iPhone 4S "no service" problem

So I was sent another phone overnight and this one worked. So looks like there are bad phones coming from Apple, they sent me a new phone with a different serial number, not the orgiinal box but it works. Going to use it to see if its worth keeping or getting my money back. CS was nice enough to send me a free accessory for the trouble but Im still upset that the brand new one I got wasnt working and it took 3 days to get a new one. They dont believe there phone could ever be bad they thought it was the carrier, not so this time.

I have a brand new micro sim from O2 (UK) I too have the same issues on my iPhone 4S, working fine one moment and then NO SIGNAL - and the only way to get it back is to reboot - dam annoying!

I've also noticed another issue - when I go on the underground train, my iphone 4s still shows a 3G signal even though I'm on the underground where its impossible to get a singal. This morning I had two people sitting either side of me on the train both showing a No Signal which in this instance was correct as we were deep underground, and there is my little iphone 4s still thinking its connects on 3G showing two bars of signal strength.

I'm waiting to see of 5.0.2 fixes tis, otherwise its a trip back to Apple.

This reinforces my suspicions that it is all Apple's fault.

My wife an I both have new 4s ( Mid Oct). Both on ATT and up to 5.0.1. Randomly drop to No Service. Airplane mode off and back on will start search and find bars; BUT even with service, several attempts to call from the land line went direct to voice mail, which took a long while to show on the phone.

The battery life on mine seems shorter than the wife's, and a lot shorter than the 3 it replaced. I have data only; the wife has extended so she can hot spot for her WiFi iPad; but that only works sometimes. Thoughts or comments?

TomWellington wrote:

My wife an I both have new 4s ( Mid Oct). Both on ATT and up to 5.0.1. Randomly drop to No Service. Airplane mode off and back on will start search and find bars; BUT even with service, several attempts to call from the land line went direct to voice mail, which took a long while to show on the phone.

The battery life on mine seems shorter than the wife's, and a lot shorter than the 3 it replaced. I have data only; the wife has extended so she can hot spot for her WiFi iPad; but that only works sometimes. Thoughts or comments?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3507478. Worked for me.

UPDATE: After half a day of No Service, I called Apple customer service and went through all the issues. After trying several things, I was recommended to try a Restore to rule out software corruption, and also speak to my service provider (O2 UK) who are also sending me a replacement sim to rule that out.

So I'll resore my phone tomorrow and drop in the new sim when it arrives in a few days, if that still fails then the Apple Customer support said it could be a hardware fault and Apple would look at reparing/replacing it.

I'll keep you posted how this goes.

Still, no person has followed my advice to fix these issues. If they did try it nobody has reported back good or bad.

I suggest to everyone to try the fix that worked for me at:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3507478?answerId=16784301022#16784301022

Then post a follow-up with your results.

I AM SO FRUSTRATED with this NO SERVICE thing.

I try to do a call, it can't. It looses the signal. It finds the signal again after a bit. I try to do a call. It calls. After a few seconds i try to do a call again, still it can't call and it looses the signal. This thing loops all over and my battery is drained. Yesterday at 17.00 i had 100% battery and at 01.00 AM i had 26% (with normal use) and i bought my iPhone at friday.

I unlocked my SIM = No luck, still same problem

I resseted network settings = No luck, still same problem

I downloaded the 5.0.1 firmware and install it again = No luck, still same problem

I resynced with latest iTunes = No luck, still same problem

Later today i will try a friends SIM card to see if it will work and tommorow i am planning to go and buy a new SIM card, and i DON'T even know if it will work. I hope this is not a hardware issue. I believe it's a software issue in fact, but i can't know.

What is going on Apple? Why don't you make an official statement to tell us what is going on with this thing ?

For all who are still facing problems, my brief history with the iPhone 4S (from India).

I bought a factory-unlocked phone from the Canada Apple Online store (NOT the retail store). I activated the phone for the first time in India using an India SIM (not a Canada SIM). In my case, iTunes never said 'Congratulations, you have an unlocked phone' or anything like that. I understand you get this message if your phone is a 'Contract-Free' or 'SIM-Free' phone. I believe these are what you can buy from the retail stores directly. So, maybe for these 'Contract-Free' or 'SIM-Free' phones, you may need to activate it first in the host country, though I frankly don't see why and certainly no other phone company seems to be handcuffing their customers like this.

When I first activated the phone, (Nov 1), I got the now famous 'No Service'. I tried several SIM cards, cut/micro-SIM, Airtel/Vodafone, etc. All to no avail. BTW, I'm in the Delhi circle. Several calls to Airtel and Apple were completely unhelpful, until I found I was not alone (i.e., this forum).

