Can't deactivate iMessage after switching phones?

Important note - once you have removed the offending Iphone from the products list, ensure you turn-off your own iphone and reboot it (turn it back on) so that the final link to imessenger for the rogue number is removed.

SO to recap - follow the instructions on the first page of this thread to remove the product that the number was associated with, then switch your iphone off and on.

Worked a treat.

drfrot,

THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH!!! You have made my life a little easier now lol...my wifes LCD screen cracked completely and so we were unable to get rid of it. So I was in the same boat as your removing the devices off her apple ID account but still no go, but your solution was exactly what we were looking for, thank you so much!

Danny

Yeah, it's a funny one. Once you've logged yourself out, logged her in and switched iMessages off, you have to then switch it back on to use it yourself!

I've got no idea how it actually worked, but this is all we did. Probably a good idea to restart the phone in between switching iMessages off (with your wife's ID) and then switching it back on (to log back in using your ID).

As I say, it doesn't make sense as to why this should work, when technically speaking you're still logged in as her when you switch iMessages back on.... but it did the trick for us.

Another bit of Apple Voodoo to add to the growing list!

:-)

G

i have a similar problem. i did the unregistering online but for some (only for some) people trying to send me a text, it still tries imessage on their phone and they cant get rid of it. i used to have an iphone but dont anymore. what is the solution to this issue?

I have tried everything listed here, and everywhere else I can find, to get this to work. My iPhone has been inactive for over 30 days. I no longer own any apple products... and I sold the iphone a few weeks ago (after the 30 days had passed). I had turned off imessage before I switched phones as I’ve heard this is an issue.

I removed it from my support profile, I’ve removed the “find my iphone” from iCloud (not being able to delete that is a whole other story). and I've removed it from my old developer account.

Each time I call apple about it they have hung up on me… I never even get to talk to a person… it puts me on hold for about 5 minutes then hangs up.

Sometimes I get the texts late, most of the time not at all. When I'm with a friend and we look at our chat sessions I'm missing about 40-50% of what they have sent me. I've been on an android (3 different models.. and 3 replacements under warranty for this issue.. countless LTE sim cards). Verizon has done all they can do.

I think I'm down to having to change my number and see if that works.

I hate to have to send out a message to everyone that has my number.. I changed it again (Recently moved across the country and took a local area code so when work calls me it isn’t long distance).

Has anyone tried changing their number? If it doesn't work I don't want to do it, but if it is another fix to the solution I'm willing to try it.

I had to change my iphone mobile number as I was getting harrassing calls. Calls were going through to my new mobile number okay. The old number was saying it was disconnected. But I decided to check whether my text messages were going to the right number. So I sent myself a text message, with my new number to my old number. Which I had pushed in. Guess what, I received the message!!!

I finally went into settings, took my old number out of the IPHONE settings and I only now I no longer can receive text messages to my old number.

Must be some gliche. Optus was very interested in this when I told them.

Hi,

I just switched to an android and had the same issue. I used the advice to go to the apple support page and deregister the device. That did not work. I went back and noticed on the left that the mobile number was listed under my details so i tooka chance and deleted the number. (Just left a landline number there) BINGO, fixed almost instantly. Hope this works for others. Drove me nuts for days and annoyed me that my wife could not text me easily.

I upgraded from the iphone 4 to the razr maxx and all of my friends that have the iphone send messages they are sent to my old iphone.. I have logged into the apple support like suggested.. my old cell phone number is attached (not the new one) and my iphone isn't a registered product on that page so I can not do what is suggested.. I called verizon and the girl has been helping me out but can't come up with a solution today because the tech from apple had no idea what we were talking about.. We have tried reactivating my iphone unactivating imessage then reactivating my maxx.. the issue is STILL not resolved. I am extremely frustrated and am starting to regret ever buying an iphone.. Can someone please suggest something else or help me!!

Hmm sounds good except there is no longer 'edit products' at that support link. It is under the communities profile but obviously that's not useful. Apparently apple decided to remove the only option to fix this!

**This worked for me just now**

I went from using an iPhone 4 on Tesco Mobile (in UK) to using a Samsung Galaxy S3 on O2, switching my number over. My girlfriend, now using the iPhone on her own number was able to call me but the texts never arrived (weirdly, I did get one of her texts but as an email with a .txt file attached). I tried logging into apple support and don't have any products listed so couldn't unregister.

On the iPhone, I looked in the contacts and my number was still listed as an iPhone type number, so I deleted the contact and remade it with the number type as mobile (you could probably just edit the contact though) and now I recieve the texts fine.

It seems that if the contact is listed as being an iPhone, it can automatically try to use data instead of SMS. So you might need to tell anyone you know with an iPhone to change your contact type from iPhone to Mobile.

Let us know if it works for you too.

It seems a little "old times" if you will for me to have to contact ALL of my friends that have an IPhone and tell them to manually my contact when I don't have to have them manyally change my contact to an iphone in the first place.

All i have to say is Apple has no solution and their techs have no idea that this is even occuring when you call them. And verizon has not gotten back to me since I posted about this on June 6th. I am completely unsatisfied with Apple and will never purchase another Iphone again..

I'm not saying it's ideal. The fact that the problem exists in the first place is ridiculous and apple's lack of a solution is pathetic. But if you really need to be getting texts, this should work for now.

Finally worked for us. I don't know which specific step worked, or maybe it was a combination of a bunch of things. My boyfriend and I both had iPhones with AT&T (U.S.). We both ported over our numbers to Verizon. I got a new iPhone 4S from Verizon, and bf got an Android phone. We logged onto his supportprofile.apple.com account which didn't contain his old iPhone serial number, so we added that and unregistered. No luck. Powered up his old AT&T iPhone and turned off iMessage, and deleted his vcard from the old iPhone's directory. Also deleted his iCloud account under Settings > Mail/Contacts/Calendar. Did the power cycle on his old AT&T iPhone and my new Verizon iPhone, and that seemed to have done the trick. Maybe there was just a delay on re-implementing the new settings.

Changing the label of his cell number on my own iPhone's directory from 'iPhone' to 'mobile' wouldn't have worked because I've never used the 'iPhone' assignment. I've always just used 'mobile' for phone numbers even if my contacts had iPhones. Hope this helps.

Thank you defrot!

If you can, use someone else's iOS device.

Sign them out of iMessage

Add the account you want to deactivate

Then turn off iMessage

This worked for us. My wife had to get a loaner phone (droid) while hers was being repaired and we found out that she was not receiving messages from anyone who had been using iMessage to message her.

Doing the above worked like a champ.

Here's what worked for me without access to an iphone. This is per advice from apple tech support. It's not the best case scenario but it did work.

I had only one person who could not text me on my non-iphone so had her change her phone imessage settings to send via phone network (as opposed to email/web). This worked. Takes a few to 6 hours for it to propagate throughout apple's servers.

the really quick and dirty fix was she turned off imessage whenever she wanted to text me, until the above worked.

very lame that there is no way to fix this on web in account management. l'm lucky it was just one person, hah, well, afaik.