Travelling, using new SIM card from local carrier, but...

I am in the UK for a couple of weeks. I have an iPhone 8 running 11.1.2. Normally it's on Verizon when I am in the US.

When I have travelled before, I have been able to purchase a SIM card for a local carrier and just swap it into my iPhone. It then picks up the new number assigned to that SIM card and I'm off and running, using local services and having a local telephone number, which is very handy for friends in the visiting country to use. Plus, a £25 SIM with minutes, texts and data is cheaper than the US$10/day Verizon charges for overseas use.

So, on arrival today at Heathrow, I went to the SIM card vendor in the arrivals hall, as I have done, and got two SIM cards from EE, one for my iPhone, and one for my wife's. I was in a hurry because we had a driver waiting to take us to our accommodations, so I had them activate the cards but not install them in the iPhones and just took them with me. Once in the rental, I swapped the cards in my wife's iPhone 7+ and as usual, it found the EE network and she was good to go. She then texted her new number to our children back in the US so that they can reach her.

When I swapped the cards out in my iPhone, it woke up to a "Welcome" screen and indicated that the phone required activation. It was going through some process, asking for my AppleID and to log into iCloud, then hung up with an error that the activation servers were not responding. After a few futile tries, I thought that perhaps it was Find My Phone that was causing the need to activate, so I put in my Verizon SIM and turned off Find My Phone. I also turned off all VPN services, thinking that perhaps that, too, might be contributing. I again swapped out the Verizon SIM and put the EE SIM back in and it started up the "welcome" screen and need to activate, and server not available, etc, etc, etc.

So, is it the iPhone or the EE SIM that is the culprit here? Do I need to visit an EE store, or an Apple store, to get this sorted out? Any settings I need to change or check? As I said, I've travelled before and the SIM card swap has worked flawlessly, but has something changed?

It should have worked as before Jake. Your 8 is no different from your wife's 7+ with regard to swapping out the SIM card. Probably a good idea to visit an EE store first and get them to swap the SIM card and go through the activation again. Could be a glitch in the activation of the card or the card may be defective. Of course the iPhone 8 is new but as far as I know, the bands are the same as what the 7+ uses and Verizon iPhones use the Qualcomm chip which operates on all bands worldwide.

EE store would be best, or you could try online. Looked at EE website and it says SIM should activate within 24 hours so maybe that's the issue.

Tell me where you are and I will look them up.

Try this: https://myaccount.ee.co.uk/activate-sim/?action=newPhone

Sue, thanks for the offer, but I think I can visit the nearest EE store. Tonight I'm in London, but tomorrow we are making a day trip to Winchester to visit some friends and the Winchester Cathedral Christmas Market. Maybe Thursday I'll go to the EE store that's about 0.5 miles walk, according to the EE site. I'll end up paying Verizon another $10 for the day, but that's ok. Her phone is working well.

And Charlie, what is curious is that I eventually got a screen with a list of US cell providers and a prompt to pick one. That tells me that the SIM card is not being recognized at all, or at least I think that's what it means. So I'm off to the EE store Thursday to sort it out.

EE store in Winchester if you have time tomorrow.

44 High Street, Winchester, SO23 9BL Open 9am-6pm

OK, no luck. Tried EE again, store no help, says the phone is "locked to the US." What? Really?

Tried a Vodaphone SIM, same response, the guy in the store said it was the Activation Lock, and to talk to Apple.

Looked online, Apple says Activation Lock is turned on with Find My Phone, but I had turned off FMF before this saga started. When I look for how to turn off Activation Lock, it says to turn off FAF, log out of iCloud and then reset the phone. Do I really have to do that? I'd prefer not to be resetting my iPhone on a two week trip. I do have a current backup to my local MBP, and it's encrypted so I should have all the data and stuff, but before I reset it, can anybody tell me if that really will unlock Activation lock or not?

Looks like you are going to have to share with your wife. You could consider buying a cheap basic phone and using the SIM in that. This from EE. https://shop.ee.co.uk/mobile-phones/pay-as-you-go/alcatel-pixi-3-3-5-payg/details

When I look for how to turn off Activation Lock, it says to turn off FAF, log out of iCloud and then reset the phone. Do I really have to do that? I'd prefer not to be resetting my iPhone on a two week trip.

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The Activation Lock they're refering to is that which locks your Apple ID to the phone. It's there to prevent a thief from stealing your phone and using it or selling it. And yes, when resetting an iPhone or iPad the FMF has to be turned off. I didn't know about signing out of iCloud when swapping SIM cards and resetting the iPhone but it does make sense.

