unknown error occurring with iMessage on Mac

i found a fix for it. I tried LITERALLY EVERYTHING and it wouldnt work. I was getting the "an unknown error has occured" only on iMessage even though i was signed into iCloud.

1.) sign out of your user account

2.) create a brand new user (as if your wife or child etc was creating a seperate profile on the computer)

3.) sign in with iCloud, and with iMessage in the new profile and it should work

4.) next, sign out of that new profile you created

5.) go back and sign into your original profile on the computer and try signing in.

And iMessage works for me now on the original computer profile (user)

That was what worked for me. An apple rep suggested that to me after i tried 4000 other things to try and fix it.

I went to Setting > Apple ID > Overview, in the bottom left I clicked signed out. After that is done, I then opened up messages and it stopped giving me the sign in screen, I then processed to sign back in via Settings. All good now. Hope it helps someone.

This error still happens with Monterey 12.1.

All I did was log out of the Apple ID in System Preferences and restarted my mac. That fixed the error.

Cheers!

Sigh. This did not work for me and I am still stuck.

To be clear (if I got this right):

• I log out of my Apple ID on the account I want message to work (did that)
• I create a new account on my MacBook Pro (did that - "temp")
• I log into my Apple ID on the new account (did that)
• I run Messages and log into it with my Apple ID (did that - it worked)
• I not log out of the Messages I just logged into (did that)
• Log out of the account on the MacBook Pro from the new account and log in again on the account I want (did that)
• I log into my Apple ID from this account I want it in (did that)
• I run Messages again and log in with my Apple ID - FAIL - '"An unknown error occurred"

What am I missing? This happened when I try to migrate to Monterey on a new computer from an old one running Mac OS 10.15.7

dave

haha thanks! Happy to help! it was driving me INSANE so i figured it would help others if i posted the solution to it. Typing from iMessage on the computer is key to productivity for me so not being able to was really annoying.

Happy to help! Thanks!

Update: I fixed it!

My old computer was experiencing a different iCloud problem: after signing out, I was unable to sign back in, and kept getting an error saying I was already signed in. This was the same account that I had migrated to my new computer that was experiencing the "unknown error" in Messages. I found this thread on StackExchange:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/340155/account-is-already-signed-in-to-icloud-in-mojave-but-its-not?newreg=804cdc6d23fb475dbbf208c736a5e109

And followed the suggestions to clean my System Caches with Onyx and then run the following Terminal command:

defaults delete MobileMeAccounts

Running the Terminal command immediately allowed me to sign into iCloud on the old Mac. I then erased my new Mac, re-installed Monterey, re-migrated my user account and all my data, and everything worked. No more "unknown error." I also uninstalled Sophos FWIW, although I'm not sure that was related. Just something that was suggested to get rid of some pesky Console timestamp error messages.

I have signed in using the same account on another Mac, no problems. I have changed the iCloud password. I have reinstalled Monterey, I have deleted files from user lib/prefs and the user lib/messages folder. I've deleted the com.apple.apsd.plist from the Lib/prefs. I've reset the nvram and the smc. Currently am downloading to upgrade from Monterey 12.3.1 to 12.4.

The closest I've gotten is signing in to messages, for a brief moment the messages window comes up, then in less than 15 seconds it goes away and I'm back to the sign in to messages window.

AAARGH!!!

any help or ideas would be great, thanks!!!

Hello, and welcome to Apple Support Communities wbake,

We can see you've been using If you can’t turn on or sign in to iMessage or FaceTime, and are receiving an error message after upgrading to macOS Monterey.

Let's see if the steps included in this guide help: If you can’t send or receive messages on your Mac. Go through the first section and see if you're able to send iMessages. If not, under the "Learn more" section, there is a link to contact Apple Support. We'd suggest using this so they can work with you to resolve this with you.

Take care.

Yes, that worked for me as well. Much less complicated. Thanks!

Hi finalcutstudio

As u have said exactly I hv tried to sign out from Sys Pref Apple ID and then tried to sign in to Messages app.

Failed to sign in to Message.

Then BIG problem now is that I cant sign in back to APPLE ID from system pref.

So I'm logged out completely from Find my Mac.

( I can log in to iCloud at web browser as usual as Apple ID itself it fine )

Anybody could help how to sign in to Apple ID now from Sys pref.?

Looks like need Tire 2 support help.

So earlier only in Mac with Message & Facetime I has issue, now I can NOT sign in to settings with Apple ID inside Mac ( in this user account profile) .

With another user acc, same Apple ID ok but I can't sync my NOTES content into my new user acc. Anybody knows how to sync NOTEs folders from old user acc to a new user acc with same Apple ID?

Okay…I have spent hours and hours trying to find a solution to this. It’s literally been months since I’ve been able to login to my messages and FaceTime. I was using my phone for FaceTiming and it was a pain and I was ready to get rid of my Mac since I couldn’t do a lot of the things I bought it for. Your solution is literally the diamond in the rough. If I could pay you I would haha. Thank you!!!

pnford, you have to log out, sign into another account (switch user), then log in to iMessages from the other account. Once that’s done then you log back into your original account and then sign in which should work. If you don’t have a second user you can use to log in then you have to create one.

No, what I was saying, is that all I had to do was log out of my user account and then log back in and then go to messages and I was able to login without the error. I did not have to create or sign in to another user account to get it to work

Unfortunately I have this same problem and none of these solutions have worked. I can sign in for other users, just not the main user profile that has all my data. I even erased the disk and reinstalled the OS, with the same results.

According to Apple the next step may be exchanging my new computer for a different model :-/

This did not work for me on a new iMac with already being signed in to messages on other Macs and iPhone. so this iMac is basically useless to me, thank you so much apple! I will go buy a PC and sell this piece of junk iMac that does not "just work"