imessage and Facetime sign in activation error iPad ios8.1.2

I don't know when it started happening to me but i noticed sunday noon i was not getting any iMessage to my iPad and mac, so i thought a simple turning it off and back on would work but i didnt even see that screen, only saw the login part. Like some people mentioned here, when i type the password in it logs me in and than quickly goes back to the previous login screen for me again or it just doesnt move past that screen. Funnily i did discover that "use a phony account detail and than cancel when the pop up comes up and use my original details" method on my my own but sadly it didnt work for me. I did reset my networking settings and it didnt work either. Now iMessage and FaceTime doesnt work on my iPhone 6 plus, iPad Air 2 and MBP 2013. I'm so frustrated with the issue and my OCD just won't let me ignore it to live with it, i have yet to call customer support because i don't have patience to be kept waiting but if i have to i might by end of the week. Meanwhile any other solutions? I am on the latest iOS and OS X versions. Also unlike some people i have not done any 1 to 1 exchanges with apple, however I'm curious if apple will do a 1 to 1 for my MBP because its out of warranty if i go to them with this issue just like how some people get a 1 to 1 on their iPads.

I also noticed another thing, just to try i used my friend's iTunes account and logged in on my iPhone and iPad and mac and it all works fine, so it seems like only certain accounts are experiencing this issue, i think this has been mentioned previously but just thought i would throw it out there again. APPLE PLEASE FIX THIS MESS UP ITS DRIVING ME NUTS!!!

I Had to totally wipe it and restore it. The tech helped me through it back it up on it urges, if you encrypt it you will have all your settings and passwords saved. Worked for me almost two months ago, still fine. Good luck!

Even I am experiencing the same problem. It was working well the last night and today morning, everything gone. I thought I was the only one with the curious case but I see many of us have the same problem. I can use it on my iphone but ipad isn't letting me sign in to either facetime ot messages. It is so frustrating. Hope they come up with a solution quickly.

My new iPad mini 3 ios 8.2 had a working iMessage. Then one morning (March 20, 2015) it wouldn't send messages. So I made a big mistake and slid the slider to the off position and restarted my iPad mini. The slider is gone for both Facetime and iMessage. The only thing there is the login. At first, I was getting the Activation error/ network message. Spent 3 hours trying to figure it out. Went to the Apple store, they were clueless. Had me back my stuff up to the cloud and then they reset my iPad and put everything back on. It didn't help. Went home, called Apple. After 3 reps and more resets of various types (I have no idea what they told me to do, this is my first Apple device.) I got a senior tech who has bumped this up to the engineers twice. He walked me thru backing it up thru iTunes and restoring it as a new device (and we both think it didn't work because it happened too fast).

I have the date and time zone correct, I put it on auto, turned on location services for the date.

At some point in this so far 8 day saga, I stopped getting the error message. I log in, the login wheel goes around, 4 seconds later it goes back to login. I can turn off auto time update, turn off location services and still no error message. I can change the time zone, no error message. I can put in the wrong password, and it knows it's wrong and asks for it again. I can put in the wrong appleID, cancel when it asks for the password again, put in the correct id and password and it asks me which address I want to use - my apple id or the other one I set up. It doesn't matter what I choose, it goes to 'verifying' and then back to the log in.

The last thing the rep said before he told me he'd send it back to the engineers is that we may need to get a replacement iPad. It would not be new, but a reconditioned one. I told him that I really don't want that. I can't believe it's a hardware problem.

Everything else works with my id, iTunes, the cloud etc. I'm waiting for yet another call back. I'm thinking of trying to wipe my iPad yet again on my own.

Could it be a corrupted 8.2 update? I don't know. I did update (over the air) but it was working after that. And since I haven't figured out how to do a 'fresh install' of the OS on it, I'm kinda stuck. Along with all the other people with this problem Apple is not acknowledging.

I don't have another iPad to try my id out on. I have tried it out on 2 other networks after the Apple reps first thought it was MY network.

If it makes any difference, my iPad was purchased new at the end of Nov 2014 and given to me as a gift in Jan 2015. I started using iMessage about 4 days before it stopped working.

I was given the iPad over a tablet from another company because the giver said I wouldn't have to worry about problems "Apple just works"

I am in the exact same situations n as you. I have my issue with a senior tech as well. My account works on other iPads FaceTime And my son in law's accont works on my iPads facetime. But it doesn't work on mine. I created a new Apple id and that does not work either. It is almost the activation database issue on their end.

When did yours stop working?

I feel like my log in is accepted to a point and then bounced. How else would it know if I put in the wrong password?

And it's odd that new AppleIDs won't work. But you say your son in law's AppleID works on your iMessage on your iPad - and your AppleID works on other iPads so it's not the iPad itself, it's a combination of the userID and and some identifier within these non working iMessage/Facetime iPads...

I only first set up iMessage on 3/14/2015 and it quit working sometime after midnight on 3/20. What was odd was an alarm went off at 6am - and there wasn't one set and I never could figure out what alarm it was.

