Question :

Recently, people have started complaining that they can no longer send me iMessages. They get a message that their iMessages have to be re-sent as regular SMS… and when they get iMessages from me, they appear to be sent from my iCloud-account…

…I tried to find anything to adjust on my iPhone, but in the iMessage settings, both my phone no. and my iCloud-account are listed, but… only the iCloud-account is in black and has a checkmark in front of it, the phone no. has been greyed out and doesn’t have a checkmark… and I can’t seem to activate the phone no. as I can’t find a way to get a checkmark in front…

Note : I’m not sure when I first encountered this problem, it could have started after upgrading to iOS 7, or due to having to temporarily switch phone carriers when I went abroad.

Is there any way to fix this ?

Answer :

Yes.

There is a relatively simple fix for this :

1- on your iPhone, go to “Settings”, then to “Messages”, and then switch off “iMessage”

2- then, back in “Settings”, go to “FaceTime”, and switch off “FaceTime” also

3- then shut off your iPhone by pressing the (physical) ON/OFF-button top-right on your iPhone

4- then switch your iPhone back on, go to “Settings”, then to “Messages”, switch “iMessage” back on, and wait for the “Send & Receive” to display “x Addresses”

5- then click on “x Addresses”, and you will see a list of the “YOU CAN BE REACHED BY IMESSAGE AT” starting with your phone no. with a checkmark in front of it – if it’s greyed out, that’s no problem… if there’s no checkmark, wait a few moments for it to appear… if it doesn’t, then redo the entire OFF&ON-switching process of both iMessage and FaceTime

6- then go back to “Settings”, then to “FaceTime”, switch “FaceTime” back on, and wait for the list of “YOU CAN BE REACHED BY FACETIME AT”-list to display, again starting with your phone no. with a checkmark in front of it

…again : if it’s greyed out, that’s no problem… if there’s no checkmark, wait a little… and if there’s still no checkmark after that… redo the entire OFF&ON-switching process of both iMessage and FaceTime

7- if you still don’t get the checkmarks to appear after a second attempt, redo the entire OFF&ON-switching of both iMessage and FaceTime again, but this time, make sure you switch off iMessage first and instead of just simply shutting down your iPhone, do a restart by pressing both physical buttons on the iPhone simultaneously (both the Menu-button below-screen and the ON/OFF-button top-right on the housing), and then wait for the white Apple logo to re-appear…

That should be it !

Enjoy !