iphone 3GS does not recogise a sim

**coley1978** · 01-14-2013, 11:43 PM

Hello... Please can someone help?

I have an iphone 3gs which was jailbroke from a locked Vodafone carrier and was working fine with any sim. I accidently tried to update it around a year ago an got it stuck in recovery mode. Since then I've managed to get to the stage where it asks for language etc etc (I think it's like a set up mode), but I can't get it to recognise a sim. Can anyone help or know of any solutions for this? I currently use two sim cards (AT&T when in the US and Vodafone in the UK) and would like to get it back to where I can use either. As you can probably tell, I'm not a genius at this, but would really need some urgent help as i need to get it working agin. Thanks...

**iDonev** · 01-15-2013, 01:18 AM

If you're still on the setup screen, the phone is unactivated. Inserting your Vodafone card should fix that - assuming the original carrier was Vodafone UK.

As far as unlocking goes you can either do it yourself (which I don't recommend in your case) or just phone Vodafone and explain to them that you take the phone abroad and they should unlock it officially for you.

**tawnytodd** · 01-15-2013, 04:22 AM

Certainly it should recognize the Vodafone since the iPhone was locked to it.You may get it unlocked through the network provider or there are others who does unlocking for an iPhone.You can avail their service too.

**coley1978** · 01-15-2013, 08:20 AM

Thanks for the reply. I've put a vodafone sim into the phone and the select language, country or region, then it connects to my home wifi and attempts to activate. (I've also tried activation by conecting it to my laptop). so.. On the ;Activating your iphone' screen, it basically says it may take a few minutes. After which the following message is displayed:

Your iphone could not be activated because the activation server is temporarily unavailable. Try connecting your iphone to itunes to activate it, or try again in a couple of minutes. If this problem consists, contact apple support at apple.com/support.

This has happened many times now and is as far as I can get with any sort of activation.

I searched on apple support and I found this. [url]https://discussions.apple.com/message/20918324#20918324[/url]