Sue's idea above might be best if you don't want to share your wife's phone. I guess you need to consider if paying Verizon $10/day for roaming outside the US is cheaper than having to buy another phone or the inconvenience of sharing or resetting.

badshoehabit said:

Looks like you are going to have to share with your wife. You could consider buying a cheap basic phone and using the SIM in that. This from EE. https://shop.ee.co.uk/mobile-phones/pay-as-you-go/alcatel-pixi-3-3-5-payg/details

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Sue, I don't think we are ready to share the iPhone at this point. We've only been married 51 years, so that kind of sharing is pretty risky...

Trying a full reset. It's painful, particularly since the WiFi is slow and every app has to be downloaded from Apple (remember when iTunes used to keep them for you?) and so it's probably going to be all night getting sorted. Then I can try the EE card again and see if the reset unstuck the Activation Lock. Stopped in the Apple store on Regent street tonight, packed to the walls with people. No genius bar left for the night, so they said to come back at 10 am tomorrow (yeah, Black Friday, right, what could possibly go wrong with that plan?).

Hey Jake... you're supposed to be on vacation! LOL.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours and friends over there in the UK.

Thanks, Charlie. We went to the American service at St. Paul's Cathedral this morning. On Thanksgiving day they let the Americans take over, pretty much, which is nice. Then wandered around the shopping district (Oxford street, Regent street, Bond street) and ended up at the Grosvenor House for their Thanksgiving day dinner. Since it's a Marriott, they, too make an exception and have a full Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, stuffing, veggies, pumpkin pie, the whole bundle! Very nice. Now back in our flat, recovering...

And Happy Thanksgiving to you, too!

Beautiful Apple store in Covent Garden where you may also chance on some opera singers busking.

Very annoyed you can’t get your phone to work in my country!

Cupertino, we have resolution! The full reset I did last night did NOT fix the issue, so this morning I was in the queue at 9:50 for the 10 AM opening at the Regent Street Apple. Had to wait about 15 minutes after the store opened for a genius to be available. Nice fellow, took the history with the "yeah, yeah" face on, then had the same issue that I did when he went through the same steps. Then he disappeared into the back, came back with an MBA, attached it, looked at the profile of the device, declared he had never seen that one before and that it must be locked by my carrier. Nope, I told him, I had verified with Verizon that it was NOT locked. He called in a second genius, who then did the "yeah, yeah, sure" face to genius #1 and then went through the exact same steps to the exact same conclusion. Then they decided it needed a full reset to correct the profile, so I let them do it. No change in behavior or the name of the profile on the laptop software. At this point I am two up in the "stump the genius" game! Genius #2 then insisted my phone must be locked by my provider. I tell him no, that I bought the iPhone directly from Apple, unlocked. Both now disappear. I wait 25 minutes, Genius 2 comes over, says Genius 1 is on the phone with Apple and was put on hold while they research. About 10 minutes later Genius 1 comes out and said that the profile was invalid, that whoever he had talked to had never seen it either and that Apple had to update their database to correct it, but that they had confirmed that the phone was unlocked and that the SIM should work in a couple of hours. I left about 11:30 and headed back to the flat to restore the phone from the backup I had made that morning (remember the reset? Yep, totally wiped out). Finished the restore about 1, but the phone was downloading all of the apps to install again (download #3 for all of the installed apps, thanks to Apple's boneheaded decision on iTunes). Left it in the flat still downloading to go shopping, returned about 3:30. It was fully restored and just for grins and giggles, swapped the Verizon SIM out and put the EE SIM in. And it WORKED!!!

So now I am on EE, life is good, and whatever was mucked up on the database is apparently repaired. I'll give credit to Apple and Genius 1 for persisting. And the lesson learned is that you just keep insisting, nicely, that it SHOULD work and they will keep trying to make it work (and I still won the stump the genius, 2-1).

Hurrah! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=barWV7RWkq0

Jake:

Finished the restore about 1, Left it in the flat still downloading to go shopping, returned about 3:30

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You finished the shopping in under 3 hours - you didn't have your wife with then;D

Ian

Ian, actually she WAS with me! We looked at the windows at Selfridges, then went inside briefly, but the crowds were horrendous. Across the street to M&S, same thing. So we were done pretty quickly there, walked up Oxford toward Oxford Circus a couple of blocks and then decided that the crowds were growing by the minute, so we flagged a cab and returned to our flat. We are not Black Friday shoppers!