Updated from 18.7.2 to 26.1. But then none of my previous iMessage threads continued to work. They all started showing RCS or SMS. Not a single one was still functional iMessage. This included threads with people who are verified iMessage contacts or even my wife who’s in my Family Sharing. WTH? I checked that all my email addresses showed up in iMessage settings and also that my phone number was still checked to initiate iMessage threads. All good there too.
I tried turning iMessage off and then turning it back on after a while. That all worked just fine and as expected. No sign of any trouble. And yet, none of my prior iMessage threads would continue as iMessage, resorting instead to RCS or SMS.
In despair, I reached to the tried and trusted MS Windows fix: restarted my iPhone. And presto, that fixed it.
So long story short, if you cannot get iMessage to work despite all settings showing fine and relaunching the service without success, just restart the iPhone like a cheap 90s Windows box.
You’re associating restarting with old Windows, but the fact is, still, that rebooting is the most reliable fix for unexplainable errors, on any and all electronic devices.
Spouse was having trouble getting a particular web site to load on her iPad. It loaded fine on her phone and all my devices. Reboot! It loaded fine.
Roku stops responding to the remote. Unplug and replug, forcing reboot! It works.
Yes, it’s a cliché, but if you have a problem with a device, and you haven’t rebooted, you should.
40 years ago I had a friend, an electronics engineer, who often worked in a lab which provided technical support for medical researchers at a university hospital. There was a wall phone (remember those?) and beside it was a list of questions that should be asked for any tech-support call. The first question was:
Is the big black snake biting the wall?
I think that still deserves to be number one but asking whether they’ve rebooted their device is definitely number two.
