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Factory Unlocked on T-Mobile: iMessage & Facetime Both Verified As Activated But Do Not Work

Hardware: Iphone 4

OS: 5.1.1

Factory Unlocked

Network: T-Mobile (USA).

Hi all.

Like many I am having a problem getting iMessage & Facetime to work, however, the unique problem I seem to be having is that while both iMessage & Facetime report back that they are activated, neither work.

Anything attempted to be sent through iMessage fails to send. Standard SMS/MMS is only available. Iphone users attempting to send me iMessages are only able to transmit via SMS/MMS as well.

Facetime will not connect to anyone. Every attempt is met with an immediate "Call Failed." prompt on both my end and the Sender's end.

I am completely miffed as up until this on my other iPhone, a 3GS running 5.1.1 also on T-Mobile, there were no problems with iMessage or Facetime (unofficial tweak)

Thus far I have done the following which has yileded no success:

- Delink my Apple ID from iMessage & Facetime > Turn off Services > Turn off Phone > Restart > Reactive Services > Relink Apple ID > Reactivate and Verify iMessage & Facetime.

- Hard Reset (Power + Home)

- Change DNS to 8.8.8.8

- Remove my Apple ID > Turn off Phone > Restart > Reactivate & Verify iMessage and Facetime w/o linking Apple ID (Phone no. only).

I'm at a loss at this point. Does anyone have any other ideas? It cannot be a factor of Tmobile as Tmobile plays no factor in iMessage & Facetime ability, they are both network agnostic features as I understand. Additionally, both these features work on my 3GS.

iPhone 4, iOS 5.1.1

Posted on Oct 24, 2012 1:27 PM

23 replies

Oct 26, 2012 7:09 PM in response to KiltedTim

KiltedTim. Really? What are you talking about? Every single feature works on t-mobile and when I say every single feature, I mean it, well you are right..not every single feature. "visual voice mail" does not work, although I do not really care for that feature, and I bet every single person would trade that up for the chance to have the hotspot feature. If you really know your way around ibackup bot and are a bit tech savy you can fix everything in less than 20 minutes. I have facetimed using nothing but 3g, I have used the hotspot feature a ton of times, imessage, group messaging, and everything the iphone offers. I have T-mobile and att, because one is my personal line, and the other one is the company's phone. And really it seems to work the same way.

Oct 26, 2012 7:18 PM in response to artemiomadrazo

@ Arte -

While I certainly would not say I'm a coder, I am pretty good at figuring my away around inside code or tweaking a application.

What exactly are the steps I would need to take once I download the program or is it something that is rather straightforward?

Oct 26, 2012 7:29 PM in response to ShadowDancer1000

Shadow dancer, My advice would be to restore your iphone, and then after that the first thing you need to do after turning it on is to activate facetime. Now you have an iphone 4 correct?

Download backup bot, depending on your platform. I have windows and mac, and it is pretty much the samr thing. Just google it. Open it, and then you will see your iphone's backup.

Just look for library/preferences/com.apple.com_override.plist open it and click cancel.

Paste this instead of what you will see on the screen

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<dict>

<dict>

<key>GroupModeEnabled</key>

<string>http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc</string>

<key>MaxMessageSize</key>

<key>MaxRecipients</key>

<key>MaxVideoBitrate</key>

<key>Proxy</key>

<key>UAProf</key>

<string>http://www.apple.com/mms/uaprof.rdf</string>

<key>UserAgent</key>

<string>SonyEricssonW800i/R1L</string>

</dict>

</plist>

Save it and then go to

library/preferences/com.apple.mobilesms.plist

paste this instead

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<dict>

<key>CKLastAddressBookSequence</key>

<key>CachedVCCaps</key>

<key>ComposingNewMessage</key>

<key>MMSGroupModeOverride</key>

<true/>

<key>MMSShowSubject</key>

<true/>

<key>MessageDatabaseFull</key>

<key>SettingsVersion</key>

<key>WebKitDiskImageCacheSavedCacheDirectory</key>

<key>WebKitPluginsEnabled</key>

<key>WebSmartInsertDeleteEnabled</key>

<true/>

</dict>

</plist>

Save it. Now click on restore iphone, and you will see that you will have mms, as well as group messaging enabled.

Of course you will have to go to settings- cellular data

and on apn wrtie epc.tmobile.com

check if you have the mmsc settings already typed if not just google tmobile/isetup and copy from there and paste. do the same with mms proxy, mms max, and mms ua prof url.

Now check if you have facetime activated, and again try calling somebody with an iphone that you know is connected either to wifi if they have att so they can actually receive the call too, and then just click on facetime.

Activate imessage as well.

Try it, and let me know if that works, if not I will send you a copy of my token or even the backup entirely, so that you can have everything working for sure.

Oct 28, 2012 10:37 AM in response to artemiomadrazo

@ Arte,

I gave your method a try and unfortunately it did not fully work.

What it did allow me to do was send iMessages to myself (which was weird), but again, I could neither send or receive to or from anyone else.

Group Messaging, which was not an option previously, now appeared in the menu.

Facetime was still a no go. Call failed on every attempt.

Did not attempt to see if the HotSpot/Tether worked.

Do you think cooking a custom IPSW and jai*lb*reaking wolud be of any use? I did save my SHSH blobs so it wouldn't be too much trouble at all.

I am wondering if iOS6 would fix the issue, but again for a host of reasons, do not want iOS6.

Oct 28, 2012 11:58 AM in response to ShadowDancer1000

One thing that has not been mentioned is that facetime and imessage require activation. This is done by sending a masked SMS message to a server in the UK. If you have international text not enabled on your account the activation will fail. If it is enabled you will be charged for the activation message.

amy_lou

Level 4

1,576 points

Oct 28, 2012 3:44 PM in response to ShadowDancer1000

You could try troubleshooting facetime and imessage activation while cellular data is disabled, thereby effectly removing t-mobile from the equation

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4268

iDeimos

Level 1

0 points

Jan 5, 2013 1:14 PM in response to ShadowDancer1000

I know it's been a while since the last post here but I was having the same problem and I solved with the solution presented in https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4026225?start=0&tstart=0. The problem has to do with my backup having some bad configuration. Try to restore your iphone and test iMessage without restoring your backup. Good luck.

Jan 7, 2013 10:31 AM in response to iDeimos

Thanks, iDeimos.

Fortunately, I solved the issue a few months ago and yes, to your point there was something awry with the old system image/back-up of my phone such that when I attempted to transfer it to my new phone, it was corrupted.

The only solution I found was to essentially restore the phone to stock, set-up the phone as an entirely new device, then go back and sync the phone to my iCloud account, however, importing contacts and reinstalling apps step-by-step as you would with a new phone instead of the entire "One click restore" profile from the old phone.

While time consuming, it solved all the issues and I have had a stable and properly running phone, including Facetime and other ancillaries, since.

Now if only I could find a stable and free Siri Proxy. 🙂

Factory Unlocked on T-Mobile: iMessage & Facetime Both Verified As Activated But Do Not Work