I am in Australia and purchased a new N9 from an internet vendor in Hong Kong which it seems is a Middle East model as the version is PR1.3(40.2012.21-3_PR_006).
I didn't think much of this at the time and proceeded to use the phone over wifi while I waited for my micro SIM to arrive. Many days later the SIM arrived but when inserted in the phone does not register.
I am able to use the exact same SIM in my N900 with an adapter with no issues but I am guessing the N9 is blocking it or my service provider is blocking the phone because it is a Middle East version.
Can anyone confirm if this would likely be the case?
If so is it ok for me to flash the phone to an Australian variant or will that brick it?
I cannot really send it back because I have been using it for two weeks and expect I would be waisting my time debating the issue with the internet vendor in HK.


Cheers for any help in advance.

Hi oldmate,

Welcome to the forums

Your phone may have been sim-locked to another carrier that's causing the issue but its very rare to come across such cases in MEA variants but more in Latin American sets.

What I would suggest is to do a clean rootfs+emmc flash to the same 006 Legacy. You could chose a NDT variant which would mean a general 006 Legacy varaint. When you first got the phone its always advisable to do a clean full flash so might as well do it now. Try things out then

Thanks, according to the SIM tray the variant is 059J228 which means RM-696 NDT MEA1 MEA2 Black 64GB according to NaviFirm Plus. Any suggestions as to what variant would be best to try?

Thanks

The one you posted is right since its a general MEA variant and not a telco MEA variant

Wouldn't that then suggest the SIM should not be locked?
The reason I ask is that there is no branding at all evident on the device. I will flash it as suggested but that will be a job for another day and there may be a few questions along the way if that is ok?

Sure ask any questions here. You may want to read the first post too before doing anything to have a clearer understanding of things

My N9 died and is not booting up (I accidentally deinstalled facebook and mp-harmattan-001-pr) anymore

EDIT:

OK my bootloader is not demaged... but is it possible to boot it up without loosing your Apps?

Ok so I flashed the phone both main and emmc with variant 059J228 RM-696 NDT MEA1 MEA2 Black 64GB with no issues.
Unfortunatly it made no difference and the SIM card is still not detected.
So what next should I flash the phone with an Australian 005 variant?

Cheers,

You won't be able to flash the 005 variant as downgrading is disallowed...

I'm suspecting maybe a hardware failure is at play here or just the sim being the one at fault (unlikely as you have it working on another device)?

Maybe somebody else could advice on how to diagnose for suspected hw failure in this case...

I will try the same SIM in my brothers Lumia 800 and his SIM in the N9. The SIM is actually a Nano SIM in a Micro SIM adaptor, maybe inside it is not aligning correctly, but I don't think so.

Thanks,