imessage number grey, not able to use imessage/facetime

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Level 1

18 points

imessage number grey, not able to use imessage/facetime

Recently, I have not been able to use FaceTime or iMessage to communicate with my boyfriend. The only form of communication I can use with him using my basic phone properties is voice call.

In the settings for iMessage, my phone number is grey under "You can be reached by iMessage at" and there is a grey check next to it while there is also my email which is dark and has a dark check. My phone number, however, is dark under where it says "Start new conversations from". I don't know why one is grey and the other is not. A while ago both my phone number options were grey, and my emails were too. I cannot text or iMessage this one person but can with everyone else.

I have tried restarting my phone, turning off iMessage and FaceTime, resetting my network settings, taking my pin card out, and signing out of iCloud. Nothing has worked.

Note: I have an iPhone 5C with T-Mobile 28.5 and am unable to update my iOS (10.3.3)

iPhone 5c, iOS 10.3.3

Posted on Nov 16, 2017 8:29 PM

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Answer 1

AppleJoe

Community Manager

Nov 17, 2017 1:10 PM in response to dturner2863

Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities dturner2863,

If I'm understanding your post right, you've been unable to send text and iMessages, or use FaceTime, with one of the contacts in your iPhone. I know how important it is to have these features working successfully. I'm happy to be able to help you with a solution.

You've done some great troubleshooting steps already. You can view some additional steps to try when you're unable to send messages here: If you can‘t send or receive messages on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch . It doesn't sound like there is a problem with your settings that would be causing this. It's completely normal for your phone number to be greyed out with a checkmark next to it in Settings > Messages > Send & Receive. It's also normal for your email address/Apple ID to be listed in dark font with a checkmark next to it there as well. If for some reason your phone number wasn't checkmarked and greyed out under "You can be reached by iMessage at", this could possibly indicate that iMessage is having problems activating with your phone number, or just problems activating in general.

When you go to Settings > Messages is Send as SMS enabled? If so, your messages should be sending to your boyfriend's iPhone as a regular text message if for some reason iMessage wasn't available at the time. If text messages aren't sending to that particular contact either, check to see if you accidentally blocked each others phone number. To check this, go to his contact in the Phone app. If the contact is blocked, you will see "Unblock this Caller" at the bottom of the contact screen. He will need to check this in his phone as well. When a contact is blocked in an iPhone, you wouldn't receive incoming phone calls, FaceTime calls, or messages from them. Also, any outgoing messages you send to them would not be delivered. View more about this here: Block phone numbers and contacts on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch . You can also check with your carriers to make sure each others numbers aren't through them as well.

If you've both verified that neither of your phone numbers are blocked in each others devices, try deleting your boyfriends contact from your iPhone and then readd it. If you continue to experience problems messaging him or using FaceTime, reply back answering the following questions:

What happens when you try to send a message to him? Do you get any errors?
Are you unable to receive messages from him as well?
What happens when you try to FaceTime with him?
Is his iPhone updated to the most current version for his model?

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

Take care!

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Answer 2

dturner2863 Author

Level 1

18 points

Nov 27, 2017 11:04 PM in response to AppleJoe

Hello! Thank you for suggesting these options. We have checked and neither of our numbers are being blocked. As for your questions, when I try to message him as an iMessage, it sends without telling me it failed to go through; instead it just never says delivered or anything like that below the message. If it sends as an SMS, it occasionally says under the text that it was sent as a text message, but he does not recieve the text. We have found that he is able to message my number, but I cannot communicate a response. His phone is updated to the newest iOS, and when we try to FaceTime it rings for a couple minutes before saying FaceTime is Unavailable when I do the calling, but he does not recieve any call. When he calls through his phone, I get a notification and if I try to answer, it will say that it is connecting, but after a while it will say that the call failed. It used to be that I would have to call him using my email under FaceTime settings, but now this doesn't work either.

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