iPhone 3G "No Service"

Caporegime
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12 Mar 2009
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Not sure if this is a repost but I did use the search facility before creating this thread.

I've got an 8GB iPhone 3G that I've owned for around about a month and so far I've had no problems, up until late this afternoon when my signal bars completely disappeared. Ever since I've had a no service message in the top corner of the screen, despite another mobile phone on the same network having a full signal, sat right next to the iPhone. Every other function of the phone works fine, including the browser, iPod, Mail and all the other Wifi features.

I've so far tried powering off the iPhone, resetting by holding down the minimize button and the power button, taken the SIM out and put it back in, I've tried turning Airplane mode on and off which was suggested by someone, I also tried resetting the network settings by going to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings. None of these have worked so I thought I'd go for a last ditch attempt at restoring the iPhone completely. After I backed up all my stuff I restored the phone through iTunes, upon turning the phone back on I had a message telling me something along the lines of: "Waiting for activation, this may take some time".

I've absolutely no idea what's happened and nothing has changed on the iPhone apart from me changing to a different tariff a few days ago, maybe it's possible that the tariff I have switched to isn't supported by the iPhone? I'm not sure, anyway, people have advised me to take it to an Apple store and with the nearest one being some 30 miles away I'd rather ask here before I commit to driving to the shop.

The iPhone is just over a month old, was brand new when I bought it from O2, has not been unlocked or jailbroken, is on an O2 3G PAYG SIM, which has worked since the day I bought the phone. The only changes have been a change that I made to my tariff a few days ago and that is the only thing I can think of that may have made this happen. If anybody has any advice or things that I can try then I'd be more than happy to hear from them. :)
 
Soldato
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31 Aug 2007
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4,639
It needs replaced. I had this happen to my 2nd 3G and the 'Genius' at the local Apple Store said the chip had failed or something. They replaced it on the spot with no quibbles at all.

Apparently it's not that common, but does happen unfortunately. :(
 
Caporegime
OP
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12 Mar 2009
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It needs replaced. I had this happen to my 2nd 3G and the 'Genius' at the local Apple Store said the chip had failed or something. They replaced it on the spot with no quibbles at all.

Apparently it's not that common, but does happen unfortunately. :(

Ahh damnit. I'll give it a day and see if it doesn't improve it's self as sometimes my things have a habit of fixing themselves. I'll leave it till the morning and if it's still no good then I think I'll have to take it to the Apple store. Still, the silver lining would be a new handset I suppose. :)
 
Man of Honour
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13 Oct 2006
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90,805
I'm still getting GPRS service for some reason tho 3G is down on my O2 phone, my mums phone (and most people on O2) are getting no service at all. Its affecting most of the West side of the country.
 
Caporegime
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O2 network fault ongoing at the moment... not expected to clear for another 12 hours.

Is there anywhere where I can check things like this myself, so as not to annoy other forum members? :p

Like I said, I'll give it a little time as sometimes things sort themselves out but if you say there's some kind of outage then I'd say that's probably the cause of my problem. I do tend to look after my stuff and the phone hasn't been mistreated in any way so there's no real reason for it to conk out after only a month of usage.

I'm still getting GPRS service for some reason tho 3G is down on my O2 phone, my mums phone (and most people on O2) are getting no service at all. Its affecting most of the West side of the country.

I'm in South East Wales so I suppose it could be affecting me. The only thing that puzzles me about that though is that we have another O2 mobile in the house and it's working perfectly. :confused:
 
Caporegime
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Hmm, some people in that thread say that their phone has a full bar signal but they are still unable to call or text people. I haven't actually used the phone I said that works, I just noticed it had a full signal bar and assumed.

Doh! :p

Looks like I'll be leaving this for the next half a day or so and hopefully things will right themselves. Thanks for the link Rroff. :)
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
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90,805
Yah I got full signal on mine but only GPRS traffic works and even that seems patchy now, 3G stalls completely. My mums doesn't even have signal which is odd.

Fortunatly my main phone is vodafone which seems unaffected.
 
Soldato
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19 May 2009
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Cannock
O2 network fault ongoing at the moment... not expected to clear for another 12 hours.

Its this. Check the o2 forums and its the same there. Signal problems have been reported as far as Belfast tonight :S Im here in Wednesbury, West Midlands with no signal as well...
 
Soldato
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15 Dec 2002
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In a cowfield, London, UK
I was whinging about this on Twitter last night again because I was furious. I can barely get 3G in the London, Middlesex area as it is and yesterday I spent most of my time on GPRS and Edge, not sure how on the latter.

This is what I was getting. Sod knows how o2 will cope with the influx of new users when the next iPhone arrives.

http://twitpic.com/1my3bx/full
 
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Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2006
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5,913
I've had the same problem for the last 2 weeks, resetted my phone, turned 3g off, restored my phone.

I have requested a replacement sim card from o2 that can be the problem. I hope it will turn up today. If this doesn't fix it, I'm gunna hve to scrap the iphone until the new ones released as mines a release day 3g so well out of warranty now.
 
Associate
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17 Oct 2002
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337
Location
York
I had this problem once. So I went in to setings, carrier then I selected by carrier and after it connected I changed it back to automatic and the problem was solved.
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Jul 2008
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3,014
Location
Torbados
I had this last night.
Left my phone in my other jeans as I was doing the garden.
Came in to notice the "No Service" on my phone. Tried turning on and off a few times, no luck. Did a network reset as instructed on some forum, no luck.
Ended up restoring through iTunes, left it plugged in to activate, came back about an hour later, Robert's your fathers brother.


Come on admit it, proper panic ensued. :D
 
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