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Sim Card Failure No Sim with iPhone 4S Anyone Else?

Got the new 32GB iPhone 4S today from AT&T, activated the phone was working all morning, I started experimenting with Siri and a couple minutes later the phone was hotter than usual and I get Sim Card failure, and Bad SIM messages. The phone now only says No Sim. I get home take out the SIM card and put it in my previous iPhone 4 and it works just fine. I then put in a blank micro SIM into the new iPhone 4S, but it still says NO SIM. Thinking the SIM reader got fried some how already.



Anyone else have this problem maybe a bad batch out there, or I just got an unlucky lemon?



I made an appointment for the genius bar tomorrow, but I seriously doubt they will have replacement stock of the 4S already. Guess I will find out what my next course of action will be tomorrow trying to get a replacement since new orders are taking 30 days to ship I am afraid I will have to wait awhile to enjoy the new features of my already paid for phone 😟

Posted on Oct 15, 2011 1:53 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 15, 2011 4:55 AM

I'm having the same issue... 😟

1,365 replies

Nov 17, 2011 11:18 AM in response to robsdoghouse

When my signal is full i can call and text ,but when the signal 3. level or down i can't make call and text.I really don't know what's going on !! But it's driving me crazy spend A LOT OF MONEY ! And u can't make just call or text .It's really funny.Dear APPLE fix it . Everyday we are writing here but nobody like admin or smth write to fell us relax

Nov 17, 2011 12:19 PM in response to robsdoghouse

Got the invalid SIM message on mine recently. I believe it was pre-iOS 5.0.1. Happened once and hasn't occurred since. Only a reboot cleared the event.


Have also had another issue where while trying to make an outgoing call, the phone hangs on "calling xxxx..." (xxxx = person) and hitting End does nothing. I have to wait it out for several minutes before I can do anything. I can't get back to the home screen, etc. The phone simply hangs.

Nov 17, 2011 1:42 PM in response to robsdoghouse

I bought a 16GB Verizon 4s and I'm now on my third one. I cannot activate the phone if the SIM card is in the slot regardless of the fact that the Verizon network does not make use of it. If I remove the SIM card, I can activate the phone and everything works fine but as soon as I put it back in, I get a message that the phone has to be activated (which I can't do).


This has happened with three differen SIM cards, including one that was given to me at the Verizon store and registered there (by the way, they have been extremely helpful at my local store here in Gainesville).


Rebooting does not help, nor re-seating the SIM card... nor resetting the network.


I'm reluctant to get another replacement phone (it would be my 4th). Does anyone else with a new Verizon phone have the same problem?

Nov 17, 2011 2:09 PM in response to robsdoghouse

...also wrote it in another thread. Replaced my original 4S cuz of another failure. My new 4S now has this issue only with one card. Tried three different ones. Orange Austria - WORKS! ...Bob.at Austria - (my own network) - DOESNT WORK! ...O2 Germany - WORKS!


....i thought, ***. My Bob.at SIM card worked perfectly on the original 4S. But ok, i guessed somehow the Bob.at SIM card is broken. no it wasnt. Got a new SIM from the provider. Same problem. AND: the card works perfectly in a friends iPhone 4.


So why the **** is the 4S so picky or what?


I noticed that the bob.at SIM has only three rows of golden contacts on its back horizontally (when the long edge of the card is horizontal) - all the other SIMs had four (so more like square shaped golden contact surface) ...did anyone of you notice the same on your not working sims? how many contact rows do they have?

