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by Ralph Johns (UK),Nov 6, 2015 1:07 PM in response to MorganFromSeattle
Ralph Johns (UK)
Nov 6, 2015 1:07 PM
in response to MorganFromSeattle
Level 9 (72,994 points)
Applicationshi,
As I said:-
The only route after checking everything else is to contact Apple Support.
Nothing I have suggested to people recently have made anyone at Apple Support resolve the issue any faster.
Contacting Apple Support leads you to the Level 1 people.
These are script led and trying to solve Software and Hardware issues under Apple Care.
Although a Apple ID issue is fixed fro free it can be difficult to convince them of this.
Asking to speak to a Level 2 used to lead to the Apple ID being reset on the iMessages server with regard to the Mac's use of it.
This was back closer to OS X 10.8.2 when the Serial number was first used to create the Auth Token that gives the Mac it's individual Login to the iMessages servers.
At the time many people found out they did not have the Serial Number on the Logic/Mother board and it need to be "replaced" at an Apple Store.
Later we seemed to be seeing similar but "Silent failures where iMessages would appear to be logged in but would either reject each Contact as :not Registered" or put up a "Not Delivered" alert.
The number of issue about not logging in (not even getting as far as the issues above) seems to happen at some OS X Updates in Yosemite but to a larger extent in the Yosemite to El Capitan Upgrade.
More recently the Level 2 people have not been resetting the server them selves but have been involving the engineers.
The issues seems to be an overzealous issue about protecting you (from others pretending to be you) and the engineers want to know why it is triggered.
Providing them with data is all well and good but at the same time you should be able to insist it is reset as soon as possible.
AIM does suspend accounts now and then but you can login to their web site and effectively reset your account. There is also a upscalling link if it is more serious than "Unusual Use".
I would go back to Apple Support and point out what you have done for them and insist that they reset the account.
9:07 pm Friday; November 6, 2015
iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
Mac OS X (10.6.8),
Couple of iPhones and an iPad -
Nov 6, 2015 1:29 PM in response to Ralph Johns (UK)by MorganFromSeattle,Ralph,
Thanks for the suggestions. I had been working with a level 2 support person all this time, and they had reset my account. They'd taken detailed logs, etc. But as luck would have it, shortly after our exchange, they got back to me with one more step ... to repeat the reset of the NVRAM which they'd already had me do twice before (perhaps this time was different because it was after the account was reset on the back end? rank speculation ...)
As it turns out, this did the trick, though not before signing out of iCloud via System Preferences, rebooting, signing back into iCloud, rebooting again, and then going into iMessage. That said, this approach has finally solved the problem.
And all this happened within the last 30-minutes ... surprising coincidence on the timing, very fortuitous.
From: Support Engineer Level 2 identity redacted <redacted@apple.com>
Date: 6-November-2015 at 12:35:33 PM PST
To: [redacted]
Subject: Next Steps
Morgan,
At your convenience, please do another NVRAM reset, to see if this has any effect.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT20406
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by Ralph Johns (UK),Nov 6, 2015 1:53 PM in response to MorganFromSeattle
Ralph Johns (UK)
Nov 6, 2015 1:53 PM
in response to MorganFromSeattle
Level 9 (72,994 points)
ApplicationsHi,
Does seem a bit of a coincidence
I suggest you give them a polite tongue thrashing and magically it is "fixed".
The iCloud in System Preferences make no difference.
I use a different iCloud ID in iMessages than I do in System Preferences > iCloud.
As a consequence I can log out or iCloud in System Preferences and Messages will keep on working.
It's why I don't suggest it.
In System Preferences > iCloud there is no mention of the App Store, iTunes, FaceTime or Messages.
Whilst it does seems that for the last two it does have to be an iCloud ID it does not have to be "THE" iCloud ID.
iTunes and the App Store do connect to the same server (you can use the same pot of money) but they don't have to be iCloud either.
Glad to hear it is working.
9:53 pm Friday; November 6, 2015
iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
Mac OS X (10.6.8),
Couple of iPhones and an iPad -
Nov 6, 2015 1:56 PM in response to Ralph Johns (UK)by MorganFromSeattle,In any case, thanks for your input. (and yes, what you say about iMessage being independent from iCloud makes sense). So presumably, it is the reset of the NVRAM that did the trick.
