[Galaxy Note 3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nadaall:
Hi guys,

At the beginning thank you for taking a look and spending your time reading it - I'm just trying to be precise.

Just to clarify - I've spent 11 hours yesterday and 10 hours (and counting) today reading and browsing XDA and different forums, searching/figuring out/trying to find solution,

but I think I gave up on my own and will need your help.

Few days ago I bought myself another same Note 3 SM-N9005 (primarily locked to EE, but unlocked with provider), as my old one (which was factory unlocked).

I had issues with signal (after slight water damage a year ago) - not major, but annoying enough to make me get another one.

So I switched to new Note 3 and decided to check new custom ROMs on my old one.

First I installed stock 5.0 - all worked fine, battery life improved etc.

Then tried Fougat rom and AryaMod - and here the problems began. While using one of those ROMs I inserted Polish SIM card.

Message appeared that I'm on roaming, to switch it on/off etc (don't remember what message exactly appeared as I didn't really pay much attention to it at that time)

I recently ordered new pay monthly Virgin SIM card for my partner. When it arrived I've put it in my old Note 3 and "Emergency calls only" message appeared.

I thought SIM wasn't active yet, so contacted Virgin just to be informed that the card is active on their end (I've put it in my new Note 3 and it was actually working).

A bit confused I put my O2 card into old Note 3 and it connected to the network without any problems.

So I started searching for a solution.

I found out that when I searched other networks on my (modified, old) Note 3 it only found O2 - UK, vodafone UK and 3UK.

I checked the same on my new Note 3 and it found O2, vodafone, EE (whose towers Virgin uses) and 3 UK - so all of them.

I thought that maybe EFS, modem, kernel or bootloader have been corrupted/conflicting, so made TWRP backup of my new Note 3 and old Note 3 (for old just to create serial number folder).

Then I replaced old Note 3 backup with new one, so TWRP could find it and restore the whole image from new Note 3, where everything works (Lollipop EE network version).

That didn't do the trick. Restored AryaMod backup - nothing. Old device still comes with "Emergency calls only" when Virgin SIM card is inserted, but it works with O2 card.

I tried different modems, bootloaders.

I checked the IMEI and it's intact.

At the moment I'm back to Stock Lollipop 5.0 [N9005XXSGBPL6_N9005BTUGBOJ1_BTU] and the problem still persists.

When I flashed the stock ROM and inserted Virgin SIM standard pop-up window appeared with network selection where I've chosen obviously Virgin.

When searching now for available networks it comes up again with only O2, Vodafone and 3 - no EE/Virgin.

For some reason it doesn't find/connect to EE towers.

Baseband: N9005XXUGBOJ1

Kernel: 3.4.0-4540543

Build Number: LRX21V.N9005XXSGBPL6

Network: Unknown

Mobile Network Type: Unknown

Service State: Voice: Out of service/Data: Out of service

Mobile network state: Disconnected

Thanks for reading and apologies for long post.

If I missed anything please let me know.

Hope you guys will be able to help and direct me what to do to get it working again