There’s a really good article out about great troubleshooting tips for BlackBerry, with some great input by Al Sacco, in Computer World. RIM had listed ten of it’s own top 10 troubleshooting tips and tricks.  Al listed the popular top ten along with adding some of his comments from his experience where it was relevant.

Number One is Check your Wireless Signal Strength. The obvious is to look for bars, no bars? There’s a problem. There’s also a quick way to check on qwerty keyboard BlackBerry devices. Hold the Alt button down and at the same time type N, M, L, L. Signal strength should be between -40 and -100. If not, you don’t have enough coverage.

Number two is a Hard Reset by a Battery pull. Pull out the battery for eleven to thirty seconds then reinsert. This resolves many technical issues.

Number three is check your Wireless  Network Settings. Make sure your Network settings are correct. To find this go to Manage Connections and make sure Mobile Network is checked. Scroll down to Mobile Network Options, make sure that the Data Services are enabled and that the Mobile Network and Network Mode are set to the appropriate carrier and network options.

Number four is Register Your BlackBerry on The Wireless Network. Registering a BlackBerry with OS 4.1 or higher is easy. First go to Options/Advanced Options/ Host Routing Table. From there you click the options button, scroll down to Register Now and click. It will say Registration Sent and it will be in your messages.

Number five is Check Your BlackBerry Device’s Connection to a Computer. If you are experiencing difficulties with the BlackBerry Desktop Manager software on your computer, make sure your device is connecting correctly to the machine. To determine whether or not the device is recognized and connected to the computer, go to the BDM’s Options/Connection Settings. You should see the Device’s pin in the on-screen connection field. If you don’t see it, click the Detect button. If it succeeds, it will tell you it has been located. If not, don’t worry, you can visit RIM’s site here for more troubleshooting suggestions and tips.

Number six is Make Sure Your BlackBerry Can Receive Email. One way to test is to send yourself an email to the phone from a pc. If it’s delayed, you may experiencing latency. If it doens’t go through, you have some options. With BES, you may have to contact your BlackBerry administrator for further advice and instructions. For BIS, I usually have the owner go to email setup and sign in. Hopefully you set up a sign in and password. From here you can make sure that your email accounts are validated. If they aren’t, you need to validate them. If it’s valid and okay, the next step is to go into your service books and resend them. This clears up issues most of the time for email. For BIS users, if you don’t have a user name or password, you can call your wireless provider’s technical support for BlackBerry, and they can help you make a user name and password.

Number seven, Confirm Your BlackBerry Can Send Email, Pin Messages, and use the BlackBerry Messenger.  Send an email from your BlackBerry email to another on your device or to the same one. If it will send and receive, then you’re fine. Please confirm that you’re able to send messages by PIN by pinning yourself, and that you can send messages through the BlackBerry Messenger. You will see the check when it’s reached the other phone and a D to confirm Delivery. If you’re unable to use the services, you may need to call technical support from your provider or your BlackBerry Administrator if it is BES.

Number eight is Resend Service Books. Though I touched on this already there are three ways. One is to do it through Email Setup as I explained above. Second is to log on to the website from your pc, provided you know the web address and the username and password.  Last is to call technical support and they can do it for you. For RIM’s instructions, click here.

Number nine is to launch the BlackBerry Help App. RIM recommends using this app as they advise it is the quickest and easiest way to resolve issues. Click Help/Troubleshooting.

Number ten is Visit the BlackBerry Technical Solutions Center. RIM bundles information in “knowledge base” articles. It is one of the best places online to find resolutions to advanced issues. It’s an excellent resource for learning more about your BlackBerry device.

To add something else, in a retail wireless store, our methods of troubleshooting are similar. First we listen to what the issues are, check it out for ourselves, make sure the OS version is the most current (happy BlackBerry devices are those that are updated BlackBerry devices), clean out the phone through Options/Security Options/Memory Cleaning. Making sure memory is substancial on the device, and of course checking the reception, service signal, updating roaming capability, reregistering the device, and if it’s email related, the email accounts validatation and service books.

One of the great links I’ll include is the link to Al’s “BlackBerry Bible” from CIO.com. He has several articles pertaining to BlackBerry devices and tips and tricks to fine tune your experience with your BlackBerry.

We invite you to add to the community by sharing any tips and tricks you know that have helped you in the past and now, even it it’s like the tip of using a business card between the battery and back of the Storm. We welcome all your comments, suggestions, and questions.

[via: ComputerWorld]

Just so everyone knows and doesn’t freak out as much, RIM has confirmed a 100% outage starting at 1AM until about 5AM on March 22, 2008. So looks like users will not be able to send or receive messages for that four hour period. Unfortunately there isn’t any word if you’ll be able to browse the net.

[Source]

Remember just last week when your BlackBerry wasn’t working? Well AT&T (Formally Cingular) feels bad and wants to make it up to you by offering a whole $2.50 service credit rebate. To obtain you just over two dollar credit from AT&T simply give them a call.

[Gizmodo]

BlackBerries across North America lost service last night around 8PM EST. They had it back up and going later on last night around mid-night. Now it appears this morning that it’s still up and down. Both BIS and BES are currently offline. Rendering your BlackBerry useless for data at this time. RIM should have this fixed very soon. Check back for updates.

Update: Everything seems to be up and running again. Hopefully it doesn’t go down again…