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Nov 10, 2015 11:19 AM in response to MorganFromSeattleby TurnItOut,I have experienced this same issue with my MacBook Retina. Messages will sign-in, but will not successfully deliver any messages since upgrading to El Capitan. Messages on my Macbook Pro 2010 are working just fine with Yosemite. I am very much looking forward to a solution from Apple.
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by Ralph Johns (UK),Nov 10, 2015 12:54 PM in response to MorganFromSeattle
Ralph Johns (UK)
Nov 10, 2015 12:54 PM
in response to MorganFromSeattle
Level 9 (72,994 points)
ApplicationsPosting as I cannot see new post.
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Nov 10, 2015 1:05 PM in response to TurnItOutby Ralph Johns (UK),Hi,
I can see it now.
if you have this particular "failure" then it can only be solved by contacting Apple Support and jumping through the various hurdles.
Ask to speak to a Level 2 person.
Tell them it is an Apple ID issue.
Ask them to reset the ID in relation to the Mac's use of the iMessages ID.
You are still likely to have to perform various "tests" to get it working many of which we have suggested across many threads.
I appreciate that the Engineers want to get to the bottom of this but they should also consider that people are without their Messaging app.
9:05 pm Tuesday; November 10, 2015
iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
Mac OS X (10.6.8),
Couple of iPhones and an iPad -
Nov 10, 2015 1:16 PM in response to TurnItOutby MorganFromSeattle,What ended up working for me was resetting NVRAM ... be sure you follow the directions explicitly (see URL below), and hear the start-up "bong" and then after NVRAM is reset a 2nd start-up "bong" is heard. I'll note that two of my attempts to reset NVRAM was unsuccessful, and did not result in the 2nd start-up "bong" sound. I recommend a full shutdown, rather than merely a restart.
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Nov 11, 2015 4:37 AM in response to MorganFromSeattleby TurnItOut,Thanks for the tip. I have reset the NVRAM a few times, with no luck. I have also tried every other proposed solution on this message board and every other message board pertaining to "messages" app I could find; still with no success. I suppose the last resort is to take Ralph's suggestion, and ask to speak with a "level 2" person at Apple, as attempting to fix this myself is taking up WAAAY too much of my time.
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Nov 12, 2015 8:43 PM in response to CJHdundeeby TheHighStrungLoner,This problem was driving me out of my mind. I finally realized, after 6 hours trying to fix it, that my VPN was on. I use "SmartVPN" from VPNUK. Messages started forwarding my messages to my Mac immediately. I had to dismiss the dozen or so validation codes first, though.
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Nov 17, 2015 11:48 AM in response to TheHighStrungLonerby JollyMon64,After 3 days of research, the steps below appeared to allow me to finally use iMessage on my MacBook once again:
Step 1:
+ on Mac (OS X 10.11.1 El Capitan is my OS) iMessage REQUIRES an Apple ID
- hence, you can't 'delete' the only iMessage account from your iMessage account list, but you can type a different Apple ID and password over the existing Apple ID and password within iMessage Accounts to replace your current Apple ID
- you don't have to use iMessage and your Apple ID to send texts from your Mac. Instead you could use a separate AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo! or Jabber account through the iMessage app as long as your iMessage account has been added to your iMessage account list using your current Apple ID. To reiterate, your Apple ID must be added to your iMessage account before you can use one of the other messaging services through iMessage.
Step 2:
+ if you are using Google Talk, you must go into your Google account settings (aka "My Account") and within the "Sign-in and Security" section enable "allow less secure apps". (seems odd to me that iMessage is deemed to be 'less secure', but apparently that button has to be pushed.)
Step 3:
+ not sure why this step made the difference for me, but the ONLY way I could get iMessage to function again was to Force Quit iMessage. After using Force Quit to close iMessage, I was finally given the screen allowing me to enter my new Apple ID within iMessage.
I'm not any type of computer tech, so there are probably better or more thorough ways to describe my efforts and thoughts. But after reading numerous discussions surrounding this topic I was still unable to fix the issue.
