BBhorrigan

Transporter

2011-07-11T09:07:00.001-07:00

BES Transporter online mode can cause massive problems if going from server 2008 BES to server 2003 sp2. Make sure the network comp ability patch is not applied, or you will end up reactivating a massive amount of users.

Android vs win7

2010-11-18T06:39:00.001-08:00

I think it is really interesting that we are finally starting to have some movement on the up and coming win7 mobile and android front. Now as a BlackBerry fan-boy, I will always tell you that a BlackBerry does not fit directly against those two devices as the BlackBerry fits a different role that is out of context of this post. But basically, a BlackBerry to me, is and always will be a enterprise device. Until one of those devices comes out with a enterprise server model that sits inside my corporate firewall, I am not interested. ( and no, the APNS bullshit does not count, apple does not get how corporate America works when it comes to IT and compliance )

I think corporate wise, MS has a huge lead in understanding the thinking of the IT environment. Let me explain, traditionally two things really defined what your company's IT department was going to look like. Cost and efficiency. Everything was a by product of this. When you think about this logically, it is going to be really hard to sell people like me on an android open source initiative. Microsoft is the defacto standard when it comes to enterprise platform. Now what does this have to do with the mobile platform? Well...Everything

Microsoft has proven that they are able to take an enterprise product (exchange, SQL, share point, Windows Server, Windows client etc etc:) and make it a standard. So when companies are going to try to make a mobile platform secure and standard, they are going to look to companies with a track record of success, and it is going to be hard to look back Microsoft dominance in this field. We'll see how it plays out though.

On a side note, RIM thank you for sticking up for the Enterprise and basically telling UAE to go fuck themselves if they wanted access to the RIM NOC. I mean, what did they expect to do with the information anyway? I mean honestly, its not like you actually hold any encryption keys.

Seriously

Part 1

2010-05-20T09:46:00.001-07:00

Review of WA25: Best Practices for deploying the BlackBerry Enterprise Server with Microsoft exchange.

I was recently at WES and got the pleasure to sit in on a session co-hosted by Microsoft. The takeaways from this session were to give best practices for Exchange/BES, dispel some rumors, support concepts behind upgrading to Exchange 2010 and go into detail about the interaction between Microsoft Exchange and the BlackBerry Enterprise server. They opened the session by asking the audience a simple question. Compared to outlook, how does a BlackBerry measure up when it comes to taxing exchange? They had some hands at 3/1, some hands at 5/1 and some at 10/1. At that point, they explained that a BlackBerry taxes the exchange server the exact same way that outlook does. After showing some examples and evidence, it became very apparent this was going to be a very eye opening session.
It seemed very apparent that they were going to push home the fact that the BlackBerry client was having the same impact on MS exchange that an outlook client was having. Now the first thing that concerned me was this was not some misconception; this is something that RIM had said in the past. They then went on to explain that in their past data they had assumed the worst-case scenario. They pointed to the fact that the database IOPS was equivalent, on a per user basis to Microsoft outlook, no 3x, or 5x as prior rumors and thoughts.
At this point, they opened the session up to Robert, who talked about shifts in the industry and some opportunities and challenges that the people at Microsoft and RIM were coming across. Since Exchange 2003, disk capacity (through both cost and size of drives) has grown dramatically. Sequential throughput increasing linearly based on areal density. A point Robert had made was that they did not really expect I/O performance to improve substantially and that at this time, they think that 15k RPM (which in my opinion, is still blazing fast) to be the ceiling.
The industry is quickly shifting in the pro user direction. Users are sending more attachments; users are going to want larger mailboxes. From a display of hands in the room, it seemed like a 1 gig mailbox was the standard, but it seems as if they trend is going to be towards moving mailbox limits upwards to the 10gig size and forward. Employee’s want everything online and searchable. They wanted increased message size, less effort organizing and maintaining your mailbox.
From here, Jeff was introduced to talk about some Exchange concepts. He opened with a quick explanation of ESE which is Extensible Storage Engine, Transaction-based database engine used by Exchange, Active Directory, various other Windows components ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms684493%28EXCHG.10%29.aspx) He went into detail about how the data is written in exchange. An interesting point that he made is that transactions are actually written to memory, then written to disk, as obviously it is much quicker to pull from memory then from the disk. Pulling from memory has no tax, versus disk I/O. This typically uses a large amount of RAM. Changes can exist in ESE cache and transaction logs for a period of time before modified pages are flushed to disk (bounded by checkpoint depth) If something is missed in Cache, results in it being read from the db sitting on the disk.
The next slide that Jeff got into was how they minimized Exchange I/O from 2003, to 2007 and even in 2010. The first point was that they had moved into a 64-bit address space so they now had a large database cache. He also made a point to explain that they were moving to larger writes when they did have to write to the database. They are moving towards the idea that they want to have less writes to the database. In the future, they want to have increased checkpoint depth, which means that they do not want to write the same information repeatedly. Some other improvements are
• Increased checkpoint depth
• Repetitive writes of the same page
• DB write smoothing & throttling = reduced transaction latency
• Exchange store database schema
• Lazy view updates = sequential I/O for
• Cache compression = more effective cache utilization

