How to Fix iMessage

[bdoooh_14]

Yeah out of the blue today.. came home from work.. iMessage stopped working when it was working this morning & I hadn't restarted the machine. How does it just stop working like that??! This is super annoying..

 

[chaoticmayhem65]

I upgraded from Mountain Lion 10.8.2 to Mavericks 10.9.0, & then up to 10.9.4 the other day. Using Chameleon 2.2svn bootloader. (My SMBIOS.plist & serial number were changed during this).

My iMessage App had been working for well over a year on Mountain Lion without any issues, since I applied the Modules / FileNVRAM fix, and I knew upgrading to Mavericks would require a reapplication of the fix.
But I've since had trouble trying to get it working again now. And along with everyone else, I'd tried absolutely everything, short of attempting Clover bootloader or actually calling Apple.

So about 15 minutes ago, I decided to give it a shot & call their support (Apple Care Australia, 1300-321-456).

The assistant asked for my first & last name, & a phone number in-case the call is disconnected.
He then asked what the problem was, to which I advised that my Messages App was no longer working on my "Mac". I provided the Customer Code which was showing in the Messages log-in error window.
He asked for the serial number of my Mac, & I read out what was listed in my SMBIOS.plist.
It took him a moment, but then he asked me to reconfirm the serial. And then reported that for some reason, it wasn't showing on the system.
He asked me for my email address, & then shortly after asked to confirm that it was a Mac I was calling about, & not my MacBook Pro, which he did have listed. I confirmed that it was a 2008 Mac Pro, and that the Messages App hadn't been working properly for a couple of weeks now & won't let me sign in, even though I know that I am using the correct username & password.
He said that he knows another work-around, & put me on hold for about 4 - 5 minutes.
When he answered again, he advised that he'd done everything that he needed to do on his end, & asked me to try login again.
Sure enough, I logged in straight away!

I sent a few messages to confirm that it was working, then restarted, & everything appears to be fine!

Huge thanks to jaymonkey & everyone who contributed to the original post / guide!

Thank you sir!!! I have had this system setup and running like a top but recently suffered from the August iMessage sign in bug and tried all of step 4 with no success. Jumped to the last page of this thread and read your post. So i gave apple a call and gave them the customer code and serial number. The apple care tech was having trouble with the serial number i gave him from my system profiler and smbios saying it was two digits short. I was just persistent that it was the correct serial number and eventually he unlocked some security setting and i was able to log in successfully. My iMessage is back up and running. So I can verify that calling apple support worked in my specific situation.

 

[dj-ek]

Thank you sir!!! I have had this system setup and running like a top but recently suffered from the August iMessage sign in bug and tried all of step 4 with no success. Jumped to the last page of this thread and read your post. So i gave apple a call and gave them the customer code and serial number. The apple care tech was having trouble with the serial number i gave him from my system profiler and smbios saying it was two digits short. I was just persistent that it was the correct serial number and eventually he unlocked some security setting and i was able to log in successfully. My iMessage is back up and running. So I can verify that calling apple support worked in my specific situation.

No worries at all chaoticmayhem65! Happy to help!
That's exactly what I did, just simply persisted with the serial that I had on my end, until he decided to take alternative route.
Hopefully this is a solid solution, or at least a solid resolution if it does happen again.

 

[Stingray88]

@Stingray88,

I'm surprised that your still having issues with iMessage, you have same mobo as one of my systems that was effected by the 8th Aug 'glitch'. Removing the security plists got iMessage up and running again on that system.

Have you read the updated Section 5d and checked your MLB & ROM values ?.
UD5H is not effected by Sid Bug so you should only need to use part 1 of the guide.

As long as your not using Apple RAID or Fusion drive as your start-up drive then you should be able to get things working again without too much trouble.

Suggestions:

• Re-Install Chimera 3.0.1
• Re-Install FileNVRAM 1.1.3
• Clear NVRAM boot args
• Remove all nvram.uuid.plist in /Extra
• Perform all of Step 4 including 8th Aug update
• Empty Trash
• Reboot
• Check new nvram.uuid.plist in /Extra - ensure that uuid matches SM-UUID
• Try iMessage again

There have been a few isolated reports from some users suggesting that something has changed again at Apples end. I cant confirm this as all five of my OSX Hacks are working fine with iMessage in the UK.

