iMessage stuck on verifying my phone number

OK I STRUGGLED WITH THIS FOR A LONG TIME AND FIGURED OUT MY PROBLEM

If you startd your account with a non iPhone apple prodect you have to REGESTER IT IN YOUR SUPPORT PROFILE! That is whhat will activate the phones iMessgae ad FaceTime. MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS IF YOUR ACCOUNT WASNT REGESTERED WITH AN IPHONE!

Same issue:(

I had the same issue!

I just went into the settings on my iPhone and turned iMessaging off and then on again.

When I turned iMessage back on, my number no longer said that it needed to be verifyed, and everything is working fine now ^_^

Having same issue as this, iMessages worked perfectly from the time I got the phone (i4S) turned iMessages off (don't know why) but ever since it won't verify my phone number. My email verifies but phone conitnually says verifying and then eventually says "verification unsuccessful".

Have tried:

- turning iMessages on/off

- resetting network settings (multiple times with iMessages on and then off)

- checked my phone number in Settings -> Phone (it's correct)

- changed my own phone number in contacts to include +61 country code.

- set time automatically (already set on this, I was sceptical anyway)

- hard reset

Don't really want to restore the phone. Just annoying that it WAS working then stopped...

Any more news on this front???

Thanks to jayeecordero (third item on this thread). I have tried many fixes over the last three days on both my phone and my friends - we were both having the same problem.

This worked for me.

I cannot believe it was so easy after so many other things failed.

About 8 hours ago my daughter went and decided to change her Apple ID password unnecessarily, which seemed to freak out iMessage. I've turned it off and on, signed out, reset network settings, rebooted the phone, replaced the SIM, and other things, and the phone number is stuck on Verifying.

My theory is that the iMessage servers have locked her out because the phone tried to log in with the old password too many times.

At http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2755, under If you still can't send or receive iMessages, it says this:

iPhone automatically registers your phone number for use with iMessage during activation. If you encounter issues activating or using iMessage with your phone number:

• Verify that you are connected to a cellular network.
• Toggle iMessage off and on in Settings > Messages.
• If you are unable to activate iMessage on a device after remote wiping it, wait at least 24 hours and try again.

So I'm going to take a hint from that third bullet (even though this isn't a remote wipe situation), and just leave iMessage off for many hours to see if Apple's servers decide to play nice tomorrow.

I discovered that the problem in my case is that my daughter is using a pay as you go carrier that does not support SMS short codes. It appears that—similar to the Facetime phone number registration—iMessage sends a hidden SMS to a short code to register the phone number. Since that SMS message never gets out, the phone number registration process can never complete. There was a short window when this provider was supporting short codes, and that must have been when we activated it the first time, but alas, no longer. So I'm just leaving iMessage off completely on her phone and sticking with good old SMS.

http://www.speakoutwireless.ca/speak/phone-features/imessage-and-ios-5/

Ok, so this morning I was playing in the Settings app and decided to try what will happen if I turn iMessage OFF, so I did, and then turned it back on and my phone number kept on saying "Verifying"... it took over 12 hours with no luck!!

Took ou the SIM card and nothing, quit app setting and nothing... so here's what I did and it worked

- Turn off iMessage

- Turn off FaceTime

- Make sure your "My Number" is set correctly (Mine was set as +962 "didn't work" so I decided to change it to 00 962 "which worked")

- Airplane mode, turn it ON

- Settings -> General -> Rest -> Rest Network settings

- wait for the phone to come back to life

- Turn On iMessage (and it will verify in seconds)

- Turn On FaceTime (and it will verify in seconds)

Quit all of your apps just in case and I am not sure how this thins of "Set date to Automatic" but mine was already set!

Good luck guys and Thank you everybody's sharing for their experience 😀

After sometime spent I found an answer to the problem in a iPhone 4, simply turn date and time to set automatically and the try to verify your imessage.It sounds really dumb but it worked and there was no need to restoration

I have the same issue, nothing is working. I have tried all the steps above.... I have tried:

- resetting the network

- restoring the phone

- checking numbers

- making a new icloud account to see for changes

I have tried absolutely everything, does anyone have any options for us to try? Please I beg you HELP ME!!!

Thx to jayeecordero...

To change the defult phone number in iMessage, you need to:

1. Insert the new sim.
2. Go to Settings > Messages>Turn off iMessage.
3. Go to General > Reset > Reset Network Settings.
4. Once the iPhone is open.
5. Go to Settings > Messages>Turn ON iMessage.
6. This will recognize the new sim and have it verified.

Worked for me 🙂

I was having this problem for a few day a while back. I didn't resort to a restore but tried all the other suggestions. The only thing that fixed it for me was to "quit" the settings app (and it would be a good idea to quit all open apps at this point). This fixed it immediately for me.

Have tried absolutely every variation of remedies for this particular problem and nothing has fixed it. 2 restores, a visit to an Apple "Genius", and he told me its most probably an update pushed through by my carrier (Telstra, Aust.) no way to roll back these settings. So next step, call my carrier.

Ok. My iPhone has gremlins in it. Just went into settings and thought "I'll just try it one more time..." flicked iMessages ON and both phone number and email were verified almost instantly!

Don't know what was the issue but all is good now. :)

I had the same issue on my wife's phone. It would lock and freeze too.

Finally tried this

At phone screen where it would say phone number unknown. Eject sim. Wait. Insert sim. I would find cell data.

It actually crash out of setting. So I reopen and verified it all was there and working.

Another option people can try if other solutions doesn't work.