[FBA]

My girlfriend's 9900 bricked this morning. As many others have described, the battery was in the red...with maybe minutes left, when she threw it into the charge dock last night.

When she awoke, it was already in the flashing red light syndrome, but I discovered a few things while trying to unbrick it today.

1) It would NOT respond to the RIM javaloader when I tried to wipe the device ("could not open port...").
2) I pulled the battery /SIM and media card out then plugged it into the PC - and after a minute or so, I got the "no battery" symbol showing up on the device screen. Great I thought, so on I went to load the latest firmware.
3) I ran loader.exe and it saw the device and PIN, all the while showing the "no battery" symbol on screen.
4) I then continued and ran the upgrade to .474
5) It went right through the "erasing applications" step and "loading software" phases successfully.
5) It could NOT get through the "reconnecting to JVM" / reading configuration phase. Needless to say, it couldn't get through the installing applications phases either. All I could get, no matter what, was a "retry / connect" error, but as I mentioned before, it did actually load the software and that's as far as it goes.

I can always get it to load the software, but it always errors out on step 5 above. It seems to have something to do with the device going into the red (very low battery). She kills the battery each time she uses the device to the point where the radio shuts off.

I tried 3 new fully charged batteries, before, during and after, all to no avail. It's on a BES so at least it's all backed up, save for messages, which I don't care about since I have a hard backup that's only a few days old.

I have 2 other 9900's that I use, but I never let them go under 15% battery remaining. Her phone and my phones are only a few ESN's apart.

FWIW. I tried the update through DM, but it died at the same place.

I'll get it replaced tomorrow.

[jeffrey1027]

Hopefully extened bats come out soon...

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[abercedes]

My 9930 bricked itself this morning too... the only thing though as far as the battery goes, mine was in the red, but I had it on the charger well before it was in danger of shutting itself off. In fact, I actually took it back off the charger and it was about half charged (I was able to go on FB, read all my news, and still charged). I then turned the phone off an hour or so later and it charged until morning, at which point it wouldn't turn back on.

[Deu2e]

Wow, that is so...wrong!!! I hope the replacement goes well!

[abercedes]

yeah, what makes it more frustrating Verizon no longer keeps replacement phones in the store so you have to wait for a replacement to be shipped.

[salexs11]

sorry to hear that FBA but thanks for your detailed post.

one of the common threads running through all these bricking posts seems to be the battery getting too low...

[Villain]

charging dock a usb connected dock? if so did you disable the usb from allowing windows to "allow the computer to turn of to save power"?

if you didn't uncheck it then your computer does this automatically

[Villain]

device manager/universal serial bus contollers/usb root hub. right click/ powermanagment tab and uncheck "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"


not defending the 9900 but this is the cause a lot of times (I been through a few 9900's myself to do quality of the hardware so def not defending)

[edhu]

WTF that's exactly what happened to mine last night except my battery was at the red and shut the radio off. I charged it at night and woke up to the same blinking light.

Everything else you described happened the exact same way. And this is the second time this has happened to my bold.

[FBA]

In my case, the charging dock was connected to the OEM wall charger, not the computer.

[greggebhardt]

It is very sad that RIM is having problems like this. Not too long ago a defect was the exception where today it seems too common.

I fear for RIM's future.

[Chrisy]

I'm seeing more and more 9930 bricking threads and posts. At first it was just the 9000. It literally seems like every 9000 on CrackBerry has bricked once.

I seriously hope they figure this out.

[BBThemes]

5) It went right through the "erasing applications" step and "loading software" phases successfully.

ok, so if your having issues reloading any OS (had a crypto error on OS6 too) and its erroring out after passing this stage, i found a easyish way to get around it.

go thru the normal `nuked bb` stage, but when you get the progress bars, as soon as it jumps from `erasing applications` (the very first line) then pull the usb cable. this basically means youve to all intents formatted the device, and you`ll get a 507 error.
now you should find you have a `blank slate` and the usual fixing a nuked bb process should work fine.

I'm seeing more and more 9930 bricking threads and posts. At first it was just the 9000. It literally seems like every 9000 on CrackBerry has bricked once.

