iPhone 5 'Welcome Screen Error'

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Level 1

11 points

iPhone 5 'Welcome Screen Error'

Hi!

I bought my iPhone 5 in october and it has been working great, 10 days ago I had to send the iPhone in for repair (Official Apple Care)

(The problem was the sleep/wake button was not responsive, and the display made a funny crackling sound but was not cracked nor damaged by me)

I got the iPhone back a couple of days later, it was clearly a new model.

I connected my carriers sim card (The carrier is called OneCall, which is NOT supported by apple atm) so in the welcome screen of iOS 6 I got this error:
'Only Compatible SIM cards from a supported carrier may be used to activate iPhone. Please insert the SIM card that came with your iPhone or visit a supported carrier's store to receive a replacement SIM card'

So, the first thing I did then was lend my friends Nano sim, (Which is Netcom and they are supported by Apple in Norway, which Apple has confirmed)

I still got the same error.

I called Apple Care (I live in norway, but I had to call Sweden) We spent 2-3 Hours on the Phone trying to fix this problem, They said at first that this iPhone is registered in Poland, After some changes it was now in Norway. But the problem was still there. They escalated the case and sent me overseas to Ireland, after some hours of trying to fix the problem (With restoring the iPhone in iTunes multiple times, including creating new users and all) The problem was still not fixed.

The case got escalated once more to the Engineering team for Apple. One day later the problem should have been Solved, but No. The kind Apple care person from Ireland was off on saturday so I got switched over to a kind lady in the USA. We spent another 2 Hours on the phone trying to solve this problem. At the end of the conversation the Apple care person noticed that the IMEI number was wrong in their system, The IMEI number that had the number 87(ending) on my iPhone and on a piece of paper I got from Apple care (back from repair) has 39(ending) She Said she would talk to the Apple engineering team again and fix this problem by saturday, or at least I would get a call on saturday from her. I heard nothing, I've also sent her a mail, but I haven't gotten a respons yet.

I'm writing this in hope that someone here has been in this situation before and knows what to do, since Apple care said this is a very special problem which they have never seen before. I have been without my iPhone for 14 days now, this is starting to get really annoying, and it seems like I am just as far as a started with solving this problem.

Additional informasjon:

iPhone 5

I live in Norway (Scandinavia/Europe), so we have NO Apple retail stores (with a retail store this would have been so much easier)

I bought the iPhone from Apple.no (Apple's Norwegian website)

I have tried restoring (and updating) the iPhone in iTunes with an old and new user on the computer

I have a 100% supported AND active SIM card (Netcom - I also have an inactive SIM card from netcom that I have tried)

Please, Any suggestions would be much, much appreciated

PC/Mac, Windows 7, I use a Windows 7 Computer and a Macbook Pro

Posted on Jan 28, 2013 5:42 AM

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Answer 1

Flornes Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 29, 2013 1:15 AM in response to Flornes

I also tried updating to 6.1 today, still same problem (Restore and update via iTunes)

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Answer 2

Feb 5, 2013 11:20 PM in response to Flornes

Any news on your situation?

Just to relate, I have had (last year) and am now currently having the same problem as yourself. Only my issue started with an attempt to update the iOS in iTunes. I was on 5.1.1 and updating to 6.1, everything was going fine and then bam:

"SIM Not Valid" "Only compatible SIM cards from a supported carrier may be used to activate iPhone. Please insert the SIM card that came with your iPhone or visit a supported carrier’s store to receive a replacement SIM card".

Last year after AT&T put three different SIM cards in and all failing they sent me to the Apple store saying it was a hardware problem. Apple just swapped out the phone after putting my SIM into a different 4S, and on my way. But this time I don't think my iPhone is under warranty even though AT&T says it is. I'll be going in the AM to try and sort it out. Hope you've had better luck🙂

If by some strange reason you found a solution please please advise? Thanks

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Answer 3

Flornes Author

Level 1

11 points

Feb 5, 2013 11:31 PM in response to downtownbarber

Hi!

I did manage to fix the problem, after 1-2 more hours on the phone the Apple

care employee found out that the IMEI number I got was entiely different than the IMEI number they had in their system, so the Apple care rep once again escalated the case to the engineering team and they changed my IMEI number so that it was correct. This took about 4 more days!

But my iPhone 5 is now finally working!

Another thing, I updated my iPhone 4 to 6.1 yesterday (or I took a restore and update) first thing that happend to me was 'invalid sim' - I tried using a supported sim

card, but it was inactive so it didn't work, but after that I put in my active NOT supported sim, the phone got activated correctly.

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Answer 4

Feb 5, 2013 11:47 PM in response to Flornes

How did they change your IMEI?

This sounds like some type of hardware issue. But the first time I got the message and I clicked on the info icon and my IMEI showed up but the ICCID was blank. Then it showed up after a few tries. Just very odd.

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Answer 5

Flornes Author

Level 1

11 points

Feb 6, 2013 1:13 AM in response to Flornes

"How did they change your IMEI?

This sounds like some type of hardware issue. But the first time I got the message and I clicked on the info icon and my IMEI showed up but the ICCID was blank. Then it showed up after a few tries. Just very odd."

I don't know how they changed it, but it was a problem from their side, so Apple had to change the information they had about the IMEI on my iPhone. (Which only they can do - You will need to call them)

If I'm not mistaken ICCID is the uniq number for your simcard.

(U must be 100% certain that the ICCID number is exactly correct according to your simcard - there should be some tiny numbers on the simcard itself, and check with AT & T if it is the correct number - That was the advice I got from apple, but in my case that was not the problem.

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