A wierd iPhone bug is inflicting iMessage and FaceTime to be randomly deactivated for some folks utilizing an eSIM as an alternative of a bodily SIM card.
It’s unclear precisely why that is taking place, however after Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman highlighted the issue along with his personal iPhone on T-Cell, a number of of us chimed in on Twitter to share how they’d encountered comparable points on different carriers, together with Verizon and AT&T.
The issue seems to be distinctive solely to latest iPhone fashions the place prospects have arrange their accounts with eSIM relatively than a bodily SIM card. The truth is, in line with Gurman, switching his T-Cell account again to a bodily SIM was the one approach he was capable of resolve the difficulty.
This additionally doesn’t seem like restricted solely to latest iOS variations. Gurman adds that he has confirmed the issue existed on iOS 15.4, iOS 15.5, and even the primary beta of iOS 15.6 that was launched this week. One other person noted that they skilled the issue two years in the past with eSIM on an iPhone XS Max with AT&T after upgrading to iOS 13.
This implies that the issue has been round for some time. It’s doubtless flown underneath the radar just because it’s solely just lately turn out to be extra frequent for patrons to depend on eSIM for his or her main mobile service.
When Apple launched twin SIM capabilities within the iPhone XS and iPhone XR in iOS 12.1, it took a while for carriers to get on board even for secondary cellphone traces. Though it was doable to make use of eSIM for a main line, none provided a straightforward approach for many prospects to set this up. Utilizing a bodily SIM card was nonetheless the norm, and eSIM was typically reserved for avoiding roaming costs when touring internationally.
Quick ahead to 2021, and carriers have embraced eSIM to the purpose the place many will allow you to arrange your iPhone totally on-line with out visiting a retailer or ready for a SIM card to reach within the mail. T-Cell even has an app for that.
Additional, some carriers even present a quick and straightforward strategy to port your bodily SIM card over to an eSIM. Full just a few steps on-line, and inside minutes your eSIM takes over, and you may pull out your bodily SIM card and toss it within the trash.
One vital benefit to transferring your main line to an eSIM is that it frees up the bodily SIM card slot for journey to locations the place eSIM gained’t be obtainable. Issues are much more versatile with an iPhone 13 because it helps two eSIM profiles and a bodily SIM card slot. This implies you’ll be able to transfer your main line to an eSIM and nonetheless have the choice of utilizing both one other eSIM or a bodily SIM card when touring.
Sadly, as Gurman and others have found, there appears to be at the very least one large drawback to utilizing an eSIM on your main line: shedding entry to iMessage and FaceTime — at the very least when utilizing your cellphone quantity.
As Gurman notes, iMessage and FaceTime get deactivated “for a tool’s cellphone quantity.” These providers will proceed to work for messages and calls to an e-mail tackle, however texts despatched to your cellphone quantity will come via with these annoying inexperienced bubbles, making all your folks suppose you’ve switched to Android.
Why This Occurs
That is positively a bug, nevertheless it’s additionally a results of Apple being diligent — maybe overly so — about deactivating cellphone numbers for Messages and FaceTime when mobile service will get deactivated.
Within the early days of iMessage, some of us found that iMessages despatched to them had been nonetheless going to an iPhone that was misplaced or stolen — even after they deactivated their mobile service. This was attributable to Apple maintaining the unique proprietor’s cellphone quantity tied to iMessage on their outdated iPhone even after they’d in any other case taken steps to take away it.
In contrast to conventional textual content messages, iMessages and FaceTime calls journey via Apple’s servers. Your cellphone quantity is merely an tackle used to contact you. To stop spoofing, Apple reads that cellphone quantity out of your SIM or eSIM card and performs a fast background SMS trade with Apple’s servers to substantiate that it actually belongs to you. As soon as that’s occurred, Apple’s servers tie that cellphone quantity to your iPhone and your Apple ID.
As I wrote again then, the issue Apple was having was that it solely carried out this validation when your cellphone quantity really modified, and that is what was getting iPhone customers in bother. Deactivating your line didn’t take away your cellphone quantity from iMessage or FaceTime.
Nevertheless, as soon as Apple realized that this was an issue, it addressed it by ensuring that it recurrently confirmed the SIM card registration to make sure it was nonetheless within the iPhone and hadn’t been deactivated. This has by no means been an issue with bodily SIM playing cards, however clearly, some bug associated to eSIM causes iOS to consider that the cellphone quantity is not legitimate.
That is additionally difficult as a result of you’ll be able to’t simply take away an eSIM card and reinsert it. That may be the everyday repair when you encountered this drawback with a bodily SIM since this is able to power iOS to re-read the SIM card and re-register your cellphone quantity with Apple’s servers. The one strategy to “take away” an eSIM is to ask your service to reset it, which normally includes de-provisioning and re-provisioning it on your mobile plan. That’s not precisely a easy course of.
Hopefully, with somebody as excessive profile as Gurman talking up about this bug, Apple will take discover. Nevertheless, within the meantime, you will have to return to utilizing a bodily SIM, and when you’ve been serious about migrating to utilizing an eSIM on your main line, you may wish to maintain off till this drawback has been mounted.