iMessage thread stuck on satellite

I HAVE A FIX:

After a very long chat with Apple Support, this is what ended up working:

Open Settings > Apps > Messages > Send & Receive

Remember your settings here.

Tap your Apple Account (it's a small blue link at the bottom).

Tap Sign Out.

Tap Use your Apple Account for iMessage.

Tap Sign In

Sign back in with your Apple Account.

Once you're back on the Send & Receive screen, double check that your settings here are correct.

Try having a friend text you, it should be working as normal.

So I had the same issue with my wife and our text thread. She could text me fine but when I texted her it would only say satellite and I couldn’t send any media. I tried idkmanwhatever’s strategy and it didn’t work at first. Then I tried logging out of iMessage again (using the Apple account link at the bottom of the send and receive part of message settings). Waiting a bit and actually sending a text message. It didn’t clear until I tried sending a message while logged out. Then I logged back in and it’s working fine. Hope this helps someone. I was also not about to delete a thread with my wife that spans 15 years…

I found a fix from Apple Support.

The agent told both parties (both the sender and receiver) to complete the following steps.

1) Go to SETTINGS—> FOCUS —> Share Across Devices (Toggle Off)

2) Restart Device.

This worked and fixed the iMessage thread as being ‘stuck on satellite’.

The agent said that they had seen this problem 3 times before and each time this seemed to fix the issue.

The agent said that IF this did not work, to follow up by turning Airplane Mode ON, then OFF and completing another restart, however steps 1 and 2 fixed the issue and this was not necessary.

I hope this helps everyone like it helped us.

My husband had been out without reception and sent me a text via satellite. When he came back and had service, on my messages it kept saying he could only receive via satellite so I couldn’t send anything but text. But on his end it was fine. I tried all of the above solutions and nothing worked. I tried signing out of my Apple account and signing back in and it worked! I have the operating system 18.0.1. Not sure where the error is coming from but signing out worked.

Tried some of the ideas here and had no luck. After speaking with Apple Support, what worked for me was:

1. Delete/Re-add contact
2. Make sure email address associated with your Apple ID is checked under iMessage “You can receive iMessage s and reply from” (I only had my phone number checked). I left start “new conversations from” with just my phone number checked
3. Turn iMessage off then back on

I did all three of these at once before trying to have contact message me again so not sure which item or combination solved it.

I had no service the other day and had used the satellite feature to message a couple of people. The following week, they both said that they still showed they could only reply via satellite. One was my sister that was visiting. I tried everything in this forum to clear it and nothing worked.

I then remembered that I had been trying Lockdown Mode. I turned off my lockdown mode and the issue with both people resolved immediately. It seems there was nothing they could do because, even though they saw that I had switched to satellite mode, their phones could not reach back to see that I was no longer in satellite mode as long as my phone was in Lockdown Mode.

Hope this helps others.

This is the correct fix for anyone having this problem. I logged out of Messages completely and stayed logged out for 15 minutes. While logged out, I texted the contact with whom I was having this issue. He could send fine to me but before I logged out it said “(contact) is only connected via satellite” when I tried to message him, and he was not using satellite (and his phone didn’t say he was(. We texted back and forth with green messages bubbles because I was logged out of iMessage. Then, after 15 minutes, I logged back into Messages and I was able to message him again without the satellite message.

I have a slightly different procedure that I did for mine. Here is what worked for me. My wife was out of town recently so her iphone 16 Pro went to satellite mode for some of the people she was messaging but not all. When she returned home her phone was still stuck in satellite mode for anything I tried to message her. Tried everything and finally found this combination worked - step by step. Make sure you have both phones in hand cause this procedure will go quicker.

1) On both phones navigate to Settings / Apps / Messages. Turn iMessage off for 1 minute. Then turn back on

2) On both phones navigate to Settings / Apps / Messages / Send & Receive. Look at the bottom of the screen - it will say Apple Account followed by an email address. Click on that and click Sign out.

3) On both phones on that same screen click on 'Use your Apple Account for iMessage'. Then click Sign In. Wait about 10 seconds and it will sign you in (or you will be prompted for your applie id and password). Go ahead and sign-in

4) With both phones in hand, delete the message thread on both phones. So on her phone I deleted the thread from her to me. Then on my phone I deleted the thread from me to her.

5) On both phones turn off WiFi (go to Settings / WiFi and turn OFF)

6) On both phones go to Settings / Focus / Share Across Devices (and turn OFF)

7) Hard reboot on both phones (press volume up, press volume down, then press and hold right side button for 10 seconds until phone reboots)

8) On both phones turn airplane mode to ON. Keep it on for 1 minute. Then turn it OFF on both phones

9) Hard reboot on BOTH phones again

10) On both phones turn WiFI back on and connect to the same WiFi network. You can change it to another WIFi network later - for now we are just refreshing settings and trying to break the satellite connection.

11) On both phones go to Settings / Focus / Share Across Devices (turn it to ON)

12) Now try sending a message - you should see the 'is only on satellite' message is gone now. If you can send the person a photo then that is additional proof they are off of satellite mode.

Hope this works and fixes it for people!

When you log out and back in, you have to be certain not to use cached credentials. I logged out, and then back in, but selected the option to use a different Apple ID account. I then manually typed the credentials to the same account that I had been using. That worked.

WHAT FIXED MINE

-turned off imessage

-go to MMS Messaging under Messaging and toggle OFF

-turn off “share across device” under Focus

-turn phone off for 2 mins

After turning my phone back on and turning iMessages back on and the MMS messaging, everything went back! None of the other posts on here got mine off of satellite. Hope this helps someone!

After we both restarted our phones the issue went away.

I tried a combo of bjs19781978 & idkmanwhatever solutions and it seems to be working. 1st delete the message thread and delete it from the recent deleted. THEN follow idkman's steps to sign out of your apple account in messaging and sign back in. Then cross your fingers, jump on 1 foot and sacrifice an android phone to the apple gods. Done and Done.

My dad was experiencing this issue and we found a fix that worked for him. He went into Settings > Emergency SOS > EMERGENCY SOS VIA SATELLITE: Try Demo. After completing the demo, his messages went back to normal.

Tried all of these and nothing worked. Made a FaceTime call from the message and then it fixed it