How to Fix iMessage

[Garetty]

The above procedure will create a totally new identity for you and your hack (MAC) which has not been registered with Apple so hopefully no UUID lock out and iMessage will work for you. If not then we need to look a little deeper as to whats going on in your logs ... etc

Tried the above with no luck. Everything worked until I got to iMessage, which logged in then the contacts turned red again after I tried to send a message. It told me to sign in again, then gave me another code. I could go back to my old AppleID and try to contact Apple again with the new S/N and try again with the new code? (Remember, last time they didn't even take my code, don't know why.)

 

[jaymonkey]

Thanks Jaymonkey for the reply. Ive tried all those things and still can't log in. Hopefully we won't have this issue when 10.10 comes out.

Albert

Tried the above with no luck. Everything worked until I got to iMessage, which logged in then the contacts turned red again after I tried to send a message. It told me to sign in again, then gave me another code. I could go back to my old AppleID and try to contact Apple again with the new S/N and try again with the new code? (Remember, last time they didn't even take my code, don't know why.)

@Albertsw & @Garetty

I'm really surprised that changing your AppleID and Hacks identity has not worked for you, at this point if you have both tried all of the fixes in the guide plus the suggestions in my last post I'm at a loss to explain what could be going on. As a test this morning I created a new AppleID and a new S/N and SystemId UUID for one of my hacks and it worked fine .... ?

I would suggest you both do some trawling through your system logs using the console application, look for authentication and/or packet rejection. Its quite possible that Apple have changed something at their end with the beta releases of OSX 10.10 and IOS 8 although i would expect that these would be confined to development/beta servers at the moment.

Have you tried a clean install ?
Are you using Chimera 3.0.1 + FileNVRAM V1.1.3 ?

As for it magical fixing itself when OSX Yosemite rolls out later this year, I don't think so .... it would not surprise me if it stops iMessage functionality completely and we all go back to square one ... lets hope thats not the case, I'm really looking forward to the new iMessage features especially being able to send SMS & MMS to any phone and being able to make and take calls on the via OSX.

For me I keep getting the message: "An error occurred during activation. Try again." whenever I try to login to iMessage. I have tried all of the fixes and know that iMessage is communicating with apple because when I type in a wrong password it tells me so.

Any ideas on what else I can do? I started having the issue in Mavericks.

@cmgerard

I think your issue is different to what the two guys above are seeing, I would carefully work through part 1 of the guide, try updating to Chimera 3.0.1 and FileNVRAM 1.1.3 if your not already running them. Check your AppleID is verified, try changing your AppleID password.

Can you use any of the other iCloud services such as AppStore, iTunes .... Notes .. etc, if not i suspect that the problem lies with your configuration (see below).

@All

Those of you who have not had any success with iMessage could try the following :-
Install DPCIManager 1.5, you can download it from here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dpcimanager/files/

Once installed run it and make sure your on the 'Status' tab, the top part of the Status screen will identify all your network interfaces and display their BCD names, as explained in Step 2 of Part 1 of the guide the BCD names should start at 'en0', more important though is the 'Builtin' check box next to each interface, it must be checked for iMessage to work on each network interface.

If it is not checked then click on the 'eye' icon for the appropriate interface (at the right hand side of each entry), you will be given an EFI string that you can add to your boot.chameleon.org.plist in /Extra, this string is required for correct iMessage operation, for most users the Boot-Loader will identify the correct EFI string and automatically inject it as long as you have the following key and string in your plist:-

    <key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
    <string>Yes</string>

However in some instances it does not work in which case you should manually inject the NIC(s) EFI string(s) identified by DPCIManager (if your using Clover boot-loader please see the clover documentation on how to inject EFI strings)I've added this tip to Step 3 of Part 1 of guide and I would be interested if this works for any of you, if it does not work straight away, you may have to try one or two of the other steps in the guide such as deleting all previous iMessage setup data (see Part-1, Step-3), reset AppleID password, delete nvram.uuid.plist in /extra ... etc.

I hope that this helps you guys.

Good Luck
Cheers
Jay

 

[Albertsw]

So I downloaded DCPIManager and Noticed that my Wi-Fi cards BSD is set as en0 and my ethernet is set as en2. Both of them have the "Builtin" box checked. In your guide it says it should be en0 then en1. I don't know why my computer is skipping one. I read the Macworld article you linked to in Step 2 Part 1 and it defiantly seems to describe my problem. It recommends trying to edit the networkinterfaces.plist but I don't know how to do that.

I also decided to poke around in Console an I found it gives me a ton of errors when the login to iMessage fails. I've attached a screenshot of them below. Im not really sure what they mean so maybe someone could take a look at them.

Thanks
Albert

 

[jaymonkey]

So I downloaded DCPIManager and Noticed that my Wi-Fi cards BSD is set as en0 and my ethernet is set as en2. Both of them have the "Builtin" box checked. In your guide it says it should be en0 then en1. I don't know why my computer is skipping one. I read the Macworld article you linked to in Step 2 Part 1 and it defiantly seems to describe my problem. It recommends trying to edit the networkinterfaces.plist but I don't know how to do that.

I also decided to poke around in Console an I found it gives me a ton of errors when the login to iMessage fails. I've attached a screenshot of them below. Im not really sure what they mean so maybe someone could take a look at them.

Thanks
Albert

Hi Albert,

Thanks for posting your files, be careful when posting console logs at it can disclose some personal data such as phone numbers .... etc

Looking at your console system log I notice that where there should be a phone number there is an email address ?, not sure about that, try loggin into your AppleID via the link in Step 1 and check your address and phone number information, not sure if this is an issue but it might be worth checking.

