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

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.

Well. I live in Mexico, a country that apple has support fot its products but if you happen to live in Mexico (and I suspect that if you live in some other countries with "support" by Apple) you'll know how much a joke it's that "support". Anyway as Mr. Luigi says with all his concerns about being so rude myself to people who should learn to read in the first place; there is no way in ANY BUSSINESS PRACTICE to excuse a simple fact from ANY product and it is to work as it should be: A PHONE MUS BE ABOVE ALL, A PHONE. What would you think if you have a heart asistive device would not do his job. Bad question, you must not do anything if you discover yhat you are dead... but go on, excuse the inexcusable.

P.D.; Im not new in the matter of using a mac or an iphone. Anyone can put me to the test. I know each an every "hole and weakness" in EVERY Apple product and its really sad when you realize that money matters only for Apple.

Hola no hablo muy bien inglés pero lo intentare

I had the same problem with the invalid sim, but now the problem dissapear. How? Idont know. The only change that i made in my iphone 4s ios 5.0.1 was close my sesion in app store. After i open a new sesion with other account. After I closed this sesion and then the app store dont have a account now.

My iphone 4s ios 5.0.1 Telcel Mexico is working now (24 hrs...)

Espero poder haberles ayudado soy de Mexico, me marcó una vez una mas el error de sim invalida y despues de reiniciar el iphone no ha vuelto a aparecer desde hace ya 27 hrs. Sorry por el pésimo ingles. De resto no modifique nada a mi iphone fue solo ese cambio que comenté, aun no se muy bien que fue lo que exactamente paso :s. En caso de suceder algo inesperado volveré a escribir

¡Y lo harás! Siento ser ave de mal augurio pero esos "remedios" simplemente no duran...

I know exactly what you mean and you are right, I am a stern defender of apple but this is terrible for users to deal with this; good and bad news... It will get fixed with iOS 5.1 I have beta 3 and it fixed the problem. But to get it before launche which might be the 7 or the 14 of march you need to be a developer. And their is the slight risk that whatever cured the problem may not be there when the 5.1 gets realeased I live in Mexico too.

i also encountering that problem, my less than a month iphone 4s from Globe Telecom (philippines) experiencing the "Invalid Sim, Low Signal, Searching..." yes thats true, we need to restart our phones to be able to use it again. I went to a Globe Service Center and they said that they will keep the phone and send it to singapore for the warranty purpose. They said that the phone will be last up to  3-5 months in singapore. Is this a bug from the iOS5 or its the issue about the hardware of iPhone 4s. Thanks.

Malas noticias. Trata de mandar mas de 10 mensajes cuando tienes unos cuantos enviados ya… Apple simplemente se está )o se volvió) una estafa o un OS bastante windows "Un parche para tapar un hoyo abierto... De la bateria ni hablar... Creeme que nunca ha sido mi asunto el defender lo indefendible. Ya queda bien poco con respecto a Apple y Adobe...

Im in mexico too im on my third iphone 4s only thing worked for me was once telcel gave me the last one didnt updated it to ios 5.0.1 last iphone was replaced on december 12th. And still works fine

Take care

As far as i can tell IT'S BOTH. There are some batches who are plain defective and some that are "likely" to be faulty just by OS itself. In any case its just UNACCEPTABLE even when the aApple stores or the phone companies agree on a replacement (and there are too much cases in both circumstances) but any user wants a phone who works as a phone! I am so ashamed that i turn down an Android phone with a beautiful screen size for less than half for what I paid for an iPhone 4s wich is not as fast (or reliable) as Apple claim! Yes, Apple and his zombes may erase my posts. Thats how they see efficiency!

No actualices el OS. Aun en el beta 5.1 (que instalé gracias al "soporte tecnico" inexistente de Apple y uno que otro racista de nivel alto en estos foros) hay un buen de errores. Es mas. No me va a quedar de otra mas que actualizar este ipod touch elegante con esa versión una vez que caduque y ahi iremos una vez mas; a sufrir de los mismos dolores… ¡Te vendo un "iphone touch blanco de 16 gn en 8 mil pesos! Prácticamente nuevo, con errores de fábrica de nueva generaciòn.

I lived in Malaysia and I just got my 4s with ios 5.01. This is my 1st smartphone and I choose Apple because the rest of the world admired the late 'Steve Jobs'

The truth is, it was a big and sad letdown. I found that this problem surfaced since Oct 2011. And yet, Apple still cannot solve it untill today.

The battery is useless. Now, this Sim card problems worrying me. The only assurance that I got is from Mr Luigi words who keep saying that the new software will solve the problem. 7 March is is just 2 days away. And as usual, no comment from Apple. I hope you are right Mr. Luigi.

I wonder if ios 5.1 doesn't fix.. will there a new ios?

i was also having failure issues after updating to 5.0.1 . After reboot it helps a little while then again sim failure

ive found some some solution which worked for me .

1. UNINSTALL THE SPRINGBOARD/WINTERBOARD AND ANYTHING WHICH IS RELATED WITH THAT

2. UNINSTALL THE V.WALLPAPER

3. MY COMPUTER HAD SOME HIDDEN VIRUSES UNDETECTABLE  BY ANTIVIRUS (I GUESS) . SO I STOPPED SYNCING MY IPHONE WITH MY LAPTOP VIA CABLE . NOW I SYNC VIA WIFI WITH ICLOUD .

4. UNINSTALL ANYTHING RELATED WITH CYDIA!

AFTER DOING ALL THESE STUFF I FOUND RELIEF . NO ISSUES . MY IPHONE 4S WORKING SMOOTHLY .

ALTHOUGH I DID TRIED ALL THE SOLUTIONS IN THE NET BUT DIDNT HELPED .MANY TIMES I ALSO GOT THE MESSAGE THAT SPRINGBOARD CRASHED GOING INTO SAFE MODE AND THEN MY IPHONE 4S RUNS INTO SAFE MODE .

NOW NO WORRIES .

Dear royal jammer,

You are aware that jailbreaking is not supported in any way, right?

All of the other people in this thread are waiting for a fix to a problem that affects standard factory unlocked phones.

This appears to be the official fix from Apple for this issue.

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

Finally ... I think we have another clue:

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/03/05/apple-amends-iphone-4s-to-fix-signal-issu es-for-unofficial-partner-china-mobile/

Which referred to an earlier piece in the People's Daily:

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90882/7748204.html

Let me quote:

On March 1, China Mobile announced a solution to the signal problems plaguing manyiPhone 4S owners.

Previously, many iPhone 4S owners using China Mobile’s network found that theycannot activate their SIM cards, and sometimes were unable to make phone calls witha full signal.

A telecom technology expert explained that technically, the signal problems werecaused by iPhone 4S handsets’ GSM chips, which only supports the P frequency band(885-915MHZ), but does not support the E frequency band (880-890MHz).

As China Mobile’s GSM network supports both the P and E frequency bands, iPhone4S handsets will lose signal or cannot make calls despite having a full signal when theyare only covered by the E frequency band which is mainly for indoor use. The phoneswill regain signal when covered by the P frequency band, which is mainly for outdooruse and the most commonly used band under the standards of the InternationalTelecommunication Union.

Apple Inc. may release an IOS update specifically for the Chinese mainland in earlyMarch to resolve the signal problems plaguing iPhone 4S owners using China Mobile’snetwork.

China Mobile said that Apple had updated the system of all iPhone 4S handsetsmanufactured after Feb. 8, 2012 to fully support its network, and will offer a softwareupdate for previously manufactured iPhone 4S handsets in early March.

The operator will notify iPhone 4S owners of the update as soon as it is rolled out.