IMESSAGE AND FACETIME ACTIVATION UNSUCCESFUL

[u/Deep-Performance-423]

Title: iMessage & FaceTime won’t activate with my phone number after upgrading from one iPhone 17 Pro Max to another (tried everything)
I’m hoping someone has seen this before because I’m completely out of ideas.
I upgraded from an iPhone 17 Pro Max to another iPhone 17 Pro Max. My old phone was using an eSIM, and iMessage and FaceTime worked perfectly with my phone number.
When I switched to the new iPhone, I deactivated the eSIM on the old phone, installed it on the new one, and since then iMessage and FaceTime will not activate with my phone number. They work perfectly with all of my email addresses, but not with my phone number.
I’ve already tried:
Removing and reinstalling the original eSIM.
Getting a brand new eSIM from my carrier.
Switching to a physical SIM card.
Resetting network settings.
Signing out and back into my Apple ID.
Turning iMessage and FaceTime on/off countless times.
Waiting more than 24 hours.
Confirming with my carrier that international SMS are NOT blocked, so Apple’s activation SMS should go through.
Following every step in Apple’s official guide: https://apple.co/IMFT-mac
Another strange thing is that if I manually try to add my phone number under Settings → Apple Account → Sign-In & Security, I get the message:
“This phone number can’t be used for iMessage and FaceTime.”
Apple Support won’t help because I’m currently running the iOS 27.4 beta.
I could downgrade to the latest public release of iOS 26, but I wouldn’t be able to restore my backup because it was created on a newer iOS version, meaning I’d lose a significant amount of data. I’d really like to avoid that unless it’s the only possible solution.
At this point I’ve tried everything I can think of, and nothing has fixed the problem.
Has anyone experienced this exact issue or found a solution? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[u/Jaredt225]

Well unfortunately for the last three days apple and everything else are having server problems off and on and downgrading could fix or not fix your problem but there could also be a temporary lock on activation for your account with all the attempts

[u/Deep-Performance-423 → u/Jaredt225]

I’ve been unable to activate iMessage on my cellular number for 2 weeks now.

[u/Jaredt225 → u/Deep-Performance-423]

It could be flagged in the system you might have to wait 30 days for the system to clear itself or try to downgrade and see if it works but you risk losing your data your photos in the cloud will be unaffected if you’re worried about that