Michelle Huggins
Member
I have had this happen about 3 times now. My phone will ring and I will answer only for me not to be able to hear anything but silence. The person calling me can hear me but I have no sound. The only thing that seems to remedy this is by doing a soft reset (pulling the battery out). Any ideas on what could be causing this?
Thanks,
Michelle
Michelle,
No, I don't know what might be causing that. It could possibly be a software glitch. It could possibly be an intermittent hardware problem.
Is it always the same caller that it happens with? If so, THEIR phone could being put on mute. Ending the call for you to pull the battery might force the caller at the other end ot clear up their mute condition. If it happens with different callers, then forget that possibility.
The next time it happened, I'd be tempted to put it on speakerphone and see if no sound comes out. Since that uses a different speaker, that might tell if the earpiece speaker had a bad connection or was disabled in software.
These suggestions are groping in the dark, but worth doing anyway:
1. Make sure you aren't having memory problems by keeping an eye on your File Free in Options > Status. If you are having memory shortages that cause this problem, pulling the battery would free up memory but appear to fix the dead earpiece.
2. Make sure your problem isn't being caused by a very low battery condition. Keep your phone charged as close to full as possible. If the problem occurs again, look at your battery charge. If your battery doesn't seem to hold charge well, consider replacing the battery. This is a long shot, but still a remote possibility.
3. If you just can't pinpoint it to a hardware problem, consider backing up your phone (especially Address Book), wiping the phone completely, and reinstalling the OS and the Address Book. Hold off on replacing any themes or apps in case one of them might be to blame. Test the newly loaded phone for a long time to see if the problem returns. If you need help taking this drastic measure, come back for more help.
If you phone is still under a warranty, I'd be careful not to let the warranty expire in case you simply have to take it back. If you do take it back, demand a new, not refurbished phone.
Please keep me informed on what happens.
Kelly
Michelle Huggins
Member
Thanks so much Kelly. When I have a question or problem, I always come to your website first. The problem seems to always occur after I have charged the phone. I was wondering if I was pushing something by mistake when I was unplugging it from the charger. It has never occurred with the same caller. Thanks for your help.
Michelle
Michelle,
I appreciate your loyalty to return to this site for help. I hope I/we don't let you down.
I just can't think of anything you could possibly do to leave your microphone on (so others can hear you) but shut off the speaker (so you can't hear them). That mode just wouldn't ever make sense.
Here's an idea. (I'm an electrical engineer by education, so this makes a lot of sense to me.) After removing a phone from its charger, it's probably as hot internally as it ever gets. Heat can cause an electrical connection to open up. For example, the connection to the earpiece could open up and cause it to not get the audio signal, causing the earpiece to be silent.
Do you remember your phone feeling unusually hot when you disconnect it from your charger? Even if not, try to find a way to keep your phone from getting so hot while you charge it. I charge mine at night after it has automatically turned itself off. I disconnect it in the morning well before I would normally get a call, so it has time to cool off. If you can't adjust charging schedule, see if you can find something metal to lay your phone on while it charges. The metal object will function as a heat sink to draw away some of the heat and keep the phone cooler. This may seem farfetched, but it's the best guess and recommendation I can think of short of replacing the phone.
Please let me know if you learn anything in the future.
Thanks,
Kelly
scooch
Member
Hello Michelle and Kelly,
I have had the exact same problem since i made the change to BB about 3 months ago,here's the deal:
I am a verizon subscriber, after renewing my contract and selecting the 8130 as my new phone within a day i would get the same problem as you, callers can hear me , i cant hear them, then a soft reset is the only solution, I went back to my local verizon store for a solution, they replaced the pearl.....3 times!
Then they did a free upgrade for me to the curve, guess what, still got the same problem, all this time I called the verizon data team for solutions and troubleshooting, they replied as to never have encountered this problem.
I have a friend in verizon management that finally got the problem noticed, and has gotten the ball rolling for a patch for this problem.
