IPhone 6 IOS 9.2.1 No Service - regularly iPhone shows "No Service" even though usage is in high signal area. Must reboot to get back service. Is this a known issue? Any fix?

UPDATE!

So I spent two days with my replacement iPhone under iOS 9.2.0. I had service everywhere that was expected, so I decided to update to 9.2.1. That was two days ago and it seems to be working fine. It appears that in my particular case that the hardware was the problem and not the software. I should note that I have AT&T and that my carrier software was at version 23.1 for both the defective phone and my current phone. Even if you are out of warranty I would recommend going to the Apple Store as they replaced mine without a hassle.

To be honest, I was hoping the phone would not work under 9.2.1 so I could go back to the store and show them. Oh well.

This is clearly an iOS 9.2 issue. Multiple sim cards and restoring the phone won't fix this. Anyone with this issue on ios 9.2, download ios 9.3 beta 2 and try the fix. I skipped 9.2 entirely and went from 9.1 to 9.3 from seeing this issue so many times.

So download the beta ios 9.3 beta 2 to see if we can fix this software issue.

Get back with me.

THANK YOU

I updated my IPhone 6 from 9.1 to 9.2.1 and it immediately started getting stuck in "searching" or it would switch to "no service". I did all of the suggestions in this post and many other posts about this problem. Resets would only fix it for a couple of hours. I took my sim card out and put it in a 5s phone and it worked fine. I registered to use 9.3 and installed it and it did not resolve the problem. Apple will not allow you to go back to 9.1 (thanks a lot). The phone eventually got stuck in "searching" and no resets of any kind would fix it. I took it to the Verizon store and they replaced the sim card and reset the phone and it still was stuck in searching mode. My phone was outside of warranty and there is no way Apple will ever get another dime from me. Problem solved, I traded my IPhone 6 in and bought a Droid Turbo 2. I've been an iPhone user since the original. I also have owned most of the ipods since the original version. I've had too many problems with all of your products and this one was the final problem for me. My 750$ iphone turned into a brick due to a SW update.

my final (?) update on this. i spoke to Airtel (the telephone carrier here) backend support guys - and since they were facing a lot of complaints - they apparently did some "Server" reset. At the same time, bcos of the frustration caused by the phone not working, since factory reset was mentioned as one of the ways to solve the problem, i went ahead and did the same as well. now i find that the no service and / or searching problem is solved. while i didnt probe into what exactly the telecom carrier people had done - he mentioned that people who had chosen either 4g or 3g as an option for cellular data were facing this problem. this was apparently true whether or not one was actually using data. which means if you had disabled cell data but had chosen 4g or 3g before disabling cell data - then this problem would be there. so he was mentioning that one potential way would be to dial down the cell data to 2g, save the option (exit the screen) and then do a hard reboot (hold power and home button). this was apparently working for a lot of folks. this also meant that cell data speed was limited to 2g - but hey the phone wasnt a brick! here is hoping i dont have to come back and post to this forum!! BTW if anyone is interested in finding out what the telecom carrier guys did - i can try to find out... post here and let me know

Good luck with that. A Hard reset worked on my phone too but only for a few hours. It doesn't fix the problem for good. Also, how does one "dial down" the cell data to 2g? Can't wait to here where one finds this "dial down" setting. Iphone 6 for Verizon only has either enable LTE 4G or disable LTE which puts my phone in 3G.

In Settings - Mobile Data, the topmost option is "Mobile Data". If you have that disabled, the next option is "Voice". But if you have "Mobile Data" enabled, the next option becomes "Voice & Data". It's that second setting which controls what speed you use for mobile data and voice - 4G, 3G, 2G etc. If you want to set that for both mobile and voice, I believe you have to first enable the "Mobile Data" option.

Hope this helps 🙂

Sorry but your information is not correct. There is no "mobile data" setting in any options menu. Not in a verizon iphone 6 anyway. There's no way to select 2g vs 3g, etc. Please quit posting unhelpful information for this problem.

If you don't have the option in your version of iOS, there isn't much I can do to help you. But please do consider your words when you ask somebody who's trying to help you to stop posting "unhelpful" information - just because the information doesn't help you doesn't mean that it isn't useful to somebody else. The option is there on my phone since I verified the information before I posted it.

For your particular situation, you might want to find somebody who has a Verizon iPhone and who can help you since those of us with non-Verizon phones appear to have different settings (see image).

That looks nothing like the settings in the 9.2.1 ios that was in my iPhone 6. It only has Cellular data on off toggle and an Enable LTE toggle. Regardless, toggling 3g data on and off wont fix this problem. Verizon did a hard reset on my phone with a new sim card and it still didn't work. My problem is fixed, no more iphone.

