1. Crucial_Xtreme's Avatar
    Ok let's clear one thing up real quick. When you install the OS whether beta or Official they are the same. There is absolutely no difference between a beta and the Official except the Vendor Xml file.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    01-13-09 03:59 PM
  2. bigman2's Avatar
    Not that anyone would read it, but there should be a sticky that's just a collection of wisdom from Crucial. A prime example of what should be included is the above post, which has been stated numerous times. At least then he, and the rest of us, can just reference that sticky instead of repeating ourselves over and over again.
    01-13-09 04:03 PM
  3. Fbrn's Avatar
    Ok let's clear one thing up real quick. When you install the OS whether beta or Official they are the same. There is absolutely no difference between a beta and the Official except the Vendor Xml file.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    So that being the case and since you have way more understanding than I do on this, what do you feel is causing such a variety of problems with different users? Is it the third party apps, the hardware or something else?
    01-13-09 04:09 PM
  4. Crucial_Xtreme's Avatar
    So that being the case and since you have way more understanding than I do on this, what do you feel is causing such a variety of problems with different users? Is it the third party apps, the hardware or something else?
    I do not discuss unreleased software on the forums any more. I will discuss officially released software, but 75 pretty much worked the samw for everyone.
    01-13-09 04:38 PM
  5. JRSCCivic98's Avatar
    Ok let's clear one thing up real quick. When you install the OS whether beta or Official they are the same. There is absolutely no difference between a beta and the Official except the Vendor Xml file.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    I think it's fair to say that you've said this about a billion times and I don't think anyone still gets it. Ok, maybe not a billion, but definitely a million.
    01-13-09 05:44 PM
  6. Fbrn's Avatar
    I don't know if you will find this interesting or not but after I did a wipe and then just synced my contacts and added my other programs but didn't do a restore my storm is running like a dream. I have pulled the battery 7 times trying to get the media card issue but haven't the first time. My battery life is doing way better and my free memory started at 52mb and has gone up and down some but never below 40mb. This is AMAZINGLY different than the first time I installed .86. I had most of the discussed problems minus the LED bug. I don't know if it was the wipe that made the huge difference or if it was me not doing the restore with my previous info. I did it last night around 6 and it is running amazingly well. I did my last battery pull at 10 last night.
    01-14-09 12:44 PM
  7. anon(39569)'s Avatar
    My belief is that a lot of the issues users are experiencing is related to the installation of 3rd party apps. I agree that there may be some slight variations in devices manufactured in Canda compared to Mexico, but I don't believe that to be anywhere near the main factor.

    I've done system testing for a few applications and while I don't claim to be an expert by any means, I have learned a few things. The main thing being that you have to have a controlled testing environment in order to properly identify bugs and implement fixes. With everyone installing various third party apps, we quickly move away from that controlled environment. The fact that we are seeing problems that affect some users but not others is a clear sign of this.

    To be quite honest, if no one installed third party apps and just updated with each subsequent beta or official OS release, we would probably progress much faster in getting a rock solid OS. This is due to the fact that we would be working with similar software configurations.

    This would then allow us to easily identify bugs that affect the entire user group (i.e. Mute button does not switch profile, unless holstered) and not just affecting those running .86 with Slacker, Weatherbug, MySpace, but no Aerize Alert. All of these additional apps just add another layer of complexity in identifying and fixing problems. Just take a look at almost any post and you'll see what I mean. 60% of the users experience a problem but the other 40% says it works fine.

    Clearly the OS is still far from perfect, but a lot of the feedback on the forums is just plain garbage and almost totally useless in helping to identify bugs. We simply state "xxxxx doesn't work, why?" however, few users provide details about their setup other than "I'm running OS .xx". While that is a start, it tells RIM nothing about the rest of your configuration, making it somewhat of a crap shoot for them to resolve.

    I'm not necessarily blaming the users in the forum, because obviously there is a wide range of technical ability present, but it is those same users that can typically be found moaning about bugs and such. In the end it's a catch 22, because we love the ability to customize our phones, but are quick to complain when they fail us.
    01-14-09 05:27 PM
  8. TheMisses's Avatar
    Well, with windoze machines they mostly respond a certain way to hardware and/or its drivers. Most issues are not within the OS itself, contrary to popular belief. For the storm this can't be the case since we do not add our own hardware and drivers BUT we DO add a bunch of 3rd party applications which for me, definately, is something the bug reporters shouldn't do. I'm running 85 without problems, installed a few apps we all like to use (quickpull, softreset, backlight, talklock, autolock, some games etc) and the phone started to behave funny. Just a bit, but still... So now I'm running .87 completely clean. No third party apps installed and I'm gonna try and keep it that way for a while.

    I think that if a group of people would do this consequently, a lot would become clear very soon.

