The headline first: if the profile is already installed, no data after landing is far more often a settings problem than a dead plan. The six steps below run from most to least likely. Most people are back online by step three.
Work through it in this order
11. Is the line switched on?
Go to Settings → Cellular / Mobile network and find the line you installed — the one you named during setup, like “Japan trip”. Make sure it's enabled. People who install early usually leave it off on purpose, then forget to turn it on. This is the single most common cause.
22. Is it the default line for mobile data?
With two lines on one phone, “which line carries data” is its own separate setting. Even with the eSIM switched on, if mobile data still points at your original SIM, that's what your phone will use — which usually means expensive roaming, or no signal at all. Point mobile data at the eSIM.
33. Is data roaming enabled for that line?
The least intuitive step, and the one most often skipped. A data-only eSIM needs data roaming turned on to work, because you're using a local carrier's network rather than the issuing network's own.
44. Restart, or toggle airplane mode
After crossing a border your phone has to search for and register on a local network, and that occasionally hangs. Ten seconds of airplane mode, or a full restart, clears a fair share of “everything is set correctly but there's still no data” cases.
55. Try selecting a network manually
In that line's network selection settings, turn off automatic selection, let the phone list the local carriers, pick one and try again. Automatic selection occasionally latches onto a network with poor reception or none at all. Switch it back to automatic once you're connected.
66. Check the allowance and validity period
Once a plan's data allowance is used up, the connection pauses or slows according to that plan's rules — same once the validity period ends. If you were online for a while before it stopped, look here first. You can buy another plan for the same destination at any time; details from your previous order are reused, so there's nothing to fill in twice.
Two things that aren't faults
- Weak signal isn't a broken plan. Speed and coverage depend on the local carrier's actual network. Underground, in remote areas, and while crossing borders, reception can drop noticeably.
- Your own number not making calls is a separate matter. The eSIM is a data-only plan with no voice or SMS. Your physical SIM handles those, at your existing carrier's roaming rates.
Still nothing after all six
Then it's on us to investigate. Get in touch with your order number and the specific message you're seeing — “what the settings screen shows” and “the exact error text” get us there much faster than “it doesn't work”.
If it turns out to be a demonstrable technical fault — an invalid profile, or an upstream line that was never provisioned at the destination — it's handled under the “cases we review manually” section of our refund policy.