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

Once again: Why? Why on earth we, the users, we who are paying for a device should asume all the costs of a DEFECTIVE PRODUCT?, WHY APPLE won't acknoledge his responsability? Why use tape, paper, chewing gum for a product that is sold as world quality class with a premium tag? I know these forums should be for exchange for tips to make a better experience from a product but, come on! we are talking about a phone that should work as a phone with no excuses! (even Apple should and MUST allow to install previous versions of its OS but there is the word PRIDE before customer satisfaction).

My phone only seems to go "Invalid Sim" when it gets hot at the sim card bay (Jumping between cell towers, using the GPS, playing games etc) I presume there is a link. I need to turn off my phone and wait for it to cool down before I can get signal again. I am on the latest software (5.0.1 9A406) White 4S 16 GB. Very annoying! Seems like there was the issue before the software update which is a different issue to the phone getting hot causing the sim to fail. Maybe a short circut?

Hey Stonebat: You sound so worried!!. So worried as Apple avoiding a bad comment! Two posts excusing the same thing with NO EXCUSE and with no reason or explanation (don't worry. Its easy to see how apple counterattacks bad comments when they can't avoid them). And yes it's bad thing a phone who heats itself. It is just a matter to let it cool down!!! Come OOOOONNNN! One thing it's faith in a product and other excuse a bad product in such a silly way!

I think you will find that there is a difference between an excuse and a constructive comment. I agree that there is no excuse but what has slandering ever got anyone besides a black eye? I am not here, as you seem to be, to poke and jeer. Just to help in finding a solution.

As it is obvious, there are 75 pages in this thread only. It's not the only one and it's not the only thread of suspicious excuses in favour of apple. What it is needed urgently is ANSWERS FROM APPLE ITSELF. There are already a lot of miraculous and useless suggestions wich you (in case you use you phone) must know by now, just DON'T WORK!!! And just I might add a question for you... Do you know any phone maker whose product must be rated by the heat it produces, by the calls it can't make or by the sim cards it can support? Apple did not make that a requisite and there we are...!

aaron1266, I can assure you that everyone in this discussion empathizes and understands your frustration, bordering on anger, regarding the way Apple has handled this particular SIM issue. Why? Because we are all in the same boat. What I believe few understand is the value in "turning on" other members of this forum who are just trying to help. Stonebat did not deserve your comments and I don't see how those comments served the greater goal of encouraging Apple to take more responsibility for rectifying this issue.

Stonebat is not your problem...In fact, I'm betting he is a pretty good guy based on his comments.

Sincerely, Mr. Luigi

Thanks Dabratisaurus42!

Hello Houston...

This is Thirteen transmitting directly from the heart of the Amazon Forest.

As I said earlier, I had problems with the IPhone 4S until upgrade to 5.1 beta 3.

After that, everything running smoothly, to more than a month.

I had posted a link to the beta, but... I was reprimanded and the link is gone.

I am now waiting the final release.

Talk to you again after the re-entry...

Roger that 13,

I have been reprimanded too. All links are gone. I repeat. All links are gone.

There will be no more joy till splashdown.

Houston Out.

Good morning, Mr. Luigi!

To answer your question as to whether to purchase your iPhone from an Apple Store vs from the cell plan vendor, I would have to answer you...the Apple Store, if at all possible.

Seeing how many people here that do not have access to an Apple store, I feel their pain in having to wait weeks to get replacement phones when they cannot work around this SIM failure problem.

I can only imagine the frustrations they feel when having to deal with their vendors either over the phone or by e-mail. You know my frustations that I have had with having FIVE iPhones replaced over a three week period..I cannot imagine what my blood pressure would be if i had to wait weeks for a replacement only to have that SIM problem pop up again and again....

My number 5 replacement iPhone went about 4 days before it too showed the SIM card failure problem. I am over drivng 30 minutes to the Apple Store for another replacement. I feel very confident that if they replace number 5 with number 6 it too will fail.

But, I must say one thing here....I have absolutely no complaints with how the Apple Store handled my many problems. We tried every type of 'fix' for what was happening....I won't repeat them all here..they are all well documented in my previous posts. I cannot imagine that if I had purchased this phone from an AT&T store that I would have recceived this many replacements from them in a timely manner. I am not saying they wouldn't have.... I am just imagining that my problem wouldn't have been addressed as easily or in a friendly manner as it was by the Apple crew. But that is purely speculative on my part, OK??? :-)

I am just going to wait until the new OS comes out and will hope that the new firmware will take care of this problem. Unfortunately, I am not 100% confident that is solely a software problem...seeing that on many other forums people are "fixing" their SIM card problems with double sided tape, small pieces of cardboard, etc that apparently "fixes" a SIM card tray alignment problem. Those fixes have seemed to have helped out many people too. I just think that having to do any of this to a very expensive phone is caca..it shouldn't be happening at all and the non-response from Cupertino makes me wonder about Apple and wonder about my choice of phone.

99 out of 100 of my failure messages come when I disconnect my iPhone from its charging source, whether it is my iHome radio or my MacBook or just from the wall outlet.....about 2 out of 10 disconnects results in the warning messages popping up and the phone 'rebooting'. It is only during this short time that my phone it out of service... it always works after its reboot.

Sorry for the long reply, but that's my take on things from here. I'd definitely deal with the Apple store vs the cellphone provider....that's my long winded 0.02 worth. ;-)

Pat

Hi p_rod50!