Again, the fact that it doesn't work for you does not mean that it doesn't work period. Switching to 3G fixed the issue for me. And if your issue is fixed because you don't have an iPhone any longer, why do you keep posting here anyway? It's no longer your issue, right?

I'm just posting because your information is incorrect and its misleading others . What ios is your screen shot from? Its not 9.2.1 so your suggestions don't apply. I don't see anyone else confirming that your suggestions are fixing this issue. Turning off 4g and switching to 3g isn't really fixing the problem anyway. If I pay for 4g I expect to be able to use it. OK I'm all done with this subject. Good luck to everyone.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Droid

Good afternoon,

I've posted on this problem before but there is a dire need of clarification.

I live in France and I have a 4S that works fine with 2G and 3G when using the previous OS 9dot whatever.

I upgraded to 9.2.1 about 10 ays ago and started getting no signals. Flipping phone was searching for a nework all the time.

I immediately went from 3G to 2G ( Settings, Mobile Data, and turned off "enable 3G") and that fixed the problem. I have had no issues since then

even though occasionally I use 3G (but not for long). Going 2G settled the whole shebang for me and I see Farouk has had the same success by doing the same. My service provider is Orange (ex France Telecom) and they have excellent nationwide coverage.

I'm not going to buy a 6 or 6s but not because of this silly signal problem. It's because all I need is a phone that works without all the bells and whistles. I know it's exasperating when you've signed up for 4G and you're not getting the service, but going down to 2G will fix it. Service in 2G does not affect the quality of the phone call. What I do not know is whether you can do this on a 6 or a 6S. Or maybe it dépends on the carrier. I can't say.

So try. I sincerely hope it works.

Cheers

Kevin

Hi,

Im using 6s plus. Update to 9.21 bout 1-2 weeks ago. But since update, never restart my phone until last 2 days ago when my phone hanged. Restart the phone and this No Service start to appear. Did all those steps including reset network, reset phone etc. Nothing happen. Havent try to update to 9.3 beta or factory reset yet.

Yup, change to 2G can help. I can use the phone, to call, to receive phone call, send sms etc. More stable. BUT... no point of paying hundred dollars (or in my case thousands ringgit) if I can only use 2G on the fastest iphone! I hope 9.3 can solve this asap.

Someone had a question on whether we could enable 3g, 2g etc on 9.2.1. Yes, we can do that - I have 9.2.1 and I can do that.

However, no matter what settings change you do - it DOES NOT solve the problem for many people, like me.

But some guys say changing to 3G/2G etc 'solved' their problem. So here is what I think:

Migrating to iOS 9.2.1 results in poor reception of signals. There are two things I noticed.

1. Overall signal reception is consistently lower compared to android

2. Signal reception fluctuates very badly - from best to worst or no signal.

You check the actual signal strength in dB
(you can do that in iphone by dialing a number - *3001#12345#* in iphone and available in SIM status settings in android). When I tested in a low reception geographic area, iphone signal reception is consistently low compared to droid (to the extent that you cannot make calls, ie higher negative numbers of 100 like -101, 103 etc) while android phone is within -90 range (where you can make calls comfortably with no call drops).

If your area have stronger signal when switched to either 3G or 2g, you are lucky because overall signal strength at your area for that service ( 4g/3g/2g of your service provider) is high and even though iphone results in poorer signal reception, your phone still works.

So there definitely is a problem with the OS update. The fact that it is affecting only a certain set of people is prompting me to think of the below possibilities:

1. Issue happens because of a combination of hardware and software - it is affecting those with defective hardware

2. Majority of existing customers of iphone 6 are on factory settings - might not have updated their OS.

I just hope that it is really the second possibility - so that Apple wakes up and provide a fix in 9.3 production ( I heard in this thread that 9.3 beta does not solve the problem) .

As somebody who had dropping to 3G work for fixing this issue, I would like t add a few observations:

1. The issues started for me when I updated to iOS 9.2.1 - since I'd been happily using 4G before that, I'm hoping that that means that iOS 9.2.1 is the issue and not that iOS 9.2.1 is highlighting some hardware issue. (The phone is fairly new but I don't relish going to Apple to get hardware replaced ...)

2. The issue would not go away at my then location (in Asia) no matter what I did. I tried rebooting, updating to iOS 9.3 beta (and then downgrading again to iOS 9.2.1) etc. I did originally do an OTA update for iOS 9.2.1. I did try a full update later for iOS 9.2.1 but that didn't' help either. Neither did multiple reboots.

3. I moved to Europe a couple of days ago and thought I'd try switching back to 4G to see if the issue was still there (in case it was related to network type or something). The original switch resulted in the same network loss / signal strength issues that I'd seen back in Asia. But once I rebooted the device, things started working correctly on 4G!

So I don't know what to make of this all but my suspicion is that the issue might be related to either network type or as sunilva said, signal strength.