BlackBerry starts the February Android update cycle two days early

by Volker Weber

Sketch

Christian reports the first February update on his BlackBerry PRIV. Let the games begin. None of my devices gets it, even with Checkin (dial *#*#2432546#*#*).

Please report your BlackBerry Android security updates here >

Update 07 Feb: DTEK60 is my first phone to receive an update. Build AAJ051.

Comments

My PRIV has it. No idea why it takes so long for you.

Martin Dietze, 2017-02-04

Exactly. No idea. That is the problem.

Volker Weber, 2017-02-04

Not really familiar with the mechanisms involved in distribution of patches it still looks to me like carrier-dependent firmware version might play a role here?

My PRIV is an unlocked AT&T phone. It came with Android Lollippop and AT&T's apps on it which were not uninstallable. Since I was not in AT&T's network there was no way to upgrade my phone to Marshmallow.

Hence I did a clean install from the firmware image that was provided by Blackberry for owners of unlocked AT&T phones like mine.

After that I was able to uninstall AT&T's apps, and ever since I've got all patches on the very day they were announced by Blackberry.

Maybe, just as an experiment, a fresh install from a firmware image provided by Blackberry will make a difference? That would at least answer part of your question.

Martin Dietze, 2017-02-04

Maybe it would. But most likely it will not. Wouldn't it be nice if BlackBerry explained the mechanics?

None of my devices is a carrier phone.

Volker Weber, 2017-02-04

BlackBerry made some modifications to the update process for the AT&V PRIV variant: http://support.blackberry.com/kb/articleDetail?articleNumber=000038204&language=English. That is why Martin is getting the updates on his AT&T PRIV.

Abdelkader Boui, 2017-02-04

Thank you Abdelkader.

I have four reports so far: all PRIV, two STV100-4, two STV100-1.

Volker Weber, 2017-02-04

One of them mine :)

Martin Dietze, 2017-02-04

And: yes, I think that BB should address this issue. I would be very interested to understand how it works anyway. Things like these used to be carrier-dependent.

E.g. I never got updates for my BB10 devices while in eplus network because my carrier did not explicitly support BB10 devices. I resolved this issue by getting myself a Vodaphone prepaid SIM, performing the updates that would now come in and then put my original SIM back in. Ever since then I got updates.

Hence unless I find any information showing that this is really not the case I would not rule out carrier politics behind this. This IS bad, because it still means that BB cannot keep their promise. But in that case carriers should be told to change their way of handling this, too.

Martin Dietze, 2017-02-04

Nothing at 11am, download & install at noon (afetr manual check).

Stefan Opitz, 2017-02-04

Old vowe.net archive pages

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