iMessage not working for phone number

Hi I have a problem with my iPhone and iPad when I'm out of country too. I can receive text from androids at anytime but only able to receive text from iPhone when I have wifi. I can send text to everyone, android and iPhone at anytime. Please help

This is probably due to your network limiting your data connection (or yourself turning your 3g, 4g, or LTE off). In order to recieve iMessages you need data (3g, 4g, LTE, or wifi). If youre out of country your network (att, t mobile, verizon, sprint, etc.) may not offer data in the area you are in or the account owner could have opted to disable your data while out of country.

Hope this helps.

Hello, i have tried all of the above solutions and none of them have worked, my number still appears faded and i cannot sent or receive imesseges on my number, i NEED to be able to do this ASAP do any help would be great, can you please also tell me roughly how long it will take for my number to become solid instead of faded after following the steps you have provided? Thank you

Are you using your phone on airplane mode? Then this may help.

This problem occured to me from yesterday and still not finding the real solution for it, but temporary, this works for me. I was fine using iMessages for 6 weeks before this happened.

I'm using on airplane mode right now. So what I do is to disable airplane mode. Wait to get connect to the local roaming phone provider. Once it connected completely (I'd wait a minute or so since it connects and disconnects a couple of times), enable airplane mode and turn on wifi. Wait for a little. Double click the home bottun and close message app completely. Then open.

This fixed my problem temporary. Because after while, it deselect my phone number to send&receive imessages.

Hope this helps.

iMessaging on my IPhone has also stopped working while I am abroad. I tried the above solution while on WiFi and Cellular voice, but unfortunately it didn't work - the phone reports Trying to Activate but it never resolves. (I haven't tried turning on cellular data, since I want to avoid the additional charges.)

What method did you use exactly? The one posted by Sarge10709?? Did you ever turn on cellular data or just cellular voice? Thank you! Also does yours appear to remain connected to your number or does it go back to email??

Noahwhite2014 wrote:

gjn6595, Try this:

Go into your phone settings
Go to Messages

Go down to Send & Receive
Next to it it should say "X Addresses" (1 Address, 2 Addresses, etc)
Go into that setting pane and look at the addresses.
Make sure your Phone number is checked and that "Start New Conversations From" is set to your Phone number (Scroll down in that settings pane if you can't see it)

If that doesnt work, In the same settings pane, tap on your apple ID at the top and sign out and back in and try repeating the process. If that doesnt work, go to the icloud settings pane and log out and back in and let me know how it works out!

Good Luck!
Noahwhite2014

This help me get things working again, thanks!

i have been struggling with this for months. the only thing i didn't try was noah whites step "6. Go to the PHONE settings pane, and change your number from +1 (123) 456-7890 (the numbers are place holders for your phone numbers digits) to (123) 456-7890. And tap Save" this along with switching FaceTime/iMessage off and on worked like a charm. props to that guy!

I tried this one. Still it doesn't work: in fact, the phone number isn't checked and I can't 'check' it - it stays grey.

The message under iMessage reads "Waiting for activation" and stays the same ...

Also, I can't activate text message forwarding. When I try, it asks for an activation code which my MacBook Air isn't giving ... it used to give, but from January 5th it is not working.

HELP!

I had this same issue while traveling in Mexico and the most important thing for me was realizing that you must give it time for the grayed out number to become active. After a while hassling with my settings according to several of the suggestions in this forum, I walked away from my phone when it still said "waiting for activation" and when I came back 20 minutes later it was fixed. The number is still gray but now it has a check mark next to it and iMessage is working through it again. I had cellular data turned on while I left it sitting.

I had a similar problem trying to activate iMessage and FaceTime after coming back to my residence country. I just couldn't get both of the to work with my phone number, just with email addresses. I did all kind of resets and hard resets, settings configurations, etc... and after months of trying unsuccessfully I gave up. Today, I was managing my Apple ID settings and verifying all my data and saw that my mobile phone country code was not right. (appleid.apple.com/account/manage/phone). I wrote the right one and voila! iMessage and FaceTime started working on my iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro with my mobile number.

Hope this helps!

I had the same problem of not being able tu use my phone number with iMessage for a while. I tried basically everything known except replacing my phone (reset settings, restored from backup, restored to factory from phone, then from iTunes, updated software, etc), and in my case, I finally got it solved:

Turns out I didn't have International SMS enabled, only domestic, and didn't know until figured out through my carrier. Once we figured this out, I enabled the International SMS Service and voila! My number showed up again in my iMessage settings, and got check-marked automatically.

After this everything came back to normal... yes, that simple.

Hope this helps, and you all can get it fixed as easy.

Fonz.

Greetings, NoahWhite2014-I have been struggling with the same issue for the last couple weeks. In the last 3 days, I have endured 3 phone conversations with Apple CS reps, and wasted 5 hours doing so. Have done a reset, restore, cut off, back on, etc.All tell me that iMessage ALWAYS had to have both senders and receivers of text messages to enable iMessage on an iPhone in order to be able to send text to others with an iPhone via a wifi connection instead of using cell data. What CRAP. For the last 3 1/2 years, I have used only wifi when at home (and where available) to send and receive texts to others using my home wifi.. Now, seemingly after the 8.3 update, the "rules" have changed. I am ready to leave Apple at this point. I have a 5c with the 8.3 iOS.I have checked all appropriate settings-iMessage, SSM, MMS, etc. When I scroll to "send and receive" only my email (Apple ID) is checked. My phone # is NOT checked, is greyed, and I cannot check it.I do have my phone # checked as "start new conversations from.. ". I suspect there is a software glitch in the update, but certainly Apple reps are refusing to say. Does anyone have any solutions? Help! Huge thanks in advance to any/all who can proffer a solution.

PS- I am not traveling nor trying to use my phone for out-of-country calls. Strictly domestic calls.

With the iPhone, there is no need to "Use your Apple ID for iMessage" if you want your iMessages/FaceTime calls to come from your phone number ONLY. If you have signed in with your Apple ID for iMessage/FaceTime, log out and switch the iMessage button off and then on again. At this point, you will see a "Waiting for Activation" text below the iMessage button. Disregard the "Use your Apple ID for iMessage" option and wait a few minutes. It took about 15 minutes for iMessage/Facetime to get activated and have my phone number appear in the Send & Receive section.

This helped me so much!!! Thank you 🙂