Wind Mobile Activate iMessage / Facetime

I just wanted everyone to know I ported my number yesterday from Rogers. I tried to do the steps Steve provided and was met with failure. Further reading suggested trying a restore, so I did a restore from iCloud, then tried to activate using Facetime as many here suggested.

Sure enough, everything worked just fine. So to sum up my steps as follows:

Reset and Restore your iPhone with ported number

Enable logging on your iPhone:

• Dial: *5005*274# and hit the Dismiss button.
• Turn your iPhone off/on.
• Logging should now be enabled. This only needs to be done once.

Toggle iMessage and facetime:

• Turn iMessage off
• Turn Facetime off and then back on. Facetime will show Waiting for activation...
• Wait about 2 minutes. This allows Facetime to send the activation SMS to Apple and for the reply SMS from Apple to get to your iPhone.

Save the log on the iPhone:

• Dial: *5005*78283#
• Press the black Reply Button.
• Type in a description like ‘iMessage’.
• Press Reply in the top right corner.

Connect to iTunes and Sync:

Watch for ‘Copying diagnostic information’ in the iTunes status window. If you don’t see it, hit Sync again.

Locate the log file:

• Mac OS X:
  ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/[Your Device Name]/Baseband
• Windows:
  C:\Users\[Your_User_Name]\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\Logs\CrashReporter\MobileDevice\[Your Device Name]\Baseband\
• The log file is named like: log-bb-2014-05-14-14-04-36-csi.txt

Locate the required string in the log file:

Search for ‘GSM SMS Point to Point PDU (as hex str):’ and copy the string

Paste the hex key into the script at http://theonlinemac.com/wind

Donate a few bucks!

So its basically the same thing, except leave iMessage OFF and only try to activate through Facetime. No idea why this is working for some of us, but as I said I do have a ported Rogers number, unlocked iPhone 5s factory direct from Apple, and the 40 dollar pre-paid plan which I put extra credit on to handle any extra charges for international SMS. Once Factetime does activate turn iMessage back on and everything will work fine!

What an incredible effort for Steve to originally figure this out and then to go the extra mile by hooking his phone up to that script so we can activate. Seriously consider buying this man a beer or at least a coffee. Thanks for all the help here troubleshooting, I hope I have helped with my two cents.

thanks so much for all the info

im stuck right now though -

I can locate the logs just fine, but there is no hex string anywhere!

we have a ported no. from rogers...

I see the outbound message:

• 56.610 mms: Carrier bundle does contain phone number registration recipient address: +447537410207!
• 56.653 sms: Composing SMS message using GsmModel
• 56.653 sms: In GSMModel::setDestAddress with address +447537410207
• 56.653 sms: Final address was +447537410207.
• 56.653 sms: sendSmsMessage setting validity period to 30
• 56.653 mms: Will track Phone Number Registration with message ID: [40000001] result was [1]
• 56.653 sms: sending Gsm7 SMS of body (length 89) in 0 segments
• 56.653 sms: queueMessageForSend: Sms messages in queue = 1
• 56.653 sms: MO SMS Message details:
• 56.653 sms: Destination: +447537410207
• 56.653 sms: Validity: 30
• 56.653 sms: Msg Encoding: 0 (7bitGSM)
• 56.653 sms: Body Length: 89

And this is the closest thing I can see to an inbound...

• 383.513 sms: Baseband is ready
• 383.513 sms: Current Technologies: (GSM/UMTS)
• 383.513 sms: Current Encoder: 3GPP
• 383.513 sms: Current VM info: Count: -1, Available: Unavailable, Waiting No
• 383.513 sms: Device supports MO SMS on IMS, We are not IMS registered, and we will not fallback to signaling on IMS send failures
• 383.513 sms: Reply address is not being used

Any help or insight would be phenomenal... Thanks so much..

Here are some tips:

• If you have a 'Pay Before' plan that does not include international SMS, you will need to have money in your account to pay for the registration request that goes to Apple in the UK.
• Make sure your phone number is entered in Settings->Phone->My Number as +1 (xxx) xxx-xxxx.
• The hex string will expire after 30 minutes. The string will expire if a new registration request is made by your phone. When searching the log file, make sure you search the whole file as there may be more than one hex string. Only the latest hex string will work to activate.

In a very literal sense (if it doesn't work, it's not a 'supported' carrier) this may be true, but this response implies that carriers need to have a relationship (and official 'supported' status) with apple. That is incorrect.

You _can_ use imessage on carriers that are not officially supported and do not carry/sell the iPhone. I have used it on several.

I believe the problem has something to do with the carrier supporting the specific type of short SMS sent to verify the phone number.

I also do not have this issue with Wind Mobile solved. It's very frustrating.

I've spent days going over forums and Apple documentation on this issue. Bottom line, if you're with Wind, you cannot activate your phone number for Message or FaceTime.

So today, I spent hours on the phone with Wind and Apple to try and get to the bottom of the issue.

