iOS 9 on iPhone 6: iMessage and FaceTime Activation Problem

[Arkanok]

As the title suggests, I'm unable to activate iMessage and FaceTime on my iPhone 6.

I previously had the iOS 9.1 beta on my phone, but reverted back to the public release of iOS 9. Since downgrading today I've had this problem. I checked Apple's status page and all services appear to be functioning properly and Google searches have come up dry, leading me to believe that this is a problem on my end.

Has anybody else experienced this today? I've tried everything from restarting the phone, toggling the on/off button for both FaceTime and iMessage numerous times with absolutely no luck. When I do turn iMessage off then back on I receive an error, which you'll see in an attached photo. I would imagine that if there was a problem with the activation servers, I would have issues with iMessage on my Mac, but I don't.

Does anybody know how to fix this?

 

[mconk]

As the title suggests, I'm unable to activate iMessage and FaceTime on my iPhone 6.

I previously had the iOS 9.1 beta on my phone, but reverted back to the public release of iOS 9. Since downgrading today I've had this problem. I checked Apple's status page and all services appear to be functioning properly and Google searches have come up dry, leading me to believe that this is a problem on my end.

Has anybody else experienced this today? I've tried everything from restarting the phone, toggling the on/off button for both FaceTime and iMessage numerous times with absolutely no luck. When I do turn iMessage off then back on I receive an error, which you'll see in an attached photo. I would imagine that if there was a problem with the activation servers, I would have issues with iMessage on my Mac, but I don't.

Does anybody know how to fix this?

Have you tried logging in with your Apple ID?

 

[Arkanok]

Have you tried logging in with your Apple ID?

Of course, multiple times. As I said, whenever I try to log in, I get that error.

 

[anzio]

Not just you. My dads iPhone is experiencing the same problem.

Mine is fine, but his is now waiting for activation for some reason. You're not alone.

 

[outlawarth]

Same for me, stuck at "Waiting for activation..."

 

[Arkanok]

Not just you. My dads iPhone is experiencing the same problem.

Mine is fine, but his is now waiting for activation for some reason. You're not alone.

Same for me, stuck at "Waiting for activation..."

Phew, ok... I honestly thought it was just me because I don't see many people talking about this anywhere.
Thanks, I feel a bit better. Hopefully in the morning this will resolve itself.

 

[0000757]

Same. I even did a complete reset of my phone, signed out of my Apple ID, and everything. Constant failure message (I never even get my number under the Send & Receive" option).

Are you on T-Mobile and did your number get randomly changed perhaps? That happened to me.

 

[Arkanok]

Same. I even did a complete reset of my phone, signed out of my Apple ID, and everything. Constant failure message (I never even get my number under the Send & Receive" option).

Are you on T-Mobile and did your number get randomly changed perhaps? That happened to me.

No I'm in Canada actually, on the Fido network. Phone number is the same, too.

Just like you, I now have the "waiting for activation" message under the iMessage toggle button, and in "send and receive", my phone number is in the list but isn't selectable, it just has the spinning circle thing happening.

 

[0000757]

No I'm in Canada actually, on the Fido network. Phone number is the same, too.

Just like you, I now have the "waiting for activation" message under the iMessage toggle button, and in "send and receive", my phone number is in the list but isn't selectable, it just has the spinning circle thing happening.

Did you do a clean install? I think that might have something to do with it. I'm going to go back and install the GM and see if that fixes anything, and then maybe try iOS 8.4.1 (though I only have the beta of that one saved and my school Wi-Fi is so poor it will take 7 hours to download 8.4.1)

 

[outlawarth]

Update: my iMessage and FaceTime finally activated. Didn't do anything special, just left my iPhone alone.

 

[edwarddrago]

Same. I even did a complete reset of my phone, signed out of my Apple ID, and everything. Constant failure message (I never even get my number under the Send & Receive" option).

Are you on T-Mobile and did your number get randomly changed perhaps? That happened to me.

 

[edwarddrago]

I am on T-Mobile and my number was randomly changed too!!! I called TMO care and they pushed programming back to my phone and it worked. Now the phone number is fine but iMessage just stopped working.

 

[xported]

I am on T-Mobile and my number was randomly changed too!!! I called TMO care and they pushed programming back to my phone and it worked. Now the phone number is fine but iMessage just stopped working.

