iMessage not displaying international dialling code instead of contact name

Hi,

I had not seen that info before - where a second Mac running Sierra was not having an issue.

As I said, in my case the Contacts all got changed As I left the UK (+44) and had to change them all so I could "call Home".

I discovered the "madrid" IDS .plist was not being recreate in Sierra when I went to remove it to remove an ID that keeps returning.

(I had two phone and two IDs but only one iPhone and Apple ID was on the Mac and then in a moment of madness I added the second iPhone (and of course the Apple ID through sync) to the Mac login).

Every now and then a pop up appears asking if I want to use this Apple ID.

You can say no to this Pop up but it still adds it but as an inactive ID.

Upgrades can sometimes migrate items to new places in the file structure.

This is particular in the cases with Sandbox items. Most of these have extra files in the ~/Library/Containers folder many with Aliases pointing to the original Files.

I Fresh Install may miss some migration markers - if they existed.

It seems to be developing into a wider issue problem.

8:27 pm Sunday; September 3, 2017

Hi again Ralph,

Thanks for your suggestions—I too have been manually adding the country code to my contacts. I'm perplexed as to how this can happen on some systems and not other (seemingly identical) ones. In fact, iMessage was working fine with no country code on a MacBook Air (running Sierra), but doing a fresh re-install of Sierra appeared to 'break' it.

I'll leave my feedback on the Messages page and hope that Apple fix this soon.

Thanks again for your help.

I too have this problem. Had it for a few months now.

Unfortunately, High Sierra does NOT resolve the issue.

Issue started on my older iMac and then newer MBP a couple of month later.

Been on to Apple Care, who are still looking into it, but don't seem to be able to help.

Very frustrating having to change all my contact to include +44 but more frustrating when can't send a new message in the first place from the Mac if contact number begins with 0.

Weird how the contact has the correct initials or picture next to the +44 number though.

Forgot to say, there also seems to be an issue with contact in FaceTime. The names are showing correctly, but on pressing the i in a circle it brings up a random string of text instead of the structured data box you normally get, as I still do with a non saved number. I wonder if this is a linked problem.

Same issue here.

macOS High Sierra 10.13

Message ver 11.0

All messages fail, unless manually add +44 to contact.

Have several hundred contacts pulled in from Google - iMessage has ran faultlessly for years, now High Sierra has borked it badly.

Why should manually add or write/seek out a script to add +44 to all my contacts?

I live in the UK.

I work in the UK.

All my contacts live in the UK.

They all have numbers prefixed '07'.

Apple are really dropping the ball these days. There can be little coincidence that since Steve Jobs passed away we have had these god awful releases from Apple. Has anyone tried 10.13 APFS-encrypted for instance? I sincerely hope not.

How can something as simple as sending an iMessage be so difficult for them to stuff up?

What is even MORE infuriating is that FaceTime on HS seems to work absolutely fine! It pulls in contacts and I can make/receive phone calls to the correct contacts without the need of this +44 malarkey.

I have very little confidence in Apple now.

From being 'it just works' to 'it sometimes works' - we're approaching Microsoft levels of reliability. I do worry that USA iMessage in macOS HS works, and Apple have forgotten that there are other countries/markets out there.

I very much hope that a 10.13.1 is on the way soon to resolve this!

Please Apple, sort out iMessage +44 issue!

Unfortunately, we can't blame High Sierra for this, as the problem was there in Sierra before I updated.

I have two Macs (iMac and MBP). With both machines synced to the same accounts and running the same OS versions, the problem occurred much later on the MBP than the iMac. I have an open ticket with Apple Support regarding this, haven't been back in touch with them for a few weeks but when we last spoke they didn't have a clue.

Yes, have since read that prefix issue occurred with 10.12.

I personally went from 10.11 to 10.13, as was waiting for the much heralded APFS upgrade, and wanted to do a clean install.

Not holding out much hope that Apple will fix Messages issue if its been present from 10.12.

One would assume if it was an iOS problem it would be fixed overnight...

Hi,

Check the two cards on the Mac and the iOS device

I suspect the one on the iPhone lists the full Country Code.

It probably also shows the Country Code number as your number when you look that up.

The next thing then is to check that the sync between Contacts app is the same and is working.

There can be issues if many "Accounts" in System Preferences > Internet accounts are turned ON for Contacts which then means the Mac never gets to the end of the list - it can't tell when it is going over the same list on one of the servers.

This in turn causes iMessages to not list the person properly.

Next check the way the iPhone sends iMessages

If it list the iPhone Number then the Mac may see the "Sync" of that.

