topic Re: Facetime and iMessage not working after "successful" number port in Apple Devices

Facetime and iMessage not working after "successful" number port

noceross — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 07:53:46 GMT

Hi all

Hoping somebody can help. I have recently joined EE, and ported my old number over from O2. I got the various messages to confirm the port was successful, and I can make and receive calls from the old number absolutely fine. However iMessage and Facetime have not been able to "activate" the number. If I go into the settings for either, both are successfully linked to my AppleID (so any iMessages I send show as coming from my email address), and the old (ported) number shows as a clickable option but if I try to add it (there's a tick against the email address but not the phone number) I get an error message saying "iMessage Activation. An error occurred during activation. Try again"

I have trawled through this forum, and tried many suggested things including resetting my network settings, turning iMessage and Facetime on and off, switching the phone on and off, logging out of both with my email address (and resetting) and get the same outcome every time.

Within the "mobile service" settings the old (ported) number is correctly showing under "My Number", so that seems to have updated fine. So I am baffled why I'm unable to use either iMessage or Facetime with the number. I still have my old phone, and have logged out of everything.

Does anybody know anything I can try to fix this, beyond the actions mentioned above. I did call EE yesterday, and was told I'd be sent a message with instructions (I think to reset the network settings - which I have already tried), but naturally the message from EE did not come through as I cannot receive messages sent to the number.

Huge thanks in advance for any suggestions or help!

Re: Facetime and iMessage not working after "successful" number port

Schockwave — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 09:33:08 GMT

Hello @noceross ,

Welcome to the community,

Here is all the information for getting IMessage and FaceTime working:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/119859

Re: Facetime and iMessage not working after "successful" number port

noceross — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 09:42:49 GMT

Hi there

Thanks for the response. I have, however, already followed all those suggestions, including the "Try to activate your iMessage or FaceTime account online" with Apple. That was done yesterday, along with the "turn off and restart", and I also logged out of both iMessage and Facetime, restarted the phone, and no luck. They let me log in with an email address but still not allowing me to "send and receive" via my phone number.

Any iMessages sent to my phone number (the ported one) are not being received.

Any ideas?

Re: Facetime and iMessage not working after "successful" number port

Schockwave — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 09:46:22 GMT

@noceross , have you checked in settings messages and made sure that IMessage is switched on? The same with FaceTime check there?

Re: Facetime and iMessage not working after "successful" number port

noceross — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 10:02:40 GMT

Hi there.

Strange, I just got a message from EE saying "Great news! We''ve updated some of your network settings, please restart your phone to make sure it's up to date" - which I did and now the phone number is successfully activated on iMessage and Facetime.

So, problem solved!

Thanks (if anybody out there did anything - or if it was just a coincidence!)

Re: Facetime and iMessage not working after "successful" number port

Schockwave — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 13:00:22 GMT

@noceross , thank you for coming back and letting me know, glad the network setting have solved your problem.