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User profile for user: dompym
dompym Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

How to fix iOS7 iMessage and FaceTime (phone number) activation issue

There seems to be a lot of people with iMessage and FaceTime issues (likely since iOS7 and the iPhone 5S were released). I pretty much tried everything on the Apple Support site, and whatever I could find published on the web. Nothing seemed to work 100% of the time (or at all in some cases).


It seems to me to be an activation issue. Logic says that your registered iCloud / Apple ID phone number needs to match the phone number of the device you are activating from. Logic prevails...I've checked this fix using different Apple ID's and it seems to work perfectly.


Simply follow these steps to fix iMessage and FaceTime activation issues:


1. Switch OFF iMessage and FaceTime on your iOS device

2. Log in to Apple's "Manage your Apple ID" site (https://appleid.apple.com/)

3. Click on the "Phone Numbers" option

4. Replace the "1" in the "Country Code" field with your local country code (if you don't know it check online here: http://countrycode.org)

5. Put in the phone number of the device you are trying to activate (Note: I'm not sure which field Apple validate against in iOS7 so just update them all)

6. Switch ON iMessage and FaceTime on your iOS device


Voila! All good for me on many devices with different phone numbers, using different Apple ID's. Hope that helps.

iOS 7

Posted on Oct 6, 2013 1:57 AM

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8 replies
User profile for user: dompym
dompym Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Oct 6, 2013 2:46 AM in response to dompym

Notes for Apple:


The symptom is that Country Code "1" is appended to the whole mobile/cell number on people's Apple ID (instead of the correct Country Code being parsed from the actual number).


The Country Code field on people's Apple ID ends up with an erroneous "1" in it (likely default value as it's a mandatory field, or similar) and the actual Country Code ends up appended to the phone number and stored in the Phone Number field.


So in my case, as I'm in Australia, my Apple ID Phone Number said "614########" and the Country Code was set to "1". Obviously the Country Code should be "61" and the Phone Number should start at the third digit ("4" in this case).


Of course, I'm not sure if this issue is caused by the iOS7 installation, registration or activation processes for iCloud, iMessage or FaceTime (one or all of them) or perhaps a recent update/cleansing to the iCloud or Apple ID database itself.


Over to you...

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User profile for user: caljim
caljim
User level: Level 1
15 points

Jan 3, 2014 10:57 PM in response to dompym

I can't enter 1 for the US and the phone number work around doesn't work. I've tried a variety of fixes recommended on these forums but so far nothing works on iOS 7.0.4. Facetime is logged in with the correct Apple ID but nothing works to chage from an old ID for iMessage. So we use Whats App. What a huge waste of time for so many users. Consider the economic cost to users of this relatively minor bug.


If some Apple grunt would look at these threads sometime in the past few years they would see this is a problem and fix it. That isn't the way things work at Apple. Sad.


Maybe if I take this to an Apple store then it will end up in their bug fix list.

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How to fix iOS7 iMessage and FaceTime (phone number) activation issue

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