Q: iPhone 4S "no service" problem

I am not gonna argue with you...  it seems only You + 3 people have a fix while the rest of us don't.  SOFTWARE RELATED!

It's a bug. It's intermittent.  It's on every iPhone after iOS 5.0.1 - iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS (PS, iPhone 4 and 3GS were working all fine before iOS 5.x was introduced).

Do yourself a favour... if the problem does comes back, DO NOT repost that you are having issues, as you will look like a fool.  Cool?

Enjoy your working iPhone for today, I can guarantee you in the very near future, you will see No Service / Searching and when it does, remember my name!

Enjoy your holidays!

OMG - how old are you? By the tone of you email, it amazes me that parents buy iPhones for such young kids.

You have no idea what the issue is, we could all be having different problems that results in giving a no service error, which could be resolved by hardware for some and software for others.

As for remembering your name , who?

You don't sound mature yourself...

Hey what happen..no need to fight each others..waste ur time.if u think software problm is OK..but everyone have theor own way how to solve the problem..for me,im tired to change the sim n restore the phone then restart phone everytime i want to call someone.so to make it easy..i just changed to new phone.now running 5.0.1 without any problem at all.

Some of people can resolved this issue when they restored the phone

Some of them just changed the sim and work find

If both cannot..the final decision is change the phone.

In Spain - have changed my sim again  , but the problem persists , its been 15 days since i have had this phone , and today i asked them to change my faulty phone but they say i can only send it for repairs , also they apple charged me 8 euros to call them to tell my problem

anyway APPLE / ORANGE ( carrier) / THE PHONE HOUSE (reseller)  . have totally broken my back today and will not provide me with a new phone -

cant do nothing -

even writing shame on them does not help -

mritacca,

My original 4S seemed to start to experence the "no service" issue after the 5.0.1 update, but my 2 replacement 4S's had 5.0 and iphone 3GS had 3.1.3, were also giving me the "no service" message. I would agree more with Bluefusion, you don't know for sure what the problem is. The truth is, nobody knows for sure what the problem is. I believe Apple knows what the problem is.

     I am really disappointed that they would just choose to stay mute on this problem. This is just wrong!! Why aren't the apple blogs picking up on this? I have tried to get attention to this on various blogs and news to try and force Apple to respond to this serious problem that, from my experence, are saying doesn't exist.

I have the ultimate solution!!!! Don't trust anything else you have read!

I spoke to a Genius. He says that he has to stay anonymous but has the inside scoop on the problem!! The Genius says that the problem lies in the sophistication of the iPhone 4S hardware/software combination. It gets pretty tricky and dangerous from here so please be careful. He says the only way to fix the phone is to be 3 meters off the ground. Somehow, the phone hardware knows when you are on the ground and in the air. In my case, I climbed a tree in my front yard. Once in the air, you have to stand on your left foot, holding your phone in your right hand with your middle finger on the SIM card slot. With your left pinky finger, access settings, network, reset. After that switch to your right foot and message "PLEASE HELP US APPLE" After all this my phone has been working for the past 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510 hours!

RE : getinmiggy

Let me correct you... if you are not sure, please Google it. I am very familiar with the iPhone since 2007.

iPhone OS 3.1.2 was the problem and 3.1.3 corrected the problem - it ended up being a software bug.

iOS 5.0.1 build 9A405 is the problem and build 9A406 was to correct it.  It didn't.

iOS 5.01 was to correct battery issues and it didn't either.

Without Jobs, Apple is like any other company and the brain behind Apple is gone.  Everyone at Apple is lost without Jobs.  That being said, it has taken Apple close to 3 months to come up with a resolution on two issues - both have failed.

I have friends with an iPhone 3GS and 4 that were absolutely working fine prior to iOS 5.  After iOS 5.0.x, they have started to exhibit the problems with Searching / No Service like iPhone OS 3.1.2.

This leads me to believe that it is SOFTWARE related.

I am not saying it can't be hardware, but I strongly believe it is software.  I don't want to hear people say they have come up with a fix because it is short lived.

