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iMessage on Mac not showing contact names

I work for a big UK Uni so access to Mac hardware is very easy.

Testing wise I have 2 MacBook Pro 2015 models both with i7 processors and 16GB ram with 500GB SSD. Both are now running High Sierra, both have the iMessages contact issue where you cannot send a message to a contact without the country code prefix being present in the contact, and if you receive an iMessage from a known contact it does not show the contact name, just the number.

I also have a slightly older MacBook Air, also now running High Sierra, which works perfectly. I can send and receive iMessages from my contacts and contact names display as they should.

Hardware shouldn't be an issue in this. I also had the problem in Sierra so its not a High Sierra thing either.

You can assume I have done a lot of testing, I know what I am talking about and I'm pretty much the person who sets the Apple strategy at the Uni and manages the platform so believe me when I say this is a tough nut to crack.

p.s. I have spoken to Apple within the last few months, on the phone, and they are stumped.

M.
[doublepost=1507195604][/doublepost]Here are a few things you could try to see if you have better luck than me:

  1. go to https://www.icloud.com
  2. login
  3. go to contacts
  4. click on the settings wheel bottom left
  5. choose preferences
  6. make sure format/address layout is set to United Kingdom, or whatever your country happens to be
  7. give it some time to sync the settings across your devices, say 1 hour
  8. try iMessage on your Mac again and see if it works, didn't for me, but I can see why this might work
[doublepost=1507195864][/doublepost]other (basic) things to try:

ICLOUD
  1. log out of iCloud on all your apple devices, phones, iPad, Macs etc all of them
  2. give it some time to sync, again, say 10-20 mins
  3. log in to your iCloud on all your devices again
  4. try iMessages, see if it works.

CONTACTS
  1. make sure your contacts are the same on all your devices
  2. all my contacts are on my iCloud account
  3. I only have my iCloud contacts enabled on all my devices, this is the ONLY contact list I use across all my Apple devices
 
Last edited:
Agreed that hardware shouldn't be an issue.

I was attacking it more from an iCloud issue with conflicts between devices - i.e. with my Mac Pro reporting two OSXs from the same serial, could that be breaking something somewhere...

It does feel more likely that it's somehow connected with the removal of the explicit way to set the region that used to apparently exist in the so-called 'madrid' plist (com.apple.ids.service.com.apple.madrid.plist).

It would be interesting to hear if someone with an earlier version of OSX has this issue and is able to check whether or not that plist has Region set to R:GB and the Number String is +44 0000000000 as here: https://discussions.apple.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/2-32092106-873664/Madrid_plist.png.

In any-case clearly fixing something like that is out of our control so sadly guess we need to sit tight, or gradually accept that as a +44 dial-code we're buggered.

Appreciate your pushing @Hicksmat1976 - and perhaps some of these bug reports we've submitted will be picked up in a next release!
 
10 years in Mac dev here – not a stranger to the process of testing and analyses of bugs in software. This one also had me stumped for months.

For me, it started after I installed the early developer preview of High Sierra. I opened it once, saw how ropey it was and went back to Sierra. It was when I next opened up Sierra that I noticed the problem. My assumption was that something in that early build of 10.13 changed an internal location setting in my account to USA but I couldn't find a way of changing it since there was no longer a location setting in anything (I didn't think of checking Facetime).

Once a month I would check the developer forums but there was one thread on the issue with no replies.

Two days ago I decided to go the route of turning off all of my contact syncing (including Google), completely logging out of everything that uses my AppleID (including iTunes and Facetime), power cycling everything and logging in again. It sounds like you've tried this already but I had exactly the same problem and it's now fixed (actually, there is still an issue where numbers are showing instead of names in my Mac notifications, but I can live with that).

The full list of everything I logged out of is here. I'd love to know if it works for anyone else:
1. Facetime on all Macs
2. Messages on all Macs
3. iTunes - deauthorize all devices and log out
4. icloud.com removed all devices
5. appleid sign out of all browsers/locations (I forget the wording)
[doublepost=1507196736][/doublepost]I'd be interested to know what location you all see in your FaceTime settings: https://cl.ly/muHg
 
jibblejobble said:
10 years in Mac dev here – not a stranger to the process of testing and analyses of bugs in software. This one also had me stumped for months.

For me, it started after I installed the early developer preview of High Sierra. I opened it once, saw how ropey it was and went back to Sierra. It was when I next opened up Sierra that I noticed the problem. My assumption was that something in that early build of 10.13 changed an internal location setting in my account to USA but I couldn't find a way of changing it since there was no longer a location setting in anything (I didn't think of checking Facetime).

Once a month I would check the developer forums but there was one thread on the issue with no replies.

