All four major U.S. carriers recently agreed to adopt RCS messaging on all smartphones in 2020. The carriers, namely AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless, have come up with a joint venture, the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI), to oversee this transition.

One of the tasks of the newly formed CCMI is to develop a messaging app that will be adopted by the four carriers in a bid to offer inter-carrier RCS messaging services to all subscribers.

As we wait to see what of an influence the CCMI will have on the adoption of RCS chat services in the U.S., some people have been actively looking for ways to activate this feature on their devices manually.

Recently, multiple T-Mobile users on various devices started reporting that RCS messaging had somehow been enabled on their end without any software updates. This suggested that the feature was rolling out widely.

Things got even better when a trick to enable the RCS Chat services manually popped up on Reddit, but some of those who used this hack to enable RCS are now reporting that the messaging feature has suddenly been disabled on their devices.

RCS just….stopped (unlocked pixel 3xl on TMobile). In the middle of a conversation with my gf (we both have RCS though hers is through Fi) and suddenly my chats just said “sending..” Checked chat features and it said “connecting…” Five minutes later all my stuff sent as SMS/MMS and my phone now says features not supported by my carrier. Not sure why this happened but I’ll give the hack another go and see if it works.
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Saw that u/rwinftw ‘s RCS stopped working and said “chat features unavailable.” And he/she has a OnePlus phone. I also have a OnePlus phone and the same thing happened to me. All of the comments on the post were having the same issue with their OnePlus phones.
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My RCS just turn off and went back to chat features are unavailable for this device. I have a OnePlus 7t on TMobile with messages beta on Android 10. I ran the hack again with both links to no success and restarted my phone, uninstalled and reinstalled messenger and still nothing. And now after the uninstall I don’t have conversations anymore :(. Is anyone else experiencing this or can assist me in some way?
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Most affected users seem to be on OnePlus devices, but others on Google Pixels and Samsung Galaxy phones are also sailing in this same boat. On the brighter side, though, another hack has been found to re-enable the RCS messaging feature on these affected units, and its super-easy to implement.

Using the same steps used in the initial hack, edit the ACS URL in the Activity Launcher app from the default http://rcs-acs-prod-us.sandbox.google.com/ to any of the following carrier-specific URLs depending on your service provider.

Google Fi:

ACS URL: http://rcs-pfi-production-acs.pfi.jibecloud.net/
PCSCF: us.pfi.rcs.telephny.goog
Verizon:

ACS URL: http://acs-vzw.jibe.google.com
PCSCF: us.verizon.rcs.telephony.goog
T-Mobile US:

ACS URL: https://rcs-acs-tmobile-us.jibe.google.com
PCSCF: us.tmobile.rcs.telephony.goog
Sprint:

ACS URL: http://config.rcs.mnc120.mcc310.pub.3gpnetwork.org
PCSCF: us.sprint.rcs.telephony.goog
US Cellular:

ACS url: http://acs-uscc.jibe.google.com/
PCSCF: us.uscc.rcs.telephony.goog
Straight Talk/Total Wireless/TracFone/Net10:

ACS URL: http://config.rcs.tracfone.com
PCSCF: us.tracfone.rcs.telephony.goog
Telus/Koodo Canada:

ACS URL: https://acs-ft-tel-ca.jibe.google.com/
PCSCF: ca.telus.rcs.telephony.goog
Telekom Deutschland:

ACS URL: http://rcs-acs-prod-eu.sandbox.google.com/
PCSCF: rcs-eu.telephony.goog
Three UK:

ACS URL: http://rcs-acs-hutch-three-uk.jibe.google.com/
PCSCF: gb.3.rcs.telephony.goog
UK Sky:

ACS url: http://rcs-acs-sky-uk.jibe.google.com/
PCSCF: gb.sky.rcs.telephony.goog
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As per some of the commenters, the above hack solves the problem where RCS messaging suddenly disappears for some Android users.

per u/flicter22 I switched to http://rcs-acs-tmobile-us.jibe.google.com/ and it worked again but it wouldn’t let me re enter any of my group chats. I had to restart them.
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Just checked, my chat features on tmo said not supported by carrier, changing to the above ACS worked to re enable.
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Some say their previous RCS messages disappear after restoring the feature via the above hack. To prevent this, make sure you wipe the data for Google Messages and Carrier Services apps. However, you’ll still lose your settings and archived conversations will be unarchived. It’s also likely to break previous RCS group conversations.

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Hillary Keverenge
1569 Posts

A techy. Besides phones, I also enjoy the farm, music, football, and, of course, food.

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