3 message that failed to go through with Red ! next to it. I have turned it off for a few seconds, then turned it on, whomever I speak to uses iMessage on their cell phone, and 8.8.8.8 will not work because I already tried that. The wifi works great because if it isn’t, I wouldn’t be able to get notifications on it and check my mail. I even turned off the iMessage and restarted it just now. It still isn’t working.
My iPod touch has iMessage but whenever I try to send a message to my friend, it always says not delivered and I try again and again but it doesnt work. What my friend sees is me ofline and a text that says random message.For it to work for me and my friend, she has to send me a picture text for it to work again. Please fix. Thanks so much ! (:
My iPod touch has iMessage but whenever I try to send a message to my friend, it always says not delivered and I try again and again but it doesnt work. What my friend sees is me ofline and a text that says random message.For it to work for me and my friend, she has to send me a picture text for it to work again. Please fix. Thanks so much ! (: ❤
My iPod touch has iMessage but whenever I try to send a message to my friend, it always says not delivered and I try again and again but it doesnt work. What my friend sees is me ofline and a text that says random message.For it to work for me and my friend, she has to send me a picture text for it to work again. Please fix. Thanks so much ! (: ❤
I lost my Internet at my old house and connected at my new house now my iMessage app says it can’t verify my email cuz its already in use. How do I fix it?
my iphone 4s can’t send or recieve any imessage. the send button is blue. but it says ‘not delivered’
my iPod touch sends the message but it takes a while for it to say “delivered” if it does say it at all help please?
When i try and send somthing to someone the send box is grey n there sayin that person i sent to is not regesterd with imessage
totally worked! thanks!
i have tried everything.. and my iMessage is still not working? I have full Internet connection and full signal.. help?
Wow that DNA code really worked now my iMessage and my notifications are working again
It worked for me too!!! Tfinally!!!!!!!
Hello!!! ok so I have tried eveything. I have turned my iPod off then back on. I have turned my time to “set automatically”. I have done the 8.8.8.8. thing but nothing works. I have version 5.1.1 and when ever I go into messages it goes to my messages screen then another screen pops up that says ” enter ur apple id”. I have used iMessages before on my iPod. I was just using it this morning!! when I do enter my apple Id it goes to the screen where it tells u to put ur email or address or what ever but after like 2 seconds it goes right back to the apple Id screen there is no alert tht comes up it just goes strait back to that screen!! I have no IDEA what to do so please help me!!!
Ok I have a problem, I go on iMessage and it says I have to retype my password for my ID when I do that it asks what email address I would like to use but I can’t get past that it keeps going back without me doing anything
Help??
that happends to me too!!
My iPod touch 5.1.1, and I tried both of the things restarting it and changed the DNN, and it still doesnt send my message! It would get half way of sending then fail, I try to resend it and it never sends! I want to use this but I cant!
my iPod touch sends my message but it takes a while for it to say delivered if it even does end up saying it . help please?
iMessage just sucks
Mine does the same thing and it won’t work! What do I do???!!?? Please help
Same with mine
I got an apple iphone 4s version 4.3.3 and when i went to the message options in settings there were no IMessage option
You need to update to 5.0
Or higher
So, my messages app is working great! The only problem is it won’t let me send a message to a certain iPhone number. It lets me send messages to other iPhone numbers but not this 1 for some reason. It is not an invalid number because I have texted it before on a texting app and have called it many times, but for some reason it just won’t let me send a text through messages! Can anybody help?!
that one phone may have messaging turned off in their settings
i tried each and everyone ofthese on my iPad 3 and nothing works yet….hopefully they will give update tofix this problem. My iPad 2 had no problems with imessage at all.
Mine still doesn’t work. The number listed on my received at is from other sim card which is a temp sim card when i was abroad and i cannot change them to my regular number. Please help. Thanks.
Cade is stinking right also!:)
Click on who u want to send the message to and Click on them at the top of the screen and make sure its not red with an exclamation point (!). If it is it means the other person is not registered with IMessage. Hope that solves ur problem.
So I have an iPod touch and I want to use iMessage, I open it, I can type something in and type who to send it to, but the send button is dark grey and won’t let my click it. I have iOS 5.1.1
Ok, that could mean the sender’s email address or iPhone number is not valid. Also, the Wi-fi is not connected.
