[brandonx1000]

Now before you all go off on me, this is what I received from my data manager in our region.

Trackballs showing lag or not moving is not a reason to exchange out a phone anymore. RIM is working on a software update that will fix this problem. 95% of these issues is software related.

The reasoning behind this is that the software does not give the trackball high enough priority in the system. For example, if a computer crashes and the mouse is still usable. The mouse has the highest priority. The trackball in the current software is fighting to have priority which is causing the issue.

The current "fix" is to set all sensitivities to 100/100 and "feather" the trackball.

I have seen 1 (which was mine) to have a truly defective trackball. The rollers were not catching the trackball, so it would consistently "slip" and not move.

So, this is just a heads up that (at least our region) will no longer replace tours with these issues until the software comes out.

Like I said, please don't take this out on me. I'm just letting everyone know.

[camalus]

Yay another trackball post!

Oh. And I bet if I call verizon and ask nice they will swap it out.

Verizon hearsay is true about 0.0001 percent of the time.

Stop making posts about trackballs!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[danimal1968]

So much for Verizon's Worry Free Guarantee...

[nyyankeefan1021]

When did you hear this? And what region are you in?

Because as of last night, they're still replacing Tours for trackball issues. I got mine replaced.

But I hope you're right.

[DJ M-80]

Wow that's wack my trackball just started to act up when I had it in my pocket all day

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[blackmagik84]

Yay another trackball post!

Oh. And I bet if I call verizon and ask nice they will swap it out.

Verizon hearsay is true about 0.0001 percent of the time.

Stop making posts about trackballs!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I wish people like you would stop making senseless posts like this. By the title of the thread, you KNEW it was a post dedicated to the trackball issues of the Tour. I'm sure the OP decided to make ONE post as a forewarning to those thinking about exchanging their Tours instead of posting in SEVERAL trackball threads where people could easily overlook his ONE specific post. Get a LIFE.

@Brandonx1000 - thanks for the heads up (on behalf of many VZW customers, as I'm a Sprint customer myself)

[CBRick]

Well I'm on my 4th phone...and would cancel my contract if they did not swap out defective phones....unless they do like the storm and increase the 30 day trial period.

Last thing I want is a crappy phone I'm stuck with after the 30 days because some tech said an update was coming.

[brandonx1000]

i am in the Philadelphia Region

and thank ChekMySwag84 -- just pushing out info that i figure would help out

[Beau79]

Had my Tour replaced yesterday for trackball issues. The fact that I had the phone since launch day and NOW the OS has a glitch? Riiiight. I'd like to see them refuse a swap. RIM could take weeks to update the OS.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[PaulM-D]

I see, so the fact that the trackball works fine vertically but not horizontally is due to software. :-)

Try scrolling through an email to make a correction with the sensitivity set to 100:100!

Now before you all go off on me, this is what I received from my data manager in our region.

Trackballs showing lag or not moving is not a reason to exchange out a phone anymore. RIM is working on a software update that will fix this problem. 95% of these issues is software related.

The reasoning behind this is that the software does not give the trackball high enough priority in the system. For example, if a computer crashes and the mouse is still usable. The mouse has the highest priority. The trackball in the current software is fighting to have priority which is causing the issue.

The current "fix" is to set all sensitivities to 100/100 and "feather" the trackball.

I have seen 1 (which was mine) to have a truly defective trackball. The rollers were not catching the trackball, so it would consistently "slip" and not move.

So, this is just a heads up that (at least our region) will no longer replace tours with these issues until the software comes out.

Like I said, please don't take this out on me. I'm just letting everyone know.

[blz2dwl]

I exchanged mine yesterday, and the trackball is 100% better. The mechanical feel is much improved, and response is direct and proportional to movement, as it should be. I can move the cursor in circles now, which I couldn't do on the other one. I had no issues exchanging it with Verizon. I can understand the lag issue being software related, but most of the complaints I have read were mechanical. I was told on the phone by Verizon that I could swap it out for any reason, no questions asked. Once I explained the issue, for their information, they encouraged me to take it to a store and get one that I was satisfied with. Excellent service, and now I've got a phone with none of the reported issues we've all heard about. Okay, well the battery cover is a little looser, but I can live with that.

[Beau79]

I exchanged mine yesterday, and the trackball is 100% better. The mechanical feel is much improved, and response is direct and proportional to movement, as it should be. I can move the cursor in circles now, which I couldn't do on the other one. I had no issues exchanging it with Verizon. I can understand the lag issue being software related, but most of the complaints I have read were mechanical. I was told on the phone by Verizon that I could swap it out for any reason, no questions asked. Once I explained the issue, for their information, they encouraged me to take it to a store and get one that I was satisfied with. Excellent service, and now I've got a phone with none of the reported issues we've all heard about. Okay, well the battery cover is a little looser, but I can live with that.

