imessage not working reliably after ios 9.0.2 update.

Update to my previous post. iPhone 6 / ATT / IOS 9.0.2

After 5 HOURS on the phone and on chats to various Apple support people, and restoring my phone twice, backing up twice, and restoring to factory default as starting all over as a "new" phone - yes, twice... the text issue was finally resolved. Remember, I couldn't send texts to anyone, phone calls were not coming in, and the touch screen was staring to not respond anymore. The phone was basically freezing up.

I spoke to two different support people today. The first was very supportive and helpful, but had me backup from the Cloud after restoring to factory default. He said it was safer than restoring from iTunes. I'm not sure he was right. Whatever bug was in the backups since the IOS updates reappeared when I restored from the Cloud. He was, btw, very aware of this glitch and said he'd been dealing with it all day/every day since the update.

Next I had to go to an "Advisor." This guy was not nearly as nice, but then by that point, neither was I. 😠 He went through the whole process with me again... and that's when I had to restore as new phone. All texting functions worked perfectly. We then tried to sync to my last backup on iTunes and all the issues returned. So, one more time of restoring as new phone, and then picking and choosing what apps, music, etc. from iTunes that I actually wanted on the phone. I lost some stuff, but oddly, throughout all of this, my contacts never disappeared.

Also, the clerk in the Apple store yesterday, who couldn't figure it out at all, told me that only the last 30 days of photos from the phone would be saved in the Cloud. Not true. All my pix are still there.

There was no charge for all this, because you can request to have any charges waived if the issue is related to IOS9, 9.0.1, or 9.0.2. The warranty on my phone had just expired about a week ago, but I was told by the Advisor that if they couldn't fix it, they would replace the phone since it hadn't been that long since the expiration. Frankly, at this point, I think they'll waive charges for anyone. But don't quote me on that one.

Keep in mind that I had a severe issue since the updates... not just a matter of blue vs green texts... it was NO TEXTS and a one year old phone was rapidly dying. So, what worked for me:

A ton of patience (and dark chocolate)

Restoring to factory default (groan)

Restarting as "new phone" (louder groan)

Manually adding apps & music I needed from iTunes

Being willing to lose a history of texts, losing a few other sentimental things, and taking the time to reconfigure a lot of stuff in order to have a working phone!

Oh yeah, NOT swearing at the tech people helped, too.

The Advisor ended up knowing what he was doing after all. Now, we wait and see if the phone continues to work.

This update was written by the one remaining brain cell I have left after this experience!!! I hope it helps anyone else who has a similar situation. I feel your frustration. These phones are expensive. A lot of us use them for work, and for a lot of people they are our only phones. The updates should enhance their reliability and functionality, NOT wreak havoc. Good luck!

Hello all,

I am experiencing an issue as well. Within the last 24 hours (right now its 19:00 hours on October 6th), my iPhone I-messaging system has been having major issues. I would send an I-message to another iPhone, and it would "send", but never say delivered. It would remain like that until about 10-15 min when it decides to send as a green text sms message. Additionally, I factory reset my phone, did all the proper troubleshooting and nothing happened. I called Apple and talked to three people and the response I got was: "It is an ongoing issue with the IOS 9.0.2 update, and the tech team is currently trying to resolve the issues." I hope this issue gets resolved very soon. I need my phone to be working optimally for my job.

By toggling the SMS switch OFF within the Message settings, I was able to force 9.0.2 to send iMessage to a user that I was only able to send SMS to earlier.

I had to completely delete the conversation from another iPhone user that I was only able to send SMS to earlier and begin a new conversation with the SMS switch toggled to OFF in order for iMessage to work with that user as well.

I have not tried to toggle the Switch ON nor have I tried this from LTE using Verizon. It was solely using WiFi. I will go and test it now. Hope that this helps some of you.

-CB

There was an earlier post that said after turning Wi-Fi Assist OFF it worked, which is a new feature in iOS 9 found under Settings/General/Cellular and on the very bottom is a swift for "Wi-Fi Assist"

I just applied this setting and tested it while disconnected from WiFi.. all my messages are going through as iMessages now. I only see half of them say "Delivered" though, and they seem to be consistent w/ who I'm sending it to. I don't get "Delivered" when I sent to someone w/ Read Receipts on, but I get "Delivered" when I send to someone w/o Read Receipts. I've only had two people to test it with and one is still using iOS 8 and the other has an earlier iOS 9 version.

This seems to be a gliche in iOS9 that goes hand in hand with the error message that iMessage is waiting for activation. I have no cell service at work and MUST rely on iMessage to be reached in the event of an emergency or schedule issues with family. In the past few weeks I have had daily issues with my phone switching to text instead of iMessage and have had to repeatedly fix it using the "Airport Mode Method" described here:

http://www.ios9cydia.com/fix-ios-9-imessage-waiting-for-activation-error-on-ipho ne-6.html

This has worked every time for me. It's been very frustrating to have to keep doing this, but what else can we do until they get out another update with a fix other than restore the phone to iOS8! I'm not even sure that is possible though since I didn't actually update to 9, the phone did it itself when my daughter updated hers and then connected it to my laptop!

I am having this problem as well and tried the recommendation of turning off 'Wifi Assist'. To my surprise, the problem has gone away! I was only having the problem with one person and since changing it, the problem has subsided. The user I was messaging has not changed any settings, so it was something that was occurring within my device. As to whether or not this is the fix it needed, I'm not sure but it has helped. iMessage is fully functional for me after turning off Wifi Assist.

***EDIT** Also, I was having the problem with one specific person who was not updated to 9. Since turning off Wifi Assist, the problem with that person has gone away.

I Was having the same problems. I took my phone into the Apple Store and they turned off wifi assist on my phone. It seems to have corrected the messages sending as text. They also told me the messages not showing delivered is a new feature with iOS 9

I Was having the same issue with blue text bubbles turning to green when sending my wife iMessage texts. She hadn't moved to iOS 9.0.2 yet. My daughter and a colleague of mine had and having no issue sending to them. My wife updated to iOS 9.0.2 tonight and that rectified the problem. Looks like there's an issue with the iMessage servers receiving iMessage texts from phones with iOS 9 to phones still using 8.4 or such. Come onApple we pay far too much for these over priced phones to begin with, this needs to be fixed now!!

Resolved for now...after reading through some different threads (especially this one), I ended up resetting to factory settings, starting as a new phone, and manually moving apps back in place...it seems to be working now.

Resolved for now...after reading through some different threads (especially this one), I ended up resetting to factory settings, starting as a new phone, and manually moving apps back in place...it seems to be working now.

I had all of these same problems with my 4S - for a few weeks after the update. On Monday I just started over - clean re-stall of everything, told the phone it was new, and manually re-added my apps. It seems to be working ok now without any of the problems. It's the only last resort option that seems to have worked...

I Sign-out Apple ID and Sign-in Again then it works. It it doesn't work for you, try some other method described here http://www.cydiawater.com/

1. Go to Settings, then tap ‘Messages’. Scroll to the ‘Send & Receive’ option and open it.

2. Tap the Apple ID, then select ‘Sign Out’.

3. Now turn off iMessage

4. Wait for some time (turn Wi-fi ON|OFF) and then turn ON iMessage again.

This worked for me! turning off wifi assist! Thanks!

The new upDate 9.1 fixed all problems 🙂

I posted way back here on page 1, and eventually I managed to sort it out but forgot to come back and post ...

I deleted all threads in my imessage app and since then have not once had this issue. seems strange that this would work but it's been a couple weeks of busy imessaging and never once has the issue returned. I also seem to have stopped getting the grey box error.