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Other Is no one else having issues converting to esim?

BB8

BB8

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 26, 2016
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Tried converting my 12 pro to esim last night and kept getting errors. I thought it was an issue with the wifi at first, and then maybe that I was on the iOS 16 beta, but I continue to get errors. I'm on AT&T and my only other suspicion is that it has something to do with being on prepaid rather than postpaid.

Does literally everyone here use a postpaid plan? Idk why but I thought Apple would have done a better job preparing for this transition.
 
I have at&t prepaid and so far this has been a nightmare for me. I first tried the "convert to esim" option in settings, just gave me a phone number to call. called the number they said had to be done in store. Went to the store, every worker in the store acted like they had no idea what an esim was and kept saying " It will do this automatically when you switch phones".

I felt like i was being pawned off. I thought i stood a better chance converting from physical sim to esim on my iphone 11 in preparation for my iphone 14PM this friday. So i called support back, someone tried to make the swap for me but ended up messing something up and telling me i needed to GO BACK to the att corporate store and scan a QR code. So i went back and they told me "we dont have any qr codes for esim except for apple watch".

so i had to CALL BACK to support because i had no service at all. Luckily i had my wife's phone. They ended up making more changes and asked me to go back into the store and get a new physical sim card. After that it worked but i just left it alone scared to death to even try again. They told me on the phone when i receive the new iphone to call them back and they will update the imei and supposedly everything will be fine but i'm not the least bit confident in any of them at the store or on the phone.
 
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I have AT&T pre-paid and the automatic transfer didn't work for me. I called AT&T (611) and I was on the phone for 3 hours, literally, not exaggerating. The rep was very nice and we kept at it, we tried probably 6 different esims before it finally stuck. He asked me to keep restarting the phone, etc. and to turn off the wifi after it started activating. The problem was, it would just continue to try to activate without actually activating. Anyway, the trick is I believe to make sure you forget your wifi network completely after it starts activating and to restart the phone (once you restart your phone, it'll reconnect automatically to wifi). Once it reboots, it's good! I spent 2:45 on my phone and it only took 15 minutes to do my wife's phone with this method. The AT&T rep believes it's a bug with the software.

So if you have to call AT&T and you give him the your iPhones information, the pop up will show in the settings, click activate, it'll activate and it'll say "connecting to network" then after a couple minutes it will tell you that you can continue to use your phone while it activates. Forget your wifi network, and restart the phone. Hopefully that will work for anyone who is running into this problem with AT&T
 
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YouGoGlenCocoa said:
I have at&t prepaid and so far this has been a nightmare for me. I first tried the "convert to esim" option in settings, just gave me a phone number to call. called the number they said had to be done in store. Went to the store, every worker in the store acted like they had no idea what an esim was and kept saying " It will do this automatically when you switch phones".

I felt like i was being pawned off. I thought i stood a better chance converting from physical sim to esim on my iphone 11 in preparation for my iphone 14PM this friday. So i called support back, someone tried to make the swap for me but ended up messing something up and telling me i needed to GO BACK to the att corporate store and scan a QR code. So i went back and they told me "we dont have any qr codes for esim except for apple watch".

so i had to CALL BACK to support because i had no service at all. Luckily i had my wife's phone. They ended up making more changes and asked me to go back into the store and get a new physical sim card. After that it worked but i just left it alone scared to death to even try again. They told me on the phone when i receive the new iphone to call them back and they will update the imei and supposedly everything will be fine but i'm not the least bit confident in any of them at the store or on the phone.
Click to expand...

Call again, you'll find someone that will help. You will need the EID and the IMEI for them to send the esim to your phone. If it doesn't activate, try the steps in my first post, hopefully my pain will ease someone else's suffering
 
I'm on ATT post paid... but unlike you all I had a physical SIM... and did not convert to eSIM in my prior phone (iPhone 12 Pro Max). I kept the physical SIM and only added the eSIM to my 14 Pro Max. I had no issues, but based on what y'all are reporting, future upgrades will be ugly unless Apple and the providers get their crap sorted.
 
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YouGoGlenCocoa said:
I have at&t prepaid and so far this has been a nightmare for me. I first tried the "convert to esim" option in settings, just gave me a phone number to call. called the number they said had to be done in store. Went to the store, every worker in the store acted like they had no idea what an esim was and kept saying " It will do this automatically when you switch phones".