I have an iPod touch too, and my iMessage wasn’t working until I changed my DNS settings. So
1. Tap Settings
2. Tap Wi-Fi on the left-hand side
3. Tap the blue arrow next to your current Wi-Fi network
4. Tap the “DNS” field and enter the DNS servers 8.8.8.8 (Google’s Public DNS).
This worked for me thanks!
I have an iPod touch to bt when I created my account for it and everything was verified iMessage was nt working
You can turn the imessage of then on again that works fine :)xx
Hey everyone so as I found out that DNS crap every site tells us to change doesn’t work. I found a different way to fix it and it worked. It might seem silly but it worked for me 🙂 Follow the steps below
Go to your settings on your ipod/iphone/ipad
Click general
date & time
Most people set their own date and time like I did.
Change it to set automatically 🙂
choose where you live then go back to Imessage and try again.
It should work. It worked for me. If it works you can then go back to your date and time and change it back to how you had it set before. I know this sounds silly but it actually fixed my problem so please give it a go and let me know if it worked.
Hi
So my problem is imessage has been working fine until last night. We both have iphone on ios5, he’s in America and I’m in UK. I’ve tried all the options, like dns, vpn, logged in again using apple ID and even restarted the device. The imessage blue send button won’t appear, and when it does “message send failure” or it’s just the standard message in green.
Help would be so appreciated
Thank you
Wow! This helped me also! Thanks so much for this article!!! 🙂 now i can use my imessage again!!
Using a 4s 5.1.1 iOS
Wow! This helped me also! Thanks so much for this article!!! 🙂 now i can use my imessage again!!
Using a 4s 5.1.1 iOS
Thanks, changing DNS server fixed it immediately!!
When I use iMessage the other person receives my message as an email not a message how do I fix that
This was very helpful, we weren’t able to send imessage or make an FT call from an iphone 4 to my iphone 4s, we just changed the DNS (default is same with router) to 8.8.8.8 and we immediately made succesful imessages and FT calls.
Thanks!
Hey, I’ve had my iPod for a while now and I’ve used iMessage ever since I’ve got it and it worked fine, but just recently I’ve tried sending one of my friends a message and when I click send it automatically says that the message hasn’t been delivered. It would be great if I could get some solutions. Thank you
My ipod touch 4 works know when you change DNS to 8.8.8.8
Thanks for this help 😀
Thank you so much for posting this, I just did it and my iMessage works again
Scam. It doesn’t work
I was having trouble sending and receiving iMessages do I followed the advice on this page and rebooted my iPhone4 and not only did I receive the text I was expecting but about 10 voicemails from the past two weeks! Now I have to explain to friends and business associates that I did not blow off their calls but my iPhone failed to deliver their message. Very disappointing I hope Apple addresses this.
I’ve tried that over and over on my iPad but the send button is still grey
Hey
Can someone help me pleaseee
My iMessage won’t let me sign in it says verifying but it’s just going to the previous page
Dammm it’s sooooo annoying….
I bought new iPad but cannot send texts to m IPhone 4. It will go through on IPhone 4S. Why won’t it go through on Iphne 4
Changing the DNS worked thanks!
Oh la la
Reset network settings to clear the imessage sending and receiving problem
I’m having the same problem. It won’t let me sign up for imessage. Facetime works perfectly fine and I didn’t even need to sign up for that, it done it it’s self. I have been told to change my DNS to 8.8.8.8 but that doesn’t work. This is really driving me crazy. Please help? Would much appreciate if you replied back to me on my blog. Thanks.
Reset your network settings, fixes the imessage problem
Thanks for the info, I changed DNS to 8.8.8.8 and it now works.
Still doesn’t work.
Okay so I was having the Problem with my iMessage too it’s. It working on my iPod. So I did what it said above. But I was really weary about turning it off and then on again. Mainly just turning it off. Because its jail broken through cydia and now my safari won’t open and the cydia app won’t open and neither will this app that is apart of cydia. So if you have any info I would greatly appreciate it. Like lots and lots. Thank you.
