RIM blames outage on BlackBerry Messenger flaws

RIM is blaming the 8 hour service outage users suffered yesterday on two bugs in the latest update to the popular Blackberry Messenger application. BBM allows Blackberry users to chat with one another via instant messaging and in chat rooms. The details of the bugs aren’t clear but RIM released this statement:

“Root cause is currently under review, but based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger (versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) that caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure,” spokesman Jamie Ernst said by email. “RIM has taken corrective action to restore service. RIM has also provided a new version of BlackBerry Messenger (version 5.0.0.57) and is encouraging anyone who downloaded or upgraded BlackBerry Messenger since December 14 to upgrade to this latest version which resolves the issue,” wrote Ernst in his email. “RIM continues to monitor its systems to maintain normal service levels and apologizes for any inconvenience to customers.”


The statement should be welcome news to Blackberry users who have complained that the company’s communication with customers is poor at best. Service appears to have been fully restored and running normally. Users still experiencing problems are advised to do a battery pull and resend their service books.