[petiole]

First Blackberry, just activated yesterday with T-Mobile.

I'm a tech-savvy person, and as far as I can tell, I can't add contacts. I've found several threads on this site as well as the BB forums where people have had the same problem, but there is never a solution posted. Details below.

Phone:
-Z10 STL 100-3
-T-Mobile (US), activated myself through their online system
-Immediately updated to 10.2.1.3062 once activated.

I cannot add Contacts in any of the following ways:
-Via the Phone App by selecting the incoming number from the call log
-Via the Text App by selecting the number the text was sent from
-Via the Contacts App by pressing the "Add New Contact" icon.
-Via the BBM App by pressing the "Add New Contact" icon (all it does is bring up a search bar to search my existing contacts -_-
-Via Gmail Import
-Via Fastmail Import

I *was* able to accept a BBM invite from someone else. They now appear in my BBM App as a Contact. However, they do *not* appear in my Contacts App under 'BBM Contacts" or "All".

Please note:
-When I try to add a contact manually, I type in the information and "save". All this does is return me to the main Contacts window, which remains empty. This happens regardless of whether I change the save location of the contacts. (And yes, I'm pressing both "Save" buttons when changing the location.)
-It's now been almost 24 hours since activating and neither my Gmail nor Fastmail contacts have imported. This could be a problem on their end, but considering I also can't add any contacts manually, I doubt it.
-In the Contact App, I have tried selecting "All," in addition to every category of contact present. The list remains empty.
-In the Contact App, I have accessed the Settings menu you pull down from the top. All Accounts that should appear in the contact list are present, but each accounts remains empty and I cannot add a new contact. This includes the single BBM contact that appears in the BBM App. It is missing from the Contacts App.

To fix the issue, I've tried:
-Restarting the phone
-Pulling the battery
-Hard reset by holding the up/down volume buttons

I haven't even downloaded the BB Link software yet, since I'm just getting started, so, I've done no syncing. Everything else with the phone seems to work fine; I can send/receive texts, emails, calls, etc. I've downloaded a few free apps. I've set up a new BB ID. I just can't add or import contacts... which is a big problem, lol.

Doing a factory reset isn't a big deal at this point since I haven't done much besides add two accounts, but am I missing something? Is there anything else I can try to fix it before taking that step?

I'd appreciate any help. Thanks.

[anon(9208252)]

You upgraded OTA, if so try plugging into BB link and reload the software this might help, other than that you might have to put a newer Os on your phone via loader.

[petiole]

You upgraded OTA, if so try plugging into BB link and reload the software this might help, other than that you might have to put a newer Os on your phone via loader.

Wouldn't reloading the software via BB Link be equivalent to a device wipe? Or no? I've never used it, like I said, so no idea how it works.

Also, 10.2.1.3062 is the latest stable software (for T-Mobile). Only the 10.3 upgrade is more recent, and as far as I can tell that upgrade is very problematic right now. I'm going to wait on it until BB has worked out more of the bugs.

[anon(9208252)]

When you connect to link do a back up first, then reload software then do a restore.

PassportSQW100-1/10.3.2.281

[scrannel]

I'm also running 10.2.1.3062 (.3442 version) on my Shop BBerry on t-mo (all is well including wifi-calling). However I believe the last official T-mo update (which appeared on my other, branded phone) is .2228 (version). They both work on T-mo and the .3442 is just a slightly improved version of .2228 so far as I can tell. So, you have two options. Not having contact issue so sounds like indeed your install is corrupt.

[petiole]

Sorry that it took me this long to respond.

I tried the simpler solution first of using the "Wipe" option on the phone. After reading through several threads on this site, it's interesting to see how some folks swear by Link and say OTA updates are "bad" and others swear the complete opposite. Then you have the other folks who swear by web updates through BB or downloaded through other sources. For someone just walking into the ecosystem for the first time, it makes it difficult to make an informed decision about how to handle a problem :]

At any rate, the wipe worked.

It forced me to go through the set up process again, however it did not revert the OS version. So, the wipe doesn't revert the phone to "out of the box" state -- my impression is this what's possible through Link. I'm mentioning it specifically for others who read this post.

According to other information I read, the wipe was supposed to also wipe my Blackberry ID. It did not. When I tried recreating it during the set up process the phone told me the ID was already taken. Once I logged in, it completed the set up process. At that point I tried to enter a contact manually and it saved successfully, immediately. Interestingly, over the last 5 days several copies of manually added contacts "appeared" out of nowhere -- the same two I tried to add repeatedly without success before the wipe. Weird.

This morning after cleaning up my contacts I re-associated one of my email accounts and did a full import. It worked perfectly. I'm actually still waiting while the Contact App is populating the list.

So, whatever it was, something got borked during the initial set up and activation. No idea if it was my fault or not. The only thing that seemed like it could be a problem was that BB and TMo's documentation said opposite things as to how to handle the SIM card. BB says to insert an activated SIM before going through the set up process. TMo's documentation said to charge the phone and go through set up before doing the online activation. I've only had CDMA phones prior to this so I had no idea which was more correct. I went with what TMo said, so maybe that created the problem.

[ougarti]

Was having the same problem, couldn't find a fix anywhere, and your solution worked!

Thank you and it's too bad there's not a way to publicize this better. Most people assume you must not know how to use your phone if you're new to BlackBerry can't add a contact.