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User profile for user: CarterPlays
CarterPlays Author
User level: Level 1
131 points

iMessage & SMS not working properly

My sister's phone never sends a notification when she recieves an SMS or iMessage. Notifications are enabled in the app settings. I've done all I can to fix it, and nothing has really worked. Is there a way to fix this easily?

iPhone SE

Posted on Feb 5, 2020 1:07 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: SravanKrA
SravanKrA
Community+ 2024
User level: Level 10
413,940 points

Posted on Feb 5, 2020 1:15 AM

  • Turn off and restart iMessage and FaceTime (The sequence is very important)
  1. Go to Settings > Messages and turn off iMessage.
  2. Go to Settings > FaceTime and turn off FaceTime.
  3. Restart your device.
  4. Turn iMessage and FaceTime back on. (Watch the GIF below)



  • Still not activated after a day?
  1. It might take up to 24 hours to activate iMessage and FaceTime. If the issue continues after 24 hours, follow these steps:
  2. Make sure that your device has the latest version of iOS.
  3. If you're using an iPhone, contact your carrier to make sure that you can receive SMS messages.
  4. Contact Apple Support.







If you get an error when trying to activate iMessage or FaceTime ...

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: SravanKrA
SravanKrA
Community+ 2024
User level: Level 10
413,940 points

Feb 5, 2020 1:15 AM in response to CarterPlays

  • Turn off and restart iMessage and FaceTime (The sequence is very important)
  1. Go to Settings > Messages and turn off iMessage.
  2. Go to Settings > FaceTime and turn off FaceTime.
  3. Restart your device.
  4. Turn iMessage and FaceTime back on. (Watch the GIF below)



  • Still not activated after a day?
  1. It might take up to 24 hours to activate iMessage and FaceTime. If the issue continues after 24 hours, follow these steps:
  2. Make sure that your device has the latest version of iOS.
  3. If you're using an iPhone, contact your carrier to make sure that you can receive SMS messages.
  4. Contact Apple Support.







If you get an error when trying to activate iMessage or FaceTime ...

Reply
User profile for user: Brian Davidson2
Brian Davidson2
User level: Level 1
27 points

Feb 8, 2020 7:29 AM in response to CarterPlays

I can report something odd going on with SMS as well. My mother has an older iPhone 7, but running iOS 13. She can no longer (as of early February 2020) send or receive SMS text messages as part of a group. Individual SMS messages seem to work.


On my phone (iPhone 11) it works fine, but on my iMac (running Catalina) SMS messages are a mess. Existing threads only show partial messages, or show very old portions of a message. Again, the same thread on my iPhone is fine. Tried logging out and back into iCloud with no improvement. Restarted my devices...no luck.


iMessage seems to be working fine.

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iMessage & SMS not working properly

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