My 8830 just froze up on me, that is normal as you know, happens with this phone. But I usually could do a soft reset and all is good. But none of the keys were responding, so I pulled the battery out and waited a minute before popping it back in. Once I finally did, the BB booted up like when I first bought it. Lost all my contacts, emails, texts, everything. Also it has less features than when new. I can't changes themes, pictures, convenience key, control panel...none of this is accessible.
It sounds like the lock-up was the result of a corrupted OS. Had you just installed anything new? If so, that might have caused the problem. Incompatible themes can cause a problem like you describe. If you did install anything new, and can uninstall it, do so and see if that solves the problem. If it doesn't, you're probably going to have to wipe your phone and start over with an OS installation.
Not shocking, as the past year this phone just can't handle much thrown at it, always being slow and freezing at random. Thanks for the help, but this phone is garbage now.