iPhone 4S dropping network and data at random

Hi,


I've been using an iPhone 4 on a Vodafone contract for the past 16 month and just bought an iPhone 4S direct from Apple. It arrived on Friday morning and I got it set up correctly as far as I can tell.


When I first turn it on, it works lovely and exactly as I would expect, able to make calls, send texts and access the internet via the cellular network. However, at what appears to be random, the network will disappear (no bars of signal) stopping me making calls and texts, but still allowing me to access the internet. Sometimes, the Internet goes, but I can still make calls and texts. Other times, everything is gone and I get "No Signal" where it normally says Vodafone UK.


So when trying to fix this problem after it's noticed, I try putting it into Airplane mode and back out. The phone scans for a network and goes back to the same state as before I tried this fix. I have tried resetting network settings, but this doesn't change anything. The only thing that actually fixes it temporarily is turning the phone right off and back on again.


At this stage I assume this is a bug with the software, but I wondered if anyone else is experiencing anything like this? If no one is, I will take it up with Apple, but I don't really want to do that as I love the new phone so much!!


Cheers, Stuart

iMac (late 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.3), 27" i7 Quad-Core, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD

Posted on Oct 16, 2011 2:53 AM

Reply
1,022 replies

Dec 19, 2011 11:04 PM in response to Stuart Mchattie

Hi All,

After long waiting with a dead iPhone, now apple did some good update for network issue that we are facing.. I hope it will work for everyone as it worked for me..


Follow the following steps:

1. Back up your user content and settings using iTunes or iCloud. See this article for more information.
2. Restore your iPhone 4S using iTunes.
3. After the process is complete, restore your user content and settings from your backup.
4. To confirm that you've successfully restored, verify that the version is now iOS 5.0.1 (9A406) in Settings > General > About.

Please let me know how you are going with it..


Cheers

Dec 20, 2011 5:04 AM in response to MuGeN PoWeR

I did talk to Apple Support few moments ago, they explained to me that it would be better to replace my iPhone by a provider where I bough my phone unless I want to wait for a new firmware upgrade. I explained to them that this is difficult as I did purchase my phone in a different country and based on this I asked more questions about this issue. Those were the answers:


  • If I would get my phone replaced the guy on support told me not to upgrade to 5.0.1.
  • I was told that they think (but he couldn't confirm that) that it is not a hardware issue
  • Firmware 5.1. should resolve this


I decided to wait for 5.1. - I cannot use my phone at all till then which is really a pain and I wish Apple provides to us at least some kind of discount or kind of appreciations that we survived without our phones for so long. If this issue wouldn't be fixed in 5.1. I will completely move from Apple platform because this is not how you handle customers when you buy a phone for 700 USD. Frankly? How should I handle a scenario when I would be a witness of an accident and would need to call emergency? Do I need to wait till my phone gets restarted? 😕

Dec 20, 2011 9:15 AM in response to uralcan

Hi Uralcan,


They unfortunately were not able to tell me that. I did ask the support guy, than the technician I was able to get to talk about the problem but I was told that they as well don't know {Support} till its officialy released to public. I tried as well to ask if I can test the beta to provide them feedback if that fixes that issue but that as well can't be done unless you pay that 99USD developers fee.


Thus - I just switched back to BlackBerry 😟 and will wait till they release 5.1


-= Rudy

Dec 20, 2011 9:26 AM in response to Stuart Mchattie

Hello. I have final explanation of this problem... I communicate with Czech Apple technician section and now I know where is problem. All phones with IMEI beginning with 0129 have this problem, phones with 0130 doesn't. I have changed 4 phones with apple store and now I can confirm that when I upgrade to iOS 5.0.1 on phone with IMEI 0130 I have no problem with my SIM. Older ones make problems with signal dropping, searching, invalid SIM etc. So if you can, change your phone as soon as possible for newer version.

Dec 20, 2011 9:38 AM in response to flaxos

I have the 0130 imei and I still have this problem! I've tried everything I saw on this topic and it's the same. My problem is that my phone is purchased from US and I live in Romania and I can't change it here. My second problem is that when I tap the phone on the lower back (not where is the camera) I feel a smal vibration like something is lose in there. I have an iPhone 4S 32gb.

Dec 20, 2011 10:05 AM in response to flaxos

I have 0129 - interesting, if I am not mistaken reason they mentioned that they release a new version of this iOS wasn't because of our network issue but to support upgrades of new phones released last week by additional providers.


But how come that people were not seeing this issue with 5.0? Will wait for 5.1 - if that doesnt help than I will replace it in a shop like you mentioned.


Thanks for that info,

Rudy

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iPhone 4S dropping network and data at random

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