Good Luck
Cheers
Jay

Thanks Jay! I swear ROM values were correct before... but apparently not. I injected a ROM value based on my MAC address using the instruction here... and finally I got the error message to call Apple support with a customer code. I just got on the web chat, gave the support guy my code, and BAM works fine!

Thanks again!

 

[elvtnedge]

@elvtnedge,

On a standard Chimera/Chameleon install The /Extra folder will be in the root of your startup drive. If you are using a Apple Raid or Fusion Drive for your Startup drive then the /Extra folder will be on the helper partition so you will have to manually mount it using terminal:- (diskutil mount diskXs3) replace X with the correct drive id.

If you are using clover then there will be no /Extra folder - it uses its own configuration system.

Some users boot from a USB either by accident or by choice, if your using USB and don't want to install the Boot-Loader to a system drive then the /Extra folder will be hidden in the root of the USB. Use 'Show All Files' and navigate to the root of your USB.

Before making any alterations check that your system really does have the SId bug by checking the value of SM UUID in the IO Reg as detailed in Part2 of the guide, just because contact show up in red does not prove 100% your mobo has SId Bug.

To edit the plists in /Extra just navigate there using finder, right click on the file you want to edit and open with TextWrangler, when you start to edit it may ask you for your admin password.

Good Luck
Cheers
Jay

Thanks for the reply. I'm almost sure I have the bug as it said it was something like 0002 0004 etc.

I'll try your suggestion when u get home tonight... Thanks

 

[shaunvis]

I think this sort of thing will become commonplace unfortunately. I don't think it's an Apple killing mackintosh thing as much as them trying to prevent bogus devices (android, Chinese knockoffs, etc.) from using the system. Unfortunately it means we get affected too.

Here's hoping they come out with a new mini that can push 3 monitors. It's just getting to be too much of a hassle going the hactintosh route. For me anyway.

 

[jborn]

I'd like to confirm that I don't need to apply the SID fix.

My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC
Using IOJones I've confirmed that I have a valid system-id
In the /Extra folder I have an nvram.UUID.plist file and the UUID matches the system-id already.

This means that I don't have the SID issue, correct?

 

[jaymonkey]

I'd like to confirm that I don't need to apply the SID fix.

My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC
Using IOJones I've confirmed that I have a valid system-id
In the /Extra folder I have an nvram.UUID.plist file and the UUID matches the system-id already.

This means that I don't have the SID issue, correct?

@jborn,

Correct, as long as it is a unique value and not all zeros or number sequence like 0000100020004 ..or similar.

Cheers
Jay

 

[jaymonkey]

using clover, imessage_debug, sudo nvram -xp

i have 2 HD
first and main : FaceTime and iMessage used to work before
2nd HD : FaceTime and iMessage is OK

can someone tell me how to make it work again on 1st HD
with out generating new serial

other issue may be linked
one 1st HD
sudo nvram -d efi-boot-device (deleting) is Ok but after reboot efi-boot-device are back and obviously are corrupt

adding
sudo nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:MLB=xxxxxx (17 digits)
sudo nvram 4D1EDE05-38C7-4A6A-9CC6-4BCCA8B38C14:ROM=0031dd81fc05
does not work, they don't appear by using sudo nvram -xp

How can i force nvram (sudo nvram -xp) to be saved and to be used by clover

i know sudo nvram -xp > /nvram.plist but /nvram.plist is not equal to sudo nvram -xp after reboot

thanks for help u'll provide

@fbaux,

The fix is much simpler with clover, as you can inject values for ROM & MLB at Boot time.

Please read Step-5d again, I've added the method for injecting MLB & ROM for those of you using Clover.

Good Luck
Cheers
Jay

 

[tommo84]

Hallo to everyone,I need your help, since I made a big mess trying to adjust the iMessage bug.

following the guide at Step-3: SMBIOS.plist and Boot-loader, I generated a new random serial number but probably I defined the pc as a macpro 4,1 intsead of 3,1 as it was before.

the results is that now I can't boot at all,neither for hdd neither from usb. I get a kernel panic:

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

what can I do?
any help will be very usefull!

thanks