Galaxy S4: Major problem - SIM card not detected

Charlie Wilson7

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Hey guys, this is my first post here and unfortunately a sad one :(

Received my S4 on Saturday and have been loving it ever since, great piece of tech!

Until about lunch time today it was working great, but now it seems to not be able to recognize when a simcard is inside it.

At first I thought maybe my sim died, so I put it in another phone and it worked. I then also tried a different sim in the S4 yet it still didnt detect it.

When I pull down the notification bar, where it should say my service provider it instead says 'No Service'. When I try and go to my mobile data settings it tells me to insert a simcard to access it, even though the simcard is plugged in. As such when I go to 'About Phone' settings it says all the usual, No SIM, No Service etc etc.

This is my first Android phone after switching from Apple, so I am not too familiar with how to tackle this situation, so I come here desperate for your help!

Is there away to completely reinstall the OS? That should rule out the problem being software and route it down to a hardware problem. If thats the case, I guess ill just have to get it replaced.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

EDIT : Also, in the top right corner where my signal bar and internet icon should be, it instead has that icon similar to a No Entry icon. (See here hhttp://www.tonymacx86.com/attachments/mountain-lion-laptop-support/52768d1365503639-installing-mountain-lion-samsung-series-5-laptop-no-entry.gif
 
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cmersman

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Apr 16, 2013
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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

You can do that - but if it's a brand new phone you should just take it back to the carrier and make them fix it.

Otherwise, you can use Samsung Kies.. similar to iTunes to factory restore it. There is other ways but without to much detail that's the easiest way.
 

whbonney

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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

had the same problem,,,,2 day old Tmobile GS4 and sim not detected. Went to Tmobile store, they gave me a new SIM card because it was right at closing and had me call Tmobile support. They updated my SIM at their end and I haven't had a problem since (about 2 weeks).. My son just had his SIM card on same type phone come up not detected so tomorrow we are off to Tmobile again to get a new SIM for his...
 

justinl111

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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

I've had 2 faulty sgs4's with this error, the sim cards could be read in other phones fine, I think the contacts are weak and prone to breaking internally. I replaced the phone twice, 3rd one is fine.
 

Tomek Maslinski

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Aug 4, 2013
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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

I have been experiencing the same problem on brand new Galaxy S4 from Verizon. At first it happened 3 weeks after initial activation. I was able to get it back by removing battery. It worked fine for few days, but than it happened again. This time I wasn't aable get the sim card to show up. After calling Verizon tech support I was advised to try booting in the safe mode. this works fine and the sim card registered.I was told most likely one of the applications that was installed by me is causing this problem. unfortunately even in the safe mode the same issue with SIM card came back after few days. After playing around re booting into Safe Mode I'm back into a normal mode I was able to get the sim card to register again. Unfortunately this problem is now happening almost every hour and I have to keeps on rebooting my phone each time Verizon is suggesting to insert a new SIM card, but from the previous posts: I see this was not resolve my sim card problem.
 

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anon(6174973)

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Jul 5, 2013
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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

Hey guys, this is my first post here and unfortunately a sad one :(

Received my S4 on Saturday and have been loving it ever since, great piece of tech!

Until about lunch time today it was working great, but now it seems to not be able to recognize when a simcard is inside it.

At first I thought maybe my sim died, so I put it in another phone and it worked. I then also tried a different sim in the S4 yet it still didnt detect it.

When I pull down the notification bar, where it should say my service provider it instead says 'No Service'. When I try and go to my mobile data settings it tells me to insert a simcard to access it, even though the simcard is plugged in. As such when I go to 'About Phone' settings it says all the usual, No SIM, No Service etc etc.

This is my first Android phone after switching from Apple, so I am not too familiar with how to tackle this situation, so I come here desperate for your help!

Is there away to completely reinstall the OS? That should rule out the problem being software and route it down to a hardware problem. If thats the case, I guess ill just have to get it replaced.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

EDIT : Also, in the top right corner where my signal bar and internet icon should be, it instead has that icon similar to a No Entry icon. (See here hhttp://www.tonymacx86.com/attachments/mountain-lion-laptop-support/52768d1365503639-installing-mountain-lion-samsung-series-5-laptop-no-entry.gif

Welcome!

I used to have this problem with my previous phone. Judging from experience, rebooting does the trick for this sim problem. It's unknown what actually causes this but I have been using this sim card for like 3 years and it's still up and running.

Sent from my HP Slate 7 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
 

as6686

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Aug 8, 2013
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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

No dude its not software problem. I am also having a S4 and facing same problem from yesterday. I gone to Service center but they also not understanding and said that may b mother board damaged.
 

