[deltact]

Tl;dr version: anyone have issues with Activesync accounts on BES after upgrading to 10.3.3?

Over the last couple of months, I have had problems with access to corporate resources through the work Activesync account on my Passport (most commonly sending and receiving emails, downloading attachments, remote search of emails and corporate directory searches). The Passport is a BYOD and I had it activated through BES when I joined my current employer, just as I had done with the previous employer (didn't want the free Classic or iPhones). There was no problem when it was activated and it worked fine for at least a couple of months. The problem is limited to the work account, everything else works perfectly including personal email, internet surfing and apps.

Here's where it gets interesting/bizarre. So far, the only time I do not have issues are when I connect to the secured wifi network at the office in my home city (automatically added when the workspace was activated through BES) and to the free wifi at Vancouver airport. It suffers from the usual problems when connected in all other ways, including when:
1. Connected to the secured wifi network at our office in another Canadian city (I think our offices use the same credentials provisioned through the BES activations to make travel seamless).
2. Connected to any other wifi networks, including those at home, at relatives and at a range of hotels.
3. Connected to the Telus network.
4. Roaming in the US on AT&T and T-Mobile.

It appears to be some type of connectivity issue beccause when I try to make changes to my work account when not at the office, such as changing the display name in the Hub, I get the following message: "The server for account Activesync: ABC - [email protected] [server.domain.address.com, port: 443] can't be reached. The settings might be incorrect or the server could be temporarily offline. Check your settings and try again."

One workaround that I have is to cycle the radios on and off so that there is a connection to a "new" network, whether to a wifi network or to a cellular network. It appears to momentarily solve the connectivity issue, allowing "queued" emails to be received and sent.

I have been working with IT, but they don't seem to know that much given that Blackberry users are clearly in the minority. They tried reinstalling the account to no avail and I even did a security wipe, but neither changed anything. Telus tells me that my device is properly provisioned. IT thinks it is a hardware problem but this makes no sense. In any case, it seems that I might have trouble getting a replacement device as our provider does not offer the Passport and the Classic and Leap have been phased out.

However, I suspect the problem started after my upgrade to 10.3.3. I can't pinpoint the exact day that the problem started as I thought it was just a random problem with the server being slow. It was only in December that I started receiving emails from people in Europe that should have arrived at around 2am EST. I did not receive anything until I stepped out of the house and it switched over to Telus and then my inbox filled up with work emails.

Further support for the 10.3.3 idea come from testing on a range of devices:
1. My mother bought a Passport as a spare during Thanksgiving. It had never been turned on or activated. It was running 10.3.1 and it updated to 10.3.3 on activation. I got my BES workspace created but ran into the same connectivity issues.
2. My colleague using a Passport on 10.3.2 has no issues.
3. I activated the BES workspace and Activesync account on my Z10 spare phone, running 10.3.2. It works perfectly.

Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions? I hope it's not a 10.3.3 bug because afaik I can't downgrade . I'll explore anything, no matter how crazy it sounds.

[deltact]

Update: the problem has been resolved by an update of the BES software on the server. Turns out that there was some change to 10.3.3 that requires an update to the BlackBerry Secure Connect Plus software. This only affects select configurations, which explains why the problem has been less than common. I suppose it doesn't help that there are few BlackBerry users at my firm and that even fewer of them upgraded to 10.3.3.

So if you ever have issues with work email, ask your admin whether the BES software is up to date.

Posted via CB10

[darryla]

I think we have this situation. We're on BES 12.4, so yes, we're behind.

Do you have any details on the update that's required?

[deltact]

I think we have this situation. We're on BES 12.4, so yes, we're behind.

Do you have any details on the update that's required?

We were/are on BES 12.4.1. BlackBerry support indicated that BES 12.5 comes with an updated version of the BSCP client. Alternatively, apparently you can update only the BSCP client.

Another suggested fix, but temporary and not ideal, is to force affected users to use MDS instead of BSCP. Not ideal because eventually MDS will not be supported.

Not sure what IT finally did, but the server went down briefly to apply some kind of fix, and it seems to be working okay for me, so far (at home and travelling to another office). The weird part is that our operations in different countries each have their own BES server, so there wasn't much internal knowledge about the problem, presumably because the others had upgraded or did not have any BlackBerry users on 10.3.3.

Posted via CB10 on my Passport

[darryla]

Thanks, I did find it:
https://help.blackberry.com/en/black...e-Notes-en.pdf

Seems to have fixed the issue.

This caught us off guard, thanks for the post. It got us on the right track.

[deltact]

Thanks, I did find it:
https://help.blackberry.com/en/black...e-Notes-en.pdf

Seems to have fixed the issue.

This caught us off guard, thanks for the post. It got us on the right track.

Glad to hear you got it sorted out. I was getting nervous that I would be forced to take an iPhone (Blackberrys are no longer on the list of new devices) or have to go back to my Z10.

Posted via CB10 on my Passport

[deltact]

Thanks, I did find it:
https://help.blackberry.com/en/black...e-Notes-en.pdf

Seems to have fixed the issue.

This caught us off guard, thanks for the post. It got us on the right track.

Do you have any phones working on 10.3.3.1463, or are they still on 1435? I don't think it will make a difference, but I'm still a little nervous about upgrading when 1463 eventually makes it to me.

Posted via CB10 on my Passport