Here's a list of Hidden Menus & Functions I've stumbled across. Some of them are handy for BES/Enterprise support only.
Most require you to hold down the ALT key whilst typing the letters after the + sign (they don't need to be capitals).
Enterprise Activation (Options->Advanced)
ALT+CNFG - Settings for Enterprise Activation
Address Book
ALT+VALD - Validate the data structure and look for inconsistencies
ALT+RBLD - Force a data structure rebuild
from the Options menu, Read more [...]
With the Blackberry Enterprise Server you can have the Router component on a separate server in the DMZ. Recently, I had to move this service from one server in the DMZ to another. Here is how to do it: Install the router component to the new server (this will install the Blackberry Controller and the Blackberry Router service). Make sure that port 3101 is open from your BES to the new router and from the router to the RIM infrastructure on the Internet. On the main BES, start the “BlackBerry Read more [...]
I get this question asked a lot by new Blackberry users. The simple answer is: The Blackberry smartphone is not a full-fledged mail client and you should not (ab)use it as one. By default, you have the mails of the last 30 days on it. But why the limitation? There are users that have very big mail boxes with ten thousands of mails, the maximum I have seen is a mailbox of 17 GB. It is clear that a device with 256 MB memory couldn’t store all the e-mails, even if they were compressed. So what do Read more [...]
In the Blackberry Enterprise Server, you can configure that you get notified by e-mail when something critical happens to the BES Servers. For example, if the connection to the SQL Server is lost, you can get notified. Here is how to configure the alerts:
In BlackBerry Manager, highlight the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and click Edit Properties.
Click on the BES Alert option.
In the SMTP Hostname field, type the DNS name of the SMTP gateway.
In the SMTP Account Name field, type the Microsoft Read more [...]
The Internet Proxy configuration is a setting of the MDS Connection Service (MDS-CS). This means, if you have the MDS-CS on several servers (e.g. in an active-standby server setup), you have to configure it on all instances. Configuring the Internet Proxy correctly enables your Blackberry users to surf via your companies network (using the MDS Browser). To set the proxy configuration up for on instance, see the following steps:
Go to the Blackberry Management Console and click on the MDS-CS instance Read more [...]
Sometimes it is very convenient to check the number of pending items of a specific user centrally on the Blackberry Enterprise Server Console. This used to be quite simple on BES 4.1, but on BES 5.0, RIM has hidden this figure deep down in the GUI. Here is how to retrieve it:
Login to the web console
Click Manage Users
Click on the user name
Click on the Component information tab
You can now see the Pending data packets
This can be very helpful when you are troubleshooting connectivity Read more [...]
If you send a message from Outlook, the sent e-mail gets replicated to your Blackberry Smartphone. You can identify sent items by the check mark left to message: When you open the message, you only see the headers, but not the body: This is by design to save bandwidth and memory. If you need to see the full message, press the Menu key and select More: This behavior is normal, even if you have “Auto More” enabled in the General E-Mail Options. “Auto More” is only applicable Read more [...]
Sometimes it is handy to know if a mail that you sent has actually arrived on the recipient’s Blackberry. There are delivery receipts in Exchange and other mail systems, but they only confirm that the receiving mail server has accepted the mail, you can’t be sure that the mail ever showed up on the Blackberry. To get a Blackberry delivery notification, you must start your subject with <confirm> So for example, you can send a message from Outlook with the following subject: Once this Read more [...]
The Blackberry Enterprise Server consists of more than 10 services and it can be quite confusing to know which service does what. Also, the corresponding log files don’t have abreviations that can be confusing as well. In the following table, I have summarized the services and corresponding log file names: Service Purpose Log name Blackberry Alert Sends alerts when Read more [...]
