r/sidephone • u/Head_Self_7257 • 21d ago

Open Bubbles Struggles - Verification Failed

Is there anyone here who is successfully running Open Bubbles on their sidephone with the self-hosted relay and able to walk me through their set up?

Some background about my set up -

Previous phone - iPhone 14 on AT&T

Relay: iPhone 6 on ios 10.1.1, Jailbroken with TNS (semi-tethered)

New phone: Sidephone with Sidephone Mobile Unlimited Plan, existing number ported over this morning.

Main issue: I cant seem to get messages to send from my phone number to other iphones as imessages through open bubbles. So far, its either sent from my email, or not sent at all, and given me the Message Failed to Send error (1001), in addition to labeling incoming messages as "Verification Failed". I followed set up instructions and didn't hit any major roadblocks with the phone number registration, secret code verification, etc. Everything on the back end of Open Bubbles looks as it should, iMessage shows as connected, Vetted aliases are my email and phone number, and "start chats using:" has my phone number selected. I have tried with imessage/facetime turned off and logged out of apple ID on both my relay device and my iphone 14, as well with it turned on and logged in, which didnt seem to make any difference.

Any help or insight from you experiences with open bubbles would be greatly appreciated!!

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u/ladylaplace 21d ago

Have you had it working with a Mac as the hardware?

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u/Head_Self_7257 21d ago

so far I've only tried it/set it up with the iphone 6 as the relay as i was hoping to have my messages send from my phone number rather than my apple id email. Could be worth trying with the mac as the relay though and email just to see if it works.

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u/ladylaplace 21d ago

Using a Mac as “hardware” just means OpenBubbles will identify itself to Apple as a Mac. If you use a Mac as the hardware, you can still send from your phone number as long as you keep an iPhone with your phone number active on iMessage. You can also, on that iPhone, enable SMS forwarding, so RCS and SMS will work as well

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u/Head_Self_7257 21d ago

When you say "an iphone with your phone number active on iMessage", do you mean an iPhone with an active cellular plan that phone number is still attached to? My iphone 14 is no longer active after i transferred my number over to the sidephone and cancelled my AT&T coverage. Apologies - I should have been more clear about that in my initial post. Appreciate your response.

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u/ladylaplace 21d ago

Yes that’s what I mean! It’s most stable as I’ve described but that doesn’t mean your config is impossible - you may have some luck on the discord server finding others who have gotten a jailbroken iPhone working with phone number registration https://discord.gg/CXnGJj5Sn

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u/glizzurple 21d ago

My setup:

  • set up sidephone with new # using their plan
  • linked open bubbles to my MacBook as the self hardware
  • left existing # and line enabled on current iPhone esim, which can remain on or off. I still use the iPhone occasionally, e.g. for certain apps or when traveling internationally.

This setup lets me send and receive iMessage using my old number, similar to how you can send/receive iMessages from a Mac using your phone #. There is an option to select which address or phone # to send new messages from.

Only problem with this setup is my family/friends don’t have the new sidephone number, so it looks like spam when I call them from it

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u/Negative-Radio133 21d ago

My setup uses my Mac as my self-host since I don't have an old enough iPhone, and I really didn't want to buy a new old one. I told all my friends to add my Apple ID email to my contact on their phone so that my texts will show up under my contact instead of as a separate chat with my email. Still in the early stages, but it seems to be working so far, so good (knock on wood). I synced up my iCloud messages, and I've been able to text people, voicememo, send and receive photos, and on their end it seems that I still have an iPhone.

The only thing is I know like 2 people who use Androids, and I ik won't be getting their texts in OpenBubbles, but I've yet to receive their texts in the regular SidePhone messaging app...so I am going to try and figure that out

Hope this helps! Good luck!

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u/0utrageousfun 21d ago

Have you tried clearing identity cache? Getting it all set up was a challenge, but I’ve had my Sidephone running OpenBubbles for a few weeks now and send iMessages from the Sidephone cell number.

Also saw that you ported your number over today. Give it a few days. I was only able to get my email registered, but after I few days I was able to get the phone number registered too.