Galaxy S4: Major problem - SIM card not detected

[patches0616]

I had this exact problem plaguing me for a while and I even replaced the micro sd card reader / SIM card tray. That worked for only one day. After closely looking at the motherboard I found the issue. My phone has worked flawlessly ever since.

The adhesive tape on the back of the SIM card holder is not strong enough. It comes ever so slightly loose on the side where the SD CARD is (the left side). I took a thin piece of plastic, thinner than a credit card, cut it to approximately 1/2" x 1" and placed it over the SD CARD tray with the long part in the direction facing the top of the phone. Then I reassembled the phone. This causes the the micro sd card reader / SIM card tray to make constant contact. Fixed!

I'm sure I could take some photos if needed. One is attached.

I hope this helps as this seems to be a common problem with the S4 and it seems like it may be a design defect. It is most definitely NOT a software issue.

 

[mxasf]

For people using cut up guitar picks as a mechanism to apply pressure on the Sim card flex, has anyone noticed some picks work better than others? For example I noticed that a medium "Dunlop Tortex" pick (orange one) seemed to solve the problem but only for a couple days. But a heavy fender pick (thicker) seems to working better at about 4 days.

It sort of seems that thicker is better ...

For me, I am placing the pick inside the disassembled phone directly on the sim flex cable connector.

Happy troubleshooting!

-mxasf

 

[orville666]

I have read plenty on this and have tried all the tricks. I have BTW fixed my phone.
Here is what I have learned. I will try to cross post this to some of the other forums that have helped me. The credit for this fix and the info goes to other peoples efforts.

It appears that a certain lot of S4 phones were more susceptible to this problem. IMEI numbers with the last 6 digits in this range: 000000 - 560000.

Some of the things that I tried were - New SIM card, clearing cache, booting to safe mode (Holding Vol Up and Power) then wiping and resetting to factory. I have upgraded firmware and I have tried previous versions of firmware. I have rooted and un-rooted the phone. I have removed the SIM card and used and eraser to clean the contacts. I have used a shim (piece of business card) behind the SIM to give more pressure on the contacts.
All of these attempted did not fix my problem. They have apparently worked for other people, but not for me in this case.

What did work for me was to take the back off the phone and put a small piece of foam over the spot where the cable connector for the SIM ( and SD card ) board connects to the main board. This information and photo came from another person. He used a piece cut from a foam ear plug.

Let me make one correction, this semi worked for me, it did show improvement but still failed on occasion so I took out the screws of the grey plastic back bezel. ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+S4+Teard...
This will reveal the actual connector. I put the foam there, then replaced the bezel. When it was screwed down it really put support on the connector. The foam I used was a little too thick and made a small bump in the back of the case. It is minor and the phone works now, that is all that matters.

 

[S4Hurricane]

Did this fix work??

 

[koen grizzly]

Just wanted to share my findings.
Since a couple of weeks i was getting very sometimes the "no sim detected, restart phone" problem.
Last week it started happening more, many times a day when i take phone out of pocket a message was displayed to restart phone because no sim.
Today i got back from work and i couldn't get the phone to detect sim anymore.
Restarting like 50 times, battery in-out, stuff something extra in simcard holder, try another sim, throwing phone on the floor (not screen side ) getting almost crazy,.. no luck
I was allready thinking my sim card holder in my almost 2 year old phone had it's best time and maybe it was time for buying a new phone.
But i wasn't gonna give up yet, not without a fight first so i searched google and read this topic.
I cleared cache in my recovery and i disabled the function "smart network switch" (in wifi settings)
Woohoo, after more then 2 hours trying everything my phone Finally found back the sim card and been more then an hour without any problems.
(if it comes back, i'll update this comment)

 

[koen grizzly]

ok, i'm back wich means it's not ok :'(
I had no problems for +12 hours, but all of a sudden the 'no sim inserted' error showed up again and this time i could not make it work again. Did the clear cache + clear dalvik cache, didn't work this time, so i flashed other bootloader, other modem, 3 different roms (4.3, 4.4 & 5.0.1) but no use, no more sim card detected.
But now i come home, 6 hours later and wanted to say i cannot get it to work again and guess what : it all of a sudden finds my simcard again and i didn't even touch the the phone..
I'm out of options, don't know what to try next to keep my phone working and i feel so sad that i cannot trust my phone anymore to work when i need it.

 

[I_am_just_an_inferior_one]

I just uninstalled WHATSAPP. All perfect now.

 

[sensor2005]

Hy Guys,

I am also have this problem with my S4 GT-I9515 Edition. when I click the phone number it says "not registered on network". When I go to setting and clicked "Mobile Network" it says "Insert the SIM to access the network" which means the phone is not recognizing the SIM although it is in place.

I have done hard reset and cashe clean but no use.

Need anyone help to resolve it.

Thanks
Farhan

 

[mxasf]

Just reporting that the chopped up heavy/thick guitar pick seems to be holding up and preventing the error. In two weeks of heavy use, as well as physical activity (running ~5miles a couple times) the error has only happened once. (Roughly at the 7 day point). Continuing to monitor ....

I think this is consistent with other people's experiences jamming other things on top of the flex cable. (Tape etc), that the error comes back just way less frequently.

Previously it would happen once or twice a day, at very inconvenient times (with no warning or cause, just sitting on the table even), which really caused me to hate the phone and want to throw it at the wall...

My current impression is that there may not be a way to *perfectly* fix the problem but rather minimize its occurrence. It is a great phone so I am glad it is still usable for the most part, and really good hardware.

Still interested to hear other people with longer term solutions, and if the error was completely or mostly eliminated ......

Happyish for the time being!

