I have recently bought an iphone 6s and I am having a hard time activating my number with imessage/facetime.

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Level 1

8 points

I have recently bought an iphone 6s and I am having a hard time activating my number with imessage/facetime.

I have recently bought an iphone 6s and I am having a hard time activating my number with imessage/facetime. I migrated from an iphone 6 plus where everything worked like a charm to a never ending nightmare. I have tried everything apple support suggests plus changing my sim card twice, even trying different phone numbers did not work. I have talked to my carrier to check for any international barriers on my service - no luck there. Contacted apple support over the phone - no luck either. I EVEN DEMANDED TO REPLACE MY DEVICE WITH ANOTHER ONE WHICH THEY DID and guess what - STILL NOTHING! I am running out of ideas and patience. I even tried my number deauthorised for imessage/facetime and the apple support lady had no idea they could that even though Apple has a webpage set up for that matter!!! Last but not least I got charged a rediculus amount of money for the 'invincible' sms sent for activation to apple through my device for activation - ALL FOR NOTHING!!! Can anyone in Apple support give me a solution to this???

iPhone 6s, iOS 9.3.2

Posted on Jun 10, 2016 12:24 PM

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Answer 1

KiltedTim

Level 10

227,508 points

Jun 10, 2016 12:48 PM in response to shagass

What country are you in and who is your carrier? iMessage and FaceTime activation use SMS messages to Apple's activation servers in the UK. If you are using an unsupported carrier, it may not work. If you are using a supported carrier, make sure they have your account provisioned properly for an iPhone.

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Answer 2

shagass Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 10, 2016 1:16 PM in response to KiltedTim

I Am in Cyprus and the carrier is MTN. I already checked and they are supporting imessage/facetime. And as I mentioned above I had the same number and sim in the iphone 6 plus and it worked fine!

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Answer 3

BBoiss

Level 4

1,433 points

Jun 10, 2016 1:25 PM in response to shagass

If you get an error when trying to activate iMessage or FaceTime - Apple Support

Follow this article to the letter and remember that when allowing to the iPhone to have 24 hours to attempt to activate, it cannot be toggled off and on again, or you're refreshing your activation queue. If after following the steps explained does not allow for your iMessage and Facetime to activate, Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support. So long as your carrier presently has no blocks on short codes or premium texts and is setup for this service, there should be no problem. If there still is one, reaching out to AppleCare will be your best option so they can see if there is some account issue on the server end. The hardware is not what is at fault here.

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Answer 4

iZian

Level 2

193 points

Jun 11, 2016 9:50 AM in response to shagass

I'm not sure why you're being charged for the activation messages for iMessage. This suggests that the phone thinks it's in a different country, from a different country or something strange.

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Answer 5

BBoiss

Level 4

1,433 points

Jun 10, 2016 1:57 PM in response to BBoiss

Oh are you attempting to activate this with your carrier while you are traveling internationally? Is that why you were charged roaming charges? That would also explain why the service would struggle to connect if that is the case.

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Answer 6

Klotar

Level 2

297 points

Jun 11, 2016 5:56 AM in response to shagass

Was your previous device, the 6 plus, also a Cyprus/MTN device like your current one is? Only asking to rule out the possibility that the 6 plus was activated elsewhere.

Next question: even though iMessage and Facetime are showing as not activated, do they still work over wi-fi? Reason I ask is that I currently have a 4s that is locked to another carrier, has no sim in it (and so cannot possibly activate), yet the 4s works fine for iMessage and Facetime on wi-fi -- using AppleID and not a telephone number, of course. As a last ditch effort, possibly test Facetime/iMessage by changing your number to your AppleID; that will at least eliminate the app as an issue.

Since MTN is definitely an iPhone compatible carrier, and your 6 plus worked fine on MTN, and you have tried multiple sims, and you've had your 6s replaced once and still have the issue, I am leaning towards a provisioning issue by MTN.

The best test I can think of to test provisioning is to try your sim in another iphone. Do you still have your 6 plus? (though I am sure you have thought of that since you seem to have thought of everything else).

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Answer 7

shagass Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 11, 2016 6:03 AM in response to Klotar

I tried my sim in my wife's iphone 6 and did not seem to do anything whereas her sim in mine managed to activate just once. Unfortunately I don't have the 6 plus as I recently sold it. My phone seems to be working with my Apple id just fine. Today I discovered that the region on my id was set to UK and I changed that to Cyprus just to see if that works. Will have to wait for 24hrs though to see if that works.

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