Database Users

Not Registered on Network

Hi guys,
I recently picked up a used S4 on Craigslist for cheap because the guy "screwed up" using Odin and flashed something that caused his phone to not register on any networks. I figured, what the hell, it's cheap enough and I might be able to restore it. So far I've restored the Rogers firmware over Odin and tried installing a custom rom/recovery too. I'm still getting this problem unfortunately. The IMEI reported with *#06# and in the status screen does match the sticker on the inside of the phone.
So I'm sure everyone's going to suggest that the phone was stolen and the IMEI has been blacklisted. My provider (Fido/Rogers) apparently doesn't care if the IMEI is blacklisted, they'll let it run anyway. I called up Fido anyway (since I'm a Fido customer) and asked them about the IMEI of this phone and they say they don't have any record of anyone calling in reporting it stolen and they don't have an IMEI database so she didn't have much to say about it.
Does anyone have any other suggestions? I've also flashed just the kernel, and I will flash a modem onto it too. I know my SIM card works, and both my SIM card and the last owners SIM cards don't work. I know the radio works because it picks up the emergency signal fine, and the SIM tray isn't damaged because when I put in my Fido SIM the Fido APN's automatically come up, as well as the lock screen goes from "No SIM inserted" to "unregistered SIM." Could my EFS partition be borked? Wifi works and IMEI shows up correctly.
The buyer said he would take the phone back if I can't fix it, but I want to try a bit more before I give up. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, that would be great. Thanks a lot in advance XDA!
Summary:
-Used S4
-Owner flashed something wrong in Odin
-Gets "Not registered to network" error, unregistered SIM error
-Tried restoring
-Tried new ROM/Recovery
-Carrier says IMEI is fine, also tried directly registering the IMEI to my account
-IMEI is correct in settings/sticker on back of phone
-Wifi/everything else all works

Sounds like it's SIM locked to a different network. Try the the guide here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2285431

MatinatorX said:
Sounds like it's SIM locked to a different network. Try the the guide here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2285431
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My girlfriend has a Bell sim, which when we insert, gives us the "Please enter unlock code" screen.
My sim does not do that. I know this device is for my carrier, but I figure the easiest way to get this going is to just unlock it and see if the problem persists on other networks.
I've tried that unlock tutorial before. The first time I tried it, when I just got the phone from the previous owner, it said "Golden-backup does not exist" so I couldn't do the restore step of that guide. After Odin-flashing everything and starting over, I can't even get into the UMTS menu anymore! I'll try another restore and give it another go though.
Edit: Another problem. I did a restore again using Odin and notices that it never properly wipes the phone. When I finish flashing, my Wifi still autoconnects on first boot, and every few seconds, a process crashes causing the phone to freeze. Has anyone heard of this kind of problem before?

Quick update:
Managed to Odin-flash it to the earliest firmware I could find for the phone without any crashing or freezing problems. Trying to do the network unlock method mentioned online. It does not work, even though I'm following the instructions to a T. Could it be that my EFS partition is borked and that the NV rebuild can't happen, meaning my radio configuration would also be borked?
Edit: Oh and when I booted up my phone for the first time, the phone was actually ON Fido! But within a few seconds, it went back to "Emergency calls only."

Hmm, that is some odd behavior, and definitely not a carrier lock. Shame it's never that simple to fix.
Not quite the same as your issue, but I lost my ability to make and receive calls after flashing a newer modem on an AOSP firmware. Flashing custom kernels, older modems, the latest stock rom and kernel were no help at all. I tried everything I could think of short of groveling. In the end the only way I got everything working again was to flash the original factory firmware my phone shipped with, factory wipe it from stock recovery, then flash it again. If you've already tried that (and I'm guessing you have), consider contacting Samsung regarding warranty. They've been really good to me in the past, even with second-hand phones.
I can confirm that Odin doesn't clean everything out. In my trials I also noticed that flashing via ODIN without a factory reset presented no setup wizard, caused lots of FC's and left some previous files hanging around.

Sounds like a bad sim tray.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using xda premium

make sim fit tighter
graydiggy said:
Sounds like a bad sim tray.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had trouble with my handset after it got run over in the street, making it's otterbox earn it's money. The only bad symptom after that episode was Emergency calls only kept recurring.
I cut a tiny square of transparent scotch tape, avoided touching the sticky side, and placed it squarely on the SIM chip's backside, to make it fit the sim slot more snugly. It sounds like you should try stacking two or three layers on your chip as it sounds to be more loose than mine is.

