 In case you missed it, Palm recently released a firmware update for Verizon Treo 650 customers. The Verizon Treo 650 Version 1.04 Firmware Update includes:
- Optimized memory handling with non-volatile file system improvements
- Improved user interface for multiple call scenarios
Get the instructions and download the update at Palm’s website:
Palm, Inc | Treo 650 Updater 1.04 (for Verizon Wireless)
Technorati Tags: Palm, Treo, Verizon
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November 6th, 2005 at 6:29 pm
I would NOT apply this update! The directions are wrong for the update, for starters, but even worse I had two Treo650s rendered DEAD because of this update. Neither would turn the phone function on. When trying to power on the phone function, the Treo 650 would crash and reboot.
My wife and I are now back to using our old Motorola phones while waiting for our brand new Treo650s from Verizon to ship to us. Hopefully they’ll get here by Wednesday. I’m debating trying to apply the update before I even register the Treo with Verizon. At least that way if the update renders the phone dead, I don’t have to switch back to my Motorola phone again.
I’m not happy with Palm on this one. I have serious questions about their QA process or lack thereof. Its not like the hardware is some hacked together device I made, Palm controls both the hardware and software. They should be able to things work nearly 100% of the time. Apple is able to manage that with their hardware and software. Maybe Palm should go talk with Steve about how he does things.
Also Palm might consider letting a backup of the device backup EVERYTHING including the firmware. This way I could have restored from the backup I made prior to trying this and thus been back and working in minutes.
December 1st, 2005 at 12:18 am
It renders the Dial-up Networking workaround useless by disconnecting from National Access when DUN is enabled. No noticeable improvement with performance… I don’t recommend the upgrade either.
December 8th, 2005 at 4:44 pm
I have to disagree with Chad. I ran this update on 2 Treo650’s for cingular, already. Both updates went perfect. There is a noticable difference in speed of the phone as well as service. Maybe it was something else, but since the update, I now have service in places that were impossible before.
Works great!
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:55 am
I had the same thing happen. I downloaded it exactly per the instructions. The phone would then reset itself every time I would try to turn it on. Even hard-resetting the phone wouldn’t get it to work. I spent an hour with a technician and Verizon eventually replaced the treo for me. Watch out for this one. There are several similar reports on the web like this.
February 15th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
I have Treo 650 - it’s my fourth Palm device. I know how to operate these things. I’ve been using them since 1995.
I recently installed the Verizon firmware version and it has really screwed up my calendar.
Firmware troubles aren’t unusual, but the advice I’ve received from Palm is laughable.
–
I work in California (PST) and travel often to other time zones.
On Monday of this week, I made at appointment for a client meeting at 2pm on Thursday.
As I was going to BE in Chicago on Thursday, I set the event in my calendar for 2pm.
(I’ve done it this way since 1995).
Upon arriving in Chicago, the Treo grabbed local network time (CST) - just like it should.
When I opened my calendar, I noticed the 2pm appointment was now set at 4pm.
This did not happen last week - which was before the firmware update.
Repeated emails to Palm Tech people resulted in the following “solutions” -
1 - They sent me cut&paste content from the Treo User’s Manual - I probably have the darn thing memorized, but I guess this is their normal first step.
2 - They instructed me to check/uncheck the “use time zone” preference in the calendar - no fix.
3 - They then suggested - and this where it gets good - that I enter the appointment for the time it WILL be when I get to my destination. “When you’re in California and make a 2pm appointment for Chicago, enter it as NOON, so it will be at 2pm when you arrive in Chicago.” No kidding - I still have their email.
4 - I told them the previous solution was stupid and they suggested I simply set the phone to manual time. This would keep the events at the time I set them. Problem is it makes my phone two hours behind. To get the phone to ring an alarm at 5am I need to set the alarm for 3am. YES - they actually suggested I do this.
I paid over $300 for the stupid thing. It should be smart enough to know how to change the phone time with altering calendar appointments.
I am in shock over this and wonder if anyone else has had similar problems.
May 4th, 2006 at 1:18 am
I had the same thing happen. When I would try to turn on the phone, it would reset. I also then couldn’t sync. So I couldn’t reinstall. They eventually sent me a ‘new’ (refurbished) treo that has 1.03 installed.
