"SIM card removed" notice occurs 10+ times a day

[Roderick Roy]

I took my SIM card out of my phone to send it to LSG (Barclays Gadget Insurance operators) to repair the camera lens. That was successful but when it came back I kept getting a window stating "SIM card removed. The mobile network will be unavailable until you reset with a valid SIM card inserted. RESTART "

When I press restart it will work again for a while but then goes off again - typically about 10 times a day. Sometimes I have to restart twice to get it going. I have taken out the SIM & cleaned it but it makes no difference.

Any ideas as to what I can do?

 

[PapaGary]

Ask your service provider for a replacement SIM.

 

[Roderick Roy]

Ask your service provider for a replacement SIM.

I have replaced the SIM but it does exactly the same thing!

 

[Cadibiagio]

It's a common problem with the S4's (not sure if that's your phone). Do a quick search for "Sim Card Removed S4" and you'll find a bunch of pages. A temp fix is to put a piece of foam or tape above the SIM ribbon cable on the back of the phone to put pressure on the connection. As far as I could find there isn't a permanent solution.

If it came back like that I'd definitely insist that they repair it again. They may have just given you a replacement phone that has the SIM problem instead of fixing the camera on the phone you sent in, so I would check to see if you have the same phone as well.

 

[Roderick Roy]

It's a common problem with the S4's (not sure if that's your phone). Do a quick search for "Sim Card Removed S4" and you'll find a bunch of pages. A temp fix is to put a piece of foam or tape above the SIM ribbon cable on the back of the phone to put pressure on the connection. As far as I could find there isn't a permanent solution.

If it came back like that I'd definitely insist that they repair it again. They may have just given you a replacement phone that has the SIM problem instead of fixing the camera on the phone you sent in, so I would check to see if you have the same phone as well.

Thanks for that Cadibiagio. Yes, I've been in touch with the repairers and they are going to fix it under warranty. I think it is the same phone - at least it has the same IMEI number. I'll try the tape idea until their envelope arrives.

 

[Carlos Lameiro]

This too started to be a problem with my Samsung S4 (Canadian Edition) sgh-i337.

I originally thought that the SIM card was damaged, and did get a new SIM card, but the problem continued to appear.

I tried adding a few paper pieces or spongy stuff inside the phone, to apply a little pressure over the SIM card and the board connector (beside/between the sd card and camera), and the RESTART message continued to plague the phone at least 1 a day, sometimes when simply resting on my desk, so it couldn't be a hardware/connection problem.

I recently wiped my phone and installed a new MOD, Cyanogenmod 12.1, mainly because I was running out of space for apps and also wanted to remove the Samsung bloatware. I was also tired of the samsung complex menu, and wanted to get a more native Android experience. It's been a week now, and I have NOT seen a RESTART message since then. I am wondering if it is a software problem that was introduced with Samsung software updates that causes the unrecognized SIM issue.

 

[pbrightling]

Yes, I believe it was the recent Samsung software update as it started almost immediately after I upgraded. Canada and S4.

 

[Horacio Ramirez]

Well... I had been dealing with the same issue for 1 month and now is apparently fixed so I has to post what I did....

It startes when unlockes my AT&T S4 and moved to Tmobile. After I started with Tmobile this headache strated. And got worst every week. Until it would not go away no matter what I did.
I had been searching on yhe web what to do and tried everything. Some say is hardware others say is software, I read I needed to switch the mother board for around $300. Well... I can not find where I found this tip any more. But it said... "To erase the system Caché on recovery mode".
And it gave out the steps. Which in summary go as follows
1) Turn off the phone while pressing the volume-up key.
2) Do not release the power off either the volume key until it goes inyo recovery mode. You will see first a very small message, neon color on the upper left corner which says recovery reboot or something like that.
3) Once in recovery mode select the option "erase caché" using the volume keys.
And press the power button to execute it.
4) It will reboot and hopefully youe problem will be fixed now.
Mine is and its been ok for 2 days now.

Hope it helps.

Regards

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[Lilly7]

have the same problem with S4 “SIM card removed- restart” – every 20 minutes! It’s very irritating and very inconvenient! Requested a new SIM from my mobile provider but it didn’t solve the problem. It’s obviously a software problem and SAMSUNG should take a responsibility for selling this faulty model S4 and replace it with new phones. Why customers should suffer?