RCS Not Available- Issue on BOTH iOS and Android

[Preet456]

Hi,

I bought a new phone.  Transferred the physical SIM over.  RCS will not work.  I tried everything on this site about Carrier Services, reinstalling Messages, all kinds of cache clearing and rebooting.

"Not Supported" RCS chats has been disabled by your carrier.

I think I need PM to fix this on the back end because that comes up immediately.  No waiting to set up etc.

[ZaneMich]

So Mobile Syrup has already published a story about this, and they point to the fact that Public Mobile is in fact, at fault here. Several Public Mobile customers dealing with broken RCS chats  I would encourage everyone who gets the runaround by a Public Mobile support person, to point to the above website story, so they are aware that it's indeed a Public Mobile issue.

[akqs56]

I am having the same issue and have reached out to the agent via a ticket.

The usual solutions were proposed, but with no success.

It seems there is a problem with PM, ios 26 and RCS Messaging?

[Markus79]

Just created a ticket . Same issue iPhone 17 pro max waiting for activation on rcs chats. I've tried everything. Yes rcs works with public I've been with them for years and always had it on other phones. 

[Kaldra]

There's an ongoing issue with RCS activations on PM right now. 

Loads of people are having issue with getting RCS to activate after switching to a new device.

At the moment it's just a waiting game for their support team to resolve the issue and push out an update.

[Ashketchum67]

I recently switched phones from my Oneplus 8 to my Nothing phone 3a. I previously had google messages installed and was able to use RCS chats. On my new phone when I go to turn them on it says they're not supported. Is there a solution to this? Does it have to be phone specific carrier enabled? It's very inconvenient

 

for communication at work and with friends as I get no photos or MMS

[ZaneMich]

I have a work iPhone with ROGERS.  It's updated to ios26 - RCS works perfectly between my work iPhone and my personal Pixel 10 Pro.  So this isn't simply related to iOS 26 - it's something to do with how Public Mobile is handling RCS.

[on2wheels]

Something tells me they won't but I hope they do post.

By the way, do you know if toggling airplane mode is enough to trigger our phone to  check if there's an update or do we have to restart the phone to check?

[parkerd33]

I have an iPhone 15 Pro Max, and switched carriers from Bell to Public in July. At that point, my RCS was working fine. However after upgrading my software to iOS 26 this morning, the RCS is no longer working.

This was confirmed by my partner, who has an Android and was equally confused during last year's update when he was suddenly able to send RCS texts to me. It also seems to be preventing me from sending some texts out at all. So this is pretty inconvenient.

[hTideGnow]

hi @Awall82 no, PM is still working on resolving the problem, no good news yet 

[Awall82]

Wondering if this got resolved.  I am having the same issue.  Upgrades to new pixel 10 pro XL from pixel 7 pro.  Rcs works on pixel 7 but not supported on pixel 10 XL.

You can't uninstall Google messag s btw, only clear data and maybe force stop/disable.

[hairbag1]

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@on2wheels wrote:

We need a thread to notify us when it comes back online so we know when to reboot our phones.

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As it's a wide spread issue, I'd expect Public Mobile would post a message/update in the Announcement section

[on2wheels]

We need a thread to notify us when it comes back online so we know when to reboot our phones.

[DavidPeter]

Just switched from iphone to pixel 8, and I'm getting that same message. "not supported
RCS chats have been disabled by your carrier". Tried clearing caches, turning esim on and off, airplone mode on and off, rebooting etc.

[PeymanTaj]

I’m having the same issue. It used to work on my iPhone 14 but now after switching to iPhone 17, RCS is not working. It doesn’t even show it as an option under Settings -> General -> About -> tap on Carrier 

 

[ZaneMich]

I hope this is true and the issue will be addressed. Both my kids iPhones have RCS that stopped working 

[Jamal-Leonard]

Seeing a similar issue since clearing app data on Google messages (Galaxy s22 esim). I get verifying number for a bit then it goes to unsupported disabled by the carrier. Must be some back end issues going on. 

