How to Fix iMessage

[pmdcoleslaw]

How to Fix iMessage - Chapter 3

Symptom: You are getting the contact Apple alert with a Customer Code every time you start iMessage, the customer code is the same each time you boot and your are 100% certain that all your critical ID's are correct and persistent. You've already contacted Apple (maybe multiple times) who tell that iMessage should work, but it still gives the same customer code.

View attachment 136571

NOTE: The wording of the alert may be different to the above​

Cause: It's possible that the Apple on-line servers have logged too many different Apple devices and/or IP addresses against your routers WAN IP address. I know this sounds a bit of an odd thing for Apple to do but its does seem to be the case in some situations.

I repair a lot of Mac systems so i have quite a high flow of Apple machines and devices going through my network, Apple introduced this IP quota check quite a few years a-go and according to the Apple Tech I spoke to was the original reason for the Contact Apple with customer code message.

The point here is that if you have had non-persistent NVRAM values on your hackingtosh at some point in the past, then its possible that the S/N, MLB, ROM ... etc will get logged as a 'Ghost Devices' just like if it was a real device. You can sometimes (but not always) see these 'Ghost Devices' in the 'My Devices' section of Apples on-line iCloud system by clicking on 'Settings'.

After a certain number of individual devices (or miss-matched ID's) have been registered or associated with your WAN IP then Apple systems can in some situations consider that IP address as a possible cyber threat (think hackers and spammers doing lots of naughty stuff) and flag the device/account with a block so that no more devices can access Apples messaging systems from that Internet IP Address.

If your ISP provides you with a WAN IP via DHCP from a pool of addresses (most do) then you'll most likely never see this issue as its quite likely your router will have changed it's WAN IP at some point over the last three months, be it after a power cut, reboot, firmware update .. etc.

Once your router's WAN IP has been changed, the WAN IP Quota will also be reset ...

However if like me you have a static IP for your router or you know for a fact that your routers DHCP IP address has been the same for a very long time, then it's possible that your being blocked by Apples systems for having a high volume of devices associated to your WAN IP.

Solution: There are three ways I know the problem can be dealt with:-

1. If your router gets its WAN IP via DHCP (automatically assigned IP address) then the best thing to do is to force an DHCP refresh by simply turning off your router for as long as you can.

Before you start make a note of what your current WAN IP is by visiting :-

http://www.whatsmyip.org/

Now turn off your router, preferably overnight, the longer the better as there will be more chance that your ISP's DHCP server will reallocate your old WAN IP to someone else.

When you turn everything back on you should visit the link again and see if your routers WAN IP has changed, if it has then I suggest resetting the iMessage configuration files as detailed in the previous chapter then reboot and try iMessage again, hopefully it will now work.

2. If your ISP assigns your router with a Static WAN IP then you could try contacting your ISP and ask them to 'rotate' you to new WAN IP, it a normal thing to request (you could tell them that you've been under a hacker attack or something like that) your ISP Should be able to do it within 24 hours if you have the WAN IP registered with a DDHC service then you may have to manually update via the appropriate web UI.

3. Contact Apple Support and give them the customer code but explain that you think its a WAN IP problem ... not many Apple Tech's i've spoken too know about this issue so you may need to ask to speak to a iMessage expert and tell them you think you got a WAN IP Quota issue.

I first detailed this issue a long time ago at the end of the original guide (now Chapter 8 - 'What causes this Message') but i didn't do a very good job of describing the problem or describing the solution very well and since then the contact Apple message with a customer code has primarily become associated with iMessage authentication issues (bad MLB/ROM ... etc).

I should point out that despite this issue sounding a little-far-fetched, i learned of it first hand from a Apple tech guy .... make of it what you want but in my case he reset my WAN IP Quota and it solved my iMessage issues, additionally i can confirm that the method of forcing a WAN IP change by powering off your router for as long as possible has worked for a number of users on the forum.

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End of Chapter 3.4

View attachment 127151

I have a static IP block assigned to my network via my ISP. I was (and still am) getting this message. I tried contacting Apple Support a few times for one machine and each time the tech would continue to escalate the case until eventually I never heard from them again. This happened two or three times, and I decided to do a fresh install. I also had my ISP change my static IP block to a completely different scheme. After the fresh install with an all new system ID set and a new WAN IP, I got the same error with a new code. I told the rep on the first call that I suspected my WAN IP was being blocked. He said he'd never heard of that but would check on it. Once again Apple Support escalated the case a few times when entering the code wouldn't work. However, this time I was eventually told by the rep that my WAN IP was flagged. This was strange since I had just reset the WAN IP and this was the very first Hackintosh setup under the new network scheme. I asked him to reset it and he refused. He stated that it wouldn't fix the problem and that it was possibly due to spam messages being sent from that IP at some point. I tried explaining that we never had any spam issues and that it was because we test multiple machines on the network. He still refused to fix it and once again escalated the case. Also different this time, was that instead of never hearing from them again, he actually contacted me a few days later to tell me that machine appeared to not be an official MAC and that unless I could send them proof of purchase they would not be able to take the case any further. Just to further test this issue I took another machine (completely different from the first), installed OSX on it, and got the same error (with a different code, of course) to call Apple Support. I haven't bothered to call them.

