Can't Sign Into iMessage

Yay! This worked! Thank you Larryfilm!!

The Settings>General>Date and Time worked!!!!!! Many thanks to smart people.

I am very frustrated with Apple Care as well as the Genius at the Apple Store finally hours of browsing Apple Support pages but no one can resolve the message, which seems to be a totally ignored issue by Apple since over one year (as Apple Support pages shown).

"Could not sign in to iMessage. An error occurred during activation. Try again." Tried that too without any change.

Then when I wanted to create this page I was grided with the following message:

"Sorry, iclid Drive isn't compatible with OS X Mavericks. You've upgraded your account to iCloud Drive. To keep your documents current across all devices, update to OS X Yosemite. Tip: Documents stored i iCloud Drive are always available at iCloud.com."

Is that a yoke? a. How can I upgrade to **** Yosemite where it is not even available? b. I did not upgraded to iCloud Drive either, so what is that massages?

What happens with Apple Service? This goes like Microsoft… Why in gods name have they came out first with iOS 8 (which has already version 8.0.2) where it is most essential that our devices work with our Desktop or Notebooks and then with the other iDevices.

Yosemite is obviously not out yet out, is still not even in its final stage. We loosing faith after over 30 years of loyal devotion because problems mounting as they never did.

No one has a solution, I tried every potential suggestion from so many who are affected by this.

My MBP was working fine for years but then unexpectedly prevented me to sign in to iMessages. FaceTime works fine, as well my iPad mini (latest version as of October 2014) and my iPhone 5s, both faceTime and iMessage work but not on my MBP 15” 2011 with 8GB RAM and 1TB HD (75% free).

This is not acceptable, sorry Apple gives me only long hours of trying but always without result.

Thank you Larryfilm. This solved my problem and saved me from going completely nuts or having to try more drastic measures.

Apple should fix the iCloud/iMessage dropout problem: Every so often, I find my devices have arbitrarily switched off iCloud or signed out of my Apple ID. Highly annoying!

My iPhone 5S could not activate iMessage. Got this error:

iMessage Activation
Could not sign in. Please check your network connection and try again.

Fixed it by resetting the 'Network Settings'. Go to "General/Reset/Reset Network Settings"

Thanks! Your way worked for me.

Tried that and it didn't work....

Thanks though

This worked! Thank you

So I have tried everything over and over for days that others have recommended.... and this finally worked! OMG! Thank you so much. 🙂

I have an old iPod Touch with old software that can no longer be updated:

iOS version 6.1.6

I've been searching for a solution to my iMessage login problem for months and tried everything from those frustrating links and all the tips from other users.

Here is what finally worked:

1) Settings > Privacy > Location Services > On

2) Settings > General > Date & Time > Set Automatically > On

3) Reboot device until Apple logo appears

4) Settings > Messages > Sign In

I had this problem on my macbook pro running 10.9.5 today in March 2015. After a frustrating 2 hrs, it seemed to boil down to this: If you have two-step verification for iCloud Apple ID (4 digit code to your phone to sign in online), then Apple is now requiring an "app specific password" for iMessage and FaceTime, since those applications don't use two step verification. Could not log into FaceTime using appleID-no error or wrong-password message - just would not work. I found out what was wrong by going to Message and trying to turn on the iMessage account .. after several unsuccessful tries using my iCloud AppleID password, I finally got prompted to go to get the app-specific password at iCloud online, It's 16 random letters generated by Apple that are for both FaceTime and iMessage ... and it worked, but no option to change the 16letters to something I could remember. Then I got so annoyed, I just went into iCloud settings online and turned off two-step verification - which also ended the requirement for the app specific password for FaceTime and iMessage. EEha so without two-step verification, AppleID and its associated pass now does work for everything Apple again - as they claim.

Apple software has become almost as opaque and non-inuitive as Microsoft's. If this app-specific password is suddenly a new requirement, why wouldn't Apple send out a broadcast email to everyone using 2-step verification?

HALLELUJA!!!.... I FINALLY figured this out. (also had this issue on my Mac)

tl;dr: Make sure you set "Date & Time", as well as "Time Zone" automatically, NOT manually.

I've had this issue for months but I simply chose to ignore it due to more pressing matters. I sincerely thought that the only way I could get rid of the problem was to factory-reset my computer....

Luckily, it was actually another bug that tipped me off on what might have been the problem:

I was receiving emails on the "Mail" app on my Mac that would say "Tomorrow" instead of a normal received "time stamp".... it was obviously bizarre, but again, I'd ignored it due to lack of time, and the relative minor issue.

Running a small hostel in Cancun, Mexico, I received a booking confirmation via Booking.com that caused a lot of issues due to the fact that the email said "You have a booking for tonight", when in reality, the booking was for tomorrow. This piqued my interest enough to look into the date and time/time zone issue, and I realized that for some reason, my computer was set to the timezone of "Shanghai", and that I had (for some reason) changed the time manually to reflect the correct time on my Mac. This seemed to bug-out quite a few apps which seem to draw on this information.

The original reason for me playing with the time on my Mac was that Cancun legally changed timezones back in February, so there was a moment after the legislation passed that both Google AND Apple were giving people the wrong time. Clients were even checking in saying that no one (not even pilots on intercoms upon landing), were 100% sure what the local time it was.

When I set my time zone to "Cancun" just now, my computer still displayed the wrong time, but when I set the "Date & Time" setting to automatic, much to my surprise, it corrected itself!

This was the "aha!" moment I had for iMessages. I figured that maybe, I could never log-in because iMessages might be trying to sync different times at the same time, causing it to continue on an infinite error-loop, and thus, never log on.

As we all know, much to my relief, this was the issue, and while this really is a "first world problem", it was definitely REALLY annoying to not be able to share information via one platform/device.

So once again:

Click the apple at the top-left > System Preferences > Date & Time > Date & Time Tab > Check box "Set date and time automatically"

Then: > Time Zone Tab > Check Box "Set time zone automatically using current location"

- David

This solved the same issue but for my iPad. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you 🙂 Worked well 😁

Yayyyyyy

Thanks Larryfilm, you had the solution!