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Zero Service

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I signed up, paid up, and SIMed up a couple of days ago, and I am getting nothing in return. My phone thinks it's New Year's Day and I have no phone or text connections. Please tell me that I haven't made a mistake and shouldn't go running back to my old phone company. What should I do?

72 REPLIES 72

Great @WhatHaveIDone 

Glad to hear you managed to work it out and stay and enjoy the savings.

I usually hear about lg phones refusing to connect and then mysteriously just working afterwards.

Well, welcome again to public mobile:)

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

It was either that or ditch the cell phone altogether!  Thanks again CF!

@WhatHaveIDone  Glad to hear you FINALLY got it workin', after all these pages of goin' back & forth!!! Too bad, though, that the folks at that kiosk didn't have some idea on what jump-started the service.... oh well, ya got it workin', so I guess that's all that matters.

 

TBH, I didn't think you were going to stick with it - sounded like you were gonna jump ship back to the previous provider.

 

Anyway, welcome aboard! 👍 

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

So I am finally up and running. After talking with the online moderators and then a moderator via the tele, I ended up at a PM seller's booth and they got me connected. They didn't know how they did it, so it is a mystery, but at this point I'm just happy to have cell service again. Thanks to all for your help.


@CannonFodder wrote:

@WhatHaveIDone wrote:

I have contacted the moderator, thanks.


Well, let us know what comes of that conversation.... would be interested to hear what the issue turned out to be.


 


@WhatHaveIDone wrote:

I have contacted the moderator, thanks.


Well, let us know what comes of that conversation.... would be interested to hear what the issue turned out to be.

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I have contacted the moderator, thanks.

lorca01
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@WhatHaveIDone wrote:

The reception here rocks as I am not too far from the GTA. I'm getting 5 bars reception.

 

I haven't closed the old account yet because it is a shared account. I was with Simply Connect, a reseller of Rogers and it's auto prepaid.

 

I have not been able to convince either of my teenagers that swapping SIMs won'd delete some of their data because they have lost data in the past doing that.

 

I may try the other PM SIM that I purchased and see if it works???


Hi, You don't have to close your old account to port one of the numbers to Public Mobile. But it looks like your old number hasn't ported properly and you might need assistance from a Public Mobile moderator to bring it over. 


@WhatHaveIDone wrote:

The reception here rocks as I am not too far from the GTA. I'm getting 5 bars reception.

 

I'll assume you meant via your previous provider, because if you're not connected to PM's service, you'd have no idea what sort of reception you get there. For a point of reference, I live in an area with poor reception on PM, and in certain rooms, every once in a while, I simply lose the connection, which typically shows 1, or 2 bars, at best, but once my connection fails, the screen shows 4 or 5 bars, but I'm connected to nothing, so that's clearly incorrect.

 

I haven't closed the old account yet because it is a shared account. I was with Simply Connect, a reseller of Rogers and it's auto prepaid.

 

Oh, now that makes more sense, because if your PM account shows that it's active, and appears, in all ways, to have the number ported correctly, in most cases that would automatically close the account you ported the number from. I guess since there's at least one other number still on that other account, it remains active.

 

I have not been able to convince either of my teenagers that swapping SIMs won'd delete some of their data because they have lost data in the past doing that.

 

Then you should tell them to back up that data, just in case, and then loan you the phone(s).

 

I may try the other PM SIM that I purchased and see if it works???


You could do that, but you'll have to go into your account, and change the SIM in there, which will render the current SIM useless. Since you haven't said anything about it, can we assume you HAVE NOT done as was suggested in the 2nd post in this thread, and contacted the Moderator team for help?

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Sorry Cannon, I'm new to the online forum format. See previous reply for info on not closing my previous provider account.

 

 

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I appreciate everyone's help!!


@lorca01 wrote:

Wow what a lot of help you've gotten. If your old sim is still active your port is not complete. Please click the question mark in the corner and contact a public mobile employee to complete the port.


 

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

The reception here rocks as I am not too far from the GTA. I'm getting 5 bars reception.