I completely agree with you that Apple is losing it's reputation. I can't trust them as they are not upfront about the entire situation.  I look at Google and Samsung and both of them accept, acknowledge and come out with a fix in a more timely manner. Apple will never do this as they don't want to hinder the sales of iPhone.  Let me be very clear about this...  Apple is losing ground and Android and other players are catching up.  Apple can get away with this kind of stuff today, but I think a lot of people are getting tired, frustrated and annoyed at the level of service, committment and openness of Apple regarding issues.  This in the future will be the death of iPhone.  Tim Cook has failed as CEO. Apple has failed and this was expected after Jobs death. I don't care how many iPhones Apple has sold in the quarter. I want to know about how many upset people there are today.

Either you get use to it or It's time to get vocal.  The Mac blogs will not post this stuff as they don't want to hurt iPhone sales. I suggest you contact Engadget, Gizmodo, BGR and many other blogs and refer them to the forums.  I can guarantee you that one of them will publish this story.  Also try CNN and other major newspapers. Any media coverage especially bad, will help get Apple back to the drawing board.

Yes, I do stand corrected! The iphone 3GS has 3.1.2.

I have sent videos, notes, links, case numbers, etc to apple blogs, Engadget, Gizmodo, and Facebook. No luck yet.

I'm not going to speculate about what the underlying problem is, just thought I would add my situation to the mix.

Currently within the same square metre at my house (intermittent 3G coverage, in the countryside) are:

iPhone 4

3x iPhone 4s

3x iPad 2 + 3G

All on UK Vodafone, all running the latest firmware.

All devices have signal apart from one iPhone 4S which has the 'No Service' problem. Frustrating since it's the only one of all the devices that belongs to me.

What do?

I am afraid that contacting Endgadget, Gizmodo etc will not help. The "no service" problem is not widespread and most of iPhone 4s users are satisficed customers and probably think they're blessed with a miracle phone. The small number of unfortunates as us doesn't count. I am quite sure that Apple workers themselves believe iPhone 4s is a miracle phone and anybody who argues it is not is just wrong and can't be wright. It is not a matter of common sence it is a matter of faith. So if you're not a believer you must be doomed. Apple just have enough money to keep Endgadget/Gizmodo/CNN mounth shut and pretending there is no problem is their officially approved tactics. The only thing you can do is to return (not swap) the phone or sell it and buy something else. Actually every single phone on the market is cheaper. I would go for SONY because it shows that thise guys have honour - if they fail they quickly apologize and swap their devices. Apple has no honour at all. I will never buy anything from Apple again so should you as it is the ony reasonable thing you can do...

Hi guys, Just tried something else and my phone has been somewhat okay over the last 36 hours.

First remove the SIM card before restoring the phone from DFU mode. Since Apple doesnt care about us, we will continue with the experimentation and hopefully someone will stumble on something. Maybe Apple is working on ios 6 to sort this out.

Dear all,

(THIS CONCERNS MTC TOUCH CUSTOMERS IN LEBANON)

I've received an email with a solution to the problem; you have to update to the new iOS 5.0.1 firmware (9A406)!! It's been 1Hour and so far my iPHone 4S is working just fine. Please follow carefully the below instructions:

RUN A FULL BACK UP BEFORE DOING ANY OF THIS

1. Download the new iOS 5.0.1 firmware (9A406) from the internet. (800MB)
2. Connect your iPhone 4S to iTunes.
3. Once connected, two options will show: ‘restore’ and ‘check for update’.
4. Press down SHIFT and choose ‘check for update’. (if you click ‘check for update’ without pressing down SHIFT doesn’t work.)
5. Select the new firmware (9A406). Note that the file should be renamed ‘iPhone4,1_5.0.1_9A406_Restore.ipsw’  (instead of ‘iPhone4,1_5.0.1_9A406_Restore.zip’), i.e. changing the file extension from ZIP to IPSW. iTunes will now work alone and update your iPhone 4S.
A full back up is recommended before firmware upgrade.

HOPE THIS HELPS

i went into verizon to activate my phone, was finally able to activate, but i still have no service, verizon said it was apple.  still have no service

I have the same problem and have to exchange for a new one

back on the waiting list since they are on back order