trouble with texting on iPad Pro

Several things that complicated issues between the 3 items in play...iMac, iPad & iPhone. All 3 were working just fine for years as messages all synced together in the iCloud. iMac was a 2012 build, that was replaced in July...things still worked effortlessly. Then the iPad needed to be warranty replaced which was last week & that's when things went weird. At the end of it all it was the iMac. In "Message Preferences", the "Enable Messages in iCloud" box wasn't checked.

So, even though the iPhone & iPad had the exact same settings in the "Messages" section of Settings, it was that little box on the iMac that glued everything back together. Still not quite sure how it didn't start being noticed in July but it seems to be fixed now & that's what matters.