I have tried restarting my iDevice it didn’t work then I tried changing the DNS to 8.8.8.8 it’s still didn’t work and I know the other person has iOS5 because I could talk to her last night but now the messages won’t send and I can not receive any messages from her while the other people I message will receive and reply to the messages. Help?
had the same problem,
go to settings > messages > there is on off for imessage, just switch it to on and it should works perfectly.
mine didn’t work after i updated my iphone4 but now it works.
hope this help :))
If like me you have been overseas and used another sim you may need to go into the settings undre messages and turn imessage back on. Mine probably turned itself off when I turned off mobile data or when I swapped simcards.
Rob,
I am overseas and use a different sim. My trouble is that I have 1 contact that the messages won’t say delivered. All others work its just the one. It seems like it takes hours to deliver and sometimes days. Ever run into that problem? Also I’m on and iPhone 4 5.1.1(9B206) not 208(I’m a GSM iPhone from AT&T) never had this until the update. And sometimes they go through no problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
i just got an iPhone 4s and when i send a text message is comes up with an exclamation mark in a rec circle and my texts wont send? Helpppp please
My iPod touch the I messaging worked fine then it just say not delivered. I cut it off in so many times I logged n and out it says it is on but won’t send messages called apple gave a forum but it didn’t work
Hi
My iMessage and FaceTime just suddenly stopped working.when I click on iMessage it just shows log in, but after I click next, it says verifies and then goes to the home screen. I’ve tried everything but nothing works plz help!
This procedure really work;) thanks;) im started using my imessage.
Had found out that at times, 2 different addresses were used to send me text messages, and therefore there were some I never received (my email address as the destination never was received, perhaps because I didn’t have iMessage enabled). Then, when I added the DNS entry to the iMessage config, I noticed there were 2 email addresses, the appleID and an additional (both are my email address). Thus, I disabled that, somehow and attempted to send a text using iMessage. It still didn’t go through, so I simply turned it off. I am sending from an iPhone 4S to and iPhone 3S.
Mine still des not work what do I do!!!!
even when i change it to 8.8.8.8 it wont work! ive reseted my phone and turned it off and on and when i go to imessage in setting all it says is “waiting for activation” some one please help me 🙁
My ipad will only send imessages to some people. It use to work with my husbands iphone but its now stopped and comes up with a red ! On his name, none of the suggestions on here have worked anyone else got any idea what i can do?
I tried to modify the DNS settings but it did not help.I hav Iphone 4s.Could someone help me out
I have an iPad 2, and use iMessage and Facetime to chat w/ my girlfriend who has an iPhone 4. Both applications have been randomly stop working for days. Changing the DNS server has gotten it working again, so this solution worked for me.
Hi both my wife and I have iPhone 4’s and are using software 5.1 but iMessage does not work between our phones even though we have no problem using it with other iPhones.any suggestions would be really helpful
Thanks. Changing the DNS to 8.8.8.8 worked for me. Do we know why this problem occurs? It was working fine with the old settings previously.
There is not a log in option when I go there ……
Go to settings, message, click on learn more under iMessage, login apple ID again
I had the iPad 2 and my iMessages worked great, but since I got the iPad 3, it does not work. When I type in someone’s name it puts up red highlight and ! and then I type message but it won’t light up send…so I can’t send message. I’ve tried off/on and reset…neither has worked. Any other suggestions?
Hi instead of clicking on iMessage go to your contacts and click on the person you want to send your message to and click on share contact and finally click message.
hey, thanks ! this helped me out a whole lot ! I had been trying forever but it never worked until now ! thank youu so much !
Omg thank you so much doing this worked!!! I got a new iPod the other day and couldn’t get into iMessage or facetime but now i can so thanks sooooo much!!!!
entered the alternative DNS server address and got somebody to text me from thier 4s and at last received it! i was able to send imessages but the reply i never got although the persons phone said it was delivered, all ok now though at least at the moment
Mine was turned off. I know I didn’t do that so it must have defaulted to off with the update.
Turning my phone off and then on again always works to get imessaging back. It seems to switch itself off and on randomly
my messages on my iPod will work at school but when i get home it works occasionally but most of the time i can’t send anything. i gan go on google and the app store and bomb… but not messages 🙁
Kay well it still doesn’t work. And whenever I turn iMessage on an error occured
Hi, not the same problem, but doesn anyone know why the imessage option is not available at all ? when going into settings, messages, i just see MMS/SMS settings ?
