Toshiba 4050 pcsmail issue: trouble ticket opened.

[huntm856]

New user to site. Just got a Toshiba 4050 and only subsequently discovered the issue with pcsmail on the browser (where one cannot erase items through the browser--if he tries, he gets an 'UNSUPPORTED CONTENT TYPE' error message).

Anyway, I called CC and got to the Vision people and eventually had the problem validated by the tech and a trouble ticket assigned.

My question is this: I've been on this site now for a couple days, and seen that this has been a known issue with the 4050 for some time now--so one assumes Sprint has known about it for some time as well. Does anyone think Sprint will actually follow through with trying to fix this problem? Or was the guy just blowing me off? Seems like any fix would involve a firmware revision, and I just can't see Sprint putting the resources into that given that the 4050 has been discontinued. Any thoughts?

Oh, and before anyone asks why I got a 4050 when it's been discontinued.... My piece-o-crap (aka N400) finally and mercifully died on me (charger socket broke and wouldn't charge anymore) and I had to get an immediate replacement--couldn't wait a few months for one of the cool new phones coming before Xmas.

Looked at the reviews on phonescoop and narrowed it down to the 4050 and the 4500. When I actually looked at the phones, I just fell in love with the 4050's screen and just liked the interface and design.

I'm really happy with the phone and have decided to keep it this issue and the 35k limit issue notwithstanding even though I still have time to trade it in if I want (only bought it last Friday).

[DcDave63]

The main issue is, that Toshiba makes the phone...Toshiba owed part of Audiovox...Toshiba sold the VM4050 to and through Audiovox to Sprint...Toshiba sold its part of Audiovox to Curitel ( A Korean Sub-company of Hyundai)...Toshiba has decided to back out of the phone and PDA market altogether in the US.

Audiovox doesn't want to fix anything, because per all the emails and call I have made "The phone was made to work that way".

Sprint pushes people to contact the manufacturer on this phone, simply because they basically have washed their hands of it.

[huntm856]

...
Sprint pushes people to contact the manufacturer on this phone, simply because they basically have washed their hands of it....


So do you think that when the Sprint tech opened a trouble ticket for me and said they'd work on the problem he was just shining me on? That's what I am thinking: given the realities of the situation I'd be really surprised to see Sprint really try to fix things, as you seem to be suggesting as well.

[joe123]

So do you think that when the Sprint tech opened a trouble ticket for me and said they'd work on the problem he was just shining me on?

They can be telling the truth by saying that they are "working on it" by filling a form that will sit before 10,000 other forms waiting for a tech guy to review it. This tech guy going through the 10,000 claims only works 1/2 hour a month of which 15 minutes is spent getting coffee.

So they are working on it. By the way, I also got the vm4050 phone and I love it. I also got the same story when I reported this same problem months ago - it only took 7 reps to finaly tell me that it was a known issue.

Since these phones have the Sprint logo on them, I would think that we can actually request another new phone later on if they don't fix this function. No?

[DcDave63]

Honestly, I have had the phone for over a month, have never tried deleting an email on it, and dont know what to expect. But based on everything i have learned over the last month, I doubt it, but I hope they come through for you (us).

[huntm856]

I agree with you both. The can't delete issue is more of an annoyance than anything. Even knowing what I do now--this issue, the discontinuance, the 36k limit WAP issue--I still am keeping this phone even though I am still within the time during which I could exchange it (only got it last Friday).

For me, the speed at which the browser loads pages and the beauty of the screen: I'm hooked. :)

[joe123]

but I hope they come through for you (us).

The tech guy I mentioned before just spewed out all of his coffee laughing histerically after he read your note :joy:

You made his month!

[DcDave63]

well, I was trying to give the guy some hope...jeez

why dont you go kick over his lemonade stand too...

[huntm856]

There's no need to be catty. I asked a question and expressed a doubt in the asking, so I don't see where I expressed a desire for false hope.

'Histerical', indeed. Ever hear of a spell-checker?

