Danger outage turns Sidekicks into just phones

Sidekick users raged against their machines on Monday, as service provider Danger fought to isolate issues that disconnected the hip phones from e-mail, instant messaging and other data services.

The severity of the issues varied widely among users, with some consumers reporting that they had been without service for more than 24 hours, while others reported no issues, according to a review of more than 150 posts to a Sidekick and Sidekick 2 forum. Danger, the creator of the Sidekick devices and the company that maintains the service for carrier T-Mobile USA, gave few details of the problem.

"This morning, some users may experience degradation in service (e.g., connection and email delay) which is currently being resolved by Danger engineers," a Danger representative wrote in a a posting to Hiptop.com, a company-owned forum for Sidekick customers.

Neither Danger nor T-Mobile responded to requests for comment.

The outages are the latest issues plaguing the mobile phone and Internet services provided by Danger and T-Mobile. Both companies have come under scrutiny as the means by which online thieves managed to steal the addresses, e-mail messages and images from the Sidekick of celebrity heiress Paris Hilton last year, an incident that came to light last month. The recent appearance on the Internet of a private sex video of Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst and an ex-girlfriend--allegedly stolen from Durst's PC--has also been linked to the same group.

Whether the outage is part of an attack or the result of technical glitches is unknown.

Most customers did not seem to care about the distinction. In a flurry of posts, angered users took issue with Danger's characterization of the outage as a "degradation in service" and accused the company of downplaying the seriousness of the problems.

"I'm going on 48 hours down-time," wrote one customer in a post to the forum. "I use this device as a primary mail client. Not having it is killing me. I pay for QoS (quality of service), and expect it."

In addition, some customers complained that they could not connect to Danger's server, which provides customers with Web access to their Sidekick data. CNET News.com confirmed that the company's Desktop Interface was down much of Monday.

Danger updated users in the past month with patches for the device's operating system and its wireless networking capability. Some customers theorized that the two software updates, which several posters had just received over the network last weekend, were the cause of the outage.

Whatever the reason, the outage had customers frustrated with the Sidekick devices and the service.

"As for Danger...they seriously need to get their act together," stated another customer on the Hiptop forum. "I understand an outage lasting a couple hours, but an outage lasting longer than 24 hours is completely unacceptable."

Sidekick

I'm really upset with my service so far. I've had to call in countless times with the infamous "2 dot dance" that we get for no service... Its nothing but a $300 brick with a phone built in..and a scroll wheel.

Danger Inc = New company

Danger is a growing company, it has been growing so fast that they needed to upgrade the backend data servers to provide all the Sidekicks and Hiptops with data, that has recenly taken place.<br /><br />The device is amazing, I've used a wide range of PDAs and the Sidekick/Hiptop just passes all with it's great features and easy-to-use platform.<br /><br />Even with a day of down time, T-mobile was offering a $5 credit while a month of unlimited service only costs $30.<br /><br />DON'T let this article fool you, outages are VERY rare and they only occur when services are being improved.

Sidekick

I'm really upset with my service so far. I've had to call in countless times with the infamous "2 dot dance" that we get for no service... Its nothing but a $300 brick with a phone built in..and a scroll wheel.

Danger Inc = New company

Danger is a growing company, it has been growing so fast that they needed to upgrade the backend data servers to provide all the Sidekicks and Hiptops with data, that has recenly taken place.<br /><br />The device is amazing, I've used a wide range of PDAs and the Sidekick/Hiptop just passes all with it's great features and easy-to-use platform.<br /><br />Even with a day of down time, T-mobile was offering a $5 credit while a month of unlimited service only costs $30.<br /><br />DON'T let this article fool you, outages are VERY rare and they only occur when services are being improved.

[thenet411]

Get a grip!

I swear, a service is out for a while, and you all act like someone peed in your Cheerios! As for the people that use the device as their sole source of email and services, that is just your own idiocy. If those services are SO important to your life, GET A BACKUP. There are all kinds of ways to get at this information. Go to a cyber cafe, go to a friends house. And, as a last resort, there are these plain looking buildings with the word LIBRARY on the front of them. If you go inside, ignore the scarey looking rectangular things on the shelves and look for the computer screens.

Are you serious?

When you start measuring outages (plural) in number of days, <br />not hours, there is a serious problem. This is not the first or the <br />last outage, though one of the best - no access to your data <br />through the website is a new twist.<br /><br />If a cellphone service went dead for two days straight how long <br />would that company be in business?

[kshaikh]

Just asking for a little service.