What happens is everytime you or I recieve an audio or video message w/audio the software glitch kicks in, resulting in audio loss on the recieving end of the phone, thus requiring a soft reset. I had verizon finally ADMIT there was an issue here and they promise me they are working on it, my friend says they are indeed working on the problem and a patch is in the works.
When this patch is due, he had no clue, but obviously time will tell, I was hoping mabye that version 4.5 might alleviate the problem, but that hasnt released yet for verizon, and i am not going to chage the OS until they certify it.
hope this helps.
Scooch
scooch,
Thanks so much for taking the time to share that incredibly useful information. Nothing like having someone on the inside to get to the truth. I very, very rarely receive a message with audio attached, so I would not have been vulnerable to this bug. I'm so disappointed that the customer service people don't have realtime access to better information about problems like these--not even knowing if a problem has been reported before. Carriers like Verizon are probably exchanging thousands of phones thinking the phone itself is at fault. I know that has happened with Pearls due to its problems with memory shortage.
Keep up the good detective work, and again, thanks for sharing it here for all of us.
Kelly
scooch
Member
Kelly,
Your welcome, Personally I believe that the deal with the verizon data team is just plain inexperience, they're relatively new to the BB game I believe and on numerous occasions when calling them for assistance they either had no clue or pushed me off as a call back, I'm not too sure if even RIM is aware of the glitch when I initially reported it, but I knew it could not be just my particular phone, especially 3 straight times.
Like I said , I really hope 4.5 totally alleviates the issue , this would seem like to me the best and easiest solution, instead of a patch.
It's very frustrating, as no audio kinda makes the phone, or any phone for that matter pretty useless. Thank god for that softreset app i found on your site, thats been a godsend.
Scooch
scooch,
Have you upgraded to 4.5 yet? I have and so far, so good.
Kelly
scooch
Member
Hey kelly,
ya i grew tired of waiting and did some research online, found the proper 4.5 dload and reinstalled 4.5, works flawlessly, also dloaded iphone theme as well, still a bit slow though, but at least the thing is working the way it should.
have a good holiday.
scooch
i'm hearing bad things for the storm........
scooch,
Hope 4.5 continues to work well for you. Keep me posted, please.
I got a Storm on day 1, and I'm still evaluating it. It was definitely released earlier than the engineers would have wanted (I say that with some confidence because of my background doing similar work in the past). I think over the next year some software updates will come out that will remedy some of the issues. All-in-all I think it's a great phone but definitely takes some getting used to.
Kelly
scooch
Member
will do
i was told by my friend that did the research for the curve i own, that the storm had 77+ software revisions, yet they wanted to release it due to black friday and the holidays....go figure.
Never the less it looks slick, good luck with it.
Michelle,
All I can think is that there is a defect, either hardware or software. If you haven't upgraded your OS to the latest version, that's definitely worth a try. I've written about that process, so I hope that will help.
Kelly
lamouchr
Member
I have the 8100 and just recently started having this problem. I have not solved it. I have the 4.5 update on it and it has been working for several months prior to this happening.
I once got it working again by rebooting the phone, but that hasn't worked for me again!!?? Speaker phone work fine, volume up/dowm buttons move the slider correctly. When I go to voice notes, I can record and playback throu the earpeice so the hardware is OK. There must be a glitch in the system somwhere causing this. I would like any possible thing to try.
Please help!!
katanajo
Member
I am a technology manager and I have two employees + me using the Blackberry Storm. These Storms were purchased when they first came out. The frustration level of dropped calls for me was high. I would be on a conference call and the call would just get lost. It didn't happen directly after charging. The device could be off the charger for a long period of time and then bam, the call would drop. Also, my battery life sucked. I finally complained to my Verizon rep and asked for a new device. Which they did at no charge. Very odd I thought, not like them at all.
I received the device and it is definitely different than my old one. The touch screen seems easier to use and texting as well. You don't have to press so hard on the screen for the replacement device. I had upgraded my device with all the patches so I'm not sure what is different but I had several people test between the two and you can tell the difference. So far, knock on wood, I haven't had one drop call. Also, just a note, when I used my blue tooth or a wired headset, a call was NEVER dropped.
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