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

Update: It's been a week since I went to AT&T to replace my sim card. I've had NO problems all week, no sim error. That fixed it for me.

I am on Germany's Netcologne network, same crap here. Phone just says No Service. Worked for a few minutes but now nothing, even restarting etc.

This *****.

and still no word from Apple. My phone is continuosly down. No messages nor calls are reaching me. Have restarted it today like 10 times already.

The 5.0.2 rumors do not speak about this issue, just the battery problem to bez fixed.

I think we deserve at least some acknowledgement from Apple.

Hello Guys,

I have an unlocked 64GB black iPhone 4S purchased in UK on 01st Nov. I have been facing similar problems as noted in this site since my arrival in India on 08th Nov. I tried various sim cards from Idea (normal SIM cut to micro both existing and new replacement card), Vodafone (existing micro sim card), Airtel (new micro sim) with similar results i.e. signal strength is good but after a short while the network is lost although the signal indicator is showing full strength and 3G. At this time, any phone calling in, is unable to connect while the iPhone 4s continues to display full signal strength. At this time it is possible to use the data network on the 4S and thus use safari, but no incoming or outgoing calls. If I continue trying to make outgoing calls, after usually a couple of tries, all signal bars will drop and it goes in search mode and reacquires the signal. If left alone for a few hours then No Service / Invalid SIM etc would pop up. The battery would also drain at a fair clip.

The only thing common to the above cards is that they are all 64 KB cards.

On 19th Nov I purchased a 128 KB bsnl card and cut to micro sim size. The iPhone 4s worked without any problems.

About an hour ago I got an Airtel 128 KB sim card and had this cut to micro sim. It is about 3 hours now with the Airtel card and the phone is working normally. I will be watching this carefully but am convinced it is the sim card <128 KB that has been the issue with my iPhone 4s. The visible difference between the 64 and 128 kb card is that in case of the 128 KB, the circuit board (gold contact area) extends to the edges on 3 sides with almost less than 1 mm of the plastic on the edges and on the 64 KB it extends to the edge on 2 sides.

If any of you guys have not tried the 128 KB card, then I think it is worth trying. In Pune, the local Idea, Vodafone and Airtel centres did not know they had a 128 KB card. It took several visits and talking to several different personnel before one of the Airtel employee confirmed the availability of the card and and even then the other employee who keeps the cards could not recognise the difference.

Having spent a small fortune on the phone, it is frustrating when the phone is not working as advertised. And this has nothing to do with the phone being used before the official launch.

All the best guys and I hope the above suggestion of the 128 KB card works for you.

Same here. 4S (5.0.1) T-Mobile, Amsterdam... Grrrrrrr!!! :-/

Another affected user here 😟

iPhone 4S / 32GB / Black / Lock free / Germany / SIM from O2 Germany

My O2 Germany SIM was brand new. Got it on the same week as my Apple Store (Germany) bought iPhone 4S. It worked without problems for 20 days. (First 10 days on iOS 5.0.0 and then next 10 days on iOS 5.0.1). And then suddenly yesterday morning the phone showed the "SIM failure" / "Invalid SIM" error. The phone was sitting idle on the table connected to my Windows laptop via the USB cable. And I hadn't taken out/reinserted the SIM card since activating the phone (20 days before).

During the first call to the Apple support, the agent told me to uninstall iTunes, deactivate antivirus and firewall, reinstall iTunes from a fresh download and restore the iPhone via iTunes. But this did not help at all. (And I think it was a stupid advice - i mean reinstallation of iTunes and deactivating security software).

Then I took the SIM card out and put in my Nokia E52 to test it. But the phone could not register to the network and showed the error "SIM registration failure".

During the second call to apple, another service agent suggested to contact the Service provider and get a new replacement SIM. I will try to get the replacement SIM from my provider shop today evening. Hopefully this will solve the issue. Fingers crossed.

But in all these years I have owned a Mobile Phone, This is first time i have seen this SIM error. Should be something to do with iPhone hardware or software.

I got my iPhone 4s (32Gb) last week and cut my old sim. Got the No-SIM error. It worked for a while after boot but 5-10 min later the problem reappeared. Ordered a new micro-sim from my swedish carrier (AllTele) and inserted it this morning. The same effect. Works fine in the beginning, but it doesn't last 10 minutes before the error comes up and the phone loses the network. The same micro-sim works great in my old iPhone 3G which is still on iOS 4!?

