DROID RAZR Will not work with specific SIM after coming back from holiday in USA

[loosebruce]

Hi all,

I am so glad I found this site and I hope that you can help me resolve my problem.

Heres my story.

I am from the United Kingdom, back in March this year I bought my Motorola DROID XT190 unlocked and not associated with any specific carrier in the UK.

I bought a SIM from a company called GiffGaff. They are a MVN (mobile virtual network) who piggy back off the O2 network in the UK.

LINK--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffgaff

I had no problems with them and had the sim for three months.

Then I went away to the USA to do some travelling for a month. When I was over there I bought a TMobile pre-paid sim that I used all round the states.

After I finished travelling when I came home I could not find my GiffGaff sim so I ordered a new one from the carrier. It came the next day and I activated it with no problems.

However when I tried to make phone calls it would not send , after pressing the "Green Phone Symbol" to make a call it would then cut off saying "Call Time 00:00" in the middle of the screen then just go back to the phones desktop.

I then found out that none of my friends could contact me, it kept saying "The person is not available to take your call" , I also discovered I could not send or receive SMS messages too!

The only thing that was working was 3G/2G data and I could go on the internet , google maps etc.

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I then decided to goto GiffGaff support who confirmed that my SIM was not blocked and there was no Voice or SMS bar on my phone.

They suggested trying the SIM in another phone which I did. I tried the SIM in a cheap NOKIA and a Blackberry.

I was able to make calls and SMS no problem with them.

This ruled out GiffGaff being the side of the problem.

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Next stage was I bought a prepaid SIM from another carrier in the UK called ORANGE.

I activated the SIM and was able to make calls on my DROID RAZR with no problems.

This meant that the RAZR was working with other SIM.

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I tried the following also:

-Updating the RAZR through Motorolas Update Utility on the PC
-Factory Reset of the phone
-Manually configuring the APN on the phone for GiffGaff SIM.
-Ordering a new SIM

None of these fixed it!
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Android Version 2.3.6

I think maybe the American SIM has damaged my phone in some way when I used it over in the states.

I was wondering if any of you can think of how I can fix this , or if anyone has had a similar problem.

Thanks!

 

[FoxKat]

Based on the extensive troubleshooting you've done and the fact that the Orange SIM worked fine likely points to a problem with the GiffGaff SIM or a problem with the authentication process they are using with your phone. The face that the GiffGaff SIM worked on the other phone further points to an authentication problem on the GiffGaff network.

I'd explain the same information to the GiffGaff provider and have them research it.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[TisMyDroid]

Welcome to Droid Forums loosebruce! Wow, that is perplexing why one out of many sims will work but not the giffgaff one. Of course, you have the network setting on global. You said that you manually configured the APN settings. And you also tried a new sim from Giff gaff and still no luck with the new giffgaff sim? With the new giffgaff sim try configuring the APN settings again. You could try installing phone info app which will take you into more detailed network settings to see if there is a specific global network setting that giffgaff uses that you can set your network to or other setting that may need to be enabled. keep in mind I am grasping at straws and possibilities for you to try. With the phone info app, find out which specific network the giffgaff uses and see if there is that network only option (rather than a combination of all possible networks) and check to make sure the APN settings are correct and manually configure them again. See if that will provide any success.

Here is a great thread that talks about members experiences using the Razr XT912 (almost the same phone) internationally. Start with post #26 and read through what various members found successful. Hope this helps.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-razr-maxx/212942-international-travel-razr-maxx-3.html

 

[Sydman]

First off welcome to the forum and sorry you are having trouble.

I don't think my words are going to fix your problem but at least it might either comfort knowing you are not alone, or maybe raise some questions as to what might be going on.

Twice now with my phone once back in July before ICS hit and once about a few weeks ago I have had the same thing happen to me.

I was sitting at home and went to make a call and noticed as soon as I hit send the call would end with the same "Call Time 00:00". I then noticed that I could no longer send text messages, even weirder I could receive them which does differ from what you are seeing.

So both times I did the same thing you did by doing a factory data reset, tried taking out my SIM and putting it back in, called Verizon to no avail. The next day my phone would continue to normal operation with everything working just fine, just for good measure both times I went and got a new SIM from Verizon.

I guess my point in saying all of this, I am curious if there is something to these SIM cards that cause a sort of hiccup in the phones. I would say they were just network issues but my wife has a Droid Pro and her phone both times has been fully operational while mine was not.

At this point I am still refusing to have them send me a factory like new replacement because I take so good care of my phone and there is 0 damage, I don't trust them sending me one that could have other issues. To me dealing with no service once every few months is less irritating.

Again sorry I don't have a fix for you in this matter, but your thinking about the SIM card could have some merit to it. I hope you find a resolution.

 

[loosebruce]

I am going to update to ICS right now as I am still using Ginger Bread.

Will let you know what happens!

Thanks for all the responses so far!

 

[Sydman]

Sounds good, after the update do two factory data resets back to back and clear the cache you will see a much better experience.

 

[loosebruce]

Okay ICS updated successfully,

I noticed something interesting , it could just be meaningless but I was looking at this thing called:

Baseband Configuration Version

USASPRDRICS01RUKE1004.0R

Does the USA mean anything in that?

Should it not be like UK for me?

Going to do a factory reset now!

 

[94lt1]

Welcome aboard loosebruce.

 

[Sydman]

Not sure about that Baseband version, mine says CDMA_N_05.11.01PLTEDC_U_09.14.00.

I guess the big question is are you able to make calls and send text messages, has your factory reset finished?

 

[loosebruce]

Not sure about that Baseband version, mine says CDMA_N_05.11.01PLTEDC_U_09.14.00.

I guess the big question is are you able to make calls and send text messages, has your factory reset finished?

I done the double factory reset and tried to phone but it says

"Not Registered on Network" and theres no Signal Bars on the phone

Tested the SIM on my NOKIA 2330 and I can make calls no problem