I write this to say that obviously, they are flagging something other than the WAN IP as the new one was flagged immediately. I'm not sure if they are connecting the flag to the ISP account, Apple Account, certain MAC addresses, or what, but obviously changing the WAN IP doesn't reset it. The only thing I can think of that may be happening is that my Static WAN IP is set to a firewall on my network which is behind the ISP modem. However, the ISP modem is set to passthrough mode and the firewall's Static WAN IP shows when I go to whatsmyip.com. If somehow Apple sees the ISP modem's WAN IP instead of my static, then that would explain why resetting my static didn't fix the issue, but I am not sure how they would be able to see that IP when everything else sees my Static. Also, I wanted to let people know that Apple refused to reset my flagged status even after I told them that was the issue. It seemed as though he wouldn't do it simply because he didn't feel that was causing the problem; not because he wasn't allowed to or anything. I felt like he just thought I didn't know what I was talking about, and disregarded my requests.

Any ideas? Also, does anyone know if taking the machine to a different location and network will allow me to sign in? If so will it continue to work after I bring it back to this network?

 

[esafeddie]

does anyone know if taking the machine to a different location and network will allow me to sign in? If so will it continue to work after I bring it back to this network?

That's the million dollar question - even if you get it working in a different location, surely when you return to the original location it would cease to work if they put a block on your IP address or am I reading into your post wrong? I wonder if you would fair better with a genuine Mac device like a mobile machine a MacBook or the like just to see if your network is definitely flagged.

 

[pmdcoleslaw]

does anyone know if taking the machine to a different location and network will allow me to sign in? If so will it continue to work after I bring it back to this network?

That's the million dollar question - even if you get it working in a different location, surely when you return to the original location it would cease to work if they put a block on your IP address or am I reading into your post wrong? I wonder if you would fair better with a genuine Mac device like a mobile machine a MacBook or the like just to see if your network is definitely flagged.

Funny thing is, my iPhone iMessages work just fine when connected to the wifi on the same network. I'll try bringing my wife's MacBook pro and seeing if I can sign in from it.

UPDATE: I am able to sign in and use iMessage just fine on my wife's MacBook Pro on the same network. never got an error or anything, just signed in started receiving messages.

 

[pmdcoleslaw]

So after some more reading, I think the problem might be that the build ID I'm using doesn't EXACTLY match the hardware of the machines. Maybe Apple is kicking the device because the system is using hardware that the official model doesn't have? Someone clarify this for me, please. I know that on one machine I have an LGA1155 i5 2400 3.1ghz which exactly matches a 12,2 iMac. However, I can't get the thing to boot with 12,2 as a system definition. I have to use 14,2 to get it to boot. Any suggestions on how to get 12,2 to boot? I'm thinking that if I can get the machines to better match the official models with the same hardware maybe it will let me sign into iMessage since my official MacBook doesn't have any issue.

 

[esafeddie]

So after some more reading, I think the problem might be that the build ID I'm using doesn't EXACTLY match the hardware of the machines. Maybe Apple is kicking the device because the system is using hardware that the official model doesn't have? Someone clarify this for me, please. I know that on one machine I have an LGA1155 i5 2400 3.1ghz which exactly matches a 12,2 iMac. However, I can't get the thing to boot with 12,2 as a system definition. I have to use 14,2 to get it to boot. Any suggestions on how to get 12,2 to boot? I'm thinking that if I can get the machines to better match the official models with the same hardware maybe it will let me sign into iMessage since my official MacBook doesn't have any issue.

At least now you've proved your network or Mac address is not blocked if the wife's MacBook is not showing a problem. The problem is the values on Hack machine, did you run iMessageDeBugger and inspect the values? I don't think the Mac model 14.2 should cause too much of a problem unless it was something outlandish like a Mac Pro or the new iMacs 17.1 etc. Open your browser, log into iCloud on the web, your account, with your Apple ID and see how many devices are attributed to your account. Any that you no longer have or use remove them from your account.

 

[pmdcoleslaw]

Here are the values in CCV and iMessageDebugger as they are right now on the new machine I installed yesterday. Please let me know if you see something off. The build is an old Lenovo Thinkcentre M91p with the i5 2400 and a GeForce GT 640.

 

[esafeddie]

This will go a long way to help or it may not but on the SMBIOS tab in Clover Configurator, you MUST tick the 'Trust' box, save to config.plist, rebuild permissions and reboot machine. I've looked at your values and didn't see anything amiss.

 

[pmdcoleslaw]

This will go a long way to help or it may not but on the SMBIOS tab in Clover Configurator, you MUST tick the 'Trust' box, save to config.plist, rebuild permissions and reboot machine. I've looked at your values and didn't see anything amiss.

Never even noticed that tab! What exactly does that do? Should I go through and remove all the imessage files before trying to sign in or just try after reboot?

 

[esafeddie]

Never even noticed that tab! What exactly does that do? Should I go through and remove all the imessage files before trying to sign in or just try after reboot?

There's no real need to remove them - by ticking the 'Trust' box I think it has something to do with the NVRAM retaining one part of the machine's info or credentials but I am not 100% certain but it is important. Someone else hopefully with more knowledge will enlighten us both on the subject.

 

[pmdcoleslaw]

There's no real need to remove them - by ticking the 'Trust' box I think it has something to do with the NVRAM retaining one part of the machine's info or credentials but I am not 100% certain but it is important. Someone else hopefully with more knowledge will enlighten us both on the subject.

Well I still get the code to call apple support. I'm not sure what the issue is.