Continuity, Handoff, Instant Hotspot and iMessage stop working

[shenan1982]

I agree with Simon. I think it is an obnoxious and random Apple server problem.

Most of the time, handoff works fine. There are (what appear to be random) moments where there is a significant delay or it doesn't occur at all. And when it doesn't work, (which doesn't happen often) I go through the process of signing out of iMessage, FaceTime, and iCloud on all devices, sign back in, and everything works as it should.

Yeah normally that's the case... but with this bug it's not. The iMac doesn't even show up to the others. It's like the iMessage servers are completely sandboxing the computer. The weirdest thing is if I send an iMessage to someone, it actually says "Delivered" which is so bizarre, because the message never gets delivered.

 

[loxxol]

So...

I had the call-back from Apple late yesterday afternoon - apparently, they suspected the issue was to do with the keychain on the non-working mac.....

I can't shoot the messenger, as he has been very helpful, however, i find it quite a stretch to think that the keychain has been the cause of this issue, especially as the issue persisted through a 100% complete re-install from scratch - not over the top install, and nothing restored from backup.....

on top of that, the issue ahem... resolved itself....

I hope you guys get handoff/continuity working where you need it.

 

[shenan1982]

So...

I had the call-back from Apple late yesterday afternoon - apparently, they suspected the issue was to do with the keychain on the non-working mac.....

I can't shoot the messenger, as he has been very helpful, however, i find it quite a stretch to think that the keychain has been the cause of this issue, especially as the issue persisted through a 100% complete re-install from scratch - not over the top install, and nothing restored from backup.....

on top of that, the issue ahem... resolved itself....

I hope you guys get handoff/continuity working where you need it.

LOL. I had my callback today. They made me change my Apple ID password to some obscure password so their techs can get into my account. Seems weird the engineers can't troubleshoot without me turning over my password, but whatever, nothing secret, so we'll go with it.

They also ran a systems data collection on my iMac (the affected computer)... so we'll have to see what transpires... a bit over this whole process. Today's Apple isn't what it used to be, sad to say.

Guess another couple days wait to get the next update... ugh.

 

[simonsi]

So...

I had the call-back from Apple late yesterday afternoon - apparently, they suspected the issue was to do with the keychain on the non-working mac.....

I can't shoot the messenger, as he has been very helpful, however, i find it quite a stretch to think that the keychain has been the cause of this issue, especially as the issue persisted through a 100% complete re-install from scratch - not over the top install, and nothing restored from backup.....

on top of that, the issue ahem... resolved itself....

I hope you guys get handoff/continuity working where you need it.

Quite likely IMHO, looked like server-side so not going to be affected by a restore etc on the device, just looks like the iCloud credentials for that device weren't being accepted in some way for iMessage etc....if that is keychain then ok, and I guess they carried out some sort of reset at their end to straighten it out...obviously your keychain must be in the cloud to be synced across devices.

 

[C.clavin]

Same issue here, thought it was just me. This is a pretty big deal for those who use iMessage through their Macs. Thought a restart would clear it, but still not working. Can't sign in to iMessage in the Messages app. Haven't changed any settings, just all the sudden stopped working. This is what Apple should refer to as a 'P1' bug and issue a fix. What a PITA

 

[shenan1982]

I agree with Simon. I think it is an obnoxious and random Apple server problem.

Most of the time, handoff works fine. There are (what appear to be random) moments where there is a significant delay or it doesn't occur at all. And when it doesn't work, (which doesn't happen often) I go through the process of signing out of iMessage, FaceTime, and iCloud on all devices, sign back in, and everything works as it should.

Still not back up and running here. This is quickly going from an annoyance to unacceptable. I feel like they're not getting anywhere with the issue. This isn't rocket science. Worst case, they have the capability to reset me on the server. I think it's so strange it's been a week and they don't know what's going on.... and seemingly have made no progress with resolution.

 

[jrh04c]

I am having a similar issue too. I received my iMac Retina yesterday. After doing a migration from my MBP Retina (Late 2013), everything was up and running last night. After I re-named how my iMac appeared on my network this morning, that's when things started to go wrong. I tried everything, logging out of iCloud, toggling iMessages on and off, toggled Bluetooth on and off, re-started the computers, logged back into iCloud and set everything up again. My messages will no longer sync on both the iMac and MBP, and the contacts are red (the name in the upper left corner after To: ). For a while, it would go back and forth between the iMac and MBP working correctly. Everything is working fine on my iPhone 5 and iPad 2.

I spent 2.5 hours on the phone with AppleCare today. My tech told me this is a problem that has popped up recently, however I wasn't receiving the usual error message in the log. My keychain was also preventing me from logging out of iCloud, so that issue is there too. Did anyone else happen to notice the iMac or another device showing up twice in the Text Forwarding on the iPhone?