I seriously hope they figure this out.

i think its worth people who have had a bricked 99xx post up their OS level, because iv not had any issues on .353 or .440 (9900), i cant speak for .296 as that was on my device for the ammount if time it took to first boot up lol

[greggebhardt]

I'm seeing more and more 9930 bricking threads and posts. At first it was just the 9000. It literally seems like every 9000 on CrackBerry has bricked once.

I seriously hope they figure this out.

Looks like instead of having a keyboard stutter on the last devices, we now have the blinking red light of death!

[howarmat]

need to start a poll maybe to get an idea of how many people have had their phones bricked

[aj9604]

ok, so if your having issues reloading any OS (had a crypto error on OS6 too) and its erroring out after passing this stage, i found a easyish way to get around it.

go thru the normal `nuked bb` stage, but when you get the progress bars, as soon as it jumps from `erasing applications` (the very first line) then pull the usb cable. this basically means youve to all intents formatted the device, and you`ll get a 507 error.
now you should find you have a `blank slate` and the usual fixing a nuked bb process should work fine.



i think its worth people who have had a bricked 99xx post up their OS level, because iv not had any issues on .353 or .440 (9900), i cant speak for .296 as that was on my device for the ammount if time it took to first boot up lol

Just tried this and it still did not work what else can i do? i will not connect to bbsak either and won't get past reconnecting to jvm

[hvnhlpr]

This is my second bricked 9930. I was able to restore the OS last time, but this time it connects to the Loader for a second, the reverts to Error 507. This is not good at all.

[Chrisy]

Argh. I thought it was 9900s only.

[maikelxxx]

I Had my Bold 9900 4 months, in the beginning it was working fine. after 2 months the phone has started bricking itself after overnight charging or after a low battery drop and than trying to charge. It has Bricked 5 Times and I revived it with different methods. Spending Long hours and some times nights. But now It is Dead. Does not want to start Up at all. Laying on my Desk here.

[Betmen]

I Had my Bold 9900 4 months, in the beginning it was working fine. after 2 months the phone has started bricking itself after overnight charging or after a low battery drop and than trying to charge. It has Bricked 5 Times and I revived it with different methods. Spending Long hours and some times nights. But now It is Dead. Does not want to start Up at all. Laying on my Desk here.

Not that this will help you.. but its not bricked if you can revive it.
What version OS were you running on it?
When you replace the phone try OS 7.1.267 its a leak that can be found
on CB. Sorry to hear your trouble.

[guzprom]

RIMM has got to fix this. and not being quiet about it wishing it would go away by itself... If drop calls can be fixed by iphone with casing freebie. rimm should find some kind of solution as well... this is lame

[guzprom]

Having said the above.. it seems less and less of this issue is happening..
@maikelxxx: the easiest is to get it replaced under warranty. The problem could be software or hardware. battery,internal circuit breaker problem, or corruption memory, or ROM problem.. no body knows for sure and rim sure hasn't been of help or informative.. except allowing us to replace them through carrier.

[pcgizmo#IM]

Oh goodie, another thread on this topic. yawn....

[reeneebob]

Pcgizmo, this is a necroposted old thread. Its not new.

[dario27]

i've been using my 9900 for 2 months now, been running fine... though about 2 or 3 weeks ago the battery meter was red, i've been reading a lot about the issues related to that and i was scared, i was dead tired plugged the ph to the charger, made sure it was charging, corssed the fingers and went to sleep

next day the ph was plugged to the charger but completley dead, no red light no nothing.... what i did was remove the battery, re inserted it again and phone wouldn't turn on.. "oh oh, dead 9900?", well i supposed it was charged as i left it overnight, but anyway i removed the battery again, plugged the phone to the charger and then reinserted the battery... left it for a couple of minutes, when i came back phone was on but battery was starting to charge (i saw it charging the night before, and now it starting to charge again?)..

yeah it was a WTF? moment.

i didn't report anything but if you have nothing to loose you can try that procedure to see if it brings the phone back alive...

after that i never let it drop too low... it was red recently but nothing happened, only once my only issue right now is the battery drain, which is too much honestly, i charge it twice a day and i fear that will damage my battery sooner than it should