So last night after several hours of Sky/O2 being unavailable I finally bit the bullet and purchased an EE SIM only eSIM subscription and what was supposed to be a simple immediate online purchase just didn't work, so here are some notes in case anyone else has the issue that they can't download the eSIM and register the new service after giving EE their PAC code at checkout.
First issue was that the QR code for the eSIM provided after checkout just didn't work on my Pixel 9 Pro.
After much googling and diving into Reddit threads I discovered this is because the EE website added two superfluous "$$" characters to the end of the string in the code.
So if you can't use the QR code, screenshot it, find an online QR reader and grab the text from it, just remove the final two "$$" characters and go through the manual process of adding the eSIM without QR code.
Secondly I couldn't register the new subscription on the website or app (despite checking out using an email already registered with EE!).
This issue here is that none of the emails from EE told me my actual temporary phone number that the eSIM uses until the porting finishes.
So to get round this make sure your eSIM is selected for SMS text messaging and send the word "NUMBER" to 150, you will get a text back with your temporary number and can then use that to link your new subscription to the account on the website and app.
Honestly it's a bit crazy that EE don't automatically do this when you checkout using the email address you've already registered on their website, and the weird trailing dollar characters in the QR code make no sense at all.
What should have been a five minute job after checkout has taken 24 hours to figure out, and I'm now expecting my number not to port till next week now as it's Friday.
Hope this dump of information helps anyone else in the same catch 22 position.
