[manofice1]

i was told it could be an APP issue messing with the OS, so your best bet is to re-install OS7 and avoid the last app you installed.

lol, you can't reinstall, it's bricked. You have to get a new device and it happened to me when I installed nothing recently.

[jgaspar89]

Lol had the EXACT same problem the other day, had to send it back

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[zimmelbc]

I made another attempt at bringing my 9930 back to life. I connected the device via USB to my computer and after 4+ hours I pulled the battery and replaced it a couple times to "trick" it into recognizing a fresh/charged battery. No luck. I took it to Verizon, the girl worked with it for about 15 minutes, tried a new battery and still nothing. I'm having a new device sent to me, covered by the limited warranty, I just paid for overnight shipping. But I have to keep the battery and the door, so hopefully the battery hasn't been damaged by this.

[Webbull]

Ok same thing happened to me on the 9930. Worked fine when I went to bed and completely dead in the morning. I brought it into the VZ store and they tried different batteries but nothing worked. The guy told me that something had "melted" inside and that there was no way to resurrect the phone.

After reading this thread, I am starting to wonder if there is something in the charger or charging pad that can burn these phones out.

Verizon refused to give me a new phone and I now have a refurb (i think this is BS policy). Unfortunately as much as I love this model, it has been nothing but failures. 1st one had reception problems, second one had the shift key fall off the first day of use, and now after two months, this one bricks out. Hopefully 4th time is a charm

[webadpro]

Just curious, to the ones who has a bricked Phone, were you using any new OS?

[antony99]

From the various threads and posts - it appears that whilst many have upgraded the OS - not all the bricked 9900's had been upgraded.

All seem to die overnight, but since the 9900 spends 50% of its time on a charger overnight - this is maybe not a clue.

I am wondering if the cause is app related... I know that my 1st 9900 had a number of apps installed that were not OS7 compatible, and they did not work. Surely if you have done a battery pull, then it does not matter that you might have a bad app installed- just as long as you don't launch it - but then again, maybe it does matter.

I am astounded with so many failures that we have not heard more about this issue.

Surely the carriers are now buried in bricked 9900's - you would have thought that we would have heard of some news about this issue.


For every forum member that posts about this issue, how many non-forum members do you think that there are?


I got to speak to a local RIM sales rep, who whilst reluctant to talk to me about anything technical - he did give me his email address so that I could send him more details about this issue - as it sounds like a serious problem... I sent a nice email with links to several threads across several forums - but got no reply... not even a "thanks, I have passed your email onto the techs".

I send a 2nd follow-up, but again no reply.

Pity!


** hum....

[totallygone]

RIM needs to do a recall of the devices and just suck it up. The Bold is supposed to be their flagship device. I have spent the past month try to fix a month old bold rather than me just enjoying the device.

[tkwolf]

I have been reading a growing number of posts recently about bold 9900 getting bricked.
Is this common with this phone? That's scary considering that I'm gettin one soon!
What could be causing this glitch?

[antony99]

I have been reading a growing number of posts recently about bold 9900 getting bricked.
Is this common with this phone? That's scary considering that I'm gettin one soon!
What could be causing this glitch?

Nobody seems to know what causes it - my hunch is that it is a software issue, and it is being caused by a 3rd party app(s) - which somehow gets the phone into a state whereby it can not recover. I have absolutely nothing to base this on - just a feeling... How could a 3rd party app (ie Facebook) cause the OS to get so badly stuffed that it can not even get 10 seconds into the boot process before dying? Sounds most unlikely, but with so many failed units and so many Blackberry users trying everything, it is strange that an answer is not yet known.

I do know that my bricked unit had several apps on it, some of which were installed even though they were not compatible with OS 7, and they did not work.

When I got my 2nd unit, it refused to install / restore those same apps - so maybe RIM do know of the issue and have tightened up what can be installed? Or maybe this is not related at all, and it is hardware.

Just before mine died I do know that the battery got down to 5% or so, and the radio turned off. I then had it on the mains charger, and I used it again a little latter and the radio had turned itself back on and the charge was probably back to 30% or so -- the next morning it was dead.

The 9900 is brilliant, but ensure you have a warranty - just in case!

[tkwolf]

Nobody seems to know what causes it - my hunch is that it is a software issue, and it is being caused by a 3rd party app(s) - which somehow gets the phone into a state whereby it can not recover. I have absolutely nothing to base this on - just a feeling... How could a 3rd party app (ie Facebook) cause the OS to get so badly stuffed that it can not even get 10 seconds into the boot process before dying? Sounds most unlikely, but with so many failed units and so many Blackberry users trying everything, it is strange that an answer is not yet known.

I do know that my bricked unit had several apps on it, some of which were installed even though they were not compatible with OS 7, and they did not work.

When I got my 2nd unit, it refused to install / restore those same apps - so maybe RIM do know of the issue and have tightened up what can be installed? Or maybe this is not related at all, and it is hardware.

Just before mine died I do know that the battery got down to 5% or so, and the radio turned off. I then had it on the mains charger, and I used it again a little latter and the radio had turned itself back on and the charge was probably back to 30% or so -- the next morning it was dead.

The 9900 is brilliant, but ensure you have a warranty - just in case!

