Q: Wind Mobile Activate iMessage / Facetime

I tried every method listed above last night, it just didn't work, could not get response from apple.

However it is working on both my 5c and 5s tonight. so try one more time in another day.

what I have done today is

-reboot iphone

-then turn on facetime only (imessage off)

-press ok

-wait 1 minute

-follow the help instructions of activate website to get the log, and submit the string

-activated!

Simpler terms is this just to activate your WIND phone number to imessage services? Will any international fees apply?

Hey, does anyone know if the small iOS 8 updates will disconnect the iMessage & Facetime from Wind? I remember reading that people had to follow the activation process again when they updated from iOS 7 to iOS 8 but I'm not sure about the small updates and frankly, don't want to risk it but knowing would help. Thanks in advance.

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to add a few additional tips that people can use along with smcclay's awesome step by step if they encounter a situation where the activation SMS for iMessage never really comes back in the baseband logs.

My situation(and that of my sons) appears to be similar to what others have explained when they have ported their number over to Wind. My number happened to come over with me from Rogers. I was able to verify the request SMS from my phone was being sent to the number in the UK, but nothing ever returned, this coincided with the situation where other iMessage users I had communicated with would receive my texts, but I would never get their responses unless they forced them to be sent via SMS. This made me realize that iMessage was still trying to rout my message through an incorrect path based on my old phone or carrier.

The solution was pretty simple. I had to go to

https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage

and enter my phone number and fill in the PIN that arrives by SMS to have the iMessage servers forget about any pre-existing ways to contact me.

Then I followed smcclay's awesome steps at

http://www.theonlinemac.com/windhelp

with the only caveat that i had to wait 5-10 minutes before the iMessage SMS activaiton response to show up in the logs.

So if you have a number that has been ported over to Wind and don't see the activation SMS returning I would suggest that you deregister from iMessage and then follow Smcclay's steps. It should get you up and running in no time.

Hello Everyone,

Note: I had tried to edit my previous post but appear to have missed the 15 minute edit window. Please excuse this updated post, but I wanted to clarify a few things.

I wanted to add a few additional tips that people can use along with Steve McClay's awesome step by step if they encounter a situation where the activation SMS for iMessage never comes back in the baseband logs. I tried 18 different times checking the logs after 2 minutes to two days and could see the outbound SMS request, but nothing came back. I verified through the Usage screen on the Wind Mobile portal that the international SMS' were going out and that none were returning

My situation(and that of my sons) appears to be similar to what others have explained when they have ported their number over to Wind. Both our numbers happened to come over from Rogers. I was able to verify the request SMS from my phone was being sent to the number in the UK, but nothing ever returned, this coincided with the situation where other iMessage users I had communicated with in the past would receive my texts, but I would never get their responses unless they forced them to be sent via SMS. This made me realize that iMessage was still trying to route my message through an incorrect path based on my old phone or carrier.

The solution was pretty simple. I had to go to

https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage

and enter my phone number and fill in the PIN that arrives by SMS to have the iMessage servers forget about any pre-existing ways to contact me.

Then I followed Steve McClay's awesome steps at

http://www.theonlinemac.com/windhelp

with the only caveat that i had to wait 5-10 minutes before the iMessage SMS activaiton response to show up in the logs.

So if you have a number that has been ported over to Wind and don't see the activation SMS returning I would suggest that you deregister from iMessage and then follow Steve McClay's steps. It should get you up and running in no time.

Hats off to you Steve! I have left a donation through your site for all your help in getting us back up and working on iMessage. Have a Merry Christmas!

Hello

I was reading the issue one was having with activating imessage with the Speakout network. Did you resolve the issue and would it work with Petro Canada Mobility network, as it basically similar?

I have installed the logging profile, and tried the process many times still cannot find the hex string in the log file. I verified that my number is de-registered from iMessage, is there a specific timeframe to run the log before saving the file?

thanks!

Finally I was able to activate iMessage on my windmobile phone number. The number was ported from Fido 3 yrs back and was never able to activate iMessage service since I got an iPhone in 2013. I had been trying on and off for almost 12 months. I could not see GMS SMS Point to Point PDU string in the logs.

I casually tired today and was able to see GMS SMS Point to Point PDU string in the logs and was able to activate the iMessage for my windmobile phone. Also left a donation on http://www.theonlinemac.com/windhelp

Thanks to all for the help...

After so many trials I finally managed to activate iMessage, here is what I was doing wrong that messed up the process:

1. Having apple ID being active on iMessage and FaceTime and both are turned on.

2. Enabling FaceTime while disabling iMessage

3. Toggling iMessage on and off frequently might have blocked the server SMS response

What worked for me:

1. Signing out of Apple ID for both iMessage and FaceTime

2. Enabling iMessage ONCE, and never disable it through the whole process

I'm running into problems and I've discovered that I'm no longer receiving the reply SMS from Apple. When I look at my usage history in my Wind online account, I see that I was indeed receiving the SMS reply a few days ago, but not since, and it has been over 48 hours since my last try. I do see all of the outgoing SMS activation attempts beginning with 447-537-4102.

Just in case, I went to https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage to deregister an existing iMessage activation and got "Your phone number is not registered with iMessage."

Any reasons why I'm not receiving the reply back from Apple any more?

First, I'd like for us all to take a moment to truly appreciate what smcclay has done for us.  He has helped us implement functionality that we SHOULD be able to access with any carrier, but were blocked from on WIND.  He has done this service for free, and he is owed a million thanks (and a million dollars, though I have donated significantly less than that I'll admit).

Here was my experience, in case it clarifies anything for anyone.  I was able to successfully receive the string of content, submit it for activation, and re-gain iMessage/Facetime functionality on my iPhone 5.

