an error occurred during activation ipad

My problem was finally solved, but it took a month of me badgering, cajoling, calling, and emailing all sorts of senior analysts at Apple Support. Matt's right - the analysts either don't know or are forbidden to tell you that something remotely nefarious "leaked" from your device. In my case, the iPod was brand-spanking new, directly from Apple themselves. Not reconditioned, not used, not a second, but a fully personalized iPod with my name and number engraved on the back. So the big question became "how did this device send out something nefarious (spam) when it was never activated?" Given that logic, i think they finally relented and unlocked my device. The final senior analyst i worked with was able to confirm to me that the device itself had been locked . . . not my Apple ID, so changing ID's wouldn't have (and didn't) matter. If i hadn't run into Matt on this forum, i never would have known to directly state that i thought this was what happened, and demand an explanation. The 4th guy i worked with was able to confirm exactly that, stating that i'd sent some kind of spam out of my iPod to other Apple users. Then it was up to him to plead my case to the engineers. Crazy crap. If that hadn't worked after some period of time, he was instructing me to take it to the Apple store about 50 miles from my home to return it for a fully functional one. After owning your device for a year, i'm not sure you'll get that option. Agghh!! What a mess!

This is exactly the right answer!

My Mac, iPad and iPhone all returned "an error occured during activation" for iMessage and FaceTime using Apple ID. The phone worked OK using my phone number only.

I followed the support guides - time zone, software update, NVRAM reset, network settings reset, new Apple ID, password reset, log on as guest user, Safe Mode restart etc. and nothing worked.

Then I came upon this post, requested a support call for Apple ID, spoke to a great support rep in Ireland explaining the above. He checked a couple of things then escalated my case to level two support who confirmed my Apple ID was locked at the server level (he didn't mention serial numbers of devices and I didn't want to get into that).

The L2 support rep then confirmed that he would email the engineers and that this will be fixed within a couple of days (unfortunately it's the weekend in Ireland) and they will confirm back to me when I'm good to go - we shall see

All in all, 20 minutes on the phone, and for all the crap Apple takes these days I really couldn't be happier - support that is actually supportive...

Cheers

Apple informed me that something nefarious and random was generated from my brand new iPod out to others as some sort of spam. For that, my device . . . DEVICE . . . was actually locked down. After a month of several senior analysts' work and a multitude of hoop-jumping, the engineers at Apple finally relented and unlocked my device. There really was nothing i did wrong; i'd just purchased the device and never used it. So this actually happens, Folks. This is the email i received last week, and voi la! my device is not working as it should:

Thanks for your patience! I have a response back from Engineering. The iPod touch has been unblocked on the server and you can now use iMessage or FaceTime .

So getting my account unblocked took one day longer than expected due to having to run a log capture app for the engineers but now it's all sorted. The support rep suggested the issue was related to spam, phishing emails, the dodgy-and-widely-advertised app MacKeeper but was not precise. During the support feedback part I suggested that if engineers are going to demand log files they could at least be explicit about what it was that triggered the security algorithm - so I avoid whatever it was. Anyway, all working now.

Yep, it's beyond shameful how Apple has setup this kangaroo court of engineers who can invalidate your perfectly legal purchase and secretively deny you access to your device, not only without ANY legitimate process/warning, but by making it NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to reasonably correct their arbitrary actions. Their frontline customer support is either complicit or clueless (or both), placing the unreasonable onus on the customer not only to figure it out, but then try to correct it with herculean efforts, all while Apple support denies, shrugs and then (only after you catch them in their own nefarious acts) apologizes with little meaningful reparations. No person, let alone a PAYING customer, should have to go through what we went through to "fix" this, let alone be run through BS steps like resetting a perfectly fine device or changing Apple ID's or all of the other wasted time and useless steps of the internal circus that result from Apple's guilty-before-innocent locking of devices. I have yet to hear from Apple why they deemed our devices lock-worthy, but they refuse to state why (if our device was hacked or used nefariously, we should have the RIGHT to know and they should be working with us to find out WHY, rather than acting egregiously and unilaterally, but I suspect something innocuous may have "looked" suspicious to them, like simply changing Apple ID's, which makes this mess even more of an insult). Glad you made it through as well (we are the lucky few!) but I wonder if maybe your brand new device may have even been locked due to a typo, if it's brand new (and not reconditioned?). If so, then all the more shame on Apple! I guarantee that this foolishness/arrogance has already cost them sales and even more brand equity, on top of an already competitive environment, but apparently they do not care...

