Q: Wind Mobile Activate iMessage / Facetime

Hey. Is there a way you can make a youtube video to sum all that up step by step? It will be greatly beneficial for people like me just to ensure we do everything correctly without missing one step and getting frustrated.

Thank you in advance!

I am stuck on a different issue all together. I can't even generate any logs at all. Every time I go to that folder, nothing is there. @smcclay----> Do you have any advice for me? Is there anyway you can give me a hand with this? I must be missing something ? Please let me know

Have you followed the instructions here:

http://www.theonlinemac.com/windhelp

There are 2 pieces that are important for logging:

• The first enables logging - *5005*274#
• The second saves the log so you can download it when you sync to iTunes - *5005*78283#

Once you have iMessage working, you can disable logging with - #5005*274#

@smcclay ------>  I have followed that portion and nothing happens. The only other thing thats different about my iPhone is that I am still running IOS 6. Maybe thats why I can't see the logs because they are enabled a different way? Any ideas? Worst comes to worst I can always update but I would rather not if I don't have to.

I recently switched to Wind Mobile on 2 Iphone 5s and imessage and facetime would not connect.  After trying a few times to follow various things I found online, I contacted Apple support and the person suggested to "backup" my iphone manually and then "Restore Iphone".  After it downloaded the software update I selected "restore from backup" and it restarted my imessage and facetime.  I am not sure if this will work for everyone but it worked for me. 

On a side note, the so called tech support at Wind told me they couldnt do much since they dont have any licensing agreement with Apple.  Also when I said why did you charge me for SMS to the UK when I was sending messages to another Iphone, she said it's b/c Apple server is in the UK and it charged me as International Text. I told her it shouldn't have since I was using imessage (at least I thought I was), she said whenever you use imessage it will charge it as international text.  I said then how is it possible for people with ipad to send it as imessage using wifi, she got silent and refused to credit my charges. 

WIND will not credit those charges because they have no obligation to. The International SMS you're being charged is the initial activation message sent by your phone that would normally activate iMessage with your phone number after only one message on any other carrier. Every time you toggle iMessage off and on, it sends a new text, charging you again. This has nothing to do with messaging people via iMessage.

The reason it goes to a UK number is becuase that is the default for unknown carriers (i.e. carriers that don't have a country code associated with them in Apple's Database), which makes sense because WIND is not an official iPhone carrier.

For the poster above me here, it's likely you're not sending iMessage from your cell number, but your apple ID instead. The International SMS you're being charged is your phone trying to activate your iMessage via your cell number, but it doesnt get received properly by the network, hence why smcclay had to go to the trouble of making his wonerful website.

I finally got the activation to work using Facetime instead of iMessage. I tried numerous times with iMessage. I have a new iPhone 5s with the most up to date iOS. I mention this because a Wind Mobile tech support guy told me that the iMessage work around would not work with the newest iOS. Thank you smcclay. I would be curious if there is any explanation why the Facetime activation worked where the iMessage didn't. Just to be clear, once the Facetime activated so did the iMessage.

Thanks for doing this smcclay, this is awesome and it worked! Like Paeon69, I also have a new iPhone 5s and had to do the same process using FaceTime and it worked! Thanks for the tip Paeon69.

Update: I was able to activate imessage and facetime using the method SMCCLAY so graciously provided.  My wife was so thrilled that it worked, she donated $$ to the cause. I also was able to get wind mobile to credit back all the SMS charges when it was failing. Of course the customer service rep kept insisting that I will continue to get charged for using imessage even when I tried to tell him that I checked my account since it was activated and I have not see any charges appear on it. 

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.

Hi,

I tried doing this yesterday using iMessage but it never worked

However, after reading some users comments I tried using Facetime to activate it today & it actually worked as when I synced my Iphone 5 with itunes it said "Copying diagnostic information". However I cant find the file in C drive, I tried checking almost every folder, I am on Windows 7

Any help in regards to this would be greatly appreciated

Ashmeet your AppData folder is a hidden folder so you need to go to

C:\Users\[YOUR USERNAME]\AppData

Type that in Run    

Thanks a ton for your reply it actually worked & I was able to activate iMessage

HI There,

Tried all the steps (multiple times), including fully restoring to factory settings and using Facetime instead of iMessage.  Not having any luck.  The only thing I can see that might be wrong is that I never see

‘Copying diagnostic information’ in the iTunes status window even after multiple syncs.  I'm still able to find the log and string after that, but is something missing from them?  Any help would be appreciated. 

Thank you!

Wow, the reset and restore actually worked for me!

I was having no luck at all with the other methods (nothing in the diagnostic logs with point to point) and put the issue away for two weeks, then I came to your post, which is very clear and concise.

Paypalling some of my ported savings of moving from Fido to Wind to the 'Good Samaritan'