iPhone 13 Pro Max SMS Issue. Cant receive second authentication via text

SOLUTION FOUND FOR 3rd PARTY VERIFICATION CODES ISSUE

ASK AT&T 2nd Tier CSR to check “SEND EMAILS AS TEXT MESSAGES” to allow the 3rd party messages to come into yr phone

Detailed Response placed on AT&T discussion forum

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I am so appalled to read what people like me have been going thru & I thought it was just me! That’s because that’s what the morons at AT&T (& it seems Verizon too) have been making us believe! 

Dear@HarpyEagle this has nothing to do with yr SIM card ! At all!!! There is no defect with apple phone or the android phone on which my husband had the same problem. 

and what’s worse… it is pathetic that people working for AT&T (granted the goodness of their hearts to try to help) get online here and give wrong suggestions like “let’s see, u probably have yr settings wrong!” … ITS ALL NONSENSE! 

Please see my post below that I just put on a similar ATT user forum….

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So, after harrowing hours spent with AT&T Customer Service, we went into a store to get this exact same issue resolved and here’s the actual REAL resolution after insisting with a LEVEL 2 TECHNICAL SUPPORT representative that he tell us exactly what he changed at his end to make this work when 5 people and 3 hours (of course, ANY customer service coming from the Philippines is basically worthless in any scenario, not just AT&T) had left unresolved. And the solution is as follows:

1. For Android phones, the problem does get resolved at times by ‘reset network settings’. This however doesn’t happen on an iPhone.

2. For iPhones - & if android doesn’t respond to the above reset - you need to call AT&T LEVEL 2 Customer Service & ask the technician to UNCHECK the setting ‘Send emails as text messages’. “SEND EMAILS AS TEXT MESSAGES”

Sounds absurd right? Because technically this should be a setting called ALLOW EMAILS TO BE SENT AS TEXT MESSAGES. Anyways…

Supposedly, the text messages for verification codes emanate from most sources in an email format (as we received emails from Ring or from the bank for 2 step verification). This email now simultaneously gets sent to yr phone no as a text message. If ur a/c settings in core AT&T system is set to block this, you won’t receive a verification code. The setting is NOT AVAILABLE on local phone settings, only on the main servers/ configuration. 

1st level support either doesn’t know this or doesn’t have access to this setting (don’t ask why? It’s AT&T! Common sense questions are not allowed.. lol)

So the only way is to call 2nd tier CSR. I hope this helps resolve a 1000 phone calls a month!!!

(edited)

Thanks for the replies. This was so frustrating I spent another four hours in a Verizon store and got a new phone completely and it didn’t change the fact that I couldn't receive verification texts from my apps. Finally I got referred to the Port Center These are the people that change your number from one carrier to the other. The Verizon Port team was able to connect me with with someone on their team that was able to identify the problem. Basically when they ported over my number they had to manually activate a button on their end that allows texts from androids and Apps to port over as well. Allegedly this should happen automatically at the time of the port, but for some reason it did not occur when my number was moved from Xfinity to Verizon. So they “flipped the switch” manually on their end. Now it works perfectly. Not an Apple issue. Deal with your carrier on this one.

I was already up to date (iOS 15.0.1), so I believe that was unrelated for me.

A local AT&T store (my provider) said they’ve seen this recently, which got fixed for another customer when they “reprovisioned the phone number”.

That didn’t fix the issue for me. What we did that fixed it for me was when I went to an AT&T corporate store (which I understand is more capable that the AT&T retail stores) and had them call in to some upper level support who “reset all the backend connections” of my number. I was unable to get a more precise explanation of what they did, but then I’ve been golden.

So my issue either just resolved itself, or I fixed it by turning off carrier call blocking.

If anyone else encounters this issue in the future, one other thing you can try is temporarily turning off call blocking from you carrier. Settings > Phone > Call Blocking & Identification > turn off carrier call id/silence junk caller. It might be that the number that sends out the 2FA codes for Robinhood and Coinbase is blocked by your carrier for some reason (yes, both apps send out codes from the same number so potentially they are using the same third-party API).

If you have Verizon and a new IPhone 13 here is what you need to do. Call Verizon Tech Support. The tech that handled my call had to reset my text messages at the Verizon network level. The Phone thinks the 2FA is spam and deletes it. By resetting the text messages at the network Verizon level by it corrected the problem.

for me it was the blocked calller list that must have been automatically populated . I deleted all callers on the list and restarted my phone and a flood of messages came through. iPhone 13 pro max..

I contacted AT&T just now with the same issue on my 1-mo old 13 pro and the rep said there is no such thing as a Level 2 Customer Service to uncheck the setting "Send emails as text messages". She looked at my acct and asked for the IMEI and ICCID #s to check my phone and found that it was a SIM card issue. She said if we get disconnected while she resets it, to turn off and turn back on my phone. I tried it, connected to the site where a 2FA was needed and IT WORKED!!!

One issue for me was messages were selected “on” to download to the cloud which caused a delay. Go to Settings-Your Name-iCloud and uncheck “messages.”

if you do cloud backups then your messages should be saved that way without causing the cloud delay every time a message is received.

I didn't have to reset my apple software for the 2FA issue to be resolved, but only the backend connections of my cellular service provider (AT&T). If you haven't tried that, it may be worth exploring with yours.

Had same issue, got fixed by my carrier tech support “RSA” is the keyword, resetting a switch or something.

approx time 20 minutes.

identify apps you want to use while troubleshooting and choose once which are ok if you are locked out just in case..!!

I had the same issue for a couple months. I thought it would take a while to get it fixed by calling AT&T and it was such an easy fix. Works great now!

Settings

General

Transfer or Reset iPhone (at bottom)

Reset

Reset Network Settings

I called ATT and they reset the line. Since then it’s been fine. They new exactly what was going on. It’s a glitch with the new phones.

Contact your phone provider directly; not at the store. Call their Customer support line or use their chat if they have it. They can fix the problem. At least t-Mobile did for me

your phone service has to reset on there end. Call them.

Have your provider reset your phone. Takes 2 minutes and you’re good to go.