I might have the same problem I guess. I have been using FaceTime and iMessage on my Mac for a year but mysteriously it stopped working a month ago. My ID doesn't work on my iPhone either. Created a new ID still no luck. Wasted my time on the internet and Apple Discussions for days. Tried every **** thing on both my phone and laptop. Contacted Apple Support twice. They took all the info about the problem but never reverted back with a solution. Apple ID works fine while logging in through iCloud as u said but FaceTime and iMessage gives the same error message. After reading your post I am reassured that the Apple has locked out my devices for FaceTime and iMessage. I am so frustrated with their negligence and poor support.

But was your problem solved finally?

I'm happy for you On2it, but i'll be very curious to hear how long this actually takes for their remedy. I was told this exact thing not once, not twice, but about 6 times - spanning 4 weeks - before the said remedy was put in place. Each time i called, i was told it would just be a few more days for the Engineer Gods to relinquish control. Because my device was brand new, i was finally given the option to return it to an Apple store for an exchange (waiting for them caused their simple return policy to go void, so even that was going to be a fight).

Good luck - hope you stumbled onto a great senior analyst with your first shot. My case took 5.

Excellent news!🙂

Unfortunately for others (including myself and wife who were dragged through the mud to get this far, as well as zeldajones), Apple's handling of this is a pathetic joke. You got lucky, but most get run through some circus of resets and clean erases, losing data and time (which is money) for NO GOOD REASON all b/c of some ridiculous secret kangaroo court of engineers (which refuses to even partially illuminate any actual issue(s) or provide any relevant reason to put people through this in the first place - that's an abuse of power) and clueless frontline support. Hopefully, this thread will continue to help others to be more like you and less like us when it comes to Apple's despicable policies and procedures on this not uncommon matter. Thank you for posting!

Call Apple and DEMAND to know if the geniuses running their servers have locked-out your devices. My wife had this ridiculously useless error "An error occurred during activation. Try again." on every device, except her iPhone. It turns out that Apple -surreptitiously and without any explanation- blocked her devices from connecting. Oh, her Apple ID worked fine for their unwanted iCloud by itself, but Messages and FaceTime would throw everything into chaos and refuse to connect with any real/meaningful alert (they sure can spam the Apple ID email with every other thing, why not to report an issue that requires a call to Apple). It's not enough to pay top $$$ for their stuff, but to lock people out of their Apple ID (logging-into iCloud still works b/c they want it to, but not on actual devices where Y-O-U want it to work) without any notice and with a stupid error that is meaningless (as per this and many articles like it) is tortious interference, plain and simple.


We wiped her iPad and MacBook Pro over and over for naught. I could get one of them connected to Messages, but then trying the other would throw them both in limbo again. In every instance, FaceTime on her laptop would accept the login but then ask about something in the keychain and pop back to the login screen without explanation (credentials were unflinchingly correct). Doing that would then ruin her access to FaceTime and Messages on the iPad, but the iPhone was always good. After a full day on the phone with a tech support agent who berated me (she was getting paid to hear my complaints, I was wasting time and money well beyond the call, which itself was too long), and then waiting almost 4 more days (2 "business days" so the weekend did not count), some higher support group simply unlocked her devices and they've been good to go since. Of course, when I asked why on earth they did this, she outright refused to give any explanation. So, all that wasted time and energy, just b/c a bunch of moronic Hollywood twits lost their nude pics to hackers b/c they used brilliant passwords like 12345, so now we plebs get to pay for it?! Seriously, Apple. The pendulum has swung waaaaaay too far into the ludicrous zone...


So, save your time troubleshooting - first call Apple and ask if their lordships have deemed you not good enough to access your own dang Apple ID on your own dang devices, and see if they secretly cut you off without any good reason or any compensation (or semblance of reasonable due process), lest you waste all the time and effort we did.


I can't imagine how anyone with less technical savvy would get out of this mess Apple made. Apple has totally abandoned the "it just works" mantra and even the simple (grand)mother rule in their testing and (morally and logically) bankrupt development decision-making.

These are the troubleshooting steps for iMessage and FaceTime activation. If you get an error when trying to activate iMessage or FaceTime - Apple Support If none of those work, the last step is to contact Apple support.

Now working! Sorry . . . slip of the finger! My iPod is NOW working!

Hi Shasm923,

I have experienced this problem your currently experiencing

Can I suggest to make a back up via iTunes or ICloud and completely researting your device back to orginal settings and content. There may be a bug causing the disruptions.

Hi

Go to iCloud make sure iCloud back up is on Then backup now over your wifi

Then go to settings down to reset Restore back to factory settings.

Then set back up over your wifi when it asks if you want to use iCloud backup Say yes to get your apps and data back this will will get rid of any bugs.

Cheers

Brian

shasm923 wrote:

Ok so this never helped ..thank you

You could not have done everything in that support document and still be complaining. The final step is to contact Apple Support for help. If you did do everything, then what did Apple Support say when you called them?

Where are you located? FaceTime is banned in certain countries, so it is important to know where you are and what carrier you are trying to use.