I'm having the same exact issue this evening with my T-Mobile iPhone 6 +. My number randomly changed multiple times since the upgrade to iOS 9. A restore seemed to fix the random phone number issue but now I can't get iMessage to activate as it's trying to activate with a phone number that isn't mine. Signing out of my Apple ID in iMessage and turning off iMessage has not resolved the issue. When I turn iMessages back on and sign into my Apple ID in Messages, it shows the wrong phone number grayed out with the pinwheel spinning next to it in the send and receive section. I contacted Apple Support and they told me to give it 24 hours.

 

[zaphon]

I'm having the same exact issue this evening with my T-Mobile iPhone 6 +. My number randomly changed multiple times since the upgrade to iOS 9. A restore seemed to fix the random phone number issue but now I can't get iMessage to activate as it's trying to activate with a phone number that isn't mine. Signing out of my Apple ID in iMessage and turning off iMessage has not resolved the issue. When I turn iMessages back on and sign into my Apple ID in Messages, it shows the wrong phone number grayed out with the pinwheel spinning next to it in the send and receive section. I contacted Apple Support and they told me to give it 24 hours.

Yeah I upgraded my phone and it worked fine, however my wives phone is hosed with this issue, and she needs to be able to get her text messages. I'm trying to find a way to get this working.

 

[greatness]

Same. I even did a complete reset of my phone, signed out of my Apple ID, and everything. Constant failure message (I never even get my number under the Send & Receive" option).

Are you on T-Mobile and did your number get randomly changed perhaps? That happened to me.

Same here. Got a random number which showed up in both phonebook and iMessages (with some random person from that area texting me). I changed to my correct number in settings but that only fixed phonebook (not iMessages). I did a reset and clean install, which fixed the phonebook but iMessages still gives me the "waiting to activate" message. Although in the send and receive menu it does show my correct number (but in gray and the circle of death).

I am on T-Mobile. Apple is scheduled to call me tomorrow morning. In the meantime I guess I'll just leave it alone.

 

[0000757]

Same here. Got a random number which showed up in both phonebook and iMessages (with some random person from that area texting me). I changed to my correct number in settings but that only fixed phonebook (not iMessages). I did a reset and clean install, which fixed the phonebook but iMessages still gives me the "waiting to activate" message. Although in the send and receive menu it does show my correct number (but in gray and the circle of death).

I am on T-Mobile. Apple is scheduled to call me tomorrow morning. In the meantime I guess I'll just leave it alone.

My send and riceieve doesn't even show my number, just my email addresses (signing out of my Apple ID doesn't even bring THAT option (S&R) in the settings choices)

 

[edwarddrago]

Same here. Got a random number which showed up in both phonebook and iMessages (with some random person from that area texting me). I changed to my correct number in settings but that only fixed phonebook (not iMessages). I did a reset and clean install, which fixed the phonebook but iMessages still gives me the "waiting to activate" message. Although in the send and receive menu it does show my correct number (but in gray and the circle of death).

I am on T-Mobile. Apple is scheduled to call me tomorrow morning. In the meantime I guess I'll just leave it alone.

This is terrible T-Mobile is of no help either.

 

[xported]

I just did a restore from an iCloud backup and that fixed my iMessage activation issue. Hopefully my number doesn't randomly change again.

My last iCloud backup was on September 11th. A restore from an iTunes backup after I became aware of this issue did not help me. Maybe a restore from an old backup saved me.

 

[greatness]

Just a few moments ago my laptop asked if I wanted to use (my correct phone number) to access iMessages. Not that it will work for everyone, but here was what I did:

-Updated to iOS9 OTA, found phone number mix-up and iMessages error
-turned iMessages on/off, logged out of iCloud- did not fix
-reset iPhone, updated to iOS9 via iTunes, and restored via iCloud
-Phonebook fixed itself (showing my correct number) and so did iMessages, but it kept "awaiting activation" and my correct number was in gray
-left it alone for a bit and the correct number popped up on my laptop.

-i also took an awesome shower in between (much needed) so maybe my bathroom is magical.

 

[Itzamna]

I'm also having problems activating iMessages and FaceTime. It's stuck on activating. My number doesn't even show on the iMessages contacts (Send and receive part). Only my iCloud e-mails.

