sim card not valid after update to ios 5

Its an IMEI issue. In my case, about a year ago, after originally purchasing my iP4 from AT&T store, I had a prox. sensor issue. Went to the Apple Store, they replaced the phone. Here is where it all stems from. The IMEI of the new phone was never updated in AT&T/Carriers systems. For iOS updates prior to iOS5, this was not an issue. My phone did its iOS updates along the way with no probs. However, when I updated to iOS5, the firmware did not match the IMEI with what AT&T/carrier had. When I went to Apple Store for the issue about 3 days ago and was given a new phone....again....the new phones IMEI was never updated with AT&T/carrier. I then again attempted the upgrade to iOS5 with the new phone and iOS5 bricked that one also. Today, at the store, we tried 3 replacements with same outcome.

So, after 4 hours and 3 replacement phones with Apple Store Tech (BTW totally gobsmacked), we solved the issue. Luckily, due to iPhone 4S launch, there was an AT&T guy there with a computer tied to the AT&T network to work along with us. The issue is......once the IMEI's on carrier account and phone do not match, iOS5 shuts down the sim card reader within phone.....forever. How to reverse this?......this is a question Apple needs to come up with, because with my case, they have 5 "bricked" phones.

What solved the issue was to get a new phone with iOS4.3.5, new SIM from carrier/AT&T, have carrier/AT&T (in their system) change/match the IMEI to the new phone and activate new SIM. Then, do iOS5 upgrade.

Simple and makes total sense..........however........there is an internal firmware (Apple Security??) issue that bricks the phone once IMEI's dont match.

I am now on iOS5.....no problems......so far. Best of luck to all others.

ive done this 3 times this week alone and ive finally figued it out. after spending the better part of 4 days at the Apple store and having my phone replaced 3 times. (replacing the phone is the only way that this issue will be fixed) the issue is not with the sim card but with the phone itself the tech that helped me put his own working sim card in my phone and it did not work on the phone. so after the first 2 replacements i decided that the ios 5 was the problem. so when i went to the store for my third replacement i asked the tech once he was done replaceing my phone if he would install the ios 5 at the store to avoid having to restore the phone on my own itunes. once i brought the iphone home with the ios 5 installed and plugged it into my itunes it worked fine... the thing i have learned is to avoid the restore at all costs. as the itunes was backing up my new phone to my itunes it created a new backup and not using the backup from the previous phone (which contained contacts and all that good stuff) so once the phone synced if you right click on the iphone picture in the left menu and choose the "restore from back up" and choose the last known backup that contained the information you wanted.

They need to escalate to Apple Support. Apple must do something on a sentral serverr. And they need to know how comprehensive this case are in the world.

This pattern for (non-jailbroken iPhones) seems to be an issue with the IMEI number.

This is something Apple can sort out in the store, either by swapping over to a new phone with a valid IMEI number (in the carrier's range of numbers) OR amending their records (somehow).

Equally, if you purchased the phone from a carrier, they would be the ones to sort the above record keeping.

Best of Luck ...

Well Don't call Apple to resolve this Problem. Goto The near Apple store and get it resolved there. I was on HOLD for 1 HOUR no joke and still they could not resolve my problem. I also got a new simcard but the same problem.

I had a an appointment yesterday which actually was tough. My white 16GB 3Gs iphone caused the same problem after updating. They gave me such a huge problem that it was my phone because of the fact that i badly and stupidly dropped it many times and had bad dents.( Not only that. The major drop that i had it actually landed on the volume control. The hard impact sunked the volume switch down twisting the metal frame of the iphone and causing a bump into it and snapped out the plastic case.. And when this happened, I took it to Apple and told them if they could open it and remove the broken peace. Nothing happend to it. It worked fine. Only that the volume switch was severly ruined and it bent the frame and elevated the plastic casing. They denied it so i had no choice to open it and fix it miyself. This was a swapped from. The original one got ruined. It ended up getting the white screen of death. so i had it swapped.)

regardles of the damages my phone worked fine without having a volume switch and many dents before i did the update. I took it to them and 3 guys were arrogant and ********. I try to reason with them and kept my cool anthough I was about to explode and cause the worst fuzz and scandle in history. Had in mind actually the idea of recording stuff and posting it on youtube an sending my video to the news.

