sim card not valid after update to ios 5

Same thing here! 3Gs that is 3 years old. Worked PERFECT before the update to iOS5 and now no sim card. I have applecare for it but she told me on the phone when I made the appt that that wont matter. I will pitch a fit if they don't replace it. I had the same thing happen to my 3G back in 2010! ATT told me it was an Apple error and if I wanted a new phone I had to take it to them but where I lived there wasn't a store so I had to buy a new phone. So irritated!

Im having the same problem and my phone is out of warranty. Apple is offering to sell me a used iPhone 4 for $149 bucks, but my phone worked fine until i attempted to update to IOS 5.1. I am not going to pay for another phone when the one I have is not working through no fault of my own. I have recently become an apple fan, but I will switch to Android in a heartbeat if I keep having these update problems. I forgot to mention that the same thing happened when I upated to IOS 5.0. What is the deal? I just want my phone to work, nothing more,nothing less.

I've just upgraded to iOS5.1 and now my sim card isn't recognised. I've had the same sim card since buying my first iphone 4 years ago. I'm with Optus in Australia, have had no problems whatsoever before this - I'm wondering if it is some conflict between iOS5.1 and Optus? I've rebooted the phone several times and re-synced but no change. I'm reluctant to do a full restore until I hear more from other users. Any help here would be gratefully accepted. Hoping it's just a glitch that can be fixed relatively simply. It's an iPhone 4S by the way.

This just happened to me on a 3gs. This is my REPLACEMENT from when this happened when the IOS 5 came out. Attempted to update my phone last night, and it is bricked.

I'm out of warranty, is Apple doing anything about this?

Have done some more digging around, as well as talking with Apple. Great to use the whole world as an expample when speaking with them. I am begining to think that its people with a T-Mobile sim card that are having problems. T-Mobile by the way is allowed in all parts of the World except for the US. I wish that Apple would make a deal with T-Mobile here, but that's a different topic. Also, the question to ask those that are commenting is did you buy an unlcocked phone? That way you can go to carrier of choice? Or maybe you unlcoked it using some software? Don't know if you want to answer here...I now have my iPhone back BUT it is stuck o AT&T.. if I put my old SIMM card in its back to brick status.. there my confession.

The jist of this that the other culprit in all of this is iTunes, the updater/distrubutor we all use. And the new version checks for a number of things, and IT will be the one to block you out. Restoring it may get you the brick, you will know when you see a flashing connect to iTunes cable and/or a Emergency Call numeric keypad.

The JIST part is something you can do little about from what I have conclcuded. Buy an unlocked phone if that's what you need, or pick a carrier AT&T, Verizon or Sprint. Not going to rant 3x here. IF its not an unlock issue, I would really like to know those of you NOT in the US whether you have T-Mobile and someone at Apple forgot you ARE a legal card.

Update here for me is as follows: Called Optus, was told they'd received an email regarding this 'sim card failure' problem and that I should just restore to fix said problem. I told them I was hesitant to do this in case this bricked my phone, was assured it was all good to go ahead. Well you know what happened, bricked phone. Called Optus back, this time was told my sim card had failed (as I had supposed after reading all the posts here) and I will have to go in to Optus and get it replaced. Doing that this afternoon, fingers crossed all will be good.

We had the same issue , invalid sim card after updating to ios 5.1 , after many frustrating hours of trying everything from trying new sim cards from our provider....3 in total...to standing around the Apple Store for hours only to be told there was nothing they could do as the phone was out warranty...nice huh? Apple product screwed up by Apple software update....nothing they can do? My son took the phone to a little kiosk in the mall that does unlocking...and he figured it out! The phone was originally locked to another provider other than the one we are on so when the software updated it locked it back to the original provider...invald sim.....but get this , the original phone bricked with a fatal hardware issue so we were instructed to take it into the Apple store for a replacement.....turns out that all the replacement phones are locked to AT&T and then unlocked to be used with your provider , after we updated the software it locked it back to AT&T ....we are on Rogers. My son took the phone back into the Apple store armed with this information , they checked their records and low and behold were able to unlock it again....problem solved.

THE APPLE STORE CAN FIX YOUR PHONE!!!! Don't take no for an answer

Im having the same issue.

I bought an unlocked iphone 4 on USA, everything was ok until i needed to make a restore and itunes updated to iOs 5. Now it says "Sim not valid" when i try to keep using the same SIM i always used on this iphone. I also tried another SIM from another carrier, which my sister landed me, and nothing.

Im from Argentina, im not sure if my cuntry has official apple support.

What should i do?

Ive readed that iOs locks your iphone to ATT.. Should i get an ATT sim to activate my iphone?

Im starting to hate apple due to these silly prolems. Please help.

I have the same problem, apple replace my iPhone 4S 3 times, cannot fix it, AT&T replace my sim card 5 times, cannot fix it. Then the apple store people called their "tier 2" support, and he said he is going to fix it. Now it has been two, but over the weekend, have not heard a work from them again, still waiting. Will update the post soon as they contact me again. (They said there was a broken link between AT&T and my iPhone after updating to iOS 5.1, something like that)

hi guys,

I have read through the forum and to be honest, I am not very hopefull!!!

The backgroud is, i have the iphone4 - its 3rd hand. I bought it off a friend who got it off ebay. Originally it was locked to the Orange network in the UK, but the phone was unlocked when I got it. I was based in Irelaand and operating from the Meteor netwrok.

I have moved to Australia .. My itunes account is on my pc back home in Ireland. Anyway, a friend of mine suggested i do the sofware update to ios5.1 yesterday to use new features. After completing this my irish sim card was still working (no 3G though as it was piggy backing off the Optus network.) After this updateI purchased an Oz micro sim yesterday via vodafone, i inserted it and got the invalid sim notification followed by the prompt to ínsert original iphone sim from recognised carrier....''So my iphone is locked and wont move off the screensaver screen and even if it does, it only moves to the aforementioned message. My irish sim is now also locked out.... uggggh.

So now my problem.

1. I have no warranty.

2. If i contact orange in the UK i dont even know who the original owner was so i assume they wont be of help.

3. How can i restore without my itunes account?

Please help!!!any information appreciated......so mad!

I read all the replys. The sad thing is we are on apple's own dicussion site and no one from apple seems to care to write any solution!!!

I always had good experience with the Apple support, but here you are right, that's just sad! 😠

Here is the valid response. Do not jailbreak to unlock the handset, Boom fixed, please contact the provider where the iPhone is locked to request unlocking

same here wha are we suposed to do?

I too am having similar issues and am very frustrated with this...it interferes with serious work I do with homeless teenagers to have a call dropped with a message that sim is undectectable and not be able to connect back with them. I'm going to address this to the media and see if they can shed some light if Apple chooses not to fix this problem.