Six weeks ago, I wrote about a problem that I was having with my iPhone 4. Every once in a while I was getting a “No SIM card installed” message. At the time, I reported that removing and replacing the SIM card seemed to be a fix, and I said that I would update after a while to say how things were going.
Unfortunately, that “fix” didn’t do much good after all. I continued to get the error message every once in a while. Turning on airplane mode and then turning it off again was a quick way to get my signal back, but that was still a pain to have to do. And then in late July I got the dreaded “No SIM card installed” message while I was IN THE MIDDLE OF A PHONE CALL. The call dropped, and I thought that maybe I just lost a 3G signal — something that doesn’t happen to me very often, but at the time I was in another city and wasn’t paying attention to the strength of the 3G signal in that area. But then I looked at the iPhone and saw the dreaded No SIM message. Arggh! So on Friday, July 30, I visited my local AT&T store and was told that the best fix was to replace the SIM card, which the salesperson did quickly. All was good for about a week, but then the problem happened again, and continued to happen every once in a while after that. Sometimes I would go a week before seeing the message again, sometimes I would see the message twice in one day.
So I finally made an appointment at my local Apple Store this past Saturday. I was worried when I arrived because the store was packed with people. (Back to school purchases?) I was told when I checked in that the wait would be over 30 minutes, but fortunately within 2 minutes my name was at the top of the list. I suppose the long wait was for people who hadn’t made an appointment before arriving. As soon as I mentioned what was happening, the helpful employee asked if I had backed up my iPhone 4 before I went to the store (I had) and then within a few minutes he swapped out my phone for a new iPhone 4.
I suspect that this was just a construction defect with my particular iPhone, not a flaw in the iPhone 4 series, so Apple is just guessing that another unit won’t have the same flaw. Indeed, as I noted in my prior post, others have experienced this problem with prior models of the iPhone.
So now I have a shiny new iPhone 4 (although frankly the other one looked pretty shiny and new) and my fingers are crossed that I won’t see this problem again. I’ll update this post in the future to let you know.
[UPDATE 1/11/11: It has now been several months and the problem has not come back. Apparently, getting a new iPhone was the solution. I’m glad that I live in a city with an Apple Store, which made that very easy to do.]
Thanks for this tip. I used “network reset” to get my iPhone 3g working again.
Dave
Just upgraded to the 4 Saturday. Had the no sim error 8hrs later. Tried all the online solutions, still a brick. Went back this morning and AT&T replaced the sim, well that last 2hrs. Went back and they put me on the phone with tech support. Techs told me to put the phone in recovery mode and restore it. Yep, that lasted 5hrs. Did it again, recovery didn’t work this time. Try getting tech support Sunday night, not! Guess I’ll have to call in the morning.
There should be reprecussions for knowingly selling a defective product. Isn’t that fraud? If there’s a bad lot, pull them from inventory at least.
I want to thank you for such a great follow up. I currently am having the same problem with my 5. I might as well back it up and head for the apple store. Thanks again. Excellent work. I would hire you.