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Once you up to date your iPhone to iOS 26, you have been in all probability anticipating to check out a bunch of latest options. Perhaps you have been excited to see the brand new Liquid Glass design, or to see how the brand new spam prevention tech works. However for those who opened Messages to ship a textual content after updating, you may need run right into a irritating drawback: Unexpectedly, you are not capable of activate iMessage along with your cellphone quantity.
It is not clear how widespread the issue is at the moment, nevertheless it appears to be a sufficiently big challenge for Apple to formally handle it. As noticed by MacRumors, Apple now has official troubleshooting steps for anybody experiencing iMessage activation points particularly after updating to iOS 26.
Although we do not know the scope of the customers affected, we do know who would possibly be affected. In response to Apple, the problem would possibly happen when updating to iOS 26 when you have an inactive SIM with the identical cellphone quantity as your energetic SIM. If that is your challenge, it’s possible you’ll run into the next issues:
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Once you attempt to ship an iMessage, you get a “Not Delivered” notification.
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You possibly can solely ship SMS or RCS messages—or, in different phrases, inexperienced bubble texts solely.
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Your despatched messages undergo your electronic mail handle as an alternative of your cellphone quantity when you do not have it arrange that approach.
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You see the identical cellphone quantity twice underneath Settings > Apps > Messages > Ship & Obtain.
Reactivating iMessage after putting in iOS 26
If so, the repair is fairly easy: All you want to do is take away or delete the inactive SIM. This is what to do: First, head to Settings > Mobile. When you see two SIMs right here with the identical quantity, select the one which is not energetic. If the inactive SIM is a bodily SIM card, take away it out of your iPhone. If it is an eSIM, select “Delete eSIM” to delete it.
What do you assume to this point?
When you eliminate the inactive SIM, head to Settings > Apps > Messages, then select “Ship & Obtain.” Right here, select your cellphone quantity, which ought to set off iMessage to reactivate.
When you’re nonetheless having hassle with iMessage after following these steps, your challenge won’t must do with this bug. Apple has a sequence of normal troubleshooting steps for getting iMessage again up and operating, which incorporates issues like turning iMessage and FaceTime on and off once more, activating your account on-line, and utilizing your electronic mail handle to signal into your account as an alternative.
