This is probably a realy stupid question, but before when i recieved text messages it would show on the outerscreen who was texting me, what the text said, and a picture of the person before i opened up my phone. Now the screen is blank when i recieve a text, yet when i recieve phone calls, the outerscreen shows who is calling and their picture. i'm assuming i must have accidently changed the setting somehow. does anyone know how to change the setting back to how it was originally?

Options>External Notifications

I tried your suggestion and it didn't work! thanks for your help anyways.
does anyone else know?

Pull out the battery, leave it out for 30 secs and put it back in.

By chance does this work for the Curve 8320?

No - it is a feature currently unique to the 8220. If you want to get pop up alerts on your phone, I'd suggest trying something like Aerize Alerts.

Aerize Alerts 2008 - Premium BlackBerry Utility Software

Will check it out, thanks!

Also moved to 8200 section.

Wirelessly posted

Yeah this happened to me too, I have to do a battery pull in order to fix it... If anyone figures out a permanent fix.. Let us know!