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iPhone 13 Pro Max iPhone 13 Pro Max - eSIM Activation Didn't Work (Verizon Wireless, Purchased From Apple)

K

kingneptune117

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 15, 2014
119
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My iPhone 13 Pro Max was delivered today. I purchased it from Apple, paid in full. I am on Verizon Wireless. Mine didn't come with a physical SIM card, and instead came preloaded with eSIM data. During the initial phone setup it had me activate my number and input my Verizon pin. Everything went through fine. However, I got to the home screen after the setup and noticed that there was no cellular connection. There was seemingly nothing I could do to get it to connect. Finally I just took my physical SIM card out of my iPhone 12 Pro Max and put it in my new iPhone 13 Pro Max. This caused it to list two cellular connections, with the physical SIM being secondary. I deleted the eSIM profile out of the iPhone and now everything seems to be working. After this I had to fix a few settings...my phone number was no longer listed on my iCloud account so I had to add it. On top of that, in the iMessage settings, it had my email address as the primary iMessage account instead of my phone number, so I had to set my phone number as the primary iMessage account.

What did I do wrong? eSIM seems to be the way of the future and I don't want a repeat of this next year. Sorry for the poor explanation of what happened, the whole thing was a mess. Are there any other settings I should be checking to make sure I'm set? Thanks.
 
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Same issue on my end. I did take out the old real sim from 12 Pro Max, that was working....sort of. I could make calls, but no data plan.

NOW doing this via Verizon website, I have what looks like duel eSim cards with no working cell or data. This is a mess.
 
Sorry to hear that. Apple and / or Verizon dropped the ball here. They shouldn't have shipped phones without a physical sim unless the eSIM activation process was flawless. After posting this thread I came across several large threads on here of people having the same issues I had.

Luckily I think I am set using the physical SIM. Phone calls work, SMS texting works, iMessage works, everything seems good.
 
I have been using dual sims since the iPhone 11 with Verizon on the esim and every year it is a mess. While AT&T transferred seamlessly from the physical sim on my 12 pro max to the esim, Verizon did not. I went through the chat function this evening and they got it to work relatively seamlessly. Relatively...

I'd give that a shot. This year they seem to at least have heard of eSims. But why they can't do this seamlessly I do not know... Annoying indeed. Good luck!
 
PhillyGuy72 said:
Same issue on my end. I did take out the old real sim from 12 Pro Max, that was working....sort of. I could make calls, but no data plan.

NOW doing this via Verizon website, I have what looks like duel eSim cards with no working cell or data. This is a mess.
Click to expand...
I received my new phone earlier today but just now had a chance to get setup. Activation on Verizon has been a total failure and my iPhone 12 has no physical sim to insert. To make things worse I have been unable to get in contact with a person from Verizon on the phone And have disconnected 3 times.
 
ATT here. eSIM from unlocked iPhone 12 Pro to eSIM from unlocked 13 Pro Max went super smooth. During restore it recognized that there was eSIM on the old 12 pro and just asked if you would like to switch. Unusual for ATT to be so smooth.
 
kingneptune117 said:
Sorry to hear that. Apple and / or Verizon dropped the ball here. They shouldn't have shipped phones without a physical sim unless the eSIM activation process was flawless. After posting this thread I came across several large threads on here of people having the same issues I had.

Luckily I think I am set using the physical SIM. Phone calls work, SMS texting works, iMessage works, everything seems good.
Click to expand...
They drop the ball every year. Whether it’s a new Apple Watch, or a new iPhone, I always plan to spend at least an hour on the phone or on Twitter getting them to get my service transferred from the old phone to the new phone.
 
Activated my sim free 13 pro earlier, I went to the Verizon site, not the my Verizon app, then account, my devices, activate or switch device, activate an existing line, chose my line, entered my IMEI2 (must use the 2 for the ESim) and was up and running in under 2 minutes.
 
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It didn’t work last year either. And when I called Verizon, they did something on their end and then told me it had worked the whole time and that I must have just had a local outage. Which is really weird because it didn’t work until I called them and worked flawlessly after. And of course my husband’s phone on the same account didn’t have any “local outage” issues.

This time I’m not even going to call right away, I’ll give it a few days to calm down. I don’t want to sit on hold for an hour.
 
If you have eSim then call this VZ number 877-807-4646 from the old device and enter Verizon account pin..Shut down the new phone and when you restart the device, voila its activated.
 
kingneptune117 said:
Sorry to hear that. Apple and / or Verizon dropped the ball here. They shouldn't have shipped phones without a physical sim unless the eSIM activation process was flawless. After posting this thread I came across several large threads on here of people having the same issues I had.

Luckily I think I am set using the physical SIM. Phone calls work, SMS texting works, iMessage works, everything seems good.
Click to expand...
You can't use 5G if you are using the physical SIM card, it will only go up to 4G.
 
