No SIM Card Installed – iPhone 4 [SOLVED]

Fri, Feb 3, 2012

Symptoms:

• Error popup in center of screen that says “No SIM Card Installed”
• Phone still connects to wireless, but unable to connect to cell data.
• Sometimes switching Airplane Mode on and off will reconnect the phone to the cell towers, sometimes the error will appear again.
• Sometimes the phone will reconnect to cell data after a reboot (or several), sometimes not.
• This can happen as often as once every few minutes, to once per day.  Very annoying!

What didn’t fix it:

• Firmware updates
• Re-seating the SIM card
• Cleaning the SIM card
• Putting tape over the SIM card/tray per wooservers.com article
• Replacement phone

What I noticed:

• My symptoms began after I got a newer refurbished iPhone 4 to replace my old one that had a small crack in thescreen, and was simply showing some wear in general.  At the same time I got a new phone, I also got a new SIM

  card.  I noticed that my old SIM card I used with my old iPhone 4 had a smaller “chip” in it than the newer one I’d been using since this error began occurring:

 

Solution:

Replace the bad SIM card with the correct size.  I had some spare ones at work I was able to procure, however, you’ll likely need to stop by the Verizon/AT&T/Sprint store and have them give you one.

You should be able to simply take the old one out and pop the new one in (use a thumb tack or a pin to open the SIM tray on the side of your phone).  It only fits into the tray one way.  If it fits in the tray, you’re doing it right. 

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