I just bought this phone 72 hours ago. After one day of good usage, I've had the service down for 48 hours. Its a pretty sad service. I *needed* to use this phone as a glorified pager to tell me when servers are down. But with email down, I actually don't get the notification.<br /><br />At least SMS still works, now I need to see if Tmobile providers an email to SMS service for its customers. That would solve my problem. Yeah web browser doesn't work, pretty upsetting, but I need the piece of crap to page me when a server is down.<br /><br />That is the #1 reason for me buying this phone. #2 was browing, #3 was SSH, then IMs then finally its phone functionality.<br /><br />Khalid

On your buck?

First off... most tmobile sidekick users (like myself) are too busy <br />to sit down and use our backups. I work 55 hours per week, <br />additional 2 hours per day for travel, and an additional 2-3 for <br />my own development task (open source projects etc.) There <br />simply isnt time. With the sidekick I can read email on the way <br />to work, while walking, excersizing, etc. Yes, it is a <br />convenience, but one that you certainly become acustom to. <br /><br />You are obviously NOT a sidekick customer. The problem most <br />of us sidekick users have is that we PAY for this service. The <br />tmobile sidekick service cost 20 per month alone, add to that <br />our phone service, most sidekick users pay upwards of $80.00 a <br />month (that is what I pay). We gladly pay this amount to tmobile <br />because we need their service. If we didnt, we certainly wouldnt <br />waste $20.00 a month on it. Many of us use tmobile email as <br />our primary acount, so when we loose all access we could be <br />missing valuable emails. You cannot back up that service, since <br />for many of us this is our way of keeping out of trouble (using <br />tmobile is much more reliable than using our own email servers, <br />etc. for my I used it as primary since my email server took a dive <br />in January). Anyways, its easy for people who dont use this <br />service to make it sound like anyone who complains is a whiny <br />child.

[samloveslost]

I'm sorry but you're an idiot.<br />you shouldn't need a backup for a service that you are paying 70 dollars a month for.<br />not to mention if you are unfortunate enough to have purchased a sidekick slide. They power on and off unexpectedly and are triggered by different things. Some days every time i would lift the screen to dial the phone would shut off. <br />So when there is a 4 day outage you get beyond frustrated. Its not just emails and internet, its pictures that disappeared, all of the contacts you had are now gone. Its completely unacceptable.

[thenet411]

Get a grip!

I swear, a service is out for a while, and you all act like someone peed in your Cheerios! As for the people that use the device as their sole source of email and services, that is just your own idiocy. If those services are SO important to your life, GET A BACKUP. There are all kinds of ways to get at this information. Go to a cyber cafe, go to a friends house. And, as a last resort, there are these plain looking buildings with the word LIBRARY on the front of them. If you go inside, ignore the scarey looking rectangular things on the shelves and look for the computer screens.

Are you serious?

When you start measuring outages (plural) in number of days, <br />not hours, there is a serious problem. This is not the first or the <br />last outage, though one of the best - no access to your data <br />through the website is a new twist.<br /><br />If a cellphone service went dead for two days straight how long <br />would that company be in business?

[kshaikh]

Just asking for a little service.

I just bought this phone 72 hours ago. After one day of good usage, I've had the service down for 48 hours. Its a pretty sad service. I *needed* to use this phone as a glorified pager to tell me when servers are down. But with email down, I actually don't get the notification.<br /><br />At least SMS still works, now I need to see if Tmobile providers an email to SMS service for its customers. That would solve my problem. Yeah web browser doesn't work, pretty upsetting, but I need the piece of crap to page me when a server is down.<br /><br />That is the #1 reason for me buying this phone. #2 was browing, #3 was SSH, then IMs then finally its phone functionality.<br /><br />Khalid

On your buck?

First off... most tmobile sidekick users (like myself) are too busy <br />to sit down and use our backups. I work 55 hours per week, <br />additional 2 hours per day for travel, and an additional 2-3 for <br />my own development task (open source projects etc.) There <br />simply isnt time. With the sidekick I can read email on the way <br />to work, while walking, excersizing, etc. Yes, it is a <br />convenience, but one that you certainly become acustom to. <br /><br />You are obviously NOT a sidekick customer. The problem most <br />of us sidekick users have is that we PAY for this service. The <br />tmobile sidekick service cost 20 per month alone, add to that <br />our phone service, most sidekick users pay upwards of $80.00 a <br />month (that is what I pay). We gladly pay this amount to tmobile <br />because we need their service. If we didnt, we certainly wouldnt <br />waste $20.00 a month on it. Many of us use tmobile email as <br />our primary acount, so when we loose all access we could be <br />missing valuable emails. You cannot back up that service, since <br />for many of us this is our way of keeping out of trouble (using <br />tmobile is much more reliable than using our own email servers, <br />etc. for my I used it as primary since my email server took a dive <br />in January). Anyways, its easy for people who dont use this <br />service to make it sound like anyone who complains is a whiny <br />child.