[rdj]

I also opened a trouble ticket on this same problem about two months ago. The explanation I received was that it is a problem with the VM4050's browser, and the problem likely won't be solved until an updated browser is available for the phone. Based on the Audiovox vs. Toshiba marketing issues, we are unlikely to see this problem fixed through that means.

On the other hand, and I stressed this point when we created the trouble ticket, there is no defensible reason why Sprint cannot change the PCS Mail pages for deleting and replying to email so that they return a content type that is compatible with the VM4050. I am all but certain this would be something quite simple for them to investigate and do.

What I would suggest is that all of us call Customer Care, open or revisit trouble tickets, and firmly request that they be directed to the PCS Mail web support group and not the folks charged with supporting the VM4050. Politely insist that the web group find a work-around that takes care of this problem. Be as much of a "squeaky wheel" as you can without getting belligerent. Check back with them frequently if for no other reason than to keep updates happening to the trouble ticket.

I agree with others' sentiments that the VM4050 is a great phone despite its shortcomings. The PCS mail thing is a fundamental function of PCS Vision, however, and it's a real shame that such a simple problem makes it so practically unusable. I used to forward my work email to the phone, which was terrific while I was on the road, but due to the 1GB limitation of the PCS mailbox, I really can't do that any more -- because I cannot delete the messages that I've seen, some of which have quite large attachments! Being forced to go to a PC to delete PCS mail messages is downright brain-dead.

Make use of the direct line into PCS Vision web support (877-228-2257), contribute to the general noise level about this problem, and let's see if we can't get Sprint to get off their asses and help us out!

[joe123]

What I would suggest is that all of us call Customer Care, open or revisit trouble tickets, and firmly request that they be directed to the PCS Mail web support group and not the folks charged with supporting the VM4050.

I will politely say that the only thing Sprint $understands$ is $money$.

If everyone asked for a new phone to fix this problem, they would look at that cost and of the cost of fixing it and would find a solution fast.

Of course, this means that they may just offer you another phone which in my case, I dont want :(

[huntm856]

I will politely say that the only thing Sprint $understands$ is $money$.

If everyone asked for a new phone to fix this problem, they would look at that cost and of the cost of fixing it and would find a solution fast.

Of course, this means that they may just offer you another phone which in my case, I dont want :(

Exactly. I'd rather have this phone even with this and the 35k limit issue than any other phone currently in Sprint's lineup. So I guess the only thing to do is what the earlier poster suggested and try make as much noise about it with Sprint as possible, though I agree that they'll probably not do anything about it. Can't hurt, I guess....

[joe123]

Exactly. I'd rather have this phone even with this and the 35k limit issue than any other phone currently in Sprint's lineup. So I guess the only thing to do is what the earlier poster suggested and try make as much noise about it with Sprint as possible, though I agree that they'll probably not do anything about it. Can't hurt, I guess....

It may help if we all participate and show our ticket numbers here. I would do it, but I prefer to do it anonymously.

[huntm856]

Wirelessly posted (Toshiba VM4050: VM4050/132.037 UP.Browser/6.2.2.4.e.1.100 (GUI) MMP/2.0)

Wirelessly posted (Toshiba VM4050: VM4050/132.037 UP.Browser/6.2.2.4.e.1.100 (GUI) MMP/2.0)

I got a callback from the tech today on voicemail. Basically he said it is a known issue too, but said it was do to a problem with the firmware and to "bear with them" until Toshiba releases a firmware update which he of course couldn't give me a timeline for. Given how likely we all probably think it is that Toshiba will release new firmware for this phone, seems pretty obvious that this is probably a case of 'tell them whatever and hope they just go away.'

[DcDave63]

I called Sprint PCS and got the response that the manufacturer is
responsible for handling issues with the software and hardware. Sprint just
does the updates once they are setup for implementation. I went to
Toshiba and got the following response:
-----------------------------------------------------
Hello

I am trying to find out who I can ask about what if
anything is being done to produce software and/or hardware
updates to correct issues on the Toshiba VM4050(Audiovox CDM-9950).
There are a number of bugs which, to date, have not been addressed by
Sprint PCS.