Harping on the point that Microsoft has made significant changes from 2007 to 2010, Jeff pointed out that just because something held true in exchange 2003 or 2007, that it might not hold true in 2010. They gave us a sample DAG deployment, which explained some of the concepts that he had been talking about in previous slides.

WES 2010

2010-01-25T12:13:00.000-08:00

So it looks like I will be attending WES again this year. Should be interesting, from what I hear looks like there is going to be some ground breaking stuff going down, although if we've learned from lotus sphere this year, what we consider ground breaking and what IBM does are two different things.

bes 5.0 service pack 1 is live

2009-12-07T07:41:00.001-08:00

bes 5.0 service pack 1 is live

Big whoop

Service pack 7 is out

2009-11-18T10:46:00.000-08:00

4.1.7 is live!

Microsoft pissed me off today

2009-10-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

I just don't understand microsoft's thinking.

so Windows Server 2008r2 is not supported for exchange 2007, but windows server 2008 is supported, and MS has no plans to offically support this version of exchange with windows server 2008 r2. Are you fucking kidding me microsoft. I'm so fucking mad right now. I jumped through your stupid fucking hoops for what? why do I even bother upgrading anything if you are not even going to make your own software supported through server 2k8 r2. Now your wondering why this pisses me off so much.

Because exchange 2010 is supported for windows server 2008r2, so is microsoft saying everyone who just upgrade to exchange 2007 from 2003 is going to have to move to 2010 right away?!?

This is bullshit.

Umm RIM WTF?

2009-09-24T12:21:00.001-07:00

Umm.... seriously?

you couldn't come up with a better way to organize IT policies then this cluster fuck? Honestly, the boxes don't even come close to lining up. This is really, really sad.

BES 5 service pack 1

2009-09-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

Wow, Monitoring.

Well I've been using BES 5 service pack one for about 2 weeks now, and I have to say this is a really good job by rim addressing some really fundamental issues. It seems like RIM is basiclly putting Boxtone out of buisness, which is good, because BoxTone sucks.
These are the changes that Ive noticed. .

*monitoring has been changed, and is now working correctly, also the Alarm panel and alerts are working correctly.
*Made some graphical changes, and from what I've noticed, you don't get logged out anymore for creating it policies and software configs like you use to. Thank God
*The BlackBerry API is now packaged in with BES so you dont have to install a separate package.
*Seems to be loading a lot faster in certain areas, especially during user adds and removes.
* Made some changes to MDS, but still working like crap as far as I can tell.
* Also, When rim came in initially they told us about LDAP integration, but for the life of me I still cant find it. You do need LDAP integration for the web desktop manager, but they still rely heavily on blackberry groups, with no signs of ldap integration in the future.

