Multiple Problems with OS 5.0 (.591)

I've already posted this as a reply in the "Should Verizon pull the official 5.0 OS?" thread, but I wanted to give these issues more front-and-center attention, so please pardon the duplicate rant.

My experience with 5.0 on the Tour has been that is *not* ready for prime time. I've rolled back to 4.7.61, due to multiple problems, some of which are absolute showstoppers for me:

1) SHOWSTOPPER: Voicemail notifications, which have always shown up as SMS messages (and have never been a problem as such), are now being threaded into conversations corresponding to whatever contact left me the voice message. So if I have an SMS conversation with someone with phone number ABC-DEF-WXYZ, and then that person leaves me a voice mail, the voicemail notification gets stamped with ABC-DEF-WXYZ, and gets threaded into the conversation. The problem with this is that once it happens, the BlackBerry will no longer allow me to send a new SMS or even a reply to that phone number. The voicemail notification disables the text entry box. I have security-wiped the phone and tested the behavior on a fresh, clean SMS slate, and the same problem occurs - so it's not corruption from old messages, and it's not linked to the address book (because it happened even with no contacts in the phone). The only fix is to delete the entire thread, which I am unwilling to do - I rely on the ability to access previous business correspondence.

2) SHOWSTOPPER: Because voicemail notifications are now threaded into SMS conversations with their corresponding originating phone number, it is now impossible to delete a single voicemail notification. I used to eliminate them from my SMS list to reduce clutter; now the only way to remove a voicemail notification is to delete the entire thread, including all SMS messages to and from the corresponding phone number or contact. Unacceptable.

3) As others have noted, the BlackBerry has a tendency to display an SMS notification at the top of the screen, even when there are no unread messages to be found.

4) As others have noted, battery life is drastically reduced.

5) As others have noted, .591 seems to be much more prone to memory leaks, especially with encryption enabled. I *never* had my Tour tell me it was out of memory when running 4.7 - but on .591 it happened in the second day of use.

6) When the phone first boots, the progress bar fills up from left to right, then as the radio gets switched on, the carrier's welcome screen appears. On 4.7, the carrier's welcome screen lasted for 5 to 10 seconds maximum. On .591, the phone gets stuck on the carrier's welcome screen for a good 5 to 10 minutes - and this is *after* the time involved in the initial boot. However, wiping the phone resolves this, so it must be related to some combination of applications that are installed on my particular phone.

7) Bluetooth volume on a Handsfree device is drastically lower than it was on 4.7. It's not a subtle difference - the bluetooth speakerphone in the car is perhaps only half the volume under .591 that it was under 4.7.

It is unfortunate that I won't be able to enjoy PTT, which I qualified for. OS 5.0, on the .591 build, is completely unusable for me. I don't really mind running 4.7 instead - 4.7.61 has been a very stable platform, and I have had literally no complaints with it compared to other builds. What's frustrating is that RIM and Verizon have broken, in a bad way, basic functionality while broadcasting to their client base that they're bringing us something new and improved.

Several of my users are experiencing items 1 and 2 as well. I am not seeing this issue, but I use a custom theme, so it makes me think it's related to the theme. My users use the Precision zen by default. I am using Blackberry Pro v3 BLUE.

Interesting. Hadn't occurred to me that it might be theme-related, as I've never really played with themes at all. The only themes available on my phone are Precision Zen and Verizon Zen (and Verizon Zen is active).

I've also noticed more frequent freezing without getting the freeze timer when switching applications.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Im having issues with BBM and email's not sending/receiving. I also have serious issues with Bolt and the native browser. I HATE .591, I can't believed they pushed this junk out, EPIC FAIL, IMHO.

Hi there, I'm curious about something: are you able to delete individual sms messages (just the regular ones, not the voicemail ones)? I am able to delete regular sms messages from any point during the thread without disrupting the rest of the thread. I'm wondering if maybe there is a link between that and the voicemail message problem (or if maybe this is the reason the VM message problem was overlooked by verizon).

It's possible that something is different with what we are running though? My voicemail sms notifications actually go into their own thread, rather that the thread of the person that left the message. Also, that contact's sms thread remained working properly and I sent and received sms messages following the voicemail.

ps - i'm running .591 on my verizon tour.