Nov 18, 2011 5:08 AM in response to robsdoghouse

I have had a number of issues with my Verizon IPhone 4s. My first phone suffered from what seems to be a pretty common battery drain issue as well as running extremely hot. When I contacted verizon they sent me a replacement phone. (this was right before Apple came out with OS 5.0.1 which was supposed to fix this issue) When I got the replacement phone and tried to activate it, I got a message regarding the SIM Card not being valid. Verizon tech support told me to remove the SIM Card. When I did so I was able to activate the phone. However, when I tried to connect the phone to ITunes (not ICloud) ITunes gave me a message indicating I need a SIM card. So I tried to insert the SIM card and the second I did so the phone gave me the message that the SIM card was not valid rendering the phone useless. Verizon at that point decided to replace my replacement phone. My 3rd phone did the same thing as my second phone. After 4 days of trips to Verizon and Apple Genius bar, I was finally able to find a tech at Apple that informed the Verizon tech and myself that my phone was not in Apple's system as a verizon phone. I should mention that both my first and second replacement phones had the same issue and the verizon store tech indicated a number of people were having this issue with replacement phones. My theory is that the "replacement" phone stock at Verizon was never put on the Apple system as verizon phones and as such when you insert a verizon sim card into one of these phones .... you can't activate them. Apple does have a fix, you must contact their "activation" department and that department will register the device on their system... which takes about 24 hours and the phone with the SIM card will work. So my SIM Card issue was resolved... not without a lot of effort.


Problems over --- no --- my replacement phone with OS 5.0.1 --- the battery is even worse than before.


Unfortunately when I first discovered this problem it was about 15 days after I purchased it ... 1 day past the "no worry" guarantee from Verizon.


Also --- another major issue... The SIRI default security setting allows you to bypass the phone lock. Try doing this by holding down the home key and ask SIRI to email someone, or open your bank account information .... and it will even with the phone locked


I'm sorry Apple but this product and SIRI gets an F

Nov 18, 2011 8:37 AM in response to robsdoghouse

Hey there,


Got several SIM Cards, one of them worked, one didn't.


Got intel from apple finally after 2 weeks of stupidity in the AppleCare service line. They finally resetted my iPhone profile (the level-2 technicians have to queue a task to another 'taskforce' - who work on the profiles) and uploaded it to my iTunes account. Then i had to do a forced restore and all was fine.



Hope this helps you uys with your issues before u are forced to get a new phone!!



Best

Florian

Nov 18, 2011 9:07 AM in response to robsdoghouse

Update:


Orginal post 23 October.


I now have a new phone from Sprint. It took 4 weeks to get a new phone so I asked Sprint if they could put the 4s 32 gig phone on another line that I had as I couldn't have a phone that went off service without me knowing on my regular contact number. They had to do a store reboot to go to my different phone number. After reboot phone worked perfectly for two weeks. I had ordered another 4s for my daughter and she got the phone number that I moved to. So Sprint did a store reboot to my orginal phone number and right away I got no sim message and no service. So Sprint did another store reboot and I used the phone for another two weeks without any problems till this new phone came in. I took the new phone because I just wasn't sure if there wasn't a deeper problem with that phone but it did work without problems for one month. My daughter's new 4s gave her a no sim message and she went to the Apple store and thet did a store reboot and she has not had any problems since. The on off reboot that I can do is not the same reboot that the store did. I had to restore all music and applications after the store reboot. I hope this helps. I have been very satisified with this phone and bought one for my daughter and will buy one for my wife when her contract allows.

Nov 18, 2011 10:24 AM in response to rickmaclb

Hi

My Iphone 4s is MD2458/A. Originally set it in a hard plastic case and got "Invalid sim" after phone had been on for 15 mins. Got a replacement sim from orange UK and no difference. Put sim in my partners 1phone 4 (not s) and sim card worked fine. Noticed on my partners phone it booted up straight to Orange but on my phone "searching" for 15-20s first. Works for 5-15 mins then comes up Invalid sim.


Orange were more than unhelpful about changing phone as I bought it from a third party shop - its still a contract with Orange. Had to demand they spoke to the shop - result is I have to wait 14 days to change phone and from this comment trail I can see that that will do no good.


IF IT IS the wrong SIM can Apple make a statement to Orange can get itself sorted. Certainly can see no point returning phone as it is either a SIm or softwate bug.


Location UK

Nov 18, 2011 6:15 PM in response to robsdoghouse

My wife also have the same issue. Her phone gets no service and sim card failure. She doesn't even have sim card, because she's on Verizon.

Only temporary fix is to turn it off and turn back on. It works for few minutes, but it goes back to no service and sim card faliure.

She had the phone for couple of weeks, and she never had this problem until today.

Strangely, my iphone 4s has no problem. We both bought the phone on the same day from same apple store, and we are on Verizon network. We both also have ios 5.01.

Sim Card Failure No Sim with iPhone 4S Anyone Else?

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