Hi everybody! Thanks for all the help trying to fix it! It ended up being that the guys the previous owner had unlock it used the debug-menu unlock method and my phone was one of the ones that doesn't accept it. Lots of other people complained about similar problems as me in the free unlock method thread. In the end, I paid for the FastGSM USB Unlock method and it fixed the problem.

OH MY GOSH YOU JUST SAVED ME from buying another phone!! THANKS so much.. I added 3 layers of tape on the back of my sim and it works!!! weird.. cause I have the Dual Sim.. and it was the first sim that would not work. the second sim was fine.. anyways.. THANKS SO MUCH!!

[Q] [q] htc hd2 signal problem

Hi,
I need to know what is with my HTC.
I have the EU version of T-Mobile, Vodafone sim (I was in her shop to change. For new) In another phone runs normally.
So the problem is as follows. I had android 4.0.4 and there ceased to function signal, I put the phone to backup the default Windows Mobile 5.6 with official rom and radio (the latest version). The problem persists. But if I give another card to phone eg. O2, T-Mobile phone works normally. Vodafone card was connected corretly to this time. But not is'nt working.
I tried to choose network manually unfortunately found phone networks - click has been uploaded window "Registration in the network ..." A top searches for signal ... And it makes all the time and after a minute my phone reports that the network is not available. Coverage is here - H, G.
There is no problem in setting mobile network?
Or in ROM, SPL and another?
Thanks for the answer!

does your Vodafone sim work on other phones?
Edit; sorry, you said it did.
Odd that your first one just stopped working.
Which ics rom was it?
which (h)spl was/is installed?
more details please.

[Q] SIM card broke my two phones (can only make calls while just 2g is enabled)

Hi, I recently started having trouble with my gf's phone (Nexus 4 running lollipop 5.0, lte enabled, tmo). It started shortly after I enabled a SIM lock pin on the sim, but not sure if that's the cause or not... The phone started to intermittently drop signal, and would not make calls (it would just appear to be dialing, but you'd hear no ringing and never connect). When I'd restart the phone, I could usually make a call. I tried to fix it by restoring everything the stock image, rechecking the apn, making sure stock radio was installed, etc, but the problem persisted and eventually got to the point that voice calls did not work at all. LTE and data worked to get onto the internet, but once a call was attempted to be made, it'd lose all signal. I discovered eventually that if I switched off lte/4g/3g, and only kept gsm 2g on, I could make a voice call. Next I tried her SIM card in my phone (Note 2 on Android 4.4, t-mobile) and as soon as I put her sim in, my phone started doing the same thing. After switching back to my SIM (that was working just fine, before), now MY phone is stuck with the same problem! (Can only make calls with just 2g enabled). I'm at a total loss. Has anyone experienced anything similar, or do you have possible solutions/ideas on how to fix this?

Flash stock and unroot you'll be fine
Sent from my Nexus 4

arkangel72 said:
Flash stock and unroot you'll be fine
Sent from my Nexus 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I flashed back to stock image a couple of times via wugfresh toolkit, but got the same results each time. I did, however, just fix my note 2 by removing my sim (the one that was previously working), flashing stock via odin (didn't help in recovery), and then replacing the original sim. This leads me to believe that the sim in the n4 is somehow corrupted and once loaded, permanently changes some settings somewhere. (I hope that's the problem, and not the phone). I'll pick up another sim card from tmo tomorrow and try flashing stock again before loading it. Any idea what would cause this? The only thing I did different was set up sim lock on the card, and it seemed to work just fine for a while, till it didn't... Thanks for the help, I'll let you know if the new sim works.

Solved
For anyone who may be having the same problem, here is how I solved it. I picked up a new sim card from t-mobile, flashed a stock rom via toolkit (with the sim card not installed), loaded rom, installed sim, loaded correct apn. Everything works as it should now.

