BlackBerry® PlayBook™

[kingfreeze]

Dear lost, thanks again for your help. I tried the 3 button reset, and tried to find a public network at a McDonald's, to no avail. I have another friend I would PB chat with, and had no problems from overseas, and after he returned home. I am unsure how to proceed, next, I Weill see if bb desktop manager recognizes wife's PB. Would creating a VPN profile help? Wife's PB is 9 months old, has hardly anything on the hard drive, is handled with great care, not a scratch on it. I am hoping jsanders could provide some insight. Last night when wife's PB was turned on the first time home, it did have the blck screen, I did a hard reboot, pressed and held the power button until lit turned off. I will search the forums, anything else you can contribute owe would appreciate.

[JSanders Resident Expert · Accepted solution]

kingfreeze, sounds like it's time to do a debrick on the Playbook.

You need to follow these instructions to "debrick" your PlayBook:
1. Do a backup of your PlayBook using your computer and BlackBerry Desktop Software version 7 installed. It can be downloaded from http://us.blackberry.com/apps-software/desktop/
2. After the backup is finished, unplug the PlayBook and on the PlayBook press and hold down the power button until the unit forces the device off.
3. With the Desktop Software still open on your computer and the PlayBook powered off, connect the PlayBook to your computer once again.
4. You should see an error screen from Desktop Software popup with the options to Retry, Update, or Cancel.
Very quickly choose the Update option.
5. All information will on your PlayBook will be erased and a reload of the Software will commence to install on the PlayBook.
6. Once this is complete your PlayBook will go back through the initial (as if new) setup wizard (entering the BlackBerryID, etc., and then you can perform a restore using Desktop Software to return your personal data from the backup. Applications which you downloaded from AppWorld won't restore, but they can be easily reinstalled using AppWorld > MyWorld section of AppWorld.

[kingfreeze]

Thank you, J. I have wife's pb plugged into the laptop with desktop manager, and it says "bb desktop software cannot communicate with the connected device ". It did give me the option to repair, without being able to save files and apps. She has pictures from the netherlands in here which will be lost if I proceed.

[kingfreeze]

It is updating, but not exactly as you described, J. I was not able to back up wife's pb. I took pictures of some of her photos with my pb. I am hoping for the device to work correctly again. I will report to you if the reinstall is successful. I truly appreciate your help. 

[JSanders Resident Expert]

Yep, good luck with it.

[kingfreeze]

The debrick worked. Again, my thanks to you and lost at sea. I am unsure how to mark the thread as "solution ". Our very best regards.....

[JSanders Resident Expert]

Excellent. Great news, good luck.

[adrieanme]

My PlayBook on the other hand has a different problem, I am able to connect to my network, however when I'm in for example on the desk where the router is the signal is strong but when I start browsing for about 4/5 it suddenly shows an error and then I have to turn the wifi off and on again. But when I'm in the kitchen (very very close to the desk) it shows weak signal and sometimes the playbook says that theres no connection but I tried with my blackberry curve 8520 my iphone 3gs and then my laptop and all of them show strong signal. And I restarted the playbook loads of time and even made an update through the desktop manager which sometimes itself doesn't recognise the playbook. So what can I do?

[kingfreeze]

Try an Internet Speed test first. See what your upload and download speed is. The icon is not always correct.

[TroyTempest]

The playbook wifi range is not huge, maybe 30 feet or less if theres a kitchen wall in the way.

I would recommend a free (or cheap on Mac) program called INSSIDER which will display wireless channels used by your neighbours. Set your router to use a channel away from the others rather than leaving on auto setting.

Use WPA2 encryption in AES mode for best Playbook performance.

Worth a try.

Inssider readout, Mine is GrandadsMiFi which was on channel 6 but I moved to 8.