dmckaysf

I consistently get only 1 to 2 bars on my XS Max in locations where my 7 Plus had 4. I took the phone to AT&T, who did a SIM card change; no difference. They also reset Network Settings; no change. So they told me I needed to call 611 and have a network tech look into the problem while it was occurring. I did that as I left the AT&T store. After 20 minutes of remote testing, they told me it wasn’t their problem and I should take the phone to an Apple Store.

At the Apple Store, they started by taking my SIM card and installing it in an older phone, which had full strength ... not the SIM card. Then they did a full factory reset, no change. They swapped the phone for a new one. The new one started out at 3 bars, so I left, but within minutes it had dropped back to 1. I also updated to iOS 12.1 beta 2 when I got home to see if it had a fix; no change.

I tried to make another Genius Bar appointment, but when I identified the problem, the Apple support site wanted to do a call with a tech instead of letting me make an appointment. I got routed to a second level tech who told me Apple is aware of the issue and investigating, and asked if would I provide data from my phone for their engineers. I did, and it ended up being an hour long call while she took me through installing remote diagnostic profiles, multiple reboots, toggling WiFi on and off, Airplane Mode on and off, taking a gazillion screenshots of every step, and finally syncing to iTunes on my MacBook Pro and uploading the resulting gigabyte of log files and screenshots to Apple. And there were two 10 minute waits in the middle of it while the phone ran diagnostics. Thankfully the tech was delightful so those waits weren’t painful. 

Hopefully others are doing the same and giving Apple data to solve the problem quickly.