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

This is driving me crazy, I bought mine from Canada and flight the next day to Kuwait

I am using the phone now for four days, the SIM failure issue happened few times at the first day then again on the third day, when I decide to change the cutted normal SIM from VIVA (Kuwaiti Operator) to a new micro SIM.

Same issue happened with the new SIM so I decide to upgrade to 5.0.1, and thats when the nightmare begun, SIM failure happene every 5-10 minutes and phone will note recognise the SIM unless I restart the phone.

Now the strange thing I noticed is that when I turn off ''Cellular Data'', the problem of SIM failure simply disappered. and if I just turn it on, SIM failure will happen after 5 minutes.

I have the same in my iPhone 4S IOS 5.0.1.

Does Apple confirm the issue?
Do you know a workaround?

When my signal is full i can call and text ,but when the signal 3. level or down i can't make call and text.I really don't know what's going on !! But it's driving me crazy spend A LOT OF MONEY ! And u can't make just call or text .It's really funny.Dear APPLE  fix it . Everyday we are writing here but nobody like admin or smth write  to fell us relax

Another update.  Its been almost 24 hours since swapping out the sim card and no "SIM FAILURE" since.

The case I thought might have been an issue has been on the phone and its been fine.

We will see how it does in the coming days and weeks.

Got the invalid SIM message on mine recently. I believe it was pre-iOS 5.0.1. Happened once and hasn't occurred since. Only a reboot cleared the event.

Have also had another issue where while trying to make an outgoing call, the phone hangs on "calling xxxx..." (xxxx = person) and hitting End does nothing. I have to wait it out for several minutes before I can do anything. I can't get back to the home screen, etc. The phone simply hangs.

I had the same SIM failure problem after I installed the 5.0.1 update.  Verizon then activated the SIM card - which they had not done initially when I picked up the phone - and it now works just fine.   

I bought a 16GB Verizon 4s and I'm now on my third one. I cannot activate the phone if the SIM card is in the slot regardless of the fact that the Verizon network does not make use of it. If I remove the SIM card, I can activate the phone and everything works fine but as soon as I put it back in, I get a message that the phone has to be activated (which I can't do).

This has happened with three differen SIM cards, including one that was given to me at the Verizon store and registered there (by the way, they have been extremely helpful at my local store here in Gainesville).

Rebooting does not help, nor re-seating the SIM card... nor resetting the network.

I'm reluctant to get another replacement phone (it would be my 4th). Does anyone else with a new Verizon phone have the same problem?

...also wrote it in another thread. Replaced my original 4S cuz of another failure. My new 4S now has this issue only with one card. Tried three different ones. Orange Austria - WORKS! ...Bob.at Austria - (my own network) - DOESNT WORK! ...O2 Germany - WORKS!

....i thought, ***. My Bob.at SIM card worked perfectly on the original 4S. But ok, i guessed somehow the Bob.at SIM card is broken. no it wasnt. Got a new SIM from the provider. Same problem. AND: the card works perfectly in a friends iPhone 4.

So why the **** is the 4S so picky or what?

I noticed that the bob.at SIM has only three rows of golden contacts on its back horizontally (when the long edge of the card is horizontal) - all the other SIMs had four (so more like square shaped golden contact surface) ...did anyone of you notice the same on your not working sims? how many contact rows do they have?

I have had a number of issues with my Verizon IPhone 4s.  My first phone suffered from what seems to be a pretty common battery drain issue as well as running extremely hot. When I contacted verizon they sent me a replacement phone. (this was right before Apple came out with OS 5.0.1 which was supposed to fix this issue) When I got the replacement phone and tried to activate it, I got a message regarding the SIM Card not being valid.  Verizon tech support told me to remove the SIM Card.  When I did so I was able to activate the phone.  However, when I tried to connect the phone to ITunes (not ICloud) ITunes gave me a message indicating I need a SIM card.  So I tried to insert the SIM card and the second I did so the phone gave me the message that the SIM card was not valid rendering the phone useless. Verizon at that point decided to replace my replacement phone.  My 3rd phone did the same thing as my second phone. After 4 days of trips to Verizon and Apple Genius bar, I was finally able to find a tech at Apple that informed the Verizon tech and myself that my phone was not in Apple's system as a verizon phone.  I should mention that both my first and second replacement phones had the same issue and the verizon store tech indicated a number of people were having this issue with replacement phones.  My theory is that the "replacement" phone stock at Verizon was never put on the Apple system as verizon phones and as such when you insert a verizon sim card into one of these phones .... you can't activate them.  Apple does have a fix, you must contact their "activation" department and that department will register the device on their system... which takes about 24 hours and the phone with the SIM card will work.  So my SIM Card issue was resolved... not without a lot of effort.