Good stuff to know

2009-09-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

Acronym Description
ESN
Electronic serial number
The ESN is a unique number that identifies a BlackBerry Smartphone for Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and Mobitex® networks. The ESN is printed on the label on the back of the BlackBerry Smartphone underneath the battery.
The first section of the ESN is the service provider distinction code assigned by the Governing Body for Wireless Communications. The second section of the ESN is the serial number of the BlackBerry Smartphone.
The ESN is comparable to the IMEI, which is used to identify BlackBerry smart phones for other networks.
MEID
Mobile Equipment Identifier
The MEID identifies a BlackBerry Smartphone for CDMA and Mobitex networks. It was created to replace ESNs, which are nearing exhaustion.
ICCID
Integrated Circuit Card Identifier
An ICCID is a unique number assigned to each SIM card. To see the ICCID on the BlackBerry Smartphone, go to Options > SIM Card.
IMEI
International Mobile Equipment Identity
The International Mobile Equipment Identity is a unique number that identifies a particular piece of wireless equipment (for example, a BlackBerry Smartphone).
It is 15 digits long. The IMEI is printed on the label on the back of a BlackBerry Smartphone for Global System for Mobile communications® (GSM®)/General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) networks.
The IMEI is comparable to the ESN, which is used to identify BlackBerry smart phones for CDMA and Mobitex networks.
IMSI
International Mobile Subscriber Identity
An IMSI is a unique number that identifies a SIM card. It is 15 digits long and is made up of a 3-digit country code, a 3-digit service provider code, and a 9-digit unique ID.
PIN
Personal identification number
A PIN is a unique number that identifies a BlackBerry Smartphone. It is printed on the label on the back of the BlackBerry Smartphone underneath the battery.
SIM
Subscriber Identity Module
A SIM card is a smart card that identifies the subscriber, the service provider, and the mobile phone number. It is inserted into the BlackBerry Smartphone.
Not all wireless networks use SIM cards (for example, CDMA does not).

HRT is the Host Routing Tables. It is entries sent from the Carrier.
When you highlight the above entry and hit register now, it registers it with the wireless network. Updates the device details onto the rim relay and sends down carrier specific icons or applicants.

PIM this stands for Personal Information Management. A PIM handles your address book, calendar, tasks, and notes. A BlackBerry has PIM because it has these. Your desktop Microsoft Outlook is a PIM software program. Macintosh users have Entourage, as well as simpler PIM components such as iCal. PIM's are frequently designed to synchronize to each other, such as between a BlackBerry and Microsoft Outlook.
Synchronization; is used to maintain the same version of files on multiple computing devices. For example, calendars and address books
On a Blackberry need to be synchronized with the PIM on a computer.
Short Message Service (SMS) is a communications protocol allowing the interchange of short text messages between mobile telephones. SMS text messaging is the most widely used data application on the planet.

Multimedia Messaging Service, MMS for short, is a cellular protocol standard for sending messages that include multimedia objects (images, audio, video, rich text).

Bluetooth is a wireless protocol utilizing short-range communications technology facilitating data transmission over short distances from fixed and/or mobile devices, creating wireless personal area networks. (PANs).

Wi-Fi Is the trade name for the popular wireless technology used in home networks, mobile networks, video games and other electronic devices that require some form of wireless networking capability
BIS stands for Blackberry Internet Service. Basically, this is a service from your provider that lets you receive email and access the internet on personal Blackberries
BES: Blackberry Enterprise server. Connects to messaging and collaboration software: Microsoft exchange, Lotus Domino, Novell GroupWise, on enterprise networks to synchronize email and PIM Information between desktop and mobile software. Coincidentally, "bes" also happens to be the Dutch word for "berry"
Also referred to as BES setup i.e.. Are you setup BIS or BES?

