Q: sim card not valid after update to ios 5

Yep, looking more and more like the serial number is the culprit.

One thing I don't understand though: when you get a replacement phone from Apple after this happens, you have to register it in iTunes.  At that point, the replacement phone should be registered to you and should show the correct carrier info as well.  Why is it that you still get a bricked phone if you restore this replacement phone?  I guess one possible answer is that the phone's serial number still remains registered to its previous owner in Apple's system.  It still seems like this is also due to a rather agressive security protocall in iOS that maybe needs to be dialed back a bit.

hello,

i have a unlocked iphone from england and it's a replacement too.. i do not have a store near by, because now i'm in Deutschland.. how can i have some support from Apple.? i'm without a phone right now, and i don't see that this problem will be solved in the next few days... maybe in the next months.. and i cannot stay without phone for so long.

thanks

oh well, couldnt go without phone.... the only option left with my out of warrantee IPHINE4 was to buy a replacement at half off the replacement price.

$75 which I say is bull.

and no iOS 5...

My IMEI numbers matched and I still got the "SIM not valid" error after I upgraded to IOS5. According to the Genius at the Apple Store the problem lies in Apples Database. He said they're working on correcting the problem and I should be able to upgrade to IOS5 by Friday. I hope he's right, I've been to the Apple Store 4 times and have gone through 5 replacement phones.

I received confirmation through Apple's Expreslane telephone support that in my case the IMEI number had been mapped to AT&T in the US by mistake, whereas my phone should was supposed to be associated with Swisscom in Switzerland. Strangely though it worked until the IOS 5 update.

Apparently the mistake was made in the Geneva Apple Store when I was first given a replacement iPhone 4 because the original iPhone 4 had a hardware probblem. I might have seen this on the repair statement I was sent by email: it had a wrong name and a wrong address on it. When the repalcement phone was replaced again (instead of correcting the profile), the mistaken profile was inherited by the replacement phone. This is why that one could not work either.

Apple's teleophone support said the mapping would be corrected within a 24 hours. A bit long, especially as I have already been waiting for 4 days. I hope Apple takes this incident seriously: staff was unprepared, and the attempt to resolve this individually makes little sense. It should be possible for Apple to compare IMEI numbers of phones dispatched to various sales points and IMEI numbers that appear on the failed activation attempts. Overall, the bureaucracy Apple puts in place for activation is not matched either by its own capacity to deal with it or any benefit.

Suggestion to those who deals with this problem: As the Apple Store is hopelessly overloaded, go to http://www.apple.com/support/contact/ . You might still have to negotiate for 10 minutes with a support person who was not sufficiently trained and then wait 10 minutes until he or she finds a manager who can help.

I remember seeing someone elses info on my repair statmenet as well when they replaced my original iPhone 4. Sounds like this is were the problems started.

I'm having the exact same issue - restored and tried to update to ios5 this morning, and now completly unable to use the phone due to the 'sim not supported' message on both the phone and on itunes when I connect.

Restore has not fixed the issue. Made a genious appointment on thursday, but hope to pop into the apple store and see what can be done tomorrow. My phone is a replacement phone, but is still under service and repair warranty. Would apple replace my phone with a new one?

Thanks, this is such a frustrating issue.

This is so frustrating. It's the third time this has happened to my phone and last time I asked what if this happens again and all he could say was you have a 90 day warranty so you can just get a new phone... I don't know why I settled for that because now its past my warranty and the update ruined my phone once again. I was planning on getting the 4s anyways but I don't want to pay for a new phone and have it break once again. If they can't figure out why this is happening I'm going to just have to not get an iphone ever again, which I do not want to happen!

I have the same problem on O2. On my 4th iPhone of the year.

I went into covent garden apple store, for the 2nd time that weekend and the guy said he had heard of the problem before. He said to wait 48 hours and then try an update, that was Sunday 16th October.

I've not tried for the update though as I don't want to go thought the hassle of replacing my iPhone AGAIN.

So I'm going to stick with ios 4.

Unless apple gives an official statement saying its all fixed I'm not gonna bother.

I was also there on Sunday.

They closed at 6, but the guy said ' you wont leave this building without a proper phone' so I kinda felt better with their service. I was too angry before that !!! and I was there until 7 !

I went there with my mac, so I just tested everything. There is nothing wrong with laptop, or sim card. We tried 2 different phones.

Now they said the same thing. Do not update or restore. Just wait 48 hours. Funny thing is that they say 48 hours to everyone everyday.

There is nothing on macrumors, gizmodo, and other popular gadget websites. I believe ther are plenty people with this problem.

Let's hope , it will be working again.

New update

I rang the Apple support guys again to make sure my Thursday trip wasn't going to be wasted (having read more posts) so went through it all again with them.

Initially they said that it's not an AT&T locked phone. Then when they looked more closely they went back to the original "when you got the original handset it was already jailbroken" line that the store had given me. THis is NOT true.

After saying that if it was jailbroken when I got it why did they give me a FREE replacement handset (swap 1) in January 2010 with no proof of purchase "was it just a fad that Apple went through?" I asked. Surely by giving me the initial replacement handset, and not alerting me to the fact that it was jailbroken said that that was OK??

After a lot of waiting I finally got escalated to Tier 2 with a Senior Advisor sho said "Do you have the box that the original handset came in? What's the Serial Number?" I read it to him, and it was different to the serial number I have currently (SO PLEASED I had the box!). He then told me that the initial handset replace wasn't put through properly, meaning that it screwed it all up.

Now this might be a line to hold me off but it was as if he knew the answer all along. Someone somewhere knows something! 

The Senior Advisor is to email me when it is time to restore and then "it will be fine"..... here's hoping.

In short then PUSH PUSH PUSH the floor staff/telephone staff - they aren't equipped to deal with it - get a senior advisor to check it.

I was thinking of getting a 4S, but as you've said that everyone is being told to wait 48 hours, they themselves don't know what's happening either.

If I get the new iPhone with ios 5 and I try to sync it or back-up will it brick my phone again?

Cannot afford the risk. Pleased you said that.

I'll have to stick to the tried and true for now or until Apple gives an official "We've fixed it" statement.

I bought the iPhone 4S on launch day and didn't have any problems setting it up. I haven't tried a full restore though. I'm definitely going to wait for the all clear from Apple before trying that.

--- WHAT TO DO TO GET YOUR PHONE CHANGED BY APPLE IF OUT OF WARRANTY  ---

Hi to all of you, i got the same problem here with my 4g and struggeld with it for 2 days.

I Managed to get out of the loop screen (connect to itunes) with a speciale application fix and i went to an apple store.

Asked them to restore the iphone becouse of the update problem on iOS with sim invalid issue.
They toke it for almost 3 hours but got stuck in the loop screen (connect to itunes) after getting error (-1) in restore iOS on my iphone 4.

They where not able to fix the issue and replaced the phone even if out of warranty.

And i also made them update it to iOS 5.0

DO NOT RESTORE BACKUP !!!

Sync it normal and everything shoudl go straight.

Love Apple style and how they work, this is why there #1.

Hope they fix the issue in the 5.01 release (should come out soon).

Cheers

Another extremely unhappy customer -- never jailbreak my iPhones (my job is in firmware; I don't need to mess with my phone for a hobby...) but my Apple store-replaced iPhone 3GS locked up as described; my iPhone 4 (original) updated fine when adding iOS5 update.

Local Genius bar not helpful; after failed DFU install suggested only option was yet-again replacing 5-month old iPhone 3GS with another for $149!

I can only hope Apple come up with a solution SOON -- otherwise (very reluctantly: I love the product) I'll be forced to walk away.