Told them. Hey look. My phone was working fine. why the **** do you guys advertise something just so that it ruins your phone afterwards ?? This is ********. And don't act as if you guys don't know. I took them to one laptop they had singed in to apple site. Show them this support group discussion page. I showed them all the complaints of people such as you and me and told them. See !!!!!!!!!!! See!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's not just me . It's people all over the world with this ****. I'm into my 3rd day without and Iphone. So what you guys want me to do. To go home and regret that i ruined my phone because of a stupid update. And be bitter for the rest of my life. How stupid it is that you guys cannot even wipe out the whole iphone and install an old operating sytem on it. Why the **** did I did the update in the first place. And believe me I'm trying to behave cuz if i had my homeboys with me which in fact i told them not to come, they would have ruined this place and intimidate you guys, probably I get arrested and they get arrested and this would be a major top story on the news. So please I'm asking you nicely. fix this. do not want a New iphone no . I want my same old crappy dented, volume missing scratched iPhone back to how it was. Look at all this complaints of people all over the world. It's no me guys it's your stupid update. Gimme my old operating sytem back. That was stable on this phone and I'll walk out of this. And believe me guys. I won't cause a scene but there will be many . Believe me this. There will be many tha will come here ****** with the same problem and they will actually frustrate you guys more.

When I said that. I caught the attention of people around me and they were all looking. As a matter of fact there were like 4 guys tha i saw had the same issue. I said Look !!!!!!!!!!! This customer here same complaint this other too. People started looking at me more. So they called another guy. Which was my messiah. This cool dude came talked to me nice. took my iphone and did so crazy investigation with it. I was patient. He told me that when they swapped my phone Apple messed up. Something to do with the original iphone and some serial number and my provider that caused an error while updating to OS5 and that the update killed my phone.(And some other BS. That it was their mistake and that they will se what they could do. The guy called my provider did a lot of research. And to tell you guys. this situation was tough. But at the end of the day. They replaced my crappy dented messed up and scratch iPhone with a brand new one.. My warranty was expired too.

Thank you Daniel (The Genius) for being so patient. Understanding and caring. After 3 hours of pure frustration I got a new white 16gb 3gs phone ( I actually literally hugeg him) . They told me not to update. So guys if you have an swapped phone don't do the update. Or do not update at all.

Let's hope that this incident does not happen to anyone else like it happened to me. And let's hope they fix this major problem on the update.

Oh yeah sorry for the long comment.

Be persistant. Intimidate them, Be logical with them and you might walk out with a new Iphone guys just like I did.

^That's what i'm talking about.

Good for you.

My phone was a replacement phone that worked great with 4.3.4 and 4.3.5.

Updated and got my phone bricked.

Went in with an appointment and was told they could do nothing for me because the update read that my phone was a uk service based phone, (veraphone)?

Some how having a replacement phone and trying to update scrambled the IMEI. when that happened, my at&t sim card did not match the IMEI that it updated to and that's what caused it to brick.

Why the IMEI got scrambled is beyond me.

My phone was not jail broken, it is an at&t phone that was used with at&t only.

I even tried to restore it on a older version of itunes (the one that has 4.3.5 as an update) and nothing happened.

