iOS 15.4 - iMessage won't active. Error message - "An error occurred during activation."

Hi all, I've just updated to iOS 15.4 and my iMessage has stopped working. I didn't turn it off but it stopped functioning on my iPhone (still works on my Mac).


I have tried

  • Restarting (hard reset) iPhone with iMessage off and then turning it on again.
  • Turning iMessage on and off again, but I get an error message - "An error occurred during activation."
  • I have tired turning on/off Airplane mode.


None of these have worked. A little worried it's a bug in iOS 15.4 as I didn't have any issues before. Any ideas greatly appreciated.

iPhone 12 mini, iOS 15

Posted on Mar 17, 2022 6:52 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 24, 2022 2:41 PM

My solution is the one that has worked and I haven’t had any issues since.


I removed the cellular plan from T-Mobile from the phone and I then contacted T-Mobile and had them reassign my Eid to my plan and that solved the problems. Restarted the phone waited for the I haven’t had any issues ever since.


here are the steps that I posted a few weeks ago.


I was trying to troubleshoot this issue (spend a night without cell phone service.)

But i was able to get it working again.


  1. Have another phone handy cause you will need it to contact you provider (t-mobile in my case)
  2. Make sure that you have access to wifi cause you will need it to gain service back.
  3. I removed the cellular plan from my account. so that my phone lost service completely. and no service was associated to my phone.
  4. Called tmobile from the other phone and asked them re input the EID in their system on their end.
  5. waited a few moments and went to add the cellular plan back to my account and then everything starting filling back in.
  6. went to reactivate imessage and facetime and it worked with no issue.


Seems like that fixed the problem.

I'm not sure if the people having this problem are using esim or not but this seems to have done the trick and i am able to get and receive imessage and facetime calls again.

50 replies

May 4, 2022 9:49 AM in response to jamesbfg

Just wanted to add one more thanks to JustJarred as his solution worked.


Removed cellular plan, called T-Mobile, and had them add the EID back in. Took about a 30 minute call. Restarted the phone and it said T-Mobile has a plan to add and now it’s working again. Make sure you have your numbers handy (EID and your IMEI2 as they asked for both) and make sure you know the T-Mobile account’s PIN number and call from a separate line as earlier posts have advised.


Definitely learned my lesson and will never say no to carrier settings updates. :-)


Good luck, all!

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iOS 15.4 - iMessage won't active. Error message - "An error occurred during activation."

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