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

I am on O2-UK, I received my iPhone 4S yesterday and setup restoring the phone from an iCloud backup.

Everything was working perfectly, unfortunately after 2 hours Ireceived a "SIM Registration Failure" followed by my carrier changing to "Invalid SIM".  I rebooted the phone and everything was working again, i simply shrugged the problem off as being teething issues. Went into town and looked at my phone to find the same problem. I rebooted and it came back fine.  This happened several times yesterday.

This morning I phoned Apple Technical Support, they have raised a repair request to replace the handset.  I asked the call centre agent what was causing this problem, she told me that it is software related.  I then asked why this had not been detected in the phone testing before product launch; this is a fundamental problem for a phone on GSM networks (or any carrier requiring a SIM).  She acknowledged that it is a problem and that they have received many calls with regards to this.

I then asked how replacing the handset will fix the problem, if the problem is indeed software related then surely I will encounter the same problem on the new handset, she could not offer a sufficiently good answer for this and simply said that replacing the handset will fix it.  I am doubtful.

My partner has an iPhone 4 on a different network to me, so I am now trying her SIM in my phone to see if I can replicate the problem with her SIM, if I get chance I will post a reply with my findings later today.

To conclude, I am extremely disappointed with Apple on this, as a consumer electronics enthusiast I do not expect to encounter such fundamental problems with a new product; especially problems that should be easily detected during product testing in pre-launch.

Had the "Sim Failure" and then "No Sim" error last night on my week old 4s on AT&T.

After reading through this thread I tried a restart and then a hard reboot.  Nothing.

I then shut the phone down, removed the sim, reinstalled the sim and restarted and all is well so far this morning.

If it happens again I will head to AT&T for a new Sim.  If that doesn't fix the problem then I supposed I'm off to the the Genius bar.

A little disappointing.  We don't have a home phone.  We are completely reliant on our mobile phones.

Steve

Phoned Apple, replacement handset will bedispatched this week (that means I will have waited 4 weeks for a working iPhone.  Apple did not offer a good level of customer service with regards to this problem, saying they would not swap the device at an Apple Store as I had purchased the phone online.

The only compensation I have been offered for being sold a faulty phone is a free bump… that is not a good way to fix the customers confidence in you Apple.

Apple also changed tack on what the problem is; now they are saying that this is a faulty phone.  They asked me to swap SIMs, but after I pointed out that my SIM worked on an iPhone 4 they stopped that discussion.

I have an iPhone 4S 32 on AT&T. I've at the phone for about a week. Yesterday morning, I also got the no Sim card message. I took the phone to a local AT&T store. They replaced the Sim card.  I hope there's an explanation for these failures that appears on the Apple site.

Just stopped by one of the local Apple stores. Sales person said he wasn't aware on an issue but if it continues to be an issue to make a genius appointment. In otherwords....standard canned answer.

Steve

I managed to get mine swapped at the Birmingham Apple store even though I got mine online.

Got it replaced Friday evening after having constant SIM failures, replacing the SIM, restoring etc, blah blah.

So far (fingers crossed) the replacement has worked perfectly, with no SIM failure.

I don't understand why some people are still saying its a SIM card problem, when so many others are still getting the same problem with a new SIM.

How many people have had their phone replaced so far?

If you contact Apple and don't accept the "have you replaced the SIM card" motto, they will admit that it is likely to be a problem with the handset and offer a replacement/refund. 

I don't understand why people are getting the SIM replaced, the SIM conforms to a standard, if the SIM worked and continues to work ok in an iPhone 4, then putting it in an iPhone 4S should provide the same behaviour, if a new SIM is required for the iPhone 4S, Apple should inform service providers of this (O2 UK are not aware of any problems in this area).

My replacement phone will be dispatched in the next 72 hours; once I receive this I will post my findings with the new device.

There may be more than one problem going on. I had the "sim failure" followed by "invalid sim" twice the day I received my phone (October 20). Had sim replaced at AT&T late that day and that problem has not recurred.

Reading through all the posts here, some people replace sim and it works; some replace phone and it works. On the other hand some get repeated failures after replacing sim or after replacing phone.

A colleague of mine has solved the issue like follows:

1) Removing the PIN code from SIM --> SMS and phone calls worked fine, data transfer still crashed because the switch from 3G to Edge or Edge to 3G doesn't work (network not found, server doesn't respond and something like that)

2) Sync with iTunes, Backup with iTunes

3) Restore iPhone with the same, but now unlocked SIM

4) Upload Backup with iTunes and Sync --> no more error message of iTunes due to the PIN locked SIM will appear

The result: In areas with bad coverage the phone stays in Edge mode stable now and doesn't try to switch to 3G (and fails with the results described in 1) ).