I use this feature all the time and this is so frustrating. I sent some files to Apple and am waiting on the call back in another day or two. I really think this is something with my iCloud account on their end.

 

[demeeder]

I finally got linked with a senior admin (Level II) person on Friday. Had to resubmit the dump file and am looking forward to my third callback on Tuesday. Expect that the engineers are going to review my info today and tomorrow and hopefully will see some resolution.

 

[Dekema2]

Hi, I'm having Airdrop, Wifi and Hotspot issues on my 2014 rMBP with 10.10.2 as well. These issues all started happening after I updated my computer.

For one, Airdrop seems not to work at times, although I think I have done it under this release.

Secondly, WiFi sometimes randomly disconnects, and you have to restart the computer to reconnect. I ask people around me if they have a connection, and they do (why pay $1299 to lose internet when cheaper competitor devices around you stay rock steady?), but I don't. Once again, I've heard about this widespread issue but never saw it.

Third, and this has been happening since I first installed Yosemite, Personal Hotspot sporadically connects, and it takes forever to find my 5s. Now, it can't discover it at all even with Bluetooth turned on both devices.

This update feels more like a step back than a step forward, or rather 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I hope OS 10.11 gets this rumored iOS 9 treatment of bug fixes and stability because it desperately needs it, especially with cross device syncing (iCloud, these issues, etc.)

 

[shenan1982]

Is this something that the folks at the Apple store will be able to address or should I try to bring this up with tech support again?

No, the Apple Store cannot handle these types of issues.

----------

So good news, bad news everyone.

Finally, after 2 weeks and 20+ hours on the phone\email\chat with Apple support, I got a call back from the tech. It went from yesterday them "trying to diagnose the issue" to today he called back and said he just spoke to one of the server techs, and they said "they have THOUSANDS of complaints of this same issue, and they're trying to determine if it's specific hardware, or within the server, or what" ... and he said it's not my issue directly.

So basically we're now at the mercy of Apple to fix this broken garbage.

Annoyed.

 

[loxxol]

I wonder if the recent announcement with FaceTime / iMessages two factor authentication has anything to do with this...

Sorry you guys are still having issues, I seem to be out of the woods and all systems working - even through another rebuild...

Fingers crossed that the issues are tracked down for you all.

 

[shenan1982]

I wonder if the recent announcement with FaceTime / iMessages two factor authentication has anything to do with this...

Unlikely since it was an issue before.

If I were a betting man I'd say 10.10.2... since that's when everyone thus far reported the issue to have begun.

 

[loxxol]

Agree that at some point it's unlikely, but the changes made to implement 2FA would have to go through the live servers at some point - depends on code release schedules in the background

 

[demeeder]

Still not fixed... Passed the two week mark. That said, I am an expert and erasing, installing and restoring via TM. Techs have had me do it 4 times already!!

----------

So good news, bad news everyone.

Finally, after 2 weeks and 20+ hours on the phone\email\chat with Apple support, I got a call back from the tech. It went from yesterday them "trying to diagnose the issue" to today he called back and said he just spoke to one of the server techs, and they said "they have THOUSANDS of complaints of this same issue, and they're trying to determine if it's specific hardware, or within the server, or what" ... and he said it's not my issue directly.

So basically we're now at the mercy of Apple to fix this broken garbage.

Annoyed.

Thanks for the update.

I do think it is interesting that it does not matter whose login or what apple ID I log into iCloud with... the iMac will NOT let me use iMessage, Handoff, FaceTime, or Instant Hotspot. Appears the server is locking my specific machine out regardless of iCloud account.

Is this the case with anyone else?

 

[shenan1982]

Still not fixed... Passed the two week mark. That said, I am an expert and erasing, installing and restoring via TM. Techs have had me do it 4 times already!!

----------



Thanks for the update.

I do think it is interesting that it does not matter whose login or what apple ID I log into iCloud with... the iMac will NOT let me use iMessage, Handoff, FaceTime, or Instant Hotspot. Appears the server is locking my specific machine out regardless of iCloud account.

Is this the case with anyone else?

Same symptoms. It's like its sand boxing my iMac.

 

[Badrottie]

I think Continuity, Handoff, Instant Hotspot and iMessage are not worth. They are always problematic. I don't use them at all so I assumed they are not working on mine, too.

 

[shenan1982]

I think Continuity, Handoff, Instant Hotspot and iMessage are not worth. They are always problematic. I don't use them at all so I assumed they are not working on mine, too.

I never had an issue prior to this issue which happened when I updated to 10.10.2... loved the text forwarding feature. That was really the only thing I actually used.

