iMessage "An error occurred during activation. Try again."

I am still having the same problem guys. Its been years and I have no fix. I am not a stupid computer user either. Everything else in my iCloud works. I am sick of apple's servers and I am ready to quit using Apple products.

Call Apple and DEMAND to know if the idiots running their servers have locked-out your devices. My wife had this ridiculously useless error "An error occurred during activation. Try again." on every device, except her iPhone. It turns out that Apple -surreptitiously and without any explantion explanation- blocked her devices from connecting. Oh, her Apple ID worked fine for their unwanted iCloud, but Messages and FaceTime would throw everything into chaos and refuse to connect with any real/meningful (they sure can spam the Apple ID email with every other thing, why not to report an issue that requires a call to Apple). It's not enough to pay top $$$ for their stuff, but to lock people out of their Apple ID (logging-into iCloud still works b/c they want it to, but not on actual devices where Y-O-U want it to work) without any notice and with a stupid error that is meaningless (as per this and many articles like it) is tortious interference, plain and simple.

We wiped her iPad and MacBook Pro over and over for naught. I could get one of them connected to Messages, but then trying the other would throw them both in limbo again. In every instance, FaceTime on her laptop would accept the login but then ask about something in the keychain and pop back to the login screen without explanation (credentials were unflinchingly correct). Doing that would then ruin her access to FaceTime and Messages on the iPad, but the iPhone was always good. After a full work day on the phone with a tech support agent who berated me (she was getting paid to hear my complaints, I was wasting time and money well beyond the call, which itself was too long), and then waiting almost 4 more days (2 "business days" so the weekend did not count), some higher support group simply unlocked her devices and they've been good to go since. Of course, when I asked W-T-F they did this, she outright refused to give any explanation. So, all that wasted time and energy, just b/c a bunch of moronic Hollywood twits lost their nude pics to hackers b/c they used brilliant passwords like 12345, so now we plebs get to pay for it?! Seriously, Apple. The pendulum has swung waaaaaay too far into the ludicrous zone...

So, save your time troubleshooting - first call Apple and ask if their lordships have deemed you not good enough to access your own dang Apple ID on your own dang devices, and see if they secretly cut you off without any good reason or any compensation, lest you waste all the time and effort we did.

I can't imagine how anyone with less technical savvy would get out of the mess Apple makes. Apple has totally abandoned the "it just works" mantra and even the simple (grand)mother rule in their testing and (morally and logically) bankrupt development decision-making.

No, the phone call and support is "free" ($-wise no, but time and effort, yes, it requires some of those two).

Just get your device(s) unlocked by the Messages/FaceTime server admins. The real problem here is that they silently slap your device there and drive you nuts without a clue, and even when you call, they're dodgy about it (in another thread, it took her FOUR reps to get this truth - one of which made her waste her time wiping her iPod for no good reason!), but if you confront the issue with them, they can eventually get your device removed from the ban and make this completely useless error go away and get on with life.

I had the same issue as everyone else, and called Apple Support saying that I have been unable to access iMessage and FaceTime for over a week and I read on some forums that it might be that I've been blocked out for some reason. The guy I spoke to took some info from me and then directed me to a senior technician who (after taking some security questions) unblocked it for me in about 15 minutes! I restarted my computer and it works fine now!

I don't know if I just got lucky or if it was because I knew about being blocked out - but asked very nicely about it - but this is the fastest I've had an issue like this fixed! He did say it was a once off to be unblocked, and couldn't tell me WHY I was unblocked, though... that would have been nice to know to avoid doing it again..

All I can say is contact Apple Support and tell them exactly what happened (and it pays to be nice about it), and hopefully they'll unblock you.

Good luck anyone still suffering!

@ReubenvonCoco, it only pays to be nice about it b/c you knew exactly what to demand (nicely or otherwise). Sadly, for those countless many who may never see this forum, or for those of us who did fight and weren't nice when Apple ran us through countless hours and hours of circles for NO GOOD REASON (wiping devices several times, erasing perfectly good data and accounts)and with no solution when we all had much better things to do, then it did not pay to be nice.

So, not to be not nice, but you're welcome for us having saved you hours of wasted time and effort and even lost data. I am definitely glad you found this post (that was the point of my sharing my nightmare); however, please don't act like Apple doing this to you and you having to ask nicely for them to stop when you paid GOOD MONEY to use your device as intended and were not doing what they keep claiming many innocent customers are is actually in any way, shape or form, OK. If you want to be nice, ask for it to start with Apple who have only themselves to blame for this whole situation.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm definitely ****** that the issue occurred in the first place, and it's ridiculous that there's no answer for it from Apple, I just wanted to share that the recommendations worked (and as you say, because I knew exactly what the issue was because of the forums)!

Perhaps I over emphasised the nice bit, I just know that I really wanted to yell at them but forced myself to hold back, which was probably on my mind as I wrote the response!

Either way, thanks again for everyone for providing the answer and stopping me from throwing my laptop across the room.

This will be my 3rd call today, and I have done exactly this. I may have been hostile but only because I i am frustrated! Was unable to be transferred to any technician, he told me I had to wait 24 hours then there would be additional steps they could take. I mentioned these forums, and this guy had the audacity to tell me to stop saying I was blocked because I still had access to iCloud. I explained everything to him but somehow magically in 24 hours I'll be able to call back to fix the problem. I am so frustrated right now.

Keep insisting! I too had an utterly obnoxious support tech rep. and had to wait to hear back from her (waiting herself to hear back from the kangaroo server court idiots) and only then was it finally resolved. The rep has to keep hammering these secret server admins OVER AND OVER until they bother to reply and remove you, at which point your rep should call you and confirm to try again and then, like magic, the services you ACTUALLY PAID FOR will be gifted back to you by the high and mighty server jerks. Hang in there and do not take NO for an answer!

THEY are the crazy and hostile ones for creating this whole mess and the absolutely horrendous/heinous way they have implemented it and continue to manage it.

Well I tried one more time (because i have NO patience whatsoever), disabling iMessage and FaceTime then turning off and on my phone and there you have it, it finally works. So who knows if I was even blocked out of iPhones only really good features, i may add) or they just had enough of my ranting, or it was actually one of the 645986730 listed ways to resolve this problem. All I know is I've never been so disgusted with a company that I actually love.

They may have just finally fixed it from earlier, but either way...

Same here (grew up on Apple II, was a sucker who owned the IIGS and have been using Macs since my mom got one of those early Performa's in the 90's). It hurts my soul, but:

I'm as mad as ****, and I'm not going to take it anymore...... - YouTube

Aside from this absolute joke on paying consumers, look at the horrible security mess that is High Sierra (root access?!) and iOS (how do you release 11.0.0 w/o Office 365 support tested fully?!) and so on. Apple needs a company-wide PRAM reset (or at least a functioning QA team) these days! When Windows 10 acts like macOS (Microsoft pre-empted the KRACK announcement while Apple dithered after disbanding their router group a year ago - say bye-bye to Steve's hub/ecosystem!) and macOS/iOS starts acting like XP or Win95, something is seriously amiss...!

from apple :http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2755

let's see...

Works perfectly on iOS 5.1! Thanks you are my hero!

Dude! I even bothered to sign it to say THANK YOU! You are awesome 🙂 You just fixed my iPhone.

Hey Apple people hire this guy to work for you. He is better than 99.9% of your employees out there.

Anybody know the problem to this error?

Can someone please help me??

I didn't understand how you all fixed the problem!!

Please!!