N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Hello community, I previously created a post about my N900 going from partially displaying the no Sim symbol to disabled telephony functions. After some suggestions, I took the phone apart and tried to bend the GSM antenna pins, which did not work. I know that taking it apart voided my warranty, so I didnt bother to try contacting Nokia. Instead, I BOUGHT A NEW N900. I have had the new one for a week, I updated to PR1.3 OTA, and I used the backup app to transfer everything from the old to the new phone. Last week I saw the "No Sim symbol " display, but the phone worked after I restarted it. Today it has been doing it on an "on and off" basis. Usually it just displays no signal at all, but sometimes it displays the No sim icon. If i wait a little bit, it magically gets back to normal. I am afraid these symptoms are similar to the previous phone, which is very worrying.

What I have tried (with the old phone):

Well first is first. I used to use an extended battery, and when I switched back to the OEM battery, it went for a good month with no issue, only to go back again to the same issue. (this makes me think that it is an external connectivity issue??)

Second: I tried flashing the device (using OEM) with multiple versions, it would flash fine, but the issue would not be resolved.

Third, I got a brand new SIM card.

Fourth: I reset ALL settings back to default.

What is left:
Is it the carrier (highly doubt it)? Is it a certain app that I installed (SD card)? (This would make sense because the apps I am using on the new phone are the same as the ones on the old phone, due to using Backup and Restore). Is it a Nokia hardware issue (And I am so unlucky to have received two bad ones??).

Any help is much appreciated, while we all work on this together to try to solve it.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Change sims?

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Thanks, but as I said "Third, I got a brand new SIM card. " I am sure it is not the actual SIM.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

clean the surface where SIM is inserted?
or maybe something is broken/loose inside the phone..
try putting some paper behind the SIM to get it wendged tightly on it's place.
drop the phone on the table from about 2inch height, that worked for me with my old phone :D im not encouraging to do this though.
if nothing works, you could flash the whole thing and not install the same apps with backupmanager.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

I had exactly the same problem and tried re-flashing, cleaning the SIM card, the contacts, bending the pins, piece of paper/card behind SIM card, etc etc etc but none of them worked.

Eventually I returned it to Nokia "care", and after a couple of attempts to fix it (ie they ignored the problem description and simply flashed it and sent it back), they replaced my N900.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

I had similar problems. Handed in phone to Nokia Care for warranty repair. First time they did nothing, second time they swapped it for a new n900.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Thanks for this. So am I really that unlucky to have bought 2 phones with that same problem? :(

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

I had this problem too. I put small piece of paper between SIM and battery. Problem disappeared.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

I tried this, did not work. :(

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

I also want to mention that the phone doesn't read the IMEI number. So the issue could be revolved around that, because if the IMEI disappeared (for whatever strange reason), the phone would be acting the way it is. So the problem could me reading the IMEI as opposed to reading the SIM. Can anybody second that?

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

So I was just on the phone with Nokia about this issue, only to get disconnected because the No SIM symbol appeared. this is frustrating.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Any other ideas please?

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Well, what possibilities are there but two defective phones in a row, two defective SIMs in a row, or a defective user? (joke!)

I have two N900s here and have never had similar problems.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

I heard a lot of people did this and it worked for them. It is not working for me. But why would this make sense, and what does it mean? I just noticed something however, if i open and close the keyboard (slider) the no SIM symbol disappears/reappears, but when it disappears, i get no signal. i dont know if that means anything.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

I've encountered this twice now. Reflashing works... for a while...

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

This N900 needs to be sent back to Nokia care something is not right here, boy i wish i had it with me.

For the imei you only need to type *#06# and if that does not give you your imei (serial number) there is something wrong with the device.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

I have seen reports where the symptoms are eratic because the device had been dropped and the only device i got my hands on with this problem it turned out that the device had been dropped smashing the display, owner replaced display with display outer case and i found movement had occured on the main pcb to the extent it had moved slightly obviously with such impact the whole board became unstable (eratic).
Replacement was the only cure.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Thats is what I have been doing. Thanks.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Thanks for this. The new one I bought did it again today, so I "cleared the device". It has not done it yet, but I am sure it will start pretty soon. This issue is really annoying as I have not been able to really see what is triggering it. :(

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

It's a really weird one, as it seems to be some sort of service degradation issue. For me, at first SMS *sometimes* doesn't work, steadily gets worse, then quits altogether. Soon afterwards, calling starts doing the same thing until it no longer works. I suspect a memory leak somewhere, maybe introduced by PR1.3...

