[theotherjoeboy]

Greetings....I have had my z10 since beginning of March. The phone is awesome and is as good as I had hoped it would be. After about 1 week, I started to experience random restarts. At first they were in frequent and went on unnoticed, usually when phone not in use. I started monitoring the frequency of restarts, and found that it got progressively worse happening daily and sometimes twice a day. I went through all the forums on the subject, and could not find a solution after trying a variety of things. Finally, on Apr 3 I did the following, and have had no restarts since.

make sure you have latest version of BB Link
wiped and reset to factory and allow updates to install using BB Link
DO NOT RESTORE ANY BACK UPS (problem was never solved other times that I wiped and restored anything from backup)
set up my accounts - 2 gmail imap accounts, 1 sympatico pop account
transferred all my contacts from Outlook using Link
added facebook and linkedin accounts
adjusted settings for everything, display, accounts, notifications, etc
I did not install any apps for 4 days (ran only stock apps) to determine if an app I had installed was causing the problem
phone had no issues so installed CB app
waited another day no restarts
I will continue to install the apps I had previously installed, one at a time in intervals to see if the problem comes back

Apps I had installed when the problem was happening: (excluding stock apps)
Alien Flow
Angry Birds Star Wars
Be Weather 10
Blackberry Bridge
Bookreader for EPUB
CBC News
CNBC Alarm Clock
Money Plus
Navita Translator
NB News Free
Nobex
Password Keeper
Tablet Tv premium
USA today (this app loved to launch itself, It is high on my suspect list)
XE Currency

I will probably re install these apps, but will do them one at a time and monitor for a short time before installing another

I am convinced, that this is not a Hardware issue in my case, but definitely Software related, and in particular a 3rd party app issue

My Z10
Model: STL100-3
Software release: 10.0.10.85
OS Version:10.0.10.672
No SD card (stock memory only)
Rogers Canada
Wifi on
Bluetooth on only when required
NFC on only when required
Battery life good usually unplug at 8:00 am and moderate to heavy use (depending on my schedule) plug in approx 1:00 am with anywhere from 30% to 50% battery to spare.

Anyway I hope this information helps others with similar issues.
I do want to say though, that anyone who jumps in as an early adopter, on any new tech, must go in with his eyes open and be prepared to live with some bumps along the way. I did a lot of research before purchasing my Z10 and between my experience with my Torch 9800, Bold 9000 and BB 8700, I felt confident with my purchase knowing that both BB and Rogers would support my choice. Patience is important at this stage of the game.

Conclusion:
I feel very confident in once again stating the my problem was a Software issue caused by a 3rd party app or combination of OS with the 3rd party app, and NOT a hardware problem.

[pandapurple]

Thanks for sharing. I haven't had a restart on my Z10 and I don't have any side-loaded apps. If it is from you that the mystery is solved, many people would be so grateful.

[Superbuddy2007]

I probably need to run stock memory to see if that fixes my issue. He'll, the battery app may be causing my random reboots although it is not running. I had a similar issue on my Torch 9850 where a battery app was causing my phone calls to drop. Any who, I don't think a factory reset is where I want to head at this point although I've only had my Z10 since Verizon released it.

Posted via CB10

[jrohland]

Thanks for the detailed process report. I was hoping the QNX and sandboxed app design would not permit apps to crash the kernel. However, it happened to me once and appears was happening to you also. This leaves me wondering just how much core OS access apps have.

[kbz1960]

Nice it helped yours but many say they are stock and theirs still reboots randomly. I saw that blackberry is aware but seems they are clueless yet to the cause. I hope for their sake they figure it out ASAP as soon isn't quick enough.

[theotherjoeboy]

Nice it helped yours but many say they are stock and theirs still reboots randomly. I saw that blackberry is aware but seems they are clueless yet to the cause. I hope for their sake they figure it out ASAP as soon isn't quick enough.

One of the things I had tried first was removing all the apps that I had installed, and ran stock but unfortunately what it looks like is that just uninstalling the apps did not do it. Its possible that whatever the culprit app broke stayed broke till I did factory reset

[Vijik]

Thanks for the detailed process report. I was hoping the QNX and sandboxed app design would not permit apps to crash the kernel. However, it happened to me once and appears was happening to you also. This leaves me wondering just how much core OS access apps have.

Android Player on BB10 has core OS access and based on my experience (with the old side loaded WhatsApp bar file) it, combined with some ported apps, can crash the Kernel several times a day. I stayed away from side loaded apps and no crash since then.

