could not sign in to iMessage

Thanks Ralph. I tried a specific TM backup of keychain and couldn't get it to work. Ended up just running a full reinstall overnight and this fixed the problem.

Interestingly when I now go back to date and time preferences I AM able to set date and time automatically in the 'Time Zone' tab (previously it said my location could not be determined). So whatever keychain changes I made somehow prevented me from doing this.

Any idea what might have caused this because it could be the answer to many of the other people who are still having problems and have tried everything else like I did. They might have changed to 'auto' in Date and Time and not Time Zone.

You've been helping peope on this issue for ages now...plaudits!

Stu

Hi,

I rarely do anything to my Keychain.

Having said that it will sometimes keep old passwords liked to something when you change passwords and I have deleted the old versions after checking some time later.

It normally crops up when I want to remember a Yahoo account password or a MSN one and have to check the Keychain for it.

I would be hard pressed to state what you might have delete in the Keychain to cause issues with the Date and Time settings in System Preferences.

Glad to hear you have found a solution.

8:25 PM Thursday; February 28, 2013

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

I have tried every fix conceivable and still not able to use imessage with my Apple ID. I have had this problem for 6 months now and I thought there should be a fix by now.

It just works my ***.

Apple quality is going into the gutter.

I'm dumping my iphone, apple stocks for google.

I've tried all other suggestions but this one worked!

toddwest24

I've been trying to get an answer to this problem for MONTHS. I upgraded both my iMac and my MacBook Pro to Mountain Lion, and ever since, FaceTime and iMessage stopped working. I got the "Server encountered an error . . ." So, I called Apple "support" and they claimed they haven't heard of this issue. I said I find it hard to believe since it's apparently a huge problem for tons of users and is all over the Apple forums. After spending an hour on the phone with "support", they said they had to pass i on to a senior engineer and they'd call me back within 2 days with an answer. After waiting a week, I decided to go to the place where I should have gone before, the place where all questions can be answered, even those too advanced for Apple, that place . . . YouTube.

Fixing the time issue didn't work for me, nor did any other solution that has been posted on the boards. Yet after watching a 1:24 video on YouTube, both FaceTime and iMessage now work for me.

Here's the solution which WILL work.

1. You do need to first make sure your date/time settings are correct and set to adjust automatically. But doing just this step will not fix the problem.
2. Open Finder, click on "Go" at the top menu, then select "Go To Folder"
3. Type in /etc and hit enter
4. You'll see a file called "hosts". Drag that file to your desktop.
5. Right click on that file and open with Text Edit
6. Select all the text in that file, delete it and replace it with the text below, exactly as it is below. Then save the new hosts file (just exiting will save it). And then drag that new hosts file back into the /etc folder to replace the old one. After that, your FaceTime and iMessage will work, no thanks to Apple.

##

# Host Database

#

# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface

# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.

##

127.0.0.1 localhost

255.255.255.255 broadcasthost

::1 localhost

fe80::1%lo0 localhost

Thank you!!!

Thanks a Lot!!! "verisign.com"in the host was the problem! Now works fine!!

Glad it helped.

6:59 PM Monday; March 25, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

.....FINALLY, I can get into my facetime account! THANK YOU!

The PRAM reset worked for me 🙂

After applying the +CMD+ALT+P+R reset, this solved the exact same problem for me. Thanks! 🙂

You are welcome.

7:42 PM Tuesday; May 28, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

The PRAM reset as described by Ralph Johns took care of this issue immediately for me. I tried every other single piece of advice I could find on the forums to no avail. Thanks SO much Ralph!

You are welcome.

6:54 PM Tuesday; August 13, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

PRAM. who'd a thunk it?

Thank God I found this thread... here I was panicking because I'm supposed to be somewhere at 4, and I was lost in computerland on the Internet trying to figure out why I couldn't get my iPhone and MacBook Pro synced to use iMessage... I was so frustrated because I still hadn't gotten it synced, and the fact that I was going to be so late, and then boom here I am. I changed my time zone (don't know how I didn't notice it was off by 2 hours!) and voila, I was synced... and the best part is I can relax for 2 more hours!!! THANK YOU RALPH!!!

You are welcome.

7:00 pm Sunday; September 29, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.4)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously