Can't SEND Blackberry Messenger or PIN messages to users outside BES... help!
 

I'm having a strange problem here and it started up out of the blue about 2 weeks ago. I can no longer send BB Messenger messages or PIN messages to other Blackberry users. I still see my contacts as online, and when I send them a message I get a check mark with a D for delivered, but the message never appears on their handheld. I can receive just fine, however.

The one exception is that I can send PIN messages to users on my same BES. When I check the status under Sent Using: it says "Peer-to-Peer (secure)".

I know the first thing you'll say is IT Policy, but I am friends with the admin and he swears that nothing has been changed. Any thoughts? This is driving me nuts!

There's no other explanation. Can you send a regular pin message?

Those go the same way as BB Messenger messages... I get the check mark but it never shows up on the destination device.

I spoke to RIM and they had me send some test PIN messages to one of their computers. They told me that it was sending an incorrect encryption key. Is that IT Policy related?

They suggested I have a blank policy sent to the device, but my admin doesn't know how to do that. We're on BES 3.6.7.

Wow...that's an old BES version.

That sounds IT policy related, though.

The BES probably has a peer-to-peer encryption key set.
I wrote up a FAQ on this... will link to it shortly.

EDIT: Adding FAQ link.
How do I alter/remove the peer-to-peer encryption key? - BlackBerryFAQ

Thanks penguin. Let me make sure I have this straight before I call my admin... 1) will that FAQ walkthrough work for BES 3.6.7? 2) I want to make sure that the bottom option is checked - "Remove the existing corporate encryption key" - right? That doesn't affect anything else on the BES except for PIN messages, correct?

No, that FAQ entry is from BES 4.1.
Jeez... BES 3.6 ? Seriously? You're way overdue on an upgrade to 4.1

I have no idea if the peer-to-peer encryption key even applies to your incredibly old version of BES. It's probably along the same lines, so your admin might have to dig around a bit.

The peer-to-peer encryption key only effects PIN messaging (and BB Messenger as it uses PIN)

Thanks a lot for the help, I will talk to him. As for the upgrade... they don't want to drop the coin, and a lot of the shareholders (and all of the named partners) have switched to windows mobile, so the demand isn't there.

Too bad. Although, an old BES is better than no BES (most of the time.) Be grateful, I guess.

Yeah, definitely. The only real issue we have with it is that messages are inexplicably randomly delayed an hour or more at times. Very odd.

That would not be good.

Ok... since we are on BES 3.6.7.12, the FAQ penguin provided is not applicable, since we don't have the same options. The only option he saw was to re-send the P2P encryption key, and that didn't work.

Can someone familiar with BES 3.6.7 PLEASE point me in the right direction as to where I might find the option to edit/modify the P2p key? MUCH appreciated.

BlackBerry Search Results
try the second option the one for 3.6.2 and see if removing it will work.

Thanks Sith! To clarify... if we select "Remove" encryption key and then hit ok, will the handhelds on the BES still use some sort of default/global key propagated by RIM for all handhelds? Just not a BES-specific key?

That fixed it! You guys are awesome.