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Somehow, I am convinced this is related to the battery. I know it sounds weird, but whenever i change to another battery, the issue either shows up or disappears, for a while at least. For example, when i swapped my extended battery to the OEM one, the issue went away, for a while..

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Recieved mine back from Nokia Care today after a week (so missed it) and they replaced the 'board'. So far works ok and sim is recognised and that message has not returned.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Some new updates: the phone has started to do it more often (Honestly, I do have warranty on the phone, but I just really want to investigate some more, if somebody can help me, so we can figure out this annoying issue). I was wondering if somebody can guide me in the right direction to maybe "reset" the gsm antenna or something of that sort, so that the phone can get signal again (by re-reading the SIM). Maybe refresh the SIM_SECURE partition or something? I am not sure, hope somebody can help. Thanks :)

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

In my case, it worked fine when I did not apply any pressure to the keyboard, or same area on the back. As soon as some pressure was applied, the crossed out sim icon appeared.

Also check output of 'dmesg' after sim icon gets crossed out.

Texrat: My own suspicion was that the battery pushes against the PCB, and/or in combination with heat makes the cellmo side of the phone progressively less reliable.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Update: Well, today it went from bad to worse. The no SIM icon would NOT go away :( But, I activated a new SIM card (even though mine is 2 weeks old), but this time, an "older" SIM card. One where the data partition looks like an oval, not a rectangle (t-mobile). The phone is back to working 100 percent (so far) and im crossing my finger that this was the problem, as it was mentioned on other threads. Please let me know if anybody can second this.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

To me, this points not to the battery but to the particular hardware jiggling that changing the battery creates. The culprit might be near the battery, though whether it can be found is another question.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

A memory leak would be consistently--though admittedly only temporarily--cured by a reboot. Is that what people are seeing? The descriptions posted here make me think people find themselves confronting a problem not so easily worked around.

It would fit with geneven not running across the problem though. He'd be resetting the clock on the memory leak every time he swaps batteries.

In contrast though, I reboot less often than once a month, and I haven't had my N900 forget it has a SIM. Of course, I also make or receive a call on my N900 less often than once a month, so if there's a memory leak caused calling, I'm unlikely to see it.

That's a whole lot of every which way. Are people finding that rebooting (or perhaps even power off + pulling the battery) always fixes the problem, at least temporarily?

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Thank you for this. Well with me, a reboot would fix it about 30 percent of the times (so really non consistent). As days go by, the issue gets worse, more reboots are needed, to finally get it to recognize the SIM/ get signal. Now after a few days (like today), the phone will just refuse to recognize the SIM. Like I said today I swapped SIMS (I put it an older type of SIM instead of the new type), and so far, it has not done it once. Here is whats also strange: When it starts doing it, it would just not display any bars, and once you open the keyboard, the no SIM symbol appears, close keyboard, no signal, open keyboard..... So when I noticed that I was convinced it is being caused by a hardware tweak. But then again, it should be consistent! Once I changed batteries, the issue didnt appear until a few weeks later, during which I was convinced the battery is causing it. Now the SIM seems to do it. So my conclusion: is there some sort of a "Hardware ID" that once changed, the phone does not accept any SIM? This would be the only thing that sums all these things up. Can you think of anything else?

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Okay, so it sounds as though it's not a memory leak in Maemo. A reboot would cure that.

A loose cable that runs between the display and keyboard sections of the N900, perhaps?

This might support Texrat's memory leak theory. Rebooting (or shutting down and restarting) an N900 completely restarts Maemo, thereby correcting the damaged caused by any memory leaks there. However, I don't know whether or not a reboot also causes the GSM processor to restart.

It could be that the GSM processor maintains its state through a phone reboot. Pulling the battery, either to replace the battery itself or the SIM card, would force the GSM processor to start anew though.

Does pulling the battery get your phone working again (at least temporarily) every time? There's a small backup battery or capacitor inside N900s to help them retain settings (such as date and time) through battery changes, so you may need to keep the battery out of your N900 long enough for that to drain. A minute or two should be more than enough.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

The answer to your question is No. Today in the morning, I literally pulled the battery out and restarted the phone about 30 times, to no avail: the no SIM symbol would just not leave ( During rebooting I also was taking the SIM out and putting it back in ). When I activated that new SIM, and I rebooted using it, the phone has (still) been perfect, even when I open the keyboard, even if I restart. But I bet that in a few weeks, I am going to start seeing it (about once a week), and then it will dramatically increase.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

In that case, I don't see how it could be a memory leak. Indeed, it sounds like a hardware issue, though I have no suggestions as to specifics of the problem or a solution to it.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

What kills me though is that it has happened to BOTH phones I have purchased. I purchased both from Nokia. So this makes me think it is an issue from my side: ie an app (since i always restore the same apps) is causing this issue, maybe an app that loads everytime the phone turns on. Or maybe the SIM, or the SD card. The interval of options is very very wide, and I am kind of upset with that. Hopefully we will figure it out. Thanks for your help!

