Messages on mac

Hi,

So when you select a Contact to send an iMessage to do they appear red with an error alert saying "Not registered with iMessages" ?

Does this happen for every Contact ?

Top left is the Apple Icon and it is a Menu if you click and hold it.

Select About this Mac.

In Yosemite and El Capitan the Overview tab show you your Mac's serial Number.

Is this visible ?

(In Mavericks (which you list you are using) you have to click the line that tell you the OS version twice to be able to see the Serial Number).

IF it is not there you will have to contact an Apple Store (most likely visit) to get it put back.

If it is there go to System Preferences > Users and Groups

Either Enable the Guest account or create a New Mac User for test purposes.

Login to the Test account you are going to use.

Set Up Messages fro the iMessage account.

Does it work in this Mac User/Guest account ?

Report back at this point as the answers from here depend on what you find and trying to decribe all the options would make the reply unwieldy.

8:51 pm Thursday; August 25, 2016

Might be a corrupt .plist.

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

Quit the application.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.iChat.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.

Restart the computer, open the application and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

If that doesn’t work, repeat the above but delete the com.apple.imagent.plist

Thanks to leonie and Ralph Johns (UK)for some information contained in this.

for the Points.

Hi,

You have said this is solved but your Post does not seem to say that.

As Eric says it is most likely something in your Preferences that is not working properly

Eric has said how to access the main Preferences Folder.

The OS (and the apps that run on the OS) would, in the past, have put info directly in to the .plists.

Nowadays as the OS and some of the Apple Apps are protected from bring the computer to a grinding halt (Sandboxing) there is now a much longer Read and Write route to get into into the file.

In the case of Messages it is ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Preferences

In this folder are many Aliases pointing to the the original Files in ~/Library/Preferences (The name of the Path Eric was talking about).

You can loose Permissions or even sometime Ownership of the odd file in the Preferences.

However you also have to have Read and Write Permissions (which includes Ownership) of the folders things are in as well.

In the case of ~/Library/Preferences it is only three folder (The Little House icon one), the Library and the Preferences.

In the case of ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Preferences it is many more.

There is a way to check an individual file.

Highlight the item and Right Click

Select "Get Info".

In the Info panel scroll to the bottom.

Your ShortName should appear (The Little House Icon name)

It should have Read and Write Permissions.

Highlight this Line

Unpadlock the Info Panel

Use the Cogwheel type icon under the list

There should be a Phrase that read "Make yourShortName (Me) the Owner" and it should be greyed out (As in already done and you Own it)

In a manual check you then have to check all the folders as well and it becomes a very long winded task.

In this Thread Lin Dais has two important posts

Reset Home Folder permissions and ACLs Error

The Orange Helpful Star marked one has the test instructions to use in Terminal to find out how many files and Folders ado not have the right Permissions.

The Solved Green ticked marked one has the Instructions to correct these.

The Test one can take quite a long time if your Photo Library is quite large and if you have lots of Documents and generally lots of files and Folders to check.

It is important to try that first so that you know how long the Solved one is likely to take.

7:42 pm Sunday; September 11, 2016