My iMessage still says "Waiting for activation..."

I spent hours doing all the above as well as being on the phone with apple support and had no luck. Lastly, I called my carrier (rogers) and had them remove a block for premium text messages that had been added to my plan. I guess when imessage is attempting to activate, it sends your phone number to apple to link it with imessage (as I wanted imessage to go to my phone through the phone number, not apple id), by sending a sms. That was getting blocked at the carrier side and prevented my imessage from activating as rogers was treating this as a premium text message (the kind that can bill you). I know everyone has different causes but hopefully this may help a few people.

I'm not sure if this helps, but I use an old 3GS with no carrier anymore, just the wifi to talk between my new phone and 3GS.

iMessage worked for me in the past, until the "waiting for activation" icon appeared. I tried changing my password, signing out of iMessage, signing back in, resetting my carrier settings (although I don't have any) - none worked.

However, I just hard rebooted my iPhone (holding power and the square/circle button until apple logo appears) and now I have iMessage again!

Interestingly enough, on a side note, I hit the Spell Check option in this message board, and iMessage is evidently misspelled! Fancy that for irony.

Maybe it will work for some of you.

riajul comment worked for me.

I'm on Verizon and have this issue with the phone number only on my 4s running iOS 5.1.1. I've tried every single suggestion in the tread with no results. This problem started shortly after upgrading from iOS 5.1. And, yes I have reinstalled that update, reset the phone, remote wiped the phone, had my Verizon profile reset.... et cetera. Still nothing despite talking to Verizon and Apple for the last 4 days. Any other ideas?

Im trying to figure this out as well. Would your phone number happen to be unique? Like having four 0's in it?

No. It's just a straight up random phone number. It worked fine before travelling to France and updating to iOS 5.1.1.

I just finshed my last round on the phone with Apple. They are sending me a new 4s.

ok, thanks, for me this is ok.

I just got my first iphone, been using android for years. I have to say I DO NOT GET IT. Can you explain to me what imessenging is exactly. I am so lost I cant seem to figure out so many things and is really making me mad. If you have no time I understand

Thank you

Hi,

You can send free text, share pictures and videos with your iPhone/iPad/iPod mates who has iMessage activated.

For sending texts between iMessage you need to turn on your iMessage (Settings->Messages->turn on iMessage) by entering your apple id or your Phone number). Once its on, there you go !!

Hello all. I too, am suffering from this exact situation. I have a brand new iPhone 4S. I have literally tried every suggestion in this thread and I cannot activate my phone for iMessage utilization.

However, iMessage *is* working. It's just on my friends phones, it shows up with the e-mail address linked to my apple account instead of the phone number provided by my carrier. I made sure to verify that my phone # reflected on my phone, apple/itunes account was exactly the same, but, still no dice.

I've done the erase iphone, DFU restore, turned on/off automatic time, tried enabling facetime and imessage, removing and reseating my sim card and no dice whatsoever.

Same here. I lost my 4S (which worked perfectly), so I bought a new one. I used my old back up for the new 4S and I message keep trying to verifying the old phone number which isn't in service anymore. Of course it failed to verify and showed "error" next to the old number.

Under setting > phone > number > xxxxx It shows the correct phone number though.

If I do a restore and set it up as a new phone, under iMessage is only recognising my email address. No numbers at all.

Did all of the suggestion I can find online, still no solution.

I thought iOS 5.1.1 would fix it, but of course it doesn't.

My problem is now resolved. After working on it for more than two WEEKS and trying ever single suggestion in this thread, including replacing the phone, I got it to work (Verizon iPhone 4S, iOS 5.1.1).

I literally spent hours on the phone with Verizon and Apple with no luck. But, during this same time frame, I upgraded my daughter's iPhone 4 to a 4S. When I did this, the problem also appeared on her phone. This fact along with too many others to list here convinced me without a doubt that this is a carrier/apple issue, not a phone issue.

In setting up her new phone, I noticed that MY cell number was associated with my daughter's apple ID. This initially made since to me since I pay her bills for both the phone and her iCloud subscription. However, given the problems, I removed my cell number from her apple account and entered hers. I then changed my Apple ID password and hers. I then did a hard reset on boths phones and attempted iMessage activation on both phones. The first attempt failed, but after 24 hours I tried again and both phones activated for iMessage and FaceTime verifying both the e-mail addresses and the phone numbers (e-mail addresses always verified).

This issue is clearly a problem between the carriers out there and the apple server. Apparently, there is not enough outcry to warrent a full investigation and permanent soloution from apple and their approved carriers.

So, my only additional suggestion is to make certain your cell number is not associated with any other Apple ID's. Check your spouse's account, your children's and so on..... Then change your Apple ID password and try again over the next 24 hours allowing time for the servers to update.

This issue could be solved by changing the SMS center number

See this

http://www.beijingiphonerepair.com/fix/heres-the-fix-if-you-cannot-send-out-sms- on-iphone-4s-4-or-3gs/

i enterr my apple id address'the click sign in it says verifying..then goes on to the ext page..when i click next it just goes back to the sign in area..i need helpp!!!!!

it didn't work for me 😢