New Pearl has no internal memory?

[jabbs1]

I'll try to make this short, but there are a couple weird issues here.

My friend got a new replacement Pearl thru her carrier insurance. She hadn't known about any of the backup options until yesterday. I tried downloading miq onto the device ota, but the DL screen said someting about not enough memory. So I checked under "status" and for some reason the device memory is showing "0 bytes" internal memory. I thought this was very weird because the phone is new and there is literally nothing on it.

Also, her computer would recognize the device when plugged in, but it would never show up as a removable storage device. Mass storage is on and set to "yes" when connected. I even downloaded DM 6 and the Blackberry was recognized by DM (it had her pin and everything correct) but for some reason it would not allow me to anything with the media sync because it was saying mass storage was not turned on. I even made sure the SD card was inserted properly, and it was showing 1.8 gigs free in the info.

This was very irritating because everything is set right and mass storage is not working. And the 0 bytes of memory is confusing too. Any thoughts gang?

[jabbs1]

Just before noon today she told me her memory was at 34782 bytes and she was able to download the application. Now the memory has dropped back down to zero. Are the Pearls known for having issues like this, or is something wrong with the phone?

[mitchsurp]

The 8100 has a massive memory leak that I could only ever solve with a battery pull and deleting all old messages (anything older than 2 days I would suggest). If i kept up on a daily battery pull (apps can simulate this for free) and deleting old e-mails and messages, I could cut down on the memory leaks.

Sad but true that RIM has abandoned the 81XX series.

[jabbs1]

I'm surprised Asurion actually gave her a new 8100, although it was probably a refurb. I didn't think there were any around these days.

[joeldf]

All that seems a bit extreme in mitchsurp's post.

While the 8100 is light on memory - a whopping 64MB - I haven't had such problems.

Do a battery pull, re-insert it and see what the memory is right after a fresh boot-up.

Also, what OS version does it have?

To give you an idea, I'm running the last OS 4.5.0.182 that AT&T released earlier this year. And, while I could have trimmed it down a lot (and actually tried to with CrackMem by removing Voice Activated dialing, some of the vendor themes, and Push to Talk) I gave up and just did a regular install. I just picked the functions and languages that are selectable and that I didn't want through the DM application loader. That included leaving out Docs to Go, the Help file, BlackBerry maps (since AT&T doesn't let you access it on this phone and Google Maps is better anyway), and all the non-English languages, among a few other options that I can't remember at the moment.

After that, I was able to load the aforementioned Google Maps, BlackBerry App World, Facebook app, eBay app, Amazon app, Scoremobile, Photobucket app, Poynt, Nobex Radio Companion, and the Opera Mini 4.2 browser. I also have a few Precision-like themes (made to look like the standard OS 5 theme which we don't get normally with OS 4.5 that we are stick with).

I've also got 2 email accounts, one work and one home, with emails going back about 2 months and related calendars, and about 200 some-odd contacts.

After a fresh boot-up from a battery pull, I'll have anywhere from 12 to 14 MB free. After a full day of use, it will drop to about 5 MB. Some days, it can drop to about 1 MB. But the only time that can cause a problem is when loading some graphic intensive web pages. It will balk and refuse to load the page from lack of memory.

Something else to check, while on the status page, click the menu button and you should see the option to view the database sizes. At the very top shows you the total space the user data on the phone takes up (this is not application data). Mine at the moment is 1060.7 KB - or just over a meg. The messages do take a good chunk of that - just over half a meg at 577 KB. But it also shows you how many calendars are being held. Its possible that some previous data is still on the phone taking up space that you don't have access to. The only way to get that cleared out is doing a full data wipe and re install the OS.

As to the sd card problem, I'm not to sure what that could be. One thing I can suggest is to make sure the Pearl is not set to encrypt it - that's in the media card settings in options.

That's all I got.

Good luck.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com