Q: Invalid SIM Card on iPhone 4S (5.0.1)

Good afternoon. My name is Raul, I'm from Argentina. In the month of December buy a iphone 4s. It was bought in Apps Store in Barcelona, ​​Spain. A few days began to fail with the message Invalid Sim. As in Argentina do not provide technical support to mobile iphone, a friend who traveled to Miami took the phone to change it under warranty. But in the Apps Store in Miami and Orlando, not because they changed the phone was purchased in Europe, and can only be changed where they buy. Is that true? as I might not recognize the warranty? do not leave me any choice, and that Spain will not go back. no way to claim?

Hello Raul,

I suggest you to have a glance to the following document, which is the Apple's iPhone Limited Warranty: http://images.apple.com/legal/warranty/docs/iPhone_4_warranty.pdf

Generally speaking you can say the warranty is "internationa" however: "If you seek service in a country that is not the original country of  purchase, you will comply with all applicable import and export laws and

regulations and be responsible for all custom duties, V.A.T. and other associated  taxes and charges. Where international service is available, Apple may repair or replace products and parts with comparable products and parts that comply with local standards."

Therefore as you can understand from the above you might encounter some expences to have the iphone repaired in Argentina, which is not the original coutry of purchase.

The best option for you is ta call the Apple Care customer service and ask them advice on your situation; the will give you all answers and provide all support!

If the problem is limited to the "Invalid Sim" message, I suggest you to wait for the iOS 5.1  official release, which might solve your porblem!

Greetings!

Lifeguard89

I hope the OS5.1 will solve the issue. My Local Iphone repairere also confirmed the same with iOS5.1 Beta3. I am thinking of getting it installed on chargeable basis.

I shall inform you soon

I think Apple will release the new iOS on early March... It's just a matter of being patient... It's an incredible issue... And I'm surprised it has taken so long to solve it... However we know they done it... And at least we are reassured on the hardware... We shall see and wait the official iOS 5.1 release date!

I'm in France, and since I got my iPhone 4S (october I think), that's the 2nd time I get this problem. I ofc tried restauring, it didn't work. Today I asked my carrier to send me a new micro sim as it seems the only solution left. It's too much, we already have the battery drain problem, and now we need to get a new **** sim card each 2-3 months? What kind of product is this?

Seriously, 4s was my first apple product, and it will probably be my last. I'm someone who travels a lot, I can't live like this not knowing if my phone will be working the next day or not!!! Yeah sure, we have lots of cool features on iPhones, but some bugs can't be accepted (and I'm not even speaking about the battery drain problem that was supposed to be fixed since 3 months)

Well it's an issue I'm sure apple will solve (that actually has been solved already). I had 4 iPhones since the first one and I'm sure that the 4s won't be the last... I had several phones but overall the iPhone is the best mobile giving everything you can desire in you pocket.

The 4s has had some serious issues... Always related to the software and not to the hardware, which means that at the end everything has a solution!

After 2 weeks of waiting (here in Portugal there are no Apple Stores) i have a new iPhone 4S. I'm sure that it is a new and not a refurbished one. It has ios 5.0.1. Let me see how it works.

Have had the invalid sim ever since I got my 32GB Factory Unlocked iPhone4s from Canada. Using it on Vodafone in India. Had my sim cut in the beginning but then got a new micro sim issued from Vodafone. The phone worked brilliant for 24 hrs with the new micro sim but then went back to its old ways of invalid sim/no service/call failed issues. The phone is on the new 5.0.1 (9A406) and even tried restoring it back to (9A405).

My concern that this is hardware issue and not a software issue. If it was a software issue then every iphone4S should be having the same problem. My sister bought her iphone4S a week before me and is running (9A405) and she has had no problem. Even from all the posts I gather that there are many of us with this problem but still a small percentage of all the iphone4S users in the world.

Why are they not having this issue of Invalid Sim when they are on the same OS 5.0.1? How can we be sure that 5.1 will get us out of our misery?

Hello Ankz74,

I had the "Invalid SIM" issue opn both my 4 & 4S. iOS 5.0.1 9A406 did not  solve it.

