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For people with Activation issues

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Nocturnal86

Well-Known Member
This was pulled from the FB VM Wall it seems to be a kinda fix or help for people with activations issues so try it out if your having them GL.

Since I had been without a phone for the better part of a day and didn't get a response in 14 hours regarding my issue, I decided to be bold and try a few things. Fixed the issue myself.

If you got bitten by the HTC Activation Bug... the fix is actually fairly simple. It's just frustrating because nobody seems to know how to try to fix it. "Try a few things and it should work."

Virgin reps, PLEASE pass this around to everyone so that they can help other people fix the activation bug. There will be no need to replace phones as a result of this issue.

If:

You try to activate the HTC EVO while your old phone is still powered on, it may fail the activation. Disable your old phone (power off, pull battery), do the swap in your account, wait until you get the email that says the swap is successful and THEN put the battery into the HTC EVO to do an activation. Yes, I know, this means no playing around with your new toy until you're ready to activate it.

If:

You were unable to do an activation due to an error like: "vDC has stopped unexpectedly. Would you like to tell HTC?"

Stop trying anything else. The phone is fixed in a state due to a bad attempt at activation that it could not complete. If you continue to try to Update Profile in Settings, you will continue to get the same error message. If you try to manually activate via Settings (Activate This Device), it will give you the error message saying to call 611 or the 800 number for customer services.

You will need to do the following:

Go into Settings (Menu, Settings), Power > UNCHECK "Fast Boot"

Power off the device. Pull the battery. Put the battery back in after a few minutes. Before you power the device on, hold down the volume down button and keep both the power button and volume down button held down.

You will boot into HBOOT RECOVERY. There will be a menu with 5 options. "FASTBOOT, RECOVERY, FACTORY RESET, SIMLOCK, IMAGE CRC"... Press the Vol Down button twice to highlight "FACTORY RESET" and tap the power button to select it.

You will be doing a full factory reset on your phone.

When it reboots your phone will attempt to auto activate... and this time it should succeed.
 
My Sprint branded Evo V eventually activated. I had to get elevated twice in CS before I got someone who could help, but it did work in the end, plus she gave me a free month of service which was pretty nice.
 
So I had my fun activation experience today.

First of all, I had changed plans a few days ago on the website. But said website would not let me swap phones online today. It said I had to call them. So I did. And the automated system tried to walk me through it. That was a mistake even trying that. Because, FAIL. I had no idea how to do what it was asking.

So I hung up, and did a hard reset and then tried the hands free activation that starts automatically when you turn it on. That also failed. So I called again, this time making sure I talked to a real person. He swapped my phone without too much trouble, and then passed me on to a tech, and he had me take the battery out and try again. Which I did, and he said it might take 20 minutes to activate, good luck! lol So tech guy was gone, and sure enough, it failed again.

So for the next couple of hours or so, I kept trying on my own. It was a hard reset party! And finally, for some odd reason, it worked.

Moral of the story, keep trying y'all. It'll work. Eventually. :rolleyes:

Now I just need to learn how to work an Android phone. I'm coming from a Blackberry.
 
Ostrich Egg said:
My Sprint branded Evo V eventually activated. I had to get elevated twice in CS before I got someone who could help, but it did work in the end, plus she gave me a free month of service which was pretty nice.
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I had my own horror story as well. Trying to port over my phone number was the problem. My case was on elevated support status. I talked to 3 or more tech support people who had me try everything--factory reset, take out the battery (several times). It was finally working after about 12 hours.

I'm jealous--they never gave me a month of service for all the hassle I had to go through. :confused:
 
bluirv said:
I had my own horror story as well. Trying to port over my phone number was the problem. My case was on elevated support status. I talked to 3 or more tech support people who had me try everything--factory reset, take out the battery (several times). It was finally working after about 12 hours.

I'm jealous--they never gave me a month of service for all the hassle I had to go through. :confused:
Click to expand...

I am in the process of porting my number. The old phone no longer works and VM confirmed number was successfully ported, but the activation is still processing. How did you know the activation went through? I was told I'd get a text message, but I'm not holding my breath. Any info would be appreciated and a relief. Thanks.
 
spaulo03 said:
I am in the process of porting my number. The old phone no longer works and VM confirmed number was successfully ported, but the activation is still processing. How did you know the activation went through? I was told I'd get a text message, but I'm not holding my breath. Any info would be appreciated and a relief. Thanks.
Click to expand...
That's an excellent question--I never got got confirmation that it was working. After messing with it for about 9 hours I just gave up. The support guy said he would call me back in 20-25 minutes, but never did.

I just turned the phone on this morning and it was working. You should get some kind of message that "this phone has been activated."

I wish there was a simple solution to all of this!
 
Big thanks to all contributors with helpful tips; I activated my EVO V in about 20 minutes using be steps (based on instructions in this forum):

1. Charge new phone battery
2. Turn off old phone (make sure it is off)
3. Don
 
I will be switching over from ATT (if BB decides to ship the phone anytime soon). I am wondering if I will have any activation issues as a new VM customer. I will be porting my number from ATT. Has anyone done this?
 
DKO said:
I will be switching over from ATT (if BB decides to ship the phone anytime soon). I am wondering if I will have any activation issues as a new VM customer. I will be porting my number from ATT. Has anyone done this?
Click to expand...

Get ready for a couple of long days. I just ported my number from TMO to VM and it took about 3 days. However, it really depends on the customer service rep you get. I did the following:

Once my EVO arrived I called VM customer service and explained I just bought a new VM phone and wanted to port my number from TMO to VM. This started the process and I was told it would take 24-72 hours to go through. You'll know when your number is ported over when your ATT phone no longer functions (makes calls).

This was the tricky part for me, as the porting went through, but my EVO wasn't activating. I followed almost every piece of advice on this thread (hard reset, remove battery, update profile, etc.) but nothing worked. I made an additional call to VM to check on the status and was basically told to sit tight.

I called VM again the next morning and got a rep who was able to refresh the network settings, told me to remove the battery while he did the reset, and then voila, it activated on its own.

So, my advice is to make the initial call, wait for your ATT phone to stop working, then be patient and wait for your EVO to do its thing. If you still aren't activated after a realistic wait time, call and just tell them you need to refresh the network settings, rather than hope to get a rep who knows what he/she is doing.

Good luck!

P.S. While you are waiting, feel free to customize your phone b/c you more than likely won't need to do a factory reset.
 
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