I felt like i was being pawned off. I thought i stood a better chance converting from physical sim to esim on my iphone 11 in preparation for my iphone 14PM this friday. So i called support back, someone tried to make the swap for me but ended up messing something up and telling me i needed to GO BACK to the att corporate store and scan a QR code. So i went back and they told me "we dont have any qr codes for esim except for apple watch".

so i had to CALL BACK to support because i had no service at all. Luckily i had my wife's phone. They ended up making more changes and asked me to go back into the store and get a new physical sim card. After that it worked but i just left it alone scared to death to even try again. They told me on the phone when i receive the new iphone to call them back and they will update the imei and supposedly everything will be fine but i'm not the least bit confident in any of them at the store or on the phone.
Click to expand...
This is so much easier than moving a little piece of plastic from one phone to another. Great job Apple, thank you for your courage.
 
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I had issues with Spectrum Mobile. Whole process took about five hours while I was at work. Got disconnected from chat about eight times because their chat is a horror show.

Definitely don’t see any justification for removing the tray. It’s not like they made space for something else.
 
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I had problems converting to eSim, it took 3 times before it actually worked. Most frustrating activation I've experienced, and I've upgraded every year since the original iPhone. It's definitely not ready for primetime. Tech support must be working overtime.
 
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Knowlege Bomb said:
A buddy told me eSIMs are really common in Gambia and the surrounding countries.
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We travel to Bali/Indo a lot, e-sim ain't going to happen, hard enough getting SIM cards activated, they want photo with passport, all sorts of id, even imei no of your phone lol
 
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I must be one of the few lucky ones. I have Verizon with eSIM on my iPhone 12 pro and transfered that without a hitch to my iPhone 14 Pro. Just follow the prompts and it took approximately one minute or so. This is the first time I didn’t have problems.
 
I couldn’t transfer my eSIM from my 13 PM to 14 PM with Verizon. Screen prompt kept telling me to try again later or call Verizon. Was able to activate it on the Verizon website using the IMEI. The website still kept erroring out but the phone picked up service eventually.
 
I had a pretty rough time yesterday with Verizon, the eSIM wouldn't transfer from my 13 Pro to 14 Pro, presenting an error saying my account was ineligible for transfer. Took ~three hours of chatting and being on the phone with Verizon to figure out. Hopefully this experience continues to get refined.
 
I transferred 4 lines, between 4 different phones 12PM, 13P and 14P and 14PM esim to esim without talking to a single person at the carrier.
 
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Aaleck said:
Call again, you'll find someone that will help. You will need the EID and the IMEI for them to send the esim to your phone. If it doesn't activate, try the steps in my first post, hopefully my pain will ease someone else's suffering
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip! the first time over the phone they asked for my Imei number so I gave it to them not realizing there are two. When I did that it messed up my service. The lady at att store said I should of given them my imei 2, so when I called back I explained to the tech what she said.

we used imei 2 and they gave me a new physical sim and it was restored.

I'm defeated with this, I've got 2 iPhones sitting here in the box but I'm too lazy to fight with them to get them activated again lol. They told me on the phone to call back and updated the imei of the new phone when I get it but somehow I don't feel like it will be easy. I also feel the need to call tech support from an att store parking lot, as sad as it is I know I'll have to go in for something. God forbid att store call att support and work together, must pass pain on to the customer.
 
I think if you have a pre paid carrier, you first have to call customer care to switch your your number from the old imei to the new phone imei, then you go to your settings and set up cellular then either search nearby phone or by QR code and it should activate and work.
 
3Rock said:
I must be one of the few lucky ones. I have Verizon with eSIM on my iPhone 12 pro and transfered that without a hitch to my iPhone 14 Pro. Just follow the prompts and it took approximately one minute or so. This is the first time I didn’t have problems.
Click to expand...
Same for me. Quick and easy
 
I did it on Sunday, and it took five hrs and four different agents with At&T chat for my phone to work. When I got my 14 pro yesterday everything went seamless.
 
BB8 said:
Tried converting my 12 pro to esim last night and kept getting errors. I thought it was an issue with the wifi at first, and then maybe that I was on the iOS 16 beta, but I continue to get errors. I'm on AT&T and my only other suspicion is that it has something to do with being on prepaid rather than postpaid.

