How to fix cannot verify login with facetime

When trying to login you get a message similar to cannot verify login with facetime or messages on osx.

warning: this is quite a complex set of instructions. In the end I ended up creating a new user account on my mac and transferring my documents to the new user
problem: facetime or imessages are telling you it can’t verify, etc

diagnosis: I think its a stuck key in your keychain for iMessage. all you need to do is to remove it and get iMessage to download the key for your apple id again, but it turns out you can’t without a fiddly process – you have to reset iMessage, and the keys, and trying to log in with a second email address thats associated with your apple id then it should work.

How to fix cannot verify login with facetime

the very first thing you should do is to make sure you have two email addresses associated with your apple id – go to appleid.apple.com > manage apple id > add a new email address > verify it.
then you can start this process:

1) remove all keys from login keychain for ‘FaceTime’ and ‘iMessage’

applications > utilities > keychain access
search for ‘imessage’ select them and delete them
search for ‘facetime’ select them and delete them

you should see a ‘temporary iMessage key’ for your apple id that you can’t delete (yet)

2) remove all plist files form /system/library/preferences that reference FaceTime or iMessage

open finder
alt+click on go
pick library
navigate to preferences
search preferences folder for ‘imessage’ – delete all results
search preferences folder for ‘facetime’ – delete all results

3) logout of your mac
4) log back in to your mac
5) open iMessage, iMessages will have reset itself to think that its never been setup before
6) press ‘skip for now’
7) close iMessage

the above steps 5 to 7 turn the ‘temporary key’ in your keychain to a permanent one (albeit with the wrong info in it) that you can delete

8) delete the plist files again (and any keys that are still there – if you are lucky you won’t have any)
9) login / logout for a second time :| [I found that killing and restarting the imanent process doesn’t always work – logout cycle is the easiest]
10) open iMessage – it will be as if you have never opened it again.
11) try to login with your new email address that you just associated with your iMessage account
12) it will fail, so now close iMessage again, open imessage and finally log in with your actual iTunes id :|

How to fix cannot verify login with facetime sources:
Apple Support

This Post Has One Comment

  1. PaulM

    Oh, well. Doesn’t work for me. Neither did checking my time zones, checking for my serial number, resetting my keychain, or standing on my head and counting to 37.

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