Interestingly, spent a ton of time with Verizon - they said NEVER to update their phones without talking to them first, despite what it says on the Palm website. The two companies need to get their act together.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:30 am
I downloadet the Treo650-1.04-VZW files a couple of months ago and applied the update to both my phone and my wifes.
Sorry to say it all worked like a charm. The firmware flash went without a hitch and both phones have been operating without any surprises.
I don’t have a quantative analysis but the phones do exhibit improved operation.
Ron Cichowski
November 9th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
I have a Treo 650. Today, I ran the Treo650-1.04VZW updater. Now, I can no longer turn on my phone. Everytime it asks me if I want to turn my phone on, I select “yes.” Then, it tries to turn it on, but it still says “Phone off.” I can longer use my phone! Total bummer. Any suggestions?
January 21st, 2007 at 3:55 pm
It seems that i too have fallen victim to Treo’s new flash. Everytime i attempt to turn on my phone… reboot! It’s been a while since i got this phone, so i don’t know how verizon will handle it.
Anyone able to get it working without having to get a new pnone?
January 23rd, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Yes. I Did It.
I applied the update and my verizon’s treo 650 with 1.03 and just restarted everytime I turn the phone function on. But I found a site with instructions that restore the phone to original state, apply the 1.04 update and let me apply the 1.05a update. This instructions help me restore my treo phone function.
The link is http://shadowmite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1341
hope this help you and others with the same problem.
OscarM
January 28th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Thanks, OscarM. That worked for me.
I had the same problem as others, but I was able to fix it and get my phone back to working order again.
The details follow, in case they’re helpful to anyone.
I started with my Treo 650 at 1.03-VZW, and tried to apply Palm’s 1.05a-VZW upgrade. No bueno! After the
updater files had been transferred to the device and the 12-minute update process was supposed to start,
the Treo went into a looping reset. At this point I noticed that I had left my SD card in (should be out
before starting the whole upgrade process), so I removed it. I broke out of the loop with a hard reset
per the instructions on the 1.05a-VZW webpage, and then started the whole thing over again per the Palm
website’s instructions.
This time the update process seemed to go smoothly, and I hotsynced the device once the updater returned
it to a normal screen after the 12-minute install. But during the hotsync, while the PC installer was
writing stuff back to the Treo, I got an error message on the device that said “Error updating ROM”. The
Palm website had a troubleshooting tip for this problem too, which was to dismiss the error mesg and then
hotsync again. The installer running on the PC detected the problem and created a temp user account under
which to run the update process.
This time though, the updater running on the Treo couldn’t get past the E911 update, which appears to be
the first update that’s applied. It should take 60 seconds, but instead after 10 seconds the device
reboots and then launches into the E911 update again. After 30 minutes of this, I did a hard reset.
Nothing after that seemed to work. No amount of resetting or hotsyncing or creating temp users made a
difference, and even if I restored my original user data the phone still wouldn’t work. Instead, it would
reboot everytime I tried to turn on the phone. Highly frustrating, and reading all the posts here I was
afraid my phone was completely screwed.
So I used the website OscarM mentions above (http://shadowmite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1341) to find
the 1.04 update (http://nicklowicz.com/Treo650Updater1.04.rar). I applied this successfully. Note that
the 1.04 update tells you to have at least 11-12MB of memoer free on the Treo before starting the update
process. I only had a few MB free when I started the 1.05a upgrade, which makes me wonder if that is why
I had the problems.
Anyway, with the 1.04 update applied and my original user date restored, I could use the phone again. The
banner isn’t right (doesn’t say Verizon Wireless, and shows the little roaming triangle icon though
doesn’t say the word “Roaming”).
At this point, I feel triumphant. I at least have a working phone. However, I want to try the 1.05a
upgrade again for two reasons: I am stubborn, and I’m hopeful that it will restore my phone’s banner.
First, I use ROM Tool (http://www.grack.com/romtool) to dump the current ROM image on the Treo to my PC,
so I can (hopefully) recover back to a known state if things go awry. I plan to do this from now on
whenever I make any firmware changes to my phone, since the hotsync backup doesn’t capture your firmware
state.
