Resetting Network Settings May Fix iMessages Not Working in iOS 7

[iGrip]

So glad I wasn't the only one having this problem! There was also an outage on sept 27th and all morning today. In both instances, I did not even know it wasn't working until I became curious as to why I didn't receive any replies... it was because my messages never sent!

Would rather not have to turn my phone off every time this happens...

So much for "Apple products: They Just Work", eh?

In my experience, Apple products need to be reset, and the OS needs to be reloaded more than any other product from any other manufacturer. I base that on my 3GS which needed to have the OS reinstalled multiple times.

With my Galazy S3, which is a year old, I have NEVER needed to reinstall the OS, and in a year, I've pulled the battery for a hard reset only twice.

With the 3GS, any little glitch in the overly long and complicated "Sync" process would mean that the whole device got borked.

 

[bmwhd]

iOS6 and iOS7 BOTH allow this. You will use a common appleID on all device JUST for the find my iphone service. Then create new appleID for each person and they can use that appleID for all other icloud, imessage facetime services.

Can you point me at documentation on how to do this? It's certainly not obvious just looking at Settings.

 

[calaverasgrande]

"Not Delivered"
the irony.

 

[JimAtLaw]

Funny to me that this is reported as widespread only with iOS 7 - my iPad 3 has been exhibiting this exact failure mode on 6.1 for quite some time.

 

[seecoolguy]

I just had to restart my iphone. Then it worked again.

But some iMessages never got thru to me. I know, they were from my wife.

this was happening to me off and on over the weekend, I tried rebooting my iPhone4 a few times but to no avail, then I saw this post, it worked just perfectly!

 

[nefan65]

So much for "Apple products: They Just Work", eh?

In my experience, Apple products need to be reset, and the OS needs to be reloaded more than any other product from any other manufacturer. I base that on my 3GS which needed to have the OS reinstalled multiple times.

With my Galazy S3, which is a year old, I have NEVER needed to reinstall the OS, and in a year, I've pulled the battery for a hard reset only twice.

With the 3GS, any little glitch in the overly long and complicated "Sync" process would mean that the whole device got borked.

I've had all the non-S iPhones, and never had to "reload" the OS. The only loading of iOS has been updates/upgrades to the OS itself.

So for me, and the other 2 iPhone users in my household it does "Just Work"...

Everyone's experiences are different.

 

[trainwrecka]

Why?

Data on Sprint is highly unreliable. I've had both the 4S and 5 on Sprint after having all the other iPhones on AT&T... What a difference. Sprint's 3G is slower than the original iPhone's EDGE connection, and the LTE is slower than the iPhone 3G's 3G connection. That's if you can find a connection... I typically have roaming data... and I'm in Dallas.

Text messages regularly fail to deliver, but iMessages almost always fail to deliver when not on WiFi - both ways - so someone's phone may say they sent you a message when it actually never got to you.

 

[Theophilus1]

This has been happening to me on and off again since I downloaded GM build. Still happens now that I'm at 7.0.2. Very frustrating that it doesn't fall back to regular text messages.

I've also been experiencing this problem of iMessages hanging, and in the process of following the instructions above, I discovered that the "Send as SMS" setting was in the OFF position (Settings > Messages > Send as SMS). I am wondering if this is a default setting for iOS 7. I had it ON in iOS 6. If Apple changed the default setting, that may be why iMessages aren't falling back to SMS for many of us who expect them to do so.

 

[WillFisher]

Tried doing the network reset trick a few days back, got it again today.
Tried resetting the network settings again, and it didn't work.

Only fix I have at the moment is a hard reset, its a shame and I hope Apple release a fix asap. Lots of my friends on Facebook seem to be shaming iOS 7 just because of this iMessage bug. Shame really.

 

[wd4fsu]

Will resetting network settings lose all my known Wifi's?

Yes, it will.

 

[riffcat]

Can you point me at documentation on how to do this? It's certainly not obvious just looking at Settings.

I dont have link to documentation but here are instructions (note: only the first/primary icloud account signed into icloud supports find my iphone. So, add the account you want to use find my iphone first)

1. Settings -> Mail/Contacts/Calendar -> add account primary (find my iphone account)
2. turn all services off except for find my iphone
3. Add new iCloud account (different AppleID/password)
3. turn on desired services for new icloud account
4. sign out facetime/imessage and sign in with new appleID/password

 

[KeepCalmPeople]

I just had to restart my iphone. Then it worked again.

But some iMessages never got thru to me. I know, they were from my wife.

My wife often says she can't get through to me either...