Thank you.
If its your iPhone it is already set up with your mobile number.
If its your iPod touch then (older than the latest version, 4th gen.) have you updated the software recently?
If iPad then only the recent one (the one after the 2nd gen) the it needs to be updated.
Hope this helps!
U probably have an iPhone right? Well iPhones can text so they dont really need iMessage. My mom had the same problem.
My imessage says Could not sign in . please check your network connection and try again but my safari and everything else works except for facetime and imessage . i have tried everything but still nothing happens . help me out here !
Same problem, help?
Same problem, can’t login using Apple ID
Go to you’re settings, general, date and time and turn automatic time on. It worked for me.
Same problem
this helped me if the guy u text has a mark like this ! means it has went
Both myself and my partner have iPhones. I’m on a 4S she has my old 3GS. Since we both updated to 5.1 iMessage doesn’t work, anyone I know who hasn’t upgraded past 5.0, iMessage still works. Any ideas. Auto time update is on, on both handsets, it’s strange as it was working for a few days after the update then it suddenly stopped one afternoon and hasn’t worked since.
I have the same problem. Just stopped working this morning. I’m running iOS 5.1.1. Thanks a lot of for the “update” Apple. No FaceTime no iMessenger…I am out of the country with the military and this is important to me. I tried rebooting, tried to reset to factory settings, tried the DNS 8.8.8.8 trick, nothing has worked.
Both myself and my partner have iPhones. I’m on a 4S she has my old 3GS. Since we both updated to 5.1 iMessage doesn’t work, anyone I know who hasn’t upgraded past 5.0, iMessage still works. Any ideas. Auto time update is on, on both handsets, it’s strange as it was working for a few days after the update then it suddenly stopped one afternoon and hasn’t worked since. Getting pretty sick of each Apple update feeling like a downgrade!
Tried everything above. DNS 8.8.8.8 worked for me. Thank You 🙂
The DNS num work perfect
Thanks
I’ve tried everything everyone’s suggested (imessages on, DNS change, date/time to auto, etc…). I have an iPhone 3GS and my iMessages stopped working when I updated to 5.1. When I logged back into iPhone it now permanently says waiting for activation under the iMessages section. I’m beyond frustrated. And yes I’ve tried turning the phone off and on since then. Help!!!
ivd tried changing my DNS to 8.8.8.8 but it doesnt work I even made sure tht my iMessages was on does the person I txt have to have iMessages set up? pleaz help mi!
hi. i have a iphone 3gs ios 5.0.1 jailbroken and ive tried evrything on this list no help not at all i need help i love imessage but it wont work?
It works for me. thanks
Changing the DNS does work. Thanks!
Mine sends the message to the worng person
My imessages just stopped working about a week ago. I’ve been in Australia and disconnected from 3g for the last 2 weeks but using imessages over wifi.
I tried changing the DNS, tried reactivating by turning off imessage, disconnecting and reconnecting to wifi then reactivating imessage but it just says “Waiting for activation…” forever.
Any suggestions?
thanks heaps
I’ve been looking for the answer for a week. Here’s what worked for me. And I tried all the suggestions out there. My problem was that my phone had been sending/receiving imessages and stopped doing so, probably when I got the last update.
Apple wants everyone to have and use their own itunes account because it’s more profitable for them and is necessary for icloud. So the last update made it so you had to be signed in under your own itunes account to make imessage work. I had my own, but I share itunes with my roommate so I was often signed in under that account. Anyway:
1. get an itunes account
2. In your phone go to settings, messages, then you’ll see imessage with a little on off thing, turn it off or on or whatever it’s not, then back to on. At some point here it will prompt you to sign in, then they made me authenticate emails and wait a while for it to turn on. About ten minutes later i was sending and receiving imessages again.
Ive tried everything on here. When I did the original fix of changing the DSN to 8.8.8.8 it fixed it and I was able to message. 24 hours later I’m having the same problem again. I can’t even select someone to send a message to. Whenever I put someone’s name in it just turns red with an exclamation point. This is so annoying. Especially because I am not a Mac lover. Should have gotten a Droid tablet. PLEASE someone, let me know if there is some other magical combination of settings that has to be selected in order to make a preloaded application do what it is supposed to do. Thanks
please help ..it’s not working on me 🙁
I had switched off the auto time zone, switched it back on and everything worked perfect! Thanks!
