New M4 Mini + Sequoia = Messages app broken

[Fishrrman]

I just rcvd a new M4 Mac Mini and set it up a couple of days' back.

It's upgraded to 15.3.1.
Things are working, after a fashion.
With one BIG exception:
The "Messages" app no longer works for me.

I use this to keep in touch with my sister, via her iPhone.

Please BE AWARE that I don't own a smartphone.
No iPhone.
Not even an Android smartphone.
(I do have an LG "flip-phone", but don't normally use it -- emergency use only)

Messages was previously working fine for this scenario:
She sends to me on her phone.
I respond using the Messages app on one of my Macs.

Up to this point, Messages continues to work on:
- My 2018 Mini (Intel) -- on both Mojave and my external Sequoia experimental drive
- My 2021 MacBook Pro (m1pro) -- still back on Sonoma, Messages working fine.

BUT...
On the m4 Mini (running 15.3.1) Messages NO LONGER WORKS.

I can't even get Messages to respond to my mistakes in meaningful ways.
That is to say:
- I enter her number to use to send the message.
- Number is originally displayed in "pink", sometimes changes to green
- But when I try to type a msg, it changes to red
- Try hitting return to send the msg, nothing happens.

NOWHERE in the Messages app does it give any indication of what these "color changes" represent, or what might be going wrong, so that I might correct the problem.

Quite possibly the most poorly-designed app I've ever seen.

So... my questions:
1. Has anyone else in the forum had this problem?
2. If so, were you able to overcome it?
3. How?
4. Assuming I'm not going to get Messages working, are there any applications for the Mac (NOT for iOS) that can send to an iPhone? Names, please...

Thanks for reading.

 

[Fishrrman]

OK, not more than a couple of minutes after posting this, Messages suddenly came to life.

I changed nothing.

Wondering how LONG it will work.

One thing going on in the background as I type this:
I'm upgrading both the old Mini AND the MBP to the latest beta release of Sequoia.
I wonder if that had something to do with it?

 

[Boyd01]

I got a base m4 Mini in November and use it as a media server for my AppleTV's with the built-in sharing. It's connected to my stereo and I also use the Music app and stream Sirius/XM in Safari. But that's just about all I use it for. Never explicitly setup mail or messages on that machine, but your post made me curious.

Just opened the Messages app for the first time (AFAIK) and all my messages were there, just like my 2018 Mini (that I regularly use with Messages). Apparently it pulled all the settings it needed from iCloud because I set this Mac up from scratch, without migrating any data from another Mac.

Sorry, probably not helpful. But everything appears to have worked fine right out of the box for me...

 

[Boyd01]

Just saw your other post. Yeah, I'll bet there is just some latency during the setup process. I noticed several things that I thought were not working when I setup my m4, but after a little while, they were OK.