Please let me know if you have any information or who I can
speak with to get these bugs corrected.

I have previously sent an email to info@tari.toshiba.com at
your Mobile Wireless office in New Jersey, US, without any
response.

I appreciate and look forward to your response.

Thank you
---------------------------------------------------------
They responded with :

Thank you for your inquiry to Toshiba regarding VM4050.

At this time, we do not have upgrade plan for this product.
Since it is approved by Sprint PCS, any product
modification should be considered based on Sprint PCS's
guidance. And in this case, the direct contact with Sprint
PCS is the function of our OEM partner, Audiovox
Communications Corporation (ACC).

We would suggest that you should contact ACC's Customer
Service for this matter. We hope they can properly take
care of your feedback.

The contact information at ACC is as follows.

Audiovox Communications Corporation
Customer Service Department
555 Wireless Blvd.
Hauppauge, NY 11788, USA
+1-800-229-1235
http://www.audiovox.com

Best regards,

Mobile Communications Company
Toshiba Corporation

----------------------------------------------------------
Then, I contacted Audiovox :

Response (PVILLACCI) - 09/27/2004 01:38 PM
Please state the problems you are having, so we can direct you to how
it get the unit repaired or what is needed to resolve problems

1.) When you are in the middle of something, and have
a need to stop and close the phone, any and all
operations continue and stay active in memory, with
the words "i Operation"
2.) Camera Flash - There is no way to leave the flash
as always set to be on when taking a picture. If you
choose the "Always on", then the flash turns on and
stays on like a flashlight until after a single
picture is taken, then it shuts off an has to be
turned back on again. It should allow that "Always on"
means, that if you take multiple pictures, then you
dont have to re-select "Flash" every seingle time.
3.) Can not select multiple pics to send. You can send
either 1 or all, but not a few.
4.) T9 - cannot make this the default in many places
in the phone. It almost always defaults to ABC, and
there is no place to change this.
5.) Memory issue - There is a 35K memory issue, where
going to websites causes the phone to show
"Insufficient Memory for this operation".
6.) Options in Menu List are numbered 1 through 9.
Submenu's are listed 1 through 4, 5, 6 or whatever.
Except for #5 Downloads. The items are not numbered.
7.) Because of the different processor, there are
virtually no games or applications made for this
phone. Will there be an update that will allow
existing or futures games/applications to run on this
phone?

These are just a few of the ones that I have seen, as
well as many others. There has never been an update to
my knowledge to fix any of these problems.
------------------------------------------------------
Here is Audiovox's response:

Response (PVILLACCI) - 09/27/2004 04:23 PM
1) This is not a Bug this is how the phone was designed. it is a
reminder that you closed the phone while still in the function menu

2)It always on every time you take a photo, this way you do not have to
reset the flash setting when in a dark area taking photos, this is not
a bug but how it was designed.

3)You are unable to send more that one photo at a time, again this was
the way the phone was designed

4) you can't set the T9 as default

5) There is a memory limit, to prevent this delete photo, old sent
picture mail you sent or receive, limit downloading of ringtones or games,
all this use memory.

6) Downloads are broken down by types, Games , ringers, ect.

7) There are no games pre loaded on the phone, all downloads og games ,
ringtones screen savers can be downloaded fromn Sprint's PCSVISION
------------------------------------------------------------------
I questioned that, and asked for an engineers response, and here is what I got back from Audiovox:

I forward your email to our Engineering Dept, here is their reply.

There are two clarifications that should be made on the feedback.
Other than that, everything looks great and was right on target with
our intention during design and certification.

1) Item # 2 - The flash will stay on for the duration of the picture
taking session when "Always On." The user can take a picture, press
back, take another picture, press back, while the flash stays on in camera
mode of that session and all pictures will go to the "In Camera"
folder.

