Galaxy s21

[Brianrap]

I have a Samsung Galaxy s21 Ultra and a couple of weeks ago it suddenly dropped my connection. Tried everything imaginable to get it back-up to and including a factory reset-but no luck. The sim works in other phones so it it not a sim issue. Tried my sim in a Galaxy s10 and it worked fine. Sims from other networks (both Bell and Telus) work in my phone. Took my phone to a Samsung approved warranty repair location and they replaced the main board. Didn't do anything to resolve the problem so had to send the phone to Samsung in Ontario (I am in Manitoba) for them to check it out. I was just talking to a fellow who also has an s21 and he is experiencing the exact same issue. To me it sounds like it might be a network issue of some kind and specific to Galaxy s21 phones. Has anyone heard of or experienced anything like this? Thanks.

[Brianrap]

Ha ha. My brother said the same-they should have an s22. I am honestly quite happy to have a brand new fully functioning s21, especially since I had acquired the phone used and for about 1/4 the cost of a new one.

[softech]

@Brianrap   It is unacceptable!!   they cannot do an upgrade of S22 Ultra?  LoL    Jk

Glad it has an happy ending in the end.  things like this is very hard to troubleshoot and resolve.. everyone points the finger.  At least Samsung has done the right thing to give out a new replacement.    I was really worry you didn't get that fix and have no choice but have to say buy to us (go to another provider)

Enjoy your new phone!! 

[Brianrap]

So just thought I would put this thread to bed since it has FINALLY been resolved. The phone went back to Samsung engineers in Ontario twice and they could not replicate the issue of it not connecting to the PM network. It worked for them for phone and text functions on Telus, Rogers and Bell networks. Telus/PM confirmed there was nothing within their system that should have caused the phone to not function on the network. Samsung finally gave up and just sent me a brand new s21 Ultra. I would like to thank the Community for all the input and guidance throughout this problem. And if anyone is considering buying a refurbed s21 Ultra from Samsung, make sure you test it first to make sure works on the PM network 🙂

[Brianrap]

I do have the IMEI. Great idea. Thanks!

[darlicious]

@Brianrap 

Ooh another clue....do you have your sim 1 IMEI handy? Contact customer support and ask them if it's blacklisted? SIM 2? E-sim?

Wow now my post is giving me deja vu! Someone from Newfoundland (was it?) had this problem and sim 1 was blacklisted by telus who had sold him an open box S21! Now when did that happen?

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin#.

[Brianrap]

If the problem still exists when it is returned I will check with PM to see if they can check the IMEI on their end. I will get in touch with the Samsung techs and ask them to try it in something other than LTE 5g. Thanks.

[Brianrap]

Didn't notice any connection when powering up but wasn't really watching that closely. When the network choice was changed to something other than LTE 5g Public Mobile displayed for a second or two and then disappeared.

[darlicious]

@softech 

Why is your post giving me deja vu? 

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin#.

[softech]

@darlicious   yup.. there could be other variables

Since even Samsung cannot confirm.  I really wonder if PM blocked the IMEI for whatever reason, likely by accident.

@Brianrap , when you power up the phone, do you see it connects to PM for a very brief moment? like couple seconds and it disconnects?  If it is blacklisted, it always does that, because it talks to the network but just got disconnect after the handshake.  Yes, I know your phone not blacklisted according to devicecheck, I just curious if PM has it by mistake

[darlicious]

@softech 

Same model on pm? Seems it may be part firmware and part software and on some but not all S21 models.

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin#.

[softech]

.. just a note, one of my family members have a S21 and on Android 12 already , working well so far..

[darlicious]

@Brianrap

There was a mention that Android 12 was making the 5g network setting unstable and forcing the phone into 4G LTE only or 4G LTE/3G only helped some users. So maybe because The 3 top tier carriers all work in the phone and they don't use 3G but use 4G LTE and support 5G and pm uses 3G (calls) and 4G LTE and doesnt support 5G this has caused a problem. I wonder forcing the 4G LTE/3G only or even 3G only if possible and or downgrading to Android 11 thru Odin until Samsung fixed it update would fix it. Samsung did pull the latest bug fix update release for Android 12.

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin#.

[Brianrap]

One sim slot (and capable of Esim). Bought it used privately. It was working perfectly-no connection issues or any other issues of any sort. Out of the blue one day it just quit connecting, and I had been using it with no issue earlier that day.

[darlicious]

@Brianrap 

So it's a dual SIM phone with two slots or is one an e-sim? Have you been using both sim slots? The origin of the phone? Brand New? Bought from Samsung directly? From a provider? Did it suddenly stop working with the pm sim card altogether or start with connectivity issues gradually getting worse?

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin#.

[Brianrap]

No. Several weeks after latest update.

[darlicious]

@Brianrap 

Did the problem occur after your last software update?

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin#.

[Brianrap]

Phone was checked and is not blacklisted in Canada or the US. And it does work on all other networks it has been checked on i.e. Bell, Telus and Rogers. Only issue is with PM.

[darlicious]

@Brianrap 

Where did you get your phone? Check the IMEI of sim slot 1 with devicecheck.ca to see if it's been blacklisted. This is the latest I have found as an update to the same question another S21 Ultra owner asked. You can get customer support to look into the source if the sim slot 1 IMEI # has indeed been blacklisted.

From this thread....

https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/galaxy-s21-series/sim-1-not-allowed-on-galaxy-s21-ultra-5g-known...

Update: the root cause of the error message "SIM 1 not allowed" was found. 