Then I moved all the media files I had on the device over to the SD card, and removed the card. Now I had
17MB of space free. Then I started the 1.05a upgrade process, and it went smooth as can be. My phone is
now at 1.05a-VZW, and evertyhing seems to work. I don’t know if it was a matter of having the free space
on the phone, or starting from 1.04 instead of 1.03 this time that made the difference.
One caveat: my banner problems are still present. And when I tried to call *228 to update my roaming list
and program the phone, it wasn’t able to do it and I got an error on the device saying the on-air
programming attempt was not successful. But I tried again, and this time the OTA programming worked. My
banner is now back to normal.
In the words of Borat: great success!
February 8th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
[…] Of course nothing is simple, and a TreoAddicts story notes trouble with the update, and the installation instructions are daunting (really, look at ‘em). And even if either plan did deliver Bluetooth DUN without frying my phone (a risk I’m happy to take), it’s still only 1xRTT (and if you’ve forgotten what it was like to surf on a 56K modem, 1xRTT is like the good old days all over again). (Did I just say “and” four times in two sentences?) […]
February 21st, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I had purchased a Treo from eBay with 1.01 on it, upgraded to 1.05a-vzw and my banner had disappeared. Instead of Verizon Wireless, the service name was blank. For anyone out there that has the same problem, dial *228 and it will reprogram the phone and BINGO!!!! The name was back!! Thanks to Kevin for the idea of reprogramming the phone.
February 24th, 2007 at 7:16 am
Does anyone have the fireware update 1.04 for verizon yet? That link is down and I have no other way to get this that i can find. 1.05 really screwed up my phone!
Help please!
May 31st, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I have the firmware update for 1.04 for verizon. I had all the problems everyone is experincing up above. What I did was the hard restart and then used the quick install to transfer the 1.04 update. The update that I have does not have the installer but after the hot sync and transfering files to the phone i reset the phone and it did the update. Give me your email and I will email the zip file to you!
May 31st, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Sorry my email is bsargi31@gmail.com
September 1st, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Anyone who runs into this problem (like I did last night at almost 2 AM) is going to want those 1.04 updater files, but they’re not readily available. I eventually found them, but I figure I’m not the only one who will need them, so I’m hosting them on my site at:
http://www.thehumblest.net/treo650/
Please note that these are the raw installer files, not an executable updater.
The procedure that worked for me was as follows:
1. Hard Reset the phone to delete all data, making sure the SD card is removed.
2. Sync the phone to a new, empty profile (Call it something obvious like "Temp").
3. Use the PalmOne QuickInstall application to install all the files from the above zip file onto the phone.
4. Perform a sync to install the update to 1.04, it should kick in automatically as soon as the sync is complete.
5. After the phone has updated to 1.04, check to make sure it will connect to the wireless network. If it won’t connect, you are beyond the help of this procedure.
6. Begin the 1.05a updater again, still using the Temp user. Once the updater begins to install, you may be prompted to select between two options, with almost the same name. Be sure to select the one that has a space between "Treo" and "650," and not the one that says "Treo650;" on mine it was the second one. Click OK, and it should begin with the E911 update.
7. After the update is complete, check again that you can connect to the network, then do a hard reset to wipe the phone one more time.
8. Go into the Palm Desktop application and delete your "Temp" profile.
9. Perform a Hotsync to your usual profile.
10. Update the phone by dialing *228
That did it for me. I’m not sure if there’s actually any benefit to running this update, but at least my phone is not the brick I was afraid it was between 2 and 4 AM this morning.
September 8th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Skwid, you are awseome!, Thx dude
This looping BS has been driving me crazy
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Thanks Skwid! You saved my phone!
October 27th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Thanks, my phone died last nite. I was on 1.03 trying to update to 1.05.
I hard reset, added 1.04, then 1.05 after following your instructions, now I am back.
Bit apprehensive about going back to my normal update process.
WIsh me luck
January 14th, 2008 at 1:07 am
I too got stuck in the 1.05 Treo 650 Verizon updater reset loop going from 1.03 with my wife’s phone. 1.04 loaded fine and restored phone functionality. 1.05 then loaded just fine too. Many thanks Skwid for saving me!
February 9th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Thanks Skwid!!!!!!