Looking at your BCD names i would say that this is where your issue lies. The built in Ethernet interface should be en0, and your WiFi device should be en1. You could try deleting the networkinterfaces plist, see Step-2 (now updated) and rebooting. OSX should rediscover your NIC's and rebuild the plist with the correct BCD names. If that does not work you may have to reinstall OSX like we had on my friends system as discussed in Step-2.

I'm almost certain that this is the cause of your issues.

Cheers
Jay

 

[Albertsw]

Thanks for pointing out my personal info was visible. I accidentally uploaded the screenshot from before I edited it.

I tried removing the network interfaces.plist and also preferences.plist that was in that folder. When I booted up my wifi and ethernet were en0 and en1 this time but I still couldn't login to iMessage.

When I get time I will install OS X on a spare HDD I have and see if that works. If you have any other ideas in the mean time please let me know.

Thanks,
Albert

 

[Garetty]

Looking at your console system log I notice that where there should be a phone number there is an email address ?, not sure about that, try loggin into your AppleID via the link in Step 1 and check your address and phone number information, not sure if this is an issue but it might be worth checking.

Looking at DPCI Manager, I had en0 and en1, all is good there.

Looking at the console logs, mine is identical to Albert's, just with my information. Even had my AppleID where it said there should be a phone number.


EDIT: I also thought this was interesting... I don't have time right now to look at it but it seems like the same thing, but on real Macs. Family thing, sorry.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5956454

 

[DapperMan]

Would this have to do with iMessage not working? Or is it just checking again to see if I was able to log in to iMessage? I'm assuming after you successfully log in it creates an accountStatus.plist file?

 

[jaymonkey]

I tried removing the network interfaces.plist and also preferences.plist that was in that folder. When I booted up my wifi and ethernet were en0 and en1 this time but I still couldn't login to iMessage.

When I get time I will install OS X on a spare HDD I have and see if that works. If you have any other ideas in the mean time please let me know.

Looking at the console logs, mine is identical to Albert's, just with my information. Even had my AppleID where it said there should be a phone number.

EDIT: I also thought this was interesting... I don't have time right now to look at it but it seems like the same thing, but on real Macs. Family thing, sorry.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5956454

@Albertsw

Is your ethernet NIC en0 or en1 ?, reading your post It looks like it's en1 ?, if it is can you temporally remove the WiFi NIC ?, delete the network interface plist, reboot and see if the ethernet is now en0 ?, if it is and you can connect to the internet via your LAN then try iMessage again without the WiFi NIC, if you need your WiFi to connect to the internet then add it, reboot and see if its now en1 then try again.

Either way you might want to try the password reset and other tips again after trying the above.

I can't be sure if this will help but I'm pretty certain that if a MAC has onboard ethernet, its should always be en0 .... from memory the GA Z77 DS3H has a single onboard Atheros NIC so it should be en0 and your WiFi should be en1.

@Garetty

I assume that this problem is on your HP Probook ?, other than an i5 CPU (i have i7 2460M) I think the spec is almost the same as my Sony SE2 laptop which iMessage is working on both the internal Ethernet (Realtek) NIC and WiFi AW-CE123-H mPCIe card. Is your ethernet en0 ? if not try the above suggestion (remove WiFi).

---

Other than the above I cant think of anything else for you guys to try other than a fresh install ...

If you do try a re-install remove the WiFi interface first, then install and set up OSX and iCloud ... etc
If possible try using iMessage via the ethernet NIC before refitting your WiFi NIC.

All I can say is keep at it ... perseverance always pays when building a Hackingtosh, the more times you install the more you learn ... the more you learn the more confident you'll get .... remember that every day is a school day in the world of Hackingtosh

Good Luck
Cheers
Jay

 

[yuchen1211]

Called them and after a while of being transferred around they said that they had documentation on my error/customer support code (9921-9784-3910) they said it had to do with not having a valid serial number. Any ideas? Has anyone else had this exact error code?

Edit: Just booted up the clone of my main drive and for about two minutes iMessage worked fine but then went back to the same error. What a tease.

I got a customer code and when I called them they asked for the serial number of the device. Because the serial number was not real I didn't give it to them.
After Chimera 3.0.1 was out, I just upgraded to Chimera 3.0.1 and FileNVRAM.dylib 1.1.3. Then I found my credit card information in App Store was missing(I thought I filled it before and couldn't remember when it was removed). After adding credit card information ,the iMessage service works great!! You may give it a try.

 

[DapperMan]

MY IMESSAGE IS FINALLY WORKING YESSSS!!

So here's what I did after trying many different things in order to try and get iMessage working...

When I first discovered that iMessage wasn't working for me I found this thread, I followed every single step that included adding my debit card to my apple id but even after doing that it still didn't work! So after discovering iMessage was still not working even after adding my debit card info I decided to remove it, I don't know I just didn't want apple having my debit card info Anyways today I decided to buy an app I obviously was prompted to add a new payment method and so I did this time after adding my debit card info I forgot to remove it. So just now I decided to continue to try and find a fix for the iMessage problem that has really irritated me for the past week! Anyways I went to go sign in to iMessage and everything went through! I no longer had the "red contact" at the top and I no longer got signed out after being signed in for a few seconds! So I guess if you're iMessage still doesn't work for you even after adding your credit/debit card info once and even after applying all the fixes in this thread just remove your credit/debit card info and then re-add it and maybe buy an app or something off the iTunes store? Anyways I'm really glad that its working now I think I'm going to make a back up of my S/N and my UUID just in case so I hope this helps anyone else that is having this issue anyways good look!

Cheers!