-mxasf

 

[anon(9373517)]

Hi

I've been going through this forum and have tried almost every solution suggested, except to take the phone apart and glue a pick to the motherboard.

Unlike everyone else, mine happened once and never was off and on. The error showed and never left...

Apart from taking the sim in and out and reseting and blowing on it trying combos of taking the sd card in and out, so far I have done the following:
1) Factory reset
2) Hard reset from safe mode
3) Downloaded new firmware (5.0) and did a full factory reflash
4) Completed another factory reflash as I got an error that was talking about some android function not working anymore and would just keep appearing. This error doesn't appear after the reflash, but the sim still not working.
5) Used double sided foam tape and bombed the backside of the foam all over the suggested area and stuck cut up bits of plastic on the foam. At first the wifi button half turned on and looked like I was making progress, then failed

Since installing Lollipop last night I can't even turn wi-fi on. And when I go into network settings it won't let me change anything as it says no sim card.

Anybody got any other suggestions? I'm waiting for the s6 but have been without the s4 for 2 months now, went back to old iphone 4s and hated life so bought a cheap galaxy ace3 a couple of weeks ago and now hating life again. I noticed I can get a new motherboard on-the-line for under $100. Has anyone tried this? Results?

Cheers
Rory

P.S. mine is an international i9505 edition

 

[I_am_just_an_inferior_one]

Uninstalling some apps like Whatsapp, Viber etc. might work. In my case, getting rid of whatsapp worked out perfectly.

 

[anon(9373517)]

Cheers, it's a fresh copy so no apps at all are installed except stock

 

[anon(9373517)]

Update: reflashed the modem, kernell and firmware. Wi-fi now works but sim card still not referencing.....

 

[zenith1966]

i believe this is a samsung f**k up regarding the sim and sd card ribbon moving on the motherboard as the s5 has it permanently fixed on motherboard.
in my experience i have found it to be this as the problem not a software problem as have had a piece of plastic glued on to the ribbon cable attached to motherboard for last 3 weeks so far so good.
i kept the rubber on both the middle section cover you have to take off to get at motherboard and sd/sim card ribbon connector attaching to motherboard connector.
sim message used to come up virtually everytime i took out of my pocket,nearly threw phone against wall it was happening so much.

 

[Ladynred56]

I just wanted to say that this worked -- thank goodness! I purchased an unlocked S4 a few weeks ago and finally, yesterday was ready to finally get it activated. Had to get a replacement SIM (the one from my old phone would not fit this one) and the guy at the AT&T store put in the new SIM, activated it etc. I figured I was good to go. A couple of hours later, I find the S4 still says "No SIM"..grrr.. Called AT&T, they confirmed it should be working and I should go back to the store for another card. Not really wanting to run all the way down there again today, I searched and found this thread. I put a piece of thick paper (from a garment hang tag of all things) where the 1st post showed, and as soon as I turned the phone on.. the SIM card error was gone .. YAY!

Thank you, thank you for sharing the solution!! Now I just have to put a little tape on the bit of paper to make it stay put if I ever take the back off.

 

[m1scha_m]

I have a Galaxy S4 which has been losing signal, dropping out during calls with the sim card not being detected requesting me to restart. Every solution I could find online said things like - get a new sim card, its a hardware problem, get a new phone - yet in most cases this did not seem to work. I like my phone just the way it is.
One solution was to start the phone in safe mode which I did. It worked, so perhaps something installed on my phone was causing the problem. I began to uninstall apps especially any that accessed the sim card or had some form of control over the running of the phone.

Finally I uninstalled Greenify

My phone has not lost the sim card once since then, and has lost network connection just once although I know there is poor reception in that spot.

Just a thought.

 

[Rukbat]

Finally I uninstalled Greenify

My phone has not lost the sim card once since then, and has lost network connection just once although I know there is poor reception in that spot.

Reinstall Greenify. Greenify one app at a time and see how the phone responds. When you greenify the app that's causing the problem, that's the one that shouldn't be greenified. (You never greenify apps that you want running without your running them manually, like the launcher, email, text, phone and contacts. You probably greenified Phone. That keeps the phone from connecting to the tower unless you make a phone call.)

 

[m1scha_m]

Initially I never uninstalled Greenify because I had never actually used it, in fact I forgot that I had installed it. The removal of apps took place over a period of days. Its not as though I removed a whole batch of apps at one time. I thought last on first off. Greenify had been on my phone far longer than any of the ones I first removed. It was a few days after I removed the last of the ones I thought may have affected my phone that I rediscovered Greenify. The affect was instantaneous.

No I never greenified Phone, as I said I had never used it. It was something I installed with a view to using when I better understand how it worked, then promptly forgot it was there. The inability to contact the network is a problem with LTE phones not dropping down to WCDMA or GSM when 4G is not available.

 

[sajutp]

same here. using Galaxy S4 GT-I9505 . for one year till the warranty ended, no issues, after that, 'sim card removed , restart to resume the functions'.
changed the sim card tray from samsung itself. atleast they say they changed. trouble remains. today i got the official lolipop update. hoped that would fix the issue. but no such luck. been carrying around like this for several months now.

just gonna give it to someone and go to htc one. never gonna buy samsung again.

 

[coplyn25]

Hi

the app simcard info that post about two pages ago stop didnt work so far.


About a week ago, my phone get the message Sim card not detected and I couldnt worked again, so, When I came back to my home, put a piece of masking tape folded in four sections just where the pictures that these guys posted ( just left behind the microsd card) and now I haven't had any issue with simcard removed message or something like that.

For my experience it is definitly a hardware issue, because when I used to put my phone on my jeans pocket, so thight and warm I received the message, but when I use it on a jacket or hoodie pocket with the phone loose and kinda free didn't ever recieved the message