I have the same problem, NOTHING works. I have the latest update, iMessage is turned on, google DNS is on, SMS sending option is turned off and it starts out as iMessage, then gets converted into SMS and turns green.
Accidentally hit reply.
And he’s on, I believe, 5.1. I believe he updated. This separation issue has been happening since before I jailbroke though. Jailbreak seemingly didn’t affect it at all.
Here’s my prob:
I talk with my bro on iMessage. I sent him a text to his phone number, he replied to THAT message, ad I received it from his email address, which should be fine on iMessage, however, it came up as another entry from”Scott”. So, you look at my list of messages, and everyone I talk to using iMessage, has duplicate entries. One from phone number, one from email address. The messages from the phone are green, and the email blue, like it’s supposed to be, but for so,e reason it’s separating them. Wtf.
Also:
I sent a group message to my bro and sis. Bro has iMessage, sis doesn’t. I sent the text, got a separate, not in the group, reply from my sis, which I expected, but then got the same from my bro, which I didn’t expect. Funny part was, my bro sent me a pic showing that he was in fact texting to the group, and I sent him a pic showing it wasn’t showing up in the group. It obviously is the same issue with iMessage separating the email/phone texts, but I don’t know why it’s doing that.
I’m on 5.0.1 jailbroken
I have the same problem. My wifes on 5.1 I’m on jailbroken 5.0.1 worked fine till SHE updated now her iMessages are from email and texts are green 2 separate lists
THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANKS 😀
I have the same problem… nothing work (dns) help plis
if you had already done the 8.8.8.8
check the accounts you’re using may be it’s a two different account in facetime and imessage..
use 1 particular account try it.
omg the date and time thing worked – my date and time were correct but as I had just gone from the UK to Saudi I decided to set it to auto date/time as suggested above then went into my settings and turned imessages on and viola it worked right away yay!!! Thanks :):):)
My time had changed to 1 hour ahead. Once I set it back everything worked fine.
I recently got the latest iPod touch for my birthday and when I try to iMessage with my friend it says on mine that he isn’t registered and on his it says I am not registered when we both are! I have wifi as well and restarted the iPod and I changed dns and I have iMessage turned on but nothing works! Help?
Went on holiday my i message didn’t work so i just used normal text got back and my phone hasn’t got back to normal i message will it do it automatically or do i have to do something ????
Get phone credit !
I can’t activate it. It says an error was produced.
What if i’m using mobile red (3G) and not wifi? then i can’t change DNS. Help please
I have tried all this, changed DNS settings and activated iMessage from settings. It shows that iMessage is on, but I really don’t know how exactly to send messages through iMessage. Can someone tell me how to verify that iMessage is on, and how to send messages through iMessage? 🙂
nothing is working! everytime i try to sign in after i put in my apple id it doesnt do anything!
I have changed the DNS setting to 8.8.8.8 but it has not helped : iMessage still not working. It had worked for a couple on months until some time last December and I have never understood why it stopped working. Any other idea than the DNS change?
Thanks
If this fails you will need to reactivate your imessages by turning off imessages and turn off any wifi connection you may have,once that is done turn off your devices and turn them on again. switch on your wifi connections then reactivate your imessages in that order, by doing this your device will ask for your apple password to reactivate imessages. hope this helps.
This man deserves a medal. Just followed these instructions and it works! Brilliant. Thanks
Mine wasn’t letting me login. Kept going back to login screen. Fixed it after noticing date was wrong on iPad. Changed time/date to auto update and it worked. I let the iPad die and somehow it was not on auto for time and date function.
Thank you!
My daughters clock was out by about 30 minutes. Tried everything else to fix (DNS, password changes etc) but this was the problem.
Appreciate you passing on the info.
Thanks been trying to figure it out for days.
Awsome! thank you very much!
I have just spent the better part of the weekend trying to sort this out.
Finally, I had switched off FaceTime. As soon as I reenabled this app iMessage allowed me to log in and started working.