The Mac may be set to send using the Apple ID and if that is not logged in properly then that will also create the results you see.

If you suspect this try setting Send From to the iPhone Number.

If it does seem to be this then Sign Out then Quit the app before opening the app again and Signing in again.

The Mac longer has a setting in Messages to set the Country.

However it does need this.

The OS gathers the info by checking other nearby connections and stating where you are.

Date and Time and then Time Zone in System Preferences > Date and Time also help with this.

8:42 pm Thursday; April 27, 2017

Hi,

If in System Preferences > Internet Accounts (or iCloud) there are multiple options trying to sync with the Contacts you can have issues.

Apparently the Contacts app cannot tell when it has got to the end and goes around and around.

In Contacts itself in Preferences > Accounts only one account should be active.

If the iCloud on is chosen then the On My Mac one should disappear as the whole list is actually then in the Cloud and is "read" by the devices that are syncing with it. (obviously it could be any of the other services rather than iCloud).

7:35 pm Friday; April 28, 2017

Hi,

My "On My Mac" account disappears when another account is used to sync.

The others that Internet Accounts think will work with Contact App are also listed but turned Off.

I am not sure I can add anything else.

8:38 pm Monday; May 8, 2017

Hi,

This is the .plist that was involved.

In Xcode (which is free) it looks like this:-

The Profile line can be expanded like the ones on view and the Country and Code are the five lines inside that item:-

This item is no longer in ~/Library/Preferences in Sierra.

I have not been able to find it anywhere else such as ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Preferences (or the com.apple.soagent one either).

If the info is now in another .plist I have not been able to find that either.

I have tried the Easy Find App as well as Spotlight without any luck.

7:52 pm Thursday; May 11, 2017

Hi,

In summary.

Early Messages had a Pane that slide out in Account (in Messages) that could have a country allocated.

This prefixed "local" number with a Country Code

I believe it was in El Capitan that this changed to the OS polling local connections to work out where the Mac was.

This too seemed to be passed on to Messages in some way that made "local" numbers work with Country Codes.

It seems there has been a more recent change and Messages is no longer prefixing "local" numbers.

The only fix seems to be to change them in Contacts

For me that was very few and although I don't recall doing it specifically I did go to France to years ago (I was distracted by many other things at the time).

I have not found a specific "fix" at present.

9:23 pm Saturday; June 10, 2017

Hi,

From the posts I have read it is only effecting OS X 10.12.5

It seems that it is something in the OS or at least what Messages does with the info about the Mac's Internet Location and how it uses that to change the Number called to include the International Dialling Code when the Contacts don't have it.

If you have already added the International Code to your Contacts then you don't see the issue.

As I can also remember the iChat 3 fiasco that stopped many people east of the Mississippi and as far north as the Great Lakes which happened when Steve was alive I don't think the issue has anything to do with his passing.

iChat 3 went to 4 way Video chats and 10 way Audio Only chats.

Apple choose a new protocol that was supposed to have been implemented from a 7 year before that agreement. (I.e. the "internet" was supposed to be ready).

However it was only found after the GM release that it did not work for everyone. (The test group Apple uses is potentially too small and possibly at that time to few used Video chats to discover the issue early).

7:35 pm Monday; June 26, 2017

Hi,

Just to clear.

Apple don't monitor these boards as a matter of course.

They do employ the Hosts (Moderators) who only deal with offensive and other posts that break the rules.

There are also Community Specialists who do offer some sort of Tech Support where they are supposed to picked up missed or unanswered threads over 24 hours old (the time in many areas for an Thread to drop off the front page) or when it has reach the second page in faster areas.

Most of their help is sign posting people to relevant help documents.

It seems the only help now is for your to Add the Country Codes as you need them.

Messages no longer seems to add them automatically to "local" to your country to the numbers you have.

7:27 pm Tuesday; July 25, 2017

Hi,

This is where it used to be set in Older version of Messages.

(Messages have more in Preferences back then)

In later versions the OS took over finding out your Location. This was then stored in a .plist in ~/Library/Preferences as detailed in previous posts.

In Sierra something about this has changed and that .plist is no longer used even if it is retained. (it's not recreated if you delete it).

Without this info Messages does not know where you are and no longer adds your Country Code to those numbers that appear to be from the same country (i.e if you are in the UK +44, where as contacts in the USA already have +1 added).

The only real fix at present is to add the Country Code to all your Contacts that need it or at lease the ones that you use with Messages and/or FaceTime.

8:12 pm Wednesday; July 26, 2017