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URGENT: Sim not Supported Error

darcy
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

IMG_6196.PNG 

Please someone get back to me soon as I manage properties and right now my phone is dead (and tomorrow is the busiest day of November!)

 

I sent an email to support yesterday and no reply yet

 

I transferred from Virgin yesterday and before activation I verified my iPhone 5 was unlocked by putting my wife's Bell SIM card in my phone and it was operational. I paid for the 3 month plan during activation but now all I get is a pop up that says activation required, then when I click that it says Sim not supported. 

My Membership Area says "Active" however it says I have money owing even though I paid for 3 months ...

Please someone get back to me soon as I have people who need to get hold of me.

Thanks in advance.

29 REPLIES 29

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@darcy I'm glad to hear it worked out so well.  🙂  Welcome to Public Mobile!


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fathom
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle
To unlock a Bell or Virgin phone, call the Bell unlocking service
877-543-2064
They do it instantly for $50 you pay via credit card.
Will require your IMEI number.

I happen to forget my phone was locked to Bell, got the confirmation it now transferred to PM, but called within 30 min and i was still a customer in their file, so did not get charged $75.

Also because i bought the phone from Orchard (which can exchanged for an unlocked phone if bought within 30 days), Bell said could not unlocked as the phone was not in their system, after a bit of searching the tech could do it after all.

Hope that helps.

So glad to read that you finally got your phone to work.  The community is full of very knowledgable users.  Please let me suggest you follow the advise when it's presented, rather than dispute it.

 

within 5 posts, you determined that Bell and Virgin were the same network, and in your first post you saw the Public Mobile SIM was not going to work in your Virgin phone.

 

i really am happy you got this working.

darcy
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen
Update! I tried PM sim in Telus phone and it worked perfect. I made a call.

So I called Virgin to get my phone unlocked and they were nice enough to only charge me the $50 fee instead Of the $75. But it worked right away!

Thanks everyone for your input and advice!
Happy Halloween

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@darcy I'm not sure if the network locking works in both directions.  As PM hasn't sold phones in some time, I have no idea if a PM-locked phone would work on Telus or Koodo, 

 

Please keep us posted with your test with a known good Telus or Fido SIM.  If I were a betting man, I'd bet on getting the same SIM Not Supported error, but in the interest of saving you $75, I'm hoping I'm wrong. 


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darcy
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Thanks for all the help thus far!


Do you get my confusion though? According to the statement above my phone is already unlocked.

 

And if your statement is true shouldn't my Virgin SIM work in the Bell phone as well since they are the same network?

 

I'm going to try the suggestion to try the SIM in a Telus/Fido phone to rule out the fact that it wasn't authorized properly or has a hard issue. I'm thinking that may also be the culprit

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@darcy Bell and Virgin are the same company and run on the same network.  In much the same was as Telus and Koodo customers can use their locked phones on PM without issue, you can use your locked Virgin phone on Bell.  This does NOT prove it is unlocked, unfortunately.  The only way to test woudl be to get a SIM frorm another provider--Rogers, Fido, Telus, PM, Koodo, Chatr....  but I think we've already shown that your phone has failed that test.  You need to get it unlocked.  Period. 


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darcy
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Good call! 

 

According to this site my phone is unlocked (is this not the test to see if it's unlocked? NOTE I cannot do the opposite and make a call on the Bell phone with my Virgin sim (I tried this when it was still active))) https://www.whistleout.ca/CellPhones/Guides/Unlock-Phone-in-Canada-guide

 

"First, you need to know whether or not your phone is locked. It’s pretty easy to check. Get a same-sized SIM card from a friend, family member or colleague, and stick it in your phone. Reset the device if necessary, then try making call. If it doesn’t work, wait about a minute and try again. If it still doesn’t work, your phone is probably locked."

 

I just tried again and can call on my Virgin phone with a Bell SIM. I really don't want to waste $75 if it's the SIM that's the problem. I wish I had an unlocked phone I can try the PM SIM in

imcphers
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

Totally agree with @bmendes - iPhones are special - given your critical need to get a phone by tomorrow you'll have to pay the $75.00 - it's terrible, it's a rip-off but they have you.....

 

@darcy - might even be worth driving to a Vigin Mobile kiosk/store and take you PM SIM with you to make sure the unlock worked.

 

 

bmendes
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Best option is to get it unlocked directly through Virgin. They'll charge $75 if your no longer a member but third party solutions will likely cost even more and they still have to go through Virgin to unlock it because iPhones are unlocked differently.

jamestneutron
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

Agreed...I would even go as far as to say that 100% it is a problem! Not saying that there are not other obsticles in the way...but nothing will work in the current locked state! Cheers! 

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@jamestneutron that's possible.  But since @darcy has confirmed they got the iPhone from Virgin and have not gotten it unlocked, I would say it's a 99.99999999% probability that the problem is the phone is locked to Virgin.  