Related Observance:
+ it appears to me that any messaging account which has been entered into your OS X System Preferences > Internet Accounts list (e.g. Google Talk) will automatically be shown in your iMessage Accounts list whether or not you have the Messages choice selected in the Internet Account list. And apparently the only way to remove one of those accounts from your iMessage Accounts list is to remove that Internet Account from your System Preferences Internet Account list.
Flexibility is the key to mental stability
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by Ralph Johns (UK),Nov 17, 2015 1:41 PM in response to JollyMon64
Ralph Johns (UK)
Nov 17, 2015 1:41 PM
in response to JollyMon64
Level 9 (72,994 points)
ApplicationsHI,
Re Step 2:A while back there were issues with the suggested security of SSL as a login format to various places.
Google used that to move to their own Oath Tokens and deemed anything else "Less Secure"
However despite that the Mail app in the Mac OS continues to Login using SSL to the Google Mail Servers (probably the same as every other mail app) meaning for many only Messages needs this (I don't use it to Sync anything else).
Re Obserations
It does seem that El Capitan thinks everything in Internet Accounts is going to be used everywhere (this can be a complete nightmare for the Contacts App)
In most cases they can be turned Off in Internet Accounts even if they cannot be removed.
I did find for Google that deleting the Oath Token items for the Messages items did allow the deletion of the account in Messages without deleting the whole thing in Internet Accounts as it is also used for Mail.
I now find other accounts in Messages have greyed out minus icons under the list.
Re Step 1
On First Run the iMessages account is the one that is asked to be set up first but there should be a Skip option.
Having said that I have not reset my Text Mac User Account to create the First run scenario to confirm the latest version still has the Skip option.
- hence, you can't 'delete' the only iMessage account from your iMessage account list, but you can type a different Apple ID and password over the existing Apple ID and password within iMessage Accounts to replace your current Apple ID
The "Sign Out" and replace the Apple ID (and Password) has been the same since Messages was launched in Mountain Lion (it started at version 7 as iChat was at iChat 6 before).
This info is stored in com.apple.ids.service.com.apple.madrid.plist in ~/Library/Preferences which is the only way to clear unwanted Alternatives as well.
This .plist will store the other Apple IDs that have been the front line ID when you change it in the manner you describe (As well as the current one).
9:41 pm Tuesday; November 17, 2015
iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
Mac OS X (10.6.8),
Couple of iPhones and an iPad -
Dec 29, 2015 8:41 AM in response to Ralph Johns (UK)by CVG,I discovered this (and another) series of q and a's regarding Messages after posting something similar yesterday.
I've tried the NVRAM route, to no effect; I've tried removing the com.apple from keychain access, to no effect; I've tried force quitting Messages, to no effect. To add to this mess, when I do click on the icon of a green camera to initiate a chat I get a dialogue box that says "Messages can't start the video chat. Your computer is busy in another chat." Except that I am not busy in another chat.
The problems keep growing!
Thank you for your suggestions to the other posters; I really don't want to call Apple but I might be reduced to doing that.
Charles
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Jan 2, 2016 8:41 AM in response to CVGby Ralph Johns (UK),Hi,
Sorry for the delay but I have had family over and haven't been on my computer.
If the camera is busy in any other app then your will get the "Busy in another chat" message.
So that could be FaceTime or even System Preferences > Users and Groups > your account and then the Pic option, or the Contacts App and choosing the Camera option to Save a pic for yourself..
There are also plugins for Web Browsers that can use the camera.
If you have done the Safe Boot option, reset the NVRAM option on top of resetting the Apple ID in use in the app then the issue tends to be at the server end and need a reset of the Apple ID the Mac is using (but just for the Mac) which can only be done by the Apple Support people.
4:40 pm Saturday; January 2, 2016
iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
Mac OS X (10.6.8),
Couple of iPhones and an iPad -
Jan 31, 2016 3:09 AM in response to CJHdundeeby motard,I struggled with this problem and found none of the proposed solutions worked. However, I tried an alternative Apple ID (I have three) and, bingo, it worked and both FaceTime and iMessages could be activated. Formerly, Preferences was greyed out in both applications but now it is clear. This seems a simple and now, obvious solution if you have double authenticated the apps for an i pad or i phone as I had.





