On my last two trips, I used Saily to purchase an eSIM for my iPhone. Both times I failed to get it to work. It used to work fine, but lately I can't get the data to flow. It's something I can't troubleshoot until I buy the product though, which feels like shooting myself in the foot when it doesn't function. I see the connection and I have the card active, but nope. Nothing.
Have any of you suddenly run into issues with eSIMs and what was your fix?
When this happens to us, without fail, it's because our data roaming somehow was turned off. When you switch over to the eSIM, immediately then check your data roaming to ensure it is on!
That would be my guess as well. Go to your cellular settings, select the Saily eSIM and toggle the data roaming on.
It that's not it, you could try turning airplane mode on, wait about 15 seconds, and turn it back off. This forces your phone to search for a new cellular signal. Another would be to reboot your phone and see if that works.
If none of these are the problem, then I would contact Saily for tech support.
If you haven't changed your phone and now the eSim doesn't work, yes, odds are that
you've inadvertently toggled a setting in the phone.
You could run an experiment with an eSim from another provider just to be sure, or, try
the Saily eSim in another phone.
This is all good advice. I will try it out on my holiday next week :) Thank you!
I had trouble with an airalo esim for the first day of a trip and when I was sure I was connected to the hotel wifi I rooted around in the iphone settings and found that there was more than one place where data roaming had to be toggled on. Next day the esim worked fine.
I think it's possible a software update (Android or Apple) might change something that causes an issue, but it's hard to be sure I haven't inadvertently changed something myself.
My Bcengi eSIM suddenly stopped working a few days ago, and none of the usual solutions (previously mentioned) fixed it. It turned out there was a data-usage warning set at 6 GB. I had hit that level, so the eSIM's cellular data was paused. I never intended to set a usage limit, but who knows.
One possible fix for a non-working eSIM not yet nentioned in this thread is to go into the Network Operator setting (which is often--correctly--set to "Automatic") and try to connect to each of the local networks manually. That will register the phone on any accessible networks supported by the eSIM you're using. That has seemed to shake things loose for me once or twice, typically when I've recently crossed a border and I find I don't have a connection even after restarting the phone and verifying that Data Roaming is turned on.
acraven, I have Bcengi on my phone now, but recently had to switch it over from my old phone when I bought a new iPhone. I was having problems, and so I went to the Bcengi website and opened up the chat. Within 30 seconds, I spoke to a bot, but it couldn't help me so it immediately brought in a person who was very helpful and gave me specific instructions that solved the problem. He also said that the balance couldn't transfer over via phone, so after I deleted the original eSIM, they put the balance into the account on my new phone.
I was very impressed with the customer service, and especially how quick someone was to show up.
I had a very similar experience when I bought a new phone in April--very responsive customer service for that sort of thing. I was glad I was at hone when I made the switch and not under pressure to find an instant solution, as a traveler would be.
One more kind of obscure thing to check is the "Access Point Names". On my Android phone, go to Connections => Mobile Networks => Access Point Names. There should be an active APN, usually with a name relating to the esim provider. For me it's "T-Mobile US LTE". If I select my Roamless Esim, the APN is "Proximus Internet".
Normally the APN is created automatically when you activate the new sim/esim. On very rare occasions, it doesn't appear, and you need to select one and click it to make it active. A few years ago, I installed a foreign sim card and actually had to create a user-created APN, using the entries called out on the website of the sim provider.
And I agree that a software update to your phone could clear a few settings that would then need to be redone. AND activating or un-activating an esim could clear some settings for that esim.
When there is an esim problem, you need to re-check all phone settings, manually select network and preferences (downgrading from 5G to LTE will usually give a more stable connection), reset the network connection and reboot.
The final solution is to find WiFi and contact the esim support for help. Good luck
