Q: Cannot sign in to iMessage

Hi,

As a Level 2 poster you have obviously posted here before.

You specs say OS X 10.7.2 which I doubt you are using if you are in fact using Messages on the Mac.

However I have not seen that particular message posted by anyone referring to the Mac version of  registering for iMessages.

If it is in fact an iPhone or iPad I would look in to whether the Apple ID you are trying to use is Verified at the Apple ID page.

8:23 PM      Friday; May 17, 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

Elizabeth,

Did you ever solve this? Just got this same message after doing a password change.  When entering the new password on my other machine (same config/spec) it logged in without issue. But on daily use machine I keep getting this !£%£$£ message.  UID/PW also work on my iOS devices. Am perplexed.

Yikes...my sig disappeared. Am running 10.8.4 on a MacMini(3,1) with 8GB of RAM.

Hi,

So it is Messages on the Mac.

Do the following.

Open a Finder window.

Go to the View Menu  and select "Show Path Bar".

Now use the Go Menu  folder and copy ~/Library/Keychains and paste it in the Dialogue box that appears.

Highlight the item that says login.keychain and do a Get Info (CMD and i keys together).

At the bottom of this Info Panel should be your shortname followed by (me)

Highlight this line then use the little cogwheel icon under the list.

This should read "Make shortname (Me) the Owner" but be greyed out as it is already done

Like so

This will mean you are the Owner.

You should have Read and Write Permissions like I do in the pic.

If those appear to be correct then in the Path Bar right click the Keychains item.

Select Get Info and check the Owner ship and Permissions for that folder.

Repeat the last step for the Library itself.

To store the Password of the account in Messages you need to be able to Write to the file concerned.

To do this you should be able to Write to it.

As it is in the Home Folder /Library (~/Library) you should Own it as well.

However you might Own the File and be able to read it (well Messages in this case) but you may not Own  the folders it is in or you may not have Read and Write permissions for the folders.

The above steps will check that.

Alternative.

Go to Applications/Utilities and open Keychain Access.

Make sure the top left is highlighting the Login keychain.

Set lower left to Passwords if it is not already

In the righthand pane find the items relating to the Messages account.

Double click it to open it in a separate Info Panel.

Tick the Show Password box.

A Dialogue box will most likely appear

Enter your User Password (As in Login to the compouter password).

Click Allow Once

The Password box should now show what is stored.

Is it what you have changed it to ?

(if not check the Passwords list for other options as sometimes a change will create another item for storage.)

If it is correct click the Access tab and check it is allowing Messages (ichat) and imagent to access the file if it is restricted.

Change the password if it is wrong and there are no apparent duplicates.

8:54 PM      Friday; June 14, 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

Ralph,

Thanks for the detail reply. I checked ownership for the file and all the parent folders and I owned all of them (same as your snap).

I also checked the password in keychain and it was correct...so...I'm at a loss. It's very annoying.

Anyway, I gave it a rest and didn't think about it and today I tried again and voila -- it worked. No idea how/why. Because I tried a number of times after your message.  Perhaps, it takes time for a new password change to work its way across all of their servers?

Regardless. I'm done! Thanks!

hi,

Good to hear.

8:19 PM      Tuesday; June 18, 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

None of the solutions suggested here worked. Here's how I fixed it.

Go to Activity Monitor

Find and Quit IMagent

Now I can log in to imessage without problems.

This worked for me too.

Thanks a lot,

I had the same problem and your solution worked like a charm..

Worked like a charm for me. Thanks!

Kudos for this solution!  Worked like a charm.  Someone should promote you to level 9

Killing imagent was the only thng that worked for me. Thanks Ofir Gal.

Worked like a charm.  What is imagent? and why is it all of a sudden a problem for many of us?

Thank you very much.

IMAgent - Instant Messaging Agent. Obviously there's some bug and restarting it works around it.

Worked for me too.  Thanks a lot.