Since more than a year (maybe two), my phone disconnects the SIM card every now and then. Sometimes, there are no problems for months, and at other times it disconnects multiple times a day, in which case I’m without cellular connection and mobile internet. Restarting the phone often helps, but not always. I have a Fairphone 5 running the latest version of iodéOS (7.4) with a Dutch SIM card from hollandsnieuwe on the Vodafone network.
I’m really in the dark as to what the cause of the problem could be. Is it the phone’s hardware, is it the SIM card, is it iodéOS (and what part of it)? If you have an idea or have similar experiences, please let me know.
did you contact Fairphone in case it could be a dodgy connector or similar hardware problems? That would be the first thing I’d do, they might be able to give you DIY advise or even repair your phone.
Interesting, I had similar issues when I had the Fairphone 5 with iodeOS (sold it a year ago). But I don’t know why, I assumed it was a provider issue but it never happened again on the Fairphone 6 with the same ISP.
Btw, Fairphone only supports /e/OS & FairphoneOS, so I wouldn’t try contacting support unless you verified it happens with one of those.
Well this does happen even with stock Google and Apple devices, with a reboot being needed (ask my family members ). It was more common when 3G was getting phased out here, then if moving around it got hung up sometimes. I blame the cellular networks more than the OS. Is it possible your carrier has updated APN settings that may be more compatible (or a IPv4 > IPv6 migration, etc?)
Thanks all for the suggestions. I also contacted my cellular provider and they asked my to write down when and where this issue occurs so that’s what I’m doing now. They may be able to help if they have some of this data. Will get back here when if I have results. If that all doesn’t work I’ll contact fairphone or buy a replacement “top unit“ that contains the SIM card reader. Long live repairable phones
Can you please confirm with *#*#4636#*#* “> Phone Information > 3 dots > IMS Service” or “> Phone Information (v2) > IMS tab at bottom” that IMS registration and Voice over LTE are registered?
Also in “System Settings > Network & internet > SIMs > (your sim)” you may be able to confirm your network connection type (sorry forgot the name I am away from my device now) is set to allow 3G / 4G / 5G.
If you don’t have IMS registration you will not have 4G or 5G voice calls, as IMS is the foundation that then VoLTE (“4G calls”) sit on top of, thus your connection is attempting to downgrade to 3G or even 2G to place a call. Your device can’t be connected to 4G/5G (“data”) and also 3G/2G for calls. So anytime you make or receive a call your connection will cut and re-register using those older networks.
So this confirms the issues you have. To “solve” you probably need to go back to your carrier and see if they have anything they can see or adjust on their side. You can give them the output above showing that your device is not registering with IMS.
While waiting for them, you may want to review all your cellular settings: what carrier / country by the way? Look under “System Settings > Network & internet > SIMs > (your sim)”:
VoLTE switch: enabled?
Preferred network type: 5G?
Access Point Names: do you have a separate IMS entry plus another one, or just “another one”? For the “other” / non IMS one, what do you have for:
APN
APN Type: select all possible - can’t hurt
Network Type: also select all possible - can’t hurt
That’s interesting, I will ask my carrier to check the IMS registration.
I’m not sure whether that explains the problem though, because the disconnection usually doesn’t happen when I try to call someone or when someone tries to call me. It happens at random occasions as far as I can tell, and it happened maybe once or twice during a call.
Anyway, I checked the SIM info, see below.
SIM info ———
Mobile network: vodafone NL
4G calling: enabled
Preferred network type: 5G
WiFI calling: enabled, with preference set to calling over mobile network
Automatically select network: enabled
Access point names:
Non-IMS—————
name: hollandsnieuwe (type 2)
APN: live.vodafone.com
APN type: default, supl (changed to all)
Network type: unspecified (changed to all)
IMS—————
name: IMS
APN: ims
APN type: ims
Network type: all of them
There are also some access points I don’t recognise, including Chinese and Israeli domains, should I be worried about that?
). It was more common when 3G was getting phased out here, then if moving around it got hung up sometimes. I blame the cellular networks more than the OS. Is it possible your carrier has updated APN settings that may be more compatible (or a IPv4 > IPv6 migration, etc?)