iPhone eSIM bug randomly deactivating iMessage and FaceTime, requiring physical SIM

An apparent iPhone eSIM bug is randomly deactivating iMessage and FaceTime. Sometimes, installing a physical SIM seems to work best.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman experienced the issue with T-Mobile, but others report they’ve experienced the same issue with other carriers …

What is an eSIM and what are its benefits?

An eSIM is a chip built into the iPhone motherboard. Apple first brought eSIMs to the iPhone with the launch of the iPhone XR and XS in 2018.

eSIMs have two main benefits. They allow for easier set-up and two numbers to be used on the same phone. As of the iPhone 13, Apple removed the need for a physical SIM even with two numbers.

iPhone eSIM bug

Gurman tweeted his experience of having to resort to obtaining a physical SIM after other troubleshooting steps failed.

There is a very nasty iPhone and @TMobile bug where iMessage and FaceTime for a device’s phone number will randomly deactivate and there is no way to reactivate it. I found that a physical SIM card was the only way to solve this problem. This is a very disappointing problem.

Thank you to the T-Mobile store rep who was able to quickly activate a physical SIM for my phone. This shouldn’t have been a problem in the first instance. According to them, other people had brought in the same problem and Apple couldn’t resolve it.

I’ll also add that T-Mobile was the one who contacted me directly, and not Apple. I had to accept that Apple wouldn’t be able to resolve the problem. There isn’t any troubleshooting they’d offer that I didn’t already try.

Others have reported experiencing the same thing – or being unable to activate iMessage and FaceTime in the first place – with other carriers.

Had the exact same problem, but with @Verizon. I was using eSIM, and iOS 15. 4 legit broke iMessage and FaceTime. To fix the iMessage problem, I had to remove the eSIM from my phone and contact Verizon. Not a T-Mobile problem, but an iOS 15. 4 bug.

This happened to me while I was in India using Airtel. It kept showing the message that it could not be activated after I tried everything. It worked after I swapped the sim cards.

A solution that worked for some is either to deactivate and reactivate the eSIM, or to activate a new one.

A second solution suggested by others is to delete your eSIM from the iPhone, and then set it up again. But that’s complex for most people and shouldn’t need to ever to be done. Not being able to send and receive texts is obviously not ideal. Not “it just works.”

Another Twitter user illustrated just how complex this can be.

Last week my esim for T-Mobile on my 13 pro max in the middle of the day deactivated itself and in settings kept trying to reactivate but said no service and esim said phone not allowed. After they tried many other methods that didn’t work, including asking me to reset my network settings, I had to contact T-Mobile. None of these worked.

The tech support team after reissuing esim at least 3 different times the new one finally activated a half hour later. Upon the new esim being activated it created issues with the line itself. I had to call back the next day and they then had to unregister my line from the phone plan and link it back to the plan.

The issue has been occurring since at least iOS 15. 4, but it’s as yet unclear whether this was the earliest instance.

Have this happened to you?

Have you ever experienced this? Please share your iOS version and the carrier with us in the comments.

Image: Soracom