Unable to Activate iMessage after changing mobile carrier

Hi, jpavanaryan.

Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.

Here is a helpful troubleshooting article that may resolve the issue.

If you see "Waiting for Activation", "Activation unsuccessful", or "An error occurred during activation"

These messages occur when your iPhone is trying to activate your phone number with iMessage or FaceTime.

To resolve these status messages, follow these steps. After each step, turn FaceTime and iMessage off and on again in Settings > Messages and Settings > FaceTime.

1. Update to the latest version of iOS.
2. Make sure that you have a cellular network connection with your cellular provider. You need a cellular network connection to activate iMessage and FaceTime with your iPhone phone number.
3. Go to www.apple.com in Safari to make sure that you have a data connection. You need a data connection to activate iMessage and FaceTime with your iPhone phone number.
4. Make sure that you can send and receive SMS. You need a valid SMS messaging plan to activate FaceTime and iMessage.
5. Make sure that FaceTime hasn't been restricted: tap Settings > General > Restrictions > FaceTime.
6. Set iPhone to the correct time zone: tap Settings > General > Date & Time.
   Note: If Set Automatically is on but the incorrect time zone appears, turn Set Automatically off and choose the correct time zone, date, and time.
7. Contact your carrier to verify that there are no restrictions, blocks, or filters on text messages. Restrictions, blocks, or filters on text messaging will prevent iMessage and FaceTime registration from completing.

If "Waiting for Activation" still appears after you perform these steps, turn FaceTime and iMessage off and on in Settings > Messages and Settings > FaceTime. You may need to wait up to 24 hours to complete activation. Most attempts will take less than an hour, but some attempts may take up to 24 hours. If your issue isn't resolved after 24 hours, please contact Apple for assistance. If you've recently performed a remote wipe on your iPhone, wait 24 hours from the time you performed the remote wipe, and then turn iMessage off then back on.You can still activate iMessage and FaceTime with your Apple ID when these status messages appear. You can see that you've activated FaceTime and iMessage with your Apple ID by tapping:

• Settings > FaceTime > You can be reached by FaceTime at:
• Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > You can be reached by iMessage at:

iOS: Troubleshooting FaceTime and iMessage activation

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts4268

Cheers,

Jason H.

Dear Apple, I have also problem with activating iMessage

when I activated iMessage for the first time I was using carrier T-mobile (Slovakia). Everything was fine, iMessage was succesfully activated after a few minutes.

Later I switchted my carrier to Orange. By switching a carrier I mean that I ported my number to another carrier. Exactly from that moment I wasn't able to activate iMessage. I was using Orange for a half of year and during these months I tried countless times to activate iMessage - unsuccesfully. I have countless times reseted my iPhone and reseted Network settings. I have even tried to put my SIM card into another iPhones and tried to activate iMessage - unsuccesfully. I was also actively communicating with Orange Slovakia and they tried to solve this problem couple a monhts. The result: when I was trying to activate iMessage with my old number ported to Orange - It was never succesfully activated. I tried to put another SIM card to my iPhone from all of carriers (O2, Orange, T-mobile) and everytime iMessage activated succesfully. Sending SMS was not blocked and there were not any of restrictions on my SIM card - I know it for 100% sure because the Orange staffs were communicating with me for a months trying to solve the problem. I was also billed for about of 30 activating SMS monhtly. We have open topic on Orange's support forums where many people have the same problem - when they ported number from one carrier to another - iMessage can't be activated throught SMS. Orange tried to solve the problem for a monhts and they came to the result, that Apple is not able to reactivate the number after its porting to another carrier.

A few days ago I again ported my number - back to T-mobile. So I switched Orange back to T-mobile. And guess what? iMessage was activated from the first try.

So please, fix the problem. When I activate some number to iMessage, Apple save in their database that the number belongs e.g. to T-mobile. But when later I trying to activate this number from Orange, Apple don't send activating SMS back. This is on Apple. No iPhone is at fault, no network carrier is fault, Apple has this bug in ther iMessage service and has to fix it. Please, don't post generic tutorials to 100x reset my iPhone etc. - IT DOES NOT WORK. Apple has to fix this problem at iMessage side.

I have the EXACT same problem!

I was using iMessage with my iphone 5 in 012 Mobile and YouPhone in Israel (both are virtual providers of Orange Israel) and never had any activation issues.

I switched to Pelephone a month ago and since then iMessage activation is failing and the service doe not work. i have tried EVERYTHING!

Updating,Restoring, all the guides I could find in Youtube and here - nothing helped.

its not my device because when I inserted my friend's nano-sim - it activated in a second and my sim in her phone did not activate..

Please solve this issue instead of posting "turn imessage off and on.." - its not working. the problem is somewhere in apple..

Assaf

It is still not fixed. Today I switched a Slovak carrier/ I ported my number from O2 to Orange and iMessage is not working any more. Apple tutorial is not helping. so please Apple, fix the problem!