Re: Problems with Storm???
LOWFLYER
Contributor - Level 2

Really sorry you two are having problems with your Storm, again it's a known issue and VZW is not to blame for the bad product, RIM is.  Now, it sounds like some of the customer service you've been receiving is lacking and every customer has their own opinion on how they should be treated and not all are treated the same.  A lot of it has to do with your attitude when you call.  If you're all upset at VZW that your phone isn't working and you take it out on them they're less likely to be of assistance.  I can only speak from experience that 99% of the time when I call VZW I feel like I'm their only customer and they take care of me.

 

Now, as far as your phones are concerned, I would personally take both of those phones back to VZW and ask them to reload the OS for you which completely erases the phone (EVERYTHING) and starts you from square 1 and then follow the simple maintenance practices I have outlined below and see if that doesn't better your Storm experience.  I have had mine since April knowing it was a crapshoot on buying a phone with a 67% return rate, but I have had great success and I believe it's b/c I go an extra step to make sure it's always running efficiently as possible.  I personally believe that huge return rate is due to lack of education on the consumer side on how to properly operate these handsets and the blame for that lays on the VZW employees who sell these phones and fail to tell the customer that doing little things like CLOSING out of applications is necessary to keep it from being overwhelmed....(my service person told me this when I bought it, thank gawd.)  

 

So lets see if we can better your BB experience.  First take your phones to be wiped, completely, OS reload from your local store.  Be sure to back up your contacts at home before doing so.  Then follow the below instructions and let us know how it's going.  

 

To keep your BB running smooth, simple maintenance practices are necessary to get the best BB experience. Think of your BB as a computer that after a while gets bogged down if too many programs are running or memory is running low. This is tailored to Storm users, but general navigation and benefit should be relative to all BBs. Here's how.

1. During general use CLOSE using the BB menu button (spotted button) out of everything you do from programs to desktop menu icons, do not escape with the 180 back arrow or red button. Why? Because open programs or applications take up valuable resources/memory and in some cases cause extra battery drainage; think Weatherbug or BerryWeather. How do I know if everything is closed? From your home screen hold down your BB menu button until a row of icons comes up, all you should have is: Home, BB IM, Message Envelope, Call Icon, and Browser Icon.

2. On a DAILY basis, soft reset your device with a free application such as "Quickpull" or pull your battery out to bring your phone back to its peak operating efficiency. This is like restarting your computer and will also solve many issues or errors you might run into while using this device. So if something is not working, you've got no sound, the phone is very sluggish, whatever the case may be, a soft reset on your handheld will a lot of times be just the cure you're looking for.  A free app such as "Quickpull" will allow you to schedule resets which I like to do in the a.m. before I wake up for a fresh phone.

3. On a weekly basis, clean your memory by going to Options>Security Options>Memory Cleaning>BB menu button>clean now. You can set memory cleaning to automatically clean at a certain threshold if you're so inclined. Also, from the home screen in landscape mode hit BB menu button>bring up your keyboard>type "/"/ >BB menu button>Clear Log>Delete.

4. On a weekly basis, clear your browser cache by opening your browser>BB menu button>Cache Operations>Clear history.

 

Hope this helps and keep us posted.

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Re: Problems with Storm???
Not applicable

Wow!  I'll give all this a try.  I have had the OS reinstalled by Verizon 3 or 4 times, which is what I was trying to explain - resetting it to the factory defaults.  To date, this has not resolved my issues, but with the addition of your other suggestions, I hope it does the trick!

 

I appreciate your assistance.

 

Thank you!

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Re: Problems with Storm???
LOWFLYER
Contributor - Level 2

MountainGirl wrote:

Wow!  I'll give all this a try.  I have had the OS reinstalled by Verizon 3 or 4 times, which is what I was trying to explain - resetting it to the factory defaults.  To date, this has not resolved my issues, but with the addition of your other suggestions, I hope it does the trick!

 

I appreciate your assistance.

 

Thank you!


 

Thank YOU for keeping an open mind.  Understand I don't make any promises, but I truly hope this will turn your Storm in to the handset you'd hoped for.  Please report back here and let us know how it goes.  BTW, try not to download useless apps like flashlight, or any other program you don't intend on using on a somwhat regular basis as it just hogs application memory in the phone.

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Re: Problems with Storm???
berryhead
Newbie

Justin thanks for the advice. I have tried to download quickpull several times and I can manually do a reset but cannot schedule one. It will not let me set the time. Also some websites will not load. It says ( The gateway timed-out while waiting for a response from the server). It took about a second for that to pop up.

Any thoughts??

 

Bryan

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Re: Problems with Storm???
LOWFLYER
Contributor - Level 2

Make sure you're downloading Quickpull 2.1.1 as the first version did not let you schedule resets.  Only if you run into problems like I did with screen orientation and being able to actually press the buttons go into the application and turn off compatability mode.  As far as the browser I'm not sure exactly what it could be.  My guess is it's the website or possibly intermittent data svc from VZW.  One of the ladies above mentioned something about flash.  Currently the storm does not support flash which is why there is a YouTube application.  Skyfire is or was developing a flash based browser for BB until somebody leaked something and now they've paused.  Hopefully soon we'll have one.  Again though with the website issues, it could be any number of things from the site timing out, to problems with the network.  Just keep trying.  Let me know how it goes.

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Re: Problems with Storm???
Not applicable

I really appreciate all of your suggestions.  I will try some/all of them.  I'm sure when I do take my phone back up to the VZ store that resetting everyghing will be one of their first suggestions. 

However, I do not understand one thing... and notice, I'm not disagreeing about the "Quickpull" bc I have heard from others that it helps... but I just don't understand why I need to download a  3rd party app to make my phone work correctly.  Sure I like apps but most of them are for entertainment or for daily use.. not to just make the phone function.  Can you help me understand this?? A friend of mine put this app on hers and her husbands phone says that it does help... I jsut really have a problem understanding why an application, which takes up more space is one of the answers to helping the functionality of these phones.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not griping about it... I just don't get it.

 

Anyhow, thanks so much for your suggestions.  I will definitely be going back up to VZ as soon as I can.

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Re: Problems with Storm???
berryhead
Newbie

Update- Quickpull app had an update and works perfectly. :smileyvery-happy: I reset my Storm every morning at 5 and am very happy.

 

Thanks!!

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