It's quite a widespread problem. Not all 4 / 4S are having this issue as not all carriers are interested by it (i.e. in Italy "tre" and "tim" are not encountering the problem whereas "wind" and "vodafone" do). The issue seems related to each carrier's network settings and/or microsims, which are giving some sort of error with iOS 5.0.1. 9A405 and 406.

Due to the NDA I signed as a registered devoloper, I cannot reveal the details of any software not yet released to the pubblic. However I can tell you to be patient for a little more waiting for the next software release with confidence. I can also assure you that the iphone is not experiencig widespread issues related to the hardware equpiment.

Regards.

i also bought the 4S from canada... and using it in india on Airtel network....

it works fine on ios 5.0 but i felt the network signal was not good and failing most of the times when i was traveling by car and also when i was inside a movie theatre.... but that time i cheked my other phone (not iphone) was not giving any signal issues at the same time....

but anyway... it worked most of the time... (still i am not happy with the loosing signal thing when my other phone showed no loss in signal strength at some places)

now i upgraded it to ios 5.0.1 (my fault i should not have done that i guess... but did it anyway thanks to apple) and since then my network is failing each and every time i pick the phone for something (call or data usage) after some time i keep it in idle... i changed the micro sim today in the hope of it will solve the problem .. but it did not... if i keep it idle for 10-15 minutes... and pick up to do a call... it will fail every time... then it search for the network and connect again.... then you can make the call... and this happens every single time...

before i changed the sim i used to get "no service " and "invalid sim" too... after changing the sim havenot got it yet... but its just 3 hours i changed the sim... and its too soon to tell... but anyway the phone is not working

now downloading 5.0.1 9A406 patch to restore.... and writing this comment while it gets downloaded... lets see what happens....

only good thing about this phone is the form-factor , hardware.... and the UI .... all the other core iphone softwares should be replaced by android .... i miss my google nexus one

even the basic android "contacts" application is much much better than iphone contacts app...

this is my first iphone... as a techie i just wanted to check whats the fuzz about... and the experience is not good from the very begining (i am talking about my buying experience... thats another tragic story)... and the bad experience still continues...

and i see this 5.0.1 related problem happening since november... and its about to be 4 months ... and still apple unable to provide a stable release ....

and bloody control freak apple dont let you downgrade back to previous OS version.... not even when the newer version is buggy for 4 months... highly disappointed after paying such a big amount

i hope someone from apple is reading this...

9A406 is also having problem. i stoped trying different sims, software etc. only way is to reboot. I am waiting for the upgrade of iOS.

enough is enough

I have a brand new AT&T 64gb 4S, purchased last week from the Apple Store in town. It's 5.0.1 running 9A406; I also just hit the "invalid sim" error last night.

I held off for months on the 4S because of the reported battery issues... it's incredibly frustrating to finally pull the trigger and run into this problem.

its working after i did the 9A406 restore thing. restarted couple of times, then restored from my previous backups... then tried sim locks ... all worked fine... and the phone is also working fine.... not facing those problems now... or am i saying this too soon ? only time will tell....

shame on you apple.... you cant keep the basic phone features up.... while charging that much

@lifegaurd89

I really hope you r right. 5.1 is to be out on 9th March and really pray it lives upto it's promise. The funny thing is that am in peace to 2-3 bars on the signal strength coz then I know I can receive calls. It goes to full signal and I know the phone has gone cold. I used the 3G sim from my iPad (which is working fine) of another operator Airtel and had the same issue on the 4s leading me to suspect hardware. Been a big apple supporter with all the previous iPhones and iPad and have to admit that this has been my first big letdown. I know they will come through but it's very frustrating to have to reboot the phone ten times a day especially at work. Have now told  regular callers like my wife to send me a mail asking me to reboot in case they r unable to call or text me :-(.

9 more days to see if I have a iPod or an iPhone.

If you have a new phone then the 1 year warrantee also inludes getting a free sim from your carrier when they go bad.  Take it to  your cel carrier and get them to put in a new sim...first step.

Pierre

Canada