Unable to synch with Outlook after updating Blackberry last week.

All contacts have disappeared, except for multiple listing of one contact.

Synchronization message reads 1970 contacts in Address Book and Outlook says there are 1980.

Unable to open back cover and remove battery because I am a technophobic middle-aged mom.

Desperate to resolve this issue.

Please advise.

First of all, you need to do a battery pull.

Read this from our FAQ. How do I reset my BlackBerry? - BlackBerryFAQ

Try a double soft reset: Performing a double-soft reset stops all applications on the BlackBerry device and is nearly the equivalent of a hard reset. Timing however is critical. Perform a soft reset by pressing the ALT+RIGHT SHIFT(CAP)+DELETE keys. The screen will go blank. When the screen is no longer black, press the ALT+RIGHT SHIFT(CAP)+DELETE keys again. You should then see another blank screen followed by an hour glass.

For error syncing with Outlook, take a look at this: Errors syncing the BB with Desktop Manager - BlackBerryFAQ

Do either of these solve the problem?

I spent 2.5 hours on the phone with RIM after downloading a software update for version 6.0, which made me get this error message 0x80040fb3 when synching and also caused me to lose all of my 1900 contacts, except for one, which displayed five times.

The tech helped me solve the problem, which I see as three issues. I wrote to his supervisor to point them out.

One is that when I downloaded the update and installed version 6, version 5 did not uninstall. The chaos resulting from having two versions of Desktop Manager undoubtedly causes disruptions for many customers. There is no way a customer like myself would be aware that the device has more than one version unless instructed by an advanced technician to check for this possibility and be guided in how to remove the offending old version. In my case, after uninstalling version 5 did not work, the tech had me remove version 6 and then re-install it. The average customer cannot arrive at this "uninstall two versions and re-install the latest version" solution on their own.

A second issue is that, unlike customers who have photos attached to their contacts, and whose comments in the Blackberry forums referred to removing the photos, I did not. It took careful review of my 1900 contacts to discover that several contacts had no first and last name, an issue readily corrected, but again, invisible to the ordinary user. RIM must fix this, not customers.

Third, a few contacts had more than one email. The device found these difficult to handle. Under the tech's guidance, I located them. I fixed the problem by moving the second email to the notes section of the contact. Again, this is a programming issue for RIM, not for customers.

Perhaps other readers can perform these adjustments on their own, without performing five Security Wipes and spending 2.5 hours talking to RIM.

As your name implies youxxx8217;re a PR pro so I understand the response. The first thing I have to ask is are you on the latest handheld software? The latest does have 2 email 2 work etc. on the contact listings.
My suspicion is you are not . The latest is BlackBerry Handheld Software v5.0.0.1631 (Multilanguage)
Your suggestions are good and some may be incorporated in a future releases. Donxxx8217;t give up on the blackberry. It is a tool designed for business and most users have an IT department to rely. As more and more users are using BBxxx8217;s Ixxx8217;m sure you will see RIM start to make some changes to support a broader consumer group.

Welcome to the Forums and I hope we can help in the future.

Now that I re-installed the Desktop Manager, I have v5.0.0.983 (Bundle 1631, Platform 4.2.0.433).

I am not giving up on BB; I simply think they should have made the previous version uninstall with the latest download.

They should also have anticipated the other issues I raised.

I hope other techs are aware of the no first/last name and two email issues the way the tech i spoke with was alert to these problems.

Rim may be a big company but i'm sure they listen to the market. I think the next version of OS will be able to read minds.

I did all of the things that you did to fix the problem, but still got the same error. I then down graded the new device software from 5.0.0.1015 to 5.0.0.713 and no more error. I guess I should have looked at that first, since the problem started after I upgraded to 5.0.0.1015.

sometimes bugs do exist even with a released OS.

I read in another thread on this error that the solution is to find the offending contact and delete it. I went through the log file and found the offending contact. It appears that every time i have tried to sync, the contact gets duplicated on my blackberry, so now there are about 8 of them - and the blackberry won't let me delete them, either by pushing the delete button or going into the menu (the menu does not work when i am on this contact). I deleted the contact from outlook and then changed sync so that it would only sync from outlook to device, but that did not work either.

How can i delete the contact - all 8 appearances of it - from my blackberry.

I've received this error periodically.

In one instance, removing the Facebook stuff mentioned earlier in this thread worked.

In another, looking at the log and deleting the corrupt entry on my BB worked. Also mentioned in this and other threads.

Most recently, just doing the battery pull resolved the error, so I'd start there.