[hamish.jones]

Hello All,
I went to see a client the other day to update his blackberry, in order to do this I needed to repair blackberry desktop as it had lunched itself some time ago and the phone needed syncing to transfer his data to new device,

this is when the fun started as soon as I got blackberry desktop working the phone asked me for a password, the owner of the phone inputted the same password he has used for 18 months on the phone and what do you know, Wrong Password, tried inputting the password into blackberry desktop and what do you know, Wrong Password,

I spoke to Vodafone and blackberry and apparently it is impossible and the standard line of answer is "nope can't happen user has entered incorrect password"

So I did some digging and found that this is more common than the company line of no it can't happen would lead me to believe, most of the time it is related to the desktop software, but just to keep it interesting it does just happen at random to devices from 3 days to 2 years old,

has anyone else struck this issue here and can anyone please help as Blackberry are of little or no use as they are still in denial that this is an issue with their handsets????

Thanks in advance
Hamish

[flaminSaganaki]

I would do a complete reinstall of BB Desktop Software, ie completely uninstall, then install again after reboots.

To clarify, is it asking for the password on the device or on the desktop? Also, I recommend doing a full backup of the device, and then possibly wiping it and restoring the backup.

[auto208562]

I just remove the phone password before I connect. Had this issue forever and with all my bb, 8820, 8310, 9700.

[hamish.jones]

Hello, already removed and resinstalled desktop app still no go,

it asks for a password on the phone, and when you try and sync with desktop app it is asking for the phone password, it has reached attempt 9 ouf of 10 and it's the same password he has had for 18 months on this device, and of course he has heaps of data on there he needs to access,

Can't do a full backup of the device as the password issue has made the phone a nice desk ornament as we have no way of getting into device to sync it or do backup,

thanks

[hamish.jones]

I just remove the phone password before I connect. Had this issue forever and with all my bb, 8820, 8310, 9700.

Unfortunately I can't remove the password as it won't let me into the phone, So is this a known issue with blackberry and if so wouldn't you think they would fix it before some lawyer gets all excited and sues for damages or something crazy like that?

[Denise in Los Angeles]

Why didn't he back up his phone regularly if he had so much data on it? Once he uses the last attempt, it will wipe his phone.

I had the Pearl 9100 and 8100, and never had any issues.

[Morty2264]

How often does this happen? I password protect my phone at least once a week; and now I'm thinking twice about that (yet I have "sometimes snoopy" friends)... :S.

[hamish.jones]

Why didn't he back up his phone regularly if he had so much data on it? Once he uses the last attempt, it will wipe his phone.

I had the Pearl 9100 and 8100, and never had any issues.

Unfortunately the desktop software wasn't working so didn't think to get it fixed till he got a new phone so didn't backup regularly, backup would be useless about now anyway as you need to input the password to restore it back to phone and only the phone knows what the password now is.

[Denise in Los Angeles]

Hmmm I thought that if you wipe the phone, the password is wiped too?

[Denise in Los Angeles]

Backups should be done on a regular basis. If he had one, he could just sync the backup to the new phone.

[youknwwho]

Change the password to something simple like 123. Try doing it on another PC maybe....

[hamish.jones]

yeah we can wipe the phone but as all his up to date data is on the phone that we can't access so it would defeat the purpose somewhat of somehomw resetting the password,

Does anyone know anyone at blackberry that I can get a hold of as trhe support guys over here have been average at best,

thanks

[robsteve]

If his password has numbers in it and he isn't pressing the alt key on the phone he may have all letters as a password. For example 123 would be wer.

I assume the phone has some problem that he can't just enter the password into his phone and disable password security. Then the desktop software will no longer ask for a password.

[hamish.jones]

tried inputting it into desktop software as well and no luck, as a just incase the keypad was faulty on the phone and still same problem, life would be good if we could get into the phone and disable password then all would be saved but at this stage it's looking pretty grim

[hootyhoo]

The password on a pearl is a little tricky. It is a suretype keyboard and the password may be a weird combo of letters using suretype.

