Problem with BlackBerry Pearl

Here's a snap shot into my frustration. This is not an uncommon problem and not the first time I've experienced these kind of woes from a cell phone, however it's the first time I've had these kind of problems for a phone that's gotten such rave reviews and praise, The Blackberry Pearl.

So I got my new Blackberry Pearl home and started checking out all its options... I immediately noticed the things others have said, this is a very attractive, relatively fast, phone that is user friendly. That was until I tried the web browser that comes with the Blackberry Pearl.

I immediately started to miss the Opera Mini browser. So I went over to Opera's website and was happy to see the Blackberry Pearl is supported. I downloaded Opera Mini and then proceeded to use the Blackberry Desktop Application manager to load Opera Mini into the phone. The process takes a long time, a very long time as it was install Opera Mini I noticed it was removing quite a few other applications (I had not requested to remove anything), about 10 minutes later (yes, it took that long), the phone sort of rebooted itself. I discover the Opera icon is now available, but the browser
that came with the phone is now gone.

I try to use the Opera browser and no luck... it runs, but it can't connect. I comb this newsgroup and other on-line resources only to find that I need to change from WAP to ISP, that sounds familure as I had to do it on an old SmartPhone I had, the difference here is that BlackBerry does not have documented how to do this....

So I'm thinking, well this really sucks what next? I call Cingular/ at&t and they are unable to help me, not only that they are rude... So next I turn to the Blackberry website.... Blackberry.com has lots of support documents, of course none of them help me and if I want to contact support for anything I need some kind of subscription account....

Suddenly I realize: this is what I get for buying a consumer phone from a company that is entirely geared for corporate products. RIM (company that produces the Blackberry line of products) has no option for me.

At this point, I just want back the applications the phone came with, so I uninstall Opera Mini, it uninstalls just fine, but unfortunately the Blackberry Browser is gone, and gone are a few other Internet related apps on the phone.

It's apparent the "Blackberry Desktop Manager" running on Windows XP is the responsible for this problem as I saw it removing the applications as it was installing Opera, I questioned then what the hell it was doing, but I had no choice but to let if finish.

Disgusted, I look for a way to "hard reset" the Blackberry Pearl to get it back to the condition it was in when it came out of the box. This option is available on all phones, but not the Blackberry Pearl.

So now it appears due to software engineering problem (the Blackberry Desktop Manager for Windows removing pre-installed "firmware" from the handset when using the Application Loader) and a hardware engineering problem sense the phone has no reset.

To say I'm annoyed is an understatement. Blackberry has an outstanding reputation in the corporate world and this phone has gotten a lot of positive press. I suppose if you're the kind of person who will never install applications like Google Maps or Opera Mini, this phone will make you happy, but I find lack of a "hard reset" feature and lack of any kind of support from the manufacture a real problem.

My quest for "the perfect" phone continues... All I really want is a phone that "just works" that I can also load applications into and perform some kind of restore to get it back to the state it was in when I bought it....apparently that's an impossible task for the Blackberry engineers who spent three years creating the Pearl (which btw doesn't have a power on button either).

Anyway, if you're a professional thinking the Pearl is a the Lexus of cell phones, I would just say there are some real problems preventing this phone from being considered a luxury device. I would classify these as serious problems that should have been worked out before the phone went into consumers hands and this device has been out quite a while.

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Disgusted, I look for a way to "hard reset" the Blackberry Pearl to get it back to the condition it was in when it came out of the box. This option is available on all phones, but not the Blackberry Pearl.

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This is from "Natalie's Blog" (Google's first result from the query "hard reset blackberry pearl")- hope it helps:

'Options / Security Settings / General Settings, then click the Menu button and choose "Wipe Handheld". You will need to type in blackberry to confirm your request but your device should be cleaned off after that!'

Let's see, I'm running Opera Mini, Google Maps, Telenav mapping, and a few others on my Pearl with no problem. Off-hand, I'd have to say you're experience is maybe from user error (I said maybe). Do some research, on http://blackberryforums.pinstack.com...earl_8100.html you can probably get your issues resolved. Good luck.