I just did a complete restore and set it up as new and the network comes on just fine, let's see how long it lasts.

After the new setup I did a restore from backup and network is still ok. Maybe I solved it for me?

One additional info; when checking for updates in iTunes I keep getting the error 1630, Can't check carier updates. Doesn't seem to affect anything immediately but perhaps it's related to everyones problem?

Good luck everyone.

I've tried everything, it seems. Nothing works - resetting, changing sim-cards, restoring, setting up as new device, etc. Just frustrated.

Update to my previous post. (Issue resolved with new SIM from O2 Germany)

iPhone 4S / 32GB / Black / Lock free / Germany / SIM from O2 Germany

Got a replacement SIM card (free of cost) from the O2 Shop in my city. The process took only 2 minutes (Thanks O2 Germany). And with the new card the phone now registers/connects to the O2 network.

Physically the new micro SIM looks exactly the same as the old non-working one. But O2 service agent told me that the non-working SIM, which I got new only couple of weeeks back from O2, is actually 2 year old model. And he said the new SIM I got is the latest model. So to me it looks like iPhone 4S or iOS5.0.1 has an issue with some of the old SIM card models. (Yesterday when I called the first thing the Apple support agent try to figure out is whether the SIM card is an old model or not.)

So I guess the issue is resolved for me. If there is any trouble with the new SIM I will post here.

Can they provide some more specifications/features of a new sim card for me to explain it to my mobile operator?

Unfortunately I don"t have this info. But the Apple support agent during the support call asked me for the SIM card number (also called the ICCID). He said that the version of the card (or type of card, i am not sure) is encoded in one of the digits of the ICCID. This is all the info I have 😟

Am In Kenya and my Iphone 4s worked fine without a hitch until one week ago like you when I was asked to upgrade to the 5.0.1 software and all **** broke loose. I agree with your thinking that the problem must be in the software upgrade that has left as I can see from the many comments on this issue somewhat frustrated. Sometimes I guess being so new is not so hot...huh? I did this to honour Steve Jobs work and actually bought the 64GB version cause I don't intend to replace it any time soon....but maybe I should have just been content with the Iphone 4 as most of the running bugs on this had been ioned out...my gurlfriend has a Samsung Galaxy II s and she is laughing at me right now cause my phone cost twice what hers cost and she has almost similar functions like mine and hers still works whilst mine has now gone from hi-tech to some-tech...its like buying your priced Porsche/Lamborghini/Ferrari and driving it home full of pride and joy only for it to start misfiring and being difficult to drive! Unfortunately in Kenya I recently upgraded to the latest Sim Card available because of my previous iPhone 4 not an S.

The more I read peoples comments and the consistency of most would indicate that something on the platform of the new software changed dramatically causing what was meant to be an improvement to become a disease. it would be nice for the guys at Apple to shed some light....and sometimes I wonder if this isn't the result of the Battle raging between Apple and Samsung over paternity rights as Samsung claimed that the 3g sofware Apple was using was their product and after what Apple did to Samsung with the Galaxy Tab in Europe, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple isn't trying to create their own 3G network Application which has gone...HAYWIRE.....but that's just me speculating...and probably throwing in another spanner in the cogworks....what do I know am no techie but a guy who just bought one of the best phones in the world that just so happens to be suffering from the flu right now! Apflu! Hope we get the cure real soon but in the meantime we can enjoy being the centre of the new techie jokes in town where this phone is concerned.😟

iPhone 4S 64 GB Black, purchased in London Apple Store, used in Poland (T-Mobile).

"Invalid SIM" / "SIM Error" issue started appearing a few days ago. It occurs every couple of hours and is almost guaranteed to be in effect in the morning after the phone being switched on all night. We have replaced the T-Mobile PL micro-sim to a new one (not sure about whether it's the latest SIM model though), but this has not helped. The problem is still reoccurring. At this point I am going to do a hard-rest, followed by a restore. I am at a loss at what to do. Don't know if it's hardware issue, software issue (5.0.1?) or SIM card issue.

Did anyone fix their Invalid SIM issue without having to physically replace the phone?

Yes, solved by getting a new SIM card from my provider.