iPhone 17 Pro will not active any esim Apple claims there's nothing wrong with it

iPhone 17 Pro will not active any esim. It stopped picking up cellular. I went into the store and they activated a new esim. Within 24 hours it stopped working again. Since then I have had numerous and long calls with AT&T and they have tried repeatedly to activate a new esim and the phone just will not activate. They said there is nothing more they can do so I contacted apple. Apple setup a return box so I could send it in for repair. They sent it back to me saying nothing was wrong so I went through the whole process of transferring my data back again from my spare phone. To no surprise the phone will not active. More time on the phone with AT&T and multiple attempts to activate the esim with no success. Called Apple and they've setup another return. This back and forth process is slow. The phone will not activate no matter what AT&T does. The problem is not with AT&T. If it had something to do with AT&T I would not have been able to transfer the phone service to my spare phone the first time and now a second time. I have at least 8 hours into this fiasco with support calls and transferring my phone data back and forth between the spare and my 17 pro.


Does anyone have any advice? Anyone else gone through this? I just got the phone around 3 months ago. It's not like it's old and beat up. They keep accusatorially asking me, is there any physical damage or liquid damage. No absolutely not. I take care of my phone. Any advice that would help me get this resolved would be great. Oh and they keep throwing it in my face I didn't buy the apple care warranty so I just have the basic warranty.

iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 26

Posted on Feb 4, 2026 5:47 AM

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4 replies

Feb 4, 2026 8:21 AM in response to Jeff Donald

30 company cell phones, no issue with OTA. In fact I've swapped this phone back and forth twice now and no issues except with this 17. I went to an actual AT&T store. Resellers are helpless. The Apple tech said he could see a long history of dropped and missed calls on the device. AT&T escalated me 2 tiers in support. The phone worked fine for months then slowly started having intermittent issues with cell service. Bouncing in and out of SOS. Then one day, no cell service. Sounds more like defective hardware.

Feb 4, 2026 7:38 AM in response to Jeff Donald

I had noticed for a couple weeks before my cell service was coming in and out. I assumed it was the small town I live in or network problems. That was when AT&T was having all the fiber outages. Assumed it was related. Then one day it just said SOS. I went into the store and they activated a new ESIM. Worked fine but it was over the air. He didn't plug the phone in or anything like that. It worked, I left the store and went straight home. The next morning I went on a trip and no service. So I don't know how long the cellular was working but less than 24 hours. I have not been able to get an esim to activate on it since. Multiple calls and back and forth with ATT and Apple. I think I've had 4 calls to ATT and 5 or 6 to apple. It's wearing me out. This is an expensive phone and I only had it a few months. I don't beat my stuff up or drop it. Mostly sit at a desk.

iPhone 17 Pro will not active any esim Apple claims there's nothing wrong with it

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