Originally Posted by bulletproof220

Hi there, I'm curious about something: are you able to delete individual sms messages (just the regular ones, not the voicemail ones)? I am able to delete regular sms messages from any point during the thread without disrupting the rest of the thread. I'm wondering if maybe there is a link between that and the voicemail message problem (or if maybe this is the reason the VM message problem was overlooked by verizon).

It's possible that something is different with what we are running though? My voicemail sms notifications actually go into their own thread, rather that the thread of the person that left the message. Also, that contact's sms thread remained working properly and I sent and received sms messages following the voicemail.

ps - i'm running .591 on my verizon tour.

Hi bulletproof -

Are you using one of the stock Verizon themes, or a custom theme? Apparently custom themes *may* have the ability to bypass the voicemail-notification-threaded-SMS issue (but I don't have time to reinstall 5.0.591, find a custom theme, and experiment with it - I'm back to running 4.7 and need to just get on with work).

Originally Posted by RTGMusicMan

Hi bulletproof -

Are you using one of the stock Verizon themes, or a custom theme? Apparently custom themes *may* have the ability to bypass the voicemail-notification-threaded-SMS issue (but I don't have time to reinstall 5.0.591, find a custom theme, and experiment with it - I'm back to running 4.7 and need to just get on with work).

Yes, I'm using the 'precision zen" that came on the phone. When I saw that previous post, I was curious about the themes also. I downloaded a custom theme, but I have yet to test the voicemail stuff with it. I wasnt sure if there would even be a point to testing it anyway, since I don't have the problem with the standard themes.

I'm wondering if maybe it's an issue with the actual OS-loading process onto the phone...? But I don't really know all that muchabout this stuff so I don't have much room to speculate, haha.

Anyone other than me experiencing a problem sending a picture through email since upgrading to .591? I was previously on .484 and never had an issue. Since upgrading last night, I can't get them to go through at all...:mad: I'm probably gonna downgrade back to .484 tonight. Don't really like all the feedback and the few problems I'm experiencing on .591...

Can someone tell me how to cancel the scheduled update, I set up today. After reading the issues a lot of people are having, I think I would prefer to stay with my 4.7

I had it scheduled to update late tonight, but just changed it to a week from now to delay, but i really want to remove it all together.

Thank you!

For being official.... It's pretty pathetic imo... WAY to many issues... For those who are downgrading what are you going back to? last OS I had on my phone was .230, is there something better than .230? My only issue is battery life as I am a pretty heavy user..

I was having the same problem and got very angry. It's definitely the theme. I switched from the verizon theme to the RIM theme (the only other option) and it fixed this. It still comes up in the sms thread, but the input box is there.

Originally Posted by marielleskye

I was having the same problem and got very angry. It's definitely the theme. I switched from the verizon theme to the RIM theme (the only other option) and it fixed this. It still comes up in the sms thread, but the input box is there.

By "RIM theme," do you mean the Precision Zen theme (as opposed to the Verizon Zen theme)? I'm under the impression that someone posting in another thread saw the problem in the Precision theme as well.

.591 is indeed a piece of garbage.

I have yet to experience any vm/sms problems but the battery drainage and BT volume issues are game enders for me.

I have been yelling at people to "speak up!" as I thought they werent speaking into their phones, but now I realize its my BB-lol.

And btw, to the OP-I use Visual VM. Im not sure if that makes any difference, but do not appear to have the same VM issues as you.

I was having all the issues the OP listed. I am very frustrated and after two days of having the new 5.0 I downgraded back to the 4.7 I have the Jawbone Icon and it was perfect. My calls sounded very distant and I hadn't changed the volume on my device. I also didn't like how my emails were disappearing upon sending them. And showing up in another folder. I had called Verizon to troubleshoot and they were unable to assist me. and this may seem lame, but I don't like the 1+ and then the phone number. Mobile devices don't need a 1+ and then dialing like a land line will require. My battery life was horrible and on the 4.7 it was perfect. I had no issues with the 4.7 and I am SO GLAD to have it back. I emailed Verizon telling them the new OS for the Tour is horrible. I had emailed my brother telling him to not download it but he did. He seems to think it is ok so far. But I told him to watch his battery life, etc. I haven't had any problems since I downgraded.
Other than that, the Tour is awesome. I am just really disappointed in RIM and Verizon for this 5.0 release.

