Fix Its: Merge Two BlackBerry Calendars into One & AT&T’s Visual Voicemail Activation for the Bold

Posted by Michael 
Posted on August 28, 2009

Bold_product_shotAT&T pushed out new firmware and a desktop application update for the BlackBerry Bold this week, supposedly with a new Visual Voicemail (similar to the iPhone). But somewhere in the process of the upgrade, I found that a second calendar was activated which wasn’t syncing to Microsoft Outlook. The fix that I detail below allows you to merge multiple BlackBerry Calendars. Also, I have provided some information about activating AT&T’s Visual Voicemail.

First, How To Activate Visual Voicemail

Setting up the new Visual Voicemail on the Bold is a bit confusing. While the application installed without issue, when I launched it, it gave me an error saying something like “Provisioning failed.” To fix this, you need to log into your AT&T account and go to the “Add Features” section of your BlackBerry management page. Towards the bottom, you should see “Visual Voicemail” that has a $0.00 charge associated with it. Once you do that, you immediately get options on your BlackBerry to configure Visual Voicemail. After that, you set up a pin/password and then record a new greeting for your Voicemail (note: be sure to check your messages prior to activating as they may be lost. I haven’t confirmed this. Perhaps someone else can.) But I digress…

The the firmware and desktop upgrade went well. I’m always amazed at how large updates are, but I guess that it is similar to iPhone firmware updates (in the 200-300 MB range). But I digress yet again…

The Quick and Easy Fix

Once the firmware and desktop software were updated, my wife noticed that she wasn’t getting some of her recently entered calendar events and entries syncing across to her Outlook on her PC. Viewing the log file produced nothing that seemed to point to any issues. Digging a little deeper, I noticed that some of her calendar items were different colors. That got me thinking and I went into the Calendar options and saw that there were two calendars listed, one that was the “default” one and one that had her email address as its name. It seemed that somehow during the upgrade process, a new default calendar was created, and that Outlook was only syncing one of the two.

The fix to merge the calendars is very easy and quick. It only takes about a minute or less. Here is what you do:

  1. Launch the calendar application on the BlackBerry.
  2. Press the menu key and go to “Options”
  3. Once you have the Options open, type the word “move” in (don’t put in the quotes).
  4. I realize this sounds a bit strange but it will launch a dialog box that says “Move all appointments in base system calendar to Desktop?” Yes or No
  5. Select “Yes” and the calendars will be merged.
  6. After that, you should have no problems syncing.

When the calendars were merged or collapsed together, the calendar that remains was the one that showed the email account (e.g., instead of “default” it shows something like “user@email.com”). More details can be found in this BlackBerry knowledgebase article.

I hope that these two fixes help! Please let me know if it worked for you by leaving a comment.

Did you find this solution useful? If so:

HTD says: Remember, there is always a solution to your tech woes. You just have to seek it out sometimes!

Related Posts with Thumbnails
DeliciousStumbleUponDiggTwitterMixxTechnoratiFacebookNews VineRedditLinkedInYahoo! BookmarksSphinn It!

Related Posts

  1. Blackberry 7100t sync issues resolved
  2. Fix It: Outlook Calendar and iPhone Calendar Events Hours Not Synched Correctly
  3. iPhone: Experience installing Firmware 1.1.1 on Jailbroken iPhone with 3rd Party applications
  4. iPhone: Upgrade to Firmware 1.1.3 Observations
  5. iPhone: Possible Audio Bug related to iPhone Firmware 1.1.1
Cellular, Fix It, Gadgets, General, Software, how to

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

  • Brian
    Any fix like this for the 8330? Can you merge multiple calendars? Does different calendar color coding merge also? Does the primary calendar sync with Outlook 2007? Thanks for sharing this fix. If I can't get to work in my 8330, I may change phones.
  • Sorry, I don't know if that works for the 8330, have you tried it? I wouldn't be surprised if it works. Just do a search for "duplicate calendar 8330". I found this that might help: http://forums.pinstack.com/f185/duplicate_calen...

    Good luck!
  • Pawan
    Can you also merge two desktops (read two address books) into one?
  • Hmmm, I don't know the answer to that one. You might have to do that at the Outlook level.
  • Name
    OMG That worked! That is the most obscure hack I've seen in a long time.
  • kathryn
    Thank You! I've been looking for this solution for three days now. I didn't think to check for duplicate calendars on my Bold and the "ghost" move command was a surprise. Thanks again, you made my afternoon!
  • Phill
    Merge Calendars.

    It worked great after an "off shore" told my boss to wipe his Storm. Then sync it the wrong way. It wiped out all his outlook calendar events. Where does this stuff come from? Type a word into thin air to activate a command? "Sounds strange?" c'mon. Who has the time to lokk at the code for easter eggs like this?

    Thanks for the tip. It saved me a bunch of time.
    Phill
blog comments powered by Disqus

 

 

 

 

TechDadBlog - Blogged