talk and text stopped working

[blue88]

I got my wife to switch to Public Mobile and we put the SIM card in yesterday; after a couple hours it was working yesterday - SMS text messages, and making and receiving phone calls. Today it was still working at 1:30 pm but now about 20 hours after putting in the SIM card, AND travelling to a different BC city, her phone says "mobile network not available" and talk and text are not working incoming or outgoing. We have the identical phones and plans, and mine is working fine - we're in the city with 4 out of 5 bars cell signal. The robot Simon suggested restarting the phone and turning Airplane mode on and off, but that made no difference. I recall when I first got Public Mobile it took two days for text messaging to start working. But hers was working perfectly yesterday and today. What to do? Could it be taking this long for Public Mobile to set up her access an hour's drive away?

[softech]

@blue88   (i just notice you are "brother" of @BlueB ...the Blue family...  i have hard time thinking who to pick from the list after i type @    🙂  )

really appreciate you put in the time to reply and let us know what happened.  Glad it all work out in the end.  

too bad that you wife NOT getting a brand new phone as everything is now working..LoL.

[BlueB]

@blue88 

That's kinda strange, and although there must be a reason why it "magically" started working, the important fact here is that it works now!

Thanks for updating us! 🙂  If you found a post that particularly may have helped with this magic, don't forget to set that as a Solution too!

[blue88]

Okay everybody, I guess this will end this thread. My wife's phone finally began working on Public Mobile in Vancouver five days after installing it, for no known reason. (It originally began working within a couple hours after installation, but that was in a different region.)  A message to the moderators was apparently not replied to; it is a definite drawback that PM has no direct technical assistance contact.

Both my and my wife's phones are 2 year old Android phones, Samsung Galaxy A8's, and it seems likely that her battery or electronics is getting weak or flaky, and that it was merely a strange coincidence that the problem arose as soon as we travelled to Vancouver (a different part of the PM cell tower network, where we suspected the account's setup might not yet have been propagated to, but that propagation is reportedly done within 2 days). Where we are in Vancouver we have 4 to 5 bars of LTE signal strength out of 5 maximum and I never have reception problems. The fact that my PM SIM card wouldn't work in her phone, while her SIM card did work in a third phone, points to her phone being the cause of the problem. (It is still conceivable that there is a cause on the PM end, but it would be truly byzantine and therefore extremely unlikely, involving PM's security software and temporary restrictions related to some phone unique identifier ID such as its IMEI number or MAC address. I don't know how and didn't check to see if her phone was somehow mistakenly temporarily "blacklisted". We do have Kaspersky antimalware installed on it.)

My wife is very happy to have her phone working again, and I'm happy I apparently didn't make a mistake getting her to switch to PM.

Thank you all for your suggestions and trying to help.

[softech]

@blue88  is this a new phone? or is an old phone working well in other network?

curious, you said you are in a different city now.  So, you yourself on PM and your phone is working but just not your wife's phone in this city?

You confirmed that it is not blacklisted?

[blue88]

Can't run the "ping" test because those codes are not recognized by Samsung (I believe that's because Samsung and likely Huawei put their own skins over Android, making it different, so a lot of Android stuff doesn't work.)

Turns out the phone's SIM card works fine in other phones, but my SIM card doesn't work in her phone, so it appears there's something wrong on the phone end that rebooting, resetting network, etc. hasn't helped with.

We've put in a request for help from a moderator now and will wait to see what they suggest, possibly will need to do a backup, check that it worked if that is possible, and do a factory reset.

Thanks everyone.

[darlicious]

@blue88

After you switch sim cards to determine if its a sim card issue or a a device issue....if the sim card works in your phone then you know it's the phone. Try this.....

Run a Ping Test With Service Mode

One of the reasons a Samsung or Android device may show “No Service” is because it’s connected to a disabled cellular radio signal. This fix isn’t quite as easy as navigating menus or holding down buttons; but it’s not rocket science, either. All you have to do is dial in the following set of keys in your phone’s dialer. Dial up > *#*#4636#*#* < to enter your device’s service mode, a menu will come up with some options. You’ll want to locate your device information here and then select “Run Ping Test.”

Once the test ends, navigate to the bottom of the menu and check the radio data. It should be enabled. After this is set, restart your device, then check your phone to see if that resolved the issue.

If the ping test doesn't work you will have to back up the data via wifi and perform a factory reset.

[Dunkman]

@blue88 

Maybe check the phone to make sure not blacklisted for some reason:

https://www.devicecheck.ca/check-status-device-canada/

[blue88]

Thanks! Yes, it does say "Account Status: Active" part way down the page.

[JK8]

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@Nezgar wrote:

@JK8 unfortunately the "change sim card" link in self-serve no longer reports the current sim cards last four digits...

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Thank you for correcting me on this.

[computergeek541]

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@JK8 wrote:

As well....In self service choose Change Sim Card and ensure the last 4 digits match to ensure you have not been sim jacked.

Currently, self serve does not provide this information.

[Nezgar]

@JK8 unfortunately the "change sim card" link in self-serve no longer reports the current sim cards last four digits...

[JK8]

@blue88 

On the front page in self service you should see this:

As well....In self service choose Change Sim Card and ensure the last 4 digits match to ensure you have not been sim jacked.

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Announcements/SIM-Swap-Fraud/m-p/650969#M48485

[blue88]

Thanks for the advice everyone, but still not working.
It is really helpful to receive detailed instructions. I should have mentioned they're Android phones.
-"reset network settings" (on Android Samsung A8 it's Settings>General Management>Reset>Reset network settings) then doing a hard reboot (power off and on) made no difference.
-With the phone turned off, "remove SIM card put back in" could not do anything. We already know from earlier today and yesterday that the SIM card system was totally functional.
-the "account" status looks fine; all paid up with a positive credit balance, and it was successfully Activated yesterday, though I don't actually see where it would say "Active" as JK8 wrote.
-for cellular network settings: Settings>Connections>Mobile networks: "Network operators" should say Public Mobile, but instead it's blank. Clicking "Network operators" and "Search networks" or "Select automatically" both return nothing. >Mobile networks>Network mode shows ...(auto connect).
-yes, she used a different email address to set up her account
-We'll try swapping SIM cards tomorrow if Public Mobile hasn't gotten it working again by then, but that obviously wouldn't be a solution since I need my SIM card. But that would check that it's not a new problem with the phone that just happens to be just after activating a new account by coincidence. She did receive a spam call supposedly from a 12-digit number, hopefully that didn't do any harm. My suspicion is that PM just hasn't bothered warning people that it may take a few days for them to get their system fully working, like they didn't warn me about text messages taking two days to start working.

[hairbag1]

@blue88...as suggested, try swapping phones/sims.

When setting up second account...you used a different email address for that account, correct ?

[Nezgar]

Maybe try swapping the sims between the two phones to see if the problem is with the SIM/service, or the phone/settings?

Look for an option in the cellular network settings to manually search for networks, see what comes up... usually a few show up like Bell, Rogers, maybe Freedom, etc. If Public Mobile shows up pick that, but ideally ther "automatic" setting should be used...

[JK8 · Accepted solution]

@blue88 

Try these:

- reset network settings

- remove SIM card put back in and reboot.
- what is the account status in self service? Is it Active?

- swap SIM cards and see what works. Does her SIM card work in your phone and vice versa.

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