 

[dtidmore@msn.co]

Here is what got Continuity back up for me

Like so many others, Continuity seems to be a "planets aligned?" sort of thing. However sms and phone relay had always been pretty rock solid for me. Instant Hotspot was a total joke and app handoff was hit and miss.

Then after I moved from the 10.10.2 beta code to 10.10.2 release code, things went to hell in a hand basket. Instant hotspot totally vanished. Phone relay failed on attempting to answer or place a call, no app handoff, BUT sms/message relay remained operational. I have a fairly extensive bag of tricks and I exhausted them to no avail.

I decided to let AppleCare have a stab at the problem. I wound up at Level II fairly fast and the tech has been excellent at staying in touch. To add intrigue, I had a second login on my MBP linked to my spouse's iPhone5S and Continuity worked perfectly! We tried EVERY thing mentioned in this thread and then some. We tried creating a new test login using my iCloud account and it resulted in the same failures. We did the system settings capture for engineering, but they really had no suggestions that we had not already tried. It really did look like either a problem with iCloud OR my iPhone6.

Then I decided to go back and start searching to see if this problem had popped up previously on the apple support forums and low and behold, the exact issue had a nice thread starting in Oct 2014. One of the posters that had success in getting Continuity back up posted that Apple Engineering had him do a few command line entries (TCP/IP) that fixed things. With nothing to loose I tried those settings and BINGO!, Continuity went LIVE! EVERYTHING worked...EVER LAST Continuity feature!

Here are the command line entries

sudo sysctl kern.ipc.maxsockbuf=8388608

sudo sysctl net.inet.tcp.sendspace=131072

sudo sysctl net.inet.tcp.recvspace=131072

sudo mv /etc/sysctl.conf ~/Desktop/sysctl.conf.old

That last one is to move a no longer utilized config file IF it exists to the desktop. In my case it did not exist.

I am NOT going to say that these entries will fix ANYONE else's Continuity issues, but so far, mine has remained rock solid.

I have noted that if my iPhone has been in standby for an extended period, I have to wake it before the Instant Hotspot will show up in the WiFi Menu Bar pulldown. This does NOT really surprise me as the iPhone switches from WiFi to LTE after a brief period of standby REGARDLESS of whether it is plugged in or not (this has been proven many times over several gens of hardware and OSes). Continuity depends on common WiFi and BTLE connections, so if the iPhone is on LTE data, NO Continuity!

Again, no guarantees but maybe this will help someone...

 

[shenan1982]

So they did something and it solved the issue. I just started getting iMessages on my computer again this morning.

 

[hendrilei]

I never had an issue prior to this issue which happened when I updated to 10.10.2... loved the text forwarding feature. That was really the only thing I actually used.

I love text forwarding as well, but at the same time, it's annoying to have to delete the spam message twice (on ur mac and iphone)

Anyone else feel that ? Or is there any solution i'm not awared ?

Thx

 

[shenan1982]

I love text forwarding as well, but at the same time, it's annoying to have to delete the spam message twice (on ur mac and iphone)

Anyone else feel that ? Or is there any solution i'm not awared ?

Thx

Yeah, I don't get much spam though so the trade-off is worth it IMO

 

[demeeder]

mine started working again. Nothing done on my end. Computer was sitting at a fresh install of OS X for several days with it not working. Got a call from tech support looking for more info. Murphy's Law dictated that it would start working when he called. Restored the machine via TM and all still seems to be working. Appears my machine was unlocked on the server side.

 

[adamhenry]

Mine still isn't working.

 

[cmaus]

Same here

I had the same problem back in January.
Now, just last week, the problem re-appeared.
2nd level Apple Care support has no clue.
We have collected logs, taken screenshots of Console logs,
done Screen Sharing...have not heard back from them yet.
I wish I knew how to trigger this to work again.
Thit is clearly related to something on Apple's servers that "accepts" my Mac as being a legitimate iMessage/FaceTime-client.

I have a guess: Maybe because a lot of folks are trying to copy real Mac board IDs and serial numbers to their Hackintoshes in order to get iMessage and FaceTime working - MAYBE we, the ones whose Macs refuse to receive iMessages and FaceTime calls, are unlucky that some Hackintosh user randomly used our Mac board ID - which led Apple to blacklist that ID - MAYBE!

That would be very unpleasant, as we, the real Mac owners would be the ****ed.

Looking forward to seeing new posts on this thread. This is the only one I found that's not only helpful, but also quite recent.

Btw.: I have a MacBook Pro 13" non-Retina (mid-2012).

 

[anonymous4a]

I can't sync my iMessages with my macBook pro retina but I only started getting this issue when I updated to 10.10.2 , I didn't have this issue coming from 10.10 .