[Q] SIM Card issue

Hi all,
I have a strange issue that I don't know how to fix.
This evening while using my phone I suddenly got SIM card not recognized message. I have tried these things to no avail:
-In "Settings" I can find my networks but my phone won't connect on them
-Powering down, pulling my SIM card out and reinserting it. No change
-Since I'm on CM12 I did factory reset and rolling back on previous versions of Nightly's. Still no change
-Again doing factory reset and installing SlimKat 9.0. No change
-Rolling even more back after another full wipe to SlimKat stable 7.0. Still got "Insert Sim Card"
I have flashed latest modem and bootloader when I migrated from SlimKat to CM12 since I was loosing signal when locking phone and that worked all until this evening.
Can anyone help please?
EDIT:
The model is GT-I9505 jfltexx
Update:
Just installed, again, 2/3G and LTE modems... no change
Inserted SIM card fro my wife... no change

You likely have a hardware issue. But before you go and replace the SIM card slot, revert to a stock ROM and see if that resolves the issue. Start with stock 4.4.2 and see if that works, then roll back to stock 4.2.2 if it doesn't. With luck, rolling back to one of the stock versions will resolve your problem. If it does, then you should be able to migrate back to SlimKat. If it doesn't, it will cost you about $10 USD (€9.41, BAM/KM18.35).
I encountered the same issue, and in my case not only was the SIM tray damaged but I had also lost my SIM unlock. Only by downgrading to 4.2.2 was I able to figure out that the SIM unlock was gone, but it wasn't until I had replaced the SIM card slot that I could do something about it.

"No SIM card detected" & "No service"

Hi all,
I have a problem with my XC, i hope there's someone here who could help me out with this .
I get a SIM card error when i start the phone. After a while (5-10 mins) the error transforms into "No Service" as if the phone now detects the SIM card but has no service whatsoever.
Things i did to my phone prior to this:
- unlocked bootloader
- installed custom recovery
- root
- installed custom ROM
- drm fix
The phone did function properly for a few months actually after these operations without a SIM card error even once. But then i tried to install custom ROMs again (and i'm sure didn't flash ROMs not suited for XC) -actually tried to install "existenz" ROM but i did get a bootloop so i -once again- did the usual procedure with flashtool and flashed a firmware to set everything back to stock as close as possible. That was, when i started to get the SIM card errors. After several restarts (cold and warm) the phone sometimes recognized the SIM card and i could use the phone normally. But this was true only till the next restart, where i got the same SIM errors again.
Things i tried:
- flashed several different firmwares (official) with flashtool (wiping everything) - all the newest firmwares.
- *#*#72786#*#* in dialer to wipe carrier settings
- *#*#4636#*#* in dialer to go into phone settings and changing those settings randomly
- flashed another AOSP based custom ROM instead of stock sony
- wiping and formatting everything between the flashes of course
- cleaning and re-inserting SIM card (which i never took out before anyway)
But unfortunately nothing worked. Phone keeps to not recognizing the SIM card (which is working just fine in another phone). Everything else works just fine on the phone. The IMEI is displaying correct. I'm almost certain that the fault isn't hardware-based (i didn't drop the phone or exposed in water etc.) but software-based. Did i just managed to brick my phone by flashing something related to the modem which i'm not aware of?
I can't find any solutions on google, which help me, which is why i'm posting it here. Sorry for the long post.
Did anyone experience such an error and/or knows what else i could try to fix this? I hope for answers
Thanks in advance!

Anyone?

I've got the same problem.
I didn't unlock the bootloader or anything prior to getting the bug.
I wanted to downgrade to nougat, because aparently it helped someone in the forum below, but I didn't manage to do it.
https:// de.ifixit. com/Antworten/Ansehen/468864/Sim+Card+not+picking+up+mobile+network.+Possible+software+issue+(Oreo)
Did you try nougat, when flashing different firmwares?
Your post makes me question if its worth it, trying to downgrade.

Try to remove sd card if you have one. then restart the phone and see if sim card is recognized.

I had the same problem and I think it was a hardware failure in the end.
I also tried almost all the things you were writing above. In my phone it started slowly. Sometimes the SIM was detected but after some time the connection was lost.
It happened some time after I installed a new battery.
But since there are no original batteries available for the device anymore and the new battery was even worse than the 5 year old original battery, I gave up investigating the SIM issue and don't use the phone any longer.
I bought a new (used) x compact because I still like the size and I saw some development was going on for this device.
In the end I cannot tell whether the SIM was not detected because I broke something while changing the battery or due to age of the phone but I think it was a "normal" failure.
I also read from others that they had the problem and the SIM was working for some time after I switched the battery before it stopped working.
Nevertheless. Good Luck to you. Maybe it is something different on your phone.