Fix for Network status indicator showing SOS on BlackBerry phones
If your BlackBerry phone network status indicator shows SOS on Home screen then you can try out below steps:
- Cross check with others and make sure that there is proper network coverage in your area.
- Check SIM card and make sure if it is properly inserted.
- Contact your mobile operator and make sure that they haven’t disconnected your service – You will have to contact their customer support using some other number of the same mobile operator.
- Your network selection mode might be set to manual and no network might be selected – In that case select option from the Home screen and select Network from the Options. Now change Network Selection Mode option to Automatic and make sure that you are saving the changes before closing the settings window.
- Your phone might have roamed to a wireless network which might not be supporting roaming - This mostly happens with GSM Based SIM cards and in order to fix it you will have to change the state from SOS to GPRS in your phone and for that you can follow below steps:
- From your phone Home screen first disconnect and reconnect the network and cross check if SOS status has changed to GPRS. If not, then you will have to reset your phone – There are two types of reset that you can perform. A soft reset and hard reset respectively. If soft reset doesn’t help you out then you can try out hard reset further.
Hard reset – Take out the battery and insert it back after waiting for some seconds.
Soft reset – First Press and hold the “Alt key” followed by “Right Shift” key and Backspace/Delete key (Make sure that you are pressing and holding all three keys one after the other. You don’t have to leave any key until your phone gets off). Once your phone gets off, you can turn it on again and cross check if SOS status has changed to GPRS.
If at all even that doesn’t help then from the Options list, select Network and change the Network Selection Mode option to Manual and select “Scan for Available Networks”. One the scanning process gets completed, you will be presented with available network and you can select one from the same. In case you don’t see any network then you will have to contact your mobile operator.
- If you are having BlackBerry CDMA WorldPhone edition and if you are roaming outside home CDMA network then your Network Technology setting might have get set to 1XEV and you will have to change it to Global. In order to do that open Options from your phone screen, select Mobile Network and select “Global” beside Network Technology.
- If you are having BlackBerry CDMA WorldPhone edition without SIM card and if you are in poor CDMA network coverage area then your Network Technology setting might be set to Global. In that case you will have to change it back to 1XEV. In order to do that, open options from your phone screen, select Mobile Network and select “1XEV” beside Network Technology.
- Check if your SIM card has got scratched or damaged, you can do that by testing your SIM card in some other phone. If it has then you will have to get a new SIM card.
- Your SIM card might have got oxidized or corroded – This mostly happens with GSM cards, when they are exposed to air for a long time then they get oxidized. Oxidation can damage your card as well, so cross check and make sure that your SIM card has not got oxidized. If it has then you will have to get a new SIM card.
- If you are still not able to get rid of the SOS icon then you can try updating your phones software to the latest available.
- To update your phones software to the latest you can download and install latest version of BlackBerry Desktop Software on your system.
- Once downloaded and installed, connect your phone to your system and click on “Update” on the home screen of BlackBerry Desktop Software.
- You will be presented with a list of latest available versions of BlackBerry Device Software. So you can select one and click on “Get update”.
- If it will be applicable for your phone then you will get the option for installing it. You will just have to click on “Install update” and you are done. Update might take hour, so don’t disconnect your phone until you see “update is complete” message on your screen.
