Why won't my iMessage work with only one contact in my phone all my other iMessages send and they just got an iphone but all their iMessages are sending also. I've tried restarting my phone, deleting messages, contact, restarting network

I know this is 3 years on but it looks like there are a lot of fixes that do and don't work for different people. Like others my problem was triggered on just one contact after our phones were forced to send SMS to each other while 1 phone was out of service briefly (or in some peoples' case they were on the phone while sending message, etc).

This fix worked for me after trying all the others without success!! You will need to add yourself to your contacts before trying this. Just create a new contact with your number.

1. Compose a new message. Add the problem contact, and add yourself, creating a group chat
2. Send message in the group chat. Should automatically send as iMessage
3. Go back to your regular thread with the contact and send another message. At this point it should have changed to iMessage again

You can now delete the group chat and everything should stay normal.

Hope this can help someone else!

This is real late but going to post it anyway. I had the same issue with just one contact sending as text messages, i read all the fixes on here and one stood out for me. Go to settings<messages< start new conversation< and uncheck your email and just use the phone number and it worked. Weird because i never had a problem with having email and phone number checked but hopefully it works for you and anybody else.

I got the fix!!! Go to settings>messages>send&recieve>Start New Conversation From> Chose one of your email's listed>send a message with one of the emails as the starting conversation address>the message should go thru as blue now> now go back and change the imessage options back to your phone number as the starting convo address.

It should work now! This worked for me.

This is useless. The person's question and my question was how to fix iMessage for one individual contact when iMessage is already working for other contacts. Mario at apple support provided instruction for enabling iMessage in general. Do you people at apple support seriously not know how to fix this? I don't understand why there is not on option, on your contact, for sending a text message as either an sms text message which requires just regular cellphone coverage or iMessage that requires a wifi connection or a data plan. Why can't you choose between one or the other. This is one of just many things that really irks me about apple. The only reason I got an iPhone was because of my wife and that's it. I had a friend who was trying to contact me but his iPhone was defaulting to iMessage. I never got his messages because I don't have nor do I want a data plan. I noticed most iPhone users don't even know the difference between text and iMessage and they also don't understand the difference between green message background and blue message background. C'mon man! Answer the question. That is if you can.

Hello Jesslb23,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

For more information on this, take a look at:

iOS: Troubleshooting Messages

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2755

To resolve issues with sending and receiving iMessages, follow these steps first

1. Check iMessage system status for current service issues.
2. Go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive and make sure that you have registered iMessage with your phone number or Apple ID and that you have selected iMessage for use. Learn more about troubleshooting iMessage registration if the phone number or Apple ID isn't available for use.
3. Open Safari and navigate to www.apple.com to verify data connectivity. Learn more about troubleshootingcellular data or a Wi-Fi connection if a data connection isn't available.
4. iMessage over cellular data might not be available while on a call. Only 3G and faster GSM networks support simultaneous data and voice calls. Learn more about which network your phone supports. Go to Settings > Wi-Fi and turn Wi-Fi on to use iMessage while on a call if your network doesn't support simultaneous data and voice calls.
5. Restart your device.
6. Tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings on your iPhone.

If you are still unable to send or receive an iMessage, follow these steps

1. Make sure that the contact trying to message you isn't blocked in Settings > Messages > Blocked.
2. Verify that the contact you are attempting to send a message to is registered with iMessage.
3. If the issue occurs with a specific contact or contacts, back up or forward important messages and delete your current messaging threads with the contact. Create a new message to the contact and try again.
4. If the issue occurs with a specific contact or contacts, delete and re-create the contact in the Contacts application. Create a new message to the newly created contact and try again.
5. Back up and restore your device as new.

Best of luck,

Mario

I am having this trouble with only one contact. i have deleted the contact and added it; tried just sending a new text to the email address, but all it does is go via by text message. Now it won't even let me send a photo to the one contact. all other iMessages go via. i do not have Preferences under Messages in my Settings as you noted above, which seemed to have helped others. Can you please advise where this is? Thanks!!!