On Nov 5th, I got a hold of senior folks at Airtel who told me that this is the first time they're hearing of this. The phone they were given from Apple for testing was working fine (ahead of the launch). We compared specs of the phone (serial numbers, IMEI numbers). Then we started collating serial numbers on this forum of working and not-working phones, looking for a pattern. Someone the forum pointed out the IMEI pattern (i.e,. those starting with 0130 were not working, while the older 012 series was working).

Airtel told me they were in touch with Apple and that Apple had not updated an entire series of IMEI numbers before shipping them. In India, given our higher security on mobile telecom networks, apparently phones are only 'authorised' if they are registered on the GSMA site. Several people on the forum checked their IMEI's and they were not updated.

On Nov 9th, on a trip to London, my phone worked absolutely fine with a local SIM there.

By Nov 11th, when I had returned, my phone was working in New Delhi and several others across India on Airtel, Vodafone, BSNL, Aircel, etc. were starting to work.

Airtel told me they were doing an 'off-cycle' update, now that Apple had updated the GSMA site. But, the off-cycle update was being done circle-by-circle. I assume other carriers were doing the same. As we identified circles that were not working (bangalore, punjab, etc.), Airtel tracked these and are addressing them. Again, I assume the other carriers are doing the same.

If you're still getting 'No Service' with your carrier, ask them to do an off-cycle update, explaining that the GSMA website was only updated recently. I know several people on the forum are skeptical that this is indeed the answer, and frankly I do not know myself, but it seems to have worked for a large number of people.

By the way, I've updated to iPhone 5.0.1, and just recently the iTunes 10.5.1.

Call Failed. When my phone was first working in India, I could receive calls and send/receive messages, but could not make any calls. I kept getting the 'Call Failed' message. So I reset the phone back to factory settings and set it up as a new phone and it worked well. Then I restored the most recent back up and it crapped out again - i.e., again 'Call Failed'. So I backed it up from an older backup (Nov 7th or so), and it worked perfectly. And has been perfectly since.

When the iPhone 4S launches in India, maybe we're all hoping these problems will be fixed. Maybe Apple globally will track the status of the carriers and be proactive in making sure their products work - as opposed to being reactive. Maybe.

There seems to be a lot of issues getting fixed, with no explanation of what was wrong in the first place. It's been frustrating, and continues to be so. Frankly, I'm still nervous when I travel - and end up carrying a second phone just in case. If the 4S weren't such an incredible product, I'd have dumped it.

I hope this is helpful to all of you still facing problems.

Update: Well, I did a restore last night as recommened by Apple, but today the NO SIGNAL issue still goes on. My replacement sim arrives in the next few days, so will see if that works.

Valoflife - Thanks for you're post, but updating iTunes does not work for me as I'm up-to-date already on iTunes.

Below is my side-by-side comparison

LEFT: iPhone 4S

Right: iPhone 3GS

Both phones on the UK O2 network and the iPhone 4S will drop out to No Serrvice and then cannot find the network.

I upgrade only by the iTunes way (no over-the-air upgrade) and have this issue as well as i've described above. I'm in regular contact with my operator (t-mobile Czech Rwpublic) and they are supportive but do not know so far what is the cause of this issue.

Thanks for the input. It only seems to be working for about 1/3 of responders on my iTunes discussion. Of course, I only have 6 responders. 😀

My iPhone 4s always shows "no service" and I have to restart my phone everytime I want to make a call or when I'm expecting a call. I tried to reset all settings, reset network settings, or erase all data and reset all settings, turned off wifi, celluar data, location services and siri, got a new microsim card...I tried everything I could but no luck 😟

I am in China. Got my iPhone 4s in early November from UK.

Can someone tell me if this is a software or hardware problem? As iPhone 4s is not in China yet, I cannot get help from Apple store in China at the moment and the next time I am going to UK is in Xmas! Shall I wait till the next os update or get a temporary phone and take back the iphone to UK for a replacement in Dec?

Can someone tell me what to do now? I was really looking forward to the new iPhone 4s...

Thanks.

Cindy

I have bought an iPhone 4S and I live in Sweden. I have this problem as many other of also have, I have full bars and we I try to make a call or send a text message I get no service which is really annyoing. My carrier tells my that it is Apple who should fix it and that the only thing I can do is to wait for the problem to be solved, which I don't want to do. So I have to pay for a phone that I cannot even you as a phone, Woot?!

They only luck I have is that I have two friends with iPhone too and I use iMessage to stay in touch with them, but my other mates I cannot contact at all. 😟

My problems got solved when i changed my SIM. My iPhone is OK now