Wow I can't believe I finally found someone who had this problem!!! I have been dealing with this since I got an iPhone 4 on firmware 4.0.2. Since then I have been through 15(!) replacement iPhones, as I prefer to restore when new software comes out rather than update to keep my battery life good. I too went to the Apple store on iOS 5 launch day last week and it bricked again. The genius had no idea what was going on but he went through his back channel to AT&T which turned up that my IMEI number did not match what was in their system. I haven't dared to update or restore since, but I think I will go back to the AT&T store and have them give me a new sim and confirm the IMEI is correct now.

i just upgrade to ios5 and my iphone is stalled can`t retrive sim card.

i am also same problem,

i used my iphone 4 by greavy sim.

but after update iOS 5 my phone recovery mode, only display iphone 4

then comes lengaues

country or region

location services Enable/Disable

Wi-Fi Networks / Connect to itunes

Message was edited by: nasiruddin

Here's my experience:

I had the 'No SIM' issue after updating my iPhone 4 to IOS5. After reading all the advice on here and having my SIM replaced by O2 in the UK I booked an appointment at the Apple Store in Manchester with the Genius Bar. The guy who saw me hadn't heard of the issue before and was just as confused by it as we all are. He had an ask around the store and no-one had heard it. He tried a DFU restore on my phone but still had the problem so he said they would have to replace the phone. As it was out of warranty, they wanted to charge me £119. I refused to pay it and pointed out that a) it was working before the update, b) I had used all Apple products to do the update and c) it was never unlocked/jailbroken etc. He went off to speak to the manager and came back and said they were going to cover the charge and I would get a new handset for free. Result! So they gave me a new one (iPhone 4) and updated to IOS5 as I was waiting. I now have a brand new phone with a 3 month warranty and a working IOS5.

Apart from the attempt to charge me, I can't fault the service. I strongly advise anyone having this issue to go to the store and report it.

Hope that helps

I had the cannot-activate-because-SIM-not-supported problem twice in a row. The iPhone 4 I updated to IOS 5 on Saturday 15 October was a replacement phone received from the Apple Store a couple of months ago under warranty. After the update brought about the SIM-card-related activation failure, I first went to the carrier (Swisscom) where I immediately received a new SIM card, which did not work either. I then crossed the street to the Apple store where the iPhone 4 was replaced. (There was no standard procedure for a replacement outside of warranty, so a manager had to sign off on the replacement.) I was told that I could complete the IOS 5 update now that I had the replacement of the replacement iPhone.

Infortunately I was not told that I would not be able to go back to IOS 4. I assume that Apple Store staff was not yet aware of that new (and in my view unjustifiable) limitation. This is how my replacement-of-the-replacement iPhone cannot be activated either. I went back to the Apple store where a Genius Bar manager spent another hour on the case. By then the Geneva Apple Store already had seen a couple of these cases. I was told that the problem was in Apple's databases, not in my iPhone, and that I should try again regularly. Over the last 36 hours I have tried again regularly, to no avail. As I need a phone, I took the opportunity to test a cheap Android device. Not a pleasant experience (the Android, I mean). But there is some value in not having to deal with SIM locks and activation.

The incident shows a couple of conceptual bugs in the iPhone roll-out in general, and IOS 5 in particular. For one thing, the need to "activate" an iPhone is a waste of staff time and a source of aggravation for all users even when it works. Apple should get rid of it. Not allowing a downgrade is a mistake. Blocking both the way forward AND the way backward is irresponsible. Not having at least a status page on the Apple web site shows a lack of readiness for unexpected incidents. How is Apple going to manage the iCloud in this way? RIM's recent woes should be a warning. Both Swisscom and Apple staff were helpful. But of course neither their time nor mine should be wasted in this manner.

The suggestion to hard shut down, remove/replace the SIM, then power back up worked FINE on my iPad 2 as well. I never had the issue on my iPhone 4 after the upgrade to iOS 5. Only the iPad exhibited the "No SIM" problem, and then NOT until I tried turning on Cellular Data and accessing my AT&T account for the first time after the upgrade. It should be noted that my iPad and iPhone are original so the IMEI codes were not part of the problem. To be on the safe side, I cancelled my cellular data plan as soon as I had access again as I did not want the auto-renewal to kick in.

This is ridiculous! My iphone 4 was working just fine then the morning after my update to iOS 5, it completely stops working!!! I tried everything, reinserting SIM card, airplane mode, recovering iphone and still NO HELP. Someone please help me fix this. I have been on the phone with Apple for about 10 minutes now and still no fix for it 😟