Freezing Passport a few seconds after boot (+ solution)

Hi all, after more then a day without a properly working Passport I thought it might be nice to share both the problem and solution, just in case anyone out there runs into the same problems.

Problem:
- all of a sudden i receive missed call notifications by sms. Which means the calls never reached the phone itself;

Solution:
- a full reboot of the phone (power off, wait a few seconds, power on)

That 'solution' worked in the past. But in this case the trouble really started. After booting the Passport worked nice, for a minute or so. New problems arose quickly. Rebooting caused even more problems:

New problems:
- Passport freezes after a few minutes;
- Apps close a few seconds after opening, no new apps can be started afterwards;
- Apps show only a black screen;
- The hub can be openend, but turns black after a few seconds;
- The power button on top won't wake the device. Neither will lifting / tilting the device;
- Wierdest of all: after rebooting all opened apps showed up, like I never rebooted the device.

So the device essentially became useless. Tried alternative methods of booting volumebuttons), still no luck.
Just to be sure I made a backup of all Whatsapp conversations (possible within the few minutes I had after booting). Time for a new approach: connecting the device using Link to make a backup and restore the device. But even Link refused to do what I wanted. It recognized the device, connected and..... disconnected.
New approach: forget about the backup and restore, because I need this phone for work and some projects. Tried to connect to Link again and immediatly reset the device. Link: 'no can't do'. Link kept waiting for me to reboot the device, which I did, but Link didn't recognize the device had been rebooted. So essentially I was out of options. Tried rebooting the device dozens of times and restoring, but no luck.

Today I tried a new, not so obvious, approach. I deleted all apps which could be deleted (deleted Whatsapp yesterday, because I downloaded it from the betazone) and rebooted. Still no luck.

In a desperate, last attempt, I figured the Whatsapp beta might have left some clutter behind, preventing the OS from working properly. So, in the few minutes I had after booting, I downloaded Whatsapp from Blackbrry world. After some more rebooting I was able to, per reboot, configure parts of Whatsapp, until finally the app was fully installed.

That as about half an hour again. The device has been working since, even the wake function is back again. Hope this helps anyone else who runs into this very weird and annoying problem.

Specs:
SQW-100-1
10.3.2.2474

Originally Posted by btalman

I figured the Whatsapp beta might have left some clutter behind, preventing the OS from working properly.
Specs:
SQW-100-1
10.3.2.2474

Apps are non-privilege code. They can never prevent the OS from anything.

Hardware can.

You may refuse to accept, but your hardware was damaged. Your effort is workaround. It can only hide the defect, but can't fix it. The same or other problem can occur again the next time you change your software e.g. install/uninstall an app or update your OS.



Posted via CB10/BB PP SE.

Originally Posted by dusanvn

Apps are non-privilege code. They can never prevent the OS from anything.

Hardware can.

You may refuse to accept, but your hardware was damaged. Your effort is workaround. It can only hide the defect, but can't fix it. The same or other problem can occur again the next time you change your software e.g. install/uninstall an app or update your OS.



Posted via CB10/BB PP SE.

I was about to accept this, but so far this has been working. Even after installing new apps. It's weird behaviour, which means you're probably right. Problem is how can I diagnose if this is a HW defect? Had this device for a bout a year now, no problems at all until now.

Originally Posted by btalman

I was about to accept this, but so far this has been working. Even after installing new apps. It's weird behaviour, which means you're probably right. Problem is how can I diagnose if this is a HW defect? Had this device for a bout a year now, no problems at all until now.

You've already diagnosed. It's hardware.

I can't tell for sure which part of the hardware get damaged, but I know that the most likely damaged part is (generally) the non-volatile memory, which plays the role of a hard disk drive in phones and usually get damaged due to repeated overheating. You won't notice it until a bad (damaged) sector is actually allocated to contain some critical files.

Look for an authorized BlackBerry's or partner's shop. Maybe they'll have a solution.

Posted via CB10/BB PP SE.

Edit: if you encounter some bad data (doccument, image, audio, video,...) files, don't move or delete them. This is a workaround, to keep bad sectors occupied so that they can't be used for more critical files.

Hi BTALMAN
I wish I had seen your post a couple of days ago - I encountered the same problem and now am in the middle of doing a security wipe which has been in progress for over 2 days. I do vaguely remember updating whatsapp in the last day or so before the phone stopped working. Thanks for the info.

Originally Posted by shell_gwn

Hi BTALMAN
I wish I had seen your post a couple of days ago - I encountered the same problem and now am in the middle of doing a security wipe which has been in progress for over 2 days. I do vaguely remember updating whatsapp in the last day or so before the phone stopped working. Thanks for the info.

A security wipe would normally take a few hours to complete. Yours is taking over two days and still incomplete. This indicates that your phone may be struggling with bad sector(s) in the [non-volatile] memory.

A security wipe doesn't wipe the fixed part (i.e. OS code) of the system it wipes only the variable part (i.e. OS data or apps' code and data). Your security wipe has stucked, indicating that the bad sectors are from variable partitions of the memory.

Posted via CB10/BB PP SE.

What would cause a Passport to overheat?

I don't know. And I don't think it matters very much. I've seen some very expensive devices (not just phones) got damaged in the non-volatile memory even under normal load so, to some certainty, devices overheat regardless of software / use case.

Posted via CB10/BB PP SE.

After having this issue, I tried security wipe. After waiting 5 hours at 98%, I used the most recent autoloader to reload the OS. THE TRICK HERE is to run the executable and then turn the power off and then on again the with the USB CABLE PLUGGED IN (otherwise wipe will just start over). The OS will reload and the reboots should stop. The rebooting started for me after running 5 apps at once while using the video camera. Hope this helps.