iMessage not working on iPad

Apple has put a trouble ticket in for this issue. Hopefully they will have a fix for it soon!

I downloaded the IOS 5 to my iPad 1 before my son did and could not send iMessages to him until then. His name also showed up in red with an exclamation mark, and the send button was greyed-out. But now he has upgraded his iPad 2 it all works fine. Most impressive.

Ok, just so you guys know, idk if this is a bug at all. The fact of the matter is your phone is defaulted to bringing up a phone number when you send to an IMESSAGE USER. Which is what most people want, otherwise an email would come up, and most people you text most likely only have your number saved, it just looks better... anyway im rambling but this is where this problem exists. The ipad uses email as the ID for when you imessage people. The only way to get everything you text to sync with the ipad is having them match. (both being set to email in the settings) I realized that if I start a convo with my ipad (email), it will send to my phone, because i added the email in the settings. Now the problem lies in the fact that the number can't be put as an ID on the ipad,ipods. This is the reason it syncs when i start the convo with the ipad.

Simply put, you can text whoever from your ipad, iphone, but they will only sync if the EMAIL is what you have set as the ID, because the responder must use your email. I think its kinda dumb, and itd be nice if they could have it work, but this problem may be how they orginally want it to work. Putting your ipads EMAIL AS DEFAULT IN SETTINGS on your IPHONE will have it sync how most of you guys want it to.

My iPad iMessage were failing, "Message Send Failure", but started worked immediately with this solution, changing my wifi DNS to use 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4. (these are Google DNS severs)

Thanks. I don't know what the dns was for but changing it to 8.8.8.8 worked.

Why do i get the message "iMessage Activation Unable to verify email because its already in use". The email is also my apple id.

Changing the DNS to 8.8.8.8 worked for me too, for both FaceTime and iMessage.

Just to add my 2c to this discussion, I have the same problem, 3 devices, 1x ipad, 2x iphone 4.

The first problem was that the iphones were not "alerting" on messages, second the ipad wouldn't send to either.

Eventually it was worked out that all 3 devices were using the same Apple ID, this is a major issue for iMessage and it doesn't work well if at all.

To fix:

1) Get a new email for each of your devices.

2) In the settings app, go to "Messages"

3) Go to "Receive At" and click the Apple ID (the email)

4) Click "Sign Out"

5) Click "Create New Account"

6) Complete all the steps as necessary to create a new Apple ID using the new email for your device.

7) Verify and sign in to Messages with the new Apple ID.

8) Go back to the Messages Settings and turn off iMessage (slider to off)

9) Slide back on and it should say "Waiting for Activation" or similar like Facetime does.

You *should* be all done.

You should also use that new Apple ID for facetime and iCloud even (if you don't want your stuff shared between devices, for instances partners etc).

You can still use the one Apple ID for apps, music and purchases etc, but iMessage and Facetime ideally need their own separate AppleID for each device.

I HAVE THE SOLUTION - It's worth shouting about!

Upgraded 3 devices to IOS5. iphone 4, iPad 2 and iTouch (4th Gen). iMessage activates but during sending message it get stuck at 90%, Facetime stopped working on all 3 devices! All connected through a home network No luck with any of the suggestions on the internet as to the cause of the problems.

Took iphone and iTouch to work, connected on the open Wi-Fi there and hey presto both iMessage and Facetime started working! What the ****? Brought the devices home and they continued to work on my home network. Still no luck with the iPad 2 sending to either of the other devices or connecting on Facetime.

It struck me that there appeared to be an issue with the activation process ( even though it said activation successful at home). The most likely cause is the DNS server not passing the data through correctly.

I checked my DNS setting on my router and they were set to Open DNS (208.67.222.220), maybe using Google Public DNS would work? But I didn’t need to mess with the router settings, the DNS on the apple device overrides the router setting. I set the Pad DNS (in Wi-Fi settings) to the Google DNS and straight away a mass of “stuck” test messages came through and I could also send iMessages. Facetime also started working! Yippee! Success! I reset the DNS back to its original value after I finished and it still works ok ( this is optional as Google DNS is good to use as default).

So here’s the fix.... it’s so simple!!

Settings > WiFi > find the active wifi network ( the one with the tick)

Click the blue arrow> find the DNS entry ( 4^th item down), note it’s value.

In the DNS field – type in 8.8.8.8

Click the “home button” and then try iMessage and Facetime.

(it’s up to you if .want to set the DNS back to it’s old value)

What I found on my IPad 2 was that after picking an IOS5 recipient you have to let it resolve the user before putting the cursor in the text field. If you immediately try and write a text before the it resolves the recipient the send button will always be grayed out.

@ujjwalfromnew thanks for the solution :)

@anthonyfromstaines what are you shouting about?

Athonyfromstaines: I also used wifi at my sports club and all went well with iMessage. When I tried it at home, it worked as well. Also, FaceTime began working when it had previously been an issue. However, after a couple of days, the iMessage bar went right back to getting stuck! I was worried it would be a temporary fix. I found the return of the issue after I did a reboot of my iPad. I have not attempted any change to the DNS number, however. Maybe that is the reason mine returned to the issue. The reason I needed to reboot was because my mail didn't clear the blue dot the way it had been doing and more importantly, I wasn't able to get to links when searching on Google. Since that was major, I felt a reboot was necessary. It fixed those issues, but as I said iMessage and FaceTime stopped working.

I just used my iPad at the club and came home for another test. All is working once again. My concern is whether it is temporary. May I ask what kind of router you are using? There are lots of complaints about this topic with Asus rt-n56u. I'm curious if you're using the same router. If not, that would rule out Asus being the culprit. I would appreciate your feedback.

Yes, I found that and also found if the rcipient has multiple email addresses Imessaging will tell you which ones available for Imessaging if the first isn't registered in Imessaging,

I'm having issues with messages on the ipad 2 as well.

2 main problems:

1. I have had no luck on my iPad 2 sending a picture through iMessages to another device with Messages enabled. It always says "Not Delivered" with a red exclamation point. I was having this on the iPhone 4 until in Messages Settings I enabled MMS. I do not have this option in settings on the iPad.

2. For the life of me I cannot figure out how to initiate from my iPhone a message in iMessages with an iPad or iPod Touch (those using email, rather than numbers) without having to go through my phone contacts app instead.

Thanks UJ, I tried changing the WiFi Connection's DNS setting to 8.8.8.8 and it worked like a charm! Steps followed:

1. Turned Off (hard "shut down") my iPad2.

2. Unplugged from PC.

3. Turned iPad2 back on.

4. Went to Settings > Wi-Fi > (my access point's setting by tapping on blue circle with white right arrow to the extreme right-hand side)

5. Tapped on DNS area, deleted what was there, and changed to 8.8.8.8

6. Closed

7. Did another hard shut down of iPad2.

8. Waited 5 minutes (don't know if this really did anything; I doubt it :) )

9. Turned it back on and reconnected to PC via USB port

10. I noticed it automatically did a sync (dont' know if this means anything, but it didn't do it b4).

11. Voilá, it immediately started sending the messages that were pending.

There is only one thing that worries me... What will happen when I go elsewhere with my iPad2 and connect to another WiFi access point? Will I have to do this all over again? I think its pretty clear this is an iMessage issue (perhaps Apple's servers adjusting to the high traffic).

Thank you VERY much for your answer!