contact number not registered with iMessage

Hi,

Starting a New Thread.

Obviously that transfers across the various Communities as Apple calls them (Forums).

I am also more familiar with the Mac Version of iChat and Messages rather than the iOS versions beyond setting them up.

Contacts that use phone Numbers MUST be on iPhone.
Where people swap to something else but do not de-register their iPhone from iMessages first can be an issue for you as they can appear as "Not Registered".

Also Macs that have been Off line and iPhones that have been switched off or not able to get Carrier Server or Wifi for a number of days will also show as "Not Registered".

Also some people may have iPhones but have stuck to using their Mac Only for iMessages and their iPhone number is not part of their set up.

As it is just some not working you may have to did a little to find out if it is Apple IDs or iPhone Numbers and check if your Contact information is up to date.

I certainly know that iMessages will not sync anything before the day you link an Apple ID and iPhone number.

I don't know if this is true with Calendar as I don't use it.

9:17 pm Sunday; February 15, 2015

Ralph,

Everything was working with messages on iMac. Suddenly ALL of my contacts phone numbers are red and say "xxx-xxx-xxx is not registered with iMessage." Now, I know all of my contacts suddenly did not turn off their phone numbers or de-register them.

Although this is not an SMS Forwarding issue, I can send messages from my iPhone, iPad, MBPR to iMessage and Non-iPhone users without issue.

This is ONLY an issue with the iMac suddenly not being able to send any message to any phone number (iMessage or otherwise)

i've signed out, signed in, airplane mode, deleted Apple ID, ensured that Phone # was the originator of the messages, ensured that email addresses were registered and checked on all the devices <sigh>

The only thing that has changed was a beta test of photo's for Yosemite in Parallels VM. It seems that something happened the instant i created the OS X Virtual machine and signed in with my apple ID.

My suspicion is that it hosed up the apple ID on the iMessages servers but I can see no way to reset this or fix it. Clean install won't resolve the issue if it is related to the ID itself.

Suggestions? Everything is setup correctly and have also deleted the .../xxxx.imessage.bag.plist and message.plist but no happiness.

Thanks for listening, just trying to prevent this from turning into a "I can't SMS Forward" thread.

Hi,

The iMessages servers send (push) individual iMessages to individual devices based on their specific registrations with the iMessages servers.

For a Mac this is done by creating an Auth Token in the Keychain that requires that the Serial Number is present on the Mac.

There are now several threads that mention people have VM versions of th OS running and suddenly they cannot connect.

Having several older versions of the OS on Partitions and External Drives means that I know that iTunes sees each one as a different "Computer" and counting towards 1 of your 5 computers that you can "register' with iTunes.

This is supposed to stop the illegal use of th Music you have that may be bought from the iTunes Store.

The Auth Token though is partially used to stop someone else pretending to be "you" and grabbing your iMessages.

Running an VM version of the OS now seems to be coupled with the issue about some Macs not seemingly logging in properly. (as this thread started talking about).

This issue seems to be a silent failure of the Login. (there are some other ones that give you error messages)

There is one where each time your try to iMessages someone they turn Red and say "Not Registered".

Another marks what appear to be sent iMessages as Not Delivered.

This is despite the ID working on other devices.

In these two cases the only fix seem to be to contact Apple Support and ask for a Level 2 person whilst saying you have an Apple ID issue (these are free to fix)

The problem then is convincing them to look at the iMessages servers and whether the computer involved shows up as a listed device.

As you can see a VM login would possible confuse this issue.

7:42 pm Saturday; March 7, 2015

I posted this in another similar thread. It's relevant so posting here as well.

So, I've yet to hear back from Apple. But the latest on that front is they sent an app to collect data which was provided.

iMessage is now fixed this morning but I think it might be related to activities I performed. Here is what I did, using some of Ralph's advice (thanks for the other response as well Ralph)

In Key Chain,

• Delete all references using 'iMessage' Search
• Delete "IDS: yourAppleID@someEmailServer.com"
• Delete "IDS: message-protection-key"
• Delete "IDS: message-protection-public-data-registered"
• Delete "iMessage Encryption Key"
• Delete "iMessage Signing Key"
• Delete "Apple ID <your apple id (xxx@xxx.com)> Key
• System Preferences -> iCloud -> Sign out and choose "Delete from mac for every option"
• Restart
• sign back in.