    Crucial... I believe you, but so much change in just a vendor.xml file? So if I run a file and/or filehash compare to my .78, .85 and .87 FW install directories on my windows box, you're saying there is no difference between the files EXCEPT for the vendor.xml file?

    I find this interesting to read and will dive into the forum about this the coming days, just to see what has been reported on this. The vendor.xml file should than make up the biggest part of the OS. Or maybe I'm just understanding incorrectly due to the limited post in this case.
    Last edited by TheMisses; 01-14-09 at 06:00 PM.
    01-14-09 05:41 PM
  9. TheMisses's Avatar
    So that being the case and since you have way more understanding than I do on this, what do you feel is causing such a variety of problems with different users? Is it the third party apps, the hardware or something else?
    I know for a fact that a lot is all between our ears. Yours as well as mine. Especially the experiencing of a certain issue and then translating it into words that actually describe what happens from A to Z and how you experienced it from A to Z is something people will almost never get right, even though they think they do. This includes you, me and all of us. Yes, even the programmers themselfes.
    01-14-09 06:04 PM
  10. barthawk's Avatar
    I think another thing that could give different results with the same OS but different phones is when you have different threads running simultaneously. When trying to start up a system you may be trying to do several things simultaneously i.e. connect to the network, get the UI running, read the contact DB, etc, so the programmer will have different threads running the different tasks. This can significantly speed up start up time.

    What may be happening is that somewhere the programmers have made an assumption that one task will finish before another and in some rare situations it might not. This could result in weird things happening only on a few phones, because of an untested condition (i.e. large databases, lot of files on a media card, weird network situation). I don't know anything about how the blackberry OS works with threads, but we make some instrumentation at my company and I know the programmers here have had hard to track down bugs that occur because things like this happen occasionally.
    01-14-09 06:21 PM
  11. slav22's Avatar
    The phone is the same as anyone's PC.


    First and foremost, The quality and build of the OS is the base for the perceived performance of the device. And it is known that the storms OS is far from perfect.

    Second, after we consider the OS, 3rd party apps can either run smooth or like crap. Just like on your pc, especially if your using vista on your pc, you will notice that applications not intended for the new OS will encounter problems. As for the storm, Most 3rd party apps are being adapted for the new OS not created from scratch. Compatibility mode helps but it will not overcome hardware differences.

    Third and the most important is how the user maintains the device. If you load a bunch of crap programs on your pc and run them it slows down. For the Storm, i believe, most apps people are using are adapted and use compatibility mode. This taxes the memory and processor more than a specifically designed app would. When you run a number of apps at once it uses more resources therefore reducing its performance. EX: I know a girl that complained about it being so slow. To my surprise,not, she had every app on the phone running. I have no idea how she used it. I closed them and deleted some stuff and ,no joke, the battery pull i did after took 20 mins. but after that it was fine.

    Its just like any other thing you own. Take care of it and it will take care of you.
    01-15-09 05:00 PM
  12. oifvet1967's Avatar
    Third party apps sometimes has something to do with it.
    Agree totally....My storm rocks as long as I dont have many third party apps. As soon as I download **** it sloooooows way down!
    01-15-09 05:32 PM
  13. JRSCCivic98's Avatar
    Crucial... I believe you, but so much change in just a vendor.xml file? So if I run a file and/or filehash compare to my .78, .85 and .87 FW install directories on my windows box, you're saying there is no difference between the files EXCEPT for the vendor.xml file?
    Do you even understand what the vendor.xml file does? If you don't, then that's why you don't understand what's going on.
    01-15-09 07:44 PM
  14. Nofanboy's Avatar
    I think this thread and some comments by Civic in another thread touch on a very important subject. And I don't think it's third party apps fault what's going on here. When I had 83 and 85 in my phone I had absolutely no third party app, and the phone was constantly freezing and getting unresponsive, while I kept reading some people's comments on how great those OSs were. Now I'm running 86 with a few third party apps and, despite a few minor bugs, it's been very stable, and now I read some people say how crappy 86 is for them. What gives? I decided to keep the Storm because of 86, but now every time I see a little bug I get alarmed at the idea that I may face some of the big problems others see.
    01-15-09 07:45 PM
  15. DoctorNeutron's Avatar
    I think the main problem is in the third party apps. We all assume WeatherBug, QuickPull, and other apps are solid Storm apps. Probably not, but improving. Slight coding indiscretions and departures from RIM guidelines can eventually lead to serious memory leaks and other bizarre behavior seemingly unrelated to the last change we made.

