Possible Known Issue with Activating T-Mobile Gear S2 3G

[Arlene O]

I'm having same issue. I called Tmobile tech support and Samsung support. They told me to bring it back to store. At the store they told me that I have to wait until they get more (they are sold out) to do the exchange. I also was able to connect it for a minute and then it went back to "no service". I hope they fix it soon. Please let me know if they fix it for you. I live in Florida.

 

[Chris Fayden]

No problem they are actively working on the situation there is nothing wrong with your device there is no need to return or exchange it, it should be working within a couple of days...

 

[Chris Fayden]

Ur welcome...

 

[attackbike]

I'm having same issue. I called Tmobile tech support and Samsung support. They told me to bring it back to store. At the store they told me that I have to wait until they get more (they are sold out) to do the exchange. I also was able to connect it for a minute and then it went back to "no service". I hope they fix it soon. Please let me know if they fix it for you. I live in Florida.

Arlene, hopefully you're not located in West Palm Beach it's been a nightmare dealing with T-Mobile and this issue In this area.
Sunday I had to drive around and I found one T-Mobile store that had the Gear S2 . Approximately an hour and 45 minutes And they was not able to configure the watch to the T-Mobile towers. I asked them to call another store and see if the other stores ran into the same problem so, they called another store mentioned to me that the other store had a guy waited approximately over two hours and apparently his phone worked so at this point they told me just to go home with the device and it would automatically configure within an hour, now I was very skeptical because I did not want to go out the door and have to pay restocking fee if I had to bring it back and they reassured me that it would work. What really sucks is T-Mobile does not communicate very well together with their engine near department because it should have been notated in the system.. Spent over two hours with T-Mobile on the phone talk to two engineers the last engineer told me he didn't understand why they transferred me to him because it's a known issue and apparently they do not read the issue notes.. I went back to T-Mobile today spent over an hour and made sure there will not be no restocking fee. Now after I left T-Mobile I stop by Best Buy and talk to a Samsung representative which played stupid and the only thing I really got out of the conversation was Samsung 1-800 number which I called and talked to them for over an hour apparently located in the Philippines. Got transferred twice through Samsung to talk to somebody higher up now this is what's funny they asked me why don't I just switch the Sims card in the Gear 2S . So at this point I almost lost it thinking in my head "you're all going to make me act of fool Up in here, Up in here, you're all going to make me lose my mind Up in here, Up in here!". The launch of the Gear 2S is GARBAGE GARBAGE, GARBAGE, GARBAGE! I left the house today at 7:30 AM got back home at 3 PM watch battery was at hundred percent when I left 30% when I got home and I didn't even do anything with it.. Well anyways thank you guys for allowing me to take the time to get this off my chest and I feel everybody's pain, I will be taken my garbage watch back.

 

[geekaren]

So they just released the Gear S2 3G today on T-Mobile. I got mine and set it up but ran into an issue trying to get it to connect with the cell towers. For whatever reason, likely software related, the device won't activate on the cellular network.

My T-Mobile Gear S2 just arrived today... similar problem. In "About" it shows Phone number "unknown."

The watch shows TMobile service, and I can make calls in stand-alone mode... except no matter which number I call, T-Mobile answers. (No kidding!)

 

[Chris Fayden]

I understand your frustration the reason why your battery is running low as you probably have it set to ON so it's searching for network the entire day I have mine on Bluetooth only and it lasts me a full day when I get home at 50% and that's from 10 a.m. till 9 p.m... it is a system issue T-Mobile is working very hard to fix it it should be working within a day or so.... and you have 14 days to do an exchange or return and because of the situation they will definitely waive the restocking fee if you choose to do so. Take my advice wait it out a couple of days you will be happy you did...

 

[audri5]

Geekaren you just have to go into setting on both the watch and your phone and enter the number for the watch. Reboot both and it should work after that.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[geekaren]

Geekaren you just have to go into setting on both the watch and your phone and enter the number for the watch. Reboot both and it should work after that.

Thanks! Unfortunately, the watch still shows unknown... I'm just trying to be patient and wait for TMobile to sort out their issue since what I'm seeing mirrors what other folks are reporting.

 

[attackbike]

My T-Mobile Gear S2 just arrived today... similar problem. In "About" it shows Phone number "unknown."

The watch shows TMobile service, and I can make calls in stand-alone mode... except no matter which number I call, T-Mobile answers. (No kidding!)

