So what the heck happened here?!?
 

Okay, I successfully performed the Enterprise Activation on my wife's 8330 last night to get it working with her company's BES. I had already installed BB Desktop Manager prior to doing this. Well, the BES policy forced a password on the device, and when I hooked up the BB to my computer tonight and launched BB Desktop Manager, the software prompted for the device password (it had not before). However, the device password was not accepted in Desktop Manager. I tried 9 times and closed it down. I then unplugged the phone from the computer and relaunched Desktop Manager. It asked for the password again, and I again entered the password at which point it immediately started wiping the phone. I guess I didn't notice if the window indicated 9/10 attempts. Anyway, after the wipe was done, I tried to perform the Enterprise Activation again, but now I'm getting an "An error occurred. Please contact your System Administrator" message.

So, two questions:

1. Why was BB Desktop Manager not accepting my device password - the password I verified was working to unlock my phone?

2. Can the Enterprise Activation be performed only once with the originally-provided password, or why do you think I am now getting that error?

1. You were entering the password incorrectly. Perhaps you had CAPS lock on and didn't notice? Not sure why you were trying to use Desktop Manager anyway. This is a BES device. What were your intentions with Desktop Manager?

2. Yes, an activation password can only be used once. Your wife needs to contact her BES administrator so they can set a new activation password for her.

The password was not being typed in correctly. was there a default password set on the device or perhaps caps/num lock was on.
if the enterprise activation was done, you need to reissue a password either by setting it to something specific or by having one issued.

DM will ALWAYS prompt for a password if one is set on the device.

You only have 10 attempts before the device wipes itself, normally on the device if you enter the password incorrect 5 times it will ask you to type blackberry. I believe it does this again at the 8th attempt and on the 10th attempt it will warn you that this is your last attempt. I am not sure if this is the case on DM or not.

The EA password most likely expired. They expire after a set amount of time and that time could vary depending on what the BES admin decided.

Your wife will need to contact her BES admin and get another EA password.

I know for a fact that I was entering the correct password, because in addition to verifying I was typing it correctly (without caps lock - it was all numbers anyway), I typed it in Notepad and pasted it in the field. Nothing worked.

And you asked why I was trying to use Desktop Manager... I needed to sync the phone my wife's personal Outlook contacts here at home (Outlook on our computer at home). Don't I need to use Desktop Manager to do this?

It was all numbers?

When you enter the password on the BB do you press the ALT key or have num locks on?

If not the password is actually letters. For example as password of 1234 would actually be wers.

When you type the password on the device, are you holding down the ALT key to get the numbers? (Otherwise you're just typing letters.)
I can almost guarantee that your password you entered on the device is different than what you entered on the computer.

It's a BES device. It's going to be set to sync its address book wirelessly. You won't be able to sync via cable using desktop manager unless you disable wireless sync.


In all honestly, perhaps you should just leave the device alone. It's not yours and you clearly don't know what you're doing. Let your wife deal with her IT department. You've already broke it once, and you risk doing it again.

The device is in fact ours. So, it sounds like I need to sync to my personal computer's Outlook contacts before reactivating the device on the BES.

It might be yours, but when it's connected to the BES you have to accept the policies and restrictions from the BES. I am fairly sure if you sync it to your own Outlook, when you sync it with the BES the Address Book will be overwritten.

Wirelessly posted

I agree that BES will overwrite any other address book. Could you save your local addresses to an Outlook "store" file and then import them into the work desktop Outlook? Then you're done - all those will auto-sync wirelessly when you activate BES.

Why would it overwrite vs. sync?

Wirelessly posted

Because BES only replicates what's in corporate Outlook. It doesn't go both ways until after BES is activsated. It wants to be the only dog in the kennel :-)

Yeah I've seen people do this. They think they've made their password something like 121208, but they never hit alt. So actually their password is wewe0x. So then when they're typing it on a keyboard, they're getting it wrong.

I believe that is the issue here. I wonder if we will ever find out:?

Even I've done that - but kind of in reverse. My password ends in a 1, and sometimes I'll hold down the shift key on my PC keyboard when entering my passworod....which gives me the ! instead of a 1. *smacks head*

I'll admit it (took me a while), I was not hitting the alt button when setting the all-numeric password on the phone. I'm embarrassed.

No worries - glad you figured it out! Did you figure it out before or after wiping all the data?

Oh, after of course. :-( Also after I had uninstalled and reinstalled BB Desktop Manager because I was convinced there was an issue with the install. :x

Sorry to hear that, but lesson learned (the hard way), huh?

Just think - now you are that much smarter than the others (and there will be others) who come here and pose the same question ;-)

That is the great part about making mistakes like these. It is a lesson learned. What do you think the chances are you will make this kind of mistake again?