Two days ago I decided to go the route of turning off all of my contact syncing (including Google), completely logging out of everything that uses my AppleID (including iTunes and Facetime), power cycling everything and logging in again. It sounds like you've tried this already but I had exactly the same problem and it's now fixed (actually, there is still an issue where numbers are showing instead of names in my Mac notifications, but I can live with that).

The full list of everything I logged out of is here. I'd love to know if it works for anyone else:
1. Facetime on all Macs
2. Messages on all Macs
3. iTunes - deauthorize all devices and log out
4. icloud.com removed all devices
5. appleid sign out of all browsers/locations (I forget the wording)
Click to expand...

thats quite comprehensive, so if that hasn't solved it then nothing will I feel.

can you all pull up terminal and type locale?

this is what I get, all looks right
LANG="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_CTYPE="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_MESSAGES="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_MONETARY="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_NUMERIC="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_ALL=

some folks have tried changing the locale in terminal using a command (say from UK to US), rebooting the Mac, then setting the locale back to UK, rebooting again, and then trying iMessage again.
 
jibblejobble said:
10 years in Mac dev here – not a stranger to the process of testing and analyses of bugs in software. This one also had me stumped for months.
Click to expand...

Must admit @jibblejobble I have been psyching myself up to do this but haven't yet bitten the bullet (!)...

Will block out some time this afternoon and report back.

Hicksmat1976 said:
can you all pull up terminal and type locale?
Click to expand...

Same:

LANG="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_CTYPE="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_MESSAGES="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_MONETARY="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_NUMERIC="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_ALL=
 
Hicksmat1976 said:
can you all pull up terminal and type locale?
Click to expand...

I haven't changed anything in Terminal. Here's what I get:

LANG="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_CTYPE="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_MESSAGES="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_MONETARY="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_NUMERIC="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_ALL=
 
I have a friend who works for a consultancy working on Apple Mac Platforms (Hi Stephen if you are reading!) and he has the issue, and I'm thinking if he cannot solve it what chance do we have?
 
leroyyy said:
Agreed that hardware shouldn't be an issue.

I was attacking it more from an iCloud issue with conflicts between devices - i.e. with my Mac Pro reporting two OSXs from the same serial, could that be breaking something somewhere...

It does feel more likely that it's somehow connected with the removal of the explicit way to set the region that used to apparently exist in the so-called 'madrid' plist (com.apple.ids.service.com.apple.madrid.plist).

It would be interesting to hear if someone with an earlier version of OSX has this issue and is able to check whether or not that plist has Region set to R:GB and the Number String is +44 0000000000 as here: https://discussions.apple.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/2-32092106-873664/Madrid_plist.png.

In any-case clearly fixing something like that is out of our control so sadly guess we need to sit tight, or gradually accept that as a +44 dial-code we're buggered.

Appreciate your pushing @Hicksmat1976 - and perhaps some of these bug reports we've submitted will be picked up in a next release!
Click to expand...

except that wouldnt explain why iMessage works flawlessly on my MacBook Air running High Sierra. that is the anomaly. if it never worked on any device I'd say fair enough but it does work, on my Air.
[doublepost=1507197533][/doublepost]
jibblejobble said:
You might have missed this as it tagged onto the end of my last message:

What location do you see in your FaceTime settings: https://cl.ly/muHg
Click to expand...
for me it was set to UK.
 
Hicksmat1976 said:
thats quite comprehensive, so if that hasn't solved it then nothing will I feel.

can you all pull up terminal and type locale?

this is what I get, all looks right
LANG="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_CTYPE="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_MESSAGES="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_MONETARY="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_NUMERIC="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"

LC_ALL=

some folks have tried changing the locale in terminal using a command (say from UK to US), rebooting the Mac, then setting the locale back to UK, rebooting again, and then trying iMessage again.
Click to expand...
same for me as well, it all works fine on my MacBook but not on the MacPro, been through every setting all set to UK, apart from the settings in iCloud.com have set them to UK now, will give it a few hrs to sync and see what happens but not hopeful as this would have affected my Macbook if it was this I presume
 
And I take it that was on all your machines? Damn, mine was set to USA – I was sure that was a clue.

Let's see how leroyyy gets on signing out of everything.
 
Yes, my setup includes a MacBook Pro and an iMac, both of which are under the same iCloud account.
 
can we say this issue only exists on the MacBook Pro? Mine are the 2015 models.

My Air, which is earlier, works fine with iMessage.

all devices on High Sierra.
 
https://appleid.apple.com said:
The full list of everything I logged out of is here. I'd love to know if it works for anyone else:
1. Facetime on all Macs
2. Messages on all Macs
3. iTunes - deauthorize all devices and log out
4. icloud.com removed all devices
5. appleid sign out of all browsers/locations (I forget the wording)
[doublepost=1507196736][/doublepost]I'd be interested to know what location you all see in your FaceTime settings: https://cl.ly/muHg
Click to expand...

