MacBook Pro to iPhone - Calling and Messaging suddenly blocked

[CrashX]

I'm hoping one of the gurus here might offer some guidance?

Seemingly out of nowhere, FaceTime and iMessage on my rMBP refuse to work with my iPhone SE. Messages won't come in or go out, calls won't come in or go out.

I even did a Time Machine restore from last week, when everything was working - I don't know if I can use the information backed up from all of that to restore my iPhone also?

[UPDATE: I did restore my iPhone from the iTunes backup from the rMBP that was restored from Time Machine. Still no dice.]

Anyway, it's a huge PITA - I normally just keep my phone in range and I can make calls and send messages from my rMBP. Now I can't.

I've searched all over, troubleshooting this to death - there have been suggestions to turn iCloud off and back on, but I can't DO that because of the idiotic way iCloud claims "ownership" of my stuff. "Turning off iCloud will remove..." That is so tremendously annoying and unhelpful - sorry about the tangent.

My rMBP is running the latest version of El Capitan and my SE is running the latest version of iOS.

I'm also running Little Snitch, but have looked through all of the "blocking" rules and nothing seems to be wrong there?

Thanks very much for any help. I live in BFE so getting to an Apple store is not possible.

 

[chscag]

Well, it sure sounds like an iCloud problem. You should be able to sign out of iCloud and back in without disrupting the ownership of your devices. I would try signing out of and then back in to iCloud to see if it resolves the problem. (As an aside, I no longer use Little Snitch because of all the annoying notifications it gives.)

 

[CrashX]

After almost a month - I PRAY someone else finds this and it saves them from the Hell I've been through with this -

It was a bad ROUTER. The Internet and everything else was working perfectly fine - only FaceTime and Messaging were (for whatever reason) blocked by the stupid router.

You can troubleshoot this for yourself by driving to a local hotspot and seeing if that fixes your issue. If it does, it's your router - even if it seems to be otherwise working fine.

I live in BFE at the moment - but if you have a desktop even, just get it to a hotspot or a friend's house and see if that fixes the problem. If it does, your router is busted.

I hope this helps someone. God that was HORRIBLE!!!

 

[satcomer]

After almost a month - I PRAY someone else finds this and it saves them from the Hell I've been through with this -

It was a bad ROUTER. The Internet and everything else was working perfectly fine - only FaceTime and Messaging were (for whatever reason) blocked by the stupid router.

You can troubleshoot this for yourself by driving to a local hotspot and seeing if that fixes your issue. If it does, it's your router - even if it seems to be otherwise working fine.

I live in BFE at the moment - but if you have a desktop even, just get it to a hotspot or a friend's house and see if that fixes the problem. If it does, your router is busted.

I hope this helps someone. God that was HORRIBLE!!!

Over my longer years in tech I'm starting to think consumer routers are very cheaply made! Their lucky to last 3-4 years and old saying "you get what you paid for" for the cheap routers!

 

[CrashX]

I just truly couldn't believe that I was able to connect to the Internet with (seemingly) no issues - yet the router just suddenly "broke" FaceTime and Messaging.

 

[satcomer]

I just truly couldn't believe that I was able to connect to the Internet with (seemingly) no issues - yet the router just suddenly "broke" FaceTime and Messaging.

If your really want to make sure bookmark the Apple Support document TCP and UDP ports used by Apple software products in case of using a third party router that has a firewall!

 

[CrashX]

Geezus... how in the Hell would you program all of that crap into a router?

In my case, I turned off the firewall on the router and the issue persisted. Still no clue what went haywire.

The huge PITA was that there was no other issue whatsoever with my wifi setup at the house - which was the LAST thing I went through with Apple tech support.

So again, hopefully someone will run across this thread in their searches - if you're having issues with FaceTime or Messaging or iMessaging on your Mac, the problem may be your router.

Dealing with that was misery

 

[satcomer]

Geezus... how in the Hell would you program all of that crap into a router?

In my case, I turned off the firewall on the router and the issue persisted. Still no clue what went haywire.

The huge PITA was that there was no other issue whatsoever with my wifi setup at the house - which was the LAST thing I went through with Apple tech support.

So again, hopefully someone will run across this thread in their searches - if you're having issues with FaceTime or Messaging or iMessaging on your Mac, the problem may be your router.

Dealing with that was misery

It's easy! Just open System Preferences->Network pane, get the Router IP from the Network pane. Put that IP put into your favorite browser and log into you router.that should be a section to open a port. Then add the ports in the Apple document to get to Apple services!

 

[CrashX]

Thanks for being so helpful. Sorry, I was away for a week.

That appears to be a TON of data entry, though - but extremely helpful (I'm guessing?) if the new router starts giving me problems?

Just making an assumption, but I'm guessing most people know pretty much nothing about routers or how to program them to open ports for Apple.

Given Apple has exited the market, wouldn't it be helpful if there was a script that might automate opening of all these ports? Or does one exist?

That's just a ton of data entry into my router.

And my bad if you're just pulling my leg and I'm missing the joke.

In my scenario, I bought a router. Everything worked. Then, out of the blue, FaceTime and Messaging on my Mac were blocked. I could access the internet, so I assumed I'd hit the wrong key or done something to my Mac. Then Apple tech support finally suggested I try a new router - so I bought a new one, and problem solved. Sadly for me, that was their last recommendation.

It's easy! Just open System Preferences->Network pane, get the Router IP from the Network pane. Put that IP put into your favorite browser and log into you router.that should be a section to open a port. Then add the ports in the Apple document to get to Apple services!