I highly doubt whomever I speak to has heard of Linux based phones with kill switches lol I remember a year ago I was rocking an Ubuntu Touch Nexus 5 and I got a call from TMobile asking if I would like to upgrade to a more modern phone than a Nexus 5, I told them no way as I was running Linux on it. He never heard of Ubuntu Touch or swapping OS’s lol Can’t imagine trying to explain the experimental new Linux phones like Librem 5 or Pinephone lol
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You won’t have to. Tell them it’s in your Pixel and it seems to have died…and what are they going to do about it? 
Thats exactly what I am going to do, just laughing if I actually tried to explain to them I am tinkering with a Librem 5 I bought off Ebay how that conversation would go. lol
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Perfect opportunity to educate someone on the dangers of surveillance capitalism and why Linux phones are so needed.
Oh I completely agree with you, I want these Linux phones to become the new normal where we own our phones and our phones don’t own us.
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What does this command return in the terminal?
mmcli -m any | grep imei
You should also be able to see the IMEI in the Mobile settings. I don’t have a SIM card in right now, so I can’t see the setting to tell you exactly where it is.
https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Tips%20&%20Tricks#executing-an-at-command-on-the-modem but that is a fair amount of (one-off) hassle. I recommend Method B. In any case, the ATI command gives you the answer.
If you are going to open it up anyway then the BM818 variant is printed on the modem card.
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That’s a design compromise on the Librem 5 at the moment. There is no available compatible modem that is “global” i.e. supports all 40-odd LTE bands (and a commensurate set of 2G/3G bands).
For the IMEI: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Tips%20&%20Tricks#imei That gets you the number via the GUI (but apparently there is a bug so that the GUI won’t work unless there is a SIM card present) and, alternatively, gets you the number via the command line.
For the IMSI: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Tips%20&%20Tricks#modem-manager
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thanks for the help, I made the mistake of using a European phone, so I ordered an American modem, hopefully its not as delayed as my order for the actual phone from Purism and ships soon.
Yeah I’ve totes fried my SIM card once already. Shut it down before inserting/removing the sim.
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Just an update, I ordered the proper US modem from Purism, it took less than two weeks to get it (unlike the phone itself), phone works fine in calls and SMS (didn’t test MMS yet). Also didn’t need to do anything other than physically install it which wasn’t bad. Didn’t have to go on the command line and update anything to recognize a change in hardware, it works as long as you swap it out. So if I ever go to Europe again, I may swap out modems since now I have a US and European modem for this device.
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That’s kind of to be expected for a device with a hardware kill switch. The modem is (potentially) disappearing and reappearing all the time - so the sensible approach is to treat things as dynamically as possible (like USB). Same with the other killable hardware, particularly the WiFi card, which is also potentially removable.
I am pretty sure that MMS support is not ready yet. Some people have gummed up their phone by getting an MMS that the phone is not yet able to handle, so unless you want to be playing around, it may be better not to test MMS.
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I don’t Have my L5 yet to check exactly but I believe the looseness between the sim tray and the…“door” part is intentional to allow for slight changes in tolerance between external and internal components of the phone. It may also be the case that the tray itself is a generic component, supplied with the sim reader hardware, while the “door” is supplied by the producer (Purisim) to match the chassis material and colour.
The SC under battery stands for “Smart Card”
@CWood is currently unable to post here for some reason, so I’m copying our DMs to here for everyone’s benefit:
Continuing the discussion from SIM & SD Card Tray Issue! :
Sorry, life came at me fast, haven’t been able to get back to you or customer support.
Here are photos of the tray inserted and properly. When I received it, it was sturdy and was flush with the phone. It was not like this. It felt a little off after a few times changing the sim and after close inspection, this was the problem. I don’t think it was a previous owner issue, and I feel this came about during my brief time with the phone. As stated, I am always careful with sim changes. I’ve been an Android owner since after my first flip phone, back in the day. The sim card trays have never been like this.
For some reason, it will not allow me to post in the primary thread.
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Hi. If it won’t sit flush with the frame, and if it prevents connecting to the network, and/or it bothers you, you should see about ordering a replacement tray.
Heads-up, the replacement will also have the “wobbly” cover, just like mine, and just like everyone else’s. (And just like my two Sony Xperias.) But yes, if it won’t sit flush with the frame, then something’s amiss.
Just to verify, your phone is the Evergreen model, right?
See:
Section 6.3 How can I tell the difference between the different production batches?
Frequently Asked Questions · Wiki · Librem5 / Librem 5 Community Wiki
Information related to the Librem 5 phone and development kit, maintained and organized by the community.
==
It has been said that the batches before Evergreen had less refined tolerances in the physical design.
Considering that the sim reader is interfacing the outside of the body via the tray, I would think it would be part of a dimensional QA process and be in the correct position, pointing more at an issue with the tray.
Those sim and microSD combo trays allow for a number of incorrect orientation combinations which may have damaged the reader in some way.
I’d recommend testing with a completely different (and known good) sim card and then hit up Purism for a replacement tray.
If it still isn’t working at that point then replacing the reader is totally feasible and worth it, but would need to be done by Purisim most likely, unless you are a soldering Ninja.
@ Purism
I came across Sony Xperia 1. They use a different type of SIM tray that one could open without a pin/needle.
Maybe it is worth having a look at their design for the future iterations like Fir. On the one hand this could prevent these SIM tray issues. On the other hand it makes sense for a security focused device to be able to remove/exchange the SIM card and or SD Card without instruments.
I guess Sony went this path because they are very focused on Photography and so people can quickly access the SD card.
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I think the industry is moving to eSIM though. So SIM tray problem goes away completely … but … what are the privacy issues with eSIM, if any? What other issues?
(I personally like to be able to move SIMs around between phones. Apart from the annoying incompatibility of SIM card sizes between devices, that works. Would it still be possible to do that with eSIM?)
Yes, in the case of the Librem 5, the uSD card is in there too.
I believe so. I’m using keepgo at the moment, and as I recall if the esim is downloaded to device B, device A’s stops working.
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There are countries where you can still buy a SIM card in a shop completely annonimously. eSIM on the other hand will most likely be linked to a person.
There is also the advantage that if all your data is on the SD-Card + SIM card + PGP smart card, you can remove it/carry it with you without the phone more easily.
So (completely) moving to eSIM for Librem 5 makes in my opinion no sense.
That is an issue i.e. functionality that we would lose. Presumably you would need some way of erasing the eSIM, as the equivalent, but you may not have any assurances that a) it happens at all, or b) it happens effectively.
Another reasonably obvious security issue with eSIM is that, by definition, the eSIM has to be writeable. There must be active hardware inside the phone that can write the eSIM. No such hardware needs to exist with a physical SIM. The ability to write the eSIM is just one more relatively unnecessary capability that is there to exploit. (It is arguable that the SIM in a typical phone is writeable anyway but that may not be necessary and it may be more limited e.g. can’t change identity but can do things like store phone numbers.)
Maybe so but the industry could reach the point, at least in some countries, where all network operators only offer eSIM. It seems like eSIM would be the more intrusive option so, if you are a network operator, which are you going to prefer?
If that came to pass then the Librem 5 can’t really swim against the tide.
I guess the timing comes down to how many viable phones are still out there, in use, that have no eSIM capability.