Even after reading a lot about the battery pull, I'm still a little confused. I see a lot of people with memory problems who pull their battery to clean out memory (or at least that's what it seems like they're fixing via the pull).

This seems like a good idea to me, so just now, I pulled the battery. (I won't go into how dumb it is to do something like this before you fully understand what all it entails, but suffice to say, I know, I know...)

So after a LONG reboot where my Curve showed nothing but a clock (scribble theme), the Home screen appears and some of the mail accounts I had set up aren't there (the icons).

So I freak a little and search the forums before starting this post.

Now, some 10 minutes later, I picked up my BB and the icons are back.

So what does the battery pull really do?
I've heard it said it's a good thing to do about once a month... True?
Does it clean up memory?
Why did my gmail icons take so long to show up?

So many questions.

It's a hard reset for the BB. In a nutshell it's good if it resolves your issue. Generally, though, you're just addressing a symptom. It's not so much a solution as a quick fix to get yourself up and running again in many cases.

If a battery pull clears memory then you probably have an app or OS with a memory leak that you should address in the long term.

It's not something that "needs to be done every X days". I rarely pull mine.

Just had to recently pull one on an 8310 where it was stuck on edge. Went to EDGE after the pull. No idea what the actual cause was though.

One, the battery pull reboot is RIM recommended to cure or solve about 95% of the issues that might face a BB. It is not "dumb" to do, even if you don't understand what all it does. Doing so does not remove applications, data, settings, etc. It is good to do, really, about 1-2x a week. Once a month would kill me to wait that long!

Pulling the battery will often re-install service books that might have gotten messed up, it usually fixes most network connectivity issue and any java errors you might be getting on the device.

Read more here:
How do I reset my BlackBerry? - BlackBerryFAQ

the service books sound like they were pushed back to your device from the network. a battery pull does not normally do this, and you normally see no difference in the operation of the device (other than freeing up memory). The long reboot is normal for the device.

Wirelessly posted (Verizon 8830)

http://www.blackberryforums.com/wiki/index.php/
This link echos what has been mentioned as to why.

How_do_I_reset_my_BlackBerry%3F#Reasons_to_perform _a_hard_reset

But Sith, I have seen several times where the service books were sent, and not appearing in the list of service books, did so just after pulling and rebooting the BB. So, while the reboot doesn't "install" them, if you are having a connectivity or network issues, it sure helps to get the Service Books to your device. Hence, much easier to say to a user, pull the battery and reboot to install the service books.

true, there are cases when that does happen, and as you said, when they service books are incorrect or corrupt this does push them back. Just saying there is normally not a difference in the icons. (some themes however, annoyingly so, will unhide all the hidden icons when you do a battery pull. i HATE this about it).

From another thread - the easy way to perform battery pull without pulling the battery...

hit alt-shift-delete at same time and performs the same function of a hard reset.

Five Helpful BlackBerry Keyboard Tricks

i dont always get the same results from the ALT+SHIFT+DEL that i do from the battery pull. sometimes the keyboard reboot occassionally doesnt do the full reboot always. (sometimes comes back up in 30 seconds)

I rarely get the same results from a soft reset as a battery pull reset.

For example, this past weekend, I noticed my wife's 8100 had less than 1mb file free, and she performed a soft reset, rebooted and I look at it, noticed her file free was 4+mb file free. I pulled the battery and rebooted, and the file free jumped to 10mb.

Which I why I compiled this FAQ a few months ago and posted on the FAQ site, which explains the difference in the various resets.
How do I reset my BlackBerry? - BlackBerryFAQ

I rarely have to pull the battery anyhow, so I'll probably use the keypad method unless it doesn't refresh the memory or the apps the way a hard battery pull would.

A battery pull doesn't necessarily force the BB to register on the BIS relay, therefore any emails or service books that are queing will still queue at RIM untill it does.

I was extremly lucky to get to visit our HQ last week and meet with 2 people from RIM, and they said the biggest problem is timeouts. BB goes out of wireless coverage and comes back in and doesn't re-reg on the relay. If its a software problem, a battery pull will solve 90% of those and updating the Host Routing table solves any non email server related problems.

An interesting thing I learned recently on the RIM Partnerzone training is if you don't have a carrier email address, this can slow down your email delivery, and that if you have imap accounts they push though instantly!

While it may not "necessarily force" it, it does in most cases, and is the RIM recommended method first line of defense.

My biggest complaint is the timeouts. My device floats in and out of EDGE frequently when I am surfing the internet. Wireless off and on, turn device off and back on or a battery pull usually solves the problem.

So is there a keyboard workaround to simulate a battery pull? I recently installed an Otter case and it would be simpler if I didn't have to remove it.

Just use the SoftReset software. I believe it is stickied in the aftermarket software forum.

Yes, but not always the best option.

How do I reset my BlackBerry? - BlackBerryFAQ

it is the same as a hard reset.

That is debatable. A RIM hard reset states pull battery and leave out for 30 seconds. Those 30 seconds seem to clear things that SoftRest does not in some cases.

People can argue that an ALT SHIFT DEL rebooot and a SoftReset software reboot are the same as a battery pull reboot, but I can show you a dozen times I have done one of the former two, and follow with the latter battery pull reboot and regained another 2-5 mb in file free.

You decide. Doesn't really matter, until you want the extra space.