iPhone 12 losing service

Send it back and move on. They don’t seem to be able to fix it, or this isn’t prevalent enough to bother. Don’t go through the hours of resets and compound the issue.

Iphone 12 pro iPhone not activated. I am able to replicate it over and over again at work. There is a dead spot in the paint booth I work in. When it loses signal for more than a minute it will not try to find the signal again. It just lays down and has the 4 dots at top and a pop up displays IPhone not activated I can restart it with airplane mode. As long as I stay away from no signal areas it not do this. The phone is supposed to be smart enough to begin searching for a signal by it self again. When I get this problem I can go into a high signal area and stills just lays there never trying to reconnect by it self. Flip the airplane switch and wala reconnects every time. This has to be a software problem. I know it’s a real problem for me.

I contacted my cell service provider (Verizon) and the representative said they are aware of the issue and have reached out to Apple, but have gotten no response. I am in the process of exchanging my phone because I must have a phone that actually works to make phone calls. The safety of me and my family is much more important than having the latest iPhone.

jirma wrote:

I read an article about this a few days ago, and today my wifi goes out at the house, and even though I have a strong LTE signal, I have absolutely no connectivity to data. I’ve tried the airplane mode toggle, reset network settings, restarting phone, and nothing works so far.

Then that is very definitely a carrier issue.

It's very likely what is happening is the base station controller at your cell site is assigning your iPhone to an LTE frequency that is uncongested because it one that only newer phones (newer than the 8 and XR) can access.

Unfortunately, while the antenna apparently has a strong signal there are errors in how the demodulator for that frequency is wired into the data network.

Put more simply, it is exactly like a Wi-Fi router that is configured but is not actually connected to a network; connected devices would see a perfect Wi-Fi signal but there is no way to pass data.

What did Apple say to you? I spent another hour on phone with sprint today. For sprint, you need to keep INSISTING to escalate it. Don’t let them use the 14 day period as an excuse. The phone is faulty!! Keep pushing on social media Twitter tags Instagram tags Facebook tags etc.

I have the 12 mini and noticed signal issues immediately. There were occasions when I would lose the entire signal and it would take 2 to 10 mins to restore the signal. One time I turned the phone off and on and took another few minutes for signal to restore. The phone is brand new and should not be having issues with the signal. I except at least 2 bars at all times and never expect to have no signal unless I am in some remote area. Definitely not at home, in the car, etc..

My carrier is Verizon and they agreed to send me a new phone because currently messages works, I can make phone calls but I cannot receive any calls. Weird huh? Even call forwarding does not work. This is very, very odd.

Before the phone I had the 7. Thought it was smart to upgrade.

I have spoke with Verizon about issue and also tried all the fix ideas to no avail however last night I spoke with Verizon support and they said they have a open ticket with Apple who is now working on a fix for us. Don’t know when or how the fix will come but at least they are working on it.

Don’t fool yourself. They are not working on a fix for you. Just return the phone, get your money back and wait. It could take months. Just not enough people with this problem for them to create a fix. There will be plenty of iPhones available when they do.

I’ve been experiencing this issue since the first week of November.

iPhone 12 Pro on T-Mobile

When it first happened I reset network settings, which solved nothing. My SIM card had been swapped from my “old” iPhone 11 Pro so after the issue persisted for 2 weeks I went to T-Mobile to have the SIM card replaced with a new one. The issue returned within 24 hours. A few days later I caved and wiped the phone. I spent an entire day with a factory-restored phone, no data restored from backup - I didn’t even login to iCloud. Actually I only spent a about 2 hours like that because the cellular signal started dropping again pretty quickly after the phone was wiped.

Having ruled out a SIM card issue and a software issue I thought I’d see if eSIM had the same issue. Spent another hour at T-Mobile getting the eSIM activated and then the rep and I both laughed as we saw the same thing start to happen with the eSIM, whether the physical SIM card was installed or not. It didn’t matter if we switched everything to 5G, Auto or LTE only.

FWIW, toggling airplane mode on/off rarely brings back cellular connectivity for me. Only a full reboot will and then only for a few minutes, whether I’m idle or out and about (I’m in NYC so I’m easily bouncing between dozens of towers all day).

