Good morning everyone!

At first I'd like to say <hello> to everyone - I'm the new guy. =)

Yesterday I managed to buy the Z8 in Germany. It's very new here for non-vodafone user and it took a lot of effort and phonecalls to finally find a shop who had a non-branded version in stock. Just one piece, but I can call that mine now. =)

After a few hours of enjoying the comforts of symbian (in comparison to my old V3), I decided to install putty on the phone. Who doesn't need his daily dose of ssh?

As you might guess now, the install failed. The Phone App in XP told me to continue the installation on the phone but nothing there happened.

At this point I had JIMM installed successfully, thus I knew which dialog should pop up. I then disconnected the phone and the UI was totally unresponsive.

After that I made the mistake of removing the battery and by that, sending the phone into infinite reset cycles. This behaviour is covered in an early thread here and in mobile-review.com's Z8 Review. However the guys there seem to successfully hard-reset the device. I wrote them, too.

Does anyone of you know anything new concerning this matter?
I really don't want to take the phone back to my local dealer and wait another X weeks. I've been looking out for this phone since CeBit '07.

I am gonna call Motorola Support in about an hour an see what they have to say - history told me to expect nothing from any service-line though. I would sign a NDA without hesitating if I could prevent in-factory-reflashing..


any hints?

kind regards,

koro

Update:

The Motorola Hotline wasn't very helpful. They gave me the number of a lacal repair-center which didn't know anything bout the Z8. "The device is not yet in their knowledge base 'cause it's too new".

So I decided trying to get a replacement at my local store. Until then I managed to get access to the boot loader.
Just keep pressing '1'+'3' before inserting the battery or '*' + '#'.
After that you will see a screen in which the backlight can be turned on and off with the '1' - button.
'waiting for usb' was all I got though. afaik there is no software for re-flashing available to the public, but this may be a start. For future analysis I saved a dump of the usb-comm. upon plug-in.

I ended up with a brand new replacement-Z8 and the warning in my head to be more careful with removing the battery in case of any misbehaviour of the device.

so long,

koro

doh!

yesterday it happened again. no beta-software install, no gimmicks, nothing. Contact list was open, hit the camera button with slider closed.
After that, my contacts were messed up and displayed in landscape.
After a few hours of waiting I decided to shut it down via pushing and holding the red button, then select "shut down".
It never came back on. Instead it again reboots in endless loop now.

That's it for me. I was absolutely willing to "stay low" and cut back my expectations until a new firmware release. But this is too much.

I bought a phone to use it. At this point, that's a developer device with a graphical UI in BETA state. I'm a software developer myself and this software is destroying everything good the phone itself stands for.

Today I'm gonna call Moto-TechSupport on this ridiculous expensive hotline and ask for any help, again.

have a nice day,

-koro

Well, here's an update and possibly my last post:

I just got off the phone with several hotlines.

1. Official Hotline from website:
They gave me the number of a facility in Flensburg. I guess some service-affiliate of Moto for technical concerns.

2. unknown site near a Motorola location in Flensburg, Germany:
It took me a few minutes to get the Mrs. away from here standard messages like "go talk to your dealer", "there's nothing I can do" yada-yada-yada

I told her, that all I wanted was someone who can tell me wether I got 2 faulty phones or that there is indeed a software bug and if a fw-upgrade is soon to be expected.
The reason is quite simple: I bought the first phone last Thursday. In Germany you can "step-back" from the purchase-contract within 2 weeks. If I decide to send the phone back to moto, I wouldn't have this possibility 'cause it's very unlikely to receive any useful information or a new, fixed (not just reflashed) phone within a week.
Finally she gave in and after telling me, that the phone is "too new" (and being repaired by Moto itself), she gave me the phone number Moto's (formerly known) "High-Tech-Center".

3. Ex- "Hightech-Center", Motorola, Flensburg, Germany
Again, I explained my situation and ended up with a technician. He told me, that he had no information about the Z8 because earlier this year Motorola decided to move (at least parts) of his department to Hungary.
Thus the phone would be repaired there.

No happy ending here. Unfortunately.

Tomorrow I'm gonna return the phone, get my money back and turn my back on Motorola, maybe forever.


wish you all the best,

-koro

Koro - I had similar issues and swapped for an N95. Z8 - Great phone, completely wasted by crap software.

Koro - please check your private messages.

I may be able to help

Koro - please check your private messages.

I may be able to help

checked & replied ;)

i have got the same problems , so koromar / hobbes79 can you please help me?
p.s i am also a german user , so it lookes like there might be a problem mit the german version of the uiq? or are there any other user which have the same probs?