Prevent esim auto switch on iOS 26

I am need to VPN back to home town (Hong Kong) for accessing corporate server while I am travelling. Once I VPN, then the "intellegence" iOS 26 switched off my Travel SIM (physical SIM for local data access) and switched all voice and data to Smartone.hk, which is my home SIM (eSIM). Man! I was immediately disconnected from VPN and of coz, disconnected from internet as well.

I had contacted Apple Genius in Hong Kong. They were first heard of this problem. Genius reported my case to Apple engineering team to seek for help. A week later, Apple Genius contacted me that and said there is NO solution for this. The Apple Engineer is suggested me NOT to use VPN !!! ... WHAT!?? What is a nonsense suggestion. I do prefer this Apple Engineer suggest me to change to use Android phone instead of iPhone.

The latest iOS 26.2 is not help. This kind of SIM switch is even more frequent. >___<

Have you tried switching the region/country on your phone? I switched the country and it seemed to fix the issue. No more automatic shutting off of the esim when elsewhere. I can't believe I didn't try that earlier.

Any chance you travel between San Diego / Tijuana? I've had no problems for ten years and suddenly in November, I've been dealing with this annoying "feature" daily. Sometimes I get the message you posted, sometimes not. I've spent 20 hours on the phone with T-Mobile customer support who often ask the same questions and run me through the same troubleshooting steps - to no avail. I once was transferred to an Apple tech specialist through T-mobile. He was super ***** from the start and told me that Apple wasn't capable of turning off an esim through the phone. He said, "If that were possible, we'd be receiving a lot of calls about it." I keep telling T-mobile, "I just want the esims to stay on."

Hope we find a solution soon.

I have the same problem after update to iOS 26.1. No problem in iOS 26.0. Apple added this "stupid" auto feature in iOS26.1. I often stay on border between two countries. My iPhone always automatically disable my MAIN eSIM and remaining another SIM card enable. But this physical SIM is another country. I expected that Apple would fine tune this feature to have a manual option for users in iOS 26.2 but actually not any improvement in this latest release. This feature is so interfere to users!

I have this same problem too and am on iOS 26.2. I have a Singapore eSim installed as default line and a Malaysia eSim which I used to turn on when I travel to Malaysia. Ever since my Singapore telco included data roaming in Malaysia under local data bundle, I have not had to use the Malaysia eSim.

Recently, I need to receive OTP on the Malaysia line and so turned on the Malaysia eSim when I traveled there. The default Singapore eSim is on as well as I am using it for internet connection. When I returned to Singapore, I received the notification below.

My Singapore eSim has always been on and I didn't change the default line but the Malaysia eSim was turned off anyway. I would have prefer to turn it off manually myself. Sometimes, it's good to be smart but don't be a smart alec and assume every user wants this dumb feature.

Hey! By any chance, did you find a solution yet? I am trying to setup a 2nd phone for business use with a physical SIM, but since my primary phone has eSIM setup, the 2nd phone just keeps switching to eSIM even though there is no eSIM setup for it. I literally cannot use the iPhone at the moment.

I’d love to fix this issue that apple retroactively added, as they love to make their software worse.

Unfortunately, when I search “region” or “country” in settings, nothing comes up, because apple retroactively destroyed their settings search function. Why? Because they love to make their software worse.

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