Unable to activate eSIM of Airtel on IPhone 13 running on iOS 16.0.2

Hi Nicky, the issue is with iOS. I had issue with airtel eSIM activation. Once you scan the eSIM code it would take few minutes to show you message like unable to activate. once you see this message, wait for two hours or three hours. You should loose the signals on your old phone which was having physical sim or eSim. Then come to you new phone and turn off the line and turn it on. You should get the signals on your new phone. That’s how the work around as of now, until apple address the issue. May be service providers can’t help you out. Hope this should help you.

Okay.. so update regarding this issue, I carried on with esim process after the pop up of unable to activate esim. I turned on and off the esim, it started working! I hope this bug will be resolved in next software update.

Hey, I am also facing this same issue while activating esim for airtel. However if I ignore the error msg and wait for 2 hours, my physical SIM will get disabled which will be another hustle to get back. Do you think this is risk worth taking and a work around to make esim work in iOS 16?

Hello, I saw everyone saying that we have to wait for 2 hours. However, this is my issue.

1. Got QR code from Airtel and after scanning get the error "Unsupported eSIM".
2. Went to Settings > Cellular
3. It does not show the new profile (I only have the old eSIM profile which i had deleted and now shows as 'No SIM'

Question - When you get the 'Unsupported eSIM' error and all the posts say to ignore the error, do you see a new profile added?

Quick update! Tried the steps suggested by everyone and it worked! ESim has gotten activated! Here are few pointers.

• scan the QR code immediately
• try scanning the code from far so the entire code gets captured rather than a portion
• have your physical sim on a different phone
• wait for 2 hours
• ignore the unable to activate message
• don’t fiddle with the phones and just let them be
• after 2 hours turn the eSim profile off and on

thanks to all the reviews and comments people gave it was so comforting and reassuring and really guided me well!

For this error:

Unsupported eSIM. This eSIM is from a network provider that is not currently supported on this iPhone. To use this eSIM, contact your provider and request to unlock this iPhone

I have followed the below steps to resolve the problem:

1. Reset Network settings on new iPhone
2. Connect hotspot of old iPhone to new iPhone
3. When you get email of QR code make sure you save that QR code to photos so its clearly visible while scanning
4. While scanning the QR code make sure to scan the whole picture.

Hope this steps will help to solve the problem.

Request a new QR code for this since old QR will not work as its only one time scannable

Last Day there was some QR issue and my sim has been blocked and I got that replaced. today I am getting this error, so do i need to wait of else send an sms to make sure my physical sim wont get blocked now. I am getting an error Unable to activate esim

So. I got the error around half an hour after I started the activation process and around 2 and half hours I switched the esim to on and off and it started working. I made the mistake of sending a stop esim activation message to airtel twice before but today when I waited for around 2.5 hours it worked. So my advice be patient for some time!

I have iPhone 12 on ios16.0.2

for last couple of days, trying to get esim activated for Airtel and Jio both but didn’t work.

today, visited jio store and completed the process. Their system shows esim is activated but my phone doesn’t have signals.

it’s been 2.5 hours already but no solution mentioned here is working.

After waiting for 5 hours yesterday evening, I was ready to reset my network settings and go again today to Jio store for one more try.

I was just fiddling with different options, unintentionally I click on add esim option. It immedaitely started the process like we are adding after receiving settings or scanning QR code. I got all the options of selecting calling, data line etc. I completed the process as anyways I was ready to reset network settings.

As soon as I completed the esim setup, new esim profile just got activated and earlier esim profile got 'off' (earlier esim profile was configured by Jio store after scanning their system QR code).

Now I have 1 physical sim (Airtel), 1 Jio esim profile (off mode), and 1 more Jio esim profile which is active now. It's all good now. Will delete off mode Jio esim profile later, for now, don't want to mess up anything.

Pretty weird way but it worked.

Now I have 2 issues, VoWiFi is working for physical and esim but VoLTE is not working. Checked all the settings.

Called customer and they confirmed that it's activated from their side.

I should generally get Airtel VoLTE and Jio VoLTE sign on top bar of my iPhone 12 (iOS 16.0.2) once activated.

i don't know if this will work on iPhone 14 Pro (US version) running 16.0.3 I have tried 4-5 times since last week. Even tried today (after updating to 16.0.3) no luck. I'm scared if I continue despite of the messsge and lose my physical SIM connection as well. I've heard from someone that this is a problem in 14 models, regardless of the waiting. It won't be activated. There should be a software update to fix this. Now I'm just confused on what to do. If this really is device specific. I wanna know if somebody with 14 models have done this too or no (the waiting part even after the message of unable to activate the eSIM)

Exactly what I'm experiencing. I am trying since 1 week. I got my 14 Pro last week. I have literally tried everything, from visiting the Airtel office, to talking to their support, talking to the Apple support, factory reset, even updated to 16.0.3 last night and checked again. But nope. Nothing.

where did you get your 14 Pro Max from? Here or US? Also let me know if you get any updates please! This is some real struggle lol.

You can read my post above. If your Airtel physical sim is also working even after 2 hours then probably your process is not right. I lost 2 physical sim cards and they stopped working exactly after 2 hours.

better to visit store as they have quick process atleast in Jio they completed whole process in 5 minutes.

I fear this problem is specifically to the users who got their iPhones from US, lol 🥲

I just hope some magic happens or something at this point. Why don't you try contacting Apple's Senior Advisor there through customer support. Try talking to them let's see what they say? I tried talking to one here. And they said Apple is aware of the issue. And it should be fixed in the next software update :/