Q: imessage and Facetime sign in activation error iPad ios8.1.2

I Had the exact same problem and after following all the steps at If you get an error when trying to activate iMessage or FaceTime - Apple Support

i did several resets. Nothing seemed to work until I used my iCloud account to sign in rather than my Apple ID I got in. Apple ID did not work at all. Not sure if this will work for you but it did for me ... Good luck!  

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Any updates on this??  Do I seriously have to call in to get this fixed??  They can't possibly expect to fix this issue one user at a time.

The iCloud account is the same thing as the Apple ID. That doesn't make any sense.

If you're using 8.1.2, BabeNewYear, your best bet is to upgrade to 8.1.3. It says in the update description that it fixes signing in to iMessage and FaceTime. And if tthat ddoesn't work, reset your device and restore from your iCloud backup (make sure your backups are recent).

I did the update when it first released, didn't work.  I also reset my device, didn't work.

Very strange. This problem actually happened to me on three different occasions, and resolved in a different way each time.

I had to call in and insist on getting a senior tech. She walked me through a total restore...wiped it, set up as a new iPad to sign into messages and FaceTime.  Then restored it from iTunes. That worked for me, but I was down for two weeks and the updated didn't solve my problem. I am also out of warranty but was not charged. Good luck!

Yes, that exact thing happened to me. Thankfully, the restore process isn't too inconvenient.

I too had to back up to iTunes, restore to factory setting and then restore using the back up. this worked whereas nothing else had. I have been up and running sine last Tuesday when I did this (I had been unable to connect since Jan 21st and the recent update didn't do anything). The restore was easy - the only thing that didn't work was Videos but I just re downloaded them from Purchased. All my other passwords and settings were there.

Tried your solution...and it worked for me.  Thanks for your help.

Wrong! Your iCloud email is not necessarily the same address which is used for your Apple ID. It may be in your case but this does not mean it is for every other user. So it actually does make sense.

I also have had this problem. Didn't notice it until today, but all of my messages on my iPad (with the 8.1.3 update) are from 1/20/2015. This is extremely inconvenient. I was stranded on campus at 10pm with a dead phone and was going to use my iPad to send out a message to get a ride home and that's when i came across this outrageous bug in the system. Absolutely ridiculous.

Need fix on this ASAP or a new update that fixes these issues. iOS 8 has been nothing but horrible from the beginning. Its been almost a month since this was originally posted, this issue should have been resolved long ago.

I have just been hit with this problem.  The only thing I haven't tried is an erase-and-restore, since others have tried it with no luck (but see important update below).

I'm using an iPhone 5 running iOS 8.1.3 (12B466) (the latest, as of 11-February) and was using iMessage as recently as four hours before noticing iMessage was broken.  I accidentally saw that I'm supposed to be able to use my iPhone as a conduit for sending SMS messages from my Macintosh. When I tried to set that up on my phone, it asked for my AppleID password, which it could never authenticate, and suddenly iMessage was broken.

When I try to activate iMessage on my phone, I continuously see "Waiting for activation..." under the iMessage switch.  If I turn the switch to "off" then "on" again, I get the error message "iMessage Activation  An error occurred during activation. Try again."

I also see the same "Waiting for activation..." message when I turn FaceTime on.  Other uses of my AppleID don't cause any problem: I can log out and back into Find My Friends and Game Center, for example.  I can also log into Messages on my Macintosh with the same ID, as well as "Manage My ID" at https://appleid.apple.com/account/manage.

If I turn off and back on iMessages on my iPad, the "Waiting for activation..." message appears briefly, then the process finishes.  My ancient iPhone 3GS (running iOS 6.1.6; I have it on a seldom-used phone number) works fine — I can log out of iMessages and log back in and use it.

I finally decided to do an erase-and-restore, and that actually "fixed" the iMessage problem.  "Fixed" is in quotes because it didn't actually fix it, it just patched it.  The last time I backed up my phone, iMessage was working fine because I was already logged into the iMessage system.  Sure enough, as soon as I tried to do something (turning iMessage off and back on), it was instantly broken again.

But when I did *another* erase-and-restore, I had it back again, and I'm not going to mess with it.  I'll try again after they release iOS 8.1.4.

What does this mean for y'all?

IF iMessage HAD BEEN WORKING SOMEWHAT RECENTLY FOR YOU, you should see if you have a backup from before it went bad, and try the erase-and-restore option.

If you've got this problem because your device has never been activated and logged into the iMessage system, I sincerely doubt this will help, since it is only working because the restored state has it working.

Hopefully Apple will figure this one out quickly.

In my case it was not working for a week or two (iPad Air ios 8.1.3).

In setting under iMessage I entered a dummy login just to see what I would get ... a pop-up show up for password confirmation the password.

I canceled and I re-entered the correct username and password correctly and it works ... it's worth a try on your side

OH MY GOSH!!!!  My iPad iMessage has been out since Jan. 20th.  I have tried everything short of clear all and restoring from a backup.  I just tried this and BAM!!  It is now up and running.  How could the fix to this problem have been as easy as entering a fake Apple ID and fake password and then attempting with my real one?  Have no clue why or how but bless you for posting this fix!