Please Help! I have tried everything and it still doesn’t work. When I go yo Settings then messages there is no on/off switch for messaging and it says my apple ID is wrong but it is right!:(
if you done the 8.8.8.8
check the accounts you’re using may be it’s a two different account in facetime and imessage..
use 1 particular account try it.
yes! mine is turned on and works fine with some people but not others, even though i know they have iPhones!
I cannot receive or send iMessages even though it is turned on in my settings and i am connected to the wifi and the DNS is 8.8.8.8
so my problem was i updated my time manually, if by chance you have changed any settings recently revert to the previous one and it should work. i updated the time because it was daylight savings and because of that i couldn’t use imessage or facetime. hopefully, you’ve changed something and that will work for you
Roberta is right! I changed the time manually and that stoped everything, changed to automaticly and imessage is working again!
Mine is still not working. I go to settings/message and it tells me to sign in with my Apple ID but when I do and hit next it says verifying and goes back to sign in.
I seem to be having the same problem as a lot of people, my iMessage is turned on, but it randomly sends my iMessages as text messages when I know the other people are using iPhone’s etc…any ideas would be great thanks
Once I turned my iMessage back on, I went to my text screen and deleted the text messages from other iPhone users. When I started a new text it showed up as iMessage again. I’m not sure if that will work for you as well, but I thought it might be worth a try.
Mine had the same problem, tried everything… and it fixed it – turning on FaceTime!!! Now it works perfectly. Unbelievable, 3 days nothing and now this!
If you go to your setting and set your iPod time to set automatically then it works for some reason
This worked as well on my iPhone 4. Thank you so much!
Mine wouldnt verify. Set time and date to auto and it started working again. Big apple glitch!!!!
Amazingly, this worked when everything else didn’t. I wonder why automatic time zoning, of all things, affects the iMessage feature?
I tried both of these- no luck. iMessage is on. Any other suggestions?
Settings/messages turn iMessage on worked for me. And it’s logical. Not sure how it became turned off as it worked after upgrading to OS 5.
My iPod 4G is jailbroken,iOS 5.0.1. I tried using my iMessage after jailbreaking,it asks me to Sign In with my Apple ID. After signing in it says “iMessage Activation Could not sign in. Please check your network connection and try again.” My Wifi is fine. I have rebooted the device,turned off Wifi and turned back on,I even just tried using Google’s Public DNS (8.8.8.8). My Facetime is the same way. Please help,soon. Idk what else to do My Apple ID works when I download apps via App Store and iTunes,it being jailbroken isn’t the reason why it isn’t working.
I got same problem except my iPod isn’t jail broken
I have the very same problem, but it is not jail broken. I got it from AT&T.
Same problem, but mine is new from AT&T and not jail broken! Is there a fix?
Lucky 8’s man! Thanks
i tried this, doesent work. whenever i go to setting>messages>turn imessage on, it just stays on
“waiting on avtivation..
help anyone 🙂 ?
hey… thnx alot it really helped me and now i can message as long as nothing else goes wrong…
P.S. do you have to do the same thing to get your facetime working too??
Thanks so much. Does anyone know how the dns settings get changed?
I’m having the same problem here….I’ve tried everything I could find on the net and still not working. Same problem with facetime too! 🙁
The 8.8.8.8 thing didn’t work plzzz find me another way umm about to lose my mind
Hey Elie, have u tried going to your setting> Messages> Turn IMessage on!
Just saw it on mine! Hope it works for you too 🙂
Tara,
Thank you so much, but OMG I feel like a dummy for not seeing it. 🙂 Thanks again…mine works now!
thank you that worked!
Thank you! A simple solution & worked for me!
i don’t see a button like it. my device is new so i have to sign into my apple ID and such. When i already keyed in everything, it says verifying for 3 seconds then it goes back to the login page. It’s the same for my facetime. help?
Make sure that the person your texting is connected.
mine its not activated, i tried with the 8.8.8.8 thing but it still says WAITING FOR ACTIVACTION
ive tried everything i can find on the net and nothing is working at all help please. When i turn it on it says an error activating or it just says waiting to activate and when i send a message its blue for the imessages and it says its delivered but the other person doesnt get it. My partner and mother in law have the same problem
so basically u need wifi to work imessage?
