Lycamobile - Roaming cutting out after a couple of days

rossmcleod

After being on a 3GB data deal with Lebara, I found that it was a bit tight and I wanted a bit more data. At the beginning of the year, I found a 4GB data deal for Lycamobile, with a new customer promotional period of 6 months, using the tools on this site, so I switched to it.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to visit Nantes, France in April and then Turin, Italy and Poitiers, France in May. The roaming worked well.
However, in June I visited Sofia, Bulgaria. When I arrived, I received the welcome text etc. saying that I could use my allowances as normal and my data was working ok. On the second day, my data stopped working and I started to receive a message popup showing "Android subsystem logon to Vivacom". At first, I thought it was a wifi login and was confused because I hadn't used a wifi of that name I could remember. However, it turned out to be the Bulgarian mobile service provider. I checked my APNs and did some Googling to try and work out what had happened but did not get anywhere. I still had most of my data allowance left showing on my account but had no data for the rest of the trip. My companion had no issues with her Lebara service. I put it down to some kind of Lycamobile Bulgaria issue and my service was fully operational when I returned to the UK.
In July, we travelled to Brussels in Belgium. A similar thing happened, this time with a message of “Android subsystem logon to Proxima”, Proxima being the local service provider in Belgium, and my data stopping on the third day. My companion's Lebara connection continued to work.
That was enough for me. I was not in contract with Lycamobile, my renewals were on a monthly basis, I couldn't see the sense of trying to troubleshoot this and my initial 6 months promotional period was over. I moved back to Lebara. I've since been to Gdansk and had no issues with my Lebara service.
I haven't seen any other reports of this. However, it may be worth considering if you are swithering between different providers for your mobile connection. Certainly, for use in the UK, I had no issues with Lycamobile but other providers have not let me down in this way when I was abroad.

PHK

Which phone were you using? 

That message is odd as it would normally be given on a windows device that has the Amazon appstore.

rossmcleod

PHK said:

Which phone were you using? 

That message is odd as it would normally be given on a windows device that has the Amazon appstore.

We both use Poco branded phones that run MIUI on Android 13. I agree though, the android subsystem shouldn't be a thing as it's a native android phone. However, there is a Lycamobile communications app that I saw in the tools folder, it may have been coming from that.

PHK

Looking into it, I think that's a message to say you've roamed onto Vivacom  (MIUI runs on top of the AOSP version of Android, which would handle the network registration)

Don't think it explains why you didn't have data though when your other half did.

rossmcleod

PHK said:

Looking into it, I think that's a message to say you've roamed onto Vivacom  (MIUI runs on top of the AOSP version of Android, which would handle the network registration)

Don't think it explains why you didn't have data though when your other half did.

I am sure that it was working with both Vivacom, in Sofia, and Proxima, in Brussels, to begin with and then, after a couple of days of service, just stopped authenticating with those services. It does not make sense that it was a problem with my phone but it could have been. It kind of feels like Lycamobile hadn't been paying their roaming bill... but I am sure the explanation is more technical than that.
I see on the best deals page for SIMs it says "We've little feedback on Lycamobile's service," so I am providing this feedback. It could be that I am the only person who has been affected by this but I would be surprised if that was the case (I don't think there would be anything peculiar about my phone or plan that would only apply to me). I am really just interested to know if anyone else has suffered from this and possibly, as I did in Sofia, have just put it down to a one-off.
However, I am happily back on Lebara with more data. That gives Lycamobile at least six months before I will  consider moving again and, if there is a problem, resolve it. To be honest, if this hadn't happened, I would have probably just stuck with Lycamobile as I was otherwise happy with the overall deal.