Shoulda tried out your previous phones cover. Others have reported doing so. When I swapped mine, the replacement was much better over all. +1 for a Canada build lol.

[b.asagba]

well it still should be covered by insurance tho.
but forking over 70 bucks for a trackball issue is a lil much

[FF22]

If it really is a software issue, why are folks finding that new ones (well, the 2nd or 3rd new one) fix the software problem?

There have been enough TESTIMONIALS that some lucky folks do not have any trackball issues - what, some divine intervention allows them to escape the so-called OS lag?

Yes, if verizon/others extend the 30 day trial period to fix a very bad, inherent problem, that would be fine. But to ask users to cross-fingers and hope it is resolved - ha! This is a bad flaw - they should have a fix immediately and not mess around. Fix that and don't bother with other upgrades to show their good faith belief that it is merely an OS bug and not a physical defect.

[aussiemom]

I've had my Tour since the 14th of July. I haven't had a single problem with my trackball until the last few days. Now, occasionally when I am rolling horizontally, particularly to the right, it just doesn't respond. If I roll it to the left & back to the right, it's fine. When it lags, if feels like what my Treo used to do when it was processing something else (just freeze & not do anything).

I guess I'll wait 'til the software update comes out and/or the problem gets worse before I make a stink about it. It's not unbearable right now, just momentarily frustrating. Everything else is working great - the earphone jack, the battery door is tight, etc, so I'm not in a hurry to trade one problem for another...

[tnt118]

I don't want to start a new thread, so I figured I'd add in something I noticed here...

My trackball is getting progressively worse (got a replacement mailed to me yesterday, but haven't had time to power it up). I noticed this morning that my trackball isn't perfectly round. It's more egg shaped, with one end literally feeling a bit "pointy". When this "end" is up (directly under my thumb), I get zero response from a left/right movement. When it's not, I get anywhere from 70-90% of the expected left/right movement.

[ArGiEs]

If it really is a software issue, why are folks finding that new ones (well, the 2nd or 3rd new one) fix the software problem?

There have been enough TESTIMONIALS that some lucky folks do not have any trackball issues - what, some divine intervention allows them to escape the so-called OS lag?

Yes, if verizon/others extend the 30 day trial period to fix a very bad, inherent problem, that would be fine. But to ask users to cross-fingers and hope it is resolved - ha! This is a bad flaw - they should have a fix immediately and not mess around. Fix that and don't bother with other upgrades to show their good faith belief that it is merely an OS bug and not a physical defect.

Excellent point. Mine was the vertical-works-horizontal-is-lousy variety, and Sprint had no problem with swapping it out.

If this is truly a software glitch, and RIM is truly going to fix it with a patch broadcast, they'd better hurry; as I recall, version 5.0 of BlackBerry OS is going to to roll out sometime at the end of this month (read that on a post here a few weeks ago).

[cereal killer]

Great post brandon. I figured this was the case a couple weeks ago and have been telling people the same thing. Feather the trackball and change the settings

80/90 (90 horizontal) is optimal as well for people that find 100/100 too sensitive.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[dssesq]

I just exchanged mine this morning due to trackbakk issues. I think they fall into two categories. I am on my third. The first had trackball issues when scrolling from side to side. Cursor would be unresponsive and jump all over the place. It would only happen when scrolling through text though and would be perfectly responsive when scrolling on the home page or on a web page. I believe that these issues are software related dealing with how the cursor moves across various test characters of various sizes.

My last tour seemed to have a hardware problem. The ball felt as if it was slipping and there was no mechanical feel to it. It just floated in the socket and often times the cursor wouldn't move at all.

This third one, Mexico 5, feels much better and seems more responsive. Still is a little laggy scrolling horizontally, further leading me to believe that this is a software issue that will hopefully be resolved with an OTA update soon.

[Palm tree]

I thought it worked, until I realized I couldn't play Brickbreaker and that scrolling left and right was just too jittery. Finally got the notion to exchange and glad I did. NO problems with scrolling now. Makes a huge difference, and the jacking up sensitivity fix isn't really an acceptable fix. My vote is that it's a hardware issue. We'll see...

[slinky317]

The reasoning behind this is that the software does not give the trackball high enough priority in the system. For example, if a computer crashes and the mouse is still usable. The mouse has the highest priority. The trackball in the current software is fighting to have priority which is causing the issue.

