Old Puck - Can't get BT connection working

I just got my 8330. My buddy has an older i-Blue GPS puck (I've found most topics about it from 2006) that he's letting me borrow to see how I like using a BT GPS puck.

Well, it's been quite frustrating so far. I basically cannot get the BT connection going. I pair the unit like any other BT device, and it comes up in my list. The blue light flashed a couple of times on the 8330 and then stops. I changed my GPS setting to the i-Blue. I turned my "Location On" as well.

I then went back into my bluetooth settings and went to the device properties of the i-Blue. I set it to Trusted. Now I got it to work ONE time. I changed the Encryption to disabled and performed a Refresh Service List. I then noticed the blue light on the 8330 flashing a lot. I quickly went out to BB Maps, changed it to the i-Blue, let it get a fix outside on my deck, and the then watched the map pin point my house. Good stuff.

So I wanted to see if it would work with Nav4All. I go from BB Maps to Nav4All and it can't find a GPS device. So in my infinite wisdom, I go back to BB Maps and make sure I close the app. I then go back to Nav4All, and nothing. I now notice no blue flashes from the 8330. And now I cannot get a BT connection again. I've power reset the i-Blue, I've hard and soft reset the 8330, I've disabled/enabled BT, I've gone back and forth between Encryption. Nada. It took me forever to get it connected, and now it "refuses" to connect again.

Finally, when I go to Menu->Options on the main BT screen, it tells me what Services I'm guessing it supports, the list is:

Headset
Handsfree
Dial-up Networking
Audio Source
A/V Remote Control Target

For people that have a GPS puck working, are these the services you have? Sorry for being long winded, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible.

I use a Freedom Keychain 2000 puck with my Verizon 8830. Your BT options services match mine. Here are some thoughts, based on my experience with the Freedom. They might be applicable to your puck as well.

After you have paired with the Blackberry, and with your puck turned ON, go to Manage Connections / Bluetooth Options / puckname / Menu / Device Properties / Menu / Refresh Service List.

You will first see the message: "Waiting for puckname"

Watch closely. If next you see this message: "Unable to connect to puckname" flash on the screen, turn the puck off and back on again and try again. You have to watch. The message will appear momentarily, then go away.

Once you have successfully refreshed the list, the blue light on the phone should start blinking.

Note: Google Maps cannot keep the Freedom Keychain 2000 locked. It requires a regular acknowledgement from the device, or it goes into battery-saver mode and drops the bluetooth connection. Google Maps is unable to provide this acknowledgement. Blackberry Maps can. So if you want to run Google Maps, it will be necessary to start Blackberry Maps first, let it sync with the GPS, then exit it without closing it and start Google Maps. If you do this, Google Maps will run with no problem. Not all pucks have this power-save mode glitch. It sounds like yours might, since it worked when you were running BBMaps.

Also, as a general rule, you must enable the Bluetooth activity LED on your BlackBerry, or it won't be able to keep a connection. It sounds like you have it enabled, but I'll mention it for comepleteness.

Hi Jeff,

Nope, didn't work. And I did pay attention for the error dialog. I'm at a loss, but I'm going to keep going at this. If I get a fix, I'll let folks know.

This has been interesting, I've asked 2 questions of crackberry.com, and to my surprise, it seems no one has had my issue (other is I can't get the latest OS to install). Strange. If you have any other ideas, let me hear them!!

I'm not sure what a puck is, but if it's from 2006, maybe it needs a software update to be compatible with the 8330???

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

In this case, a puck is an external GPS device that communicates with the 8330 by Bluetooth. It's software isn't likely to be updateable. It won't have Bluetooth 2.0, but that shouldn't prevent it working with the 8330. It may also not have the latest GPS chipset, but it should still work.

Some more info. I just joined our BES server as well. Before joining BES, I enabled bluetooth, and connected my laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad) to the 8330 and was playing around with the desktop manager. It was definitely connected by checking the device manager.

Well, today (hooked to BES yesterday), I'm having problems connecting my laptop and 8330 via bluetooth. Just to make sure I wasn't completely on crack, I did connect the 8330 via USB and was able to work with the desktop manager.

I also connected the puck to my laptop via bluetooth, opened up a terminal window to the COM port (COM9) and was reading out the GPS strings from the puck. So my laptop can connect to the puck.

So, in summary, I'm basically getting the same behavior with my laptop as I was getting with the puck. Any ideas? Anything needed to be done at the BES server?

On mine, in Options > Advanced Options > GPS I have "GPS Data Source" set to my puck and "GPS Services" set to Location On.

Then in Nav4All, in Settings > Set up GPS I have "Internal GPS" selected.

If that doesn't work for you, pair your puck with your laptop, then find out what COM port it is assigned to.

Open a terminal program (HyperTerminal will do). Set it up to xxx baud, 8 data bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit. (xxx = whatever the baud rate of the puck)

If the puck is working, you should see a constant stream of data (assuming it can see the satellites). If you don't, the puck is most likely bad.

It's entirely possible that your BES IT policy disables your bluetooth. I have used Pawpaw's technique with hyperterminal and my Freedom Keychain 2000 puck. It's a good diagnostic technique for external pucks.

Ok, thanks for the replies. So I got it working more consistently, but still doesn't seem perfect, but that might be the nature of the beast. I did connect the puck to my laptop and opened a hyperterminal to the COM port and I was seeing the GPS data streaming so the puck works.

I think I'm good. I'm not sure I really did anything. ****, it might have been my inexperience and then some frustration set in. Thanks for the help.

Originally Posted by Pawpaw

On mine, in Options > Advanced Options > GPS I have "GPS Data Source" set to my puck and "GPS Services" set to Location On.

Then in Nav4All, in Settings > Set up GPS I have "Internal GPS" selected.

I'm trying to use Nav4All but it never finds the GPS device. BBMaps finds it without issue. Also, when I get to Set up GPS, I can't select anything, it just searches "forever". And I'm allowing everything so it should be able to connect.

Originally Posted by erik7

I'm trying to use Nav4All but it never finds the GPS device. BBMaps finds it without issue. Also, when I get to Set up GPS, I can't select anything, it just searches "forever". And I'm allowing everything so it should be able to connect.

The first few times I used mine, I had to go into Bluetooth and tell the phone to connect to the puck.

Once you're connected, then go into Set up GPS and the puck should be selectable.

If that doesn't work, I'll defer to JeffH. He has a lot more experience with this than I do.