[jgbrock]

I am on my 4th curve in 2 months trying to find a working phone, so I keep a sharp eye on it. This morning, during a meeting, I had the BB sitting on the table in front of me and I noticed that LED was lit a solid red. The screen was dark and stayed that way. So I pulled the battery, waited, and put it back. And got the same thing. Again and Again. And Again.

I had a moment of pure rage and then I called T-Mobile. Or maybe it was the other way around. Anyway, the BB "help" desk was unable to do anything of the kind. They really don't know much. Her suggestion was to connect it to the computer (which I had already done, of course) and she had me checking for a non-existent option in the DM. Under connection options, she wanted me to click "find" or "select" or some such thing. I don't remember exactly what, but it did not matter...my connection option dialog box has no such animal. (to be fair, I have the latest version of the DM, perhaps an older revision has this). Upon hearing that the button she wanted was not there, suggestion 2 was to get another new unit. Seriously. Seems like there ought to be a lot of ground to explore between "try plugging it into the computer" and "throw it away", but apparently not.

I hung up and tried again. My computer was telling me an unrecognized USB device that wasn't functioning anyway. Great.

I was attempting to connect using the command line, when the LED went off and the phone booted. By itself. Came up normally and has been working fine ever since. Total down time around 20-30 minutes.

WTF?

I now am forced to admit to myself that buying this phone was a huge mistake. I had a work 8700 in a previous job and it worked great. Abused the **** out of it and it was rock solid. Apparently those were the salad days. Judging from my experience with the curve(s), I would have to estimate the defect rate at approximately 100%.

My theory is that they only made a small number of functioning units. These they sold to two groups: a) Every single fricking T-mobile customer service agent I have spoken to since buying curve#1 who invariably told me "i have had one myself for X months/years and it works great!" and b) The half dozen or so people who post replies to rants like this one with the same comment.

[berry me with it]

I now am forced to admit to myself that buying this phone was a huge mistake. I had a work 8700 in a previous job and it worked great. Abused the **** out of it and it was rock solid. Apparently those were the salad days. Judging from my experience with the curve(s), I would have to estimate the defect rate at approximately 100%.

Hmm.. not likely.

My theory is that they only made a small number of functioning units. These they sold to two groups: b) The half dozen or so people who post replies to rants like this one with the same comment.

So are looking for assistance or just to blow off steam? We can try to help figure it out, but we're not your therapist.

[jgbrock]

a) I would say getting this many in a row this quickly and they are ALL bad is a statistically significant sample.


b) how do you know? my therapist might be reading this right this very minute!


I haven't decided what to do about this. Having tried every software and hardware "fix" I can find or imagine, I am nearly ready to give up and admit defeat. T-Mobile has offered to replace both phones with something else. Problem is, I really like the keyboard and I have to have the UMA. That combination does not exist outside of the blackberry. At least not at T-Mobile. They offered to send me a couple of Pearls or that new flip model, but really, that would be stupid wouldn't it? When I google "blackberry" + "random" + "reboot" and wade through the thousands of hits, I seem to remember the word "pearl" appearing more than once or twice.

I might split the difference and get a replacement (non-blackberry) for my wife (she has no need for UMA) since hers is nearly unusable with the multiple daily reboots. I might keep mine on the hope, probably foolish, that this latest crash might be an isolated event. I have only had it a couple of weeks and, before this latest charming event, it has only rebooted once (wife's phone rebooted three times yesterday) Perhaps I can learn to live with that. Like a girlfriend who freaks out and burns your clothes once a year or so. You try to focus on the good qualities.

[berry me with it]

Like a girlfriend who freaks out and burns your clothes once a year or so. You try to focus on the good qualities.

If you like that kind of thing..

There is always an answer to these issues. Have you downloaded anything to your device recently? Changed your OS? Did anything occur that could have sparked this reboot, incoming email or appt?

[jgbrock]

Oh what the ****...

I have tried OS 4.2, 4.5, and back to 4.2. Then back to 4.5. Wife's phone is running with zero apps loaded. No themes, no pictures, no ringtones.

I have tried wiping it, reloading it, and replacing all the phone numbers BY HAND to avoid some sort of corrupted data base.

She does not even have a data plan and data is turned off.

I have tried three new batteries, I have tried reformatting, replacing, and removing the SD cards.

I have sent multiple debug logs to RIM and they never see anything.

As for mine, I have no idea if there was an event triggering the prolonged shut down. Since I have both phones set to debug in the eventlog, I immediately sent the log file to RIM support. Waiting to hear, but I am not hopeful. I have sent several from my wife's phone with $&(!-all to show for it.

[berry me with it]

Ok, looks like you've been working on this. I assume you keep a good eye on memory for both devices then, did you run any memory cleaning software to boost memory? Also, what were the previous issues? You said you have been through multiple devices, but only gave this example, can you describe others? I know you don't want to hear this, but multiple bad devices could mean it is user error.

[rachel0179]

Yeh if its happening time and time again, something being loaded or whatever, I find it realllly hard to belive 4 curves in a row all are faulty,

May be possible, but Im not entirely buyin it.

[jgbrock]

No, it was not all exactly the same.

Curve #1 was returned the day after buying it since it spontaneously rebooted 60 or 70 times in the 24 hours I owned it

Curve# 2 rebooted during phone calls and the right side assignable key did not work.

Curve # 3 reboots during phone calls even more often.

Curve # 4 has rebooted during 1 call and had some sort of melt down yesterday.

In switching from 3 to 4, I transferred nothing at all. Made them give me a new sim card even. I kept #3 and wiped the everloving $%&! out of it before installing a fresh OS and giving it to my wife. As I said, it is as bare bones as they come.

[jgbrock]

I have this weird, completely unsupported by evidence, theory that there may be something in the t-mobile network around these parts. After all, #2 and #3 rebooted ONLY during a call.

[jgbrock]

On my way home, I got an email from RIM saying, once again, that the log files I sent were not "fresh" enough to be useful. This is BS for two reasons: One, the log file from my BB locking up for 20 minutes was taken 5 minutes after it came back. Two, I can see phone calls in the log from my wife's phone from before and after the two times it rebooted yesterday. It might not show anything, but it sure as **** covers the relevant time frame.

So, I called T-mobile and they told me, contrary to my previous call, that I had to take one more exchange before getting another phone. So, they are sending me Curve #5 in exchange for Curve # 3.

Given my track record, optimism is in short supply. But, what the ****. If this one miraculously works, I will let my wife have it. # 4 has had the two incidents, but she told me they would exchange that one too if I wanted. I am going to wait on that. A reboot every once in a while is now my new standard of acceptability.

One thing though, T-Mobile seems totally comfortable with the fact that I have two, albeit defective, phones when I only paid for one. So I will end up with two working curves, or two of something else. Then I can move on to the next aspect of modern life that is slowly making me insane.

[Lynwood]

I am very new to the BB world. Today my BB went black. I have had it on a charger for two hours & the solid red LED is on. I unplugged it & pushed the mute/standby button. For a breif secong there was a hour glass in the middle of a white screen. I have taken the battery out - nothing is working to get the BB to turn on. I have the Curve 8330.