What a load of garbage.

If it was a software issue, why does it matter if you feather the trackball or if you push hard on it? Software doesn't know how much pressure you're putting on it. And if it was a software issue, why is it only affecting rolling in one direction (usually right)? If it was really just software lag, it would affect ALL directions. And if it was software, why did I play with two different phones in a Verizon store in which one phone's trackball was perfect and the other didn't roll correctly? All of them have the same software out of the box, so they should all behave the same.

This is just a crowd control measure. It's NOT the software that's the problem, it's the trackball assembly. Admitting that, though, would be expensive. This way they can release a software update, and fanboys would have the placebo effect and shout "Look, it's better!"

[Misterb]

Now before you all go off on me, this is what I received from my data manager in our region.

Trackballs showing lag or not moving is not a reason to exchange out a phone anymore. RIM is working on a software update that will fix this problem. 95% of these issues is software related.

The reasoning behind this is that the software does not give the trackball high enough priority in the system. For example, if a computer crashes and the mouse is still usable. The mouse has the highest priority. The trackball in the current software is fighting to have priority which is causing the issue.

The current "fix" is to set all sensitivities to 100/100 and "feather" the trackball.

I have seen 1 (which was mine) to have a truly defective trackball. The rollers were not catching the trackball, so it would consistently "slip" and not move.

So, this is just a heads up that (at least our region) will no longer replace tours with these issues until the software comes out.

Like I said, please don't take this out on me. I'm just letting everyone know.

There's no way this is a software issue. I had the problems with it not scrolling horizontally properly, exchanged it for a new one, and the problems went away. Prior to that, I changed the sensitivity. While it helped somewhat, the device was way too jumpy. It was always jumping to the wrong date on my calendar, selecting something far away from where I wanted to select, and just acting like it was on crack. No, sorry- that's not a fix. I tried it, and while it did help it to scroll better horizontally, it caused other problems that were much worse.

[mrberger202]

Now before you all go off on me, this is what I received from my data manager in our region.

Trackballs showing lag or not moving is not a reason to exchange out a phone anymore. RIM is working on a software update that will fix this problem. 95% of these issues is software related.

The reasoning behind this is that the software does not give the trackball high enough priority in the system. For example, if a computer crashes and the mouse is still usable. The mouse has the highest priority. The trackball in the current software is fighting to have priority which is causing the issue.

The current "fix" is to set all sensitivities to 100/100 and "feather" the trackball.

I have seen 1 (which was mine) to have a truly defective trackball. The rollers were not catching the trackball, so it would consistently "slip" and not move.

So, this is just a heads up that (at least our region) will no longer replace tours with these issues until the software comes out.

Like I said, please don't take this out on me. I'm just letting everyone know.

I'm not directing this at you personally, as I know you are just passing on info you received. However, Verizon will continue to exchange Tours whether they like it or not. This is the so called "punishment" they get for selling products without demanding higher QA from RIM. People are entitled to a phone that works perfectly. Unless Verizon is issuing notarized letters stating that after the software update, people will still be able to return their Tours if the problem is still there, then they don't have a leg to stand on right now.

Regarding the exchange problems, check out my post from here:
http://forums.crackberry.com/f141/we...0/#post3292560

And regarding the so called software issues, as has already been stated, if this was a software issue, EVERY Tour would have the problem. There are physical differences between different Tour's trackballs. I have personally felt the differences.

[Ainvar]

There might be a software issue but I think that there is a good majority of these devices that have hardware issues.

Perfect example would by my Tour. It goes Up, Down, and Right with no issues but to go left is a major pain in the ****. I can use settings as low as 70 or maxed out at 100 and still have the issue. Feathering the trackball does not work to well either. Also it seems the more I use the device the worse it becomes. The trackball is behaving just like the pearl trackball did once it got worn out.

I seriously doubt a software update will fix a hardware issue. It seems like the hardware and QA of the recent release of blackberry's havs seriously been slipping. My curve is still rock solid and has had no issues. My wife started using my curve and she can tell a huge diffrent in quality when you uses that device opposed to my Tour.

[slinky317]

By the way, here is a quote from this post from the Verizon Wireless forums in which a pre-release tester (of many devices on many carriers, not just Blackberry) talks about the Tour's trackball problems:

Now, here is the problem. If your trackball actually rolls while you have this issue, it isn't the trackball. This is the description that fits the majority of Tour trackball problems and is a problem documented with the design six months ago. It is not a quick fix, nor will it be fixed without a redesign. We're talking the substructure here - not a popout & replace item.

(emphasis added)