Shashank Sudarshan

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Dec 27, 2013
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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

did anyone get the phn replaced or the motherboard replaced wth in warnty.....coz thy r claiming as if it dsnt [language] undr wanrnty....
 
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lanilou15

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Jan 29, 2014
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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

The exact same this is happening. I've had my phone since June 2013 so less than a year and my phone tells me no SIM card when I actually have a SIM card in it. It's really annoy because it's happened in the past but it worked after a few restarts. However it's come back again and now it won't go away, I've tried restarting if a few times, I've turned it off and on, I've even ejected the SIM card and pulled it our and out it in a few times and it works but then it comes back randomly later. This kept happening yesterday and then once I got it to stop, I came back this afternoon and I'm furious because it's annoying and what if I need to call someone and it won't let me do that.
 

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JeromeJ

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Jan 25, 2013
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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

Hey guys, has anyone found a concrete solution to this? I see that some of you guys have tried bringing your phones to a service center and nothing has been resolved for you guys. I really don't want to have to send my phone in for repair and have all my stuff erased (I know I can't backup some stuff it's just a pain getting your phone just right)

Has anyone received a concrete answer from their service provider yet? I really want this annoying error message to go away

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
 

ReMarkable2112

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Jun 1, 2012
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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

Same problem I posted a thread about it. .. Battery pull did the trick. This appeared 2 days after 4.4.2 upgrade

Sent from Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk
 

ReMarkable2112

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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

Happened to me again today had to do another battery pull..anyone else having this issue since the kitkat upgrade?

Sent from Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk
 

McKenna514

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Feb 25, 2014
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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

This started happening when I first got my S4 on Rogers in Canada and stopped for quite a while but recently started again. It leads to an automatic reboot and frequently happens in the middle of regular activities like texting, twitter, etc. I haven't seen a clear fix here that doesn't involve getting the carrier involved and I'd rather not do that and worry about what it might cost...any further developments on this?
 

ReMarkable2112

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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

One thing I noticed that each time that happened I was using a app or apps that use a lot of on screentime. In turn which caused the S4 to get warm or even hot in turn caused the sim card failure. This thing gets too hot I think and Samsung needs to address this issue.

Sent from Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk
 

JeromeJ

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Jan 25, 2013
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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

- - - Updated - - -

This started happening when I first got my S4 on Rogers in Canada and stopped for quite a while but recently started again. It leads to an automatic reboot and frequently happens in the middle of regular activities like texting, twitter, etc. I haven't seen a clear fix here that doesn't involve getting the carrier involved and I'd rather not do that and worry about what it might cost...any further developments on this?

McKenna514, I just received my phone back from repair with my provider today I too am in Canada and the sim card error was absolutely brutal. I tried to deal and I just couldn't take it anymore. So upon receiving my phone back from repair today I didn't have to pay anything for the repair. The repair form said that they had to "Replace some minor component parts"

Now I'm getting a wifi problem on my phone. I'm pretty sure that it's not due to the repair of my phone cause I'm reading all over the site that many people are having problems with their wifi since they updated to KitKit 4.4.2 So going through Rogers and doing the repair should be good for you and you shouldn't have any problems..

I also just realized that you post is from Feb 25th... So I hope that you've found a solution to the problem. If not, don't hesitate to have Rogers send the phone out for repair for. It worked for me through my Carrier
 

Ka_Ra

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Mar 31, 2014
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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

Happened to me again today had to do another battery pull..anyone else having this issue since the kitkat upgrade?

Sent from Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

I thought i was the only one experiencing this issue since the kitkat upgrade. I've been doing all the basic troubleshooting (plug-unplug sim card, battery pull, entering safe mode and worst, doing a factory data reset) but nothing seems to fix it. I went to my local carrier and they said that it will take approx 2 months for the authorize service center to fix this problem since we're located in a province, and in an event that they can't fix this, they will just change the unit into a brand new sgs4.

I'll try to downgrade the firmware to 4.3 via Odin3 and lets see what will happen :)
 

winwinnot

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Re: Major problem - Sim card not detected

ive replaced the sim card reader as my S4 went a little wonky one day the next it just stopped. "no sim"

First day after replacing the sim card reader no problems the next(today) got the old your phone needs to reboot no sim or something like that. while playing a heavy graphics game. got the error twice so deleted the game. had it another 2x since in the last 2 hours.

all this was a day before kitkat came out

i am gonna try another factory reset if not im stumped
:'( as its the best phone ever
 

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