[hamish.jones]

the problem is that I have inputted it into the phone, I have inputted it into the blackberry desktop manager via a computer keyboard, there is nothing at all wrong with the keypad on the phone as proved by typing blackberry at the 5th wrong attempt, the problem is the password that was on the phone is no longer the same password since syncing it with the repaired version of desktop manager, hence why the inability to get back into phone,

I have read of many people having this same issue and blackberry being of no use at all to fix a design fault on their phones and software, it kind of makes me a bit grumpy as I am copping it in the ear from my customer as to why a design fault this serious has gone unfixed?

[Berry_Pink]

any chance the guy had blackberry protect on his phone? you only need his blackberry id and his id password not the phone password for that and you can remotely force a back up if his access isnt set to wifi only

[Klotar]

As mentioned by others, I think it's very likely that the password being used to unlock the phone is not really the password that DTM expects.

On a normal QWERTY BB (we'll come back to the Pearl later), what looks to the user like a password of "1234" is really "wers". This "wers" is what Desktop Manager expects as the password, not "1234".

On Pearls, BB's using SureType or Multi-Tap, the problem can be magnified. Since the password has masking characters, it's difficult to tell what is being typed.

My suggestion would be for the user to open up the device's MemoPad application, and ask him/her to type in his password without consciously looking at the result. That is, ask him/her to do the usual key presses that they normally do when entering in the password (rather than trying to spell out the password) and then see what the result is that displays in MemoPad.

Hope that makes sense. Good luck.

Edit: I reread the posts and didn't realize we were at 9/10 attempts. If the user cannot unlock their device (while not connected to DTM), I don't know what to suggest at this point.

[Denise in Los Angeles]

I guess you are just determined to blame it on the software so no one can help you here.

But here's a thought. Has your customer ever lost his phone? Did he need the password? Or would regular backups be more helpful? hmmmm....

[hamish.jones]

I am not determined to blame it on the software at all, it is just that in this case and quite a few others I have read about that coincidentally exactly the same thing has happened to many other users, so if my guess is that it is not as most folks would believe that the users who have had this happen have all somehow got amnesia and forgotten their passwords, I am not a blackberry user myself but certainly don't have any preference over phones,

All I am trying to do it tell the kind folks who are helping the events that led up to this kind of disaster in the hope that someone knows of a solution that’s all,

The guys loves passwords and seems to keep a lot of important to him information on his phone, he used to back up his phone but due to the desktop software developing an issue some time ago he of course didn’t worry about the backup as he was going to get a new phone and sort the software issue out at the same time, my only regret in this whole thing as I am now spending my time solving what shouldn't be an issue

[Denise in Los Angeles]

Phones get lost or stolen or suffer irreversible damage. Your customer should know that.

[Denise in Los Angeles]

Oh, and you're guessing? I can guess too that many people trying to defeat the BB password security are holding a stolen phone.

[hamish.jones]

Buddy I am not here to argue I am simply after a solution to a problem I am facing, and frankly could do without your attitude, if you know of any ways to help I would appreciate that but otherwise please don't bother responding.

[Denise in Los Angeles]

Buddy I am not here to argue I am simply after a solution to a problem I am facing, and frankly could do without your attitude, if you know of any ways to help I would appreciate that but otherwise please don't bother responding.

1. I'm a lady so no need to call me your fake cynical buddy.
2. If you post here on CrackBerry, anyone can comment on your post, including me.
3. I am helping you by telling you that your customer can't get his data without a recent backup. Telling you the truth is helping, even if you are hoping for a different result.
4. Deal with it.

[hornlovah]

Have you tried accessing the backup with an IPD viewer and exporting the desired information? Looks like there are a number of free tools that allow you to selectively export into a format that can be imported into Desktop Manager and synced to the new device. Something like ABC Amber BlackBerry Converter?