Blackberry Mail Delivery Issues - Basic Check

Blackberry is the key service used in the corporate world to enable Email on mobile. As it is a business critical solution, issues related to Blackberry are taken up with high priority.  When I start working on a Blackberry issue related with mail delivery, Here is the sequence of test which I perform.

1)  Check the signal strength on Blackberry Device. The shortcut I use is "ALT + NMLL " . If the shortcut didnt worked, Go to Options -> Status. Check for the Signal Strength.

The ideal value for the Blackberry signal strength should be -80 dBm to -100 dBm. Anything above -100 dBm points an issue with the mobile carrier. If signal strength is fine, Proceed with step 2.

2)  If the last test mail is not getting delivered, Identify the PIN number of the Blackberry device and send a PIN message asking for a reply.

OR

Add the user on Blackberry Messenger. Once accepted, send a test message from the BBIM. Wait for "D" appearing just above the tick mark. "D" will appear only if the corresponding message got delivered to the recipient.

If PIN Messages are getting delivered and user is able to reply, Proceed with STEP 3.

3)  Run a Diagnostics Test and check the report. To run a test, Go to Options -> Mobile Network -> Press Blackberry Key and Select "Diagnostics Test". Press Blackberry Key again and select "Run". This will trigger a diagnostics test and on the report, Check for "Radio Data Activation, Blackberry Registration, Connected to Blackberry, Blackberry PIN-Pin (All the mentioned should be YES ideally).

Also, Check out for the below details.

Server name - SRP ID of BES Server
Connected to - Email address of the mailbox configured in Blackberry

If all the above fields are displayed correctly, Proceed with step 4.
 
4)  Send a test message from my Outlook with the subject line <$RemoveOnDelivery>. Once the Test message is delivered, BES Server will send a confirmation back to me.

<$RemoveOnDelivery> or <confirm> can be used for automated delivery acknowledgement. But I prefer <$RemoveOnDelivery> as this message will get deleted from Outlook immediately after the delivery. However, deletion will happen only on Outlook and message will continue to be on the Blackberry device.

If no delivery confirmation is getting back, you need to check the BES Server logs.
I will write about that in my next Article.

Cheers
Shaba