[GoJaysGo]

If an app is causing the Z10 to reboot randomly, (I'm getting random reboots on my Z10's in the office as well) BlackBerry has a huge problem. There is no way an app should or could be able to take down the entire OS... I mean, how is it possible seeing that QNX, is the OS in our rockets, trains, and vibrators, so how could that be possible? Supposed to be bullet proof, right?

[Vijik]

If an app is causing the Z10 to reboot randomly, (I'm getting random reboots on my Z10's in the office as well) BlackBerry has a huge problem. There is no way an app should or could be able to take down the entire OS... I mean, how is it possible seeing that QNX, is the OS in our rockets, trains, and vibrators, so how could that be possible? Supposed to be bullet proof, right?

You are right. No app should get it to crash. However supporting a different platform with massive loads of good and badly ported apps for that platform is not easy and apparently not bullet proof yet.
For the Native apps however, if an app is not responsive, the Kernel simply kill the app instead of getting in trouble itself.
This part is bullet proof based on my 2.5 month experience with Z10.

[ekinnee]

Mine seems to be some sort of watchdog getting tripped. It'll hang on unplugging from the computer and then restart after 30 seconds or so.

Posted via CB10

[kellyweng88]

damn it, why is this happening. My phone just started randomly re-starting too.

This has happened several times to my girlfriend's Z10 as well. I'm starting to feel bad because I was the one who convinced her to leave her android phone to get a BB. and now the Z10 is doing this...its not a HUGe deal but it is annoying to have a phone shut off on you out of nowhere randomly. Hope BB comes out with a fix...

[pandapurple]

There are a lot of us whose Z10s haven't rebooted / restarted nor froze. ???

Posted via CB10

[21stNow]

Thanks for the tips theotherjoeboy. Do you think that a Security Wipe will accomplish the same thing? I just had my first random reboot today (with a device that I got Friday night).

[branflakes]

Mine has froze/restarted once per week in the 2 weeks since I got it. AT&T phone on latest AT&T build. Yesterday while in Facebook commenting on a post...froze while typing, then rebooted itself. First time, it would not "wake" from swiping the screen or using the top button. I had to force a restart. I don't keep apps open (Active Frame) so in both cases, the Z10 wasn't busy when it happened.

I did side load a couple apps (Google Maps and SugarSync) because the Sideload forum said those worked on the Z10. They did not work well, so I deleted them before the reboots happened. I'm going to keep an eye on it. I don't want to do a factory reset yet.

[theotherjoeboy]

Thanks for the tips theotherjoeboy. Do you think that a Security Wipe will accomplish the same thing? I just had my first random reboot today (with a device that I got Friday night).

to be honest with you I don't know the difference between a security wipe, and a factory reset. Do they accomplish the same thing? I am not sure. But don't be afraid to do a factory reset, it is painless and pretty quick. Yes you have to go through the process of setting everything up again including getting your contacts, but if you are like me, you will look at it as an opportunity to get to know your device better. Will the steps I outlined work for you? I hope so. What I do know is that I struggled with this for about 4 weeks trying a variety of things and that is what worked for me. Some of the things I would like to mention, is that my initial setup was using the original BB Link before the updates, and I had done a device swap, trying to move all my contacts etc from my 9800 and that process failed miserably. BB link was a horrible piece of work. I could not even do a complete backup without it failing. That should have been my first indicator. I also went wild downloading and trying a variety of apps and then deleting them after realizing, that most were total garbage. This time BB link worked flawlessly, I was able to import all my contacts directly from Outlook on my PC. Problem is gone, and now I am very happy. Hope all of this is helpful to you. Good luck

[thebum23]

A little off topic of the phone resetting itself but i ow you a BIG thank you because your information helped me out...Recently i downloaded an app from Blackberry World called "SMSRingtones." Lets just say it was a nightmare. I decided to delete the app, but the tones did not delete off my phone. After trying everything to erase them with no luck, including contacting the developer with no help, i reset my phone to factory settings and figured things would be ok after that. I did a backup & restored it after the reset. The tones from the app obviously were all gone but i found now that ported apps (Downloadable from Blackberry World) such as Waze, POF, and Ebay just examples of I'm sure many, were no longer working on my device. When i clicked on one to open it, the screen would stay black with just the BB logo scrolling for 2-3 seconds and then the app would shut and the phone would go back to the home screen. I could not figure out for the life of me what was wrong. After researching across the web/crackberry with no luck, the closest thing i came to was here with your info and i decided to give your advice a shot which is, reset phone but do NOT restore the backup file and just add the emails from scratch. Needless to say it fixed my problem and things are working just fine now. I should note my Z10 is with Verizon and still operating 10.0.9.422 software. Obviously there is some type of bug when restoring the backup after a factory reset...I do not know where it comes from but it would be nice if the bigger Crackberry guys looked into trying to see why this happens.

