Hi all
I'm having an issue with my iPhone 6 where it refuses to find the network. I've been using this phone for about 2.5 years without issues, but on Tuesday, 25 Aug 2020, I noticed at some point through the morning that it was showing "Searching" in the top left where it normally shows the network. My wife sitting in the same room had full signal (iPhone 11, also Vodacom, same account). I could still receive calls though WiFi calling, but critically USSD didn't work and this means that I couldn't access my business's internet banking.
Over the next few days, I tried the following (more or less in chronological order, but with some overlap where there were multiple attempts):
- Restarted the phone in various different ways and multiple times (none of this made any difference).
- Toggling airplane mode. (no difference)
- Taking the SIM out and testing it in another phone (this worked, so the problem doesn't seem to be with the SIM).
- Resetting network settings on my phone (no change).
- Calling Vodacom (they checked various things on the account and reset some things - I can't remember all the details, but none of this made any difference). They also verified the carrier settings and all of this seemed to be correct. They also asked me to manually select the network, but in the settings on my phone this option wasn't available.
- Visiting a Vodacom4U shop. They did all of the above again (save for calling Vodacom, though they did similar checks)
- Resetting the phone entirely (erase everything and start over). This process failed and then hit a roadblock when setting up the phone as it repeatedly failed to activate. Basically the symptoms were as described in this article, but the resolutions mentioned in the article did not work: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201407
- Went through Apple chat support to try and resolve the activation issue (they could not).
- Finally (on Friday, 28 Aug 2020), had a tech support appointment at iStore. The bloke at the iStore said that this was a Vodacom issue and he's had a few of them in the last few days. He then put a Telkom SIM card in the phone and it found the network almost immediately, and then he put my Vodacom SIM back and the issue was resolved. I'm not 100% sure if he did anything else to get past the activation problem (he did connect the phone with a charge cable to his laptop and did something, but what exactly and whether it entailed any changes that impacted the phone I'm not sure), but he said switching to another network's SIM and then switching back should resolve the "Searching" issue.
The phone was then fine for about 36 hours and then it started with the same nonsense all over again. Currently showing "Searching". Wifi works, but USSD and SMS don't. When I enable Wifi calling I can make calls, otherwise not. I don't have a different network SIM readily available to test and honestly don't want to do a SIM swap every couple of days, so would really like to find a more permanent solution. I did swap SIMs with my wife to test, her SIM worked in my phone and my SIM worked in her phone, so it seems that neither the phone nor the SIM is the problem, but the combination doesn't work. If all else fails, I'll just have to upgrade to her phone, although she is already treating the SIM-swap test with some suspicion, so I may not be able to get away with it.
Any ideas?
I'm having an issue with my iPhone 6 where it refuses to find the network. I've been using this phone for about 2.5 years without issues, but on Tuesday, 25 Aug 2020, I noticed at some point through the morning that it was showing "Searching" in the top left where it normally shows the network. My wife sitting in the same room had full signal (iPhone 11, also Vodacom, same account). I could still receive calls though WiFi calling, but critically USSD didn't work and this means that I couldn't access my business's internet banking.
Over the next few days, I tried the following (more or less in chronological order, but with some overlap where there were multiple attempts):
- Restarted the phone in various different ways and multiple times (none of this made any difference).
- Toggling airplane mode. (no difference)
- Taking the SIM out and testing it in another phone (this worked, so the problem doesn't seem to be with the SIM).
- Resetting network settings on my phone (no change).
- Calling Vodacom (they checked various things on the account and reset some things - I can't remember all the details, but none of this made any difference). They also verified the carrier settings and all of this seemed to be correct. They also asked me to manually select the network, but in the settings on my phone this option wasn't available.
- Visiting a Vodacom4U shop. They did all of the above again (save for calling Vodacom, though they did similar checks)
- Resetting the phone entirely (erase everything and start over). This process failed and then hit a roadblock when setting up the phone as it repeatedly failed to activate. Basically the symptoms were as described in this article, but the resolutions mentioned in the article did not work: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201407
- Went through Apple chat support to try and resolve the activation issue (they could not).
- Finally (on Friday, 28 Aug 2020), had a tech support appointment at iStore. The bloke at the iStore said that this was a Vodacom issue and he's had a few of them in the last few days. He then put a Telkom SIM card in the phone and it found the network almost immediately, and then he put my Vodacom SIM back and the issue was resolved. I'm not 100% sure if he did anything else to get past the activation problem (he did connect the phone with a charge cable to his laptop and did something, but what exactly and whether it entailed any changes that impacted the phone I'm not sure), but he said switching to another network's SIM and then switching back should resolve the "Searching" issue.
The phone was then fine for about 36 hours and then it started with the same nonsense all over again. Currently showing "Searching". Wifi works, but USSD and SMS don't. When I enable Wifi calling I can make calls, otherwise not. I don't have a different network SIM readily available to test and honestly don't want to do a SIM swap every couple of days, so would really like to find a more permanent solution. I did swap SIMs with my wife to test, her SIM worked in my phone and my SIM worked in her phone, so it seems that neither the phone nor the SIM is the problem, but the combination doesn't work. If all else fails, I'll just have to upgrade to her phone, although she is already treating the SIM-swap test with some suspicion, so I may not be able to get away with it.
Any ideas?