Does literally everyone here use a postpaid plan? Idk why but I thought Apple would have done a better job preparing for this transition.
Click to expand...

I am on $25 per month prepaid with ATT, with unlimited talk and text plus 8gb of roll over data. It is awesome.

‘I spend two hours talking to multiple supervisors at ATT Prepaid and they tried everything from their end and finally they insisted I go to the ATT store. I did and the guy used a QR code card to create my eSIM and my phone has worked ever since. I was coming from a 13PM to a 14PM.

I suggest You go to the store.
 
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AT&T Prepaid RESOLVED!!!

First off, what a nightmare. But I'm here to tell you what i've found and what works. I got 2 new phones and transferred all the data by setting the old next to the new, that worked great. When it was time to transfer the service over using the iphone to iphone transfer method, it failed (big surprise). It said OOPS! call this number blah blah.

So i called in and the dweeb on support said " you have to go to att store and scan a qr code blah blah." I told him when i went last week to the att store they literally told me they didnt have any qr codes for phones, only for apple watches. None of the people in the store last week would help me either. I gave up on that guy.

I called back and spoke with "Alexcia". This lady was nice and helped me super quick. She successfully moved my physical sim from our two old phones to esim for our 2 new phones in about 5 minutes!

All she needed was the new phones "EID" number, and that was it. She updated it on her end, had us reboot the new phones, and then go to settings, cellular, and add the esim plan that was waiting. It connected to the network and we're up and going.

This has been a nightmare all week for me after talking to multiple phone and store agents who just kept telling me the same thing over and over about placing the phones next to each other. From what i've gained that may work for post paid customers but not pre paid. Hopefully this helps someone. If you have any further questions please let me know and i'll help any way i can. Good luck!!
 
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YouGoGlenCocoa said:
AT&T Prepaid RESOLVED!!!

First off, what a nightmare. But I'm here to tell you what i've found and what works. I got 2 new phones and transferred all the data by setting the old next to the new, that worked great. When it was time to transfer the service over using the iphone to iphone transfer method, it failed (big surprise). It said OOPS! call this number blah blah.

So i called in and the dweeb on support said " you have to go to att store and scan a qr code blah blah." I told him when i went last week to the att store they literally told me they didnt have any qr codes for phones, only for apple watches. None of the people in the store last week would help me either. I gave up on that guy.

I called back and spoke with "Alexcia". This lady was nice and helped me super quick. She successfully moved my physical sim from our two old phones to esim for our 2 new phones in about 5 minutes!

All she needed was the new phones "EID" number, and that was it. She updated it on her end, had us reboot the new phones, and then go to settings, cellular, and add the esim plan that was waiting. It connected to the network and we're up and going.

This has been a nightmare all week for me after talking to multiple phone and store agents who just kept telling me the same thing over and over about placing the phones next to each other. From what i've gained that may work for post paid customers but not pre paid. Hopefully this helps someone. If you have any further questions please let me know and i'll help any way i can. Good luck!!
Click to expand...

‘Your story is much like mine. I went to the AT&T store the week before and they told me they could do nothing and that the transfer of data should work fine! I told the ATT person I would be seeing him next week when it did not work and I did! They has received the QR cards and they worked perfectly.

I hate going to the AT&T store as much as calling AT&T customer service. Service has degraded to the point the people do not know what they are doing and constantly have to seek help from their supervisor. Even the stores are greatly under manned and there is a hour wait to talk to anyone. Welcome to 2022 in America where no one wants to work!
 
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On AT&T elite, transferred from iPhone 11 Pro with physical SIM to 14 pro max. First time failed. I was anxious to get a screen protector on, so I left the setup on my 14 pro max and the setup exited on my 11 pro.

After screen protector was on, my 14 pro max couldn’t recognize the 3D verification graphic; didn’t matter what I tried, in the dark, up close. Had to input verification manually. This time, however, the process seemed smooth afterwards. The time kept updating until it got down to an hour, then under 1hr.

When it finished, my 14 pro max had service, and everything from the 11 pro, and the 11 pro asked me if I wanted to safely erase everything on it.



TL;dr, Did not seem to have any issues after I got it started the second time. Screen protector was the only issue second time
 
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