WAP: Wireless application protocol: used in network communications in a wireless environment. Its main use is to enable access to the Internet from a mobile phone or PDA.
A WAP browser provides all of the basic services of a computer based web browser but simplified to operate within the restrictions of a mobile phone, such as its smaller view screen. WAP sites are websites written in, or dynamically converted to,WML (Wireless Markup Language) and accessed via the WAP browser. Also known as mobile access websites.

bes 5.0 nightmare

2009-06-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

Well BES 5.0, so far anyway, sucks. It sucks to get set up, the interface sucks, the it policy area looks like something that was designed as a rough draft on a white board and then just put into the product and so many other issues I really can't list them all.

got my 8900

2009-06-15T13:19:00.001-07:00

So far so good, really enjoying the 5.0 OS

Would you move to BES 5.0

2009-06-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

Honestly,

Is the ability to move flagged messages, forward calendar appointments, really that ground breaking? accessing public folders ( which by the way, Microsoft is getting rid of anyway, or moving away from and towards sharepoint ) really going to make you move to a platform that we have proven isn't very stable and well documented?

For me and my clients, so far that answer is a resounding no.

BlackBerry Enterprise Transporter

2009-06-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

So lets talk about the Transporter

The transporter has two different modes

In live mode, you can move user accounts when the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server instances
in both the destination BlackBerry Domain and the source BlackBerry Domain are running. If
you choose this mode, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server instances in both BlackBerry Domain
instances must use different SRP IDs.
In this mode, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server instances in the destination BlackBerry Domain
must be running. This must occur so that the BlackBerry Enterprise Transporter can monitor
the organizer data synchronization and calendar synchronization processes and IT
administration commands (such as Resend IT Policy or Switch Service) that the destination
BlackBerry Enterprise Server instances send to the BlackBerry devices to complete the
migration process.

In bulk mode, you can move all user accounts on a BlackBerry Enterprise Server. During the
migration process, you must turn off the BlackBerry Enterprise Server instances in both the
source BlackBerry Domain and the destination BlackBerry Domain. In the destination
BlackBerry Domain, however, you must turn on the BlackBerry Administration Service.

BRK issues

2009-06-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

So BRK 4.1.6 has issues that RIM knows about and refuses to fix for whatever reason. Either they don't have developers to do it, or they are pushing everyone towards BES 5.0. Whatever the reason is, it really is sad that they won't even publish a KB article addressing the problem. So many companies have build entire infrastructure around this software, and to not acknowledge this problem is lame to say the least.

SMS log parser

2009-05-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

I'm currently writing a code to parse sms logs and pull them out for specific users. If you want to beta test this for me, let me know.

my WES expierance

2009-05-26T11:13:00.001-07:00

Keep in mind, I'm not a very good writer.

For month’s I knew I would be going to WES. And honestly, I figured it was only a wireless conference. It won’t be a big deal. I will learn about some BlackBerry stuff. Then I read about the people from the support forums going too. I got excited and scared, either this is going to go really well, or no one is going to talk and we are just going to chat away on our BlackBerry’s.

I arrived at WES at around 2:00pm (my flight was delayed, we sat on the tarmac for two hours while they fixed something with the plane, then got on a new plane, it was a nightmare). I finally arrived at WES. I walked into my hotel room, threw down my bags and headed on down to the conference area. I meet up with my company’s rim contacts at the lounge and chatted about BES for awhile. Then I get really anxious and want to meet some people from the community. So I email Knottyrope, and after some confusion (ok seriously, he said I’m wearing a blue shirt, that is really the best you can do, there has to be 6000 people at this conference, and you tell me to meet you in the conference lobby, which is like a football stadium, and tell me you are wearing a blue shirt?) Finally after 6 or 7 emails I find Knottyrope and we chat for awhile. We decide to see what kind of trouble we can get into, so we wander down the hall to see Jsanders and bumblepie walking towards us.

I knew Jsanders from face book, but I had no idea bumblepie looked like. Right away my first fear of it being awkward was alleviated, and we began to chat away from the beginning. So we chat for a bit, we meet up with some people from blackberryforums.com and some boxtone people. Then I have to go set up my company’s booth at the solutions showcase. So I get in and set up our laptops and get the demo scripts ready, the solution showcase opens. The only way I can describe it is like black Friday at a Wal-mart. There were so many people coming in to check out the solutions. I took some time to walk around and check out what other people were doing. I was most impressed with Google and Zenprise. Google made a HUGE announcement with their BES connector. So after that, we went upstairs and we all hung out in the lounge for awhile. After a few drinks, I headed back to my room. I went to bed at about midnight because I wanted to be up early the next day.