Thanks. However, I would have been inclined to agree with you, except.... This morning the same thing happened to my wifes Blackberry Pearl. This time around I was able to see more clearly exactly what happened

The problem is definitely in the Blackberry Desktop Manager software that came with the phone, my wife is running this app under Windows Vista, I am running it under Windows XP (SP2), two separate installs of apparently the same version of the software. Here's what it did: When she tried to use the Media Manager to transfer a few mp3 files into the Pearl the Desktop Manager proceeded to remove: TeleNav Map, Browser, MEdia Net and the e-mail setup icons from the device (these are the same applications that were removed from my Pearl when I used Application Loader to install Opera Mini).

It appears after downloading the current version of Blackberry Desktop Manager helped to correct my problem, however this has not helped her, so I am unsure exactly what I did. Before she tried to install the mp3s, she first performed a "back up" operation using the Desktop Manager and I perfromed a restore from her backup instance, to my surprise this did not bring my icons back either.

An an engineering perspective I see RIM's failure here on two parts:
1. They apparently have released bundle software with a critical flaw into the mainstream (we just got our phones yesterday, so my guess you'll hear more about this problem soon).

2. They provide no means to "hard" reset the Pearl device back to its virgin state.

I know someone else provided a link to an article on how to perform a "Handset Wipe", this does not restore the applications on the phone, it does not even truely wipe the registry on the device. RIM has confirm in support articles that there is no "hard reset" for the Pearl and that could make the difference in sending the phone in for service and paying for it or being able to sole a problem yourself. I'm sure former Treo and Windows Mobile SmartPhone users will echo this, it's really beyond annoying, the lack of the feature is forcing me to return an otherwise very nice phone.

I'm to the point now where I hate cell phones and PDA's, it's seems an impossible engineering task for a company to build "the perfect" phone. I know you can't please everyone, but the truth is the Blackberry Pearl seems to be very close, but then I find this one critical engineering flaw. You can't help but wonder what they were thinking when the competition does allow this.

Regarding the Desktop Software bug, I'm a little more inclined to forgive it, simply because it's something they can (and apparently have) corrected, but still these sort of bugs would never end up customers hands if RIM was doing proper Quality Assurance testing and when the two issues are combined a customers handset is rendered "damaged" beyond repair. I'm seeing lack of support, lack of QA. I don't know what RIM does for corporate clients, apparently they are pretty good, but there's no excuse for these sort of problems, in my opinion the failed badly.

This is an update for people following the thread, I'll probably start a new thread to address the solution since RIM and Cingular both failed to help me and both seemed intrigued by my solution (it's always a bad sign when you solve the problem youself while on the phone with support and they perk up and start asking for details of what you did)

My second attempt and contacting Cingular support on this issue at least led to a end, although not a very pleasant of conclusive one. So I was told directly by Cingular and indirectly by RIM that A.) this is a known and common problem related to recently manufactured Blackberry Pearl 8100c handsets and B.) Their workaround is attempt "master reset" and if that fails to work then return the device to the store - or- if it's past 30 days send it in for warranty replacement.

So to clarify the Blackberry Pearl's "wipe handset" feature does not restore the device to its out-of-the-box, "virgin" state and RIM support confirmed there is no feature on the Blackberry Pearl to accomplish this. So your only hope should you run into this problem is to restore the device from a backup. That is assuming, you took the effort to make a backup prior to any of the problems, if you didn't you have no choice except to return the handset..... and that's a very significant weakness of the Blackberry Pearl in comparison to other SmartPhones running: PalmOS, Windows Mobile and Symbian OS, they all have a true out-of-box reset feature built into the hardware... and
their desktop sync software doesn't eat the phones firmware either.

When you get your near Pearl to insure this doesn't happen, just avoid the Blackberry Desktop Manager on the CD-ROM that came with the phone and instead go to Cingular's website and download the current version.... make sure you make a backup using Blackberry Desktop Manager prior to: loading applications, media or syncing the phone with your PC and make sure you let Blackberry Desktop Manager install the OS system update to the phone (it will do this automatically).

Should be noted: Cingular and RIM failed to properly support this issue. I truly believe they (RIM advanced support) were updating their support information database with this information as I was providing it to them and that's just sad, because they acknowledged it was a known problem.....