One UI 4.0 broke my phone

[kiki123]

I bought my s21 ultra in USA(unlocked) and I am currently in India. My phone has been working with Indian SIM for the past few months without any issue. Yesterday I updated to UI 4.0 and it completely broke my phone. I can't make or receive calls nor send/receive SMSes. I tried everything from doing factory reset to taking it to Samsung service center and nothing worked. When I chatted with Samsung specialist he just said, it is what it is and offered no help. I ran out of options, I spend $1000 on this phone and one software update totally bricked it. Has anyone else faced this issue 

[AwaraLucky]

Before purchasing an "Unlocked" phone you should be aware of the risk of loosing carrier services if you update the software. This was not company's fault nor the One UI 4.0. It was only your understanding.
Now the solution is, either you get this new update "unlocked" again by somehow (Samsung will not help you on this because you are tempering their product) or find and unlocked rom and flash it.

[Lekshmanan]

👍

[kiki123]

I didn't purchase this from a carrier. I got it unlocked from Samsung itself. Also if that's the case if should have not worked the first time I changed the Sim in India. I did multiple software updates in the meantime and none of them had any issue. So it's the 4.0 that broke it.

[AwaraLucky]

It's strange that Samsung itself unlocked their phone. Maybe they do this on certain circumstances I have no knowledge about that.
I think you do not understand the term "unlocked" properly.
Every country has their own style of network services like, frequency ranges, bands etc. When mobile phone manufacturer made a phone to sell in a country they make their phone to support only that county's network services. Means that phone is locked with that country's network. Now if you want to use the phone in other country you have to break that lock. That is called "unlocked" if you do that. This usually happens on OS (operating system) level.
When you get unlocked your phone it was working fine after you got many software update but that was minur updates like security patches etc. Did you received any full OS update? I mean from android 10 to android 11? I don't think you did. When you got multiple small software updates which are mostly security patches, you were not updating your phone's original OS but adding or changing some extra codes which doesn't have anything with network services.
Now with One UI 4 which is Android 12 basically you are changing your phone's OS completely. From Android 11 to Android 12. And that's changing the network related stuffs also. That's why your phone's carrier services is again locked because you got a US software because that phone was made for US.

[APS999]

Boss. If you are not sure about what Unlocked means, it is as the the phones you buy in India. In US, you can buy phones which are tied to carrier (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon etc.) or Unlocked (similar to our phones here in India).

So, the issue is with Unlocked phones. There is an auto switching network feature Samsung introduced with OneUI 4.0 which is causing this issue. I have opened a thread in the US Community with all information and screenshots.

Samsung messed up something with OneUI 4.0 and they need to fix it.

[ѵօϲɑӀ4ӀօϲɑӀ]

Do you even know what " Factory Unlocked" means? All the Indian phones are factory unlocked, so do they loose calling capabilities when they are updated?

[Tisham11]

After this One UI 4.0 update it seems like when I use Facebook, Messenger or Instagram the FPS lags and I don't find any smoothness while using apps

[ѵօϲɑӀ4ӀօϲɑӀ]

As you are in India I dont think anything can be done from Samsung end because Samsung doesn't provide international warranty (I am not sure I just think so).

The only thing you can do it wait for next update and update it via Smart Switch PC.

btw one more thing, uninstall updates of Google, Play Services, Assistant, Android Auto.
Clear their data too and try if that works.
The same thing happened due to Google App update on couple of phones. So there is nothing wrong in trying.

[kiki123]

I bought it directly as unlocked phone from Samsung and I don't see the logic in blocking the phone if I move countries. The whole purpose of unlocked is I should be able to use the phone for any carrier. I paid $1000 fricking dollars because I want the freedom to switch carriers. I know there are lot of Samsung fan boys here but this doesn't make a ^%^&, sense to block Sim if I do legal software update