The next day, after sitting at the booth for 8 hours, I wandered up to the support forums party and met the crew. When I first saw Krypto, my first thought was, “ Krypto looks like my little sister”. I honestly thought Krypto was a guy up until WES. But in my defense, it’s really hard to read what someone’s sex is from the technical forums. Then I saw a table that had enough empty liquor bottles to build a fort. I assumed this is where Andy was sitting. I walk over and say hello to Michelle and Greg again. They introduce me to the gang. Tanzim was on his BlackBerry for the first 10 minutes I met him, which is understandable, I’m the same way. So we start drinking, chatting, and making jokes. So I see jmrmb80, and I ask the question that everyone wants to know. What the heck does your name stand for. He explains it to me, but makes me promise if I tell anyone he can kill me. ( no seriously though, its just his name initials or something, I think. I was pretty intoxicated at that point. )

So after we leave the party, I head back to my room to do some work. I reboot a server, and then head down to see will.i.am. He put on a really good show. I found Andy, but I was not able to find anyone else. It was a pretty big room. So after I head upstairs to the boxtone lounge, where we really got to know each other. It was a really good time to just chat, and talk about the future of the support community. Unfortunately, I don’t remember anything about this conversation because I had enough liquor to kill a small herd of elephants. I think I told Michelle I didn’t like her at first, but I don’t really remember.

So enter Wednesday, and I am at the booth all day and in and out of sessions. I meet up with Andy Bumblepie and Jsanders and we walk around and chat for awhile. We agree to meet up at the ATT party later. So I hit some more sessions. Its around 6 o’clock and me and my boss decide to catch a cab over to the ATT party. We got the ATT party and they had fantastic finger foods. We watch Kenny Logins rock out. He played all the hits. Well, by all the hits, he played that song from top gun, and foot loose. After ATT I said goodbye to everyone as I was leaving the next day. I ended up saying goodbye and hello, because we kept ending up at the same place. So we all end up at Planet Hollywood, which was my favorite experience from WES. We just sat around and talked. We celebrated bumblepie’s 21st birthday. We got her a lot of shots, and as far as I know, she slept for the next 20 hours after that. So around 1am, I headed back to my hotel room WES was pretty much over for me. It was an amazing experience. It was much more then some techies getting together to talk about nerd stuff. It was people who shared a passion for technology and helping people, finding other people who felt the same way. It was refreshing. To all those that couldn’t make it, you were well represented and spoken about.

SQL screw up

2009-05-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

Screw up

noun

1. a serious mistake; blunder; mess
2. a person who screws up

So I came into work today to hear that a SQL cluster had been down for 2 days, making it so no one in this fortune 500 company was getting BES email for 2 days. How does this happen. How can any company not have any measures in place to prevent this from happening? is it gross incompetence or is it just lazy. Are you going to tell me you don't notice type of stuff.

In other news, I've been doing work with bes 5.0 lately, I'm not really impressed. Does not seem very user friendly. The framework engine is crap, and the user portal isn't much better. Service pack 1 in September though.

where do i even start

2009-05-11T11:03:00.000-07:00

WES was one the best events I've ever been to, I learned so much about so many different aspects about this business in a short amount of time. I learned about the new blackberry's, BES 5.0, and whats next for the mobile industry. I met and talked to all of Tangoe's competition. All I've really learned though is.

Tangoe is the future.

WES 2009

2009-05-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

So far everything is great, I've seen some great sessions and met up with some great people.

I finally met jsanders, knottyrope (who's a lunatic) and a bunch of great 3101 people. Got some great business cards, and look forward to getting some more tomorrow.