[21stNow]

I was asking because I don't think that I need to use BlackBerry Link to restore my phone. I don't have any data that lives in any BlackBerry servers, other than my BBM information. I just do a Security Wipe from the device under Security and Privacy. I then reload anything else that I need to reload manually.

I may give this a shot if I resolve my Wi-fi issues first.

[doxa sub750T]

Thanks for sharing and putting your time to give out a very informative detailed information.

I also believed that the issues are software related. I did almost the same thing over this weekend only that I did security wipe and restored. I also reformatted sd card and migrate the files to appropriate folders on Z10. I found out folders from legacy BB and BB10 are quite different after using devices to format the card.

Anyhow, my Z10.is running so smooth now and as you said it is worth all the time try it out.

Cheers

[Omnitech]

Thanks for the detailed process report. I was hoping the QNX and sandboxed app design would not permit apps to crash the kernel. However, it happened to me once and appears was happening to you also. This leaves me wondering just how much core OS access apps have.

There is no way an app should or could be able to take down the entire OS... I mean, how is it possible seeing that QNX, is the OS in our rockets, trains, and vibrators, so how could that be possible? Supposed to be bullet proof, right?

Mine seems to be some sort of watchdog getting tripped. It'll hang on unplugging from the computer and then restart after 30 seconds or so.

It is my personal belief that what we are witnessing with these crashes is not the "OS" crashing, per-se.

The QNX Neutrino kernel, BBRY has stated, is identical in Blackberry 10 to the kernel that has been the foundation of QNX for over a decade now.

But that kernel or "OS" is very very small. That's why it's called a "microkernel". What we perceive as the "OS" in Blackberry 10 includes the QNX Neutrino kernel, a driver subsystem, a user-interface/UI subsystem, and various system services which are technically not part of the core QNX kernel.

What I'm guessing is happening is that one or more of those components are experiencing a problem (drivers, UI, background daemons, etc.) and a QNX watchdog process is killing those things and restarting the whole device because it's probably too risky to try to (for example) just restart the UI if there may be issues with everything staying in sync, and since the reboot time is much quicker than the legacy JavaME-based BBOS, may as well just restart the whole thing.

[Alain_A]

got the phone in feb 5 never had a reboot..screen froze 2 problably I was going to fast open and closing apps if it was not the right one I wanted

[Suhailone]

wondering if sideloaded apps is the problem here

[ealvnv]

I remember having issues when switching devices with random reboots until I figured the issue was the sdcard being used.

The fix I used at the time was to back up all the stuff on it, then using a pc enabled to view hidden files and deleted all the files on the sdcard with the extensions .bat and .ini did format the card on the phone and restored mainly stuff I couldn't sync via DM.

Been doing this ever since and had no issues at all, you guys might want to give it a shot .

Posted Via CB10 app on the Z10LE

[omega supreme]

I disagree with the thread starter's evaluation only because i don't have the apps he mentioned other than star wars angry birds ( which i got after the fact) and the ones that came with the phone... LISTEN UP.... I have found a "workaround" to the random reboots... Here is my observation...

The 1st time it happened the phone was sitting in front of me and i noticed it, The other times, i never noticed but found out through here to check it under the settings>device>hardware... Sure enough, they happened (so it says)...

Anyhow, i wanted to catch it myself and knew that i wouldn't notice it because it would revert to the homescreen,.... Soooo, i figured if i left an active frame open, and it rebooted, it would close the active frame upon rebooting... I left an active frame open (weather) for 2 days and NO REBOOTS... On day 3 i closed it and sure enough i got a reboot listed....

CONCLUSION - it is an OS issue, having an active frame open prevents a random reboot.

[doggy10]

@OP-First let me say thank you for you post. It was a very well put together and very detailed. You thought process was good trying to figure out the problem. Posts like this will help many. Many posts just say their z10 does this and that's it. No other info ie, how often, or any other info that may help others understand the issue. Anyways I'm sorry to hear you had this issue. I am lucky and have had no issues whatsoever since I got mine on Feb 5th.

BlackBerry Z10 and 32gb PlayBook

[omega supreme]

I remember having issues when switching devices with random reboots until I figured the issue was the sdcard being used.

The fix I used at the time was to back up all the stuff on it, then using a pc enabled to view hidden files and deleted all the files on the sdcard with the extensions .bat and .ini did format the card on the phone and restored mainly stuff I couldn't sync via DM.

Been doing this ever since and had no issues at all, you guys might want to give it a shot .

Posted Via CB10 app on the Z10LE

Hmmm, this is a plausible theory as i have a 4 yr old sandisk 2g card in mine, i will buy another brand and see if that makes a difference.