I pick my watch up on Sunday in the afternoon and still cannot call out or receive calls with 3G and I did get mine to show T-Mobile a couple times and when I dialed out a just converted indicating emergency calls only.. 90% of the time it shows no service below the connect via Bluetooth... Unbelievable!!

 

[attackbike]

I understand your frustration the reason why your battery is running low as you probably have it set to ON so it's searching for network the entire day I have mine on Bluetooth only and it lasts me a full day when I get home at 50% and that's from 10 a.m. till 9 p.m... it is a system issue T-Mobile is working very hard to fix it it should be working within a day or so.... and you have 14 days to do an exchange or return and because of the situation they will definitely waive the restocking fee if you choose to do so. Take my advice wait it out a couple of days you will be happy you did...

Negative, it does not kick in to search mode it stays in no service I know when it searches network.. This makes no sense so if you put on auto and it shows connected via Bluetooth and T-Mobile underneath it It will eat up my battery? Basically you have to search for network manually because the engineer told me once it's fixed turn off the phone and turn it back on then it will search for network because it does not constantly keep searching..

T-Mobile dropped the ball on this.. And the restock fee is based off of each individual store and it's up to the management working at a T-Mobile store you should know this..

 

[Chris Fayden]

Yes you are correct but if you look even though it says no service it still showing you signal strength so it sees the network but just can't connect

 

[attackbike]

Yes you are correct but if you look even though it says no service it still showing you signal strength so it sees the network but just can't connect

There's no signal strength icon when it shows no service. When I turn off the phone and turn it back on it shows the signal strength for a little bit and then it stopped showing.

 

[tbear678]

Got my watch today, I just talked to T-Mobile customer service and they told me that the issue is affecting 80-90% of the watches and that the window for resolution will be by thursday, "their engineer's know of the issue and are actively working on a fix".

Personally I tried everything to fix the watch before I called, if you have an issue call customer care and ask to be sent to tech support and have them put you on the master list of people affected by the problem so they know to fix your watch in their system when they do.

Honestly I don't mind two days without cell service on it, it's 3x as fast and useful as the last model and looks and feels better to wear.

 

[AlanRudy]

Holy moly, I "fixed" it on my gear s2! Went through the issue, trying other suggestions, tech support, and a little tinkering. What finally worked for me was settings>Connections>mobile networks and I changed it from "auto on/off" to "always on" and it worked almost instantly. Everything is working great now, at first I was lost on how to enter digits when on a call but there is a "..." icon during a call to click on to enter digits, etc.

 

[Jascias]

Ha.....same network problem as everyone else, pretty much did everything. So when all else fails, the only left to do was a reboot, so tried that......and bam! Now everything works perfectly. So far i'm really liking this new detective Tracy watch.

 

[geekaren]

Holy moly, I "fixed" it on my phone. After going through the issue, trying other suggestions, tech support, and a little tinkering. What finally worked for me was settings>Connections>mobile networks and I changed it from "auto on/off" to "always on" and it worked almost instantly.

Nice! Just set mobile networks to "always on" and it works as mentioned.

I'll probably set it on "auto on/off" for now to save battery.

Thanks, AlanRudy, for your helpful post!

 

[geekaren]

Hey everybody yes there is an issue with T-Mobile and the Gear S2 I work for T-Mobile and I have this device as well.. it seems like the issue with the new Esim is not being recognized as a wearable device on our network which is why your device is unable to connect to the service. Engineers are working hard on fixing this and should be working within a couple of days...

Thank you for offering this update, I appreciate it. I have the Gear S and have been waiting for the S2. Very happy it's been released by T-Mobile!

 

[Chris Fayden]

Seems like most of the issue has been resolved, however you may notice that under device settings the phone number still shows up as unkown... Hopefully that's an easy fix.. at least we can use it now in standalone!!!

 

[Keltian]

Holy moly, I "fixed" it on my gear s2! Went through the issue, trying other suggestions, tech support, and a little tinkering. What finally worked for me was settings>Connections>mobile networks and I changed it from "auto on/off" to "always on" and it worked almost instantly. Everything is working great now, at first I was lost on how to enter digits when on a call but there is a "..." icon during a call to click on to enter digits, etc.

It looks like they finally fixed it. The watch is connecting to T-Mobile and the phone number for the watch now shows up in the about watch.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Jascias]

Seems like most of the issue has been resolved, however you may notice that under device settings the phone number still shows up as unkown... Hopefully that's an easy fix.. at least we can use it now in standalone!!!

Just a heads up. My phone number shows up fine in Gear info about settings.