You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

💡 Did you know?

⏺ If you can't accept iCloud Terms and Conditions... Learn more >

⏺ If you don't see your iCloud notes in the Notes app... Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Iphone 4s No Service Fix

I know alot of people are so angry about this problem and i am one of you but i managed to follow this issue inorder to find a solution and finally after alot of work, i managed to find the problems that cause it and found a solution for every case possible.

let me start with the problems that cause this issue.


CASE 1 (SIM Cards): Iphone 4s requires a specific sim card wiring technique different a little bit than before.


Solution 1: Simply contact your carrier and order the newest sim card available. ( 128K better than 64K ) and it case the new micro sim card did not work, order a regular sim card and cut it to the size of the micro sim.


CASE 2 (Carrier Network) : Iphone 4s has 2 antennas giving it the ability to connect to 2 signals at the same time causing the signal to shift from one hotspot to another without cutting the network. but to achieve that, the connection between the two spots must be perfectly synchronized and from the same type ( ex: 3g to 3g or edge to edge or gprs to gprs or 2g to 2g. any light mismatch will cause the phone to lose the signal and never be able to abtain it back ( No service will appear, and you are forced to restart your device or reset network setings ). and unforunately, we dont have the option in the iphone 4s to restrict our device to a specific network type unlike older devices. Im not sure that apple can fix this issue with an update, its the responsablity of the network companies to remove such errors from their infrastructures.


Solution 2: Order the 2g only sim card or a 3g only sim card, and it will work perfectly untill a better solution is found " but both solutions have advantages and disatvanteges. The 2g line will let you obtain a very good signal all over the country but you will not be able to connect to 3g network.

while the 3g line will let you obtain a good signal only in specific areas in the country but you will be able to use cellular data. or if you have a factory unlocked device, you can try to swith to a different carrier


Case 3 ( Iphone Software ): Sometimes, when you udate your device firmware or download any ios, there is a possibilty of an orror to occur without being noticed and that error will not also be noticed during the installation of the firmware, ending up on your device causing fialure.


Solution 3: 1- download latest itunes 10.5.1

2- download a fresh ios 5.0.1 ( from itunes not from iphone device )

3- Go to DFU mode, Open itunes and restore as new iphone (to avoid any remaining traces of previous corruption or error)

4- Go to Settings --> Phone --> Sim Pin and turn it OFF

5- Turn On airplane mode and wait 15 seconds

6- Turn OFF airplane mode

7- Go to Settings --> Carrier --> Automatic ( turn it off and select your network manually )


Case 4 (Iphone Hardware): some series of the 4s and specially the first serie delivered, had a problem in teir sim reader, and to help you more to identify this seire, simply go to Settings --> General --> About and check the model number if it starts with MD2 then you are not lucky and you phone may never work with your carrier


Solution 4: if you have a factory unlocked device, please consider changing the carrier and give it a try 90 % of the times it work, other than that, you must take your iphone back and order a replacement.


I will be happy to answer any question

< Edited By Host >

iPhone 4S, iOS 5.0.1, Factory unlocked brand new device

Posted on Nov 26, 2011 4:50 PM

115 replies

Dec 17, 2011 7:54 AM in response to codeslayer

but how do i that becuz first of all i bought the phone from someone that was selling the version before was 4.2 and then went to itunes and it asked me if i wanted to update it to ios 5.0 or ios 5.1 something like that so i went ahead and did it and then erased all my information. after that it left me with a grey screen asking me for your language and country and after i couldnt get to the main menu and it read my sim and said "invalid sim sim not compatible please contact supported carrier""something like that well then went on youtube and showed me how to get to the screen and did it well in this case when i put it to hold or sleep mode or whatever it goes back to the same thing.so my question is how do i put it to the normal screen without going through all that process?????was my upgrade a wrong one or is it that i upgraded it wrong?can i download it back to its normal version and figure out the solution to upgrade later on?its driving me crazy!!!!!!plus another question is does ios 5.0 or ios 5.1 work with gevey turbo sim or only the normal i phone 4 version like 4.2 or 4.3,etc.???????????please help on this one thank u very much!!!!!!!

Dec 18, 2011 4:06 AM in response to juanortiz

First of all, let me understand your story.


You are having an iPhone 4, not iPhone 4S.

You bought the phone and that time it had iOS 4.2.

You don't know whether it is a locked phone or unlocked phone right?


First of all you need to know if your iPhone is a locked or unlocked phone. It is because, In locked phones, If you update firmware directly from Itunes, you can't activate the phone. And It will prompt "Invalid Sim" or a similar message.


The grey screen that you are talking about is, the welcome/setup screen of iOS 5 or later. It will ask you to complete a couple of fields and once done it, the phone tries to activate. However, as I told you before, If your phone is a locked phone, the process will be failed saying "Invalid Sim" or "Unsupported Carrier"


Another thing I would like to highlight is, As you were saying you have updated directly from itunes, your phone's baseband will be updated to the latest. And unfortunately THERE IS NO UNLOCK FOR THE LATEST BASEBANDS.


Also, If you don't have cydia SHSH blobs, or TinyUmbrella backups of SHSH blobs, you can't go back to iOS 4.xx. And also, there is no way that you can downgrade your baseband.


If your phone is a locked phone, simply there is NO HOPE you can call on your phone. Ofcourse, once you jailbreak your device using snowbreeze, it can hacktivate it. So you can access to your Home Screen and use all the features except the call/sms features. You can call on your phone only if a hacker could crack the latest baseband. As far as I know, at the moment no hacker is working on it.


If your Phone is factory unlock phone, I can blame to iOS 5 as Michael Reid highlighted.,

Dec 18, 2011 10:57 AM in response to Community User

okay. yes your correct. well the yes the phone was locked to its carrier and i updated it when it was locked. i took the phone to a guy yesterday and somehow he was actually able to get it back to its normal screen(thank God)well he advised me that the phone is not gna be able to be used because i guess the GEVEY TURBO SIM does not support the new version IOS 5.0.1 and advised me that i have to wait for at least two months for the company to release a new Version of GEVEY TURBO SIM to support the IOS 5 is that true?so in this case u said that i have download ultrasnow or the program can i do that since my phone is not working. What happens is that here in Guatemala City we have three companies for phone services which is TIGO,CLARO,MOVISTAR well apparently when i got the phone i was using it with the TURBO SIM with the Microchip (MOVISTAR) then yesterday i put a microchip of (TIGO) "WITHOUT" the GEVEY SIM and realized that that was its original carrier. well no just that i found that the phone was stolen and blocked my sim from using the phone is there anyway i can flash the phone so it can get my movistar sim again like it use to like with ultrasnow or no?????????????or do i gotta wait until the new GEVEY SIM comes out

Dec 19, 2011 11:24 AM in response to Community User

alrite thank you. but are you sure it would be able to spport baseband 4.11.08 ?did you ever here about the "miracle sim by Vold" i mean is that true?well anyways your also saying the ULTRASNOW & SNOWBREEZE doesnt have a progam to unlock 4.11.08 ?well I seened that on youtube you can downgrade the IOS 5 (BASEBAND 4.11.08) to (BASEBAND4.10.01)and somehow SUPPOSABLY that when you downgrade it 4.10.01 that the (GEVEY SIM) would be able to support that base band. O yea another thing is it possible to change IMEI for iphone 4???please let me know i appreciate it and if i get any new updates which ima be working on this week i will let you know GOD BLESS!!!!!!!!!

Iphone 4s No Service Fix

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.