I am having the same issue with voicemails being threaded into sms text convo's and then not being able to reply. That is a serious flaw that, to my knowledge, is unavoidable without a fix. I can't work around it. I can't send texts to those folks. Any ideas?

Originally Posted by blz2dwl

I am having the same issue with voicemails being threaded into sms text convo's and then not being able to reply. That is a serious flaw that, to my knowledge, is unavoidable without a fix. I can't work around it. I can't send texts to those folks. Any ideas?

Some people have mentioned that the problem seems to be theme-dependent. You might want to try temporarily switching themes, to see if that makes a difference.

I've also seen a couple of people in other threads mentioning that the SMS threading can be turned off in Options, but I didn't see a way to do it while I had .591 installed (and now that I've downgraded I can't investigate). Has anybody else confirmed / disproved this? Is there in fact a threading / non-threading option in the new OS?

I too made the mistake of upgrading to 5.0.0.591 from Verizon. I also had the problem with the voice mail locking the SMS conversation for the person that called. It dawned on me that the *86 code is actually the problem. I had Voice Mail stored into my address book with the code *86, so every time a voice mail is left and the program wants to tell you to dial *86 to retrieve your voice mail, it's matching this with the address book entry and inserting it into the SMS as a call back number. This is definitely a bug that should have been caught and corrected BEFORE Verizon made us $100+ a month guinea pigs for this OS. Thankfully, this problem has a very easy fix. Just go into your address book and change the voice mail # from *86 to your 10 digit phone number. (Remember, calling your own number gets you into your voice mail also). Fixed the problem for me because now the the software isn't confused by the *86 as a contact.

Among the other issues I've had: (1) the iheartrado app (which I used ALL the time in the car and gym) would work only sporadically and mostly wouldn't work. It would say "buffering" for a few seconds then just stop. Try and try, sometimes it would work or if it stopped it wouldn't re-start. (2) The browser issue: only certain parts of a link or browser button would seem to respond to a click so it took 3-5 clicks in different spots for it to do what you wanted. Very annoying!

All these problems I've noticed have also been documented by other users online. I didn't have ANY of these problems with 4.7.1.61! finally after a week and a half I switched back. I decided the nuts and bolts issues were just too much to deal with (and should have been FIXED PRIOR TO RELEASE) vs. the new OS features. Hope Verizon and BlackBerry fix this like before months go by.

Anyone know how to stop SMS messages from being pushed right into BBM? When my SMS's come in they get put right into the BBM which in turn doesn't allow me to read the message.

Originally Posted by ferrisdeployed

Anyone know how to stop SMS messages from being pushed right into BBM? When my SMS's come in they get put right into the BBM which in turn doesn't allow me to read the message.

Some users here on CrackBerry have indicated that unlinking the BBM contacts from the Address Book contacts changes this behavior - the unlinking operation is something to be done from inside BBM. Search the forums a bit more thoroughly and you'll find some threads dealing with this.

This doesn't seem to be a "universally satisfying" fix though - a number of people don't seem to like the fact that they have to unlink the contacts.

Originally Posted by mb_ny845

I too made the mistake of upgrading to 5.0.0.591 from Verizon. I also had the problem with the voice mail locking the SMS conversation for the person that called. It dawned on me that the *86 code is actually the problem. I had Voice Mail stored into my address book with the code *86, so every time a voice mail is left and the program wants to tell you to dial *86 to retrieve your voice mail, it's matching this with the address book entry and inserting it into the SMS as a call back number. This is definitely a bug that should have been caught and corrected BEFORE Verizon made us $100+ a month guinea pigs for this OS. Thankfully, this problem has a very easy fix. Just go into your address book and change the voice mail # from *86 to your 10 digit phone number. (Remember, calling your own number gets you into your voice mail also). Fixed the problem for me because now the the software isn't confused by the *86 as a contact.

Interesting. Not sure that would have fixed it in my particular case - I *don't* have VoiceMail stored as *86 (I've had issues in the past with *86 not working when dialing from GSM while travelling) - it's already only stored as a QuickDial with my full cell phone number.

The issue with the threading was that when *someone else* would leave me a voicemail, the voicemail notification would actually be stamped with their phone number, as if the voicemail notification were an SMS from that person. That's what was causing the VM notifications to be threaded.