Apple ID on El Capitan does not work at all

I'm having a similar problem and have read many forums about fixes. Basically Messages and FaceTime fail to login although all other iCloud / AppleID functions are fine. I've done all the other "fixes" listed on multiple forums to no solution. I've even reinstalled El Capitan on the advice of the senior advisor Shawn Foster who I spent an hour with on the phone. He was to call me back after my reinstall of the OS to keep working on the problem but that was a week ago and he continues to not return messages left on his voicemail. Very frustrating.

The serial number, date/time, location are all accurate. This Terminal option from apenguin does not fix the problem; this seems like a server side problem with Apple and nothing to do with the computer.

I think you should just downgrade it to Yosemite. It is much better. I had the same problem. I erased the whole system. I downloaded the Yosemite on Torrent. Then installed it. Now, I have no problem whatsoever and everything works just fine. By the way, there isn't a huge difference between Yosemite and El Capitan.

I'm not sure it's just with El Capitan. My other computers have it and have no problem. For some reason the Apple servers have stopped authenticating this particular PC and they are not helping at all to fix it...the Tier 2 agent is not answering my multiple messages left for him. I've read multiple forums about this and it apparently is a server side fix only once all the other steps have been done to no avail.

I had this same problem, of not being able to log into anything related to my Apple ID, after migrating some users to one particular iMac. Several other iMacs were working fine with my Apple ID. I spent an entire day trying out EVERY suggestion in this thread, including rebuilding El Capitan. What finally worked for me was rebuilding the Permissions. The clue to this was getting an error message when I first started up iTunes that said I was not "Authorized to do this" activity. However, El Capitan no longer allows rebuilding the Permissions through the Disk Utility (I have no idea why). I read somewhere that Apple is now taking care of the Permissions in some other way???

Anyway, I was able to still rebuild the permissions using the free El Capitan version the utility Onyx. Many thanks to Titanium Software for this handy app. Now all things iCloud are working well. In fact, the entire computer is now working much faster than before.

Any of you who haven't been able to get any satisfaction from the other solutions in this thread might want to try it.

My graceously aging off-warranty iMac lost S/N after installing El Capitan ("Serial Number Unavailable") and hanged whenever attempting to use my Apple ID. The only solution that worked for me was to reserialize it.

Luckily, I got an assistance with it from Apple which, within 1.5 from my initial call, authorized that job and directed me to a local Apple-authorized service at Microcenter store in Flushing, NY. Ironically, the service manager, after I dragged my heavy iMac there (they do not provide appointment scheduling and not even an ability to talk directly to a Mac tech over the phone) informed me they do not perform deserialization on Macs. Luckily, Apple immediately assisted me over the phone by setting an appointment 2 hours later in a NYC Apple store located 1 hour drive away from that inferior service operation at Microcenter. I was out of the Apple store in 20min with my iMac reserialized free of charge.

Important related questions remain: why Apple does not know what are the actual capabilities of the authorized service places, why there is no tiered catalog of services to avoid similar confusion and why clients are not made aware of it?

Just posting this as it may be helpful to others.

I always knew that my MacBook Pro was missing a serial number in About this Mac ever since the logic board got replaced five years ago. That never caused any problem for me. (Except that I wouldn’t be able to use my mobile number to receive messages on my MacBook. But I never used that anyway, so I didn’t bother.)

About two months after upgrading to 10.11.3 I ran into the following problem: I could not log in to the AppStore on my MacBook Pro. When starting apps I purchased on the AppStore I would get the error message that those apps were not purchased on this Mac (which they were). I was prompted to enter the Apple ID and password from the account they’ve been purchased with. After doing so nothing happened, no error message, just nothing. After a couple of tries and even resetting the Apple ID’s password the apps stopped working altogether and even stopped asking for the ID / password.

After contacting Apple Support via phone they suggested to do an Archive Install of the OS … which didn’t help. After my second call to the Apple Support they scheduled an appointment at the local Apple Store the next day. After hooking up my MacBook Pro to their analysis software literally the first thing that popped up was the fact that the serial number is missing. After the Apple Genius entered the serial everything worked fine. Took ten minutes altogether and so far everything seems to be working fine.

tl;dr If your Mac is missing a serial number due to some replaced hardware you need to get it fixed at an Apple Store.

this worked beautifully for both itunes login and app store!! I got a brand new MacBook Pro in the mail today and it had this login issue off the bat where it would just spin and spin and spin - literally spent hours with the apple staff trying to fix it only for them to tell me it's their server issue. I know it's not that because I can sign in and out just fine on all other apple products - anyway thank you thank you!!!

Thanks so much, this worked for me on my FIRST MacBook Pro i bought and tried to Setup today.

Hopefully Apple will get this fixed ASAP!

