Trouble after installing eSIM

Help Fairphone 4
1

My mobile provider SIMon (a subsidiary of Vodafone) started offering eSIM support yesterday. Since I have another phone with a second SIM card (NettoKom, a subsidiary of O2) that I use for work, I switched to eSIM and put the other SIM card in the slot. I activated the eSIM and it seemed to work fine, but since then, I have experienced several issues with the phone:

  • I can‘t activate mobile data for either SIM. When I try to, the switch symbol briefly turns blue, but reverts back to the „off“ position and turns grey again. Needless to say, this sucks. Because of the other issues I‘m experiencing, I‘m guessing the the fault lies with the phone and not with my providers.
  • My WI-FI network at my home was disconnected when I had rebooted the phone and I had to put in the password manually. Usually my phone automatically connected to this network. Judging from the WI-FI MAC addresses, where only my home network is listed, I guess that all my formerly saved WI-FI networks have been erased. This also sucks, but slightly less.
  • The pulldown menu has changed. There are only four buttons. Pulling down again, which usually expanded the menu, does nothing. There is no way to edit the menu. Touching and holding the Bluetooth button does not switch to the Bluetooth connections menu, as it previously did. The lower right button („Visuelle Verbesserungen“ - visual improvements?) can be turned on and off, but doesn‘t seem to do anything.
  • Of the three buttons (back, home, app manager) at the bottom of the screen, only the back button works. Touching the two others does nothing.
  • Switching the three buttons to swiping gestures works, but the app manager does not show the most recently used apps.
  • Notifications no longer show up on the status bar, on the lock screen or in the pulldown menu. Some apps still show the little circle next to the app symbol, but others don’t.
  • Before installing the eSIM, I had Developer Options activated. They have vanished from the Settings. I have touched the Build Number a hundred times, but they have not reappeared.
  • When scrolling, there is a slight „stretchy“ effect when hitting the end of the screen. I seem to remember that this was a feature of one of the latest updates that I found annoying and found a way to turn off. It‘s back now.
  • Several buttons in the Settings seem to have lost their function, for example „Options for resetting the phone“. Touching them does nothing.

I believe that‘s it. Not being able to use my mobile data severely reduces the usability of my phone. I don‘t know if I did anything wrong, but I don‘t believe so, since I followed the instructions on the Fairphone website. I’ve contacted the Fairphone support, but thought I’d also try my luck here. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

2

A bit weird overall… Have you rebooted the phone already? Did you deactivate the eSIM to see what happens?

3

It certainly is weird. I’ve rebooted the phone several times, deactivated the physical SIM and rebooted, deactivated the eSIM and rebooted - everything stays as I’ve described it. Only thing I haven’t done is to erase the eSIM from the phone.

4

The problems you describe don’t sound like anything that I’d expect simply changing SIMs. It reminds me more of either a (factory) reset of some sort or an update. Can you exclude that either one happened? Even if the eSIM would not work as expected, I don’t see how it would cause all your problems by itself. :thinking:
Any chance that there was some sort of MDM/work profile set up on the phone and playing around with the SIMs triggered something? MDM solutions often have some sort of reset functionality to prevent work data from being leaked.

5

I agree, it sounds like the phone has somehow reverted back to a buggy or only half-working system. But I wouldn’t know how that could have happened… Both phones are private ones, I just use the one only for work, so there’s no MDM on either phone or SIM.

6

Build number and Android version show that the phone is running the latest system. Somehow the UI seems to be broken and I‘m pretty sure it started after a reboot after I had activated the eSIM. I don‘t remember the exact steps I took but I believe I downloaded the eSIM while the physical SIM for the same phone number was still in the phone, then powered it down and put the other SIM in. After that reboot, I believe, things were as described.

Also, I have erased the eSIM from the phone, rebooted it - no difference. I‘ve downloaded it again.

7

So I’ve done a hard reset and factory reset and everything works again. Really weird. Lost some of my data but it’s fine. Thank you for trying to help!

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