Apple Customer Support Claims Apple Stymied by Phone-Switching iMessage Glitch

[bloqhead]

simple solution. don't switch to android. who said a company has to support their competition's devices? does amazon make prime available for apple tv?

This is partially accurate but I still find it amusing that the solution from people is "don't go and use something else." That's like saying "don't try and escape from prison, despite the fact that you've done nothing wrong and deserve freedom."

But yes, I said earlier that Apple has no desire to help users leave their products/services, thus the reason they're dragging their feet on a fix.

 

[Oletros]

You're completely wrong. It'll be cached to apple servers as an iMessage until a set amount of time.

Ah, then I was wrong thinking that it is instant messaging

 

[tennisproha]

He didn't receive my "Merry Christmas!" There was a kerfuffle,…

Oh no!

 

[co.ag.2005]

This is the solution.

Everyone cried for an integrated messaging system. Apple provided it with iMessage. From what I've seen, most issues with it are simply a matter of user error - like this, leaving send as a text disabled. If someone is sending a message to an iMessage number that's now an Android phone, and it's being forced to send as an iMessage due to Send as a Text being turned off, what do you think is going to happen?

On Apple's part, they need to have a clearer set of instructions, as people are clearly too inept to sort it themselves. I'm fine pointing out an issue with Apple when it's a legitimate one, but the iMessage "issues" are almost all user error.

this is set to "off" as default from Apple. To have all my contacts go and turn this setting on is not the solution. Also, I did turn this on my wife's phone and I still didn't receive all her messages because Apple still had my phone # tied to iMessage even though I did everything I was supposed to in order to disassociate my # from iMessage. Again, not user error. Please read the entire thread before posting.

 

[Tsuius]

I don't understand.
Why are you switching devices?

 

[Popeye206]

Deleting the contact rebooting the phone and then texting the number with no contact worked for me as well, then I simply re-added the contact.

It is a conspiracy to make sure ppl who try to leave Apple's Echo-system have a hard time, and why should they care if your messages do not work after leaving iMessage, even though that is not the right attitude.

Funny how some people think a bug is an Apple conspiracy. I'd bet it's just a bug and not part of some fiendish plan.

 

[576316]

My friend recently got his first iPhone on a contract and it came with a SIM card and a new number (obviously), however he asked his provider to port over his old number to use with his new contract - which they did. Although the iPhone somehow 'locked' to the old number in terms of iMessage and wouldn't deliver or recognise the ported number as being attached to an iPhone. I've heard it's an easy fix, something to do with the settings, but he says he's not bothered about iMessage as a feature and so won't even let me fix it for him. Stubborn lol.

But yeah, I thought that was relevant.

----------

I don't understand.
Why are you switching devices?

What are these 'other' devices? I thought there was only iPhone...

 

[bstpierre]

To be honest I can't remember the last time it's happened. However a while back when I got my new iPad I unregistered all my devices from Messages and then reregistered them with my phone number set as the primary on all devices. I had devices that had my phone number plus several iCloud aliases and I was having an issue where if i sent from my work desktop it would send a new conversation to my wife from my iCloud address, even though my number was set as the primary for new conversations. I decided to delete them all and re-add. So I couldn't say for sure that iOS7 negated my issues or this reregistering process.

I have long had a suspicion that iMessage stores much of its data locally on the devices and there's supposed to be some sort of sync process that fails somehow on multiple devices.

Off topic, where are you from that you have a delectable spotted cow avatar.

I have had the same issue. All of my devices use my cell phone number only as my ID.

 

[jordanspringer]

I don't know what the big deal is here. This happened to my friend, and he no longer had the iPhone. So we called up Apple Support, and they verified our phone number, and revoked the iMessage certificate. Within 24hr, iMessage was completely disabled for his number, his iPhone friends could message him again, and everything was fine and dandy. This only took about 20 minutes of our time, and cost us nothing to speak to Apple support. Super easy and simple fix. It would be nice if there was a way to do this online via your iCloud/Apple account though. Perhaps in your iCloud account via www.icloud.com, there should be a Messages app that allows you dig into the Messages settings to toggle iMessage on/off.

 

[C DM]

This is the solution.

Everyone cried for an integrated messaging system. Apple provided it with iMessage. From what I've seen, most issues with it are simply a matter of user error - like this, leaving send as a text disabled. If someone is sending a message to an iMessage number that's now an Android phone, and it's being forced to send as an iMessage due to Send as a Text being turned off, what do you think is going to happen?

