I just had a problematic 30 minutes to deal with. My Pre, my every day cell phone, for whatever reason, stopped responding to input. The last two pieces of software I added to the phone was the Palm webOS 1.3.5.1 update (to address the Calendar and Exchange ActiveSync issue) and the new 3D game, Monopoly by Electronic Arts mobile.
So what gives? The phone just stopped working. I wanted to shut the Pre down correctly so I held the Power button down for 2 seconds, but then I couldn’t tap the on screen Power button to reboot the phone. So I pulled the battery out. Not exactly the graceful shutdown of webOS that I was hoping for.
I waited a few seconds, popped the battery in and the Pre seemed to just hang at the Palm logo screen. Ugh! Out comes the battery again.
I really didn’t want to have to re-flash my phone to reload a fresh copy of Palm webOS and then have to reload my data from a back. (Make sure you are using the Backup application to back your data up to your Palm profile!!)
To resolve the issue, I pulled the battery out, let the phone sit for about 30 minutes, and then popped the battery back into the phone. I then waited another 5 minutes or so (it felt like 3 hours) for webOS to boot itself up and get itself going. Another 5 minutes later, everything was back to normal.
Talk about a wild ride. I’m not sure what I would have done all weekend without my cell phone. If the Pre had really died, I wouldn’t have been able to swap it out until Monday afternoon with my BlackBerry Curve 8330. What a hassle that would have been! At this point, I’m glad I’m ok.