[pallavik]

Hi everyone, hopefully you’re all comfortably seated as I have the feeling this is going to be a pretty lengthy post.

Thought I’d share what I have been up to in whatever little spare time I had since I first got hold of my first ever BB – 8820, unlocked now, originally locked to Orange UK – nearly two months ago; with no BES and no pressure to get it all working from the word go I decided I was going to take my time and toy around in order to flex my brain muscles and in the process gain a deeper understanding of the inner workings of BB’s; let there be no doubt that at the end of this you’ll still find a number of questions.

The scenario is: used – Ebay – 8820 which has clearly been on a BES in the past and came with IT policy installed and a locked firewall whose settings I haven’t so far been able to alter. I had read about the BB browser being useless on GPRS/EDGE connections without a BB data plan – which I have so far decided not to get just yet – therefore I set about installing Opera Mini: I duly downloaded it over my home wi-fi connection but the program would just not launch sending back the error message “The application operette $2dhifi has attempted to open a connection to a location inside the firewall and outside the firewall which is not allowed by your IT policy”; I haven’t tried any other third party application yet as I’d expect to get the same problem, I will as and when I manage to get OM to work.

After faffing about with all sorts of variables and finally getting confirmation from my carrier, Vodafone UK about the correct APN settings I have come to the “wiping the device a few times” stage resorting to different techniques: going through Security settings, using JL_Cmdr for instance until the last time when I did it by entering the wrong password ten times in Application Loader which supposedly should 507 the device - or if you prefer nuke the BB OS... Well, it didn’t for some reason and although I had managed to remove the IT policy reference – using the policy.bin workaround - in the Security Settings view it must still be in place somehow or else I wouldn’t be getting the problem anymore.

The thing is after a number of wipes and restores somehow a Vodafone Live! icon has appeared out of nowhere on the device and lo and behold after I re-entered the correct APN settings the BB browser has started working on the GPRS/EDGE connection – until now it had always returned a message of signal strength being insufficient for data -, albeit without the BB data plan I still have lower case indication next to the signal strength on the home screen. In the meantime what’s happening with Opera Mini? Nothing has changed, still get the same error message – hence the IT policy is still active.

Just to sum this up: 8820 with old IT policy on and locked firewall settings, Opera Mini not launching. Used the policy.bin workaround and as the reference to the policy in Security Settings had disappeared thought I had got rid of it but no-go, Opera Mini still not working. Did a number of device wipes, the last one supposedly designed to take out the BB OS with it and 507 the handheld but that didn’t quite happen and still OM not working. After doing a restore BB browser starts working like a dream, OM still going nowhere.

Has anyone got any explanation of why the BB browser would have all of a sudden decided to cooperate under circumstances when it’s not supposed to? How do I get rid of this flipping IT policy I unknowingly inherited once and for all? What’s there left to try to get third party applications to work? They are all the more important to me as for the time being I chose not to have a BB data plan. I am still trying although travelling a lot for work doesn’t help as my work laptop won’t communicate with my privately owned BB – again IT policies I suppose – and when at home wife and kids demand their share of attention. When I’ll come across anything that seems of some use I will post again but in the meantime if anyone can chip in with some other advice/info that’ll be highly appreciated.

Regards

[John Clark]

There is hope. When OS 4.5 comes out for the 8820 you can completely remove the IT Policy and use JL_Cmder's "resettofactory" command to reset the device to how it was from the factory. 4.5 is not officially out yet but when its available you'll be able to load the OS, then resettofactory it and IT policy and firewall requirements will be gone.

[pallavik]

Ok, that's definitely good news, would you have any idea of when such OS should be made available to the public?

I'm still itching to try and look for some other way around this problem even with the current 4.2, defintely not in my nature to sit still and wait...

Thanks for the info