I was told in a Samsung Service Centre that the phone's IMEI is blacklisted. I used the "Blacklist Pro" (paid) service of https://www.imei.info/phone_blacklist_check/ webpage that revealed which carrier has blacklisted my phone's IMEI. So I contacted the carrier's customer service and they told me that the phone's owner has not paid installments and as these are overdue, they blocked the IMEI.

As I bought the phone as "new", I already claimed a refund from the seller  as obviously I am not the original owner of the phone, but someone else.

Nevertheless, I'd suggest that Samsung rephrases this error message "SIM 1 not allowed" in a way that clearly tells that the issue is with the phone's IMEI as I wasted plenty of time until the real cause of the error got revealed.

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin#.

[Brianrap]

The phone did show my number but no network. Seems really odd that I have been able to toss the sim into 3 other phones and it immediately connected without having to associate it to a particular imei. And the phone was working just fine until it very suddenly wouldn't. 

[darlicious]

@Brianrap 

After reading this post I used the last link to find this possible solution.

• This says you probably can't change it: https://www.samsung.com/africa_en/support/mobile-devices/why-does-my-samsung-android-phone-list-my-p...
• But these 2 say you could with some phones. Don't hold your breath tho...but it may be worth a try: "Go into Contacts -> [Menu] -> More -> Settings -> Own numbers -> [Menu] -> Create and type your phone number into the Number field, now Save" (if your phone does not have such capacity, put your sim in a temporary phone that can). Then switch your phone off and on again, and it should show the correct number (or whatever number you entered) in the status now. Sources:
  • https://appuals.com/android-phone-showing-unknown-as-my-phone-number/
  • https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/3072/in-my-samsung-galaxy-s-under-settings-status-phone-...

It's an old post but it should work as its for Samsung galaxy's series phones.

This is just showing whether your phone number is saved to the phone number description property on your SIM card. Some networks always program this in for you, many don't. Some phones let you write to this property, some don't, some read it, some don't.

It has nothing to do with what actual phone number is attached to that SIM card by the phone company.

It is possible to put your phone number in there, and is easier than you might think:

Go into Contacts -> [Menu] -> More -> Settings -> Own numbers -> [Menu] -> Create and type your phone number into the Number field, now Save.

Then switch your phone off and on again, and it should show the correct number (or whatever number you entered) in the status now.

I will see if I can find a similar answer that relates to your exact model of phone.

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin#.

[Brianrap]

I will definitely get in touch with them when I get the phone back if the techs can't sort it out.

[Brianrap]

I did send a follow up email and haven't heard back yet so I'm not done with them yet.

[darlicious]

@Brianrap 

Aha!Tthat's one of the fixes in the article I posted the link to...you need to register the IMEI # number with pm or something like that so the sim card can communicate with your phone and pm. I'll read the article again ad find the exact answer.

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin#.

[HALIMACS]

I'd be jumping ship @Brianrap to another mobile provider that will work with your device.   You should not have to be spending this much effort making your device work on the PM network when it works on all others.

But first, ask the Customer Support Agents (see my earlier post with CSA contact info) for them to have their tech support assist.  

If they give you a comfy cozy feeling they will, great.   Perhaps you might also be able to convince PM to provide you with a device from their inventory to retain you.

If you feel they're unwilling to work with you, then I'd be leaving.  It's not worth buying another device just to remain with Public Mobile.

[softech]

@Brianrap So, they won't replace it for you?

send them a PM SIM to test

[Brianrap]

So the latest in the saga. Just heard from the Samsung techs and they can find no hardware issue with the phone. They say that everything is working exactly as it is supposed to and they cannot duplicate the problem. They have tested it with Rogers, Bell and Telus networks and it makes/receives calls and is able to send/receive texts. I know that it worked on Bell and Telus already but that doesn't really help me as a PM user. This really is bizarre and getting rather annoying.

[Brianrap]

So was finally able to track down the report that I provided to Samsung which included the exact alert I was getting on the device and what the phone was displaying before they asked for the phone to be sent in:  

"In the SIM card manager screen it says “SIM 1 Unknown” but it does show my correct phone number. I also receive a notification that the SIM is unregistered and a Notification Alert “Sim 1 not allowed”."   

Don't know if this adds anything but thought I would add to see if it helps solve this mystery. These same messages appeared with my original SIM, my new SIM and when I put my wife's PM SIM in the phone. I would also like to send my sincere thanks to all for the time, effort and advice you have been providing!! Been a PM customer for a number of years but this is the first time using the "Community" and it has been wonderful to receive all the input and assistance. Cheers!

[darlicious]

@Brianrap 

A little more stuff to add to your collection....

Odin is a software flashing tool for Samsung devices. With this tool you can completely wipe and install Samsung firmware from the source. With over the air updates things can get messed up from time to time. There's not much to it. Try checking it out on XDA developers. They have a detailed write up about it.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s21-s21-plus-s21-ultra/1020175-odin-files-guides-s2...

https://forum.xda-developers.com/c/samsung-galaxy-s21.11933/

Lol...I got distracted reading up on stuff and forgot to come back and post this last night.

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin#.

[darlicious]

@Brianrap 

From what I have read on the Samsung community they have not been able to repair the issue. With enough clues we may be able to solve your mystery.

To contact customer support click below:

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

To pre-verify your account include your full name, address, email, phone # and 4 digit acct pin #.

[Brianrap]

Very interesting. I will definitely bookmark this page in case Samsung doesn't  fix the issue. The problem arose several weeks after the 4.0 update.