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

1) So not a hardware issue.

2) There is not an effective update yet, so Apple Stores are just practicing damage control based on below opinion & experience. So hardware companies are just spinning issue until update is released...

Honestly, dealing with Apple in the past, especially with beta testing 10.7

I think it has to do with the registration process. Most likely due to AT&T likely oversight of automatically signing up everyone for what is basically MobileMe on steroids. In fact my phone quit shortly after 10 gigs of content made it's way to the iCloud... All on WiFi.

ℹKnowing them, they are biting the bullet for a reason, besides the fact they can afford to. I don't think it's buggy chip. Mine works fine. I think it's insane demand that apple enthusiasts cause. When mine stopped working it was on WiFI, it never once had a need to communicate with the SIM card that would have presented a problem within hour of activation. Also normally one needs to unlock or suspend service to unlock, this feature is no longer available. And again, I was on wifi the entire time. This tells me it is related to iCloud bit at very least.

My educated guess after reading many articles like this one or even the discussion we are having. 😉 It's likely the Apple Store reps are just cleaning the slate completely, and making sure the phone registers with the respective provider correctly through avenues not available to the general public. Something unique to chipset is causing provisioning issues. They know HOW to do it. They are likely trying to avoid the poor antenna media hype that was made. The Apple store reps may or may not the why what they are doing resolves.

After helping the previous purchaser of my iPhone 4 unlock his earlier this evening. ➕ Do a Google Search on Gavey-Sim and see why it has caused seasoned techies who hate AT&T etc, are having fits unlocking not just the IO5 or 4Gs phones, it's really the same issue. This told me that it's not about the new the new phone. It's the changes that Apple made in preparation for this, or lack there of. Apple could really care less what provider you choose. This reminds me of classic communication conundrums when IT gets outsourced. The likely result of not ironing out the provision process with the new security changes. I think I recall AT&T, perhaps other carriers are expected to start selling them unlocked in a month or so, or even do it for you if that helps

The unlockers and jailbreakers are used to this conundrum, so ironically, that community has the quickest fix and news on how to do it. As they have, or had the same issue.

Solution: Doing it "legally"

The below process should work for most folks that usually just plague unlock beginners until Apple release the update and aren't going to wait in line at an Apple Store et cetera,

1. First start from scratch, explicitly following Apple's recommended 4 step method of regardless of your carrier in KBarticle HT1438
2. Make sure your account is no longer suspended if case. Then go through iTunes, and start over.
3. Caveats that may apply in your case, or playing it ultra-safe. Turn off everything cloud related on the phone, that means wifi, bluetooth, 3G if it apples, cell roaming, location features, and cloud features. I only turned off some, as half of these are likely superfluous.

Worked for me as a AT&T customer and helped some use Gavey for TMobile, and what I'll be telling my colleagues at the University if there is no release come Monday.

I don't see a need to replace one's sim-card assuming you have a new one. Your time... But for opportunists out there, now is not a bad time to ask for compensation for the time you spent researching, waiting in line, whatever. Apple does one thing right, and that is put the customer first. It's what created the iPhone to begin with.

p.s. you are going to want to disable a lot of these features anyway, if you want your phone to stay charged all day with decent brightness ---my biggest gripe. grrr I want the ability to turn off 3G energy sucking chips for this very reason when I won't be charging for extended lengths.

Good Luck!

Итак, проблема:

iPhone 4S белый разлоченый канадец 32гига, оператор Мегафон, микросим.

Постоянная потеря сигнала и сети. Деления на индикаторе сети есть, но совершить звонок нет возможности. Так же никто не может дозвониться до меня. Помогает лишь включение/выключение авиарежима. И тогда он минуты 2-3 ищет сеть.

Стал замечать что подобная проблема происходит в 2х случаях:

1. Когда телефон достаточно долго лежит без использования - наверно скучно ему и засыпает. Не знаю почему, может перестает обновлять сеть или хз.
2. Когда меняются вышки оператора сети. Т.е. есть сигнал - все нормально, сажусь в машину еду, через пару километров, деления есть, но звонки уже совершить не возможно и только авиарежим помогает.

Не наблюдал подобной проблемы если телефон постоянно включен. Т.е. выезжаю с работы тут же включаю 3G и по яндекс пробкам себя вижу, интернет есть, (телефон не выключаю) звонки проходят на любом этапе передвижения.

