caseycat0221

Q: Why is my iPhone 4 CDMA asking for a SIM card?

Recently I retired my old iPhone 4 (running iOS 7.1.2) and decided I would give it to my brother to use as a glorified iPod touch. So I connected it to iTunes, set it to restore, and gave it to him, and he connected it to his iTunes. It came up with the usual setup sequence, but came up with the message asking for a SIM card. Being a CDMA model, it doesn't even have a SIM card tray, so I am highly confused, and can find no way around it other than jailbreaking it. Any help is appreciated, I've never had this problem before after restoring it.

iPhone 4, iOS 7.1.2

Posted on Feb 4, 2015 10:22 PM

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Q: Why is my iPhone 4 CDMA asking for a SIM card?

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  • by sberman,

    sberman sberman Feb 4, 2015 10:46 PM in response to caseycat0221
    Level 8 (40,770 points)
    Feb 4, 2015 10:46 PM in response to caseycat0221

    Two suggestions:

     

    1.  Follow the suggestion under "If you don't have another SIM card you can use ..." here:

    How to unlock your iPhone for use with another carrier - Apple Support

     

    2.  Contact your original cellular carrier and ask for guidance.

  • by caseycat0221,

    caseycat0221 caseycat0221 Feb 4, 2015 11:09 PM in response to sberman
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 4, 2015 11:09 PM in response to sberman

    Unfortunately I'm unable to restore the phone from a backup, as every time it's connected to iTunes, the phone and iTunes both come up with the same message about the SIM card. I would try to put it into Recovery Mode, but the lock/unlock button is broke and I cannot power the phone off, so I'm waiting for the battery to run down. If Recovery Mode doesn't work, I'll have no other option but to contact my carrier.

  • by Ethmoid,

    Ethmoid Ethmoid Feb 5, 2015 1:21 AM in response to caseycat0221
    Level 6 (11,282 points)
    Feb 5, 2015 1:21 AM in response to caseycat0221

    There is a post not that much further down the page dealing with and listing exactly the same issue that you have - namely that when the phone is restored, it will keep asking for a sim card to be inserted into the phone and of course a Verizon CDMA iPhone 4 does not have a sim card tray.

     

    The OP on that thread tried contacting Verizon without much luck, but Apple is apparently aware of this fault, so you need to contact Apple support regarding the issue and you need to talk to a senior Apple engineer to fix this issue.

  • by alluring eyes,

    alluring eyes alluring eyes Apr 1, 2015 4:08 PM in response to Ethmoid
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 1, 2015 4:08 PM in response to Ethmoid

    Unfortunately Apple will not speak to you on the phone OR online unless you pay them a $30 fee.  I am having the exact same issue with my phone and tried to contact them both ways and it wouldn't let me proceed unless I paid the fee (which I did not do). They said they don't support older phones for free.

  • by Lawrence Finch,

    Lawrence Finch Lawrence Finch Apr 1, 2015 4:12 PM in response to alluring eyes
    Level 8 (38,236 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 1, 2015 4:12 PM in response to alluring eyes

    This is a problem of Verizon's. They pushed a carrier update to all Verizon phones, including those that do not have SIM slots, to unlock the GSM side of the phone. You need to call Verizon, possibly escalate the problem to tier 2 tech support. Although by now, 2 months later, all Verizon CSRs should know about it.

  • by alluring eyes,

    alluring eyes alluring eyes Apr 1, 2015 4:17 PM in response to Lawrence Finch
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 1, 2015 4:17 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

    But my phone wasn't through Verizon. it was with a smaller company. I did contact the carrier. They said they could unlock it but couldn't help me with this issue.

  • by Lawrence Finch,

    Lawrence Finch Lawrence Finch Apr 1, 2015 5:37 PM in response to alluring eyes
    Level 8 (38,236 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 1, 2015 5:37 PM in response to alluring eyes

    That's the first case of heard of this issue with an MVNO. Call your carrier and explain to them what I posted. The will have to contact Verizon.

  • by alluring eyes,

    alluring eyes alluring eyes Apr 2, 2015 8:24 PM in response to caseycat0221
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 2, 2015 8:24 PM in response to caseycat0221

    I FINALLY got this issue resolved.  I kept getting the message on my phone AND in ITunes.  I got Apple to speak to me without having to pay the fee. The rep told me he has seen this a few times in the past. There is something they have to do on THEIR END in the software to update the older phones so that it stops telling my Iphone 4 to insert a sim card.

     

    But there were still issues.  He said that I had to do the update/restore because the phone was unlocked by the carrier and when it tried to update/restore I got that message. So, when the engineers fixed it for me, the new update RELOCKED my phone.  They tried to unlock it again (the rep said he has never seen them offer to unlock a phone before but since their software was what locked it again they would).  So, when I had to restart again I got the sim card required message yet again. So, another ticket put in by the rep and they tweaked the update, restored, and the sim card message went away but the phone was locked...yet again. This extremely nice rep kept calling me back with updates all day long trying to fix this issue. Anyway, after his last ticket that went into great detail the issue I was having the engineers let him know that the older CDMA phones can NOT be truly unlocked.  Even though it said unlocked on their system and was "unlocked" by the original carrier for me, it was international only (he said most people don't know that).  But, within the US I was still locked to the original carrier and they would never be able to unlock it so that I could get service through another carrier. If they try I will get the "sim card required" message each time.  He said jail breaking wont' fix it either since that is to just unlock features and not carriers. He informed me that newer cdma phones can be unlocked because they use GSM as well as CDMA but older ones will always be locked to the original carrier no matter what they do. So, my older phone is only useful for camera and wifi stuff. It can never be used as a phone unless I go with the original carrier which doesn't even have service in my area.  Wish I had known that before I bought the straight talk activation kit for $70 which is non refundable even though straight talk assured me it would work (I talked to them before I purchased it but they still won't give a refund).