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Anyone else find it ironic that a company that once used eSIMs exclusively in the past (the pre-GSM, Qualcomm cdma2000 days) is the one having the most problem with eSIMs this year?
 
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This just happened to me. It kept saying that the call cannot be completed.

I had put the iPhone 12 pro max SIM into the iPhone 13 Pro max... and followed all their instructions... I had the primary and secondary setup completed but the phone did not work...

I pulled out the physical SIM and left it empty... restarted the phone and everything worked fine. I had to let it update my contacts in the phone list to match the SIM/line, but all OK now...

Verizon needs to make this work better, and explain what to do and the consequences!
 
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Demiles said:
I received my new phone earlier today but just now had a chance to get setup. Activation on Verizon has been a total failure and my iPhone 12 has no physical sim to insert. To make things worse I have been unable to get in contact with a person from Verizon on the phone And have disconnected 3 times.
Click to expand...
It was just not possible to get anyone on Verizon via phone. I could have scheduled them to call me back, but my first option was yesterday (SAT. morning) at 10am. Sorry, I have things to do, I'll try to figure this mess out myself.

I did go into my Verizon acct. and try to activate it from there though iPhone app. Somehow I got a "Dual Sim" icon showing with Phone which did work AND data..again, that did not work..Finally 1 min later, both showed "no service" No idea!

I tried once again using the old iPhone12 sim card, inserted, (Now showing eSim and physical card) then it was a bit of a puzzle or "disabling" 3 options showing on my settings.

Whatever I did, I finally got this working fully One line of "cell bars" Data working on 5G also. I checked my acct. to see if I may have somehow activated 2 lines..which wouldn't make sense (then again this activation for me didn't make sense). I'm ok it appears, the old sim finally reads on this new phone.

As for this "$35 upgrade fee" Verizon wanted to slap on me, this doesn't appear to show right now. BUT if that does on my next bill...trust me, the fee will be removed! Verizon did zilch to make this easy.
 
kingneptune117 said:
My iPhone 13 Pro Max was delivered today. I purchased it from Apple, paid in full. I am on Verizon Wireless. Mine didn't come with a physical SIM card, and instead came preloaded with eSIM data. During the initial phone setup it had me activate my number and input my Verizon pin. Everything went through fine. However, I got to the home screen after the setup and noticed that there was no cellular connection. There was seemingly nothing I could do to get it to connect. Finally I just took my physical SIM card out of my iPhone 12 Pro Max and put it in my new iPhone 13 Pro Max. This caused it to list two cellular connections, with the physical SIM being secondary. I deleted the eSIM profile out of the iPhone and now everything seems to be working. After this I had to fix a few settings...my phone number was no longer listed on my iCloud account so I had to add it. On top of that, in the iMessage settings, it had my email address as the primary iMessage account instead of my phone number, so I had to set my phone number as the primary iMessage account.

What did I do wrong? eSIM seems to be the way of the future and I don't want a repeat of this next year. Sorry for the poor explanation of what happened, the whole thing was a mess. Are there any other settings I should be checking to make sure I'm set? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Same thing happened for me with TMobile. I did the same things as you to get it working.
 
So I got the iPhone 13 Pro for myself and my wife. We are on Verizon. I get mine through the Apple upgrade program and I get hers through Verizon. When I activated her phone, I had to call a number and do it through Verizons automated system. Took about a minute. For my phone, it activated during the initial setup without me having to call. I did not have to install a SIM card in either phone and both have fully functioning 5G. I did nothing special to get it to work. So after reading these issues, I'm not sure if I should have a physical sim installed or not since I'm not having any issues.
 
kingneptune117 said:
My iPhone 13 Pro Max was delivered today. I purchased it from Apple, paid in full. I am on Verizon Wireless. Mine didn't come with a physical SIM card, and instead came preloaded with eSIM data. During the initial phone setup it had me activate my number and input my Verizon pin. Everything went through fine. However, I got to the home screen after the setup and noticed that there was no cellular connection. There was seemingly nothing I could do to get it to connect. Finally I just took my physical SIM card out of my iPhone 12 Pro Max and put it in my new iPhone 13 Pro Max. This caused it to list two cellular connections, with the physical SIM being secondary. I deleted the eSIM profile out of the iPhone and now everything seems to be working. After this I had to fix a few settings...my phone number was no longer listed on my iCloud account so I had to add it. On top of that, in the iMessage settings, it had my email address as the primary iMessage account instead of my phone number, so I had to set my phone number as the primary iMessage account.

What did I do wrong? eSIM seems to be the way of the future and I don't want a repeat of this next year. Sorry for the poor explanation of what happened, the whole thing was a mess. Are there any other settings I should be checking to make sure I'm set? Thanks.
Click to expand...
eSIM activations can take several minutes. You just have to wait. Perhaps restart the phone after 5 mins. Make sure you are connected to WiFi.
 
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