[MMB916]

POSTED: 11:53 pm EDT April 17, 2007
UPDATED: 11:56 pm EDT April 17, 2007

NEW YORK -- NewsChannel4 has learned of a massive system failure affecting all blackberry users in the western hemisphere.

The RIM Company, which stands for Research In Motion, developed blackberry technology and said its infrastructure failed around 8 p.m. Tuesday and has been down ever since.

E-mails are not being pushed to portable blackberry devices.

Officials with RIM said they are trying to reset the system and told NewsChannel4 that they are concerned that the backlog of data, which will rush through when it comes back on line, could cause a bigger problem.

When the error is corrected, RIM officials said a message would be sent in stages so the system does not crash.

Officials said the problem would carry into the morning.

For the moment, RIM officials recommend all who depend on their blackberry as a major way of communication should make some back-up plans.

[MMB916]

It was frightening - my BB just shut down earlier this evening - no reason. Tried not to panic I took the battery out and then couldn't get the EDGE technology. Then I tried again. I did get EDGE however, emails have been significantly delayed. Then I resent service books. Well....Now at least I know why...hopefully this will be taken care of quickly!

[kasperapd]

This was driving me crazy last night at work. I first noticed shortly after 8pm that it wasn't working right. I tried everything I could think of to get it back up. I finally gave up and called Customer Service where they had a recorded message of the BB outage.

Mine still isn't working right. I hope this get this fixed today!

[tneary]

I'm in Washington, DC. Never lost email or data service overnight or as of now (7:48 a.m. ET). Oddly, I can send PIN messages but they aren't going through. Corporate email is working fine. (knock wood)

[kasperapd]

Well.. I'm glad at least someone can take advantage of their CrackBerry and rub it in the rest of our faces j/k

Welcome to Crackberry.com!

[audit]

This is the MAIN reason why BB-Outage list was setup at Bb-Outage Info Page

It's too bad that we can't get people at RIM to post to it when something happens.

[nostalgiaguru]

aggravating - the lady two doors down claims she is up, I'm not. We're both individual users on BIS - I use Mail Connector, no email, no internet. Lexington, KY, 8:10am, 4/18/2007.

[Berryman]

Update: BlackBerry service hit by widespread outage in U.S.

All 1500 Blackberrys in the firm I work had been down. They are connected to BES servers in Washington and Boston. The only teaser was at about 10.30am Central European Time this morning when I received two emails! Since then, for email, my Blackberry has been as about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.

Now, as I type this, new emails are starting to be delivered to my Blackberry - - great!

[paladin252]

here in massachusetts we still have nothing, no email and no internet.

[TheGrimm]

As of 8:15am EST, email service appears to have been restored to almost normal levels in the Greater Toronto Area.

"Outage, what outage?" -Yeah right....

[audit]

If I may make a suggestion, can people post updates also to the Bb-Outage Info Page so that people not part of this forum also get's an idea of what's going on in what parts of the country?

[Hacksaw#CB]

Yup we have pending messages with no where to go.....

[anon(153966)]

What a nightmare I walked into this morning! Partners screaming because they are not getting emails.

Is this what life has come to? Rhetorical, of course...

[kasperapd]

I feel really sorry for IT people today having to deal with this issue. There's not anything you can do about it, but everyone will expect you to get it fixed ASAP.

[farrell]

My emails just started coming in a minute ago.

Don't know if it's 100% fixed, but data seems to be flowing, finally. I'm on the Cingular network in New Jersey.

Hope everyone else is getting up and running too!

[anon(363857)]

I feel really sorry for IT people today having to deal with this issue. There's not anything you can do about it, but everyone will expect you to get it fixed ASAP.

As a senior sys admin running on 4 hrs of sleep(because I stayed up til 2 to monitor the situation via some of the blackberry forums then woke back up at 6), I know I appreciate the thought, thanks.

75% of our handhelds are back up, unfortunately mine isn't, and some of the biggest execs in the org are still dead in the water.

EDIT:

Ah finally starting to see some message movement on those last few handhelds. Some movement...

EDIT2:

All our backlogged emails have been delivered and sending seems to be working now too.. thank goodness now I can go home and get some real sleep.

[anon(153966)]

...at 10:16 EST, it's all good!!!

[Jack Benney]

All good here in NY with VZW....

[Basil49]

Good Morning Folks,

Just started recieving my e-mails as of 5 minutes ago....I guess all is good here in the east......What would I have done if this persisted more than a day or so......Whew!!!!!:

[audit]

Mine's been buzzing for the last 45 minutes, 200+ e-mails from the BES server and then somewhere along the lines of 600+ from my BIS account since when I setup the mail list, I had set it up so I was notified of new subscriptions. I've removed that option but it looks like my BB is going to be very busy for the next couple hours.

[audit]

Only thing still acting up is BIS. Even sending an e-mail directly to @vzw.blackberry.net is not coming through yet.

[CrackBerry Kevin]

Just spoke with a producer from Washington Post radio. Going to be on their show this afternoon at 2:20CST give or take a few minutes, talking about the BlackBerry outage and CrackBerry.com.

So as a question, how did everyone find surviving with their BlackBerries on the fritz? Big withdrawal? Big Stress? Anything crazy happen? Or did the world continue like it used to in the pre-wireless email days?

Thanks!!!

Kevin

[anon(153966)]

An utter nightmare when I walked in this morning! Partners where screaming asking about their email on their BlackBerry's. Who's sending emails between 04:00 & 06:30, anyway?

Am an addict, but, is this what life has come to?

[tmag2005]

it looks like you all had a nightmare...I do feel for you all.

I went to bed last night and all was fine and then this morning.....all was fine to. I had slept through any issues...

But hope you all get sorted...

[audit]

I noticed it last night when it happened. I was laying in bed resting and reading my normal RSS feeds and when I couldn't load 1 of them and then couldn't get in any sites, I started freaking out. Wasn't sure if it was my Blackberry failing or if it was RIM so I started calling people that I know have them and everyone stated the same thing that I was seeing. Then my son came in my room and asked why he couldn't send a txt message to one of his friends. I didn't sleep all night because I was monitoring the issue, including checking the scripts on my server to make sure they were sending out my hourly e-mails to my BB to let me know it's still working correctly for e-mail. (note: this is not good for someone recovering from another stroke)

My wife was freaking out because she didn't want me to have another stroke again because my Blackberry was down. I called everyone that had a BB that I could think of and then logged into the forums to see what was going on. I then stayed up all night trying to figure out what was going on because I knew my CEO would want an answer as soon as he realized his BB wasn't getting e-mails.

I'm finally calming down after taking a LOT of med's and seeing that everything is coming back online again, although my BB hasn't stopped buzzing from the backup of e-mails that I had waiting in the queue. I expect it to stop anytime then I'll be spending the next 2hr's deleting them all since I've already gone through them all on my laptop client.