O2 Xphone seems to have "certed" itself

[Guest ctwp]

OK, this is downright strange. I've got a 2 week old O2 Xphone purchased in Singapore, and still here roaming on an Optus (Oz) SIM card. Everything was fine and dandy until this morning when I tried using the phone. I swear I did nothing to this phone - it was working just fine when I plugged it into the charger last night, and when I took it off this morning, here's what's different:

1. The Home Screen contains only the status line (GPRS indicator, Bluetooth indicator, Battery Charge indicator etc.), the E-mail/SMS counts and the current appointment. The rest of the screen contains only the background. The application launcher is gone, so has the running application display.

2. I can't run anything except the built-in OS apps. Whatever I try running results in "Error. Access denied. The program cannot start because it is not digitally signed with a trusted certificate." Even the O2 Task Manager, Album and Photo Contacts apps that are pre-installed on the phone all give this error. I can browse contacts, make calls, and run some of the built-in apps such as MSN Messenger, MSN Mobile etc.

3. T9 and all other character input methods are gone. If I try to send a new SMS or email, the keypad produces only numbers, and holding the * key down does nothing.

4. All my contacts are still there, but if I try to ActiveSync them to the desktop via Bluetooth, the sync starts, connects, builds the number of contacts to be synched and then terminates straight away. No error.

5. I can't de-install most applications using the "Remove Programs" option under the Settings menu. When I try, I get "alert. <> could not be removed from your phone.

Anyone got any idea what could be causing this? Power off/on does nothing to change the situation. I'm considering trying a hard reset, but am hesitant about doing so because I can't backup my contacts (see 4 above), and I've heard that most of the O2 packaged apps and branding will be lost if I do so.

I've tried switching SIMs to my US (Cingular) one, but no difference. No SD card is in the slot for what it's worth.

Help! Worst case, I guess I'm joining the O2 service line out at Jurong bright and early Monday morning...

Thanks,

Toby

- ctwp at atsui.com

[Guest Will]

did the phone get very low on battery or storage space? tbh a hard reset is probably your best bet.. but then you'll need to get the apps again.

Good luck.

Will

[Guest ctwp]

Will,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, the phone probably did get low on battery, but not to the stage where it would powerdown. Even if it did, aren't the apps and such in flash?

Anyway, I took the unit out to O2 service, and they were also puzzled and "upgraded the software". I'm guessing they just hard reset and restored the O2 apps, but they wouldn't go into any details about what they did.

Just for the future, if I hard reset myself, what O2 specific branding and apps need to be restored? Ringtones, homes screen themes, O2 task manager... anything else? What's the best way to back this stuff up so if I need to do a hard reset, it looks like a clean phone again?