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

Hi ntilly,

I have read over your comments and the replies to them from my Very Good Buddy Pat. Not surprising, being that Pat is a Level 4 SIM Forum Grand Master 🙂, his recommendations are, IMHO, prudent and sound.

I have a couple follow-up questions. Perhaps you already answered these. If so, I apologize for missing them when reading your comments.

1. Are you using a new 128K SIM card in your iPhone 4S? Or, are you using a SIM card that was used in a former phone? I mention this as there is quite a bit of empirical evidence that the iPhone 4S, coupled with the iOS 5.1 update, REALLY "WANTS" a 128K SIM card. Even if you do have a 128 SIM card and it came new with the phone, I would get it replaced with a totally new 128 SIM card as it may have been corrupted. Replacing the SIM, as Pat said, is relatively painless and free. So it is a wise first step in this next phase of your problem solving.

2. If replacing the SIM does not work, ABANDON SHIP! Pat is right, after trying a new 128K SIM and meeting failure...get your phone replaced. Pat is an expert at this. In fact, he may hold the Guiness Book of World Records on replacing iPhone 4S's. 😁 If replacing the SIM does not work you have pretty much exhausted all reasonable tactics at getting your phone back to working order. Pat is right again, if you live relatively near an Apple Store that would be the place to go to get a replacement phone.

If you go to the Genius Bar at your Apple Store, you may find that the Genius is not as up to speed about this SIM issue as you would hope. If that is the case, you can refer him to this link:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4148

It is an Apple Support document stating that iOS 5.1 is the recommended solution for these SIM problems. Since you have iOS 5.1 installed, you could refer the Genius to this link as a way to convince him/her that you have already followed through on the Apple recommended solution and it failed. Thus, it is time for them to give you a new phone and not waste any more of anyone's time.

You could also refer them to the link to this forum. 85 pages filled with complaints and stories of SIM suffering should further convince them that their best course of action is to get you a new phone. You can also mention to them that this discussion forum is not the only forum about SIM problems on the Apple Discussion site. There are quite a number of other discussion forums centered on this same problem.

Of course, maybe replacing the SIM will work. That would be nice.

Lastly, the fact that your SIM worked in a different phone does not guarantee it is not the source of your problem. Was the other phone an iPhone 4S? As I mentioned, the 4S seems particularly sensitive to what SIM you are using.

OK, good luck. We are all pulling for you and hope that you can report back with good news.

Best regards, Mr. Luigi

exact same problem as mine,i live in the UK i am on my 2nd 4S and my 3rd orange sim card,thankfully my phone is working again..fingers crossed 🙂

Hi ntilly,

I just realized Pat recommends as your first step to replace your phone if you bought it at an Apple store. That sounds like wise advice because if you replace the phone you will probably get the 128K SIM card with it.

If you bought your phone at a carrier, it might be easier to ask for a free new 128K SIM card as your first option. Then, if that doesn't work, demand a new phone.

Good luck, Mr. Luigi

Hey luigi, pat,

Thanks again for offerring your advise. Its good to know there is always some help out there.

I am using a 128k sim, but, as per your recommendation, i will be heading first thing tomorrow morning to get a new sim card. Hope it works, will keep you guys updated.

by the way..how does anyone know,that the sim card is a 128K sim? please educate me 🙂

Hi sicknote00,

I hope someone can give you a better answer than this...but in my case all I did was call my carrier. They had all the information about my SIM in their records and that is how I found out. I always assumed that different carriers had different ways to identify their SIM cards, so in the absense of initially contacting your carrier it would be hard to know the answer.

Again, sorry for lack of solid information in my answer. 😢

Mr. Luigi

Hi guys,

Ok, so i managed to change my sim card and, for the past 8 hours, its been working fine ! Thanks luigi and pat. Seems like putting the old sim card into another iphone is not a full proof test (luigi). Also, at the store, the guy put his, working sim card into my fone and the problem persisted, implying that the fone is faulty. This may not neccessarily be the case.. Will post further updates.

Thanks again

thankyou for your input mr luigi,i will ask my carrier 🙂

Well after spending a couple of hours of reading thru all the comments - here is my scenario which may help shed some light or further confuse the issue:

I have a IP 3G (yes I am still on my first IPhone, I have had it for 3 years now). About 3 weeks ago I got the now famous msg "No Sim card". Knowing that there is no chance that Apple would even look at my old phone, I turned it off, and turned it on again, and voila - it worked. Since then this has been a recurring issue at random intervals - sometimes 3 times during one day, a week without a problem, in other words - no detectable pattern. A couple of times one reboot did not help - had to do it twice.

So today, I finally decided to google "No Sim card', and that's how I got here. Since this is a iphone 3G, it runs on IOS 4.2.1 (BC148), and you can't do the reseating of the SIM card as easy as on the IP 4 (the SIM card is not user accessible).

Maybe it is a coincidence, and my phone or SM card are just old, but maybe there is a connection. At this point I am trying to hold out until the IPhone 5 ( or whatever the name will be) comes out, As long as I can "fix it" with a reboot, I stick with it.

Any ideas?

I had the same problem. And they are making million excuse not to switch the phone with me. Carrier problem, software problem, fix it by new update, ... etc.

It is one of the worst electronic products I ever have and it is expensive.

Most of my friend switch to Samsung Galaxy Note and a lot better on connection and reaction.

NO more apple product! It just die with Steve Jobs. I bet the stock price will drop sharply soon and market share will move to Samsung.

same here, have the problem with factory unlock 4s 32gb, didn't want to work with simple mobil, only redpocket ,sent to apple, came back with same problem, call on the phone, after 40 minute the call got drop(land line) when to apple store, at 67 and broadway, lame excuses, my factory unlock was lock to a carrier, I really was not in the mood for arguement , but, seem like they saw my face like i dont know what i was talking about,

apple store at 67 and broadway, customer services at the phone, and tech in california, all doing at excellent job, remember, customer always wins, and all this complaint, will be at you back eventually.

I have had my 4s about 3 months no problems at all, updated the OS when it came out. Used it al ot no issues, last weekend noticed it started to "search" for the network, did all the usual removed SIM put it back, did not solve it eventually I get the invalid sim message, I have found that If I turn it off and leave it HOURS (not minutes) it will find my orange network, but I have also found the sim will go "invalid" in anything from a few minutes to a good few hours, since experiencing this last week my phone is off the network more than on. I am waiting for a new SIM from my phone company (orange) who told me this morning they are sending out to many SIMS to 4s users. Google the problem and ended up here "bugger" I dont think a new SIM is going to resolve this.

hi yonmons.

i had the same problem and i am with "orange" it took a replacement iphone 4S and the 3rd sim card to rectify the dreaded "invalid sim" problem. one thing i did notice after all this,may make a difference,then again it may not.i noticed that the orange sim software was orange UK 11.0. when i got my 3rd sim card,i noticed the sim software had changed to "orange UK" 12.0.

coincidence or just luck? who knows.

How do you find the Orange software version on the SIM, been moochin about done well phone only dropped off the network twice on my lunch time !

go into settings - general - about scroll down to "carrier"