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felixroqu3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 5, 2012
649
685
New York, NY
So today i had to restore my iPhone because like the idiot that i am changed my passcode while i was on the phone with a friend, wasn't paying attention and forgot what my new passcode was. So after restoring it from my iCloud backup a friend of mine asked why i sent an iMessage from my email. I went into Settings<Messages and noticed iMessage was set to send and receive from my iCloud email. I tried selecting my phone number but it's greyed out. Doesn't even have a check mark next to it. I turned iMessage off and reset my phone but it didn't help. Same thing happened. I turned it off and then on and then it was stuck at "waiting for activation" for a very long time to no avail. Then i proceeded to restore my phone and set it as new and the same thing happened. It was either waiting for activation or it was set to send/receive through my iCloud. I restored my phone for a 2nd time and nothing. Even turned off iMessage and FaceTime and reset my network settings, turned off the phone, turned it on and the same thing happened!

T-Mobile is my carrier. I called them up and was transferred to an apple technician and he couldn't help. He essentially told me to make an appointment with the Genius Bar. So i made an appointment for tomorrow but i was wondering if anyone else has experienced this in the past? Right now it says "activation unsuccessful" and my number is still greyed out.
 
Are you on pay as you go?
You need to top up your account and then turn iMessage/FaceTime off. Restart your phone and then turn iMessage/FaceTime on again.

To activate iMessage/FaceTime, your iPhone needs to be able to send a text message.
 
When I activated it on my 5S it took about 14 hours. I called Apple and they said it can take up to 24 hours to activate iMessage and Facetime.
 
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