 

[vustintvylor]

I have the exact same issue. The weird thing is that I updated to the public version of iOS9 early this morning, and I was messaging on my iPhone and iPad with no issues throughout the day. It wasn't until a little while ago that my iMessaging started to mess up. I've tried all sorts of "fixes," including logging out of iCloud and logging back in (which didn't work because when I tried logging back into iCloud I'd get an alert saying that I couldn't connect to the iMessage server), resetting all my settings, and I even factory reset my phone, but nothing worked. For the past several hours my phone still says "Waiting for activation...." In other forums I've read, the issue only seems to be with T-Mobile users. Not sure if that's the case. This is a very irritating bug considering the fact that iOS9 has had MONTHS of time for beta testing. It's even more frustrating because this same exact thing happened with the public release of iOS8... you'd think Apple would try not to repeat their mistakes, but I guess not. SMH.

 

[zaphon]

I was able to finally get it to fix. I had tried blowing away the phone, doing a complete re-install of the OS from IPSW file in iTunes, and restoring from a backup prior to the 9.0 release. Still left me at the "activating" forever message. This morning, I sent the phone a text message (true SMS not iMessage) which upon receiving it seems to have fixed it. It's now activated, and I can send/receive messages via iMessage on it.

 

[vustintvylor]

Update: the probelm resolved itself. I just left my phone alone over night after doing a factory reset and the "waiting for activation" finally went away, so i was able to put in my icloud info and iMessage seems to be working fine. I'm not sure if it was the reset that helped or if the problem would've resolved itself even without a reset.

 

[pochen1]

As the title suggests, I'm unable to activate iMessage and FaceTime on my iPhone 6.

I previously had the iOS 9.1 beta on my phone, but reverted back to the public release of iOS 9. Since downgrading today I've had this problem. I checked Apple's status page and all services appear to be functioning properly and Google searches have come up dry, leading me to believe that this is a problem on my end.

Has anybody else experienced this today? I've tried everything from restarting the phone, toggling the on/off button for both FaceTime and iMessage numerous times with absolutely no luck. When I do turn iMessage off then back on I receive an error, which you'll see in an attached photo. I would imagine that if there was a problem with the activation servers, I would have issues with iMessage on my Mac, but I don't.

Does anybody know how to fix this?

Same here. Had the public beta and it(iMessage) did not work so I reverted back. complete wipe and restore. Updated to iOS9 yesterday and my texts are in green and can't activate. Tried every tip (setting time, turning on airplane mode, resetting network settings, etc.) Don't want to have to wipe and restore, but looks like I may have to, unless there is a fix.

 

[Yogyrs]

As the title suggests, I'm unable to activate iMessage and FaceTime on my iPhone 6.

I previously had the iOS 9.1 beta on my phone, but reverted back to the public release of iOS 9. Since downgrading today I've had this problem. I checked Apple's status page and all services appear to be functioning properly and Google searches have come up dry, leading me to believe that this is a problem on my end.

Has anybody else experienced this today? I've tried everything from restarting the phone, toggling the on/off button for both FaceTime and iMessage numerous times with absolutely no luck. When I do turn iMessage off then back on I receive an error, which you'll see in an attached photo. I would imagine that if there was a problem with the activation servers, I would have issues with iMessage on my Mac, but I don't.

Does anybody know how to fix this?

I have same problem with you before i am update ios 9 this bug facetime same in ios 8.4.1

As the title suggests, I'm unable to activate iMessage and FaceTime on my iPhone 6.

I previously had the iOS 9.1 beta on my phone, but reverted back to the public release of iOS 9. Since downgrading today I've had this problem. I checked Apple's status page and all services appear to be functioning properly and Google searches have come up dry, leading me to believe that this is a problem on my end.

Has anybody else experienced this today? I've tried everything from restarting the phone, toggling the on/off button for both FaceTime and iMessage numerous times with absolutely no luck. When I do turn iMessage off then back on I receive an error, which you'll see in an attached photo. I would imagine that if there was a problem with the activation servers, I would have issues with iMessage on my Mac, but I don't.

Does anybody know how to fix this?

I have same problem with you before i am update ios 9 this problem same in ios 8.4.1 i think i am upgrade to ios 9 this problem is gone And now ios 9 problem facetime and imessage not gone everything tutorial im try but the activation always same on your pic