 

I haven't closed the old account yet because it is a shared account. I was with Simply Connect, a reseller of Rogers and it's auto prepaid.

 

I have not been able to convince either of my teenagers that swapping SIMs won'd delete some of their data because they have lost data in the past doing that.

 

I may try the other PM SIM that I purchased and see if it works???


@WhatHaveIDone wrote:

I never closed the previous one.


In some replies you really should use the "Quote" button..... never closed the previous what.... your previous account, that you ported over from? 🤔 

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I never closed the previous one.


@lorca01 wrote:

If your old sim is still active your port is not complete.

 

I'm fairly sure it was just a poor choice of wording, since the OP previously said that the old SIM was "kaput".

 

Please click the question mark in the corner and contact a public mobile employee to complete the port.


I don't know if the port needs to be "completed", since, from what the OP has said, it SOUNDS as though it is, but it's sure sounding like he needs to contact the Moderator team. Unfortunately, he hasn't been back for a while now, and hasn't replied to any of the previous questions.....

lorca01
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Wow what a lot of help you've gotten. If your old sim is still active your port is not complete. Please click the question mark in the corner and contact a public mobile employee to complete the port.


@WhatHaveIDone wrote:

No, no networks are detected on either SIM card. And the old SIM account is still active, so right now I'm paying $55/m  between the two accounts for nothing. It's probably something simple, but I'm stumped.


Well, at least we know the phone is unlocked now. 👍 

 

As far as networks, I BELIEVE @mimmo  was referring to simply checking in Settings/MoreNetworks/MobileNetworks/NetworkOperators to see if there ARE any that the phone detects, as opposed to whether or not either of the SIMs shows their specific network. For instance, although I'm on PM, my phone also detects Rogers' network. Are you currently in an area that generally has good cell reception?

 

As far as accounts go, and what @kselmak  asked, about the old SIM being dead, when you said, "the old SIM account is still active, so right now I'm paying $55/m  between the two accounts for nothing", you DID mean that the account is active, but NOT the SIM, didn't you? As far as that goes, assuming the number was ported from your old account, it should have been closed, and you should receive a prorated amount back from them, so you're unlikely to be still paying for that one. For that matter, I just skimmed through this thread again, to refresh my memory, and I don't see any mention of who your previous provider was.... so which provider, and was the plan prepaid, or postpaid?

 

As for swapping SIMs, now that your phone is unlocked, have you tried any other people's SIMs in your phone, and has your son relented and let you try your PM SIM in his phone yet?

@WhatHaveIDone 

Wait I thought your old SIM (with the previous provider) went dead. Did you get 3rd sim or is it still the previous one that's active?

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

No, no networks are detected on either SIM card. And the old SIM account is still active, so right now I'm paying $55/m  between the two accounts for nothing. It's probably something simple, but I'm stumped.

mimmo
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@WhatHaveIDone  have you tried manually searching for the network?  Do any networks show up?

 

I don't recall this bring asked, sorry if it has.

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

True that cg. I found the contacts on the old SIM and put them on the SD where they belong. Thanks.

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Lo and behold that ostensibly "unlocked" the phone but did not change anything. I rebooted, I swapped SIMS and I am still getting this msg when I try to send a text: "No signal found for mobile networks." So it must not be a phone lock issue.

Good one @CannonFodder 

I think we should actually put it here so that the next person looking to get the prompt back has access to info without relying on outside webpage

Here it is

 

If your phone does not ask for “SIM Network Unlock Pin” then you can go to the dial screen and press

  • #7465625*638*#

@WhatHaveIDone  Ok then, I did a quick little search on the 'net, and here's a site I came up, that just MIGHT help:  samsung-does-not-ask-for-the-unlock-code 


@WhatHaveIDone wrote:

 

Also, apparently when you swap out a SIM, you lose your contacts and anything that isn't saved elsewhere.

 

Uhm, admittedly, I don't know all there is to know on this subject, BUT I wouldn't think that your contacts would be saved on the SIM - that should contain nothing more than the parameters needed to connect to whichever network you're trying to get on.

