BES Server Status 'Unknown' after upgrade to 4.1.4, can't administer Users anymore!
 

Hello,

Today I upgraded our BES 4.0.7 MR2 server (in a Windows Server 2003, remote Exchange 2003 server and local MSDE DB environment) to BES 4.1.4 (GOLD) with the new for 4.1 "BlackBerry Enterprise Server with MDS Services and Components".

The upgrade went fairly smoothly, once I'd realised the installer had decided to 'forget' my MAPI profile settings. BBSRPTest and DB connection tests are all happy and BB devices are sending/receiving and synchronising just fine.

HOWEVER, it quickly became apparent that now something BIG is wrong with BlackBerry Manager in that almost all administration/config options are either greyed out or just not showing, as if the whole thing has gone 'Read-Only'!!!

Tellingly, if I click on the BlackBerry Manager globe icon, the BES server's 'Server Status' is shown as 'Unknown' and the icon for it is white.

I can do a 'Properties' on the BlackBerry Manager globe icon, but all I can do with anything else is Refresh the User / Stats pane and 'Remove Server', that's all folks!

So, I can't add/delete/administer Users in any way.

I've performed a HandHeldCleanUp.exe -U and I've applied MR5 for 4.1.4 and restarted the server a few times but no change, the problem persists.

I always login as the BESAdmin service account, and performed the upgrade with it, and the BESAdmin mailbox in the Exchange environment was not moved our changed in any way during the upgrade.

Am I completely missing something? Is there something fundamentally different in 4.1.x when it comes to administering it? Is it no longer able to write to the MSDE db so it has disabled all options that would result in a change to the db? Has my BES server's goose been cooked?


Thanks for any advice or guidance in advance!

Johnny

Are you running BlackBerry Manager directly from the server or a remote workstation? You need to keep the version of the BlackBerry Manager up to date with the BES server. An update of BlackBerry Manager on the remote workstation may be in order too.

I'm running Blackberry Manager directly from the BES server.

Thanks for your post!

4.1 BES comes with a different manager tool.

If you are using an older icon that pointed to your old manager tool, it is opening something called the legacy manager.

Try looking under the start button for the new manager.

I bet you are running an icon from the desktop and not from the start menu, you are using the old mmc snapin and not the new blackberry manager. Delete any old icons you have and run the bbmgr from the start menu.

Doh! Well done you guys, you sussed out the obvious mistake! Yes I was running Blackberry Manager from an old desktop shortcut. The new Blackberry Manager works fine.

I hadn't realised the Manager was all new in 4.1 and in fairness, the upgrade docs didn't make that clear if indeed they even mentioned it. Don't see the point of having the Legacy Blackberry Manager there at all, can only cause confusion!

Thanks for that one, looks like the upgrade was a total success now that's all sorted out.