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jamestneutron
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

Then the CRTC stepped in...much better these days with a little competition between companies and the option to get out of a contract.

bmendes
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I remember when you couldn't even unlock Bell iPhone's at all. Bell would refuse and third parties were charging $150-200+ to do it. I couldn't switch for a long time bc of this. 

darcy
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Any suggestions for sites to unlock? I'm no longer a virgin customer but still find it strange that this error occurred on someone else's phone who had public working: http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Phones-Hardware/SIM-Not-Supported/td-p/53405

jamestneutron
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

Be careful...(President Choice) PC Mobile uses a different support carrier for their prepaid and their post paid services...Prepaid is Bell and Post Paid is Telus. If you pick up a PC Mobile phone on Craigslist or Kijiji it might not support the PM sim.

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@darcy for the first post, if you're talking about BetaKam, he or she did not mention anything at all about their phone, so I don't think you can assume they didn't have an unlocked phone.

 

In the second thread, it was an intermittent issue with a known unlocked phone.  Yours is locked to Virgin and the symptom is not intermittent.  

 

Neither of these threads is helpful in your situation.  You need to get your phone carrier unlocked for it to work with PM.  


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jamestneutron
Great Citizen / Super Citoyen

They only charge $50 to existing customers whose accounts are still active...it's $75 to former customers! That'll teach you for leaving!  

darcy
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Here's the thread where they ported from Virgin (second comment, no mention of phone) http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Getting-Started/How-do-I-move-my-cell-phone-number-to-...

 

 

Here's the thread where this message popped up AFTER public was working

http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Phones-Hardware/SIM-Not-Supported/td-p/53405

 

 

jheili99
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

hi..

 

agree with everybody: your phone has been sim card locked to your previous provider .... apple is known to make it difficult to unlock iphones..

 

4 options you have:

 

1. call virgin for unlock code ( you must have an active account with them and they usually charge 50.00 fee for this code...if you don't have an account with them any longer you might be out of luck there )

 

2.pay one of these cell phone stores 50-90 $ ..they can unlock it for you

 

3. find somebody who "jailbreaks" your phone which will unlock it as well ( costs the same as unlock code )

 

4. get yourself via craigslist a different phone ( cheapest solution probably ) ...either an unlocked one or if it is locked to telus,koodo or PC that will work too....

 

cheers

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@darcy then yes, it absolutely does need to be unlocked to work on PM, unfortunately


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darcy
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Yes. Virgin mobile three years ago

TroyDaBes
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

Did they mention what phone they were using? It might be android phones since there are android that factory unlocked (Google phones is the one popping on my mind). 

 

I remember reading a thread on RFD where the sims are interchangable between Bell and Virgin, Rogers and Chatr and Koodo and Telus. Hence, why you were able to use your wife's Bell sim on your Virgin iphone.

 

Also, this error is what I get when I tried to use the Public Mobile sim on Rogers. This is definitely saying that the phone is locked and you can't use the sim on that phone. You will have to unlock the phone to use the sim.

 

Your plan is definitely active and running but the your phone just won't let you use it since it's locked to Bell/Virgin network.

bmendes
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Yup, that definitely means it's locked. Bell and Virgin SIMs both work cuz it's the same network. You'll need to get Virgin to unlock it for $50 fee. (Only they can unlock it) 

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

Hi @darcy,

 

Yes, 100% sure.  Virgin phones need to be unlocked.  If you bought the phone unlocked from the Apple store, you might be able to get them to unlock it for you.  I'm guessing you bought it from Virgin though?


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mimmo
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

My friend on Bell just unlocked his iphone 5s for $50,  I looked on ebay and other sites for a better unlock price  and found that the  Bell price seemed actually resonable, too bad their monthly rates were not as resonable.

darcy
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Thanks for the quick reply Troy!

 

are you sure? I read that people transferred from Virgin to here without having to unlock and others who got this message AFTER their phones had been working fine on the Public SIM...

TroyDaBes
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

Uh-oh. Your phone is locked. You will need to unlock it to be available on Public Mobile. Virgin mobile and Bell are using the same network. That's why you were able to use it on your phone. 

 

Try calling Virgin Mobile if they can help you unlock your phone but I think you will pay $50 on it.

darcy
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

 

Please someone get back to me soon as I manage properties and right now my phone is dead (and tomorrow is the busiest day of November!)

 

I sent an email to support yesterday and no reply yet

 

I transferred from Virgin yesterday and before activation I verified my iPhone 5 was unlocked by putting my wife's Bell SIM card in my phone and it was operational. I paid for the 3 month plan during activation but now all I get is a pop up that says activation required, then when I click that it says Sim not supported. 

My Membership Area says "Active" however it says I have money owing even though I paid for 3 months ...

Please someone get back to me soon as I have people who need to get hold of me.

Thanks in advance.

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