Won't Boot Properly - Hangs at TF3D!

[DLCPhoto]

Verizon TP2, Stock Rom, a few cabs to free up memory and registry tweaks.

Booted up phone fine this morning, played some Text Twist, everything seemed fine. I had a case in the OR, put the phone in my locker (had set the lock [no password] and turned it off). When I came back to it an hour and a half later, hit the on/off button to turn it on, hit the Unlock soft button bottom-left, red screen came up, hit Unlock middle right, same as usual. However, nothing happened. After several minutes, it started partially responding, but still wasn't normal.

I powered it down, and turned it back on. Seemed to boot normally, but when the light lavendar screen came up, with "HTC" in the middle, TF3D never loads. It just hangs there. It is partially responsive - can get Start Menu to open, get to settings (TF3D is still enabled), but it is otherwise not right. The Phone Icon at the top has an odd symbol next to it that is not in the phone's manual. Hitting the Phone hardkey produces no response.

I've powered it down, removed the battery, restarted - no difference.
I disabled TF3D, re-enabled it, no difference.

It's looking like a hard reset might be necessary, but I really hate to go there. The last time I had to do that, I ended up with some duplicates notes and/or contacts which really screwed up ActiveSync (I used SPB Backup).

What in the world could cause this? It was fine when it started up this morning, and nothing was installed, uninstalled, etc. between then and when this problem started.

Could this be a hardware issue? I've had some suspicions about the phone's screen, as Alignment went grossly out of whack once, and multiple times in a more subtle, but obvious, manner.

Is there any equivalent to "Safe Mode" where I can get in to trouble-shoot?

Any insight appreciated.

[CA3SAR]

Im on 6.5 sense 2.1 and when i need to reboot from a divce install my hangs sometimes also. I just do a simple reset again and normally it comes back up. Welcmoe to WM. lol

[DLCPhoto]

Thanks for the reply, CA3SAR. Unfortunately, I've reset about half a dozen times now, but no joy. I even disabled TF3D, and reset the device. It was still not quite right - very sluggish, phone hardkey worked sometimes, not others, Contact list didn't display properly, etc. I re-enabled TF3D, reset, but still no difference.

Something very wrong here...

[HTCotta]

Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.7 (WindowsMobile; PPC; Opera Mobi/35267; U; en; Presto/2.1.1))

I don't even mind when my phone gets fubar'd now a days cuz there's always a new ROM to flash. Seems like the chefs are working overtime for the TP2. What have you recently installed?

[CA3SAR]

could always back up small entries using pimbackup (freeware) then do a famous hard reset.

[elephant007]

Originally Posted by CA3SAR

could always back up small entries using pimbackup (freeware) then do a famous hard reset.

did you happen to restore your pim.vol?

[ACHlLLES]

90% of the time its something you installed

[DLCPhoto]

I have an SPB Backup from Dec. 16th on my SD Card, so I'm not too concerned about data loss.

I'm just tried of the hassle of trouble-shooting this stuff. I'm very cautious about what I install, for just this reason - I want a stable, reasonably maintenance-free device!

The strange thing is that it booted fine this morning, and nothing was added, installed, or anything else done, when the problem occurred. That's what makes me suspect a hardware issue.

In the absence of any other suggestions, I guess the only recourse is a Hard Reset and SPB Restore, and go from there.

But if anybody has any other suggestions, I'm all ears!

[DLCPhoto]

Update:

I went ahead and did a Hard Reset, and used my 12/16/09 SPB Backup afterwards. Everything seemed fine.

I did an ActiveSync, and it gave me some message about a change in the server that would eliminate changes since the last successful ActiveSync, or something like that, and asked me yea or nay. I told it to go ahead. The ActiveSync failed the first time, with a message in WMDC that it would resync the next time. It then resync'd successfully.

A few observations:

1. After the initial restore from SPB Backup, the custom Ringtones I had made were correctly assigned to the appropriate contacts. After the successful ActiveSync, the contacts no longer had their assigned custom Ringtone. I had noticed that the last time I had to do a hard reset. It seems as if Outlook 2003 breaks the connection for some reason, and I have to re-create them on the TP2.

2. Calendar Screwups: I had noticed some problems before, and don't know if they're connected to the 2016 Texting fiasco (which ironically, I don't seem to have). I have birthdates correctly entered in Outlook, for example my wife's is June 1st, and this shows up correctly in her Contact Info, and on the Calendar. After the ActiveSync, her birthday is shown in the TP2's Contacts as May 31 (!) but appears on the TP2 calendar on January 1st! WTF?

And this time around, a calendar entry for one of my grandkids which is shown correctly in Outlook as April 1 also now jumped to January 1 on the TP2 Calendar.

And the question still remains - why did this spontaneously occur? There were no programs installed or uninstalled, no registry changes made, between the time it was working correctly, and when it screwed up. It's as if something corrupted the system files, registry, etc. I still wonder if this could be a hardware issue, analogous to bad sectors on a PC's hard drive.

I love the TP2 when it's working correctly, but am losing confidence in it in terms of basic stability. I don't mind tweaking and fixing, but I don't want to have to spend hours on a regular basis maintaining it or fixing things that break spontaneously.