Is Reliable Service Too Much to ask?

I pay for a data service and all I ask is for that service to work. I have been a Tmobile customer for about 5 months now using the sidekick 2 and have experienced outages more than 3 times already which is just terrible. There is no excuse for the poor service that we receive as Tmobile customers. I feel as if I was tricked into buying a high priced device only to find out later on that the device is worth nothing becuase the service never works for it like it should. In my opinion Danger and Tmobile are a bunch of crooks and they are stealing our money. Then they try to make us feel better by offering us 5$ credits. How about offering your sidekick 2 customers this Tmobile/Danger......a data service that works?

Is Reliable Service Too Much to ask?

I pay for a data service and all I ask is for that service to work. I have been a Tmobile customer for about 5 months now using the sidekick 2 and have experienced outages more than 3 times already which is just terrible. There is no excuse for the poor service that we receive as Tmobile customers. I feel as if I was tricked into buying a high priced device only to find out later on that the device is worth nothing becuase the service never works for it like it should. In my opinion Danger and Tmobile are a bunch of crooks and they are stealing our money. Then they try to make us feel better by offering us 5$ credits. How about offering your sidekick 2 customers this Tmobile/Danger......a data service that works?

SideKick 2 Outage

This outage for Danger/T-Mobile has concerned me since the last major "upgrade" performed by Danger. During this upgrade, servers were reportedly upgraded to handle a larger traffic volume. They did a nice job of emailing all SideKick owners to expect the overall process to be completed within 24 hours. 24 hours turned into one week before Data services were at pre "upgrade" performance. As of recently, Data outages have plagued the system this week. It is rather ironic that the SK2 is marketed as THE communication device to have and yet the same company that markets and sells the device has barely shed any light on this most outage that had lead many owners to outrage. The device has performed admirably when Data and Phone connections at are peak, but lets not mention the issue of the improperly prepared keyboard on the intial production models that have Alt Keys that do not light up. Perhaps this can best be left for another post.

SideKick 2 Outage

This outage for Danger/T-Mobile has concerned me since the last major "upgrade" performed by Danger. During this upgrade, servers were reportedly upgraded to handle a larger traffic volume. They did a nice job of emailing all SideKick owners to expect the overall process to be completed within 24 hours. 24 hours turned into one week before Data services were at pre "upgrade" performance. As of recently, Data outages have plagued the system this week. It is rather ironic that the SK2 is marketed as THE communication device to have and yet the same company that markets and sells the device has barely shed any light on this most outage that had lead many owners to outrage. The device has performed admirably when Data and Phone connections at are peak, but lets not mention the issue of the improperly prepared keyboard on the intial production models that have Alt Keys that do not light up. Perhaps this can best be left for another post.

GET AWAY WITH IT! tm

I have tried to be a loyal sidekick 2 customer for about a month now. Out of that months times I have had things work the way they are supposed to about 50%-70% of the time. There is NO excuse for something like this to be happening even close to regularly other than if it were some kind of lightning strike, hurricane, tornado or alien invasion...you get the idea. As for the person who said that we are acting like someone peed in our cheerios, I've personally never had someone pee in my cheerios, but then again, I dont pay $70 a month for cheerios. I pay $70 a month for a service that is supposed to work MOST of the time and it simply hasn't. These outages would be a little easier to handle if someone would say something besides "We have no idea what the problem is or when things will get back to normal." Someone has to know something and should EXPLAIN things to us or at least try. Anyhoo, the going rate on Ebay for a used SK2 in good condition is around $225. Just enough to pay T-Mobile my early termination fee and try and be happy somehere else. And by the way, if someone peed in my cheerios I wouldn't have to pay them money to take the bowl away so I could get a new one! Yes, I'm upset.<br /><br />GET AWAY WITH IT!* <br />Get away with what? Oh yeah, peeing in peoples cheerios for as long as they will let you.<br /><br />*the actual official HipTop trademark

[thenet411]

Would you even understand??

Even if T-Mobile was obligated to explain the true technical cause to you, which they are not (look at your contract), chances are you wouldn't understand it. You would more than likely be like the millions of other people whose eyes just glaze over three seconds into the technical explaination. <br /><br />Of course, they could try and use real world analogies. How about this:<br />Our encyclopedia of information has had all of its pages glued together. Not only that, but you are trying to look at the encyclopedia through a telescope looking through a dirty window. When we unglue the pages of the encyclopedia and clean the window, you will have your service back.