The same problem with T-mobile in the Nederlands no sim. Only works to turn the pin code off but I don't want it. Is it a software or hardware issue? Do I need to drive two hours to get a new iPhone?

Another update here.

So removing the sim card on my verizon wireless iphone 4s solved my 'sim card failure' but then I had another issue. I was again playing it in my stereo dock listening to Pandora (this is where it would be when the sim failure would happen) and all of a sudden my iphone stopping playing music. When I looked the iphone showed that there was no connection/signal to verizon. it just had a little circle where the 3g usually is and no bars nor verizon name. Rebooting the phone solved that issue but I noticed that the phone was extremely hot. Thats when I realized that my sim failures resulted in a very hot phone.

I have a clear plastic back cover/case for my iphone. I immediately removed it and its been 5 days with no issues at all. I can have my iphone 4s in the stereo dock all day long and though the iphone gets warm; it never gets hot. No problems at all.

So for me it seems that it's a heat issue. I use my case when I'm out and about and remove it when I'm going to dock it and play music through it all day.

Tonight my phone seemed a tad sluggish (iPhone 4s, ATT), so I decided to shut it down and restart it.  Following this, I received the "No SIM card installed" message, and no amount of waiting seemed to cure it.  I restarted again, twice, and both times upon restart the phone reported it was "Searching..." and then reported "No SIM".  Finally I did a hard reset (hold down home and on/off until it restarts), and after doing so, it managed to find ATT, and is working again.

Seems like a software issue to me.  I've had no serious problems with the phone, but this was strange, and I thought I'd provide my experience as a data point.  I never had to remove the SIM card to fix the problem; I suspect those that attribute their fix to removing and blowing on the SIM card are victims of pure superstition.

So here's my saga.  With AT&T in California.  Got my 4S the day of release, it worked great through the weekend, then I got the SIM card error/invalid SIM messages that Monday.  Went to AT&T store:  they immediately accused me of dropping the phone, said that the side where the SIM card goes in wasn't seated properly, tested the SIM and said it was fine, it's an Apple problem, not an AT&T problem.  Went to Genius bar, the guy called in a supervisor, he said it was a problem with our AT&T account (??) and it had to be fixed remotely; wait 24 hours and restore phone.  Waited, restored, it worked fine for a day, then SIM card error.  Went back to Apple store without appointment (none available), they refused to see me.  Went to AT&T, he popped out SIM card and put it in his phone, said it worked fine, it was an Apple problem.  Strangely enough, after numerous reboots/restores, phone then started working again and was great for a week.  This weekend, SIM card error.  Back to Apple, they say it's not a phone problem, I say, I don't care, give me a new phone anyway, the guy shrugs, gives me a new phone, SIM card error.  I take the new phone to AT&T, get a new SIM card, it's working beautifully (8 hours or so now).  I also notice that (a) Siri starts right up (on previous phone I had to push her mic button several times) and (b) the battery isn't draining nearly as quickly. 

The first time the SIM error happened, I could still use internet/location services but not call or text.  This most recent time, no call/text/internet or location.  The first day of the first error, I had just bought a case for the phone; but the first error message occurred in the morning, before I got the case; the message came up repeatedly only after I had the case on.  Made me wonder if the heat was a factor, or if manipulating the phone into the case unseated the SIM reader.

If this phone doesn't work, I am thinking of getting droids for the whole family and switching to a different carrier....

This is definitely an intermittent problem.  For myself, it doesn't even appear to rely on reboots of the phone.

I started getting "Invalid SIM" 5 days ago.  I tried rebooting the phone and service returned.  The next day the message came back so I rebooted again.  After the reboot, I got a "No SIM" message.  After rebooting a few times and getting the same "No SIM" message, I left it alone.  A few hours later I come back to the phone and it has bars and service.

This has gone on intermittently since it started.  This morning I removed the SIM, brushed the contacts on the SIM card, blew air in to the slot on the phone and reseated it.  After a reboot service returned.

I really can't say that the cleaning and reseating fixed anything until it is confirmed as working for a few days straight.

I will update with any new information.

Dear Sir

I live in sri lanka.my dad bought me an iphone 4s 32gb from apple store opera france..Today in the evening i connected to my cousin's wifi connection to check siri.it was working fine .after few minutes i got an error 'Invalid SIM'.then i got scared and i rebooted the iphone .then it says No sim .now my iphone 4s is not working.i tried removing the sim and reinstalling the sim back.there is no way to get the network connection(edge).

Please help me .

If there is a solution .please let me know .otherwise i have to ship my iphone to france .it will be very hard to do that .

Thanks

Francis Roshan