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iOS 14.4 both sims no service/invalid sim

fabian9

fabian9

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 28, 2007
1,148
169
Bristol, UK
This may be a long shot, but is anyone else having issues with their dual sim functionality after upgrading to 14.4?

ive got a physical sim and an eSim, different numbers, same carrier (one professional one, one personal one). Both SIMs were working fine, and then all of the sudden stopped working simultaneously. The physical sim works fine in my wife’s phone, so we have ruled out having a bad sim.

Restoring via my Mac fixed it for about an hour before it stopped working again.

I don’t think it’s a hardware issue as it wouldn’t have worked after the restore in that case.

ive been in touch with apple support who are also none the wiser. Starting to think it may be an issue in 14.4?

I’m on an iPhone 11 by the way.
 
Also recommend what ghostface146 recommended. If you want to try that, don’t wait long. Guessing Apple will stop signing 14.3 fairly quickly since 14.4 contained some noted security updates.
 
Good point, I’ll give that a try in the morning. Hopefully they won’t stop signing it over night!
 
So this morning I set up as new and it was working fine for the physical sim. No joy for the esim.

So I thought maybe rebooting would solve that issue.

Unfortunately following the reboot both sims were again not working again.

I’ve got a repair scheduled with apple now, and will report back what they say. Either way it doesn’t seem to be related to iOS 14.4 as it’s the same issue on .3.
 
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after a few more restores I’m getting a feeling that the eSim is the cause of the issue. Restores don’t seem to remove the eSim, and I don’t have the option to remove it in settings.

apparently “erase all contents and settings” should give me the option to erase or keep the eSim, but I’m not getting that question during the erase all contents and settings process.

so are there any other ways to force erase an eSim?
 
Select the eSim in cellular and remove your plan I think should do it. Probably have to contact your carrier to actually cancel the plan or to reinstall (unless you have the necessary info) it depending on your choice.
 
Just to follow this up in case anyone else gets the same issue.

Phone was in repair with Apple today and has been swapped FOC for a new one as they also couldn’t clear the eSIM from the phone.
 
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fabian9 said:
Just to follow this up in case anyone else gets the same issue.

Phone was in repair with Apple today and has been swapped FOC for a new one as they also couldn’t clear the eSIM from the phone.
Click to expand...
Thanks for providing the solution. I hope that's not a common issue though.
 
Yes, I just had this issue hit today. I am using eSIM without physical on AT&T. I get "sim failure" and "invalid sim". I am unable to remove and try again. Wonder if I should try the 14.5 beta?
 
gibbz said:
Yes, I just had this issue hit today. I am using eSIM without physical on AT&T. I get "sim failure" and "invalid sim". I am unable to remove and try again. Wonder if I should try the 14.5 beta?
Click to expand...

so in my many many restores, I got it to work again briefly by downgrading to 14.3. It didn’t last long though before it failed again...

I think the underlying issue is that once you’ve got the eSIM baked into your phone, and something goes wrong with it, there is no way to clear that bit of memory. The “remove data plan” option only works for as long as the SIM hasn’t gone corrupt.

even your operator can only deactivate your SIM remotely, but that doesn’t mean the phone won’t “think” it’s still there.
 
This happened to me twice. Both times, I was driving around town. I'm thinking that there might be an issue with cell tower handoff? I work from home and I don't actually drive around more that a couple of times a week. My AT&T cell service is very stable when I'm at home. When I lose service ("SIM Failure" error message), things get back to normal after I turn off the phone for a few minutes and turn it back on.

~f
 
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