iMessage not activating 5s???

[Anonymous]

Hello all, I'm a newbie to this forum (but a longtime o2 customer fortunate enough to never have had unresolved issues!)

I've upgraded from a pay monthly 4s to 5s last Friday, followed the usual set up process & have been unable to activate iMessage or FaceTime at all. Have tried the following:

• reset network settings
• hard reset
• confirm all settings ie number/data etc
• complete restore to factory settings
• followed stacks of tips on various forums!

All I get is 'failed to activate please try again' I can't even get beyond the initial imessage settings screen!

I've contacted Geek Squad, no joy. They blame Apple and told me to forget it & use my unlimited texts?!!

Been back to CPW where I upgraded who advised I contact Apple.

Apple blamed o2 saying something about a silent message?

Spoke to o2 tech help who blamed the handset & advised a replacement!! So being pointed all over the place!!

Is anyone else experiencing this? I've seen a lot of historical posts about this issue from '12/'13 and am baffled!

Yes I have unlimited texts but live in the woods with little signal 😛

Yes I know there are apps like Tugo and WhatsApp which use wifi...

But I do feel it's less than unreasonable to expect a fancy new iPhone to actually offer the services it boasts (& I'm used to using given most of my contacts are iPhone users too!)

Any advice would be fab, thank you 🙂

[Anonymous]

Hi.

This may help.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts4268

Or

http://www.apple.com/uk/ios/messages/

When apple uploaded ios7 for global download their was a spate of these silent messages. Ie you shouldn't have seen anything.

Have you ensured that their is no pending carrier update.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1970

[Anonymous]

Thanks, I referred to that guide on Saturday after 24 hours trying and have followed all the guidelines, still no joy! Also updated to 7.0.5.

I can't even get to the stage of ticking the email/number to send/receive message. Have tried using my Apple ID too, no luck.

[Anonymous]

iOS 7.0.5 was an update meant for the Chinese people to improve their carrier settings issues but overlapped to mostly anyone who bought an unlocked iPhone 5s and 5c in Europe.

I'm surprised that the apple genius was not if more help.

[Anonymous]

Also doesn't seem to be a pending update? Soooo bizarre!

[Anonymous]

I assume your Apple ID is at the top of the screen in blue writing.

Settings - messages - send and receive

[Anonymous]

Do you have mobile data turned on and a running data connection to the network ?

[Anonymous]

Yes all on and running 🙂

[gemz4the1]

You may need a newer sim - you can order a replacement here: https://www.o2.co.uk/freesim/ 

Or you can collect a replacement sim from your nearest O2 store.  Once you have a sim you need to complete a sim swap: http://swapmysim.o2.co.uk/

[Anonymous]

The forums are awash with people who are having issues with iMessage and the typical remedy is to keep trying the reset network settings option.