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iPhone 12 losing service

Received my iPhone 12 Pro on Friday. Activated it on Saturday. Sunday I drove for 10 mns and when I arrive to my destination I saw no reception bars and No Service. And in the middle of the screen in a grey box: Your iPhone is not Activated.


The only way to get the connection back was to toggle Airplane mode to ON then OFF.


The iPhone had the cellular mode to 5G Auto. I switched it to LTE to test. And it was the same.


So I resetted the network settings: same issue and I resetted the iPhone as a new iPhone and reinstalled everything from scratch (not from a saved backup): same issue.


I drove my car and found the exact location where the phone lost the network. If the phone lost the network it means I reach the end of the coverage area from a certain antenna. It looks like something happened with the phone when I reach a zone covered by a new antenna.


I called my operator and they told me that everything is good on their end and I have the right SIM card for a 5G device.


I called the Apple Tech Support and they remotely installed on my phone two profiles:

  • Baseband and Telephony Logging
  • CFNetwork Diagnostics


I was able to replicate the issue after talking to the Apple Tech and I was able to submit the report.


I pushed a little bit the research and I found on Reddit a lot of people talking about the same issue not only on Verizon (my carrier) but also on AT&T. Just use the title I typed and you will find the article.


I never had such issue with the 11pro.



[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Oct 28, 2020 11:31 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 9, 2021 5:49 PM

I am surprised this situation has not been addressed properly by the carriers or Apple. They each seem to be ignoring and hoping the problem will go away. Which it will NOT!

Imagine paying hard earned money for a product that only works, "part-time"? Clearly that would be frustrating for all consumers. Nobody likes to waste money.

I was already given a replacement phone and SIM cards and guess what-neither of them corrected the issue. Once again today I have 1 bar, 1 bar of signal strength at home. My phone is resting on the table and only has 1 bar. No reason for that. Unacceptable. Then when I left the house for a short drive, I lost all signal strength for about 4 minutes, had to go in and out of airplane mode for the signal strength to reset. UNACCEPTABLE!

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956 replies

Dec 2, 2020 6:12 AM in response to Jlvela92

Glad to see that journalists are taking this issue seriously. If we cannot communicate, miss important business calls or drop calls with clients it's all bad. Huge apple supporter so I know they will resolve this one way or another but also sad that it had to get to a point where the press is getting involved to help support a community of early adopters and Apple supporters.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2020/12/01/apple-iphone-12-pro-max-iphone-12-mini-4g-5g-cellular-signal-problems-iphone-11-pro-max-upgrade/?sh=1fe7cc32123b


https://9to5mac.com/2020/12/01/iphone-12-dropping-service-unexpectedly/


https://www.tomsguide.com/news/iphone-12-has-a-serious-signal-problem-what-you-need-to-know


https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/apple-iphone-12-hit-by-strange-bug-that-causes-lte-5g-signal-drops-1746112-2020-12-02



Dec 2, 2020 6:15 AM in response to dbagnall

I believe this a much more prevalent problem than we realize. Analysts on Wall Street have now picked up on this. I am shocked that Apple hasn’t acknowledged this or seems to be working on a fix. Without any real 5G coverage, the 12 is tough sell to begin with. Losing cell service every 10 minutes is tarnishing the reliability of the brand.

Dec 2, 2020 7:41 AM in response to joxesCA

Now that I’ve seen many post abiut this signal loss, I bought my wife a brand new iPhone 12 pro max 256gb and got it on 11/13/20 and seems she getting this issue too every day it kick out the actual data service signal ( 5G/LTE ) every time we drive any where that has a dead spot area & never return back this data signal until we have to do the a AIRPLANE MODE switch On & off then it will go back!

if this will still going on within 1-2 weeks, i no choice but to return it and let my wife use her old iPhone XSmax instead.

Dec 2, 2020 1:22 PM in response to JettAZ

I tried Network Resets, System Resets, new SIM cards, switching SIM cards, hard re-starts, soft re-starts, even wiping the phone(s) and reprogramming from my Mac (with the help of Apple Support). Nothing worked. Dropped signal every time I wasn’t looking. If anyone has a solution I haven’t used here, I would love to hear it.

Dec 2, 2020 1:34 PM in response to Brainfear

Brainfear wrote:

Exactly what I’m going to try and do. Phone just doesn’t work. Did all the tricks and swaps with no help. I have never seen this phone kick into 3g. Just goes no service. If I didn’t send my iPhone 8 in I would be using that. Gonna go to Samsung.


Feel free.


It’s very likely that a 5G Samsung phone will behave in the exact same manner if the issue is what I described earlier.


With each new comment it definitely seems to be that is the case.

Dec 2, 2020 3:05 PM in response to joxesCA

Received today a call from nowhere from Apple Support. This discussion thread raised the interest from the Apple Tech Support team. It looks like the Apple Tech Support may reach out to all of the people who experienced issues like they did for me. They did not recognize the issue but they are currently investigating it.


So I would suggest you to contact the Apple Support and raise a ticket. Mention this thread. Apple will then install a diagnostic tool so as soon as you replicate the issue the phone will record it and send it to Apple for analysis.

Dec 2, 2020 6:15 PM in response to joxesCA

I as well have found this an issue. I’ve had the new phone for 4 days and it has happened 3 times so far once at home and twice while driving and had to reset the phone to re activate the service. As far as the SIM card the Verizon employee switched the new one that came in the phone to the one in my old iPhone XR. Didn’t really know why or ask as to why.

Dec 2, 2020 6:21 PM in response to joxesCA

I have also reached this phase with Apple Support and the Engineering teams. I had shared this thread with the support by uploading these web pages as screenshots to document the scope of the issue. This is disrupting our business and while I have had mixed results from contacting apple, ultimately I do know that they care about making a solid product. They need to reach a threshold of actual reports and velocity of reporting to properly prioritize.

Dec 2, 2020 6:23 PM in response to Luciano5150

The good news is that I can save you from an excruciatingly painful series of resets and re-starts, network fixes at the carrier, re-provisioning and other settings. None of them will work. I haven’t seen a single thread that shows a solution, so save your time and energy and wait for a fix. Wall Street analysts follow these forums and they are on the case. It is far more efficient for Apple to craft a fix than lose one dollar per share. Apple has about 17 billion shares outstanding. It has to be cheaper to fix this.

iPhone 12 losing service

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