Your puk-code can be found on Mijn Simyo under "Instellingen” and then "Simkaart”, behind the line "PUK-code”. You have only 10 tries to enter the PUK-code. If you failed to enter the right one in those tries, your simkaart will be a very poor paper weight. It will NEVER work again.

You can always order a new simcard from Simyo, however 3 things:

1. It costs 5 euro
2. It only ships within The Netherlands. The foreign customers I know generally have friends/family receive it from them in The Netherlands and forward it to them.
3. You can order one yourself on this page of Mijn Simyo.

A moderator can possible also help to order it in case you need help with that. In case you do, let us know!

Thanks to you Groentjuh and the PUK code, the smartphone is working again as before! I'm still puzzled by a few details however.

1. After the PUK code, the smartphone asked for a new PIN code. I was worried when I then had to alternate ‘Enter SIM card unlock PIN. 5 attempts left’ with ‘Use PIN after restart’ three times: was I misunderstanding something? Then it worked.
2. Previously I had to start the phone with one code, and then another for the sim. Now it seems there is only one code required. Or am I now carelessly using the same code twice? I hope I can avoid complications if I have to restart the phone.
3. Should I change the simple 4 integers I chose for the code(s) for something less obvious?
4. Is it safe to insert a different SIMYO card temporarily from an earlier smartphone, with the aim of retrieving some lost data? (Afterthought: the phone has a double simcard carriage, so I suppose I can try that out).

I hope these questions are sensible and clear. I must admit I'm a bit afraid of trying things out after the frustrations of the last week or so.

Your phone likely asked for a new SIM unlock code. Then again for a confirmation of that entered unlock code. And possibly after that it asked for it again to actually unlock the sim card.

That's up to you. Your phone likely has menu's to both manage the sim card unlock code and the phone unlock code(s). Possibly you might have disabled one of the two.

I believe SIM card unlock codes are often 4 numbers. Not much wrong with that. Your phone's unlock generally has a lot of options, but that's to unlock the phone.

That's generally no issue, but there might be some app sending out activation/confirmation SMS-messages. With double sim it is no issue at all.

Hi @Vic Joseph,

Thank you for your message. I see that @Groentjuh has answered all your questions, thank you so much for your help! 

If you have any further questions, please let us know .

Kind regards,
Roeqajja

Thanks to you both, Roeqajja and Groentjuh. Excuse me for the off-topic thread title: the actual questions developed quite a long way from my initial puzzling.

My attempt at reviving the older sim-card card in SIM 2 was unsuccessful after 3 tries, leaving 2 over. I suppose it has a different PUK to SIM 1, and I'm not even sure it belongs to my Samsung phone because I have a couple of other sim cards carelessly floating around. It would be no great loss, but if there is some clever way to revive my SIM 2 I would be willing to try again.

cheers, Vic

Hello @Vic Joseph,

Thankyou for you response. It's not entirely clear to me yet what exactly you mean, sorry. Do you mean that you want a new SIM card for your Simyo number? If so, you can send me a private message with your personal information. Then i can send you a new simcard .

Greetings,
Amy

Vic Joseph is probably trying to extract contact numbers and or messages from a previous simcard.

Yes, that's what I meant. I suppose there's not much chance....

Without pincode/pukcode of that simcard, no.