On Apple's part, they need to have a clearer set of instructions, as people are clearly too inept to sort it themselves. I'm fine pointing out an issue with Apple when it's a legitimate one, but the iMessage "issues" are almost all user error.

That's not really how it works. The problem is that Apple would think that an Android number would be compatible with iMessage to begin with and try to send an iMessage to it.

 

[576316]

This is the solution.

Everyone cried for an integrated messaging system. Apple provided it with iMessage. From what I've seen, most issues with it are simply a matter of user error - like this, leaving send as a text disabled. If someone is sending a message to an iMessage number that's now an Android phone, and it's being forced to send as an iMessage due to Send as a Text being turned off, what do you think is going to happen?

On Apple's part, they need to have a clearer set of instructions, as people are clearly too inept to sort it themselves. I'm fine pointing out an issue with Apple when it's a legitimate one, but the iMessage "issues" are almost all user error.

To be fair, I have 'send as text' disabled purely to stop iMessages with photo attachments being automatically sent as a text if I happen to lose Internet connectivity whilst its sending. That's happened a couple of times and I was charged by my provider. Otherwise, even with the feature on, it can take a few minutes for iMessage to realise it's not going to send and then decide to send the message and a text. I'd rather just hold down and select the option there and then, the whole thing is quicker - rather than waiting for iMessage to decide to send your message as a text.

 

[C DM]

I don't understand.
Why are you switching devices?

Is that something looked down on somehow?

 

[zorinlynx]

I don't understand why this is so hard to fix.

If an iMessage fails to deliver for a certain amount of time (24 hours?) simply deregister the phone number from iMessage.

If the device comes back online it'll ask Apple for any iMessages that were missed since it was last turned on. When this happens, re-register the number with iMessage and all is well.

If the device never comes back, the most a person will miss is a day of reliable messaging. Inconvenient, but not horrendously annoying like 45 days is.

 

[jameskk]

My wife is having this issue right now and it's been going on for about 2 weeks. We are giving her iPhone 5 to our niece for her high school graduation and my wife is using a Nexus 5 until the new iPhone 6 comes out. We have tried EVERYTHING listed here and elsewhere and nothing has worked. Just to recap:

1. turned off iMessage before removing sim
2. called Apple (they had no clue) but they said her cell number wasn't associated with her iCloud or iMessage
3. sent STOP text to number specified in earlier text
4. logged in and deregistered the iphone from her iCloud account
5. changed password for iCloud online
6. Made sure she is logged out of iCloud, iMessage, and FaceTime on her iPad

She has missed several work related text messages from her boss over this and is starting to get frustrated. Not sure where to go from here. I'm tempted to get her a used iPhone 4 to use instead of the Nexus but now I'm so irritated at Apple that I'm not sure if I want to use an iPhone again.

 

[C DM]

I don't know what the big deal is here. This happened to my friend, and he no longer had the iPhone. So we called up Apple Support, and they verified our phone number, and revoked the iMessage certificate. Within 24hr, iMessage was completely disabled for his number, his iPhone friends could message him again, and everything was fine and dandy. This only took about 20 minutes of our time, and cost us nothing to speak to Apple support. Super easy and simple fix. It would be nice if there was a way to do this online via your iCloud/Apple account though. Perhaps in your iCloud account via www.icloud.com, there should be a Messages app that allows you dig into the Messages settings to toggle iMessage on/off.

Well, something like this shouldn't really require calling someone to do it. That said, it seems like not everyone has much luck with even that approach, so there's something not quite right there either.

 

[vpndev]

not just iMessage

I have a similar problem with FaceTime, and I expect that the "presence" mechanism for iMessage is the same as for FaceTime.

My cousin has the SIM card I used to have in my old iPhone (because of Apple's micro-SIM-to-nano-SIM switch) and he now receives my FaceTime calls.

We have tried all the recommended voodoo - logging out and back in on both devices, deleting and re-establiching iCloud, etc etc etc. Nothing works.

Apple has a problem here, a serious problem. And yet no-one, NO-ONE, has acknowledged it.

 

[holden15]

Can't you just hold down on the message and tap "Send as Text Message"?

 

[C DM]

simple solution. don't switch to android. who said a company has to support their competition's devices? does amazon make prime available for apple tv?

You might want to think that one through a bit more.

 

[OneMike]

This is an issue I did have.

