iMessage and FaceTime “Waiting for Activation” problem after iOS 7 update? Here’s the fix!

iOS 7 is now out in the wild and a whole lot of iOS users have already downloaded and updated our iDevices with it.

You might even have noticed a new dedicated FaceTime app on iOS 7! Excited, you check out the app and try and call someone. Then… “Failed Connection”. Then you try and re-activate FaceTime on, it just gets stuck at “Waiting for activation”. Darn.

Seems like a corrupted settings somewhere during the upgrade phase. But I decided to search Apple’s support site on this issue and found this troubleshooting note (link). And as they described in the Unable to activate FaceTime or iMessage with phone number and Apple ID after waiting 24 hours (iPhone only) section, the fix was to reset the phone as new. Wow! That was a little extreme! So I figured that there must be a better way around this, and indeed there was.

If you are one of the unfortunate individuals who faced this problem like I did, don’t worry, the solution seems quite simple as I’ve discovered. What it seemed that you needed to do is to simply reset the network settings.

Update: It looks like this is just a possible fix, not a definite one. The issue could very well be a server-side issue that is preventing some of our iDevices from being verified, perhaps a server congestion issue due to the high number of upgrades to iOS 7. This would explain why some users have been able to get their device verified when they kept trying to activate iMessage or FaceTime. Eventually it gets through apparently.

Like To do so, simply head over the Settings -> General -> Reset. Then tap on the option to Reset Network Settings. It will then ask for your passcode and after which you can proceed to reset the network settings (or still cancel the action). I’ve provided some screenshots below to help guide you through the process as well.

Once that’s done, the iPhone will reset itself and when the phone restarts, simple go to Settings -> Messages and re-enable iMessages again. It should work now, and if it does, FaceTime should also be re-activated at the same time.

And that’s it!

Did it work for you? Let me know it does sini can get a gauge if this is an actual fix or just a lucky co-incidence for me. If it doesn’t, drop me a comment below and let’s figure out what will work for you.

Update: I just had issues again with iMessage. Could receive iMessages but not send out at all. I could turn it off and on and it would reactivate again. However the problem persisted.

Then I tried to reset the network and it worked! Just I share and I guess perhaps you can continue to try this again and maybe it will work for you at another try, hopefully.