[DeoreDX]

This is my first blackberry coming from a WM device so I'm still in sort of a learning curve. So far here is a slightly condensed but long story of my first 3 days with the Blackberry.

Bought Pearl 8100 on Friday. Charged it for most of the day. First thing I did was to see what would happen with my existing T-zonesweb plan. Set APN to wap.voicestream.com and left username and password blank. Took about 2 minutes to realize it wasn't going to work and then fired up my-tmobile web page and activate the BB Unlimited internet and e-mail $19.99 plan and turned the T-zones web off. Reset my BB, got a registration notice dated Sept 25th 2007 (wierd)! No matter, Launched the BB browser, looked up a few web pages. Everything seems OK so far. Now the search for 3rd party software began.

First was Google Maps. Loaded no problem. Works great. Sweet!

Opera Mini 4.0. OTA install. Looked over a few web pages. Everything seemed to be fine.

Berry411 and BBweather was next. Berry 411 looked OK at first glance, didn't dig into it much. BBweather had issues and locked my BB up a couple of times. Gave up for the night and decided to goto bed. So if you are keeping tabs so far after Day 1:

Working: T-Zones, Black Berry browser, Opera Mini 4.0, Berry411, Google Maps.
Not Working: BBweather

After 18 holes of Golf in the AM I got home at lunch and started messing with my BB again. I received a text message from Tmobile saying the changes were made to my account effective on the 11th. I set up my blackberry mail, sent and received a couple of test E-mails. Working great. I spent the next hour or so trying to get BBweather to work. Finally set it up what I think is correctly. Basically if I leave "Disable MDS Proxy" unselected I get an "Invalid URL Parameter". Select the option and my screen says "Retreiving Weather, Please Wait..." and it just sits there and does nothing. This lead me to:

-Remove battery 10-15 times after trying several different APN values under the TPC settings. Man what a PITA removing the battery. Tried using my Tmobile website login under username and password (used my phone number and password, which is what I normally log into T-mobile's web page with. Not sure if that's correct but the various posts referring to this was not too specific and that's the only login I have). Also tried internet2.voicestream.com and internet3.voicestream.com. Retyped them about 2-3 times each, made sure there were no strange spaces or characters in any of the feilds. Nada

-Found and installed that great soft reboot program.

-Reregistered a couple of times on the Host Routing Table screen.

-Logged into Tmobile's web page and resent the service books.

-Edited Permissions for BBweather under the options/advances/applications screen making sure everything was "allow"

-Toyed around with the "Browser" and "Browser Push" settings but ended putting everything back the way it was.

So now I was miffed not being able to get the BBweather program working. So I decided to Launce Opera Mini to play around a bit and suddenly Opera Mini isn't working any more. The program loads but when I try to visit a web page I get "connecting..." for like 30-40 seconds and then the "Failed to connect to the internet" error page. Black Berry brower still works great. 3-4 bars of strength in the house with EDGE. E-mail and BB Messenger and Google Maps and berry411 still worked fine.

Changed all the settings back to the way I had it when Opera was still working on Friday, APN to wap.voicestream.com with no username and password. Still doesn't work. So I pretty much run through the gambit again, changing the APN to everything under the weather, looking through every options and sub option and can't find anything else to change. Of course during this whole ordeal I've looked constantly on the numerous blackberry forums for guidance. Only setting actually within in Opera Mini I can see to change is Network Protocol, so I change from Socket to HTTP. Still nothing.

Now comes the first time I have ever called a customer help line in my entire life. They were pretty much useless to me. blah blah blah 3rd party applications are not supported. I at least mention adding "wap.voicestream.com" Internet Access Point name to my account as suggested by the forums in some other posts and they have no clue what I'm talking about.

So at the end of Saturday:

Working: Blackberry E-mail, blackberry browser, blackberry messenger (tried it out with a friend), google maps, Berry 411, my new really cool Auburn University BB Pearl theme.

Not working: Opera Mini, BBeather

Another 18 holes of golf in the morning. PLayed like crap.

Now today I've spent about 4 hours total during the day reading everything and anything I could about Tmobile's Blackberry service and my 8100. The BB services seem to be working great, but after much changing and adjusting every setting I can find I still can't get BBweather or Opera Mini to work. The OCD part of me just can't let go of it especially since Opera Mini was working on Friday. Well, today the T-Zones wasn't working. I went to check my minues used on the Tzones page and when I launch Tzones I get ""A problem occured while trying to render the page"" error.

Anyhoo.. just posting out of frustration right now. If you have any suggestions for me to try, I'm all ears!

[ggoodale]

On my T-Mo 8100, APN is wap.voicestream.com and username and password are blank. Opera Mini works fine - the network preference is set to 'Socket'. I've never been able to get BBWeather to work, so I can't help there.

[JSanders]

Hey neighbor.

Mercy! What did you do--keep a journal of all that?

To get BB Weather working, CHECK disable MDS in the BBW options.
Set your APN just as you have with wap.voicestream.com, no username, no password.

Pull the battery and reboot the device. Don't power down.

You might need to completely delete Opera Mini and reinstall. Delete at Options > Advanced > Applications.

The BBWeather issue is quite documented and can be frutrated, but the instructions to work are documented here:
How do I get BB Weather to work on the 8100 / 8300 / 8800? - BlackBerryFAQ.com

i won't even comment on the AU logo theme.

Feel free, next time, to check here sometime before 48 hours has elapsed--and, perhaps, you might get in a better game of golf.

Good luck.

[John Clark]

I take it you got BBWeather past where it will lock up the device? When it says no weather profiles specified you have to hit the trackball twice. Then use the menu key to add a profile. Use the zip code for the location ID. Save the profile.

For BBWeather you need to "check" disable mds proxy and have the apn settings entered.

Edit: Sanders is too quick...took me 3 minutes to type all this and he already covered it!

[DeoreDX]

I have come to the realization that the Blackberry doesn't run on actual software, it uses some advanced type of voodoo magic as it's operating system. Apparently posting to this forum countered the voodoo curse that caused BBweather not to work.

Work up this morning and looked at the replies. Deleted Opera Mini and attempted to download from operamini.com but operamini.com couldn't detect my browser as a WAP browser. Went to launch the T-zones WAP browser and accidentally clicked the wrong Icon in my coffee deprived state. Wrong Icon just so happened to be BBweather... and I'll be damned if BB weather is fully operational this morning. I've done absolutely nothing over the last 12 hours to my BB that could have fixed the problem.

Opened T-zones WAP browser and downloaded Opera Mini 4.0. Looks to be running just fine now.

It's freaking Voodoo.

[JSanders]

Admit you are powerless over it, that the first step.

Setting the BB aside a while and coming back to it is often as good a remedy as pulling the battery and rebooting, lol.

Good luck.