[mahoward]

OK, so I upgraded one of my main BES servers to 4.1 SP3 HF1 last weekend, but left the other two at 4.0 SP6 HF4. Since the DB Schema was upgraded, we needed to upgrade all of our BB Manager workstations to 4.1 as well.

Now, we are seeing an issue where, using the locally installed 4.1 Manager, we cannot provision a new user added to one of the 4.0 servers using the USB cable. The service books get assigned but the rest of activation / synchronization / prepopulation does not kick off. Wireless activation of new users on the 4.0 servers also seems erratic.

BTW, this upgrade was performed after getting the word at WES that 4.0 and 4.1 servers sharing the same SQL database is OK, since they have many larger accounts than ours and they can't expect them to upgrade 10's of servers at the same time.

Well apparently it is OK for existing users but not newly added users! RIM's official response now is: Well it can work but it is not recommended, and the "workaround" is to upgrade the remaining servers to 4.1.

I don't know why RIM still thinks we are all 10 user companies that can do whatever we want, some of us actually have to plan for these things and schedule them during monthly maintenance windows.

OK, enough rant. Just wanted to get the word out to any other Domino folks that are still contemplating moving multiple servers from 4.0 to 4.1.

[x14]

During my BES 4.0 -> 4.1 testing I had 1 BES 4.0 and 1 BES 4.1. Existing users on BES 4.0 were fine and I could move users from BES 4.0 to BES 4.1. I had a lot of problems adding users to BES 4.0.

I stopped adding users to BES 4.0 and I ran thru upgrading to BES 4.1 ASAP.

[AlanM]

Wow, I wonder if the same issue exists with Exchange. On my upgrade path I don't really see us adding more to the 4.0.

[mahoward]

Originally Posted by x14

During my BES 4.0 -> 4.1 testing I had 1 BES 4.0 and 1 BES 4.1. Existing users on BES 4.0 were fine and I could move users from BES 4.0 to BES 4.1. I had a lot of problems adding users to BES 4.0.

I stopped adding users to BES 4.0 and I ran thru upgrading to BES 4.1 ASAP.

Thanks x14, good information but a little too late for me. I wish RIM had highlighted issues like this so I didn't look stupid for getting bit by this. Upgrading in stages is the only way to do it in a large environment so I didn't really have any choice anyway.

On top of all this the local BB admins are starting to complain about the 4.1 interface being more difficult to use. So you get new features but with less usability.

[noname]

I have experienced devices with handheld software version 4.2 (e.g. Pearl, 8800 etc.) not able to EA if I added these newer devices on a BES 4.0. I have a mixed BES 4.0 & 4.1 are in the BlackBerry Domain.

RIM tech advised to only add newer 4.2 devices on BES 4.1 instead of BES 4.0. I guess BES 4.1 is specifically built for 4.2 devices and when our BESes are mixed and database schema is upgraded, functions such as EA is stuck due to "unrecognized data format" as older devices are not able to reconcile them. Hence I would also recommend only adding newer devcies on a 4.1 BES and not 4.0 BES.

[mahoward]

Thanks for the info noname, since I instructed our admins to setup all new devices on the 4.1 server due to the other issue, this would be covered.

It may also resolve some previous issues I was unaware of however, good info!

[noname]

anytime, mahoward. btw i like your besdomino blog. Lots of interesting and good information too. Excellent work!

[mahoward]

Thanks noname, your check is in the mail.

[mahoward]

Update 6/1/07: Apparently the tech I spoke with on this issue was incorrect, RIM verifies that they fully support a mixed 4.0/4.1 environment as they told me at WES just a few weeks ago.

This issue with USB activation has to do with an identified bug in the 4.1 SP3 BlackBerry Manager console, which is fixed in the upcoming 4.1 SP4, but also can be worked around by downgrading to the 4.1 SP2 Manager console.

[gziz]

i believe that you can assign 4.0 users fine if you use the blackberry legacy manager instead of the 4.1 blackberry manager, in exchange anyway.

[yo_fishy]

I'm running into a similar issue. I upgrade one of our BES servers to 4.1.4 MR2while the other three are running 4.0.7 as I to did not want to upgrade all servers at the same time being in a big corporate environment. I don't have an issue adding new users to any BES server be it 4.0 or 4.1. If I remove someone from one of the remaining 4.0 servers and attempt to add them onto another server or the same server as a troubleshooting step, I can't get the BB to EA. Under IT Policy on the Blackberry Manager I receive the error that reads, "Processing stopped: Invalid Pin". It also seems that I have to purge the users manually inside the users pending delete queue as they do not on their own. The SQLServerAgent service is running on the SQL server.

Has anyone ran into anything like or have any suggestions? This happened late today so I don't have all the information like what type of device, OS, etc. It happened to the first 2 users that were removed and re-added as they were having send/receive issues so I'm just assuming this isn't a coincidence. I will continue to trouble shoot tomorrow. Any help is appreciated as always.