Problems over --- no --- my replacement phone with OS 5.0.1 --- the battery is even worse than before. 

Unfortunately when I first discovered this problem it was about 15 days after I purchased it ... 1 day past the "no worry" guarantee from Verizon. 

Also --- another major issue... The SIRI default security setting allows you to bypass the phone lock.  Try doing this by holding down the home key and ask SIRI to email someone, or open your bank account information .... and it will even with the phone locked

I'm sorry Apple but this product and SIRI gets an F

Sorry you've had these problems but I'm glad it's not just me doing something stupid.

Can you tell me how to contact Apple's "activation department"?

Thanks

Hey there,

Got several SIM Cards, one of them worked, one didn't.

Got intel from apple finally after 2 weeks of stupidity in the AppleCare service line. They finally resetted my iPhone profile (the level-2 technicians have to queue a task to another 'taskforce' - who work on the profiles) and uploaded it to my iTunes account. Then i had to do a forced restore and all was fine.

Hope this helps you uys with your issues before u are forced to get a new phone!!

Best

Florian

Update:

Orginal post 23 October.

I now have a new phone from Sprint. It took 4 weeks to get a new phone so I asked Sprint if they could put the 4s 32 gig phone on another line that I had as I couldn't have a phone that went off service without me knowing on my regular contact number. They had to do a store reboot to go to my different phone number. After reboot phone worked perfectly for two weeks. I had ordered another 4s for my daughter and she got the phone number that I moved to. So Sprint did a store reboot to my orginal phone number and right away I got no sim message and no service. So Sprint did another store reboot and I used the phone for another two weeks without any problems till this new phone came in. I took the new phone because I just wasn't sure if there wasn't a deeper problem with that phone but it did work without problems for one month. My daughter's new 4s gave her a no sim message and she went to the Apple store and thet did a store reboot and she has not had any problems since. The on off reboot that I can do is not the same reboot that the store did. I had to restore all music and applications after the store reboot. I hope this helps. I have been very satisified with this phone and bought one for my daughter and will buy one for my wife when her contract allows.

Hi

My Iphone 4s is MD2458/A. Originally set it in a hard plastic case and got "Invalid sim" after phone had been on for 15 mins. Got a replacement sim from orange UK and no difference. Put sim in my partners 1phone 4 (not s) and sim card worked fine. Noticed on my partners phone it booted up straight to Orange but on my phone "searching" for 15-20s first. Works for 5-15 mins then comes up Invalid sim.

Orange were more than unhelpful about changing phone as I bought it from a third party shop - its still a contract with Orange. Had to demand they spoke to the shop - result is I have to wait 14 days to change phone and from this comment trail I can see that that will do no good.

IF IT IS the wrong SIM can Apple make a statement to Orange can get itself sorted. Certainly can see no point returning phone as it is either a SIm or softwate bug.

Location UK

Dont think this is related just to the 4S on US carriers.

I've had the exact same problem on Orange in the UK. The only fix for me was to get a new SIM card.

My iPhone 4 is phone is running. iOS 5.0.1 and I've never had this problem with this handset. Sounds like it may be a bug under 5.0.1

My wife also have the same issue. Her phone gets no service and sim card failure. She doesn't even have sim card, because she's on Verizon.

Only temporary fix is to turn it off and turn back on. It works for few minutes, but it goes back to no service and sim card faliure.

She had the phone for couple of weeks, and she never had this problem until today.

Strangely, my iphone 4s has no problem. We both bought the phone on the same day from same apple store, and we are on Verizon network. We both also have ios 5.01.