2) Item #4 - The default messaging input is specific to text messaging.
The user will see that this is set accordingly and will stay set within
text messaging. Picture messaging and other input locations will stay
Abc, as this is the required default mode by Sprint. The user can
change it accordingly for any given session, however for Sprint compliance
of this specific model, it was designed to only allow default input
mode for the text messaging input.

----------------------------------------------------------

Then I got another from Audiovox:

Below please find our Engineering response:

1) Our handset is built to Sprint specifications. However, there are
items that are not covered thoroughly in their documents.

2) When the handset is undergoing development and certification we work
closely with Sprint for over 100 days, reviewing 100s of issues,
distributing samples to User-Trial participants, and fixing almost every
issue reported by these users, Sprint engineering, and our internal
certification team. It is an open environment of troubleshooting and
requested fixes.

3) Unfortunately, it is not the feature set or handset issues that have
been the limitation of our products. It has proven to be cost. This
will change over the next year, as we become more integrated with our
R&D. Outsourcing to OEMs up till this point has created a high price
point and gap between R&D and customers. We understand this concern and
are working on rectifying it.

4) The functionality that the flash on this model follows is designed
for the Sprint-specified Video Phone Platform. We do not have control
over this, as it differs from the normal camera phone specification (It
will stay on constantly throughout "camera mode." If the user
disagrees with the Sprint design, we can bring the perspective to Sprint's
attention on future models.

Hopefully this helps to clear things up

Me: Yea, clear as mud.

[joe123]

I called Sprint PCS and got the response that the manufacturer is responsible for handling issues with the software and hardware.

Like I said before, the freaking Phone has "SPRINT" label - Ultimately, it is Sprint fault.

It is just like a contractor who sub-contracts others while taking your money. If a sub screws up, the contracter is responsible.

[Deval]

my 2 cents as a cell phone user, not as a PCS employee

I have never seen that error with any other sprint phone, so I think its one of those things where the number of handsets out there in the field make it uneconomical to make changes to a system which works fine on 99% of other handsets.

[DcDave63]

my 2 cents as a cell phone user, not as a PCS employee

I have never seen that error with any other sprint phone, so I think its one of those things where the number of handsets out there in the field make it uneconomical to make changes to a system which works fine on 99% of other handsets.

That would be fine except for one thing: I listed 7 things that I thought were wrong or needed to be corrected. Not one.

[Dinozero]

That is how the phone is made though, if you don't like, don't get the phone!


That's like buying a civic, and then complaining it doesn't have a v8, and it's interior isn't as fancy as a cady.

Sure, you can buy any phone you want, and then wish everything about it was changed.. and turn it into something else.. :|

[DcDave63]

Obviously, you arent aware of the issues. If the phone has a place where it states that you can set the T9 as a default, and it is only default for one of half a dozen places where T9 is used, then why bother allowing an option to set T9 at all? If you have a camera with a flash, but have to select the flash for every picture you take ( e.g., set flash, take picture, set flash, take picture, set flash, take picture, etc...) its quite annoying, esp. since most other phones allow you to set the flash as on. THe only On they have is for the camcorder, which actually lights up the flash like a flashlight until the picture is taken, then it goes out again, and has to be reselected. Quite annoying. THings like, in the menu, all items are numbered, 1, 2, 3, etc.. and all sub-menu's are numbered, 1, 2, 3, etc... except for under 5.Downloads, the sub-menus are not numbered. SO instead of being able to hit Menu, 5, 4, you have to hit Menu, 5, scrolll down to 4. Its obviously something they left out, and need to fix. The phones processor is very fast, although no one is making any programs to work on it. Obviously a flaw in Sprints plan, and a flaw where the phone is concerned, and where many Sprint-Toshiba patrons are upset, as they feel left out. Sort of how Sprint Spectrum people felt when Sprint PCS started. Of course the Sprint Spectrum people sue'd Sprint PCS, and won, and received cash an d new phone on PCS. Its the same thing, dont make promises you cant keep, and dont let problems out that you arent ready to account for or fix. Which Sprint obviously hasn't.