Thank you for your thoughts regarding where is best to purchase an iPhone. First let me say, it was not too long for me nor "long winded." It was thoughtful and thoughtfilled and every sentence had information that was of value. Not to completely digress, but what does frustrate me at times is when posts (well intentioned I'm sure) try to relay important information in two sentences...leaving them ambiguous and of compromised value. So, you need to move that decimal point quite a number of places to the right if you want to accurately appraise the monetary value of your comment!

Your comment validated much of what I have picked up from comments in this forum. I did buy my iPhones at an Apple Store rather than Verizon. Interesting, I also live about 30 minutes from our local Apple Store. That is a one hour round trip and I try to minimize those trips as that is a lot of driving...especially when I'm not sure it will accomplish anything. Having said that, I also received a great deal of trying to "fight the good fight" spirit from the Geniuses I worked with. But, this problem seems to be beyond what geniuses can address. The iOS beta update worked for me, but it was only a last recourse after all Genius attempts failed. Still, in more normal circumstances I would be more comfortable going to Apple with my iPhone problems than Verizon.

I asked the question about where folks would purchase to try to confirm, or disprove, my limited anecdotal experience. Thanks again for verifying my sense of things on all this.

Lastly, I know you, me, and everyone else hopes that March 7th brings with it relief for many in this forum. The only downside to that would be the disconnect that comes between myself and those members of the forum who I have come to respect and enjoy communicating...you and Dabratisaurus42 especially. I will miss you guys. You both have conducted yourself in this forum in a way that I find admirable and I am sure we would become fast friends.

It was good to make your forum acquaintance. Best luck in the future with your iPhone!

Mr. Luigi

P.S. I did learn one more thing from this forum. I believe my days as an early adopter of Apple Products is over (that goes all the way back to the Apple 2!). Based on this SIM issue, I have decided to try to position myself in the middle of Apple's product cycle. I'm getting too old for dealing with issues like this SIM one and am happy for others to be Apple's guinea pigs with products that have not been fully vetted.

I am from Indonesia. I paid USD 99 x 10 for the price of 1 unit iPhone 4s 64 GB (if developer paid USD 99, what should i become?). My husband got 1 too. We bought them at the begining of Feb 2012. In the morning after the first night with my new iPhone, I got the invalid sim card message, unable to send message after the phone idle for few minutes, drop call, no signal, blah blah blah. My husband's phone is just fine. A couple of days later I got my sim card replaced, still the same problem persists. I swapped my sim card with my husband's sim card, that didn't fix it. Restored from iTunes backup, still no change.

I nearly slam my iPhone to the wall each time the problem occurs, but whos gonna fix the wall? It's like having PMS each time it happened.

4 more days to the most wanted iOS release. Finger crossed while mouth keep swearing.

Cheers

Nurul

Miss Nurul:

Your post made me smile.....not the fact that you are experiencing the same problems I am but yoru comment of wanting to slam the phone into the wall then wondered who would fix the wall! ;-)

I certainly hope that the upcoming software release fixes this problem. I just don't know why some people have repeated problems with this SIM failure problem while others with the "same" phones never experience any difficultites at all.

Mr. Luigi has done a pretty good job of convincing me that this truly is a software problem. I am anxiously awaiting the news that a newer version of the IOS software is available and I cross my fingers (like you) that the hundreds of people on this forum that have had this problem gets it solved, once and for all.

Good luck to you!

Pat

PS---- And Mr. Luigi..if you read this, I too am going to back off on being a 'first on the blocker' with these iPhones. Hopefully when this SIM problem is taken care of, my phone will settle down and I'll stick with it for the next few years without jumping on anything new. Thanks for all your help with this problem. Maybe our paths will cross again, hopefully under less trying circumstances :-)

I have gotten used to this problem for so long I have appointed myself to restart my phone every morning due to sim failure. This is the price you pay for a premium product. Apple is silent with it because most of the owner with this issue live outside the US so they don't have a lot of voice. After trying every fix (except the beta software) and 3 iPhone 4S later and tried with more than 4 carriers and 3 countries I can tell you it is the soft and carrier compatibility issue. I have taken the no problem 4S to different country and it works fine, another country problem persist. What's so demeaning about this whole issue is the silent Apple has been to avoid embarrassment. I read somewhere that Apple has the philosophy of not turning EVIL like google. This statement is false. I have had enough with this phone. I have lost calls, angry clients and ****** of family era because they couldn't reach me during pressing time. It is utter ridiculous.

Marjin

Hi folks. I've been suffering with the dreaded SIM Failure/Invalid SIM on my shiny new iPhone 4S. I live in the UK and work in Afghanistan, so I get to use different SIM cards and I find different results accordingly.

This is AWCC, and it suffers from the invalid SIM Syndrome.

This is Etisilat and it works fine.

This is my UK O2 SIM and it works fine.

This is my Roshan SIM and it suffers from the invalid SIM syndrome.

So, you can see the two SIMs above which work fine have a distinct contacts pattern different to the others. The next step for me is to ask Roshan if they can provide me with a SIM with that pattern, and see if that works. I'll post my findings in due course.

PS - I've tried all the other solutions, sticky tape on the tray, restore, reboot, upgrade to 9A406 - all to no avail. The only thing that makes any difference is the shape of the SIM contacts.