When I switched to the nexus 5 from 5S. I was not able to get texts from certain people until I ultimately switched back to a 5S for other reasons.

 

[C DM]

Can't you just hold down on the message and tap "Send as Text Message"?

Someone who might think about that and realize that might be happening might do it perhaps, but most will let their device send it and take care of it without thinking anything wrong is happening. If you are the recipient who isn't getting messages, that solution isn't something you can do yourself and would have to rely on other people perhaps realizing it and doing it, which makes it for a rather poor solution (if it can be called that even).

 

[co.ag.2005]

I don't understand why this is so hard to fix.

If an iMessage fails to deliver for a certain amount of time (24 hours?) simply deregister the phone number from iMessage.

If the device comes back online it'll ask Apple for any iMessages that were missed since it was last turned on. When this happens, re-register the number with iMessage and all is well.

If the device never comes back, the most a person will miss is a day of reliable messaging. Inconvenient, but not horrendously annoying like 45 days is.

doesn't work that way. for instance, I did everything I was supposed to do in order to dissociate my phone number from iMessage, then I used the Samsung Galaxy S5 for 2 weeks... decided the phone wasn't for me, so I put the sim back in my iPhone, turned iMessage back on, and voila... received about 6 iMessages that were sent to me while I was on the S5.. I didn't receive these on the S5, just when I logged back into iMessage on my iPhone. So those iMessages just hung out in "purgatory" for ~14 days until I got back on iMessage.

 

[Daveoc64]

I don't understand why this is so hard to fix.

If an iMessage fails to deliver for a certain amount of time (24 hours?) simply deregister the phone number from iMessage.

If the device comes back online it'll ask Apple for any iMessages that were missed since it was last turned on. When this happens, re-register the number with iMessage and all is well.

Re-registering the number involves your iPhone sending an SMS to Apple and Apple sending one back to your iPhone.

Both of those messages aren't free. Many carriers will not charge users for them, but some do.

 

[C DM]

This happened to a friend but the iMessage still went through as an SMS automatically after it failed as an iMessage.

Perhaps the people who are affected have their phone number on other Apple devices (iPad, Messages on the Mac) causing the iMessage to look to be delivered as it was received on a device with authority for that number. That means it'll never resend as an SMS.

This could be verified by someone with this problem who has iMessage registered on another Apple device by disabling iMessage on it and seeing if the 'ghost' iMessages start getting resent as an SMS.

I'm starting to suspect something along the same line of thinking. It could also explain why some people don't really run into this or some solutions work for them, while other people experience this issue and can't quite find a solution that works for them.

 

[co.ag.2005]

My wife is having this issue right now and it's been going on for about 2 weeks. We are giving her iPhone 5 to our niece for her high school graduation and my wife is using a Nexus 5 until the new iPhone 6 comes out. We have tried EVERYTHING listed here and elsewhere and nothing has worked. Just to recap:

1. turned off iMessage before removing sim
2. called Apple (they had no clue) but they said her cell number wasn't associated with her iCloud or iMessage
3. sent STOP text to number specified in earlier text
4. logged in and deregistered the iphone from her iCloud account
5. changed password for iCloud online
6. Made sure she is logged out of iCloud, iMessage, and FaceTime on her iPad

She has missed several work related text messages from her boss over this and is starting to get frustrated. Not sure where to go from here. I'm tempted to get her a used iPhone 4 to use instead of the Nexus but now I'm so irritated at Apple that I'm not sure if I want to use an iPhone again.

same here. quite frustrating, but I'm back on my iPhone using iMessages just fine. I would just like to have a Nexus 5 and be able to sim swap back and forth without worrying about missing messages.

 

[nc12209]

I find it so funny how many people are sticking up for Apple for this mess up

You people need to get over it and understand this is done on purpose to get people to stay with Apple

We all know the general population won't go through the steps to remove their phone number from their Apple ID...and quite frankly they shouldn't have to...it's THEIR phone number not Apples and they don't have the right to hold their numbers hostage if someone decides they want to change phones.

We all know as tech savvy people most people will blame Android if they switch and stop receiving text messages and will switch back to Apple because it works on an iPhone and honestly Apple should be sued or fined for such a thing... It's completely ridiculous this is even allowed.

This is why so many people call Apple followers sheep this is 100% on apple...and there are STILL people defending them and some people even outright blaming Android... You don't see people switching from Android to Apple having the same issues...do you?