Make sure you stop by Tangoe's Booth if you want to meet up

2009-05-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

I'll be Tangoe's booth , I will be posting booth number soon. Come over and lets talk BlackBerry.

Exchange Server 2010

2009-04-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

Looks pretty solid, I just downloaded the beta test and look forward to messing around with it. I hear release date this year end time?

How to fix when you can't get agents to restart

2009-04-23T06:04:00.000-07:00

So generally when you have an agent that wont restart 10 times, there is no way to get the agent to restart. Reboots, restarting to dispatcher etc: The only way to get it to restart is to go into the bes logs, and rename the bes logs, like OLD_BES_LOG. The way we were able to figure this out by looking at the BES log and seeing at the end of the log it would actually say END OF LOG.

WES

2009-04-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

So looks like I'm going to be meeting up with some port3101 peeps at WES, look forward to meeting some people and seeing how they run their environments.

BES 5.0 coming soon

2009-04-22T13:35:00.000-07:00

Taken from

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/deliverables/7335/New_BES_features_50_656131_11.jsp

Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition

BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0 supports Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. The setup application can install Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition if your organization's environment does not already include a database server.

Support for Windows Server® 2008

BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0 supports Windows Server 2008.

Hell fucking yes!

BES 5.0

2009-04-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

So RIM came in today and talked to us about bes 5.0 for about three hours. I am going to say, it is getting really exciting, the current package is looking like it is the gold package they are going to go with.

More to come

how to set up OCS

2009-03-09T13:02:00.000-07:00

Love this guy

http://unified-communications.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-configure-your-bes-server-to.html?showComment=1233953220000#c4217927056315361416

How BES gets email to your handheld

2009-02-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

Going through plenty of BES logs lately, I have noticed a pattern that I am going to try to explain briefly. It seems that people don't understand why it is a bad idea that a large percentage of your messages are being delivered via rescan, and not by notification. I am going to try to explain this in more detail.

Notification- This is when the BES See's that a new message has gone into your mailbox, it then sends the message to your handheld through the rim infrastructure and you get it on your handheld.
ReScan- This is when BES does a rescan of the users mailbox every 15 minutes or so, and then notices that a message has not been marked sent to the handheld, and then is sent to the handheld.

Now obviously, the notification should be the one that always happens, but with the exchange environment getting overloaded, sometimes things need to get picked up with the rescan. Now the problem we get into, is when companies start to depend on the rescan. Then you start seeing things like mail clumping and latency issues. There is a BRK that you can run that can assist you with this information is messageflow. The general accepted rule is that your rescan % should not be more then, at the very worst of 20%, I would even say 15%. So no more then 20% of the total messages sent to your BlackBerry should be delivered via rescan

Software configs suck

2009-02-02T09:13:00.000-08:00

I'm so happy that in BES 5.0 they are totally changing how they do software config's. I have such a huge problem with how confusing and inconsistent software config's are. Let me give you an example. Earlier, in one of the test enviroments we have at my office, one of the developers created a software config. Now he assumed that all you have to do is add the files to the directory and then load that directory through the BES.

How silly of him...

First you have to index the files, then you have to make sure you don't have duplicate names of the directory's. And then finally you have to make sure that none of the files in the directorys have the same name, or the new software config will not show up.

BES 5.0 april 1st?

SQL express 2005

2009-01-29T22:14:00.001-08:00

Alright I am going to try to keep this brief as I have been cursing and ranting about sql server express 2005, and most people who I talk to are just tired of me talking about it. This version of SQL was designed for local use. And be default, will not allow incoming tcp/ip connections. You have to make a bunch of changes on the sql server to make it talk on port 1433 ( or whatever port you are using) So after downloading this, and trying to get it work for a few hours. I said screw it and downloaded the standard version. Beware though, if you are installing BES and looking for a version of SQL. Stay away from sql Express 2005. It is going to cause you many headaches. Props to this guy for a great guide

http://nerds-central.blogspot.com/2008/03/developing-sql-2005-applications-on-sql.html