Reset your settings, it will not delete any data at all. I just fixed mine 10 minutes ago and it’s a very fast process, it should only take about 5 minutes. Hope it helps!
The settings reset worked. I have been on deployment for two months with my phone kicking me off iMessage. This has been the ONLY thing that worked!!!
Oh thanks I have been struggling ages trying to fix this and all I had to do was RESET SETTINGS LUCKY I DIDN’T LOSE ANY OF MY STUFF. WHEN RESETING.
Oh thanks, you helped a lot. I have been trying ages to fix this.
Thank you, worked perfectly and fixed it :)))))))
It worked at first… now its still ………….
I tried by changing the DNS number to 8.8.8.8.8 as recommended but it didn’t not only work but I can’t remember the original DNS number. Can someone help ?
Forget the network then re enter the password to your router. The original DSN should reappear
I have tried everything, restoring factory settings, sim card, DNS change. Was working for months up till couple days ago. Extremely disappointed apple I am a staunch supporter but your letting me down big time lately!
Omfg it doesn’t work :'(
im about to break this phone. it won’t work… when i first had the phone the imessage worked. now, i have tried every trick and it wont work?!?!
Thanks a milion thats really worked
Hey, thanks!
I have an iPhone 4 and since I woke up this morning it didn’t send iMessages.
This bums me out because my boyfriend, best friend, and mother all use iMessage and to me it’s way better than normal text messaging. My boyfriends’ wasn’t working either. So I typed in 8.8.8.8 and it didn’t work the first couple of times with the school wifi. It worked from my home wifi 🙂
thanks again!
Awesome. 8.8.8.8 worked perfect!!!!
it works for me but i cant conect to itunes or the app store plase help me
Doesn’t work. My iPod touch never came with messages. Is it in the new software or something?
I have an iPod touch 4 an I recently updated my iPod to the new iOS 5. I was also using the app that comes with it called “Messages”. It was working at first. Then, when I sent a message to my friend one day, who also has an iPod touch 4 with iOS 5, it said “Not Delivered”. I sent a lot of messages to him before and that one message said that error. I kept sending and sending. The same problem kept happening. I tried all of these methods to fix it, but none of them worked. My iPod is not jailbroken, so that isn’t the problem. PLEASE HELP!!!!!
Brilliant! The dns swap to 8.8.8.8 and then back to my original did the trick. Thank you.
Turning it off and back on worked. Thanks.
Didnt work
iMessage was working fine on my first gen iPad over wifi but would not work on my iPhone 4s over wifi. Changing the DNS setting fixed it. Thanks!
Worked for me too. Brilliant. thanx heaps!
IMessage worked for 1 week and has now stopped. I tried the suggestions and it’s still NOT working. This is very frustrating!!! Not sure what to do now.
I had a problem with iMesssage & Facetime…. it stated.. validation problem… and I Follow Russell instructions & finally they are operational again !!!.. thanks…
Follow Russell easy steps..
1.) Go to Date and Time settings and turn ON Set Automatically (if you had turned it off)
2.) Make sure under Restrictions setting you have it set OFF and Facetime should be ON.
I’ve had problems with iMessage on my iPhone4 for the past 2 weeks and have gone through Tier-2 Apple tech support team who couldn’t fix my problem. I’ve been playing around with my settings and I think I figured out a few things that may help fix the issue. Try a few of these and see if it fixes your iMessage issue.
1.) Go to Date and Time settings and turn ON Set Automatically (if you had turned it off)
2.) Make sure under Restrictions setting you have it set OFF and Facetime should be ON.
3.) Changing the DNS number did not work for me but did work for some on the forum so you can try that.
Thank you! FaceTime button was my problem. Working perfectly now. Thanks again!
Your a LEGEND hands down!!! Thanks so so much!!! The date and time were not set to automaitic and once that was changed my problem was solved :)))
thank-you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much i have tried everything adn this is genious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :):):):):):):):):):)
I MUST AWARD YOU A HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!! Wish I had that much money :p But thanks a MIL!!
I tried this but can’t get iMessage to stay open on iPod. Any other ideas?
