1. jesterekim's Avatar
    I've upgraded my Storm 1 to the Bold 9650 about a week ago. Since then, my emails for my Hotmail account has not been coming in instantly. The emails would arrive 15 minutes later, and now its not even pushing to my Blackberry. I found the why, but I'm wondering if there's any answers in what Verizon or Microsoft will do to fix this. Jackmax from the Blackberry Community Forum has written this write up regarding this issue (thanks again):


    Hotmail Blackberry Sync no longer working for Verizon
    [ Edited ]
    Options

    * Mark as New
    * Bookmark
    * Subscribe
    *
    * Subscribe to RSS Feed
    *
    * Highlight
    * Print
    * Email to a Friend
    *
    * Report Inappropriate Content

    06-12-2010 11:26 AM - last edited on 06-12-2010 11:30 AM

    I have a Hotmail account (premium one where I pay yearly) and have synced to my Blackberry on Verizon flawlessly for a very long time. This week it stopped working and after hours of tech support calls with Blackberry and Verizon, I have learned why and I am not happy about it.

    How it used to work:
    Prior to this week, I had a Blackberry Tour on Verizon. I set up my Hotmail account via the BIS website and Hotmail messages automatically started arriving on my device. New messages would arrive instantly. If I marked a message as read on the device, it would be marked as read in Hotmail on the web (and also in Outlook 2007 configured via HTTP). If I deleted a message on the device, it would be deleted on the web. Worked great, loved it.... until this week.

    What happened this week:
    I got a new Verizon Bold 9650. I wanted to avoid any device change issues, so I decided to delete my Hotmail BIS account prior to changing from the Tour to the Bold (I later learned this was a BIG mistake). I figured I would simply add the Hotmail BIS account back and it would work the way it had for over year. Not so. When I added the Hotmail BIS account back, Verizon behind the scenes configured it as PoP with the server of pop3.live.com. When this was done, Hotmail is now treated as a PoP account on my device. This DRASTICALLY changes the way things sync (or I should say, DON'T sync). Messages no longer come instantly, they come every 15+ minutes. When you read it on the device it no longer is marked as read online which means that you have to go through all of your messages again when at a PC. The ONLY thing that still works is if I delete on the device, it will delete on the web IF AND ONLY IF you have clicked the synchronize button on the BIS setup page (either on the device or online).

    Why Syncing has changed:
    I have learned that Verizon has changed the way they configure new Hotmail setups. In the past, when a user added a Hotmail account to a Blackberry device on Verizon it would be set up as MSNMSP. This allowed for syncing from the device to the Hotmail account. It treated it like an IMAP account even though Hotmail isn't IMAP. However it was configured behind the scenes it worked great. If I HADN'T deleted my Hotmail BIS account, it still would have worked. I would have simply changed the device in the BIS and it would have kept the server configurations behind the scenes at Verizon. Since I deleted the BIS and added it from scratch, it takes on the current behind the scene configurations which are PoP (specifically pop3.live.com). Verizon tier 2 Tech Support "could" add the old configuration back (specifically a different server address) if I could find what it was (at least the tech I talked to THINKS manually adding the old server would fix this). You could also add it manually with the steps below (again, if the old server address can be found). They can't look up what my behind the scene settings used to be. Blackberry can't either... tried that with 3 different Tech Support people. I still have my Tour in hand (which had been set up fine); however, the settings required are not on the device... they are (or I should say were) only in Verizon and Blackberry.

    Why they changed it:
    Verizon was getting slammed with revalidation of accounts every 90 days. According to Verizon, every 90 days users would have to log back into their BIS and revalidate the password. Most people didn't know how to do this so they would call Verizon support and it would tie up their lines. I personally was never forced to do this, but that could be because my Tour trackball was AWEFUL and just about every 2 months I would force Verizon to give me a new phone because the trackball would stop working, so by default I was revalidating when I got the new phone. Luckily, I never deleted the BIS during this timeframe else I would have lost the functionality long ago. There is a BB knowledgebase article that describes how some carriers are moving away from MSNMSP and moving to PoP3 for hotmail. The KB # is 19272 and the link is here:

    KB19272 - View Document


    How to fix it:
    From what I am gathering, the only way to fix it is to get the old email server address and have it entered by Verizon Tech Support (or yourself with the steps below...). If there is anyone out there that has a Hotmail account that is still working properly on your Blackberry, you can find this info by calling Verizon Tech Support and asking them what the email server is for your email account. You may be able to find it on your BIS account online if you still have an "advanced options" tab after you click "edit" on your hotmail account. Since setting up my hotmail account, I no longer see this as an option (or maybe it was never there to begin with).

    Adding the server address (other than pop3.live.com) yourself?:
    You can force the BIS entry process into giving you the options to enter the email server address.
    1) Log into your BIS
    2) Click on setup email
    3) Click Add an existing email account
    4) At the email address box, you need to enter something that BIS/Verizon will not be able to resolve automatically. This is the only way to force open the advanced options screen. I tried [email protected] and put in random characters into the password field. Click OK and after a few seconds Verizon/BIS will present you with a screen to manually enter all of the account settings. It is here you will enter your real Hotmail address, password, email server (IF SOMEONE CAN FIND THE RIGHT ONE TO USE), and username (which is the same as your email address).
    5) Pray the above works to get this functionality back.

    Final thoughts:
    Rather than changing the revalidation timeframe, or just dealing with it, Verizon decided to cut off this critical functionality for their users (BAD MOVE VERIZON!). Hopefully there are enough Hotmail users out there that will call Verizon and try to get them to go back to MSNMSP.

    I am sure there will be some users that will offer some helpful workarounds other than the above (such as Izymail, forwarding to GMail, etc). I have looked at all of them, and while they are better than nothing, they do not work as well as the functionality that was just ripped away.

    Link: Hotmail Blackberry Sync no longer working for Veri... - BlackBerry Support Community Forums


    Any ideas, suggestions or advice for a fix is appreciated. As a loyal Verizon customer, I hope this can be fixed ASAP. Thank you
    06-16-10 08:41 PM
  2. Mike1022's Avatar
    Yeah I totally agree with this. I also use hotmail and there is a delay until you finally get the message pushed to the device. Also, when you send an e-mail from the device it doesn't show up in your sent mail folder. It is quite annoying going through all of your e-mails again on the web when you already went through them on the device. I have a yahoo e-mail address also and it's flawless. Why can't they get hotmail to work like yahoo?
    06-16-10 09:58 PM
  3. jesterekim's Avatar
    Can a Verizon rep please respond to this? Thank you.
    07-01-10 04:30 PM
  4. Super_Mario's Avatar
    There is a current alert from RIM that states there is a current issue with Hotmail on BIS. There is no time frame on when its going get fixed.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    07-01-10 05:31 PM
  5. SanctiSpiritus's Avatar
    This is a huge problem for me. It's terrible that Hotmail and/or Verizon is acting in such an undesirable manner.
    07-17-10 09:45 PM
  6. Super_Mario's Avatar
    This is a huge problem for me. It's terrible that Hotmail and/or Verizon is acting in such an undesirable manner.
    Are you having an issue?
    07-17-10 10:46 PM
  7. SanctiSpiritus's Avatar
    Are you having an issue?

    um, yes. Yes, I am having an issue. Specifically, one involving the topic of this thread.
    07-18-10 12:30 PM
LINK TO POST COPIED TO CLIPBOARD