Пробовал варианты решения проблемы:

1. В фирме, где я его покупал, предложили сбросить настройки сети – не помогло,
2. Затем был полное сбрасывание и восстановление через тунца – не помогло
3. Полное сбрасывание и регистрирование как нового телефона – не помогло
4. Танцы с бубнов, всевозможное переключение, ручного выбора оператора, отключение включение геолокаций, все что только можно, на доступном уровне. – не помогло.
5. Вчера в 8 вечера попробовал пройти вот этот путь: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4148?viewlocale=ru_RU

НО к сожалению и он не помог! Хочу заметить что у меня не было «Ошибки СИМ» - как многие пишут, просто не ловил сигнал, а сегодня утром, после процедуры номер 5 – выскочила «Ошибка СИМ» + не знаю почему но за ночь с 90% аккумулятор упал до 80% - до этого 1-2% за ночь уходило.

PS: Когда у меня появился iphone, я обрезал старую симку, которой было уже года 4, все вроде работало, по крайне мере я не замечал проблем, может потому что это было в новинку и еще не разобрался, но проблемы стали замечаться именно после смены моей старой симки на микро…. Может проблема в этом? Хотя ХЗ

Остается только ждать выхода новой прошивки. Все остальное не помогает.

Печалька.

UPDATE:

I went to ATT and got the SIM replaced and it seems to be working fine now. I did take a look at the SIM from my old iPhone 4 and my wife's iPhone 4 against the new one they gave me with the iPhone 4S and they are noticably different.

The one on the left is from the iphone 4 and the one on the right is the new one from the iPhone 4S. Notice that the contacts are smaller on the newer chip.

When I went to the AT&T store the new SIM they gave me looks like the one from the iPhone 4 (The one with the bigger contacts).

Not sure if that is what is really causing the issue. But I haven't had the SIM problem yet. Hopefully it stays this way.

After reading a few more posts in this lengthy thread, I popped out my SIM tray and took a look. It looks as if the SIM touches the tray across one side of the connectors. A poor cut for the MICROSIM possibly. As an interim hack to fix the issue, I applied a piece of clear tape across part of one side of the SIM where the conductors were touching the tray.

After placing the SIM back in the tray, the conducting segments nolonger makes contact with the tray. I also noticed the SIM has a little play in the tray and can slide a small amount left to right. The small amount of tape shifted the SIM in the tray a hair to the left to allow for less contact and covers the area where it was shorting.

(RED box indicates where tapewas applied to the MICROSIM)

So, despite being a CDMA phone, the SIM still appears to have the same impact on carrier access to the network. I would pop it our for good, but I need this for international roaming in Europe for work.

changed already couple micro sim and even cuted from big one.

I am also have the error 1630 when my Iphone try to connect via itunes and chechk updates.(please see attached screen shot)

If I do it from the phone directly, no problem.

tenski wrote:

Hey guys! here is an update from me:

I asked my friend in the States to call on my behalf to Apple Customer Care and ask what is the solution for the problem with connection I am having. Their reply shocked my friend and me. They said that Apple has upgraded the hardware of the iPhone4s and it might not support some simcards offered by different carriers, meaning that we should use the latest simcards only... what if we are not in the States and my carrier offers only one type of simcard??? The Apple techinican said that in this case there is nothing much I can do about it. 😟 No solution of this problem can be offered my Apple. He asked to address my concerns to my Service provider in my country.

APPLE *****!!!!

I can confirm tenski finding about iphone 4s, i had the same problem as everyone, mine is unlocked 32gb,

after switch to my new gsm card (same carrier) no more sim failure or no sim error. Tested about one whole day

with 3g data only (wifi turned off). Here is my gsm cards look like:

IMPORTANT! WORKING SOLUTION!!!

This most likely will work for guys, who have Touch 4s, that means for those of you who make a call and lose signal after that. This is not solution for guys who can call,but sometimes get Invalid SIM error (I have not tested it for so long yet to be sure that I won’t get this error, then probably it may help you too).

