blackberry

I've written before about my outgoing mail problems with my BlackBerry.

I'm finally narrowing it down. Now, I'm not sure how much is the BlackBerry service and how much is the Funambol client.

I know how my BlackBerry gets mail. It's nothing special - it goes out and grabs it every 3 minutes from my IMAP server.

Sending mail has been a bit more of a mystery...

When I first create my account on blackberry.com, it works fine. Within a few days when sending an e-mail I'll get "Invalid message from server". If I choose the message again and hit "resend" it goes fine.

Since I run my own Cyrus IMAP server with eGroupware I started checking my logs and playing with tcpdump to diagnose the problem. I found something rather interesting.

Mail logs when the message sends properly would show a login from some blackberry.com server.
Mail logs when the message failed would show a login... from LOCALHOST.

This is a near perfect solution. I run an Asterisk Vo/IP system for my office, and eGroupware with Cyrus for our mail system. We migrated from Microsoft Exchange some time ago and I've never looked back.

With eGroupware, we were able to replace 99% of the functionality of our Microsoft Exchange server with open source software. With sieve filters users can set up an unlimited number of server-side mail filters, something you can't do with Exchange anymore, and the web interface works much better with Firefox than Microsoft's web access. Our Asterisk phone system integrates into the mix and will deliver voicemail to the user's e-mail box.

Now, with my Blackberry I can download and play those voicemails without ever having to dial into the phone system, because they are wav files attached to e-mail that is picked up by my Blackberry. I'm feeling so "connected" right now it's not even funny :-)

Well this is odd... after a little over 24 hours of functioning properly, my blackberry suddenly stopped sending e-mails on the first attempt again. Hitting "resend" would always work.

Yet again, logging into the blackberry web interface, deleting the account and recreating it fixed the problem.

What's up with that? Sending an e-mail results in "Invalid error from server". Immediately hitting resend sends it just fine. I've watched the Cyrus IMAP server logs and found something interesting...

When it stops working, on the first attempt cyrus shows "login: localhost" when I try to send a mail, then it fails.

When it works (and on a "resend") it shows "login: bda356c.bis.na.blackberry.com"

I'm stumped as to how "localhost" could even happen...

Just picked up a new Blackberry 8830 World Edition with GPS and unlimited data plan.

Very nice...

But the mapping software doesn't ever find the GPS satellites.

I just spent 20 minutes on hold with USCellular to be told "Sorry, but that's a known problem. We've already told RIM. It's not a problem with the device but a software problem. Hopefully they can fix it soon."

Talk about passing the buck and being noncommittal...

Everything worked great at first, but now I'm having e-mail issues with my Blackberry.

Now whenever I compose and send an e-mail I get "invalid message from server" but if I select the same e-mail and hit resend, it goes fine.

I'm using the Internet service. It checks mail on my imap server just fine and pushes it down to me.

Today I took the plunge. US Cellular finally stepped up to the plate and apologized for pissing me off, so I went ahead and replaced my crappy RAZR with a Blackberry 8830.

I then promptly installed the Funambol Sync Client on it, and configured it to sync my calendar and contacts with my eGroupware server. Amazingly, it was very easy to do.

The Blackberry is definitely a different experience. It's going to take some getting used to. Too bad my Nokia n800 refuses to transfer files to it. I guess I'll need to get my ringtones over another way.