Paul Seymour1

Q: Messages no longer will send or receive

Up until a few days, I could send/receive messages in Messages, just as I can do on my phone.

 

That spontaneously stopped happening. Starting a couple days ago, messages I send/receive with my phone no longer appear in Messages. Also, I can't send/receive from Messages at all.

 

No settings changed, nothing logged out. It just doesn't work anymore.

 

Any ideas?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Mar 14, 2016 4:46 PM

Close

Q: Messages no longer will send or receive

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Mar 15, 2016 7:52 AM in response to Paul Seymour1
    Level 9 (72,921 points)
    iTunes
    Mar 15, 2016 7:52 AM in response to Paul Seymour1

    Might be a corrupt .plist.

     

    Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

     

    Quit the application.

     

    Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J.  When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder.  Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.iChat.plist.  Move the .plist to your desktop.

     

    Restart the computer, open the application and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

    If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

     

    If that doesn’t work, repeat the above but delete the com.apple.imagent.plist

     

    Thanks to leonie and Ralph Johns (UK) for some information contained in this.

  • by Ralph Johns (UK),

    Ralph Johns (UK) Ralph Johns (UK) Mar 15, 2016 1:33 PM in response to Paul Seymour1
    Level 9 (73,279 points)
    Applications
    Mar 15, 2016 1:33 PM in response to Paul Seymour1

    Hi,

     

    In Messages how many accounts do your have ?

    The default is two the iMessages one and the Bonjour one.

    Of course the iMessages needs and Apple ID  and the Bonjour one needs to be activated.

     

    You can also join the AIM service  (some Apple ID issued by Apple can work as Screen Names) the Jabber set up which include Google IDs used fro Google talk which uses a Jabber server.

    If you have a Yahoo ID (Not just one valid with Yahoo) you can join the Yahoo service.

     

    If the iMessages account fails to log in there are two ways you can tell it is not, one is when all the Contacts you try go Red and state "Not Registered with iMessages" (and can include your own iPhone Number).  The other is when you try to Send something it is marked "Not Delivered" straight away.

     

    There is no menu item or Preference item that tell you that it is not logged in.

     

    Are you getting any error message or sign that the app is trying to do something ?

     

     

    3Sigcopy2.png

    8:33 pm      Tuesday; March 15, 2016

     

      iMac 2.5Ghz i5 2011 (El Capitan)
     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
  • by Paul Seymour1,Solvedanswer

    Paul Seymour1 Paul Seymour1 Mar 15, 2016 2:00 PM in response to Paul Seymour1
    Level 2 (321 points)
    Apple TV
    Mar 15, 2016 2:00 PM in response to Paul Seymour1

    Hi all,

     

    Thanks for your suggestions. I tried all those and nothing worked. Then I called Apple Tech Support, and that guy wasn't able to get it to work either. The only alternative, I'm told, is to take it to the genius bar, and perhaps swap out either the computer or the phone.

     

    Having Messages work properly isn't worth that hassle. Up until 6 months ago, I never had texts appearing on my computer and I can go back to that rather than spend a few days working out an alternative.

     

    This same thing has happened with other Apple technologies that try to merge different things, in this case SMS and iMessages. For example, MobileMe (predecessor to iCloud) used to be hopelessly inconsistent in syncing, but now iCloud works a lot better. I expect in a future version of Mac OS, that they'll get Messages working well too.

     

    Thanks anyway!