- David and David here.
Let's talk about when cellular data
is not working on your iPhone.
It can be a bit of a tricky problem,
because you don't know if it's your phone
or your wireless carrier.
You go to Apple, they'll say it's your carrier's fault.
You go to your carrier, they say it's Apple's fault.
- Right.
And we're gonna give you the information you need
in case you can't fix it at home.
Which I think you probably can.
To go to Apple or your carrier,
and say, I already did that.
Let's dive into the steps.
The first thing we're gonna take a look at
is the phone itself.
So let's make sure that cellular data is turned on
on your phone.
- Yep. Open the settings app.
Tap Cellular.
Make sure that switch at the top of the screen is turned on.
- Alternatively, if you swipe down
from the upper right hand corner of the screen,
to open control center.
This little green icon right there
is the cellular data switch.
If you've tapped that accidentally and it's gray,
this can be an easy fix for you.
- There you go.
- And that's why you should subscribe right now.
- Yeah.
- To our YouTube channel, please.
Let's get to the next step.
- While you're in your cellular settings,
tap on Cellular Data Options.
Then tap Voice and Data.
You probably want to have LTE selected here.
If you have 3G selected,
then your speed just might not be that great.
- Right. And if you have LTE selected,
now try 3G and if 3G works and LTE doesn't,
it's either going to be a problem
with antenna on your phone,
which it probably isn't.
Or an issue with your carrier
that might resolve itself.
Let's tap the back button.
And I just want to point out another setting,
which is this Data Roaming setting.
Data roaming is not really at thing anymore,
especially in the U.S. if you have Verizon or AT&T.
But if you have T-Mobile, it still is a thing.
So check with your carrier,
especially if you don't have one of the big three.
And if you have Verizon, like David does,
just turn on data roaming.
It will give access to more towers.
And you won't pay anything more.
T-Mobile has a cap on how much roaming you can actually do.
- Next, let's look for a Carrier Settings Update.
These are at least pretty infrequently
to improve your iPhone's connection
to your carrier's network.
A lot of the time, you'll just see a pop-up that says
carrier update settings available.
And you just tap update and you're done.
- Right. Some people just tap not now.
There's never a reason not to hit update.
It can only help your phone and it happens
(David snaps)
like that.
- You can also manually check for one.
Let's tap back on Cellular.
Upper left hand corner of the screen.
Then back to the main page of the settings app.
Scroll down and tap General.
Then tap About at the top of the screen.
When we're here, maybe 10 to 15 seconds,
maybe a pop up will appear saying Carrier Settings Update.
- Yeah. If it doesn't appear, there isn't an update.
It's one of the only things like that on the iPhone.
- Yeah.
- Next we're just gonna check for an iOS software update.
I was having problems with my cellular data yesterday
because we run the developer beta iOS 15.
The first one's always buggy.
And then I updated iOS and it's better.
So let's do it.
- Alright. Tap back to General.
Upper left hand corner of the screen.
One below. Software Update.
And as you can see, I have the developer beta too.
I haven't installed it yet.
Gonna do that after this video.
- It's a smart idea
and your cellular data problems
which don't exist on your phone but do on yours
will resolve themselves.
- If cellular data is still not working,
try taking out the SIM card
and putting it back into your phone.
- I'm gonna do this on my phone,
because if David does it,
it's gonna break the screen recording and blah.
So my phone, I'm gonna it out of the case.
The SIM card ejector tool.
This came with an old phone,
but you could just use a paperclip.
And there's a small little hole on the side of your phone.
You can just put the SIM tool in.
Press down. You'll have to apply some pressure.
Just pop it out. Pop the tray.
You can take it all the way out or not.
Put it back in.
Your iPhone will say Verizon or whatever your carrier is.
Reconnect and maybe that will solve the problem.
- Yeah. Next we're gonna go to Settings, General, Profile.
So tap back to General.
Upper left hand corner of the screen.
Come down here. It might say Profile
or the newer version of iOS might say
VPN and Device Management.
- And then we have Profile down here.
Baseband and Telephony Logging Profile. Interesting.
So profiles can give -
Can change the way that your iPhone connects
to the cellular data network
and do a whole bunch of other things.
They're like quick fixes.
When I went to Ireland, I used a Irish cellphone carrier,
because it was a lot cheaper than sticking with Verizon.
And when I came home,
I had installed a profile to make it work,
but then I got off the plane and I could make phone calls,
but I couldn't use data
and I was saying to myself,
"What the heck's going on here?"
And unlike the show "Manifest" on NBC,
I hadn't traveled five years in the future.
In fact, I just needed to deleted the profile.
Which is what I did and it started working right away.
- Yeah so you can just tap on a profile.
And then tap Remove Profile
to remove profile if you need to.
- Yeah. Now that we've taken care of
the easy diagnostic troubleshooting steps on your iPhone,
it's time to call your carrier,
just to make sure everything's okay.
Don't assume that everything is just working properly.
Cell phone plans can get shut off for all sorts of reasons,
including autopay errors or angry spouses
or any number of things can go wrong.
So just call your carrier and say,
"Hey, I don't have a cellular data connection.
What can you do for me?"
And they'll say, "Go to the Apple store."
If they just say go to the Apple store,
move on to our next step.
- Yeah. Google the name of your carrier,
plus customer support
and get a phone number that you can contact.
- That's how to do it.
- So if you call your carrier and they said kick rocks,
let's Reset Network Settings.
This erases all VPN, Bluetooth, cellular, and WiFi settings.
Resorting to the factory defaults
can kind of fix a deeper software issue.
- Yeah. This is the magic bullet.
And if this doesn't work -
(dramatic music)
Uh oh!
- Tap back, upper left hand corner of the screen.
Back again.
And below VPN Device Management, you'll see Reset.
Tap on that and then tap Reset Network Settings.
Enter your passcode. Tap Reset Network Settings again.
Your iPhone will shut down, do the reset,
and the turn it back on.
- Yeah. The tip here
is just make sure you know your home WiFi password,
so that you can connect to WiFi after your phone reboots,
before you do this.
And then iCloud Keychain
will download all your other passwords.
So that's good.
- If cellular data is still not working,
probably a good idea to check your coverage.
Make sure your carrier has service
where you're trying to get it.
You should also check the awesome perks you can get
when you click the join button down below.
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In a lot of our videos we talk about
how to do a DFU restore,
which stands for Device Firmware Update.
It means that you reset everything on your phone
back to factory default
and load it back.
In my opinion, a DFU restore in this case
is probably not going to solve this problem,
if Reset Network Settings didn't solve the problem.
However, before you go to the Apple store,
make sure you have an iCloud or iTunes back up,
because when you get there,
they may insist on doing this DFU restore
and if you don't have a back up,
they'll send you home to do it yourself.
So you can either do it or not.
I don't think it's gonna solve the problem.
But basically when you go to an Apple store,
you want to have as much information
and have done as much as you can before you get there,
so that you can answer every question the Genius says
with "Yes I've already done that, but it didn't work."
That's the goal,
'cause then you can finally get to the end,
where you get a new phone if necessary.
- Regardless, back up your iPhone now.
Then schedule an appointment at your local Apple store
or give them a call or use the online chat.
- Right.
- Any of the above.
- Yeah. And they'll help you out.
- That's what to do when cellular data
is not working on your iPhone.
Thanks for watching.
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