Bug Affecting eSIM on iPhone Deactivates iMessage and FaceTime

An eSim bug makes its way into iPhone models and randomly disables iMessage and FaceTime. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said he experienced the problem while connected to his… T-Mobile account, though others had the same issues with accounts from other carriers.

Bloomberg’s Gurman says he was “bitten” by an “annoying” iPhone and T-Mobile bug

You may be familiar with the physical SIM card that you normally insert into your phone’s SIM card slot so that you can make calls, text, and connect to Internet services. The SIM card allows your phone to connect to your carrier. An eSIM is a digital SIM card plugged into the phone’s motherboard and activated by calling your carrier. The first iPhone models to use an eSIM were the 2018 iPhone XR and iPhone XS.

There are a number of solutions that can help

Gurman spread his complaint in a tweet that read: “There is a very annoying iPhone and @TMobile bug where iMessage and FaceTime for a device’s phone number are randomly deactivated and there is no way to reactivate it. The only solution The one that worked for me is getting a new physical SIM card. An extremely disappointing issue.” Gurman said that to the best of his knowledge, the bug wreaks havoc on iOS 15.4, iOS 15.5, and iOS 15.6 beta 1.

Others have reported experiencing the same issue even though they are not T-Mobile customers. There is a solution that has helped. It’s quite complicated, so grab a notepad and a pen. Write the following: “Buy a physical SIM card from your carrier and insert it into your phone.”

Obviously we’re exaggerating about the complexity, but this should work. Others said deactivating and reactivating the eSIM worked like a charm, while others just activated a new eSIM. Another Twitter user explained what happened to him.

T-Mobile Reps Say Apple Couldn’t Fix the Problem

“Last week my eSIM for T-Mobile on my 13 Pro Max deactivated itself in the middle of the day and kept trying to reactivate in settings but said no service and eSIM said no phone is allowed. Had to get T-Mobile to get new ones eSIM again after they simply tried other things that didn’t work, including resetting the network settings. None of them worked.”

Gurman had no problem with T-Mobile and thanked the carrier’s representative who quickly activated a physical SIM card for his phone. T-Mobile representatives told him that others had come to the store with the same problem and that Apple was unable to fix the problem.

So the Bloomberg writer pointed out that he personally went straight to T-Mobile, rather than… Apple. Why? Because he assumed Apple wouldn’t be able to fix the problem. He said, “There’s no troubleshooting they offer that I haven’t already tried.” He wasn’t wrong.

As we noted, this isn’t just happening to T-Mobile subscribers. Those who pay the country’s largest airline each month have also tweeted complaints. Here’s one such tweet: “Had the exact same problem but with @Verizon. I was using eSIM and iOS 15.4 broke legit iMessage and FaceTime. I had to remove the eSIM and call Verizon to get a new one to fix the iMessage problem Not a T-Mobile issue, just an iOS 15.4 bug.”

This bug is everywhere, even outside the US. If we can return to the magical Twitter sign (which smells like Musk these days), check out this response: “This happened to me in India with Airtel. I did everything possible to activate it, but it kept loading and in the end it turned out not to be able to activate. Had to change the sim card and it worked!”

If this problem happens to you, don’t give up. Switch to a new SIM card, have your provider use a new e-SIM card or cause a big stench. Make sure your voice is heard so your voice can be heard on your iPhone.