Iphone 14 imessage and Facetime not working - shambolic

[mjanjooa]

Took out a new contract with vodafone, porting my number from EE. 

• imessage and facetime never worked on physical sim
• Moved to esim. Still didnt work (stuck in Activation or error activating)
• Spent 4 days on phone with vodafone and apple. Vodafone saying its Aples fault and Apple say.....
• Tried all the usual stuff online, turned off imessage, checked locale setting, waited 24 hours, reset network, even had Vodafone wipe my account and losing all connnectivity for half a day whilst they sorted a new esim. 
• SMS messages work fine. 

Any suggestions before i cancel my contract and go back to EE who btw never had an issue for over 2 years.?

[Mark]

Hey @mjanjooa 👋 Lets see if we can get your iMessage service back up and running again. The first thing we need to check is that your iMessage service is correctly set up, you can do this by following these steps: 

- Tap Settings

- Select Messages

- Tap Send & Receive

You will see a list of email addresses and phone numbers that can send and receive iMessages on your iPhone.  Under the heading, “Start New Conversations From,” make sure to select your phone number to activate iMessage for your number.

If this doesn't work, you can also try signing out of your Apple ID and back in again. you can do this by following the below steps:

- Tap Settings

- Select Messages

- Select Send & Receive

- Select your Apple ID

- Choose Sign Out

- Go back to Settings

- Tap on Sign in to your [device]

- Use your Apple ID and password to sign in

- Restart your phone

Once you’re signed back in and your phone's been restarted, try sending an iMessage to another Apple user. If the message comes up blue, then iMessage is working again.

Let us know how you get on trying these and if you need anymore help with your iMessage.

[mjanjooa]

Tried the suggestions here already. 
still stuck on waiting for activation. 

[mjanjooa]

I can use my email for iMessage and FaceTime but not the number

[Andy]

Hi @mjanjooa 👋 Thanks for trying that and apologies you're still having issues. We will need to take a closer look over this, as we don`t have account access here could you please contact us by following the instructions here and we can get started. 

[dw9999]

Any luck?  Currently have the exact same issue as you.  Recently moved over from EE and transferred my number.  iMessage will not activate against my number.  

Have spoken to Vodafone and Apple numerous times going through the same steps as yourself and it’s getting tiresome.  Have also tried my sim in an older iPhone that’s been restored to factory and no luck. This must be a Vodafone issue, it seems to me the activation SMS that tries to get sent just doesn’t go through.  Starting to regret moving from EE, the 5g also sucks comparison.  

[mjanjooa]

Spoke with a senior advisor at Apple. After leaving iMessage turned on for 36 hours it just magically started working. I did try this before and it still didn’t work. 
Are you able to send a text to 51369? This is the number Apple uses to determine your sms is working fine. If so, means your Vodafone sms is correctly setup and only then will Apple investigate further. 
agree, 5G is rubbish. Doesn’t work in a lot of places. 

[mjanjooa]

I also read a few posts which say their iMessage started working after a senior Apple advisor went into their account. This may have triggered something off. 
btw. Apple may ask you to send sms to 40250. Don’t bother, this only works if your in the US. Use the number I gave above. 

[dw9999]

Thanks for getting back to me, glad it’s resolved for you now.

Yeah I can send a text to that number so my SMS seems fine.  Have ordered a new SIM card so let’s see if that helps.  If not I’ll just have to leave it and hope it eventually activates.  

[mjanjooa]

Couple of suggestions in order:

switch to a esim via the app

Ask to speak with senior Apple advisor and ask them to escalate. 

Leave iMessage turned on for 48hrs (I kept getting an error so had to turn off / on a few times). 

assume iMessage with email address works fine.