Now, the funny thing is that messages that i had were still showing red. However, someone messaged me shortly after and iMessages started working. I'm not s sure if the new incoming message finalized the handshake or not but i could then iMessage to that person with no issues. Others were still having problems so I Right-clicked the existing messages to "Clear Chat Transcript" then deleted that conversation (hover over the conversation, click the x... confirm.)

I was then able to create a new message to that person and send it. Also, simply by deleting the existing conversations (and failures) by clearing the transcript I was then able to leave the contacts and start using iMessage with them again.

I can not say that this completely resolved my issue on it's own. Apple Support may have done something in the background but considering I have not heard from them I'd say the issue is not resolved from their doing (they don't have a resolution yet or they would have emailed me.)

Hope this fixed it for me and consequentially works for anyone else.

Thanks Ralph for the insight and guidance that got me here.

Hi,

I take it the System Preferences this was not in the Keychain like the list suggests ?

The iCloud settings have nothing to do with iMessages and it servers.

If you look in System Preferences > iCloud there is nothing about iMessages or Messages (i.e it does not sync this with any other device). You cannot even enable the same ID for a AIM Login if it is @mac.com @me.com or @iCloud.com which can be used as valid AIM Screen Names.

You might well use the same Apple ID in both places and it might be registered as an iCloud Type ID (not all Apple IDs are iCloud valid).

You don't have to use the same ID is iTunes or App Store (these can be "paired" for the money side of things).

iTunes only protests when you have a 6th computer trying to use the same ID. (this can be the "same Computer " but different OS boots of different drives or Partitions - the servers see each boot as a different computer)

iMessages and FaceTime can be different again (I suggest the two keep to the same one so you can invoke iMessages/FaceTime Video chats with the same ID).

The Games Centre can be another Apple ID if you have that many.

All are separate from iCloud and it's sync and Mail services.

Deleting everything that is related to IDS in the Keychain does seem to be the feedback that people have been persuaded to try by Apple and in fairness does seem to work for some.

It is also fair to say that some report that nothing was solved in talking to Apple but the next day everything start to work.

Many report Apple don't seem to contact them back if this happens.

I must admit to tending to clear conversations from the main window if I haven't spoken to the person for a couple of days.

That is normal routing for me - and I tend to forget other people don't use the app the way I do.

Thanks for posting this as it does seem to give use some clues.

7:43 pm Wednesday; March 11, 2015

You are correct! the first time i looked it was not there. Couldn't find it anyplace. I did log out of all devices (iPad, iPhone, MBPR, iMac) and rebooted them all with the affected iMac being last. Then logged into them all with the iMac being last. That's when the "IDS: yourAppleID@someEmailServer.com" was back. However, still no functionality.

After that, is when I went through the keychain like a mad man deleting anything to do with iMessage, my apple ID, etc. as listed above. After another log out and reboot... all seems well. Even SMS is back (too old for continuity though)

I first encountered this problem when I activated Contacts under iCloud settings in Yosemite. After de-activating Contacts from iCloud, signing out, removing all of my devices from iMessages, and then re-adding them (not to mention all the 2-step verification processes), all my "RED" contacts are now "GREEN".

So apparently, iCloud does have something to do with Messages/iMessages/Contacts/etc. iCloud is lame.

rMPB, Yosemite 10.10.2 / iPhone 6, iOS 8.2

Hi,

It does not have to be iCloud but if you want the sync in Messages to work for the iMessages account the Contact App needs to be "synced".

This way people on your iPhone appear the same way on your Mac.

8:11 pm Wednesday; April 1, 2015

My email addresses were checked and good to go, but my iphone number was greyed out and not checked. I touched it and it opened a window and I was given the option to add it, did so, and that fixed my issue. Thanks for the hint that got me to this point!

You are welcome.

9:11 pm Tuesday; April 21, 2015

This happened to me - go to your iPhone and in setting go to messages and make sure iMessage is turned on. For me this solved the problem. I think what started the problem was I had to create a new password in iCloud - that seemed to mess up my iMessage between my mac and my iPhone.