BlackBerry 9780 email update issues?

A few days ago I was setting up a new email address on my BlackBerry 9780 so went in to the setup menu on the phone and in to the Email Account Setup application. My 9780 went off to check for updates and came back with an available download taking me from version 6.0 to 6.11.0419.0755. I downloaded the update which installed and ran the email setup adding my new account. So far so good.

However, a little while later I did a battery swap on the phone and so rebooted the 9780. Waiting patiently for the phone to restart, we all know BlackBerry’s take a while from a cold boot, I waited 5 minutes, then 10 and then another 10 etc. The phone simply failed to boot.

This forced me to connect the 9780 to my PC and reinstall the OS from scratch. This is annoying but not a massive problem as I’m pretty good at taking a full backup of the phone quite frequently. About an hour later I was back to square one, phone was working but minus the new email account. Back in to settings, email account setup and I’m offered the email update once again. This time I said NO to the update. But having done that you cant then setup the new email account. Annoying!

I figure I’ll give it another go, maybe something went wrong the first time. Download and install the update and reboot again. The 9780 once again refuses to boot and it back to an OS restore.

At this point I’m giving up on adding the new email account, I’m pretty annoyed but put it down to the update perhaps net being fully compatible with my Vodafone PAYG BlackBerry.

Unbeknown to me on Thursday Tracy gets presented with the offer of the update on her SIM-free (unlocked) 9780. She downloads and reboots then finds that her phone gets stuck in a Application Error 603 loop and fails to boot also requiring a full OS restore to get it back to normal.

James too attempts the update last night on his 9780 which is SIM-free and also gets the non-booting problem.

SO the purpose of this post, not to set everyone in to a blind panic but to caution you in respect of this update (see the screen shot above) and also to remind you that when you download any software/firmware update on any device it’s a REALLY good idea to make sure you’ve back everything up. With the BlackBerry I’d suggest connecting to the BlackBerry Desktop software and running a full backup and maybe also installing BlackBerry Protect (which is free) on the phone itself.

Any of you out there experienced this same issues? If yes OR know please tell us which version you are going from/to and what network the phone is on etc. Anything that will help RIM find the issue, we’ve already raised it with our contact there.

DON’T PANIC, just be careful!

Posted by: Matt