 

So that's what happened to me. I think I'm buggered. I'm going away for a couple of days and if I can't get it figured out by then, I think that I'm going to have to start from scratch with a different provider.

 

Did you try what I suggested above?

 

In any case, switching to another provider won't solve the unlock situation, unless you go back to your previous provider. That, and I'm assuming you ported your number(without going back to look at the 1st page) from your previous provider, in to PM(since you said your previous SIM no longer works), so you'll need to then port that number out to another provider, or get a new number.

 

I know the whole unlock thing can be a royal pain-in-the-ass, but trust me, with enough tinkering around with the phone, and various SIMs, that unlock prompt will re-appear, i.e. I have seen the very same thing happen.

 

Also, with my current phone, which I bought used, from someone that used to be on Koodo, I easily got the unlock code from Koodo, but the phone wouldn't accept it, so I had to do a Google search for the same circumstances, and it was a real finicky trick to get the code accepted, but once it was, it worked fine.

 

Maybe that's something you ought to Google, i.e. search for "how to get the Samsung J1 unlock prompt to appear", or something similar.... now I'm curious, and will have to do that too.

 

Thanks CF.


You're welcome..... keep plugging away - I bet that once it's unlocked, you should be go-to-go!


@WhatHaveIDone wrote:

Also, apparently when you swap out a SIM, you lose your contacts and anything that isn't saved elsewhere.

If it's the same device as before, that isn't true unless the contacts are saved on your old sim card. These days, that method isn't usually used.

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

That's what I figured. 

 

Also, apparently when you swap out a SIM, you lose your contacts and anything that isn't saved elsewhere. So that's what happened to me. I think I'm buggered. I'm going away for a couple of days and if I can't get it figured out by then, I think that I'm going to have to start from scratch with a different provider.

 

Thanks CF.

@WhatHaveIDone  I'd suggest you try the other items before you go messing around with that new SIM, because if your 1st PM SIM is actually activated and working, and you swap in a new PM SIM(which you'll have to do within your online account), the 1st one will be rendered useless.

 

I think it's pretty clear, based on what you said earlier in this thread, that the phone being locked is the issue, and once you fix that, the chances are pretty good that your current PM SIM will work just fine.

WhatHaveIDone
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

It's a brand new Public SIM card.


@WhatHaveIDone wrote:

Thanks for the link. They responded right away with an unlock code, but the phone is no longer prompting me for an unlock code.


Well, as @kselmak  said, they don't magically unlock themselves, and if you had the unlock prompt come up before, it will re-appear at some point.

 

I don't know what all you've tried, so far as restarts, swaps, etc., but here's what I'd suggest:

Turn off your phone, take out the PM SIM, re-insert your previous provider's SIM, & turn on the phone. Once it's fully booted up, turn it off again, swap in the PM SIM, and turn it on again, and hopefully that unlock prompt will appear, at which point, key in the code they gave you, and see what happens.


@WhatHaveIDone wrote:

So my son's afraid that if I swap out his SIM for mine that it will mess up his phone - I guess he did that before and lost some info.

 

Well, just swapping SIMs, SHOULD NOT result in some "lost info".... I've done that several times without a problem. My wife has a Rogers SIM, while I'm on PM(duh!), and I've swapped SIMs back & forth, more than once, just to experiment, and all is still fine. If your son's phone is unlocked, and you put your PM SIM in it, and if his phone is compatible with PM, AND if your PM SIM is activated and working correctly, you SHOULD be able to connect to the PM network, which would confirm that the SIM is functional. That, and depending on who his provider is, putting his SIM in your phone should bring up the unlock prompt, IF his provider is someone other than PM/Koodo/Telus.

 

I bought another Public SIM for another phone (which is still in use) and I haven't used that SIM yet. If I try the new SIM, it is possible that I will mess up the card?


Not sure exactly what you're asking there. "Mess up" which card - the new SIM? Also, has that SIM been activated, for another account, using another email address, or is it still completely untouched?

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