Thank from Dominican Republic. It’s work
all you have to do is switch off the sms tab, and switch on the iMessage tab, while connected to your laptop et voila! iMessage works again 🙂
Yayy!! It worked!! =D
Aghhh didn’t work for me.. Help?! :/
It seems to work! Thanks!
My wife and I both have an iPad 2, but not iPhones. We have used Face Time, but when I try to message her it doesn’t work. I’ve changed the DSN number on my iPad . Guess she needs to change hers also? Does everyone that wants to use iMessage need to do this?
Check Data Roaming and Cellular Roaming are “On”
I turned them off for battery life and imessage failed, but not always.
Worth a go anyway!
You saved my relationship!! Thanks!!!!!!!!
it has worked on a ios 5 ipod !
thanks
Did not work for me the send button dose not work
My husband bought our son the new apod touch and we had the problem of not conecting. I change the DNS to 8.8.8.8 and it worked. Thanks for the help!
proper gonna waste my time going to the apple store. THANK YOU and THANKS TO GOOGLE NOT USELESS FOR ONCE MUAHH XXOXOXOXO
Doesn’t work on iPad.
Bro u finally made my day happy! I thought it was hopeless but yeah it’s the dns code thing that solved everything. Bro I just wanna give ya $100 but I’m underage for overseas mail. You’re my hero!
Brother has iPod Touch with ios5 but we can’t find iMessage on it. When you go to Settings> there is no option for Messages, so no way to turn “On” as some have suggested… anyone know a solution?
p.s. – his Facetime works fine…
This could lead to any broken manufacture in the software check if you have an update. Settings > General > Update If its up to date you will have no access to update. You can reset your IOS device. Just simply hold the Sleep/Wake Button and the home button at the same time until you see the Apple logo. If that dosent work you can try resetting your brothers iPod If any of these soultions dosent work you can make a appointment at the Genius Bar at your nearest Apple Retail Store.
Working . Cheers
I have an iPhone 4 and found over the past few weeks that iMessage was no longer working. Just solved the problem … iMessage was set to “off”. Try turning iMessage “on” by going to Settings > Messages > and is iMessage (which should be at the top) is off, simply turn it on and enter your Apple ID password if prompted.
Brother has iPod Touch with ios5 but we can’t find iMessage on it. When you go to Settings> there is no option for Messages, so no way to turn “On”… do you know the solution? He does have Facetime and it works fine.
@MikeThompson I have tried multiple times turning it on but i do and i go to the messages it automatically turns it off. and i know that my friend has an iPhone with iMessage
This worked for me! Thanks so much.
YOU SAVED MY LIFE! Well,kinda
Thank you! That finally worked, I tried all of the other solutions before I found this one. Much appreciated!
Thanks anyways, didn’t work. not quite sure why, I think it has something to do with syncing up with another computer :-/
Thanks you soo much!!
You were able to help fix a problem Apple couldn’t!
Much appreciated 🙂
It worked for my son’s ipod touch. I was then able to change the DNS back to the router (default one) and it continued to work. It also sorted out the “find my ipod touch” and face time calling which had never worked before. Thanks.
Thanks for the tip. It is working now. Very helpful advice
What if you aren’t connected to a wi-fi network? I’m having this issue when just connected to the cellular network.
iMessage is meant to only work on wifi. Yeah.
iMessage works on the cellular network and on 3G… It just needs a data connection. You have to make sure you don’t have your FaceTime turned on.
The fact that you have to turn off your phone/ipad every 5 minutes proves that this is a serious issue. my phone works most of the time but i cannot view the messages or receive them via my iPad.
Thnx guys. Its really worked for me.
Didn’t work for me either
My god the person that find this deserves a medal THANKS!!
It did work for me!!!
Ahhh THANK YOU SOO MUCH. I just bought my iPad 3 days ago and have been having this problem. I took it back to Best Buy to let the Geek Squad figure it out twice, and they did something and fixed it, but it didn’t fix it for long..it kept going back to not working. This fixed the problem!! I was actually thinking about just returning it because of this…hopefully other people will find this helpful also!
there is no iPad 3. You probably got the iPad 2 with iOS 5.
She meant she got her iPad, 3 days ago
they bought the ipad, 3 days ago, not ipad 3
it doesnt work:((((
It doesn’t work for me either 🙁