Q: I can't log in to Messages or FaceTime with my iCloud account.

This is a tough problem.  My iCloud generally works great, but I've tried absolutely everything on this message board that Ralph or others have said for Messages/Face Time. 

I can get Messages and/or FaceTime to briefly log in but then within 5 seconds they dump me back out again with the standard error message that I could not log in or there was a problem.

I have a 2010 Mac Pro that I personally upgraded to 2x2.93 processors, an iPhone 6, an iPad Air 2, etc.  The serial number of the logic board still shows up.  Message ran fine in Mavericks and for a while in Yosemite.  I think text forwarding even worked for awhile.  I think the problems began after I deleted an old AIM login and might have temporarily turned off Messages.

One interesting thing is that 3 different names for my Mac Pro show up in the Text Forwarding setting on my iPhone 6.  Two are old names that I changed away from while I was setting up the Apple Server app on my Mac Pro.  For some reason, the two old Mac names did not delete.  Perhaps this is confusing Messages?  I looked in Find My Mac and only my current Mac Pro computer name is there.  Another odd thing is that my iCloud info on the web shows that two of my old iPads (an original mini and iPad 3 that I am selling) show up as 'logged in iOS 8' even though I have successfully wiped them.  They do NOT show up on Find My Phone.

On the Mac Pro, as noted, I have of course zapped PRAM, dumped the keychain, signed in and out of iCloud more broadly, deleted the various .plist files suggested, etc. etc. and I can still only get brief access to Messages on my Mac.

Any suggestions?  Perhaps the few odd things above could be hints for others?

Hi,

In that case I would contact Apple Support and suggest to them you have an Account issue with iMessages.

Stick to the premise that it an Account issue as they will tend to use their Apple Care "hat" and say that it is a Hardware or Software issue and try and charge you for out of Care phone support.

They will not charge if the issue is Account related.

we know from other error messages in Messages that their can be Mac Only issue with your Account/Apple ID

It stands to reason that some will find it affects their Apple ID on the iPhone as well.

8:17 pm      Monday; November 3, 2014

Hi,

Form Another Thread I had the info about looking up which devices were logged in to my Account in iCloud (as opposed to anywhere else where the Apple ID is used) and I too found it listed an iPhone 4s that I have turned Off and removed the apple ID form in Messages and the iCloud settings (plus a few other things like Game Center and FaceTime before then doing Factory Reset)

After seeing it listed I too checked the iPhone (I had to Charge it even to see the Settings.  It was soooo Off line).

If you means that in Messages > Preferences > Accounts > iMessages account that any Apple Email you used with Messages are showing up (even if ticked as Inactive don't disappear then this is standard practice.

Even Signing Out does not remove the Current Apple ID fully (it lists it in the text field until you change it).

You have to delete the relevant .plist to remove the list and the "aliases" that show up.

Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences and Drag com.apple.ids.service.com.apple.madrid.plist to the Trash.

Restart Messages.

The iMessages Server is separate from the others.

Whilst the app does check the central data base for the Login (the same way iTunes, the App Store, Game Center, FaceTime, Mail/iCloud itself, iPhoto's Photostream) they tend to be all separate servers and the Logins are independent of each other.

To say you are logged in OK to iCloud  or any of the other apps and services means little in effect.

It is known that if you see this Error Message it only affects an iMessages login on a Mac.

There is an issue with iMessages logins if the AppleGothic.ttf Font is inactive or faulty in some way.

As it is NOT in /System/Library/Fonts (where required Fonts are normally found) some people have been turning it Off as they think it is not needed.

8:34 pm      Monday; November 3, 2014

This worked for me.

schorg wrote:

 

iMessage and FaceTime login did not work for one account, the other accounts were ok.

Since I use the login keychain for various passwords I did not want to reset the whole keychain.

 

Finally it helped to delete a single entry in the account's login keychain:

IDS: <apple-id-or-icloud-account>-AuthToken

 

Since I did not find this hint anywhere, I post it here.

 

Schorg

 

I finally got this working by going back and zapping pram about 5 times in a row.  It then worked correctly.  Before that I did a clean install, and dozens of other things but only the multiple pram zap worked.  Sigh.

I spent several hours over the past few weeks troubleshooting my inability to use iMessage in 10.9.5 after upgrading my AppleID password to something stronger per Apple's request. Ever since that password upgrade I saw the below error message. So I deleted numerous preference files, logged in via another user account, via another partition with Mavericks, via another partition with Yosemite, and the result was the same. Then I tried my AppleID with iMessage on my wife's MacBook Pro and it worked. So that narrowed it down to my MacPro 2009 hardware somehow. Then I saw the above recommendation to zap the PRAM and that brought back memories of OS's from 7-9 and I said what the ****. Two zaps and it worked. What a relief.

I spent two weeks with Apple Support and their engineering team regarding this issue.  We went through pretty much everything that has been discussed on this forum with no luck.  After looking at several data captures, they noticed some firmware was out of date which was causing the issue.  I'm not able to use Messages!!!

1. Power Off Machine
2. Hold 'cmd' + 'option' + 'r' + 'p' (all at once)
3. Listen for two apple chimes (I believe your computer will continue to cycle until you release this key combination)
4. Release keys (let os boot)
5. Sign in to Messages

Hope this helps someone else!