[Mr.B]

Hi, this is my 2nd post - I feel like a veteran already.

I recently went to Australia, and my Pearl started going crazy. It's not been as bad since I returned to the UK, but I still get the occasional problem. I'm wondering if it could be a software incompatibility between my handset and the Australian networks. My handset developed a will of its own - here are some examples...

- when typing an email / text message, it would frequently just automatically complete a word, without me hitting the 'space' button. For example, when trying to type "you", it would default to "to", before I'd had a chance to press the 3rd key. And when I say this happened frequently, sometimes I'd have to attempt it more than 10 times before it would let me finsih the word!
- when typing an email / text message, it would frequently just send the thing, while I was typing. I'd see the menu flash up on screen, but it would immediately send. The only way I could get around this was to create an email with no recipient, and keep trying to type the thing until the text was complete. Then I'd enter the email address (or for text messages, I'd have to copy the text & paste it into an SMS) and then send.

Sometimes, combining the two problems above, a 10 word SMS would take over 5 minutes for me to complete & send! I gave up trying to send anything more than about 20 words long, unless it was urgent.

Two more symptoms:
- It would create and send an SMS on its own. I awoke one morning to find that, while I was asleep, it had sent more than 20 text messages to the same person in my contacts list. They were all identical texts - it had pasted the most recently copied text (see the 2nd symptom above) into an SMS, and it had sent it to this person from my contacts list. Luckily I escaped with just some extreme embarrassment, but it could have been much much worse. I was close to hurling the Pearl against the wall!
- battery life was terrible. The battery (like the phone) is about 7 months old, and it was losing its full charge after less than half a day. As though the phone was processing stuff the whole time.

Does anybody have any similar experiences, or suggest any solutions? My carrier's customer support had no clue. Do I need a firmware upgrade, or just a replacement handset? (I'll probably get a replacement anyway but, if I'm likely to experience the same problems when I return to Australia in 10 days time, I might have to reluctantly ditch the Pearl and get something else.)

Thanks for reading this far, and for any advice / suggestions you can give.

[JSanders]

Greetings, and welcome to the forum.

Honestly, I have never heard of a user having problems such as yours, especially the 'self-sending". Many users have similar issues with SureType and auto text on the Pearl, mostly as a new device, but yours works well otherwise?. Being on an Australian network should not have caused any of those problems.

But the issues have somewhat ceased since returning home? Even odder. I would say return the Pearl for a new one, but if there is no issue now...

I'll repeat what's been said in this forum thousands of times: often pulling the battery while powered, to reboot the BB, will fix the oddest and simplest of glitches. You might try that when those issues occur.

[TroyDBrown]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8320/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

I have traveled to Australia twice with no problems and we had 4 Pearls in our group.

[Mr.B]

Thanks guys. Yep, I should have added that I tried pulling the battery, and not long after that, I started pulling out my hair and nearly pulled out my own teeth!

The self-sending of messages totally threw the customer support people too - they'd never heard of it before. No idea what was going on there. That happened on three separate occasions, and one of them was back in the UK. The problems are definitely less frequent here, but they still happen occasionally.

Anyway, your replies seem to confirm that I have a faulty handset. (Especially helpful to hear your experiences Troy.)

I'll get it replaced and hopefully life will be good again.

[CarlGalgano]

I hate to be an alarmist, but it sounds like a virus of sort, but I am not familiar with any berry viruses. Did you have bluetooth turned on? Perhaps you could have been infected that way? Just a guess here because I have never heard of anyone having an issue like this.

[JSanders]

Originally Posted by CarlGalgano

I hate to be an alarmist, but it sounds like a virus of sort, but I am not familiar with any berry viruses. Did you have bluetooth turned on? Perhaps you could have been infected that way? Just a guess here because I have never heard of anyone having an issue like this.

So, if you hate to be an alrarmist, then don't be. There is no known viruses with BlackBerrys. None, perioid. You have no reason to suggest such.

In those cases of "self-dialing" BBs I have seen on here, it turns out to be in the user's pocket, purse or backwards in the holster. The original poster's issues don't appear similar.

[Mr.B]

I can confirm that the phone was on a table next to the bed when it sent all those texts.

I'm not suspecting any kind of virus. Just a handset fault. Now all I have to do is finally get through to the customer service dept. :(

[mike_187]

my next step would be to do a wipe and reload the OS.

[tgeekb]

It probably is just a coincidence that it happened as you were traveling. Hope you get them to swap it out for a new one.

[TroyDBrown]

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8320/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

Mr. B after reading this all again. I think it is the trackball causing your problem. Specificly the switch when you press down on it. It would cause every issue you described.

[KeithO]

I had something similar a couple of months ago. My 8100 was continually opening Messages, and saving a blank message as draft. I would wake up to find hundreds of the things. Also when I was attempting to do other things, it was doing it's own stuff as well! It was as though the keys were being 'pressed' somehow.

Never did get to the bottom of it...tech support suspected a mechanical error of some kind...that theory was backed up when a replacement did exactly the same. It took a second replacement to fix it, and the other two were return to T-Mobile for investigation, but I never heard the outcome.

It sounds like yours could be the same, pressing keys automatically. The action taken depends on the screen you're on at the time, obviously. I'd try and get a replacement if you can

[i2k]

Anyone who travelled to AU on Cingular - if so which data plan were you on? Was it unlimited intl data?
Thanks

[Mr.B]

Update for anyone who's interested - I went through a few more customer service phone calls, and their tech support decided it's a faulty handset. I should be receiving my replacement Pearl tomorrow evening (in the nick of time - I fly back out to Australia next week).

Thanks everyone for your replies.