What can be done to use iMessage when it is stuck on "Waiting for Activation"

Question

I bought an iPhone 3GS and tried to activate iMessage on it, but it won't work. I tried everything to activate it, but it still says "waiting for activation". What should I do?

Answer 1

A few of the things that are under your control are as follows:

• Undo the iMessage settings, power off the device and try again in 5 minutes.
• Check that iCloud isn't having system-wide problems
• Same as step one, but wait 20 to 200 minutes. (sometimes the problem is in the network or the activation servers or the SMS network to tie your phone to the Apple system with the one time activation message and waiting is easier than working with all of the above parties)
• Rather than wait - work through the steps to Troubleshoot iMessage and FaceTime Activation
• Contact Apple for support

It's hard to guess what exactly is wrong, but you also can edit your question to list what steps you have done to troubleshoot this and perhaps someone can guess or point out a missed step.

Answer 2

If no other messages appear (e.g. incorrect username or password for your iCloud account), that typically indicates that there's a problem contacting or getting authorization from Apple's iMessage servers. I've had that happen periodically when setting up or resetting iMessage on an iOS device.

Unfortunately, as it's a problem on Apple's end, there's not much to be done other than wait and try again periodically by turning iMessage off, then on again. At times when I've run into it, it's typically resolved itself within 5 to 30 minutes, sometimes even less.

If you still can't get it working within a few hours, then amend your question with that information and/or contact Apple.

Answer 3

I had the same problem with locked Sprint iPhone 5. Im using R-SIM7 for unlock and couldn't activate my phone, SMS, 3G, iMessages and Facetime wasn't working (Waiting for activation). Long story short, I managed to fix:

1. To fix this you need to jailbreak with evasi0n and download iFile from cydia(or you can just use ifunbox).

2. Go to (CarrierLab.bundle or 00101 folder) /System/Library/Carrier Bundles/iPhone/00101/carrier.plist

   • back up the file carrier.plist (just in case)

   • Go to the following line and add +011 so it looks like +011447786205094 <key>PhoneNumberRegistrationGatewayAddress<string>+011447786205094</string>

   • SAVE

3. Now go to /System/Library/CarrierBundles/iPhone/Unknown.bundles/carrier.plist

   • ADD -> "+011" To all the 10 numbers you see. <key>PhoneNumberRegistrationGatewayAddress</key><string>+011447537410207</string>
   • SAVE

4. Now go to /System/Library/Carrier Bundles/iPhone/[carrier that your phone is locked to]/carrier.plist

   • Find SMS perfix under <key>international</key> and delete "011" value so it looks like <string></string>

   • SAVE

5. To fix 3G go to /System/Library/Carrier Bundles/iPhone/Unknown.bundles/carrier.plist find <key>SIMs</key><array> and copy all those "xxxxx" number from there and now go to /System/Library/Carrier Bundles/iPhone/carrier that your phone is locked to/carrier.plist4. and find this line:

   • <key>intldataroamingallowed</key>
   • <array> paste here </array>
   • SAVE then reboot.
   • If 3G still not working change to correct APN using unlockit.co.nz

Answer 4

iMessage activation is a long lasting process. Apple even states without much practical explanation that this process can take as long as 24 hours. But the core of the problem isn't that Apple take that amount of time to check that a phone number already registered is the one from which comes an activation request. This process is much faster.

In fact the core of the problem is that this process want to achieve a validation in a connection environment where there are 2 routes to reach the Apple authentication server.

Most of the time an iPhone or an iPad are connected with 2 interfaces, a Wi-fi network connection and a mobile phone network one. These 2 kinds of connection have a basic property of using wireless connections and consequently are frequently unstable.

Each of these connections might be described as in either of 3 states:

• off
• on:
  • stable
  • unstable (most tipically when we are moving and at a varying distance of the antenna of the mobile phone or the Wi-Fi network).

And the truth is that people who use iPhone or iPad tend to be true mobile users.

Here is a small table discribing the 9 combinations of network quality a normal iPhone or iPad might encounter and the resulting potential sucess of iMessage activation process:

The practical conclusion is that there are only 3 cases out of 9 where this activation process will result in a quick success.

Practical recommandations

1. When you want to start an iMessage activation process, 1st check that you have one and only one stable connection: either a mobile phone one or a Wi-Fi network one. Check that either Wi-Fi setting is off (Settings > Wi-Fi: Off) or mobile network is off (Settings > Mobile Data: Off). Then check your connection quality (stability) by accessing for example:

   Apple AppleID server

2. Then consider to temporarily reduce your normal mobility to let this long lasting activation process to reach you back with the same stable connection place.

   Tested in real and difficult conditions (mountain in a foreign country), this shouldn't last more than a big 15 minutes.

3. This iMessage activation process is using the https protocol which means it is secured and for this it does use certificates. These cetificates have all an expiration date. For the certificate used not to be considered as expired it is of the uppermost importance that your clock is correct and within the correct Time Zone . Check this in Settings > General > Date & Time. Since this is expected to be automatically provided by your mobile phone network, if this one isn't stable, provide the Time Zone manually.

Bad recommandations

If one of the above conditions isn't checked, I verified that neither a complete restart nor a complete reinitialisation of an iPhone could lead to a quick success.

The only case where these procedures will lead to an apparent success is when through repeating the same silly process you waste enough time to be again within a stable connection condition where you can get the Apple answer of the activation process in time.

Answer 5

I would also do a hard restart between attempts. Hold down sleep button and Home at the same time for abt. 10 seconds, wait for Apple logo to reappear.

Answer 6

I have been reading forums and tried different solutions and what worked for me was to switch off 'Send as sms'.

My iMessage is still 'waiting for activation' but iMessaging works and so does regular sms

Answer 7

Try logging into iTunes. Not sure what this would have done but it worked for me...