Okay guys. Tried this - didn't take as long as I thought!

No luck I'm afraid.

For clarity, I did the following:
  1. Signed out of Facetime on all OSX
  2. Signed out of Messages on all OSX
  3. Deauthed all devices from iTunes account screen (apparently you can only do this once a year)
  4. Removed all devices from iCloud.com using the little Xs - ApplePay deactivated on iPhone = confirmation
  5. Signed out of all browsers using iCloud.com via Settings > Advanced
  6. Deleted all Messages from offending Mac Pro
  7. Restarted both Macs
  8. Signed back into Messages on offending Mac Pro
  9. Same issue
I do note that https://appleid.apple.com still shows all my devices as being 'signed in', but icloud.com shows none. Any views on this @jibblejobble? I might try and remove them (I believe from Find my iPhone).

Also - I presume you didn't touch any iOS devices in your fix?

Thanks!
[doublepost=1507198708][/doublepost]

P.S. FaceTime set to UK.
P.P.S. @Hicksmat1976 issue is occurring on Mac Pro 5,1 old tower for me
[doublepost=1507200402][/doublepost]Final update. I removed the devices from appleid.apple.com which it turns out is a more serious removal.

For example it breaks the 2FA link which signing out of iCloud didn't do.

Still no luck with what seems to be the ultimate step.

I mean what is annoying is that Messages recognises a 07XX contact as being on iMessage when you compose a draft before sending - i.e. a 07XX contact name goes blue. It just can't seem to reconcile this back properly when a message is sent or received.

I give up for now...
 
Last edited:
leroyyy said:
Okay guys. Tried this - didn't take as long as I thought!I mean what is annoying is that Messages recognises a 07XX contact as being on iMessage when you compose a draft before sending - i.e. a 07XX contact name goes blue. It just can't seem to reconcile this back properly when a message is sent or received.
Click to expand...

yes that always bothered me too. So, when you compose a new message and type a contact name the iMessage bubble icon is next to the contact to signify the contact is an iMessage user, but when you send the message its "not delivered"

super angry now.
 
leroyyy said:
Also - I presume you didn't touch any iOS devices in your fix?
Click to expand...

Couple of extra things that I noticed you didn't mention (that I may have also forgotten, apologies):

- I turned off Contact Syncing on all my devices (including iOS and any other services – Google in my case) and selected "delete everything from device" when prompted
- Because I removed my phone from appleid.apple.com I restarted my phone and signed back into icloud. I did this after dealing with my Mac.
 
jibblejobble said:
Couple of extra things that I noticed you didn't mention (that I may have also forgotten, apologies):
Click to expand...

Thanks jibblejobble. I think I am close enough to this - indeed I had already disabled all other contact services (including Google) as a previous attempt at a fix.

Have just played around with some contact sharing settings but it doesn't seem to impact the plumbing between Message's mechanism in the actual routing of a message, which is what seems to be broken. May try the whole chain again later.

Hicksmat1976 said:
super angry now.
Click to expand...

Count yourself lucky you've not had to re-enter a 2FA code / AppleID password about 4 million times to get back up and running in the last hour... :)
 
I am having the same problem as others. To clarify, iMessage will not send from macOS without a country code. If I do try sending an iMessage from my contacts without the country it fails to send with a red exclamation mark.

I am in the UK and I am having this problem on an iMac Late 2013. However, the one difference for me was that this started on Sierra, not High Sierra. It started for me around the beginning of June 2017. I done a few clean installs of Sierra which did not fix it. I spoke to Apple many times around June 2017, even with their higher tier support, and they couldn't solve it. After doing a clean install to High Sierra last week the problem still exists. Also, just to add, I never used the High Sierra beta.
 
I was on Sierra and iMessage on my later 2012 Mac was fine, with names. I upgraded to High Sierra via update and was fine. I then decided to do a fresh install of High Sierra and now its numbers only...
 
MrMister111 said:
I was on Sierra and iMessage on my later 2012 Mac was fine, with names. I upgraded to High Sierra via update and was fine. I then decided to do a fresh install of High Sierra and now its numbers only...
Click to expand...

Yes, it works fine if you upgrade.

It ONLY breaks if you do a clean install, upgrades are fine.

An interesting thing I see is if I sign out of iMessage, then click on the unknown number it shows the name. However when signing back in and you click on the message it changes back to +44.

I think Apple broke something in iCloud with High Sierra.
 
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