RCS Waiting For Activation

[TechnicallyTee]

I’ve been having some issues with RCS not activating and staying on waiting for activation. It was working fine but I swapped to Android and came back to iOS and then it stopped working.

I’ve literally tried everything at this point.
- Reset network settings
- De-registered from Google Messages when I swapped over.
- Deleted the e-sim and re-added
- Factory reset without restore

Contacted advanced tech support for AT&T and they can’t seem to figure it out as well. Is anyone else having this issue because it’s highly frustrating at this point.

 

[TwistedMarbles]

I'm in the same situation currently. I’m with AT&T and RCS is stuck waiting for activation for just over a month now. I’ve done same things you have like deleting and installing new eSIM, reset network settings, deregistered my number with Google, etc. I haven’t bothered to contact AT&T support because I figure that’s probably hopeless.

 

[GDMcG]

Started having issues with SMS and RCS just this week May 15, 2025 after the iOS 18.5 update. Contacted AT&T and they had to reset something on their end. SMS started working again but RCS Messaging just says waiting for activation. AT&T claims that it may take from 24 to 48 hours for it to activate. We will see. Other phones on same plan aren’t having this issue.

 

[jtmo3]

Started having issues with SMS and RCS just this week May 15, 2025 after the iOS 18.5 update. Contacted AT&T and they had to reset something on their end. SMS started working again but RCS Messaging just says waiting for activation. AT&T claims that it may take from 24 to 48 hours for it to activate. We will see. Other phones on same plan aren’t having this issue.

Did you get it sorted out? I’m having the same issue since porting a number to cricket last week.

 

[GDMcG]

After chatting with AT&T tech support, about 24 hours later and RCS activated again. So it’s all good now again. The oddest thing was the initial SMS failure which was the biggest problem.

 

[ghostface147]

I’ve seen this more commonly when swapping carriers. Always disable RCS before swapping carriers.