I tried all suggestions. Nothing has worked. And this only happens with one contact which is another iPhone. However text will only send if I tap on undelivered blue text's red 'i". Then tap on the option to "send as text". Then the message goes in green. I've tried everything. Been working on this for DAYS!

I tried all of these suggestions without success, but by dumb luck this worked for me-

Opened the contact info for the one that was sending sms, and opened the iMessage link from there. For whatever reason it worked the first time, and all subsequent messages are going through fine. This is after a couple of days of going through only in green.

Weird, but worth a shot!

This is real late but going to post it anyway. I had the same issue with just one contact sending as text messages, i read all the fixes on here and one stood out for me. Go to settings<messages< start new conversation< and uncheck your email and just use the phone number and it worked. Weird because i never had a problem with having email and phone number checked but hopefully it works for you and anybody else.

Reset your network settings. But before turn off your iMessage.

Then re enter your wifi password and your iMessage. That worked for me

After exhausting all suggestions from Apple, including being given a case number and being told that someone would contact me, I called AT&T. The AT&T tech was very helpful and expressed exasperation that Apple techs did not give me the correct method to restore the one contact in my iPhone that I could not text. The tech from AT&T said that Apple knows how to fix the problem, and doesn't know why they put me through at least 4 grueling hours of "fixes". So now I'm wondering what is Apple's problem that they are not telling us how to fix this, but instead they let us languish on this page asking eachother for help! Ridiculous!

Here's what worked for me: 1.) Write down all the contact's information before deleting anything. 2.) Delete all iMessages from that particular contact. 3.) Delete not only messages just to that contact, but also all group messages including that contact. 4.) Delete that contact from your iPhone contacts list. When you're sure you've deleted all traces of that contact in your iPhone then do number 5.) Re-enter into the contact list just the contact's phone number but do not enter the last digit of that number. Instead substitute x for the last digit. 6.) After that is done to to your iMessages and type in the contact's number ending in the letter x and send a test message. If the message is still undelivered then delete that text and the number in your contact list and go through steps 1-4 but when you get to step 5 re-enter the contact's phone number substituting the number 0 for the last digit. Then send another test text.

This is what fixed the problem for me. Now if Apple would fix the bug once and for all we all won't have to go through all these steps to make the darn iPhones work! Apple owes us some credit on our next iPhone purchase, that is if anyone is still an iPhone fan. I'm thinking there'll be a lot of disgruntled iPhone users switching to Samsung!

I was having the same problem. It worked for me when I reset all settings. But I usually keep my text size to the smallest. After resetting all settings and seeing that it worked, I began changing all my settings back to the way I like. As soon as I changed the text size, the problem popped up again. I was unable to text just one specific person.

I changed my text size back to the middle, and it allowed me to open and send the messages.

Apple will not fix this because they don't care. They only care about one thing, making you spend another $1000 on their next phone. Every two years, another thousand dollars from your pocket. If you are sick of being used for purposes of only making them richer and richer, switch to another phone company.

Caution, do not buy the Google Pixel. that was my first move away from apple, BIG mistake.

I Am having the same issue!! Nothing will fix this problem! I have deleted the contact and re-entered it and nothing! I do not have Preferences as an option under Messages either. I need help!!

I am having this same problem with my father and his iphone. We both have the SE and verified all the password settings etc. He can call and text me (or ims me or whatever the proper terminology is for when you are text messaging another iphone user with your iphone) and I can call him but when I text him he is not receiving the texts. He can send and receive texts among other people and I can as well. It is just that my texts to him are not going through. At first I thought he had accidentally blocked me but I checked his phone and I am not blocked.

But my question is in regard to the solution about substituting a X for the last digit- how would that even work? Of course a text won't go through to a number with a letter in it or else with a 9 in it??? Then substituting a 0 is still the wrong number...? None of the tech people have been able to help me with this question.