My mom has an iPhone 5 on Virgin Mobile. Every time she updates iOS, the iPhone deactivates. In the past, I would call Virgin Mobile technical support for reactivation, but:
- they aren’t open 24/7.
- they take a long time.
- they’ve threatened to charge me before.
- I hate being on the phone.
After searching the interwebs mostly unfruitfully, I came across the following solution in an Apple Support forum. (Sorry, I couldn’t find it again.)
- Backup the iPhone.
- Erase all contents and settings.
- Restore the iPhone from your backup.
This worked successfully for us. The phone did not activate the first time during setup, but on the second try. I hope other webizens in need find this, and find it useful.