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

You can reset the gsm modem without rebooting n900. It's very hit and miss, because you're doing it behind the back of the software on the omap3, and it's pure chance that determines whether you timed the reset so that the software tries to restart the modem...

I did this for a few weeks, having my reset line cycling line of commands ready, and pressing uparrow enter repeatedly hoping to hit the right timimg, and that I wasn't holding my n900 in the postion/way that made it go to crossed out sim in first place...

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

I get this error when i flash my n900 using global firmware.
I am living in India and my n900 shows sim card error if I flash any other firmware except for indian version.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

is anybody that installed a different type of software on their n900, to see if the no sim issue is going away ?i am about 80% sure that is a soft related problem. this is because imei is gone when the problem occurs. i did take apart the n900 a dozen of times for different reasons, and it has nothing to do with the hardware , as far as bad contacts.
other issue that i am trying to figure out is how the problem occur?
it seams hard for me to remember right , but i think it happen as a result of installing an app
i wonder why the software updater is not available anymore....to reinstall the soft ...i did found i,t on cnet, but after it did an upgrade ...it turn to be in spanish...witch means different region...also..when i did installed fresh from cnet, eng version...when connecting the n900, the soft was having an aware sign, that the time on the n900 and the computer was not the same...even when it was the same...after the update of nokia updater, the software is in spanish, but there is no aware sign for not match time.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

The paper in between battery and sim solved for me..
I think it is loose soldering or dry solder on the sim slot as suspected by joerg_rw. in the post here http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...4&postcount=31

Also, I had this problem consistently after i changed to a new original nokia battery.. maybe the old one had swollen and applied pressure to the sim slot.. The new one created a palpable gap..

As of now i also have tried pulling up the data points on the main board where the GSM antenna connects, Wiping them with alcohol, slightly bending sim slot pins, Only the paper seems to work..

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

I have this issue since Sunday, paper doesn't work for me, although I will be trying a full reflash tonight (my first one in 20+ months!!)

One thing I did notice is that the tablet mode/phone mode option is no longer available from the power menu. I was hoping to leave it in tablet mode so I could use WiFi only, but no joy. The "cell-modem-ui" application is still installed, and as far as I recall I did not install anything new to make this problem start, making me think it is hardware related...

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

@JohnLF,

Please post the output of 'ls -l /etc/systemui'

It should contain a file called 'cell-modem-ui.xml', or a symlink to a file with that name on /opt/cell-modem-ui.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

Very weird. I swapped phones for a day then took it into the shop I bought it from to show them the error (I still have 3 months of contract warranty left). I put the SIM back in it and of course it didn't fail. It's been working perfectly since...including having tablet mode back on the power menu. If it goes again I will do the commands and post the output.

Re: N900- No Sim Inserted Issue, again??????
 

FWIW, I've had the sim icon dissapear a couple of times on my phone, it started after I'd dissasembled the phone to fit a new LCD - I never comlpeted that because I stripped one of the P00 screws without getting it out, so I just reassembled everything without swapping (I didn't even have a replacement LCD ready to swap when I did this, I was just doing a dry run before buying one).

Anyway, I'd exerted a LOT of downforce when trying to remove those pesky screws, and once I reassembled it all I immediately got the SIM missing icon. I first powered down, removed SIM, claned it and reinserted - no joy.

I then took it apart again and reseated the cable that connects the two main parts together. Once I'd done that and reassembled it again, the ketboard slider was no longer a flush fit - the gap at the front edge is a bit wider than it should be and the keyboard LED's are slightly visible when the k/b is open and you peer into the gap. I know that's because I didn't position things perfectly when reassembling, but as my SIM now worked again I didn't risk yet another dissasembly and I've just left it at that.

I have had the no SIM icon appear again twice since (over a period of about 3 months). Both times have been since I bought a second battery, such that I now open the phone to swap batteries occasionally. The fault happened once immediately after a battery swap and the other time just randomly while the phone was in normal use.

Each time, just removing the SIM, cleaning & reseating it has done the trick, but my own suspicion is that I have probably cracked a solder joint or a conductive track near the SIM tray on the main PCB on my original disassembly, and that flexing the N900 can occasionally cause that crack or joint to go faulty.

Just a guess, but has everyone who experiences this problem dissassembled their phone at some time PRIOR to it first occurring, and did you all have to use a lot of force when removing/replacing the screws?