Hidden Blackberry Features

2009-01-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure who wrote this, but a co-worker Kyle emailed me this back a few months ago and I found it really useful, some of these I didn't know

Advanced Enterprise Activation Settings

ALT-CNFG In Options -> Advanced Options -> Enterprise Activation Settings for Enterprise Activation

Address Book

ALT-VALD In address book list Validate the data structure and look for inconsistencies

ALT-RBLD In address book list Force a data structure rebuild

Browser

ALT-RBVS Any HTML/WML webpage View web page source code

Calendar

ALT+VIEW Inside any Calendar item Show extra info for a Calendar event

(for these, just type the letters on the appropriate screen)

SYNC Calendar app>Options Enable Calendar slow sync

RSET Calendar app>Options Will prompt for a reload of the calendar from the BES

RCFG Calendar app>Options Request BES configuration

SCFG Calendar app>Options Send device configuration

DCFG Calendar app>Options Get CICAL configuration

SUPD Calendar app>Options Enable detailed Cal. report for backup

SUPS Calendar app>Options Disable detailed Cal. report for backup

SUPN Calendar app>Options Disable Cal. report database

LUID Calendar app>Options Enable view by UID

SRSL Calendar app>Options Show Reminder status log

Messaging

ALT + VIEW For messages, displays the RefId and FolderId for that particular message. For PIM items, displays only the RefId.

Search Application

ALT-ADVM Search Application - Enabled Advanced Global Search

MMS

MMSC Options > MMS - Show MMS hidden options

Home Screen

ALT-JKVV Home Screen - Display cause of PDP reject

ALT + CAP + H Home Screen - Displays the Help Me screen

ALT + NMLL Home Screen - Switches the signal strength from bars to a numeric value

ALT + LGLG Home Screen - Displays the Java™ event log.

WLAN

ALT-SMON WLAN Wizard Screen - Enable Simulated Wizard mode

ALT-SMOF WLAN Wizard Screen - Disable Simulated Wizard mode

Theme

ALT-THMN Any menu - Change to no theme (B&W)

ALT-THMD Any menu - Change to default theme

Date/Time

LOLO Options -> Date/Time - Show Network time values

SIM Card

MEPD Options > Advanced Options > SIM card - Display MEP info

MEP1 Options > Advanced options>SIM card - Disable SIM personalization

MEP2 Options > Advanced options>SIM card - Disable Network personalization

MEP3 Options > Advanced options>SIM card - Disable Network subset personalization

MEP4 Options > Advanced options>SIM card - Disable Service provider personalization

MEP5 Options > Advanced options>SIM card - Disable Corporate personalization

Other Useful Commands
*#06# Home Screen - Displays your device's international mobile equipment identity (IMEI - your serial number) on-screen
ALT-CAP-DEL Any menu – Soft Reset (“battery pull”)

Troubleshooting process for BES email

2009-01-23T07:27:00.000-08:00

I’ve read a lot of posts of people not getting email from BES, so I figured I’d throw together some of the common things I do when I user tells me they can’t get email on the device, I hope it helps, feel free to respond with anything and I will add it

Common reasons why users will stop getting email on BES.

If you have a user who has stopped receiving email, and they are activated on a blackberry enterprise server, these are some of the common trouble shooting steps that might help.

Is the blackberry able to send email?

*If it is not, open that email message and scroll to the very top and take that error message, it could say one of many things, some of the more common messages are:

“Service blocked” this will indicate that on the carriers side, the user has had something change on his data side and needs to speak to the carrier to get it resolved. Another great way to check, is have the user navigate to Options/advanced options/enterprise activation, if this is gone, it means that for some reason he was removed from the Blackberry enterprise data plan by his carrier.

http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB02169&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_SUPPORTISSUE_1_1&dialogID=8422102&stateId=0%200%208420543

“Desktop email program was unable to submit message” This is a issue with your BES, the first thing I would check to see if the Blackberry router is running, and possibly restarting it if it is. This could also indicate though the use is having permissions issues, or has a full mailbox.

http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB04422&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_SUPPORTISSUE_1_1&dialogID=8422083&stateId=0%200%208420538

“Unlisted message error” This is also a BES issue and can be one of a few different things, it usually means for some reason or another, the blackberry device is unable to access the email client. It could be a service book, could be a permissions issue.

http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB04157&sliceId=SAL_Public&dialogID=31876869&stateId=1%200%2031878629

*If it is able to send email,

The first thing I usually check, is the date and time set correctly? Very common issue, your blackberry can not receive email if your date and time are set correctly.

