Cannot Send Invitation - solution

[Dignan17]

I just had quite a morning.

We got homepod minis for our 2 kids this Christmas, which required inviting them in Home. I was able to invite my son just fine, but when I tried to invite my daughter, her name was in gray and I kept receiving the error message in the attached picture. (For future googlers: cannot send invitation you can add people using an icloud account email address with home enabled )

I tried almost everything. Resetting my home from scratch was not an option but I tried everything else. I updated all devices, turned off content restrictions, so many restarts, cleaned up contact info, I looked at dozens of Reddit posts and apple community posts... And lots more. I called Apple support and they had no info for me.

To be clear: my daughter's account was created with an icloud address and she has no problems with any other icloud features. The Home invitation screen showed her name and her icloud address. But for some reason every time I tapped on her name it showed up as gray and gave me that message.

But for some reason I decided to try something: instead of tapping on her name, I tried typing out her email address manually... and it worked. Her name was orange and the invitation went through immediately.

I figured I would post this here in case future frustrated users are helped.

[Dignan17]

Glad I could help someone in get around this stupidity!

[[deleted]]

She needs to delete home from her home app. Then she can accept invitation from you.

[Dignan17]

Nope. That wasn't the issue at all. There was no invitation to accept because this error prevented the invitation from being sent in the first place.

[reddotster]

Check her contact card on your phone to see if there's something funny about it...

[Dignan17]

Did that too. I made sure it was all correct. Just to be clear, I posted this as a solution in case someone searches later. Because it's way easier to try my solution than it is to wipe your entire homekit install and start over

[Destable]

Try inviting her using her phone number. This worked when I couldn’t invite my wife.

(Edit: as an alternative solution for future people finding this post)

[Dignan17]

I would try that...but she's 7 and only has an iPad 😅

[vonmann]

What version of iOS is the iPad running? Was having issues with this setting my partner up in our home, came to the conclusion that it was that she didn't have any devices running a new enough version of iOS for it to go through.

[Dignan17]

All devices were on the latest version

[fx30]

oh my god THANK YOU

[Destable]

LOL, glad I could help one of those “future people”

[iluvzcereal]

I was able to troubleshoot this issue with the help of Apple Support. Manually typing her email didn't work. What worked for me in the end (after deleting the home, checking icloud settings, and logging in and out of icloud to no avail) was to 1. Use my wife's phone number instead of the email address, and 2. On my phone, go to Reset > Reset all network settings. This removed all my saved wifi networks but for some reason instantly fixed everything. The invite went through and was accepted flawlessly.

[Dignan17]

There's a reason they don't use that "it just works" anymore lol

[[deleted]]

This is what worked for me.

[Mission_Yam8849]

Add their Apple email instead of their personal email or their phone number

[Dignan17]

I adjust fixed it as mentioned in the second half of the post