Chosen Solution

After formatting my iPhone 5s for selling, I went to the normal front page for setting it up. As normal I did the setup, but then when the activation page came it loaded for a while and then the message ‘iphone could not be activated because the activation server cannot be reached’ comes up. I tried retrying for a long time but no luck. Besides as found from the web to connect to iTunes and restore/update, I followed those steps too but still the same thing comes. (When I put a Sim card it the signal strength comes up and there is nothing written beside it… Any solutions? Would be a lifesaver

Hey, Your phone might be SIM locked. When you bought the phone and put a SIM card in was it the same carrier as the one you have put in now? Hope that helped

Hey man, did you fix the problem? I am having the same issue here..

this issuse is bad program id nand (check whit 3utools details) or wrong nand chip replace or physical damaged nana (legs or desolder or …

Get a brand new SIM card 99p at most places, make sure SIM card is the correct network the phone is currently on. Insert SIM card and go back to beginning and this will activate the phone as the new SIM card won’t have any pin lock on it.

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Same prob. with my iphone 5s…after reset ‘iphone could not be activated because the activation server cannot be reached’ The phone was working ok before reset Any solutions?

  1. If you know what carrier the phone is locked to, go to the apple store and ask for a SIM card (it normally is free). They can look it up if you don’t know. It doesn’t need to be a live sim, just one that matches the carrier lock.
  2. If it is confirmed sim locked, and you do have a matching SIM, buy an unlock from Ebay. This normally works for most US carriers from the US ebay front, and EU from the EU ebay front, etc.
  3. then try a reset and activate again with a different sim to see if the unlock resolved the issue.

Hello, I have the similar problem as you. I’m having an iPhone 5s, with iOS 11.1 (if I’m not mistaken). Recently, I have updated to iOS 11.3 through iTunes restoration but still unable to pass through the activation SIM stage. When I insert my SIM card, it shows: “Your iPhone could not be activated because the activation server cannot be reached. Try connecting your iPhone to iTunes to activate it” - the message pops up in iPhone “The iPhone could not be activated because the activation information could not be obtained from the device. Disconnect your iPhone, make sure the SIM card is inserted correctly.” - the message pops up in iTunes I have had tried countless times to restore it through iTunes and it seems like the problem still persist. Anyone have any solutions so far? Any reply would be greatly appreciated.

My phone is not connecting

Exact same issue on Ipad air 2 after a hard reset some time after ios 11 update (ran normally for a month on ios 11 no issues). Tried everything short of darkweb solutions. Are these devices essentially bricked?

log in to your icloud account using your computer and remove your iphone from find my iphone then u connect your phone to itunes and you should be able to set up your iphone

I had it happen and I had to do the update right after I did the restore and it worked but on another one the sim doesn’t read and im still trying so try just updating it after restoring it maybe it will work on yours!