[Deval]

That would be fine except for one thing: I listed 7 things that I thought were wrong or needed to be corrected. Not one.


yeha...i was talking about the PCS mail problem...I guess its one of those things. From what I read about firmware updates, issues get reported to sprint..and verified...once they are recreated, it is sent to the manufactore who works on a new update along with sprint, with the specifications of the firmware in mind...then it is sent out to Sprint for field testing, and if its ok, it is released for us TSRs to load onto the phones...I think thats what they do.

Now in the 4050 case, I dont think they are working on an update, but then again, I could be wrong.

[huntm856]

yeha...i was talking about the PCS mail problem...I guess its one of those things. From what I read about firmware updates, issues get reported to sprint..and verified...once they are recreated, it is sent to the manufactore who works on a new update along with sprint, with the specifications of the firmware in mind...then it is sent out to Sprint for field testing, and if its ok, it is released for us TSRs to load onto the phones...I think thats what they do.

Now in the 4050 case, I dont think they are working on an update, but then again, I could be wrong.

Yeah. And as I said earlier, the Sprint tech who wrote up my trouble ticket said, or at least strongly implied, that a fix is in the works...but I'll believe it when I see it. Oh, well. It's not like the 'can't delete mail' problem is anything more than an annoyance. Now the 35k limit issue is a bit more than an annoyance--I run WebViewer and it's only really useful to me if I turn off graphics, which sort of defeats the point of having the beautiful screen and fast processor that the phone has. But I still wouldn't trade it for any other phone currently in Sprint's lineup. That's what makes it all so frustrating.

[BlueRave]

DC Dave -- Thank you for being so persistent when dealing with the makers of the 4050 phone. I agree with many of the oversights that you pointed out. Thanks for being so thorough and for documenting the feedback that was given back to you. I have attempted to contact Sprint over the matter and they too provided no help of any value.

[rdj]

Fixing whatever problem there might be in OpenWave/firmware is just one way to attack the problem -- clearly there are functions/pages on the PCS Mail website that do NOT specify incompatible content types, so Sprint should be able to change the "delete" and other response pages to side-step the problem on the VM4050. They're just being stupid and stonewalling by claiming that the only way to fix the problem is to change the phone.

Anyway, a while back I bought Reqwireless' EmailViewer (http://www.reqwireless.com/emailviewer.html) and now have full functional access to my PCS mail via the VM4050 (along with all my other email accounts). EmailViewer has a few minor issues (e.g. forwarding a message that contains attachment(s) doesn't also forward the attachment(s)) but it also has some superb features -- such as the ability to view the text of MS Word and PDF attachments, see full-screen thumbnails of large image attachments and scrolling windowed view of <35K images, and follow links to websites. Even if Sprint were to fix their stupid PCS Mail pages, I wouldn't go back to them!

(BTW, Google's new POP access feature for GMail is glitchy -- if you get a POP listing of messages, the individual messages themselves may or may not be accessible. No problems with other POP servers, probably just some bugs at Google.)

[amber53]

I have a Tosiba 4050 never had a problem deleting messages.It does get hot at the ear phone if you talk foe 10 to 20 Min.

[a_c_s]

I have a Tosiba 4050 never had a problem deleting messages.It does get hot at the ear phone if you talk foe 10 to 20 Min.

not possible on the main site...the only way to erase messages was to log into email through the back door by going into the messaging category and then clicking PCS mail...the font was bigger on the back door site...on the regular site, you CANNOT delete, forward or reply to emails...all you can do is read them...it has been a known problem on that phone, and ultimately was one of the reasons I upgraded to the 5600...I was able to get a steep discount on the upgrade because of the email problem on the 4050...I complained about it a year and a half ago and it still is not fixed, nor will it ever be..