I appreciate the response. I'm still on my 9780 and have decided not to get the 9900 until a little later, when things are a little stable for this device's OS. I know the battery life is getting better with each software update and i hope the future ones will have this issue solved. I'm not rushing anyway. I wouldn't want to be in trouble with that device lol ill probably wait til jan or feb, maybe by then..

[DJLILM]

i seen more problems with this phone then any other blackberry

[HaTaX]

I'm 99% sure this problem is hardware related as I took the entire OS off my phone using CFP's nuke ability. (RIM low level utility) This removes the radio stack and the entire OS off the phone and leaves it at a completely bricked state. Once I tried to reload the OS it would get the base radio file (kernel) installed on the phone and the JVM would never come up after that.

The only apps that have access to write to hardware that could impact this would be in the radio file and written by RIM themselves. The fact that so many have died while charging makes me think it could come down to manufacturing line tolerances when the BGA chips are soldered on. Heck, even a bad batch of solder could cause a weak joint on the power management BGA, pump some current through there while its charging and maybe doing it's nightly backup OTA and it could be enough to push the device / solder joint over the ledge. (Ever feel how warm this thing gets while the radio is being worked? That on top of charging = a good amount of internal heat)

Something I never tried but *could* have an effect if that was indeed the problem is freezing the phone. Throw it in the deep freezer for a few hours and see if an OS reload goes any differently or the light pattern changes. Yeah, that's a complete shot in the dark, but a bad solder joint could be effected by the cold weather enough to change the behavior of the loop.

Personally I think it boils down to the manufacturing process not being refined enough, but I'm just making an assumption on what I've seen on the boards about this issue.

Software or hardware, there's definitely an issue with larger than normal amount of 99X0s that brick themselves and cannot be brought back. Even CB Kevin was bit by this bug!!

[Bonnie Bonzai]

A lot of Mexico units are defective... At least the phones sold in Canada.

My 9900 is Mexico 4 also and I'm having more problems as it gets older (2+ months for this one) I started out with a squeaky trackpad and crappy wifi reception. Now I have the trackpad freezing, the touchscreen freezing, very slow browsing and I'm having to yank the battery more often.

After returning my 2nd 9900 to Future Shop in the first 14 days, a rep convinced me to opt for the insurance - pointing out how often I had to return my phone already. So I took the bait. Now I'm having a heck of a time getting them to honor the darned insurance. I'm going to have to bring my hubby for backup since they aren't taking me seriously I guess.

[txfabnet]

Same probleme my 9900 briked ... BB BOLD in france

Same story nothin on screen , red led ....

BB BOLD 9900 made in mexico 4
battery : DC110805
JSM6B02145

[tkwolf]

Pardon me but this needs to be said, "RIM WAKE UP" i've had my hopes high for this device. If this number of bricked units grow, I might just NOT get it.

And regarding where the phone is made from, is there a trend of bricked units being made from a certain area? I've seen quite a number of people writing, "Mexico 4"

[bigbamboo]

And regarding where the phone is made from, is there a trend of bricked units being made from a certain area? I've seen quite a number of people writing, "Mexico 4"

Mine was Hungary 2 - Voda UK.

[fucsia]

My Blod 9900 got bricked after two months. It was black screen, red light blinking after over-night charge. It was Made in Hungary and I am waiting for replacement from Wind Italia.
It is unbelieveble that RIM does not come up with a fix or at least with apologies....

[superdx]

Mine is bricked too, the phone actually is responsive, phone calls can come in but the screen remains totally dark. It's unusable

Unfortunately I bought mine from Handtec, anyone know if they will honor warranties?

[stunna2010]

Well you can add mine to this list :/

[xamr1]

another one bites the dust ...

[sallenthornton]

Wow! Sorry everyone is having issues with RIMs flagship phone. I have anticipated buying the 9900 from AT&T when released, but now I'm very concerned. Going to have too decide if the risk is worth the reward. Decisions decisions.

[totallygone]

Wow! Sorry everyone is having issues with RIMs flagship phone. I have anticipated buying the 9900 from AT&T when released, but now I'm very concerned. Going to have too decide if the risk is worth the reward. Decisions decisions.

I would wait til they have an extremely stable OS....or at least all the bad stocked bolds have been sold to unsuspecting customers....

[billyg072]

stay away from 9900, just go with 9780 or any android phones. save yourself while you still can.

[tkcdamar]

As strange as it may seem, more often than not, the battery is the cause of these types of failures. Many of the batteries shipped with the 99xx are of poor quality. My recommendation is to purchase an aftermarket BlackBerry battery (OEM) and destroy the battery that came with the device. All batteries processed in Mexico should be discarded. The only batteries I use, that I recommend using are those "further processed in China". Most batteries included with your original 99xx purchase are processed in Mexico. Destroy these batteries for the sake of your 99xx. Buying Chinese processed batteries is the best 40 USD you can do for the stability and longevity of your 99xx.

[ljcn]

The common feature in all cases seems to be that the battery level has fallen to critical or near-critical level before the device is plugged in to charge. It seems that the battery protection software that switches off the handset when the battery level gets critically low then gets locked so that every time the device attempts to reboot itself the software kicks in and closes the device down again, even though the battery is now fully charged again. Because the device never actually boots up you can't get at the JVM to wipe the device (which would allow you to reload the OS from scratch and put the problem right). The only certain way to avoid the problem is not to let the battery level drop to the critical level in the first place. Meanwhile RIM need to put out a software fix that either debugs the battery protection software or disables it completely.