Q: iOS 7 iMessage won't activate

Rob, it is both an Apple issue AND a service provider issue, if you use Telstra in Australia :) They've publicly acknowledged they have issues stopping activation of the mobile number in iMessage.

Got it working...

Initially I followed all of fullspeed8989's instructions to the letter but it did not work (as noted in my previous post).

Out of frustratoin, I shut down all network services... WIFI... Facetime... iMessage... blah blah blah... and let the phone sit for about an hour. Then I did a hardware reset and turned all service back on. Finally iMessage is working! 

FYI... it turns out iPhone Backup/Restore ignores music, apps and photos and only works with email settings, contacts, notes etc. I did not know that. I thought it was a complete device backup.

Now to get all my apps and music back.

Hey br3tt, my fault for not ditributing the blame for slow/no activation. I did talk to my cell provider (T-Mobile) and, to no surprise, couldn't find anyone who could really understand much less speak to the issue. Apple support understood but would only infer what causes this issue.

Anyway, my posted solution worked for me since I was upgrading on a previously working iMessage. I thought I'd mention it in case it helped someone else. However, I still can't add an additional email address to either iMessage or Facetime. The address just hangs on "verifying". In any case, I'm functional - and hope time will cure all. Good luck! 

Surely there MUST be a way to resolve this issue without resetting your entire phone?! This is messed up, Apple.

THANK YOU SOOO MUCH fullspeed8989 ! this worked for me,only after 2 days of trying every other suggestion i read about,you legend you.Cheers

nope just fixed the rotation of the screen... somehow...

I'd tried everything. I figured I had nothing to lose so I backed up and restored my phone and blow me down - it worked. Everything is working.

Backup your phone in itunes, restore to factory settings, restore your backup.  takes a while but corrects many of the bugs

Thank you very much - this worked brilliantly!

Finally, back to normal ;~).

Thanks Fullspeed8989! Worked like a charm. Even fixed the find my phone issue I had! (the phone wasnt showing up)

This is exactly what I did before I read this post and it worked like a charm.

Surely there is a solution to this problem that doesn't require wiping out my entire phone. A patch? A fix? Some guidance from Apple on how to fix this? Apple's unwillingness to admit anything wrong with its flawed upgrade speaks volumes about the company's attitude toward its customers.

This DEFINTELY WORKED FOR ME!!

Thank you!!!!!!

Forgive me for not reading all 18 pages of this thread, so I apologize if this has already been mentioned, but I did something simple that seemed to work.

I just switched iMessage off in Settings.  Turned off my iPhone5.  Let it sit for maybe 5 mins.  Turned it back on.  Went back to settings, turned on iMessage and voila, iMessage is back.

Hope this helps someone.

Oddly enough, what mrdude60 said worked for me! I have tried everything (besides resetting the phone wich always seemed stupid) but this did the trick.

Just make sure you turn both imessage and facetime OFF before turning off your phone. Then wait, then turn everything on, wait some more and then it should work.