Ok guys, I have got SIM cutter from ebay and cut different SIM cards, so I can use them with other phones. I am from Latvia and I have changed SIM after 2 years to MicroSIM so my older SIM was disabled before I found that iPhone can’t work with these new SIM cards. Yesterday I was at my local mobile operator (Tele2 Latvia) and asked for regular SIM so I can cut it and try how it works. Guys gave me SIM for free so I can check how it works and will I get this error

As you all can see they both have same pattern on chip, so as I thought it did not help at all. Then I dissembled family phones and got 2 different patterned SIM cards from this same operator. I tried to get SIM with older pattern from operator, they had one but they could not get this to work even on regular cell phone.

So these two SIM cards above were cut with this cutter and I tried them on iPhone 4s. One with blue edge is very old. It is somewhere about 5 years old. And white one is 1 or 2 years old. They both work great! I am using it just for an hour but guys!!! 2 weeks I had very expensive music player and today I can make calls from it whenever I want and I even don’t need to reboot it to make a call!! This is something! I don’t know memory specifications for this SIM cards, but at Tele2 guys told that new cards have lower voltage, so maybe this is the case. But after trying two different SIM cards I think that this is right solution for those of you who can’t make a call! Go to your service operator and ask them for older SIM cards!

So yes, right now I have just one problem left – fast battery drain. I hope that this will help you too!

Please, reply everyone who try this and it works for them. So I can be sure that this is the case and we will post it in new topic where everyone will see it.

just posted this one over at the "No Service" thread (which is related btw). This picture sums it up. "Searching", but "No SIM".

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3425746?answerId=17045586022#17045586022

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.

p_rod50,

Let's face it...you are doing everything one can do to help your phone run at its best. Should you get that SIM message again, there is no reasonable explanation.

You are screwed and it will be time for iPhone #6.

Glad you are not a Red Sox fan. That would have been awful.

I think we are pretty dang entertaining and probably have a following of thousands on the Apple Discussion forum.

Modesty is not one of my strong points.

Mr. Luigi

This worked for me...

It took me about an hour to research the site and get this info... Go to this URL (below) and follow instructions to remove SIM card. I lightly blew on the card and the SIM card holder space to clear and it is now working fine... Yippee!!!

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1438

http://store.apple.com/au/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone/iphone4s - the Australia buy page for the 4S - you pay the outright price, they don't supply any SIM as it's not tied to any carrier. FYI

Again, speaking unofficially, it is not a sim card or sim card tray issue. The sim card errors are the symptom. The no service error is someone trying to fix the issue incorrectly, whether at an apple store or carrier. sim cards are very basic devices, and the tray has changed nil. Analogy, Installing software OS X errors, replacing a hard drive and reinstalling the OS may fix the issue, but it's A) unecessary and B) if the OS is installed on the new hard drive incorrectly again, then the problem will reoccur, except you have added another variable...

It is a provisioning issue based on the new hardware and the process they have in place is flawed a/o allowing some corrupt Sim card activations to go through.

Regardless, we don't know when the update addressing will be released but we do know several users, hackers, and retail employees have followed the same basic process for resolving if you read up collectively. There is no magic hardware or software issue required for the fixes , it's the process they are following. So it's imperative, to wipe the slate clean completely and start over as discussed here.

Talked to Tele 2 Sweden support again.

The new person I talked to did not know of any ongoing software fix (unlike the first one who mentioned this possibility). Their current recommendations are:

1) restore your phone from iTunes

2) if that doesn't work, send the phone to their logistic center to be fixed or for an exchange (they have a dedicated option for that in the IVR so I trust it's a common issue). They did not mention what the "fix" would be. Could it be as silly as changing the SIM tray? Will see when I get the phone back.

So for Tele 2 Sweden's customers, there is no "other type of SIM card" option, no software update in sight, no work-around.

Looking at post https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3390945?answerId=16852100022#16852100022, I have the exact same situation: SIM card is touching the tray exactly in this way. Tried taping it but to no avail. Tried also the no PIN trick but it did not help.

Hallelujah brothers! Apple have provided a solution...

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts4148

They fixed existing version 5.0.1. Don't need to wait until 5.0.2 will be released.

The previous version for 5.0.1 was 9A405. The mentioned solution helped me and now my phone works fine. Now version of 5.0.1 is 9A406.

I've checked two different cards (previously one of them not working at all) and both are working fine.