 

[powers74]

"Waiting for activation"...

Approximately how long does this take?

 

[iGrip]

I've had all the non-S iPhones, and never had to "reload" the OS. The only loading of iOS has been updates/upgrades to the OS itself.

So for me, and the other 2 iPhone users in my household it does "Just Work"...

Everyone's experiences are different.

Can I assume you don't use i message?

 

[DrumApple]

What happened to Apple's quality control? Don't they test this crap before releasing?

 

[Parise]

For some reason my mobile data seems to stall. It happens randomly with no rhyme or reason.

So I turn Airplane mode on then back off and I'm good to go.

Still pisses me off every time I have to do it.

Glad I'm not the only one. I'll be stuck on EDGE and after an airplane mode cycle it'll pick up the LTE. So annoying.

 

[urbanslaughter1997]

I had this same problem and I called applecare. They tried to get me to reset my network settings which is a huge PITA because then you have to re-sign in on all your different networks. The apple care guy asked me why I would have more than one network. Um . . . well, I don't sit at home all day playing with my iPhone, that's why. I have networks for work, for friend's houses (whose passwords I've long since forgotten), for my summer place, for all kinds of places. Anyway, I simply turned my phone off and then back on and everything worked which saved a bunch of hassle.

 

[b001ean]

I had this same problem and I called applecare. They tried to get me to reset my network settings which is a huge PITA because then you have to re-sign in on all your different networks. The apple care guy asked me why I would have more than one network. Um . . . well, I don't sit at home all day playing with my iPhone, that's why. I have networks for work, for friend's houses (whose passwords I've long since forgotten), for my summer place, for all kinds of places. Anyway, I simply turned my phone off and then back on and everything worked which saved a bunch of hassle.

This seems only to be a temporary fix for me. I hope you fair better.

 

[whawhat]

Hm, just experienced this problem today. Tried to reset my iMessage settings to no avail. Ended up doing a hard reset and it worked. Hopefully Apple fixes this asap.

 

[bmwhd]

I dont have link to documentation but here are instructions (note: only the first/primary icloud account signed into icloud supports find my iphone. So, add the account you want to use find my iphone first)

1. Settings -> Mail/Contacts/Calendar -> add account primary (find my iphone account)
2. turn all services off except for find my iphone
3. Add new iCloud account (different AppleID/password)
3. turn on desired services for new icloud account
4. sign out facetime/imessage and sign in with new appleID/password

Tks. May try that at some point. We only use iCloud for find my iPhone so using one apple I'd works for us.

 

[nefan65]

Can I assume you don't use i message?

I use it daily. iMessage with my wife, son, and friends regularly. No issues at all. Messages are displayed across my iPad, and Macbook Pro as well. All of us running iOS 7.0.2 on 2 iPhone 5(s), and an iPhone 4.

 

[IT Troll]

1 out of 4 iOS devices in my house was affected by this bug.

Had to turn off iMessage, then turn it back on and then also reboot the phone before it started to work again (no need to reset network settings).

And yes it appears that the upgrade also turns off send as SMS, so you have to turn this back on to mitigate the times when iMessage is bugged or the service is down.

 

[jrlcopy]

I thought iMessages are completely encrypted.
How can they packet sniff / filter it ?

-t

No clue. I shall not ask. All I know is that it works on all wifi networks that I have been on except this one. Both when my laptop is on the wifi and my phone.

 

[izzle22]

So much for "Apple products: They Just Work", eh?

In my experience, Apple products need to be reset, and the OS needs to be reloaded more than any other product from any other manufacturer. I base that on my 3GS which needed to have the OS reinstalled multiple times.

With my Galazy S3, which is a year old, I have NEVER needed to reinstall the OS, and in a year, I've pulled the battery for a hard reset only twice.

With the 3GS, any little glitch in the overly long and complicated "Sync" process would mean that the whole device got borked.

I've had the original iPhone, 3G, 4, and now 5. I have never had to reinstall the os on any of these. You either had a faulty devise or just didn't know what you were doing. Also I know quite a few people who own Galaxy phones who have had to reinstall their os on S3s and S4s.

And YES I use iMessage.

 

[shaner2000]

This worked for me, at least temporarily. thanks.
I had previously tried restarting and a hard reset which only worked temporarily.

iphone 4 running ios 7.0(11A465) on AT&T.

Also, I didn't read 7 pages of comments, but, as for the above, I, too, have never had to reinstall my OS. I've had occasionally problems on various phones since my first iphone (I've had the 3G and 4), but nothing that a quick internet search couldn't fix.