Background:
(In case you want to know the solution right away, you can skip the Background to read the solution section down below)
I'm a Project Fi user for couples months. I enjoy so much the service, the freedom to use or not to use the data and it costs me $23 each month include everything (fee and tax) because of the unused data refund. With the recent $199 Nexus 5x deal, I bought a Nexus 5x phone for my another family member to transfer the phone number to Project Fi to save more money.
I got the phone with a new SIM Card and trying to activated with a new google account. During activation, I got the error code B010. I call the Project Fi support from the activation App page. For 45 minutes, we tried different things to trying to resolve the activation issues, but nothing worked
Then, the Fi support said the SIM card was associated with the Google account where the phone and SIM card is purchased that it cannot be activated under to another Google account unless the association is broken. The funny thing is: even on their end, they does not have method, in a more software term "interface", to remove the association. We kind of stuck there.
The Fi support suggested to activate the new phone and new SIM with "phone purchased" Google Account that the SIM card is associated as one Google account can associate more than one line and phone. I followed to activate the phone to the "phone purchased" Google Account. Somehow, the new phone and new SIM is taking over my own phone instead of my family member phone number. i.e. In one option, I choose to use Primary number because it warns me the other option won't receive call and text which is useless.
Finally, the Fi support suggested to email me a link to purchase a new SIM card (free of charge) that this SIM card does not associate with any account.
So, now, the new Phone and new SIM got my old number. My old 'SMART' phone and old SIM became a DUMB WIFI device cannot make a call. Before getting the NEW SIM card, I put back the just activated SIM card on my old phone. I discover below solution doesn't need an extra new SIM card.
Problem:
New Phone and New SIM purchased from a Google account would fail with code B010 while activating the Project Fi with another Google account.
Root Cause:
New SIM order from 'A' Google account is associated with the 'A' Google account which is not able to activate to 'B' Google account in Project Fi unless the association is broken.
Brief Solution:
- Activate the new SIM and new phone with the Google account that purchased the SIM and Phone
- Activate the new SIM with the old Phone with the old phone existing Google account.
- Old SIM is now made inactive.
- Activate the Old SIM + New Phone with any Google account you want.
It's like swapping the two values of A and B with a temporary variable X.
X=A
A=B
B=X
Details solution steps:
1. Associate the new phone and new SIM card with the "phone purchase" Google account by activated the new phone and new SIM card with the "phone purchase" Google account.
2. Pull out the just activated SIM card and put it inside the old Phone and do the activation with the "purchase" Google account. --->; Yay, I got my old phone number back on my old Nexus 5x phone with the "new" SIM.
3. Somehow, step 2 did the trick to break the old SIM card association with the old Google account.
4. Put the old SIM card (i.e. the SIM card just got pull out replaced by the new SIM for my Old Nexus 5x) inside the new Nexus 5x phone and do all the activation with the NEW Google account.
5. Unexpectedly smooth within 5 minutes, the New Phone is activated with the old SIM card and with the NEW Google account. (The activation asks me the a new phone number and it's carrier transfer information).
The magic is to activate the new SIM (Step 1) with the new phone. Then, deactivated the old SIM (Step 2) by activate the new SIM again with the old phone. Somehow the old SIM is made "inactive" in Project Fi page status. Then, the old SIM is free to use to activate on another Google account (Step 4 and 5).
In case you have interest, you read below detail background.
Conclusion:
Kudo should be given to Project Fi support. The support I talked to is very sincere and patience clarifying a lot of questions I asked. Though the support did not directly point me to the solution, The support trying as much help as possible. Without the support willingness to help, I will never try "Step 1". And I learned that It's not the phone associated with the Google account. It's only the SIM card associated with the Google account. And this association cannot be broken by a interface from Project Fi support (as least the one I called doesn't has interface to do so). Maybe future, the Project Fi team can add this feature to their support interface. Before that, please try my discovery and let me know if it works for your in comments. :)
Side node: Thanks to Roger Hu posting the root cause of B010 http://hustoknow.blogspot.com/2016/03/project-fi-and-b010-error-codes.html, Somehow the Project Fi support is unable to transfer the Asset Id from one account to another. I'm glad I don't need 3 weeks to resolve this issue. :)