Have you tried to pull the battery from the device? This is a very common fix; a reset will fix this problem a lot of the times.

Make sure the user is actually set up to get his mail from desktop secure, open up one his received and sent messages and make sure they come from desktop secure, I’ve seen a lot of users who have an enterprise data plan, but use the setup wizard and don’t actually use the BES but set up there web mail for example to get mail.

Do they have any filters set up? It is very common for users to attempt to set up filters on the devices, and accidentally set it up so they don’t get any emails at all.

Are they over any assigned mail quota rules? In some environments, if you are over your mail quota, your blackberry will not be able to receive email on the device. Sometimes you will even get a send message informing you that you are over quota, but I’ve seen people not get this message also.

Have you gotten any email in your email client? If the mail server is down, the blackberry is unable to receive messages.

*After trying most of these basic steps and the user is unable to get email still, I usually try the following steps.

If you have access to the BES, check to see when the most recent contact time is, if it is not anytime recent, are their multiple users this is affecting?

Does the user have any pending messages? If it does, it means that the device is attempting to send the messages to the device but is unable to for some reason.

Check filters again from the BES side this time, make sure that even on the BES the user does not have any filters set up, and that if they do, they are set up correctly, also check the "if none of these filters apply box, send message to handheld" box to make sure it is set to true, but I would most likely just remove the filter at this point.

If you open PIM sync, is wireless reconcile enabled?

Has the user been moved to a different mail store/server? A lot of the time, you will have to do a reload user to his BES account

On the users device, have them navigate to Settings/options/advanced options/service book and delete the following three service books.

sync

cmime

cical

Wait 10 seconds and confirmed he deleted them, then re send those from the BES manager, have the user watch the enterprise activation screen, and when it says complete, see if the user is able to get mail now. This can take a few minutes to pull down.

If there contact time is good, when is the last time the user received and email according to the BES?

Has anything changed on his email side that is of importance? I have had it happen to me so many times, you do all this troubleshooting, and then the user says, “Oh and by the way, my mail server is down, is that going to cause a problem?”

Some quick server stuff you can check

Are all the necessary blackberry services running?

There are a lot of these, but there are two that are quick checks

*blackberry dispatcher

*blackberry router
*blackberry synchronization service

Great list here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_Enterprise_Server

Did your mail servers or domain environment recently have changes done? Allot of the time, this requires either a BES reboot, or some services restarted, just something to keep in mind.

Do allot of users have a high amount of pending messages? This could indicate your BES is having latency issues, and you might want to investigate this further.

Article on pending messages

http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB13516&sliceId=2&docTypeID=DT_SUPPORTISSUE_1_1&dialogID=8428129&stateId=0%200%208424364

If all this fails, you might have to have the blackberry user back up the data on his device, remove his account from the server, waiting for it to leaving pending delete and then readd his account (Check your mail environment for more specific instructions, for example, domino you might have to go in and manually remove the state database)

Once again this is stuff that you can check just by having access to the BES manager, this is by no means a server troubleshooting guide, just some stuff I do on an everyday basis, I hope its help to someone.

WES

2009-01-22T13:49:00.000-08:00

So it looks like I am going to WES from my company, I'm pretty excited they are going to have more information on the upcoming BES 5.0 ( I refuse to call it Argon) And hopefully I'll get a chance to see what other companies are doing out there for wireless solutions.

BES 5.0

2009-01-22T08:09:00.000-08:00

removed