What does "iMessage needs to be enabled to send this message" mean? I can't get my messages to send and when I try that pops up. What is it and how can I fix it?
iPhone 4, iOS 6.1.4
Holy Mackerel! I've been searching for the solution to this for a couple months, and now I just found it. This is the EASY fix people.
The reason it is trying to send using IMESSAGE is that it's trying to continue a thread you had before with that recipient. Just open up the message window and at the top do a search for that person's name. Then for each entry found (including groups if you want) swipe them left to delete them. When you're done, the screen should be pretty much blank. Start a new message to this person and it should come up GREEN as SMS and you're good to go.
Note I didn't have to do anything in my settings or reboot the phone or any of that stuff. I've had iMessage turned off for a while and have been dealing with this problem for some time.
We're not talking about different things - sounds like you got it fixed on your phone, but I've tried all those fixes and still can't send SMS between two iMessage disabled iPhones.
Yes, I had revived my wifi password almost immediately after resetting the network. No issues with SMS after that.
Thanks! I deleted the conversation, disabled iMessage, and can now send plain texts. Thanks for taking the time to post the fix.
Same thing happened to me. deleting the stuck conversation works. thanks
This worked for me too. Disable iMessage, delete the draft text and the entire thread with that person, start a new text and then it sends just fine. thanks!
Resetting the Network Settings worked for me. Thanks.
Just updated to ios 8.3 and got bubble saying imessage had to be turned on. Toggling it on then off seems to have worked
Agreed! Toggling iMessage does the trick for me, but why can't SMS just work? Stop trying to force iMessage on everyone.
I went to Settings, WIFI, then "Renew Lease". After 3 days of battling with this problem, that's what restored my texting ability.
this helped to get one message out. But, when I turned data back on, it defaulted back to iMessage and now, again, cant send message. Same error is back. 30 minutes into this mess, argh.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I had this problem with iOS 9 and this solution works still.
Delete the message threads with the contacts that you are not able to send an SMS message to, then create a new message and it should work.
Thanks! I've tried half a dozen things and this is what finally fixed it for me. Really wanted to avoid deleting the conversation thread 😀
Thank you! This is what finally fixed my issue.
I also had luck double tapping, closing the messages app, and trying again. I like to keep my previous messages, so deleting was not an option for me. Glad you figured it out a different way.
"iMessage needs to be enabled to send this message?