The details:

Date of successful activation: Sunday, January 4, 2015

PHONE: iPhone 5

Version: iOS 8.1.2

Carrier: WIND

Former carrier: Rogers

Plan: $40/month prepaid with unlimited global texting included

I tried following smcclay's activation process guidelines many times yesterday evening, once my phone number was finally ported over to WIND after a 3-day waiting period.  I followed everything to a T, with the added step of disabling logging and restarting my phone before beginning the process again.  I waited between 5-30 minutes between the "Toggling iMessage" step and the "Save the log on the iPhone" step, but after 3.5 hours worth of attempts with no text from +447786205094 in the log, I knew something was up.

smcclay offered three potential causes of these failures:

1. My phone number associated with my Apple ID / phone needed to be listed in the following format: + 1 (XXX) XXX-XXXX (Already done)
2. I needed to ensure that I had a top up amount that was available for international texting. (Already done, plus global SMS is included in my plan)
3. If my phone had recently been ported over, it may take up to 48 hours for this process to be successful. (BINGO. My phoone was only JUST ported over hours before)

I planned to wait 48 hours at this point, but I was still curious so I kept going... just in case.  As some had mentioned worked for them, I then left my phone between the two steps listed above overnight.  I saved the log and investigated its content in the morning, with no success. 

I tried a few more times from morning to afternoon, again leaving my phone between the two steps listed above for anywhere between 5-20 minutes, with no success.  Finally, I resigned to wait the 48 hours... but no!  I couldn't!  I tried one more time, this time leaving the phone for JUST OVER ONE HOUR before saving the log.  This time, IT WORKED!  I grabbed the string, implemented it into smcclay's activation page, and within 30 seconds my iMessage FINALLY activated after hours of torturous attempts.

Here are some tips / what worked for me.  Obviously some of these are not required and/or have been listed elsewhere in this very discussion, but I wanted to list everything.

1. Before starting the process, and each subsequent attempt:

• Ensure logging has been disabled after your previous attempt.  If you've already tried the process once, before starting again, dial #5005*274# to disable logging, then start the process from the very beginning again.
• Log out of your Apple ID on both iMessage and Facetime.  Ensure both are OFF.

2. Follow the process exactly as listed on smcclay's help page, with ONE EXCEPTION:

• If you've tried without success, WAIT ONE HOUR between the "Toggling iMessage" step and the "Save the log on the iPhone" step.  Just leave your phone alone to do its thing.  Abandon it, watch a show, eat some food, go for a walk, take a nap, take up World of Warcraft, whatever it takes.

Additional tips:

• There is no need to touch Facetime at all during this process, once you've got it turned off before you begin.  After iMessage is activated, you can turn on Facetime and it too will activate automatically.
• It likely wouldn't hurt to deregister your past iMessage account using Apple's tool if you're having difficulty.  I personally got an error message telling me that my phone was not registered with iMessage, but this seems to have worked for some.

Well, I guess that's it.  A big thank you to everyone who has posted to this thread with questions, tips, details and experiences.  An extra enormous thank you to smcclay, without whom we would all be--as my mom would say--snookered.  smcclay, may the PayPal gods be as good to you as you have been to all of us.

@sguptaet, try waiting a full hour between the "Toggling iMessage" step and the "Save the log on the iPhone" step.  Perhaps the system may be congested right now, and taking an especially long time to generate the string for the text.  As described in my post above, this worked for me just over an hour ago.

I had the same issue over the weekend.I kept sending the activation text but would not receive anything. I'd suggest not trying to activate (turning both Facetime and iMessage off, and ensuring that they are not tied to your icloud account on your phone) for a period of 24-36 hours. You can try again later. I must have sent at least 25 activation messages over a 3-day span but did not receive anything back. Also as stated by k__d above, wait a bit longer (I waited 5 mins). I would also suggest alternating between activating iMessage and Facetime, but not both at the same time (Facetime finally worked for me today). Good luck!

Just wanted to chime in on this thread to say that this process did finally work for me. Ported my number from Rogers. Tried plenty of times but eventually, using the FACETIME toggle, I finally got the right hex key, submitted it to theonlinemac.com and less than a minute later, Facetime activated. Then i turned on iMessage and it successfully activated too. I think the real issue, as Steve said in an email, was that sometimes it takes up to 48 hours or more for your number to completely port over. But this worked for me in less than 48 hours using the Facetime option. I tried this morning using iMessage and no dice. Then I tried again 5 minutes later using Facetime and it worked.

Some things I did:

I downloaded Telephony Logging from Apple Developer because it is easier than typing all those numbers to enable and disable logging.

I made sure there was a +1 before my number in the settings.

I deactivated my phone number from my apple id.

I turned off iCloud completely

Turned off iMessage and Facetime. Disabled logging. Restarted. Enabled logging. Toggled FACETIME ONLY. Waited 5 minutes. Synched. Saw "diagnostic info", looked in the file and finally, the hex string was there.

MOST IMPORTANTLY: I left Steve a donation for his efforts. Thanks again Steve!

I hope this helps more of you have fully functioning iPhones on Wind!

+ 1 (xxx) xxx-xxxx

Confirming that was the missing piece for me ...

I followed Steve's method from his website but did not have the +1 in front of my phone number in my iPhone.  So the iMessage and FT failed to activate after submitting the code on Steve's website.

After adding the +1, restarting the phone, and turning both iMessage and FT back on, then following the steps again, both activated within 2 minutes of submitting the code on Steve's website.  I waited only ~30 minutes between the first (failed) and second (successful) attempts.

Excellent work Steve!