As stated above ist my first MacBook Pro. Many years ago i had a mac mini, and now i wanted to Switch from Windows Laptop (which has many issues) to mac, so i have to say I'm little bit disappointed about this issue an first start and Setup of new MBPR.

I'm simply stunned that this issue is still going on (thread started in 2015) because the only solution given to me when I "lost" my photos upgrading from 10.6.8 to 10.10.01 on my 2010 MBP was to go to El Capitan (which would install Photos, replacing the defunct iPhoto). (the 10.00.03 updater refused to recognize my machine).

Since upgrading to El Capitan EVERYTHING associated with AppleID (App Store, messages, iTunes) does not recognize my apple ID. Obviously it still works because I'm here, and I can sign on iCloud with a browser, but that's it. To make a long story short, spent a lot of time with an Apple Specialist Supervisor gathering logs, screen shots, etc, but in the end he said it was a "known bug" and that engineers are working on it. Wow, like I said, this thread starts in 2015 and this "known bug" keeps people from BUYING stuff in the App store, you'd think they'd have a patch by now! He said he is turning it (back) over to engineers (2nd try to fix this). I can't go back to Yose because I have no Time Machine back up, this was a secondary machine, which needs to be El Capitan for my new iPhone SE to link to. UNACCEPTABLE to have this bug so long, especially because it is costing Apple real money in lost revenue.

My serial number is fine, BTW, not a refurb.

Thank you merci beaucoup grazie mille!!! After upgrading to OS 10.11 (iMac mid 2007) i couldn't log in to iTune/Apple Store/ iCloud/Messages. I was on the phone for hours with Apple "experts" ... jumping through hoops ... they clearly had no idea what was wrong and were just trying out one thing after another ... I loathe and detest all the footeling around trying to solve a simple problem ... life is so short ... am still puzzled by their lack of interest in a money-losing (for them — I buy a fair number of movies and records) bug ... your solution -- boot the machine in "safe" mode and then sign in -- is so elegant in its simplicity ... worked like a charm.

Thanks for posting this. I've been trying to do updates and cannot login to the Apple store during the process. I have 2 accounts that I know to be working as I've logged into both of them from Safari. Neither works. I haven't try to buy anything but I would like the latest updates.

Sigh....

Ok, so i had this issue after updating to elcapitan as well, also i could not log into ANY internet account and my keychain wasnt working correctly. I tried everything, deleting plists, changing permissions, the works. I finally found a solution and hopefully this will work for everyone. I found a command under system>library>internetaccounts>internetaccountmigrator. all you need to do is click on this, it will run a command in terminal, i think you will need to enter the admin pw, and boom.... it will show a readout of what it did, mine cleared out a bunch of expired sessions and then i was able to log into icloud under system preferences > internet accounts. Once logged into icloud, i was able to log into all of my other accounts, and my keychain was once again working. I believe this is because I had my settings configured to have icloud back up my internet accounts and keychain, whatever it was, it worked.

Hi! I found this post from 2015 and have read every message up until the end (july 2016). I am unfortunate to run into the same problem described by anonymoussir; however, sometimes I get the hang when I try to log into my apple account (say to download updates or sign into iTunes) or sometimes I get error messages (one was that I was not authorized to do that [i think i was trying to back up a device to iCloud through my macbook], another says "This action cannot be completed. Try again." [when trying to download updates]). I am ashamed to admit that before searching for solutions on the internet, I tried a few things myself (I am usually really good with electronics and with my apple products, although I am definitely more hardware, less software). I also have played around with different things before running into this problem (nothing that I believe created the problem as it just popped up out of no where a couple weeks ago).. I did not just update to El Capitan. I have been using it for a while (well, I went back and forth from yosemite a couple of times) and I use the handoff features quite a lot, as well as syncing photos, music, email, and I seem to be having issues with these now. I tried resetting PRAM, SMC, safe boot, creating a new user, single user mode, repairing permissions, my serial number is accounted for, and I even signed out of iCloud anonymoussir (this deleted the stuff from my mac but not from iCloud which I am able to get to on all of my other devices [ipad, iPhone, dads macbook air, and hopefully my "new" macbook pro 2012 that comes tomorrow] although not in that order! the macbook pro I am using now is a mid 2009 and is not able to update to sierra (sad panda). Anyway, I would like to solve this problem regardless and hopefully help any others who may still encounter it (hopefully no one will have to read this and I am the last one). I have not yet tried apenguins solution as I wanted to read through all the posts and see if anyone had experience the problem with the same details as me. I will report back when I have found a solution. (Seems that I may want to go back and retry some of the things that I have already, I will note the order in case it matters.)

Here is the error I get:

Contact Apple directly for assistance with your Apple ID via phone support here.