[Eloim]

PM Customer agents : Do you have any status on when RCS messaging will be working again

[Swotam]

Also having issues with RCS being stuck in a "Waiting for Activation" state after switching from my iPhone 14 to an iPhone 17. The eSIM installation was super-simple, but of course now RCS isn't working properly. When it comes to iPhone this is purely a Public Mobile issue, there's no Google involvement so it's probably a back end issue with PM or a provisioning issue. Regardless it's annoying, and customers should not be having to struggle through their support system when things that were working suddenly break through no fault of their own.

RCS was working perfectly before the switch, zero issues. I've tried all the usual online fixes such as resetting network settings, rebooting the phone, disabling and re-enabling Messages, etc and nothing works.

PM needs to start looking into this and figure out why what appears to be an increasingly large number of customers are having RCS issues and fix it on their end as opposed to just letting customers mess around or open tickets that end up with useless advice being provided.

[Winnipeggggger]

****** OFFICIAL REPLY FROM PUBLIC ********

looks like they are finally aware. 

Hi there,

There is an ongoing issue affecting lots of customers with the RCS systems. Our tech team is currently working on a fix.

Please restart the device from time to

time and check the status.

Regards,

Vlad CS Aaent

 

[LitlLdy]

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@ToddRx wrote:

Has anyone tried swapping their number to a new SIM card or esim? Frustrating thing is that although RCS messages is not working with this Sim on my pixel 7, if I swap the SIM card into my old Huawei p30 RCS chat works fine?

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Yes, I had an e-sim then I bought a SIM Card & switched to that after completely restoring my iPhone as new. Neither of those fixed the issue. I also tried the PM Sim Card in a new Android phone that works with RCS on the Rogers SIM Card. The PM SIM Card didn’t work with RCS on that Android phone either. “Status: Not supported. RCS chats have been disabled by your carrier.”

[Scott_902]

hmm, I just switched from an iphone15 to a 17 and also having issues activating RCS. Wondering if this is a more widespread issue? 

[on2wheels]

Not  yet but I have an old Pixel here that I might test my sim in again.  Funny enough for those of us with iphones there is a trend of RCS problems ever since ios26 released, and with a large data set like reddit you can see even within the past month people are noticing problems

https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/search/?q=rcs&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=month 

[hTideGnow]

hi @Ciel_ 

yes, there has been some RCS issue this week from different members, look like it is a problem with Google.

But first, try uninstall Google Messages first, reboot phone and reinstall and that will re-register RCS and see if it works

[Ciel_]

I tried that, It did not work. the specific statement it says In my google messages app settings under rcs chats is "Public mobile(Phone number) 
Status: not supported
RCS chats have been disabled by your carrier"

[ToddRx]

Has anyone tried swapping their number to a new SIM card or esim? Frustrating thing is that although RCS messages is not working with this Sim on my pixel 7, if I swap the SIM card into my old Huawei p30 RCS chat works fine?

[GlenTickner]

I am on a group chat for which I last received messages on August 1. I can continue to send messages  to group members, but receive no replies. The group members say that my texts appear as SMS, while all others in the group are RCS. My RCS messaging is turned on, but "RCS Messaging" reports as "Waiting for activation ...". My iOS is up to date (18.7), but this sounds similar to the problems that other Public Mobile users are having with RCS messaging?

[Sansan]

Public Mobile doesnt restrict RCS. Have you cleared the cache? Can you uninstall and reinstall again.

[Eloim]

I recently bought a pixel 10 pro to replace my pixel 6 pro. I've installed the public mobile e-sim, my RCS messaging system can't be enabled. It shows a "setting up" status for a while then "not supported" status. I've tried to delete data/cache on the messaging app as well as the carrier services app. I've rebooted many times, deleted the esim and bought it again.

Can you help me ?

Thanks