Q: Cannot sign in to iMessage

Worked for me as well.  You may need to filter on IMAgent in the application monitor in order to quit it as it disappeared and reappeared on my Mac.  Once I filtered just for IMAgent, I was able to quickly click on and quit it before it disappeared again.  Not sure if this was just coincidence, but I did not get IMessage to sign in properly until I quit iMessage and restarted it after quitting IMAgent.  Finally, all of this did indeed start after I changed my Apple ID password.

Ofir, thanks a million.  Great community in aciton again.

+1

This did not work for me. I keep quitting Imagent, but it immediatly restarts befor I can log into Imessage.........

See my post.  Try filtering on just IMAGENT which wil make it easier for you to click on it and hit quit when it does appear.  You have to be a little quick to get it just right.  I did have to quit and restart iMessage before I could log in without a problem.

It's supposed to restart. Quit Messages and re-open and you should be able to log in again.

HI,

IMAgent is a support app that starts up when the computer does.

In this state it does a "Listening" job for both FaceTime and Messages.

If any server that these two apps log in to try to send a message of any sort (AIM, Jabber, iMessages or FaceTime Call)  then IMAgent will start the relevant app.

In FaceTime you can set the app to Off in the Preferences and it will not be "Woken"

There is a similar "When I Quit Set the  Status to Off Line" option that stops the App waken up (Although people do report issues with iMessages on this).

If either app is set to receive Messages still then IMAgent will restart.

This is not such a problem as you are looking for a reset.

7:17 pm      Sunday; August 11, 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 these solutions worked for me - can't sign into either facetime or messages on my macbook pro - but everything works fine on my ipad, and iphone.

HI,

Go to the Apple icon top left of the Menu Bar.

Select About the Mac.

In the New panel click twice on the line that currently reads the  OS X level.

It will change to the Build Number and then to the Serial Number.

Is the Serial Number present ?

8:11 PM      Monday; August 19, 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

Killing imagent worked for me too....First time didnt work, but after restarting, killed the process, entered my pwd again and worked fine!

None of the suggested solutions worked for me. This is how I fixed it:

1. I ran Disk Utility to Repair Disk Permissions.
2. I clicked Repair Disk, and Disk Utility warned me to repair the disk using Recovery Mode.
3. I deleted all keys with "Messages" and "Facetime" from my Keychain.
4. I deleted all messages from Messages (the history is saved at Apple).
5. Restarted the Mac because the Verify Disk required me to;
6. Holding CMD+R until the Apple came up on screen to get the Mac to recovery mode.
7. From the list I picked English and Disk Utility, and used it to repair disk.
8. Restarted the Mac.
9. Launched Messages, entered password and logged in.

When I sent the first message to my wife, the entire message history reappeared.

Nothing lost, full functionality restores.

Happy camper.

Johan

Hi,

Obviously items 1, 2, 5, 6, and 7 indicate the Mac had more serious problems.

Item 4.

The "History" to Conversations as we are talking about iMessages are held on the Mac.

They are in ~/Library/Messages and an item called chat.db

This works if you close the conversation in the main Messages window.

Also if a persons "Messages" included IMs from AIM, Jabber or Yahoo Buddies these "Histories" are not recoverable by the same method (this will depend on the state of Saved Chats).

So "Deleting all messages in the app" is only part of the story and the Buddy List Chats are not stored in the same way and certainly not at Apple

If...

You deleted this chat.db  and used something like item 3 AND re-established a link to the iMessages servers you might get the iMessages server to re-synch the info of the last few iMessages depending on the length of time that had elapsed.

I have managed to launch a Mac two days after starting a conversation on an iPhone and have it sync.

I have not worked out the maximum time that you could possibly sync iMessages.

Item 3 is the only part of this that actually refers to solving an issue with Messages and it's iMessages Account.

Basically you have mixed two tasks, one of which is basic maintenance that required further steps, and a possible "fix" for the iMessages issue.

You have compounded the issue by making bland, vague instructions that then contain information that is wrong.

