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

It is now just over 3 days since my last problem.

I have changed nothing since getting the new sim from AT&T and then, 3 days later, getting the "no service" message.

That said, I have now received my micro sim adapter which will allow me to put the 4s micro into my old 3G if things fail and I am in a bind. I plan to take the 3G as backup on travel until I feel secure with the 4s.

For ATT phones in the states, my phone, no hiccups.    Nor for any other iPhone4s (only two so far) I have set up...  

Remember that the no service error is completely different than the No Sim-Card error.    The No service error can have many more variables and really should be in a it's own thread, and only pointing to this one if it was caused by trying to fix the SIM Card issue.   

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.  

Update on my issue. Considering I'm on Verizon and as of this moment I'll not need the phone out of the country I removed the SIM card and so far I have had no issues at all.

Verizon told me to stop by any Verizon store to get a free replacement sim card when I want.

I'll just wait because I don't plan on leaving the country on vacation for another year or more. (We vacation once every other year.)

Update to my problem....

After 3 days, following wiping my 4s and setting it back up as a new phone, I got the Invalid Sim message again. This time the phone was sitting on the table over night, not charging, and not being used. I woke up and there it was.

This is after I have had the SIM replaced, after I have wiped, reset and rewiped the phone, setting it up as a new phone and not restoring. So tonight I am getting it replaced at the Apple Store.

Will let you know.

I have been following this discussion since last week as I had the exact same issue. Unfortunately Vigin don't do a micro sims in the uk for the iPhone 4 & 4's, but we just used scissors. My Mum cut her sim months ago for her iPhone 4, all worked fine, no issues touch-wood. I decided i would just do the same when i got my iPhone 4s. I done the whole launch day thing and within two hours i had the iPhone 4s 32GB in White. Once home we cut up my sim, for 5 minutes all was fine and then 'Sim Fauilure' message appeared, followed by invalid sim. After turning the phone on/off several times, yet the same thing kept happening. I then tried my sim in the iPhone 4 and all worked but yet failured in my 4s. I also tried the sim from the iPhone 4 and the exact same thing happened. I reluctantly ordered a replacement sim, which costs a fiver each time, thanks Virgin! While i was waiting i ordered a free 3 PAYG Micro sim from their website, which turned up before my Virgin sim (irony) The 3 sim worked ok, no sim failure, nothing. Now and again the 3G would run incredibly slow or not load after spinning the activity wheel for minutes. I decided it must be Virgin, yes i did call them a few names for making my sim fail. Days later i recieved  my new virgin sim, the replacement one. I turned it into a micro sim using scissors, all was ok for 7 minutes, hmm improvment by 2 minutes, result! It turned into Friday the 14th October all over again, the exact same things happened. Both virgin sims would not work but worked in the iPhone 4, both sims failured in my phone in minutes but were fine in the iPhone 4. I was then speaking to my cousin, who is much more intelligent and tech savvy than me, we went through this discussion page seeing what helped others. We tried, rebooting, restarting, reseting the newtwork settings, sim in and out, the lot. We then tried a restore as we honestly thought it would help, sure enough it did.... for 4 hours and then Sim failure and back to square one. During this time i realised there was some other things going on like my wi-fi sync through iTunes would work once and then you try to do it again and get an error message along with your device being removed from iTunes. The battery was lasting a couple of hours, even though 3G was off, forced close all apps and wasn't even using my phone as i was getting bored of the lack of things to do without a sim and completely frustrated. There was a list of 5/6 things that i couldn't blame all on virgin. On Wednesday 26/10 I took my iPhone 4s back to the Apple store, the same store it was purchased at on Launch day, which might i add was amazing and believe everyone should experience it at least once. I explained all to the Apple guy, he gave some reasons but said i would need an appointment with a genuis, which unfortunately we couldn't go back for in 4 hours time, he then said there is enough wrong with it and as I'm in the 14 day period he could replace it with a new one, which he did. No drama, nothing. All very pleasant. He then put my Virgin sim in my phone and started the set-up process. So far A full 48 hours later all is fine and dandy, no sim failure messages, nothing. Everything seems to be great (again) touch-wood.

However, i do have a slight issue with iCloud. As soon as i try to set up my emails from my mobileme account and get the 'this address is already registred with iCloud,' which I'm fully aware of as it's me, and i done it back on the 14th but for some reason it just will not allow me to set up, which is a tad frustrating but on the brighter side, this iPhone 4s is working and touch-wood that it stays like that. 

I'm on Orange in the UK and have had the same problems. I don't see how this can be a SIM issue like others are saying in here as I have had the same problem with different SIM cards, which all work fine in my iPhone4.

I'm getting my 4s changed tonight at the Apple store, so hopefully that will be the end of it for me too.

Now one full week with one new SIMM card and going strong.  ATT replaced the original SIMM and I have not had any problems since then.  Did not restore the device or anything.

I landed in Germany a few minutes ago, obviously removing the PIN from SIM has worked with O2-Provider. No longer Loss of 3G, after losing connection due to missing basestation in train it's reconnecting to Edge and 3G very well.

So I'm waiting for Apples Firmware Update!

We bought two iPhone 4S 32GB models directly from Apple on launch day.  We use AT&T.  They've both been absolutely great (we upgraded from the 3g versions). One experienced the "Invalid Sim" error last night and after multiple reboots never recovered.  I just rebooted it again this morning and it worked fine for about 15 minutes then exhibited the error again.  Reboot has not helped.  The other is fine. 

I am getting more optimistic. It has been 10 days since AT&T replaced the sim on my 4S and I have not had a single "sim failure" issue since. The only problem I had was a week ago when I got a "no service" in an area where there is service. I now think that may have been a software issue.

I know that Apple monitors these boards lookiing for issues needing attention (on another discussion about short battry life someone posted that he was contacted by Apple to monitor usage as it relates to the battery drain).  So I am waiting for Apple to release its next ios update to see how things go then.

Just had to deal with the same problem. I got to the point where it said there was no SIM card.  I did the turning it off and then back on, I remove the card a reinserted it; and those were not working anymore.  The apple tech guy had apparently never heard of the problem (they must not read there customers concerns here).  He forwarded me to AT&T and the lady had me erase the gold part of the sim card with a regular pink pencil erase.  Apparently that magically erased the problems away because I'm back in business....for now.  She says it shouldn't happen any more. Can't say I'm totally convinced.  We shall see.

I took the phone to AT&T where a tech popped out the card and reseated it.  He may have cleaned it too, but it didn't help.  He said to take it to Apple which I did.  Had to wait a couple of hours because it was busy, but after the tech there checked it out he gave me a new phone since it's still under warranty.  Was not pleased about having to spend a lot of time out during the season's first Nor'easter, but iHappy again.  Live the 4S.

By the way, I always heard never use an eraser to clean electrical contacts.  Hope it works for you.  My problem would crop again shortly whenever I could get it working.

I just got my phone Through Verizon had it on less than 2 days and i got the same "SIM FAILURE" tried to exchange it at verizion store but since i ordered it on the phone and they shipped it out they want to charge my CC for another one till i return the one they sent me, they refused to exchange it at their stores!!!!!!