Blackberry wizards?

gkainz

gkainz

Final Approach
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Feb 23, 2005
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Arvada, CO
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Display name:
Greg Kainz
Crackberry (Pearl 8100) took a crap tonight - went into reboot loop (well, sort of... two red blinks and a screen flash - no spinning hourglass). Now appears dead on battery, but will repeat that sequence when plugged into the wall charger. Found docs for "reload nuked blackberry" and a few others, works fine until "reinsert the battery" which causes the reboot loop again. What do you guess? Battery went Tango Uniform? or the whole phone?
 
I actually invented the solution to this problem. Lemme go to a computer and post it for you.
 
Ok - these steps came about using Blackberry Desktop Manager 4.2 and Blackberry software 4.2.2.108 (IIRC), so things may have changed since that time.

1. Remove the battery in the blackberry. Do not reenter the battery until the directions say to replace it.

2. Start the Blackberry Desktop Manager

3. Ensure that you have the Blackberry Handheld Software installed, which you can do by going to Help>About>Handheld

4. Start the Application Loader and get to the screen that gives a dropdown where the device is normally listed (it won't be listed).

5. Plug the USB cord into the computer and the Blackberry and watch the drop down. As soon as USB PIN: appears in the dropdown, click next

6. Follow the rest of the Apploader steps without replacing the battery.

7. When the screen says "Waiting for Blackberry Device" (or something similar), replace the battery in your blackberry

8. The hourglass will spin for a long time, possible 20 minutes or more, but when it comes back up, you should have a fresh, blank blackberry, ready to go. Hopefully you backed up your data at some point so you can restore it.

9. If you get "App Error 523" you should call your service provider and have them transfer you to RIM for more help.

Good luck!
 
Thanks, Nick and Ray. Those are, in essence, the steps I followed numerous times last night and today.

On the connect screen, with battery removed, the connection is blank. With battery removed, I plug in the USB. Connect box goes from blank, to USB PIN: Unknown, to USB PIN: <my pin>. (Other instructions I found on line said to click Next on this screen when is displays USB PIN: Unknown, which ended in the same results - fail).

This time I waited until USB PIN: <my pin>, clicked Next, and the connector cycled thru blank and USB PIN: Unknown as the status screen showed "...Connecting to device ARM" During these sequences, windows bells indicated USB device disconnect/connect/disconnect cycles.

The Apploader comes up with system software, core apps, browser and phone checked. Click Next and apploader runs
Load JVM and System Software step
- Erasing
- Loading
Wait for Device Configuration
- Waiting (I reinserted the battery here)
- Reconnecting to JVM (continual windows chime device connect/disconnect)
and then fails with "Unable to reconnect to device during multi-stage load)

Watching Windows Device Manager, I can see the Blackberry appear, disappear and reappear as the phone continues it's boot loop after the battery has been reinstalled, and this continues until I pull the battery, where device manager shows Blackberry again.
 
gkainz said:
and then fails with "Unable to reconnect to device during multi-stage load)
Click to expand...

Is there a number associated with this error? It sounds a lot like App Error 523, which is fatal.
 
Nope - no numbers - just the failed message and unable to connect. Just talked to RIM support again and he concluded that the reboot loop condition when battery is reinserted pretty much points to a hardware failure, and most likely not the battery. I hesitate to borrow or buy another battery, with the fear I'll just kill it if the phone is now bad. ?
 
Wasn't there a note somewhere about reloading without the JVM support just a basic system.

It's been a few months so memory is gone.

I was trying to install a new system software and wound up resetting the thing with version 4.2.2. then trtrying the upgrade to 4.5 which worked the second time.

Good luck
 
Is that blackberry locked down by a corporate system or is it the "standard" blackberry load?
 
there was a note online about running the loader from dos with /nojvm switch ... no difference for me - still get the reboot loop with battery installed.

It's a standard, non-corporate, blackberry 8100. I walked over to the T-Mobile store at lunch yesterday and they stuck a known-good battery in it ... no go. Looks like a deadberry...
 
update - after throwing it in my briefcase in disgust, just out of morbid curiousity, I pulled it out this morning. It's sitting on a white screen with a "No <something> icon" - an icon of a screen or frame containing a circle, square and triangle, and 507 below it. RIM support says that's "no o/s found" which makes sense, because app manager successfully erased to o/s, but looses connection during upload, as the device goes back into reboot loop ...

so, still a dead, unrecoverable berry?
 
ah, good old Navy avionics training. When all else fails, drop check the box. Did so with said dead blackberry and whaddaya know - loader now loads the o/s and apps. A couple of battery resets and it's (cross fingers, knock wood) up and running! Just gotta get thru 4 more months on my t-mobile contract and I think I'm gonna check out the iPhone (or turn my palm treo back on)
 
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