Although deleting things in the Keychain would not be my first choice item 3 does otherwise appear valid. (on it's own)

8:33 PM      Wednesday; August 21, 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

Interesting, thanks for the input.

I didn't delete the chat.db, but the messages themselves which could lead to the same empty db state?

Anyway, your conlusions is that I should only have needed to do:

1. Repair disk permissions.

2. Delete entire message history in Messages.

3. Delete all keys with Messages and Facetime.

And without restarting the Mac, login should work?

Hi,

No,  The chat.db holds all the previous iMessages you have had.

Of course many people do actually leave the Messages on display in the Messages window like they would on an iPhone.

However in iChat (the precursor to Messages) you only had chats on the AIM, Jabber or Yahoo Services and would have "Saved Chats" as they are not held on the server.

Messages realises that people are likely to use Messages like they would iChat and dismiss Chat or Conversations from the main Messages window.

If you do clear the iMessages and then later "restart" a Conversation with a Contact then as soon as any text is sent the "History" will appear.

Deleting the chat.db will mess the "History" up.  In that case you would have to rely on the Archive Folder (Savced Chats) to view Old Chats.

In the File Menu you have Recent Chats which produces a List on the Recent connections you have made.

The Length and number of connections shown in this list depends on the Setting in System Prefernces > General pane and the number set for Documents, (any Application's Documents) Servers and Applications.

This tends to open "old Chats" in  separate window from which you cannot start a (new) conversation.

Also the Saved Chats method will only store what was Sent and Received on that day - meaning that in the Messages window show a conversation that took place over several days it will be stored in stages in the Archive folder.

Specific to Messages only 3 applies.

Reparing Permissions

Reparing Permissions looks at Ownership and the Permissions your Logged in Mac User Account has to Read Applications, Files and Folders  in some Cases to Write to them.

The presumption is that everything in your Users Folder (the Little House iCon in the Users folder) is Owned by you and that you have Permission to Read and Write to the items there.

That would be all your Pics. All your Music. All the items stored in your Document Folder and so on.

Repairing Permissions does not even look at your Users Folder.

It only looks at the System, Library and Applications Folders.

Whilst there may be  issues with the Messages Application the Permissions would have to be really messed up for it not to work.

Many dispute which is the better method for Repairing Permissions.

Some argue that going to Applications.Utilities and opening Disk Utility from there and Repairing Permissions looks at the most recent Database for newly installed items as well as the Original Installs that might have had something changed in a OS X update.

Others think that using the version accessed in Recovery Mode as you were told to do.

As mentioned this may not take into account the latest Changes caused by an OS Update or newly installed Applications.

This is a sort of Hold over from when you had Install Disks and could run Disk Utility from the Disk.

Basically you seem to have had two issues

1) Something that needed Repair Permissions to be done (and for some reason from Recovery Mode)

2) Sorting out Messages - namely the iMessages account

As the Original Question is only about iMessages I have presumed you were only sorting that account out.

Deleting everything with Messages in the Name in the Keychain may delete Passwords for AIM Logins, Jabber ones and any Yahoo one you have as well.

The Auth-Token for iMessages would have been enough.  (The FaceTime one may use the same Apple ID but comes from a  different server).

To be clear.

Repairing Permissions deals with an issue unrelated to Messages.

Deleting the Messages in the Messages app is considered part of the normal function.

The app has ways of storing the iMessage "History" and for "Saving Chat on Closure".

Deleting the iMessages Auth-Token would have forced the app to get a new one and this would have enforced a Fresh Login to the servers.  (the equivalent of giving the account a swift kick in the rear.)

8:44 PM      Thursday; August 22, 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

Ok – so, you are suggesting that only deleting the Messages token from Keychain should have solved the issue? Cause it didn't. But as I wasn't sure what did, I listed everything I did from having a problem to solving it. Users should skip any step that doesn't apply to them or their problem.

So, skip whatever steps don't apply to you. Good luck solving your issue!

Quitting imagent is the key that fixed me.  None of the other stuff.