[joeldf]

Okay, I have the Torch now. Love the phone, but quite a change from my old Pearl 8100. I've had it for almost a week, and while I had a few issues at first, I have been able to clear them up.

But this still baffles me.

Running OS 6 .246 from AT&T (I know there's a newer "official" build from another vendor, but I might have to wait to tackle that another day). I don't know if this would be specifically an OS 6 thing or not, but I figured I'd ask here.

I have the Firewall turned on. Set to block Text Messages, but under "Exceptions", "Contacts" is checked.

My wife sent me a couple of texts today, but they got blocked - in fact, the number of blocked messages showed me a couple were blocked. Her phone is in my contacts and shouldn't have been blocked.

This was the exact same settings I used to have on my 8100 on OS 4.5 and her texts came through with no problem.

My contacts list is not encrypted, compressed, or otherwise altered at the moment. And, yes, my wife is in there.

I guess I could just plug her phone number directly into the list to allow texts from and try that, but why doesn't this regular method that used to work not work anymore?

Is it a bug? Maybe the newer build fixed it?

Just wondering if I'm the only one.

I'd appreciate any ideas.

Joel

[Motorcycle Mama]

Do you have any punctuation in the phone numbers?

[shansmi]

is the contact in 11 or 10 digit format?

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[joeldf]

To both questions...

In the contact, the numbers are, and always have been (even on the Pearl) in Outlook's preferred (###) ###-#### format. Since that is what I sync my contacts with.

When a call comes in, it shows the number as the 10 digit ########## format, but displays the proper contact name and company (if included) on the incoming call screen. In fact, when the SMS text does come in, it shows my wife's name as it pulls from the contact entry and not the number. So it obviously still correlates between the two number formats properly. Again, that wasn't an issue on the 8100.

Strangely enough, the SMS thread that my wife and I have running was carried over from the Pearl when I did a device switch. That alone kind of surprised me as it carried over an OS 4.5 SMS list into the nicer OS 6 threaded format (which I like much better, visually).

I suppose it's not that big of a deal. I don't get many SMS texts to begin with, but I was just trying to block the few annoying ad and spam-like messages that I do get on occasion.

[Motorcycle Mama]

You need to edit the Contact information in the BlackBerry Contact and delete ALL the punctuation. No dashes and no parentheses.

[joeldf]

I don't think I'm going to change all 250 some-odd contacts just to have Outlook either change them back on the next sync, or worse, duplicate them all.

Why would the punctuation suddenly matter now when it didn't before? And it doesn't with other aspects of the phone.

Thanks, though. I'll live with the occasional ad/spam text. Or, input the number directly in the "allowed" list without punctuation.

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[Motorcycle Mama]

Ok then.

Just an FYI, it actually does matter with other aspects of the phone. For example, if you set a Contact Alert for the "Messages" for a Contact and if the phone number has punctuation in it, that Contact Alert will not work for SMS. The default alert tone will sound when an SMS comes in for that contact.

It's how the new OS versions work.

How the phone numbers are displayed on the "Incoming Call" display is a function of the phone function in the OS and is irrespective of how the numbers are entered into the contact in the Address Book.

But good luck with it.