iMessage Activation on iOS 6 in UAE - not working anymore

I switched off iMessages the day I updated my phone but I didn’t switch it off nor update my iPad. Even though my SIM card is not in my iPad, I still receive messages through iMessages sent to my number and not my e-mail but from outside the UAE. Come to think of it, the issues with iMessages started a few days before the update. Attempts to sign into iMessages through my accounts (UAE & US) have ended up 'Unsuccessful.' As of this morning, the new error message reads "Could not sign in. Please check your network connection and try again."

I have called up Etisalat customer care and they confirmed that iMessages is not blocked and that I should go to www.apple.com/support and type in my issue. I have contacted some people I know at Etisalat and nothing has been confirmed yet.

I think it’s an attempt from Du and Etisalat to counter the parallel imports on the new iphone and maximize profit. I don’t think it’s an issue of increasing SMS revenue since 1) you have to pay for the data package anyways and 2) there is always whatsapp and 10s of other chat/data exchanging programs. It’s funny though that many of us have bought our iPhones from Etisalat or Du directly.

Although we probably represent the smallest market to Apple and Apple can care less about our troubles, but it would be nice if someone actually pretended to help.

if you have a USA apple ID u can use it ,it will help using imessage and face time on that mail but not on mobile number.

this worked with me.

Does this mean it would activate if we travel with the device abroad and try to activate it while roaming?

Now it will work with etisalat. Their antispam was blocking the activation sms. 1 hour back it was fixed. enjoy.

Yup! good to go! Thanks

Yup, works perfectly now.

Tested on 4 iphones - all activated within seconds.

The problem was Etisala was blocking the SMS code which is sent from apple to your mobile deives because of their international antispam software. Since iOS 6 update the number from which it sends and the code is different so etisalat wasnt up to date with this matter.

I have iPhone 5 (UK edition) and FaceTime used to work fine over there. When i came back, I suffered of same "Activation..." problem, this afternoon, iMessage & FaceTime been activated but FaceTime is still NOT working!! I got through yesterday for couple of hours then it keep sayting "connecting...". My FaceTime on 4S was working fine, I don't know what tp do to get FaceTime working back, I've done everything, restore, backup, swap sims... I'm very disapponted and desprate. Any one can help pls?

It used to work also on my Macbook Air, and Now i can't go though it at all. Seems to me like a problem with Apple ID.

I've managed to make it work on the iphone 4 only with my mobile number. When I try to add an email address I get a "wrong password" error, which is no true. On both my mac and ipad, imessage works only with my email address! I am very disappointed. Two days ago I couldn't update my apps on iphone and yesterday I had to re-activate again imessage and facetime on my mac. What a mess!

Finally after almost a week everything is working perfectly on all devices (mac, ipad, iphone). Since UAE is not on the supported countries for imessage, I've chosen a different country on my mac to make it work (Greek). That was causing my problem. Now I use my greek account (Greece is listed) and everything is back to normal. All devices are working with both my phone number and my email address.

imessage is working perfectly well now as long as associated to your Etisalat Mobile Number BUT you still cannot add email IDs!? anyway offically around this w/o changing the apple id to another country etc.etc.?

yes, all working well now. apart from the fact that when i try to add my email address to imessage, it gives me an error for username and password being wrong, when it is clearly not. i dont understand whose problem this is (etisalat or apple) but its really frustrating! hopefully this glitch is rectified soon.

Dear Sharbeen and the Desert Fox, could please explain exactly what have you done to overcome the antispasm blocking he SMS activation problem with Etisalat?

I'm using my Etisalat number on an iPhone 5 from the US and I still have exactly same problem. iMessage is stuck waiting on activation and outgoing SMS messages is still not working. iMessage is working using my apple ID only. However recipients would only see my email and not my number.

Many thanks