After upgrading to ios 6, iMessage stopped working.

My iMessage did not work this morning through this afternoon. Could not figure out why. I ended up doing a reset (holding the home and power button) until the iPhone 4s turned off and back on. Now iMessage works

I was having the same issue in the U.S. when I upgraded yesterday. All was good at first, then I tried to get Passbook to work, and followed the instructions someone else posted about changing the year to 2013 and completely forgot to change it back. I realized it today when putting an appointment on my calendar, and thought maybe this had something to do with it. I changed the date/time setting back to "Set Automatically" and iMessage seems to be working fine now. I hope this helps, in case anyone else did the same thing I did. BTW, Passbook still isn't working properly.

You are right, shawkeye!

This is helping me...

Guys! If you are still having this problem, try this it works for me. Turn on the cellular data, and going back to setting --> imessage. You will see the result as iMassage is coming back to work.
It is weird, though. I think this is ,sort of, similary to the voicemail download on your phone. Not working unless you turn on iPhone's Cellular data.

Good luck.

Guys, I have exact problem and also found the solution like Sahatchai. Guess what ? It's a server problem. Try to turn off Cellular Data and wait patiently, iMessage will work again. For me the wait is about 6-10 hours

Supplementary...

As some others have pointed out, Cellular Data must be switched on too virtually everywhere. The new OS switches it off in several places for some reason. Go through every setting you have as a cellular data switch is in more than one place. Be careful if you're overseas though re data charges.

Once this is done, a phone restart may be required so the phone can reinitialise it's connection with the cell network. Then go through the same process and it should work.

Be patient though, it's not instantaneous.

I have the same problem, Iphone 4 after updating to ios6, Imessage worked for 4 imessages then has stopped working. just saying waiting for activation.

I have rebooted phone

Checked my country of registration

turned on and off cell data

and everything i could find on this site to try all no good.

Come on apple please help!!

i have the same problem, Iphone 4 after updating to ios6, Imessage worked for 4 imessages then has stopped working. just saying waiting for activation.

I have rebooted phone

Checked my country of registration

turned on and off cell data

and everything i could find on this site to try all no good.

Come on apple please help

Having same problem: on 4s, upgraded to iOS 6, and shortly thereafter, the iMessaging no longer worked.

Attempting to activate, I get the Waiting for activation notice for both iMessage and FaceTime.

I've done the following:

1) reset the year to be 2013, to try to fix Passbook. Reset it back to auto detect

2) Reset the phone numerous times

3) Turned off cellular data, turned it back on

4) Reconnected to wireless networks.

Nothing...iMessage is still not working.

What's up Apple? There's plenty of conversations about this same issue during beta of iOS 6. Thought that this kind of fix would have been high priority.

Dear all just to let you know that suddenly without doing anything both facetime and imessage started working again. Apparently it's something related to Apple. I am really sorry of not being still with OIS5 I am suggesting everybody to wait before upgrading. It's a big lost the google maps as the Apple's ones are not ready to replace them. It's really embarassing this new system. Apple was always synonimus of safety and precision. This time we are really far away! What's going on?

to: AnthonyScc

did you have iMessage and Facetime "on" and the waiting for activation message for some bit of time, then it all of a sudden started working?

Approximately how long was this "all of a sudden"?

Don't know about AnthonyScc, but I can say that isn't what happened with my iPad. I turned iMessage off, then back on, got "Waiting for activation" for a bit, then that message went away, but I was still unable to send or receive messages for several minutes afterward... then it suddenly started working again. Switched Wi-Fi networks and had exactly the same symptoms again. I also updated my iPhone 4 (against my better judgment) and while I can't say the update was necessarily worthwhile, I did not have the iMessage issues on the phone.

Anthony, I can asure you that this is Apple server error not OS. Reset or Restore to factory settingdid not help at all. After upgrade to iOS 6 myself on 19 September, I've experience all sort of issues with iMessage and Facetime including:

1st: Can go through the activation process with my phone number and apple id on but can't send or receive message. Mac message app worked fine. Only when turn on Cellular Data button (3G always off) then iMessage will work

2nd: Can't go through activation process with my number (my apple id can go through)

3rd:, Can't go through activation process with both of phone number and apple id

I have to wait between 6-10 hours each time for iMessage to work properbly. In fact last night and this morning I still experienced the 3 and the 2 issue. Now it's working again. So please be patient and it will work !!

Ok so I was having problems with iMessage not working again along with my email accounts not pushing messages last night around 11pm. So I did the reset all settings option but iMessage and email were still not working. Then as soon as I plugged my iPad into my computer and about to try a restore, I get a popup message titled home screen and it said something along the lines of how to view apps on the home screens by swiping blah,blah,blah.

Then after that popup came up, both iMessage and and email app started working again and it's been working ever since.

I am afraid to turn off my iPad at any time because when I do both iMessage and the email app seem to stop working when i turn the device back on. then i have to go through the sign out and reset options until it starts working again.

apple please fix!!!!

If you are in a country where facetime is deactivated like UAE, try to go to itunes and manage to change the country in your apple id account Eg. UK. Then try again to activate your imessage using your apple id account. If it works, go back to itune and try again to return the country (earlier update).

Hope this will help.

Nullart is right, i've tried the same and it works fine now.