I made a Genius Bar appointment and 2 employees confirmed they have the same

issue with theirs, but they were still more than happy to replace the phone for me - just in case I might get lucky.

Naturally, replacing the phone has made no difference :)

I’m now biding time until someone figures out a fix. My workaround is to carry my Netgear Nighthawk LTE hotspot in my coat all day, making myself a walking WiFi network and I just leave it on so that my iPhone stays connected to WiFi rather than relying on cellular, which will inevitably show “no service” when I need to use it.

sigh...

Good analysis. Of course we could be talking about more than one problem here, maybe something like tower directing the phone to a bad choice of channel, possible sensitivity issues for certain channels within the phone, and maybe even congestion or failed handoffs between towers. Throw that lot into the mix and I would be volunteering Someone Else to do the troubleshooting.

The reports that problems often clear by rebooting or selecting Airplane Mode for a few seconds seem consistent with band or slot selection issues, because the connection is renegotiated and it is very unlikely the tower would assign the same defective combination. I have also had direct experience of a failed sector antenna on my local tower, it got to the point where I was walking along the street, on the phone to a network engineer and able to predict to within a few metres where it would fail - with the tower only 50 metres away.

So I recently upgraded from the iPhone 11 to the 12 pro max and ever since I got it I’ve been having the same issues. Starting with the fact that the first time the device turned on, it took over an hour for it to connect to the cellular service. I have updated to IOS 14.2.1, spoke with Apple support and followed all of their troubleshooting steps and I Even changed my SIM card but the issue is still there. I work in the wireless Industry and this seems to be an ongoing issue across all the iPhone 12s in general.

I’m writing this hoping apple will notice and correct it within the next software update because this is extremely frustrating both as a user and a seller of these devices.

As far as I am aware there is nothing we can do to solve this issue.

I talked with two Verizon staff who confirmed that they are receiving a great many connection issue reports and it was their estimate that this was a problem for "perhaps thousands" of iPhone 12 owners. Their words, not mine. They also noted that not all owners had problems. Perhaps it was their frustration talking. At the time both staff members thought it was an Apple issue, and Apple was saying it was a provider issue.

I'm hoping that at some point Apple will publicly acknowledge the problems we've been experiencing.

Apparently, this is either a difficult-to-solve problem, or experienced by too few users to get Apple’s attention for a fix. I continue to recommend an immediate return of the device, before you cannot do so, and wait to see what happens. Apple will always sell you another one.

I don't think (most of you) you understand how the usage of cellular frequencies work. Carriers build their networks according to standards specified by the FCC and industry groups such as IEEE, in general. Sure, they can add their own enhancements, but it must follow the base standards. Carriers DO NOT tweak their networks in general for SPECIFIC vendor cell phones. Think about that. There would be thousands of permutations that could be in play between one phone brand/model and a carriers service.

The issue is very much likely a combination of issues. Some may be, and probably are, tied to Apple (12), since this series of phones seems to be the only one having the issue widespread. That being the case, it is probably something more on Apple's end that needs adjusting, not the carrier. But, that doesn't take any responsibility off of the carrier. Their service must be delivered in spec with standards that were provided to phone modem development requirements.

I think both sides are working on it, while both sides are also doing some finger pointing. It probably is also a not one fix fixes all users issues. Again, the permutations are vast between the phones operation and providers service attributes. I think for those that it is causing unacceptable use/service, return the phone and go back to what you had before until it is widely fixed; I know for some that is hard as you sold the old phone, traded in, or other cases where the old phone is gone. You should be able to exchange the 12 for a model 11 if you are withing the warranty period. If you've waited too long to make the exchange, that is sort of on you. I would still try and insist to Apple the need to exchange for your business needs AND customer satisfaction.

Before just posting here, "What is Apple doing about this", or "What is my carrier doing about this", you might actually talk to them AND understand it may be a while before this is completely sorted out. AND remember, neither Apple NOR your carrier are officially monitoring these forums. Even if they were, they are under no obligation to act on anyone's comments here. If you want them to now you have the issue or are not pleased, GO TO THEIR support page or CALL.