iMessage Playing Up

[Nashy]

Hi Guys,

My work colleague is having issues with iMessage since installing Whatsapp.

Basically, on her phone, all messages are showing as sent via iMessage, but all incoming messages are coming through as texts/SMS.  Yet the people sending them are on iMessage.

This seems to be when she installed Whatsapp.  Is there something I'm missing.  I don't know much about iPhones now days.

Thanks!

[Shadrack]

WhatsApp should be completely unrelated.  I think it is coincidental.

 

Does she have the iPhone 5S?  My wife has been having issues with her iPhone 5S dropping her data connection when she isn't active for some time.  This results in her sending me an iMessage, and me trying to reply via iMessage but my phone gives up and eventually sends an SMS.  The problem is intermittent, however.  We've tried restoring her phone but that didn't appear to help anything.  Hoping iOS 7.1 sorts it out.  I'm having no issues on iOS 7 with my iPhone 5 on the same network...

 

First thing to try is the easiest.  Have her go to Settings->Messenger and disable iMessages.  After that I say reboot the phone and give it about 5-10 minutes.  After that re-enable the iMessages feature and give it another 10-20 minutes for Apple's servers to update its list of iOS devices and addresses for her to send and receive iMessages.  Then see if the problem still persists.

 

Beyond trying that: Is her problem the same no matter what network she is on (i.e., cell data, home WiFi, work WiFi, etc.)?  I'm no iMessage expert, but I imagine there is a possibility that (for example) her work WiFi was setup in such a way that the firewall blocks incoming iMessages but allows outgoing ones.

[Rippleman]

I do not have the whats app, but i do know viber does a similar thing and takes over also takes over imessage recived unless you go into viber settings and change it back. WhatsApp should work similarly.

[CPressland]

Generally speaking I'd do the following:

 

 

1) Disable iMessage entirely on each device it's activated on

2) Re-enable iMessage on each device, starting with the iPhone so the MSISDN is the first record to get populated followed by your AppleID

3) Disable - Settings > Messages > Send as SMS. This will prevent the phone from sending an SMS when it simply 'gives up' with iMessage.

 

Two things I'm noticing with iMessage right now, firstly the APNS seams to send a 'failed' push notification to some devices as soon as you send an iMessage, within a few seconds the failed status is replaced with a 'delivered' status, however on devices where sending an SMS on iMessage failure is permitted it will default back to SMS before the 'delivered' command is received.

Secondly, iMessages do not replicate properly between devices, however I don't think this is relevant to this issue.

 

Try the above and see if it fixes the issue, failing that do the following:

 

Download the iPhone Configuration Utility from Apple for either Windows (http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1466) or OS X (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1465). Once installed connect the iDevice via USB and select it in the Sidebar, if iTunes launches, close it immediately. Once you have the iDevice selected head to the 'Console' tab, this will show you the device logs, clear any existing logs and then send an iMessage. Confirm that the original issue with replicated by checking the other iDevice for any SMS and then copy and paste out the logs into a CODE reply. I should be able to determine the root cause of the issue from these logs.

 

If you notice anything private in the Console logs, feel free to censor or PM me.

 

EDIT - WhatsApp etc will be completely unrelated here as Third-Party Applications cannot access the Messages SQLite file to cause any such issues.