"Waiting for Activation" iMessage and Facetime on brand new iPhone 4s

I know it might sound strange, but although SMS was orginally activated for me (and I was sure it was not an issue), it turned out that it was not active for the new Nano Sim Card.

This was for the the crucial issue in getting my activation to work. Maybe there is a way you can check the status of your SIM card. For my operator *221# (t-mobile Germany) gives me the current status of the SIM Card and *222# activated SMS for the new Nano SIM Card.

Hope this helps

Robert

I tried pretty much every suggestion in this thread to no avail before finally trying the Settings->General->Reset->Erase All Content and Settings option. I made sure I backed up first obviously, and this seems to have worked for me. The only problem I still have is that I don't have a FaceTime app on the phone. Even when I use the Spotlight search it doesn't find FaceTime. Interestingly though I tried to FaceTime my phone from my MacBook Pro and it worked... even though there appears to be no FaceTime app on my phone. So I can receive FaceTime calls, I just can't initiate any yet.

Looks like I can answer my own problem with another thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4370723?start=0&tstart=0

I see you already found your answer.

Cheers 🙂

it worked, yes! thank you!

I have the same problem, as my iMessage and FaceTime can't be use with my mobile number. Did most of all the steps in here but none of them helped. Also I had to set up new Apple ID as when I write the password I get a message of incorrect ID and password. And the same ID and password I'm using now!!!!

So any new ideas please...

I'm in Sultanate of Oman and using iPhone 4s (IOS 6)

Blazer0x It worked. The second service activated in about 3 minutes. 🙂➕

I was having this problem, then I updated to IOS 6.1, the problem gone with it. I'm really happy now 🙂

Hi Ryneeev. Yours was the simplest and most effective solution thus far. This line: "Set Automatically: Slide "ON"...If it's already on, then slide it off, chill for a bit (maybe restart it), then slide it back on." was the most helpful.

The "chill for a bit (maybe restart it), then slide it back on." specifically is the one that fixed the waiting for activation error! I was planning on restoring my Iphone 4 to factory settings cause nothing seemed to work. But as I was backing up the phone on my Itunes, I dozed off and slept for about 4 hours with the imessage, facetime and set automatically time all turned off. When I woke up I turned on the set automatically, then turned on both facetime and imessage and after a minute or so, they worked like a charm.

I'm thinking that this procedure of yours (which is also recommended on other parts of the forum) is a sure way to fix the activation error IF you use a valid appleID, and everything is in order (ex. didn't do anything really weird to the settings). But really the key is to be PATIENT. I think about an hour with the set time automatically, facetime and imessage turned off and then turning them on again (in the order which I stated) would do the trick. Thanks!

This garbage and too frustrating. I'm returning my iphone for a Samsung

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

This worked PERFECTLY!!

Thank you so much

I have been trying everything for the last hour and this worked perfect

ryneeev:

This worked for me!!!! Thank you so much 🙂

I can't beleive it was that simple. We bought each of our son's an Ipod Touch 4 and iMessage and Facetime worked on 1 but not the other. All settings were identical. Changing this simple setting on one of them allowed both Facetime and Imessage to active. What a pain!! Thank you for sharing!

TURN OFF WI-FI > LET IMESSAGE & FACETIME ACTIVATE OVER THE CELLULAR NETWORK BEFORE TURNING WI-FI BACK ON > BE HAPPY AND FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO DO WITH YOUR TIME 🙂