OH. Did they have you make sure your time and time zone were correct? I saw where putting it on automatic (general, Time and Date) helped. You also need location services on. Please post if that works or if the senior tech comes up with anything for you

good luck!

Just wanted to update you guys on my situation, i posted earlier saying i would call tech support and i did, got put on hold form more than an hour it was miserable. Like every one was referred to a senior tech officer who had no idea whats causing this issue either and i was just told to wait till they figure out. Interestingly though, when the tech guy asked to put my iCloud account on 'troubleshoot mode' (basically change my password to one apple knows off so they can access my account for further info on the issue) my keychain got messed up and i noticed it 1 week later. So i called again (2 days ago) and another support officer assisted me to fix the keychain, later that night i decided to just try and login for the sake of it and surprisingly it went in and needless to say i was happy and threw myself a little party in my room. Next day, it stopped working again, my iPad and macbook both, interestingly though, just a few minutes before it stopped working i got a cellular phone call to show up on my iPad too. So I don't know what happened or what went wrong, don't know if its apple servers but if it is why is it only affecting certain accounts? What do all the affected accounts have in common? Is apple servers picking random accounts to screw over?

it is so freaking inconvenient without having FaceTime and iMessage working, got so used quickly to iOS 8 features and its a pain now without it, hopefully they fix it soon or iOS 9 fixes it!!!!!

I got yet another call back from "my" senior tech. He wanted to put my iCloud account in troubleshooting mode. But it took a while and he ran out of time before we actually did it. He called back later to tell me that the engineers had done something server side and he wanted to know if it had helped. Nope. We're going to try again next week.

SSame here. But iPad air is okay, my second iPad 3 has an activation error for iMessage and FaceTime. Did all the steps you performed to no avail. I wisha apple tech would just admit there is a problem and offer that they are working on it to alleviate all the headaches.

This is an issue on Apple's Side. The engineers sent a mass email to all senior techs that had RTAs in on Thursday. My FaceTime was up and running on Friday. Amy wouldn't tell me what they did. But it worked for both my original account and the second one that I set up but didn't work initially.

guys, i have a feeling this issue might be related to a glitch or problem with keychain or atlas for some of us. After getting this problem i managed to get my iMessage and FaceTime to work for literally a few hours before running into the same problem again. However, right before i got it to work i had called apple again to troubleshoot a issue with keychain. When i changed my password (something apple tech asks you to do to put your account in "troubleshoot mode") i ran into a issue with activating keychain and i think i entered the password wrongly a few times by mistake and my keychain got locked. So when i called apple another tech guy helped me with the issue by doing something on their servers end. If i'm not wrong he turned of the verification part when trying to activate my keychain on my devices allowing me to bypass it, so i just had to turn it on and no sms of the verification code etc. So once i got that solved, later that night i randomly just tried to logged in on iMessage/facetime and i went right in, no issues. The next day of course it stopped working again.

Now why i say it might be keychain related is because, how coincidental is that when i troubleshoot with keychain all of a sudden iMessage and FaceTime comes back running again. Also thats not the only thing, on my mac when i try to activate FaceTime particularly i get this error:

FaceTime wants your confidential information stored in "IDS:MYAPPLEID-authtoken" in your keychain

Always allow Deny Allow

Regardless of clicking always allow or just allow i get taken back to the login screen, upon some googling apparently its an issue related to keychain on the mac. Previously when i got it to work i had a feeling it could be something to do with keychain thats why the issue arose, but i didnt think much of it because i was just glad to having working again. Only when googling this issue earlier it occurred to me again. Now i don't know if everyone's issue is keychain related too but i think mine is, and it might have something to do on apple's servers but I'm not sure, did you guys have any issues or anything at all with keychain on your devices when iMessage and FaceTime quit working?

And those who managed to get it working, did your solution have anything to do with resetting keychain or anything at all with keychain?

I've never used keychain and my ipad mini is my only Apple device that has any login.

My senior tech called last night to do a test on my ipad but first he wanted me to update to 8.3. It took a while so he's calling back tonight.

8.3 didn't help. Thankfully, so far, nothing else has broken. So as far as I can tell it didn't hurt either.

On a weird note, I noticed (before I went to 8.3) that when I try to reply here using my iPad, sometimes the reply button doesn't work and I have to use something else.

I honestly didn't think it would. I don't think they know why it's happening. That's why they are having everyone reset or restore their machines when they call in. For those of us who have tried everything, that doesn't work either. It really seems like the ID database for message and Facetime is corrupted. It lets us get to a certain point (verifying what address we want to use for the app) and then bounces us back to the signin screen.

Just from reading here, it seems a lot of us with this problem have new (in the last 6 months) AppleIDs and/or iPads.

Well if you only have a iPad mini and nothing else than like I thought only some of use or maybe even just me, have the issue being related to keychain. I managee to get on th phone with my senior tech adviser earlier, told him about my thought and he seemed to agree with me. Got me to send a screen shot of the error message i got on the mac and said he would be elevating that up to higher authority to get that figured out and said he'd get in touch again when he gets feedback on that issue