Blackberry Tour - Daily Battery Pull?

[fozzie33]

I just got off the phone with tech support and was stunned when the support agent said, "The manufacturer recommends that you pull the battery daily." Is this true, does blackberry recommend you pull the blackberry tour's battery every day? I can't believe that blackberry would recommend this, as it seems like this would mean there is something wrong with the phone. Anyone else have any thoughts on this

[StreetDocRN]

Hi,

This is true.  All Blackberry devices use the main memory for running apps, themes, etc.  The only thing the SD card is used for is storage for pics, music, and files.  By using the main memory, the available memory becomes less and less each day.  This can be because of certain apps that run continous such as weather programs, email, themes.  If you don't believe it, just monitor your memory by going to Options>Status and monitor your memory.  The Tour has 256mb of memory as compared to other devices with far less such as the Pearl or Curve.  When a Blackberry gets below about 10-12 mb of available memory, the device will be sluggish.  Pulling the battery will cause the device to reboot, thereby refreshing the memory.  RIM recommends pulling the battery from time to time to refresh your memory.  There are certain programs that simulate battery pulls like Quickpull.  Quickpull can be set to reboot your device at a certain time if you want, say 3AM while you are asleep.  You can also press Left Alt, Right Shift, and Return keys at the same time to reboot your device.

Doc

[mikevero]

I'm on my 3rd Blackberry and that's news to me.

[Geocritter]

Verizon tech support told me the same thing, but they told me to do it weekly at a minimum.  I have an otterbox defender on mine, so it's not the easiest task in the world to do...I have to "undress" my blackberry (no comments, please! ) to get to it. That's one quirk about Java vs C++ programming...with C++, they can put in a reset button.  I wish we could do that, even if it was a manual battery disconnect switch that you have to hold for 30 seconds or so.

Anyway, just for daily maintenance, I use quickpull, scheduled for 11:30 pm.  Side note: if you DO decide to try quickpull, and you set a schedule, try to remember that you did so.  It kind of freaked me out one night when I was up later than normal, and I looked over and all of a sudden I saw my unit reboot.  I thought "oh no, here we go again with the spontaneous reboots."  I was sweating it for a few minutes, and then I remembered I had scheduled Quickpull to do it.  Whew!

For the record, I still physically open the case and pull the battery for a minute or two at LEAST once a week, though.  And anytime things are misbehaving I'll do the hard reset. 

[MadDogFL62]

100% true.  It is the only way for your BB to get your phone memory back in order.  A huge pain if you have a latched case or an Otter Box!  I use a Seidio case on my BB Curve and I pull it apart every 5 to 7 days to pull the battery.

ALSO NOTE that those free BB apps that claim to reboot your BB only perform a soft reboot.  This will not help you if you have memory problems.  Only pulling the battery will work.

Hey, at least we aren't being told to stand on one leg and close our left eye when we pull the battery.  MAYBE THEN we would suspect that something was wrong!  

[kro62]

StreetDoc is right on. The battery pull is a way of life. There are things you can do to reduce the frequency of  necessary pulls. You can go to the browser, go to menu, go to cache operations and clear each cache. Also from your normal screen you can hold the alt button while typing LGLG (doesn't have to be capital, did that for clarity) and then pressing menu button, and clear log. And then use the suggestion from StreetDoc, alt+right up+return key, this simulates a battery pull. I do all these about every other day, they don't take long other than the reboot after simulated battery pull. You can get Quickpull free and Quickpull premium(2.99?) from bb app world, I used the free on my curve 8330 and it worked awesome. After getting my Tour 9630 I quickly got the app and noticed immediately that it worked but had strange behavior. One morning ( I used the schedule option) my phone was off, I pushed the power button and it would do a partial boot and cut back off and then repeat the procedure. I didn't mention that I had the Tour about a week when this had happened, I did get a replacement but because it wouldn't boot I had to RE-PROGRAM my contacts! After discussions with several tech's I now use the suggestions above minus the Quickpull app. One forgotten suggestion: delete unnecessary sample pics,videos,music that came with the phone and delete foreign language support unless you use it (most people don't). I'm not even going to begin to tell you how to delete the language support , which includes Korean-Portugese- and others, but crackberry.com and bbgeeks.com is a great source for updates, advice, searchable content, and step by step suggestions. Good luck.

[SydneyK]

I only do it once a week. Or whenever my prehistoric Curve freezes up on me.