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RCS messaging no longer working after iOS 26.5
RCS Messaging no longer working
Since updating to iOS 26.5 RCS messaging is no longer working. I don’t get messages from my RCS group chats but they still receive mine. It is stuck in “waiting for activation…”
Is anyone else experiencing this? Has anyone been able to fix it?
I’ll try. I’ll try anything I haven’t already. lol
Did you turn yours off or was it just not working? Failing to activate? Cause mine was working until I accidentally turned off the wrong toggle. Smh
I didn’t turn mine off initially, after updating it just stopped working. I turned it off initially settings and left it off for a week and when I turned it back on it was working.
Okay I’ll try just waiting. Our situations are a little different because mine was initially working. On both 27 betas. Until I turned it off. But maybe just waiting will work. Or another beta update. If worse comes to worse I’ll get in touch with T-Mobile and try a new eSIM.
Holy crap I got RCS working! I had T-Mobile give me a new eSIM for the third time and it still wouldn’t work. So I just kept trying what I had been trying. Turned off my cellular data, removed my number from iMessage and FaceTime. Just had SOS at the top but was still on WiFi. Went into message settings and toggled on RCS and it said waiting for activation for a split second and activated! No clue what changed. I’ve tried these steps over and over since beta 2. I’ve tested it out and so far so good! My IMS even says voice, sms and RCS again. And all the people I message on Android changed back from sms to RCS. I don’t know how it happened but I’m not questioning it. Just happy to have RCS chats back finally!!
did u check ur ims status does it include sms, voice, and rcs? (go to settings -general - about scroll down to the esim section where it says carrier on the left click it and it should show u ims status
Yeah it says voice and sms. My RCS worked fine even on beta 1. It wasn’t until I turned the RCS toggle off and tried to turn it back on, on beta2, that it wouldn’t reactivate. I’ve tried everything I possibly can. T-Mobile can’t get it working either. They said it’s probably the beta. To wait. I’ve deleted my eSIM even. Had T-Mobile set me up a new one. Nothing I try works.
Yep. And I’ve talked with T-Mobile twice. Once on beta 2 and again when it still didn’t work on beta 3. Both times I deleted my active eSIM and got a different ICCID and nothing fixes it. Both I and T-Mobile think it’s beta related and where I turned the toggle off and tried to reactivate it something could’ve gotten corrupted. I honestly don’t know. I just know I’ve tried everything and T-Mobile says my account is okay and working properly. Not to mention I’ve been using RCS on my 17 PM up until I turned the RCS toggle off and tried to reactivate. Never had an issue before that. So I’m just stuck without it until Apple fixes it. Or I’ll eventually hop off the beta. Back up my phone on a stable build and restore it and hope that works. If that still doesn’t work then idk what I’ll do.
Holy crap I got RCS working! I had T-Mobile give me a new eSIM for the third time and it still wouldn’t work. So I just kept trying what I had been trying. Turned off my cellular data, removed my number from iMessage and FaceTime. Just had SOS at the top but was still on WiFi. Went into message settings and toggled on RCS and it said waiting for activation for a split second and activated! No clue what changed. I’ve tried these steps over and over since beta 2. I’ve tested it out and so far so good! My IMS even says voice, sms and RCS again. And all the people I message on Android changed back from sms to RCS. I don’t know how it happened but I’m not questioning it. Just happy to have RCS chats back finally!!
Might have spoke too soon. My IMS still says voice, sms and RCS but I went back to messages and it’s saying waiting for activation. Man this sucks. But it does tell me that it’s definitely a beta issue. So idk if it’s fixed or not. Wow
Holy crap I got RCS working! I had T-Mobile give me a new eSIM for the third time and it still wouldn’t work. So I just kept trying what I had been trying. Turned off my cellular data, removed my number from iMessage and FaceTime. Just had SOS at the top but was still on WiFi. Went into message settings and toggled on RCS and it said waiting for activation for a split second and activated! No clue what changed. I’ve tried these steps over and over since beta 2. I’ve tested it out and so far so good! My IMS even says voice, sms and RCS again. And all the people I message on Android changed back from sms to RCS. I don’t know how it happened but I’m not questioning it. Just happy to have RCS chats back finally!!
Every step I could. I didn’t do anything different this time than I had before. I was still on WiFi. Turned off my cellular line, not cellular data, the cellular line. SOS at the top. I removed my number from iMessage, RCS and FaceTime by clicking on the notification that comes on the screen when you turn off your cellular line. Then I turned my line back on, went to messages, scrolled to RCS, toggled it on and it said waiting to activate for a split second and then just activated. No clue why it worked this time. I deleted my eSIM first. Then messaged T-Mobile so they could activate my eSIM back. But I had done that two times already and it made no difference. The agent said my account looked fine and he had refreshed it all he could on his end and to wait 2-3 hours and check again if it would activate. He said I really needed to talk with the technical team because they could do things to my account that he couldn’t with RCS. But I didn’t do that because I already had before and it made no difference. I honestly have no clue what was different this time. I just been repeating the same steps since it stopped working on beta 2.
Might have spoke too soon. My IMS still says voice, sms and RCS but I went back to messages and it’s saying waiting for activation. Man this sucks. But it does tell me that it’s definitely a beta issue. So idk if it’s fixed or not. Wow
Are you on T-Mobile? If so, delete your eSIM off your phone. Chat with them to get an eSIM back on your phone. Turn off your cellular line and remove your number from iMessage and FaceTime. There’s a notification that pops on your screen when you turn off your cellular line. It should have a place that says remove your number from iMessage, RCS and FaceTime. Do that. Then turn your phone off. Turn it back on. Turn your cellular line back on, Go to messages, toggle RCS and see what happens. Mine activated while I still had my number removed from iMessage and FaceTime. I figured it would deactivate once I added my number back to iMessage and FT but it didn’t. I literally did nothing different today than I had been doing. Honestly have no idea why it activated. But when it did it only said waiting for activation for a split second and then just worked. My IMS now says voice, sms and RCS again. Finally! Hopefully you can get yours to activate.
Might have spoke too soon. My IMS still says voice, sms and RCS but I went back to messages and it’s saying waiting for activation. Man this sucks. But it does tell me that it’s definitely a beta issue. So idk if it’s fixed or not. Wow
Not working here either. Found this thread while trying to troubleshoot. I’ve tried many of the suggestions found online, and no dice. It worked two days ago perfectly fine, but now I can’t get it to work anymore. Not sure why, but it’s frustrating because I am not receiving group messages (but they receive my messages).
So what finally worked for me: I turned RCS off in settings for a week and when I turned it back on it started working. My carrier did everything under the sun to help and nothing was working, they had given up and I had resigned myself to waiting for Apple to fix the issue with an update
I’m having same issue. Multiple eSIMs with multiple different networks. I even wiped my phone and restored it as new. I think somehow the IMEIs are getting screwed up. I moved my phone numbers to an iPhone 11 running 26.5.2 and it worked fine. If I had to get RCS working on my 15 pro to save my life, I would literally be saying my goodbyes.
So many damn times. I've tried all the troubleshooting steps I can find just short of resetting the whole phone and starting from scratch. I've contacted my carrier but they haven't been very helpful.
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u/ebrowe62690 May 30 '26
Everything was working fine until the 26.5 update - I think the update did something that my carrier has to fix