I had to go through rounds of discussion to prove all remedies had been tried and failed and that this was an Apple/Wind problem that would only be solved by them working together to identify the problem and fix it.

I persisted until I finally escalated the issue to the point where Apple is "opening a ticket" to address the problem with Wind.

They said to give it a few days.

Fingers crossed....

Same here! I think all of us should call them once again and pressure them a little bit. It has been 2 moths since the ticket was opened. :)

CALL THEEEEM!

Also, I had to turn off the iMessage and FaceTime since my phone kept sending international text messages in order to activate them.

has anyone tried using roger's 2G (Wind Away) network? Manually put the phone into 2G (hence using Roger's network) and then get the activation going with the silent SMS's. Since Rogers is a supported carrier it should work. There will be extra SMS charges but the service credits WIND offers during iphone sign ups should cover that.

Has anyone tried calling the iMessage and Facetime server's activation number?

The purpose of the SMS is for Apple's server to verify this phone actually owns the phone number. So when iMessage / Facetime is activating, it sends a shortcode text to Apple. But since Wind doesn't support the short code, there has been some users reporting calling the actual number seems to work.

1. Turn on iMessage. When the text says 'Waiting for activation...'

2. Call the activation server number for iMessage: +445773142076

or Facetime: +447786205094

NOTE: This is an international number to UK.

3. Usually after a few minutes it will activate.

Hi guys,

Did anyone fix this issue on their iphones on WIND network ?

I just called WIND and they said that on their end everything is setup correctly and that the message which supposed to go out for activation (which will cost 25 cents in any plan) can be sent - and there are no restrictions from their side. They claim that problem is on the Apple side and WIND cannot assist with any 3rd party applications (including iMessage)... but yes, it is setup correctly on their end.. suggested to call apple.

they both point the blame at one another. Apple states that all they require is an SMS from your number to their verification service thing, and that if it doesn't work it's because a carrier is blocking that SMS from being sent. Wind says that they dont block anything and that Apple is messing something up.

I have been troubleshooting this on another carrier that isn't blocking the text messages from going to Apple, the strange thing is that native numbers (numbers on exchanges from the carrier) work fine, but when the numbers are ported from another carrier or landline, the process breaks.

I have contacted Apple ( i am personally effected by this) and pushed to their Tier 3 support. There is a KB article that deal with this issue but its not for public viewing. I asked them if they are working on a fix and they couldn't comment.

The issue appears to be with Apple and porting numbers from another carrier to a carrier that uses this 44 number to activate (non partner carriers).

It doesn't fix the issue but Apple claming its a carrier issue is a cop out. My native number works , my ported number doesn't and I have seen the same +44 numbers on both bills.

Hey guys !

First and foremost I would like to thank you everyone for valuable insights into

This problem.

I will appreciate, as someone else also mentioned, if someone can put a Youtube video regarding

How to make that thing work, it would be great.

In the baseband logs, you should find a message from +447786205094

There is a string of hex identified by 'GSM SMS Point to Point PDU (as hex str):' Within the string you should see '06050415790000'. Copy everything after that starting with 'd2'. This is the USER DATA. Make sure you grab the latest one, as it will change every time you toggle iMessage off/on.

Calculating the USER DATA length:

Paste the hex string into the decoder at: http://smspdu.benjaminerhart.com

Check the box 'Contains only User Data'

Get a count of the characters in the result field marked 'User Data /w additional stuff' (Starts with 'REG-RESP')

Add 8 to the result. You should get a result close to 105. Convert it to HEX.

(http://www.mathsisfun.com/binary-decimal-hexadecimal-converter.html)

This value replaces YY in the string below:

41000a81XXXXXXXXXX0000YY

The next step is to encode your iPhone number as semi-octets. This is done by grabbing 2 digits at a time and reversing them.

For example:

(123) 456-1234 (your 10 digit phone number)

would become

2143652143

Insert that into the following, replacing the 'XXXXXXXXXX':

41000a81XXXXXXXXXX0000YY

Now concatenate your 2 strings as follows (Spaces added for clarity only):

41000a81XXXXXXXXXX0000YY 06050415790000 d2.....USER DATA....

This is your new SMS SUBMIT message.

Connect your GSM Modem capable phone to your computer (I used USB. Bluetooth may also work). Use a terminal program like ZTerm on a Mac or Hyperterminal on Windows.

Type the following commands:

AT <return> - should return OK. If it doesn't, you'll need to troubleshoot connecting your GSM modem to your computer.

If you see the OK message, continue with the following:

AT+CGMF=0 <return>

AT+CMGS=The Length of your new SMS SUBMIT message divided by 2 <return>

>

Type 00 and then paste your SMS SUBMIT message here and end it with <ctrl-z>

If you did everything correctly, this should send the message to your iPhone and iMessage/Facetime should activate with your phone number.

You need to count the characters in the text string that starts with REG-RESP... add 8 to the total and convert that total from decimal to hexidecimal.

Example:

Total characters in the string 'REG-RESP...." = 98

98+8 = 106

106 in HEX = 6A