Hi, I've had my BB Pearl for just a few months now. I use it for the calendar, contacts, and phone. My problem with the ringtone is that, now that I have special rings for different contacts (set up through exceptions) when I silence the phone the exceptions still ring through. I work in elementary schools and need the phone to be silent when I am in a classroom, but I don't want to turn it off because that is my link to all my work. Sorry if this is a dumb question, the BB has turned out to be more complicated than I expected. Any help?

Thanks

What if you try setting either the quiet or vibrate profile, and removing the exceptions on just those profiles?

It never occured to me to try that. Thanks I will see if that works.

I am thinking that should do the trick. Post back and let us know how that works.

Well, I can't figure out how to do exceptions for individual profiles. Profiles>Advanced>List of all the Profiles>Then "use active profile except for....." so whichever profile is in use will be over-ridden by the exception. I know I'm being dense but it doesn't make sense to me.

you don't have to make an actual exception, just edit the contact and add the ringtone there.

If I add a ringtone to the contact it still rings with the "general" tone unless I use an exception.?? I wish the manual was better on this. I hate to think this little piece of equipment is going to get the better of me.

Not sure what method you are actually using but if you are using the method that creates a new profile for each contact you wish to customize you will have to shut off the profile exception if you want it silenced. If it's only 1 contact that's easy enough but if you have several, you are best to clear all the created exceptions and just use the add custom tune function in the address book menu. The downside to this is that it only affects calls and not texts and emails. It's a bad trade off, it would be nice is RIM would change the profile settings to use the custom tune to respond to all contact options.

This is the option I was referring to above:
How can I personalize my alerts from specific contacts? - BlackBerryFAQ

The basic method is:
While in your address book, highlight a contact, hit menu, scroll down to Add Custom Ring Tone.

Thats what I had previously and it wasn't working. I only got one ringtone. I will clear everything and start over. Maybe I did it wrong in the beginning. Thanks for the link. I will check it out again and let you know how it worked.

I am curious to see how this plays out. I have just found it easier to not assign any custom ringtones to any contacts, and just use one generic ringtone for everyone. It is a little confusing on this phone with all of the profiles and exceptions, and you really need time to sit and play with it, and have another phone available to call yourself and try the different settings out.