AT&T Nexus 5 and turning off iMessage

[Chad H]

Hey guys,
I just got my Nexus 5 in today, let me tell you this thing rocks! I'm having one BIG problem. Before I got my phone switched(had to go to the AT&T store and get a micro sim) I turned iMessage off, deleted my iCloud account from the phone and erased the phone. Now, upon activating my Nexus 5, people with iphones that I had been texting couldn't text me back. They would get mine but when they tried to send one back it would try as an imessage and then just fail. They could manually override it and send as an SMS but had to do it every time. I called AT&T and made sure the account was provisioned properly, and went into Apple's support page and deauthorized my phone from my Apple ID. The tech support rep from AT&T told me that it would take a day or so for Apple to remove my number and the issue should fix itself. Is this true? It seems like now some of my friends that have an iPhone aren't having to manual override anymore and some are. This sucks and could be a deal breaker if I don't get this fixed. Any suggestions, would be great! Thanks!

 

[scorpiodsu]

Hey guys,
I just got my Nexus 5 in today, let me tell you this thing rocks! I'm having one BIG problem. Before I got my phone switched(had to go to the AT&T store and get a micro sim) I turned iMessage off, deleted my iCloud account from the phone and erased the phone. Now, upon activating my Nexus 5, people with iphones that I had been texting couldn't text me back. They would get mine but when they tried to send one back it would try as an imessage and then just fail. They could manually override it and send as an SMS but had to do it every time. I called AT&T and made sure the account was provisioned properly, and went into Apple's support page and deauthorized my phone from my Apple ID. The tech support rep from AT&T told me that it would take a day or so for Apple to remove my number and the issue should fix itself. Is this true? It seems like now some of my friends that have an iPhone aren't having to manual override anymore and some are. This sucks and could be a deal breaker if I don't get this fixed. Any suggestions, would be great! Thanks!

Just a question but do you think any of your friends are sending messages to your email address that's associated to your Apple ID rather than your phone number? I was having this issue with my wife. She was saying she was texting me and I never got them but I received texts from other users. So it turned out that current conversation was using my email address thus sending it as an imessage which were going to my computer. So when I switched phones she didn't (nor I) thought about that. Not saying that's the case here but sometimes users don't know nor pay attention when they are sending imessages and it's built for them to not really care about that. I would say have one of your friends check the conversation that in the mean time. They should be able to tap your name and it'll bring up your contact info and the one highlighted in blue is what is being used on their end to send the messages.

 

[sMt73]

Silly question, but did you check Group / MMS in the settings? I too had the same problem, and performed all of these steps, except for that. Once I checked that Option, and restarted my phone. Worked like a charm. I use Textra BTW.

 

[Templar]

If you still have access to the iPhone, make sure that both iMessage and FaceTime are logged out. I switch back and forth on att with an iPhone and a Nexus 5. As long as I log out of both iMessage and FaceTime it works immediately.

greg

 

[Chad H]

I'm using the stock "Hangouts" app for SMS. I forgot to mention that but I did in fact turn off facetime and imessage before wiping the iPhone.

 

[Chad H]

Still having this problem guys. Anybody think it could have something to do with using Hangouts as my SMS app? I can send people texts but when they send them back it's trying as an iMessage and failing and they have to force it to send as text every time.

 

[BunkKryptonite]

Do you have a Mac or iPad that you are logged into? When I switched to the N4, I has the same issue and it was because I was logged in on other devices that I originally had set up to sync with my iPhone.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[bulletmark]

Just a question but do you think any of your friends are sending messages to your email address that's associated to your Apple ID rather than your phone number?

Thanks for this comment scorpiodsu. I have just migrated my wife from iPhone to Android and was careful to turn off iMessage before I did but after reading your comment I realise she may still have a problem. Unfortunately her phone had her primary iMessage id set to her email address so I guess this means that any other iPhone user who has a conversation originally initiated from her will just get an error from now on when typing in that conversation. Not much I can do about this either damn it. Apple are never going to make it easy to migrate away I suppose. Apple should fix it so when a user turns off iMessage then a subsequent iMessage from somebody to that user will cause that user's ID to flip back to a phone number for SMS.

 

[Stein357]

Make sure your friends have the "Send as SMS" option enabled in the Messages menu in options.

 

[bulletmark]

Make sure your friends have the "Send as SMS" option enabled in the Messages menu in options.

So Stein, are you really suggesting all my wife's many friends should disable iMessage globally on their phones - just because my wife alone has moved to Android?!

 

[scorpiodsu]

Thanks for this comment scorpiodsu. I have just migrated my wife from iPhone to Android and was careful to turn off iMessage before I did but after reading your comment I realise she may still have a problem. Unfortunately her phone had her primary iMessage id set to her email address so I guess this means that any other iPhone user who has a conversation originally initiated from her will just get an error from now on when typing in that conversation. Not much I can do about this either damn it. Apple are never going to make it easy to migrate away I suppose. Apple should fix it so when a user turns off iMessage then a subsequent iMessage from somebody to that user will cause that user's ID to flip back to a phone number for SMS.

Yeah anyone who's conversation was with her email address then they just need to start a new conversation to that phone number. But the good thing is the conversations should merge once the new one is initiated to the phone number since its the same contact. Trust me, since in always swapping back and forth between iOS and android I frequently run into this problem. The way I mitigate it is to only allow my phone number to be my I message address so people cannot unintentional start a conversation with my email address.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[sydneycooper1979]

So Stein, are you really suggesting all my wife's many friends should disable iMessage globally on their phones - just because my wife alone has moved to Android?!

No. There is an option in iPhone settings to send any message as a text when imessage isn't available. A ton of my friends on iPhone didn't have this enabled.

Also I ended up changing my email address that is associated with my apple ID when I switched.

Sent from my XT1058 using Tapatalk

 

[Zendroid1]

So Stein, are you really suggesting all my wife's many friends should disable iMessage globally on their phones - just because my wife alone has moved to Android?!

They need to check the "send as SMS if iMessage not available" option. Their iPhones think her phone is an iPhone and they don't have this option checked I bet.

 

[Chad H]

My friends have that checked and it's still being sporadic. It's nearly like it's an iOS 7 problem. I can't figure it out...

 

[Chad H]

Also once my friends override iMessage and send as a regular SMS it'll work for a little while and then revert back to sending as a iMessage and failing.

 

[scorpiodsu]

My friends have that checked and it's still being sporadic. It's nearly like it's an iOS 7 problem. I can't figure it out...

It's nothing wrong with ios7. Its working as it's designer. These are things that happen when a phone number us associated with a service and then that service is changes. It may take time to sort itself out. Again try having your friends start a new conversation with you and have them select your number and then see what happens. I suspect it will be fine after this. Been through this several times.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[patruns]

Also once my friends override iMessage and send as a regular SMS it'll work for a little while and then revert back to sending as a iMessage and failing.

That sounds like their old settings getting restored after a sync goes through. You might have one of them delete your contact info, sync the phone and then add you back as a new contact as a test.