SIM Failure and No Service
Phigment
Enthusiast - Level 3

Just trying to see if there's a fix for this.

Several months ago I was having this problem, it went away and now it seems to have surfaced again.  It started this past Saturday and I'm not sure why or, what to do about fixing it.  My phone will sporadically display the message 'SIM Failure' and then where the Verizon logo and signal bars are, 'No Service' is displayed.  If I power down and restart the phone, it does 'Searching' a bit before finally showing he bars and VZN logo.  Sometimes it will maintain that for an hour or so before another SIM Failure message, sometimes, I immediately get the message and have to restart my phone over again.

I didn't think these VZN iPhones had SIM cards, I thought we were CDMA or something like that.  I've had the phone since February so I don't know if this is a device issue or a software issue and I'm trying to figure out if I should try to return it before my 1 year warranty thing is gone.

I'm on 6.0.1 (10A523) version of iOS so I believe I'm current as far as updates to the phone go.

Any help/information/guidance would be greatly appreciated.

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Re: SIM Failure and No Service
sbailey4
Newbie

Interesting.  We were away this weekend and kept getting the extended and Verizon back and forth with 3G or the little circle.  Both my device and my wifes did this and otherwise no issues other than Apples iMessage  outage. My wife's iPhone 4s which is only a couple months old started that same thing as you are describing. "No service" then if i toggle airplane mode would get the "invalid sim" error. Then it would connect to Verizon 3G for a while. Did this several times Sunday while she was using it. My device is on iOS 6.0.1 and hers was still on iOS 6.0 so I was thinking maybe that was the difference. Updated her since we have been home but neither of us have had this issue until this weekend (in apparently low coverage area) with 3 bars of VZW 3g then Extended  back and forth so wont know if that fixed it or not. We usually have 4 or 5 bars most of the time from home and around town. Be interesting to see if we get anymore info here from anyone. Apple forums are full of "No Service" issues but most seem to be GSM device that have sim cards I think.

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Re: SIM Failure and No Service
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

It sounds like both of you have tried some great steps to research what's going on with the SIM errors on your iPhone 4s devices. The Version 6.0.1 (10A523) is the most recent software from Apple. And although you don't use the SIM on the Verizon Wireless CDMA technology here in the United States, the iPhone 4s come with the awesome capability to use a SIM card for global GSM services too. Which is why you're seeing messages about a SIM. You can check out http://bit.ly/zXnl81 to see where the SIM is on your phone and how to remove/reinsert it to try to refresh it's connection to the phone.

There's also a wonderful support article from Apple at http://support.apple.com/kb/ts4148 to help with every step you may need to take to resolve random SIM errors on the 4s. Many times just removing and reinserting the SIM will do the trick, but Apple also includes steps on how to restore your phone to ensure the error messages stop.

Thank you
JenniferH_VZW

Please follow us on Twitter @vzwsupport

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