iMessage on iPhone not working after updating to iOS 18.5

Strange how my 16 Pro, MB Air, iMac & iPad all have big problems sending attachments w/ iMessage to either groups or individuals... then it got better, then bad again. Gotta be an issue with iOS 18.5 AND  iCloud services.

Hoping the real fix will be 18.5.1 ASAP!

This issue is currently happening to me on my phone NOW. It has been like this since I noticed the update happened on my phone on 6/5/25. My iMessages stopped working as well as phone calls. Now believe it or not, I can get the iMessages from other people on my MacBook and Apple Watch but not my phone. I even purchased a brand new Iphone 16 pro max and it still isn’t working. I pray that Apple fixes this with its next update.

Yes this sounds like a ios 18.5 glitch more than apple putting numbers on the spam list. Like for instance if u update to ios 18.5 then your number is on the spam list. Hopefully they fixed it with 18.6 we shall see. Im surprised this issue isnt in the news. Maybe report it to the feedback page? Just a thought. The only issue im having currently which just started yesterday is I keep getting locked out of my account. I think I had this issue years ago on a different ios system and eventually it got fixed when the new ios verison came out.

Same thing with my iphone 16 pro so i went to my local apple store they checked all my settings and they were fine so then we connected to the Apple stores wifi and i sent a bunch of photos to my sister and it worked perfectly then when i got back home the same problem again failed to send pictures. Rang Apple support they said it was probably because my sister didnt have imessage turned on so got her to check that and it still wont send.

Multiple calls, this time two hours. Yes, the problem is on Apple's end. Yes, it's the SPAM problem.

Answer? Wait for next IOS and MAC OS update. There's nothing more to be done.

*sigh*

At least my email still works.

I have learned directly from the Apple Store employees that this issue has been caused by iCloud. I was given the option to wait till IOS 26 and/or upgrade my iPhone 13 to a newer model

Ugh! Me too. I updated to 18.5 about an hour ago and keep getting an error message saying:

iMessage is Signed Out. An error occurred and your account is signed out of iMessage. You may miss messages as a result. Please to to settings to address this issue.

When I go to Messages in Settings, iMessage is turned off. I turn it on and get the following message:

iMessage Activation: an error occurred during activation. Try again.

And I have...many times. I've turned my phone off and on and logged out and back in. Super frustrated.

I'm having the same problem. I have tried everything in this thread and others and nothing works. I have turned imessage off and on; turn the phone off and on, made sure the Send and Receive settings were right, I reset the network settings too. And the problem persists! Its weird too imessage doesn't work at all but I am able to send and receive SMS or RCS messages from most people but not all people. I don't know how many but at least one person's SMS and RCS text messages aren't delivered at all, they send them and don't get an error, but I don't get them. HELP!

This is happening to me too. Updated to 18.5 a couple of days ago and now my iMessages won't send from my phone. It's only allowing RCS and SMS messages, even though I have iMessages toggled on and my number checked in Send and Receive. I've tried turning the phone off and restarting it. I've tried toggling iMessage off and then back on again. Nothing's working. Apple, please help!!

I deleted my number (can add again if I want to) switched off iMessage and now send messages like other android phones.

Apple your updates need to be checked before sending out to all of us. This issue could’ve been avoided

Yes, I am also having this issue. I have 16e and am running iOS 18.5. iMessage isn't working right. Text only messages will go through just fine, but anything multimedia hangs up and fails to send. This happens for videos, photos and voice messages. I also tried to send a photo to a non-imessage number and it still failed. I'm hoping Apple will send an update soon for this issue ASAP.

I did not see any old messages suddenly populate. The messaging app just started working as designed and I did a check-in with all the group-chat members. All bubbles blue. Delivered/Read messages began appearing in individual messages. And all members of the iPhone group chat confirmed they were getting messages again. (I did not test the group chat that included an Android. It is one that is only used once every month or two. So, I don't know if the Android group messaging works or not).

thanks. Done.

I called them w/ same issue. They remoted-in, tried everything, sent info to  engineers, never heard back.

Oddly enough, the issue went away on it's own... now, today, back with a vengeance - to group texts in particular.

ERRRrrrrrrr.

This happens to me with every single update now. Which is not great because it’s my work phone and group messages are how we contact each other.

it usually goes away and fixes itself after a while, but I cannot figure out why or how it just randomly starts working one day usually.

It seems to have started around the time I got an Apple Watch so I don’t know if it’s related to that or not.

Me too! I find the group texts are all being sent RCS, while one-on-one text messages are going through as iMessages. I am also able to send iMessages to the group via my Mac, but not my phone. And since the group messages are going through as RCS, they're not showing up in my Mac's iMessages. I am running IOS 18.5, but this only started an hour ago.