    Doctor Neutron
    01-15-09 07:59 PM
  16. howardb's Avatar
    Third party apps and the process the user went through when installing such as if they upgraded and the last OS left some cruft around in places it wasn't supposed to because of a bug or something. There are several different processes that one can follow in order to get the OS onto their device. There are different levels of a wipe that a person can perform. These all result in different information in different locations on the device. Honestly the fact that not all devices come out with the same amount of free app memory after doing a wipe and installing tells you that there are differences in the install as I'm certain the hardware is equivalent.
    01-15-09 08:49 PM
  17. Nofanboy's Avatar
    I still think the experiences people are having are way too much different to be the result of only differences in install or third party apps. I'm sure you could find here two people who both wiped the phone before installing a new OS, didn't add any third party app and yet had very contrastingly performing devices.
    01-15-09 09:10 PM
  18. CrackleBerryMound's Avatar
    They should do like Microsoft does and make sure RIM approves the application to be installed on the BB. (Blackberry Storm Certified)!!!!
    No, we should just throw Microsoft in the bin and leave them there, that way technological advances would no longer be stifled and my Storm would therefore be working 100% A1 Cheesedog
    01-16-09 04:01 AM
  19. Carbon Coupe's Avatar
    It's SkyNet...It's become self aware!
    Maybe the neuro-net processor was configured wrong on some units.
    01-16-09 05:31 AM
  20. Clover86's Avatar
    Well, with windoze machines they mostly respond a certain way to hardware and/or its drivers. Most issues are not within the OS itself, contrary to popular belief. For the storm this can't be the case since we do not add our own hardware and drivers BUT we DO add a bunch of 3rd party applications which for me, definately, is something the bug reporters shouldn't do. I'm running 85 without problems, installed a few apps we all like to use (quickpull, softreset, backlight, talklock, autolock, some games etc) and the phone started to behave funny. Just a bit, but still... So now I'm running .87 completely clean. No third party apps installed and I'm gonna try and keep it that way for a while.

    I think that if a group of people would do this consequently, a lot would become clear very soon.

    Crucial... I believe you, but so much change in just a vendor.xml file? So if I run a file and/or filehash compare to my .78, .85 and .87 FW install directories on my windows box, you're saying there is no difference between the files EXCEPT for the vendor.xml file?

    I find this interesting to read and will dive into the forum about this the coming days, just to see what has been reported on this. The vendor.xml file should than make up the biggest part of the OS. Or maybe I'm just understanding incorrectly due to the limited post in this case.
    I have a quick question for you... Why do you have two apps on your phone that both do the exact same thing? Seems like a waist to me...

    Also... The vendor.xml file only tells the software that if the phone is from a different carrier than what the OS release is "for", it will NOT work for that phone... even if it is the exact same phone. By deleting the vendor.xml file the software no longer checks for this and it will install.That is why there is a difference between leaked/beta and official releases... Leaked/betas do not have anything significant written in the vendor file... This is also why you need to delete the vendor file when installing an OS meant for a different carrier...

    NOTE: I said different carrier NOT different phone...
    01-16-09 05:48 AM
  21. TheMisses's Avatar
    Do you even understand what the vendor.xml file does? If you don't, then that's why you don't understand what's going on.
    I haven't taken a look into it as of yet, so that might explain. The name seems to indicate that the file has something to do with the carrier? But that's all I'm gonna guess at for now
    01-16-09 06:07 PM
  22. TheMisses's Avatar
    I have a quick question for you... Why do you have two apps on your phone that both do the exact same thing? Seems like a waist to me...

    Also... The vendor.xml file only tells the software that if the phone is from a different carrier than what the OS release is "for", it will NOT work for that phone... even if it is the exact same phone. By deleting the vendor.xml file the software no longer checks for this and it will install.That is why there is a difference between leaked/beta and official releases... Leaked/betas do not have anything significant written in the vendor file... This is also why you need to delete the vendor file when installing an OS meant for a different carrier...

    NOTE: I said different carrier NOT different phone...
    See... told you so
    01-16-09 06:11 PM
  23. JRSCCivic98's Avatar
    I haven't taken a look into it as of yet, so that might explain. The name seems to indicate that the file has something to do with the carrier? But that's all I'm gonna guess at for now
    Yeah, that's what I thought.

    And the leaked version vendor.xml files DON'T HAVE ANYTHING in them. This is why you don't have to delete them. The whole issue with people having so many problem loading these releases on their Storms is that they are using DM4.7 which has some extra small checks for OS versions. Something that if you run like DM4.5 you won't have to worry about. Just saying...
    01-16-09 07:46 PM
  24. blacktoothberry's Avatar
    They should do like Microsoft does and make sure RIM approves the application to be installed on the BB. (Blackberry Storm Certified)!!!!
    like Windows did with Vista .They are still working on it now 7
    01-19-09 11:29 PM
  25. kazn3r's Avatar
    hm. this issue where this thread started is a questionable one and i'd love to hear an answer. it is weird, indeed, how RIM is "having problems" building a new operating system.
    01-20-09 01:34 AM
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