Imessage not working 4-12-2013

As of, as far as I could tell, 6am central time, Imessage was messing up and not working. I am posting this so other can use it as a helpful guide in case theirs is not working. I spent about 2 hours in chat with apple support in an effort to find out why my IMessage was not working, towards mark 1 hour and 45 minutes support finally said they were having issues on the Apple side of IMessage and that is why it was not working. This after all that time of trouble shooting. I do not understand Apple and how they won't post that they are having issues like other major companies, like Xbox for example. Anyways, here are the steps support had me do in an effort to get the IMessage back up and working.

First steps were, of course, had I tried any other fixes. I had already tried the quick fix to get it to activate via the airplane mode fix. Which is this...

1. turn off IMessage.

2. turn on airplane mode.

3. connect to wifi.

4. turn on imessage.

5. turn off airplane mode, if it does not connect at this point continue..

6. turn off imessage.

7. turn on imessage, hopefully it fixed it. (didn't fix mine)

So the next step for support was to back up my phone, which I had already done.

Then they had me do a restart of my phone and test it. (still didn't work)

Then they had me do a hard restart, hold the power button and the home button till it shuts off. (same results)

Next support had me try turning off and on IMessage again, yeah repetitive stuff here, with wifi and without. (same failing results for me)

Now support had me go to settings, messages, click my apple ID and sign out then try and sign back in. (make sure to turn it back off when this fails)

Of course that got the error "connection issues" so they had my go to safari and see if anything would load. (everything loaded fine).

Next was to try the same thing with facetime, settings then facetime then click the apple ID and sign out then try signing in again. (failed with same error, again, make sure to turn it off again like imessage)

Now on to setting then itunes & app stores and click the apple ID and sign out and try signing in again. Fair warning, it could take it a minute or two and don't go jumping off the screen or you will have to turn your phone off and back on and try again. (Yeah I did that)

At this point it took about 2 to 5 minutes and mine finally signed back in, which led me to believe they finally got the IMessage issue fixed (at least for me) on their end). Now I was able to go back to IMessage and turn it on and sign in. Same with facetime (both still took a bit). I then tried sending a IMessage but mine would not send anything but normal texts. Finally I received an IMessage and mine kicked back over to IMessages. Problem solved, for now.

Now, as far as signing in on those three things. If it still won't let you, it could be Apple is having issues still but if everyone but you is working (my wife's wasn't and neither was my boss and several co-workers but by the time mine started working theirs did to) then I'll suggest this....

I have heard from a TON of people that their Apple ID got messed up, thanks apple, and they simply changed their Apple ID and bingo they could sign in again and everything worked. Personally, I would try the "fixes" listed above, a back up and restore, a back up and restore to factory setting then try imessage, and if none of those worked then I would try changing the apple id trick.

As I said, maybe this will help someone else, maybe not. But I figured it was worth posting. I personally am tired of apple messing up and have decided to get the galaxy s4 when it comes out.