Q: iPhone 4 Message:SIM Required (in phone that has no SIM card slot)

Dofnup,  can u share with us what exactly did they do for you?  I called in apple care last night and luckily got a very friendly and nice rep.  she said she will work on it and call me back this morning.  I was just wondering if you actually need to also something on Verizon's side as well.  My iphone 4 currently is not activate with verizon and I am not planning  on doing so either, since this phone will be use by mybdaughter as iPod.  Thanks

Well, the thing is, I didn't end up being the person on the phone who got results. The rep that my friend got instantly understood the basic concept of "this phone doesn't have a SIM card tray" and escalated to an Engineer. I would suggest flat out asking the rep you get to please escalate the ticket to a Senior
Engineer, and explain that this has been the only way to resolve the issue in the past. Hopefully they comply, but if they don't, hang up and call again so you get a different rep, until you get one that is competent.

ETA: Sorry, forgot to mention: Verizon didn't have to do anything, it was all on Apple's end.

i think I am already with senior engineer.  I just want to verify to see if the 'fixed' phones need to be  activated with verizon....!!??   Thanks

Well I called apple care and they wnt talk with me unless I pay them $30....and I'm not going to do that when its a problem they are reonsible for.  I'm pretty disappointed with them

I was able to get help by using the chat feature. It stated I was past the technical support warranty, however I requested an exception and stated it was an 8.x.x update. They were pretty helpful after that. My reference number was 74*****02, if that helps.

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FWIW, I got my friend's reference number: 74*****76 

Best of luck to all of you

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Congratulations, rosindabow!  Really glad to hear your phone is working.

I was hopeful that my Apple Store visit on Monday would settle everything, but my phone still has not "recovered."  Scheduling an appointment now for the weekend to try, try again.

To folks being told this will cost $30 -- the Apple reps have waived this each time, so hopefully this will not be an issue.

rosindabow wrote:

 

There was never a mention of a $30 fee

 

Apple charges $29 for telephone support once your 90 day new phone coverage has expired, unless you add AppleCare, which extends the period to 2 years. The will waive the fee for account security issues, update problems and issues that they agree are on the Apple end.

My Iphone is fixed too   I called Apple Care last night and the tech support escalated my problem to senior tech.  My rep was very helpful and knew exactly what she needed to do.  She submitted my MEID to engineer so they could update the profile, but maybe too many people called about this issue, my phone didn't get fix until an hour or so ago.   Anyway, I didn't have to do anything on my end (reset or restore).  SIM REQUIRED just simply disappeared and I could continue with the setup.  By the way, they didn't charge me anything for this.  They never even ask me to pay for it. 

It seems that there are several of us that are having this issue. We only have one here that is having this issue but that is enough. The phone (iPhone 4) was fine. The only thing that was being changed was owners; which means that iCloud, email addresses, and app info changed. There was nothing done that would have caused this. My son loves this phone. He is on his fourth iphone 4 and absolutely refuses to get another one. We are running out of iphones and should no one find a fix for this problem, then this may definitely turn into quite the crisis for us and a goldmine for whichever billion dollar corporation is responsible. My thoughts are the one that is causing is trying to rid the world of what they consider antiquated and the thoughts of their consumers carry no merit. Perhaps those of us that have been loyal customers might should consider switching up. If enough of us took a stand, then perhaps our voices wouldn't have to be a scream next time something like this happened.

Read the last few messages above yours. They describe the solution. The problem is a data error in Apple's activation server. You need to call Apple and escalate the problem to a senior tech level. If they try to charge you tell them it is an update problem. Resolving this should be free.

Hello - I too am having this problem (currently on hold with Apple support) and am posting the highlights I found in the thread, in case any future readers jump right to the end. Thanks to those helpful folks who posted the info that I am quoting here:

"Apparently, the Apple rep believes the issue came when Verizon pushed out it's new policy to unlock the iPhones. The glitch comes from the fact that their iPhone 4's never came with SIM trays and thus were never meant to be unlocked, so they get an unlock order and now they believe they are GSM phones."

"He looked through his information and found something about an unlock policy that was last pushed through Verizon and believed this to be the issue being as how the Verizon iPhone 4 was specifically built to never be unlocked so from what I gathered, some kind of mass update to unlock phones was pushed and phones without that capability were just wrapped up into the mix and so now you have a strictly CDMA phone thinking it's a GSM phone."

"I should also note that this issue occurs when the phone is validated by Apple's servers for activation. My guess is that something about their server is recognizing this specific model as a GSM phone."

" According to Alvin, the issue occurs when a CDMA iPhone 4 is set to be unlocked. Recall that Verizon reached an agreement during a spectrum auction a few years ago to leave their phones unlocked for world-band use as a condition of getting more LTE spectrum.  According to Alvin, occasionally an iPhone 4 gets registered in "the system" (not sure if this is Apple or VZ system) as being in an unlocked state.

Of course, a CDMA iPhone can't be "unlocked" -- locked/unlocked only applies to GSM phones. As a result, when you try to go through phone setup, the phone's software awaits a SIM card, which it doesn't have.  (That is to say, because the network database has a certain flag for unlock status, the phone believes it is GSM and the software's logic looks for a SIM card.)"

UPDATE:    Just got off the phone with super-friendly Apple guy.   I provided him with the first case on the list (74*****16) and he was grateful that I provided a case with the issue already solved.  He said that doesn't usually happen.    He also said that he'd been hearing a lot about this issue today (Thursday, February 5, 2015).

He said a restore will fix it.   I guess they've updated the software now and that should do it.   Currently in the process of restoring the phone. Fingers crossed. Thanks again for posting all this helpful info, everyone.

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UPDATE to my previous post -- sorry, I spoke too soon and too optimistically.  It turns out that even describing the problem and giving the case numbers isn't in itself enough to get the message across.    I realize they tried to tell me to just do a restore, a DFU or whatever, the same useless things that they told everyone else to do.  I had to call back and try to explain that it needs more than just the restore, the DFU...  It took a long time.  These seem to be the key words that made an impression:

• it needs to have the "unlock flag flipped"
• they need to "update the activation policy"
• it needs to have the "activate" message sent to the phone

I think the best summary that got it across to them is from Genius Alvin, quoted again:

" According to Alvin, the issue occurs when a CDMA iPhone 4 is set to be unlocked. Recall that Verizon reached an agreement during a spectrum auction a few years ago to leave their phones unlocked for world-band use as a condition of getting more LTE spectrum.  According to Alvin, occasionally an iPhone 4 gets registered in "the system" (not sure if this is Apple or VZ system) as being in an unlocked state.

Of course, a CDMA iPhone can't be "unlocked" -- locked/unlocked only applies to GSM phones. As a result, when you try to go through phone setup, the phone's software awaits a SIM card, which it doesn't have.  (That is to say, because the network database has a certain flag for unlock status, the phone believes it is GSM and the software's logic looks for a SIM card.)"

Basically, my interpretation:  the phone's activation policy currently thinks it is unlocked which is impossible [because a CDMA iPhone 4 with no SIM tray and no SIM card can't be "unlocked."  ]

So they need to "update the activation policy" so that the phone is not "unlocked.”  They still needed to have me explain the situation repeatedly.

Now I am off the phone finally and they said to wait 24-48 hours for a call back once they fixed it.   For what it's worth, my case number is 74*******83.  Fingers crossed...

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