iPhone 6s iMessage to SMS Texting Troubles

[luke11992]

Hey everyone, just signed up with Public last night, and so far it's been great, except for one little problem.

I've seen people who are able to switch between iMessage and traditional SMS messaging within the same conversation in the Messages app, but for me I'm unable to do this. I can send SMS messages just fine to people with an Android phone, but to my friends with an iPhone, if I turn off wifi (and don't have data on), my phone will not allow me to send a message at all, saying "Cannot Send Message; iMessage needs to be enabled to send this message".

I have gone into the settings and have made sure that the option for "Send an SMS; Send an SMS when iMessage is unavailable" is checked ON. I have even tried turning iMessage off completely, but I am still unable to send a text to my friends if we have already begun a conversation using iMessage.

Please help as I can see this becoming quite frustrating if it persists. I've seen people be able to use both blue iMessages and green SMS messages within the same conversation, based on whether or not they had wifi/data at that moment.

Any help is appreciated,

Luke

[luke11992]

@rsa Great points!

What was odd with my situation was I did have the settings so that I was sending and receiving iMessages through my phone number. Thankfully it all works now

[Acekiller]

Thanks for the updated info!

[rsa]

I had this issue previously, but had a different solution (that is likely part of your solution).

Part 1:

imessage can sent to/from Apple ID or a phone number. To do what you described you should be using your phone number, not your Apple ID.

• Go to Settings> Messages> Send & Receive

Your settings should be:

• Can be reached by imessage at: Phone Number
• Start new conversations from: Phone Number

Part 2:

Turn on Send as SMS

• Go to Settings> Messages

Explanation:

If you're sending/receiving imessages to/from your apple ID, and not a phone number, you can't send as SMS. 

Also, the phone number used here is taken from  Settings>Phone>My Number. If you changed your phone number, sometimes this section doesn't populate your new number, and would then still send imessages from your old number. Same thing goes for FaceTime.

*Edit - it's an Apple ID issue, not a provider issue*

[kav2001c]

@luke11992 I am not sure what to make of this either. Telus had same issue with the iPhone 6S

Although in that case only specific messages needed to be erased, so I suspect you did not actually need to erase every message

Now is this a Telus/Koodo/Public bug or an Apple bug 

[luke11992 · Accepted solution]

If anyone stumbles upon this thread and happens to wonder what ever happened, the solution was that I had to delete all my existing conversations within the message app, then new conversations were suddenly able to send both SMS texts and iMessage. It must have been a little quirk with the iPhone since I was using this iPhone and iMessage through wifi before activating my new plan on Public Mobile.

[luke11992]

Thanks for the reply; I've tried resetting the network settings, as well as power cycling, and still to no avail. There's still no option for sending a text when iMessage is not available

[marsbar]

You could try updating your APN settings manually as per this thread:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Announcements/iPhone-Update-and-APN-settings/m-p/1610

[closng]

Hi @luke11992,

Welcome to Public Mobile.

Give this a try:

1) Reset Network Settings (General | Reset | Reset Network Settings).  This was a recommendation for IOS 8 texting issues.  It deletes all wifi passwords, so beware. 

2) Toggle iMesage on, then turn phone off and back on, then sent a message, and toggle iMessage off again.