Weird APN problem, old international settings keep coming back

[Anonymous]

This is on behalf of my Mum, who is slowly going mad with this. Sequence of events is as follows...

2011 Mum (who was living in Italy at the time) wins an iPhone 4S in a competion

2011 Mum goes to vodafone.it who give her a contract sim, this works fine.

2012 Mum returns to the UK, but can't get a contract for three months so doesnt use phone for a while.

2013 (Feb or thereabouts), Mum gets an O2 contract Sim to go in her iPhone 4S, all works ok (its possible she had problems during this time but didnt notice)

2013 (Dec) Mum gets a new iPhone 5s on contract with O2, restores backup from the 4S

Dec - Today: iPhone 5S, which was bought from O2 in the UK and has always had an O2 sim in it, keeps reverting it's APN settings to Vodafone.it ?!?

Presumably something, somewhere in the backup file still has some sort of registration to Vodafone Italy, but how do I get rid of it? The only answer I've seen proposed is to wipe the phone and start again without a backup, but that's loads of work to then re-load all her apps, media, settings, etc. Surely there must be some way to stop it doing this when it's an O2 locked phone with an O2 sim on an O2 contract?

[adamtemp64]

That is a very strange one I have not encoutered.

The apns are in the carrirer settings what is showing under settings >  general> about?

These should change as soon as an o2 sim is inserted.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Are their any pending carrier updates to finish downloading.

Settings > general > about.

You can restore the iOS via iTunes and then restore the data via a backup from itunes or iCloud, dependant on wether you have iCloud activated etc.

Or go into settings > general > reset > erase all content and settings and then set it up as a new device.

[Anonymous]

The correct O2 settings have been put in repeatedly, both by hand and by triggering an auto update from O2. After this it will work fine for a varying period of time, sometimes days, other times weeks.

But sooner or later my Mum notices that her roaming data has stopped working, and when she checks in the mobile data settings it's reverted back to the Vodafone.it settings.

I can certainly try a re-load, but since the problem has already been copied over from a previous phone (this handset has never had any sim in it other than O2), I suspect the issue is somewhere in the backup file. I can't imagine any other vector for the settings to have got to this handset?

The next step of just starting again from scratch is what I'm trying to avoid if at all possible.

[Anonymous]

Help link : http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Apple-iOS-Devices-iPhone-iPad/Connecting-iPhone-to-Data-Services/m-p/54...

Try texting ACTIVE to 2020, save the returned settings and re boot the iPhone.

[adamtemp64]

Roaming data is outside of the uk?

You could try once correct details are in the iphone and confirmed working that all previous backups are deleted from the pc, reboot the pc and let it do a fresh backup of correct settings.

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty sure I've used the text method to download the APN settings before, but I'll give it another go.

When I said roaming data I meant mobile data, sorry my bad.

[Anonymous]

I cannot see that carrier settings are stored in a back up !

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12519?viewlocale=en_US

Edit it may be that an iTunes back up does.

See apple link : http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4946

• Network settings (saved Wi-Fi hotspots, VPN settings, network preferences)

[Anonymous]

I agree, and it doesnt really make sense for them to be there, but I can't see any other way the settings could get from one phone to the other! Unless they are somehow attached to the iTunes account, but that seems even less likely!

The Italian sim has never been in this phone, indeed we threw it away a year before the handset was even released by Apple!

[Anonymous]

Hmm, these days she uses an iClound backup, but I'm pretty sure she was on an iTunes backup when she got the phone originally, so that's maybe how it got there.

Maybe wiping the phone and starting again with the iCloud backup might clear it then.