GET AWAY WITH IT! tm

I have tried to be a loyal sidekick 2 customer for about a month now. Out of that months times I have had things work the way they are supposed to about 50%-70% of the time. There is NO excuse for something like this to be happening even close to regularly other than if it were some kind of lightning strike, hurricane, tornado or alien invasion...you get the idea. As for the person who said that we are acting like someone peed in our cheerios, I've personally never had someone pee in my cheerios, but then again, I dont pay $70 a month for cheerios. I pay $70 a month for a service that is supposed to work MOST of the time and it simply hasn't. These outages would be a little easier to handle if someone would say something besides "We have no idea what the problem is or when things will get back to normal." Someone has to know something and should EXPLAIN things to us or at least try. Anyhoo, the going rate on Ebay for a used SK2 in good condition is around $225. Just enough to pay T-Mobile my early termination fee and try and be happy somehere else. And by the way, if someone peed in my cheerios I wouldn't have to pay them money to take the bowl away so I could get a new one! Yes, I'm upset.<br /><br />GET AWAY WITH IT!* <br />Get away with what? Oh yeah, peeing in peoples cheerios for as long as they will let you.<br /><br />*the actual official HipTop trademark

[thenet411]

Would you even understand??

Even if T-Mobile was obligated to explain the true technical cause to you, which they are not (look at your contract), chances are you wouldn't understand it. You would more than likely be like the millions of other people whose eyes just glaze over three seconds into the technical explaination. <br /><br />Of course, they could try and use real world analogies. How about this:<br />Our encyclopedia of information has had all of its pages glued together. Not only that, but you are trying to look at the encyclopedia through a telescope looking through a dirty window. When we unglue the pages of the encyclopedia and clean the window, you will have your service back.

Just a little outage !

This is just a small hicup in the server, things will be back to normal shortly.<br /><br />Services will return to there normal fast EXCELLENT condition.<br /><br />A day of of outage and people panic, that shows how great the device is, they miss it that much.

Heres an idea....

Ok, for those of you who obviously work for one of the companies in question and are doing your best to pimp for them, please at least try and not make it so obvious that you are some type of rep for one of the companies in question. I mean, come on.....you are so obviously some sort of rep that it's not even funny. Anyone reading your post can understand that.

[samloveslost]

Um I highly doubt that peoples panic is because of them missing the device. They are panicking because they are getting ripped off. They are paying for a service that they are not getting. I have been with tmobile for almost 2 years and cannot wait to get out of my contract which will be at the 2 year mark. It is the worst service provider i've ever had. I only went with them because they offered the sidekicks. Unfortunately I bought the worst sidekick you could have. They have known issues that I complained about a month after buying the phone and all they offered me after switching the phone 6 times, was a blackberry upgrade but for all the features on my sidekick like internet is almost double with the blackberry. So its either pay way more money or suffer with the crappy phone that should be working.

Just a little outage !

This is just a small hicup in the server, things will be back to normal shortly.<br /><br />Services will return to there normal fast EXCELLENT condition.<br /><br />A day of of outage and people panic, that shows how great the device is, they miss it that much.

Heres an idea....

Ok, for those of you who obviously work for one of the companies in question and are doing your best to pimp for them, please at least try and not make it so obvious that you are some type of rep for one of the companies in question. I mean, come on.....you are so obviously some sort of rep that it's not even funny. Anyone reading your post can understand that.

Maybe danger doesn't know what to do.

Right now I'm imagining a bunch of danger "engineers" sitting around pushing "the" reset button and saying "it always worked in the past...".<br /><br />Seriously though. How many customers are managed by the Danger back end? The number probably just isn't that big. Creating and operating databases of the size they would need is just not so far out of the norm that they should be having all this trouble. And yes I've managed such sized databases.<br /><br />As I've been a customer for several years, I've began to wonder just what could be going on at danger.<br /><br />The real clue is "Why hasn't danger pressed more into the business market?"<br /><br />Danger is usually marketing after a bunch of kids from what I can tell.<br /><br />I imagine the business community would be much less tolerant of the outages.<br /><br />The observable lack of danger's interest in the lucrative business market leads me to surmise that they must be aware of the short comings of there technology, and are trying to make what money that can off the less "discerning", while, presumedly, they fix things.<br /><br />Then I return to the question of why don't they fix it? And I am invariably faced with the answer: "They don't know how".

Maybe danger doesn't know what to do.

Right now I'm imagining a bunch of danger "engineers" sitting around pushing "the" reset button and saying "it always worked in the past...".<br /><br />Seriously though. How many customers are managed by the Danger back end? The number probably just isn't that big. Creating and operating databases of the size they would need is just not so far out of the norm that they should be having all this trouble. And yes I've managed such sized databases.<br /><br />As I've been a customer for several years, I've began to wonder just what could be going on at danger.<br /><br />The real clue is "Why hasn't danger pressed more into the business market?"<br /><br />Danger is usually marketing after a bunch of kids from what I can tell.<br /><br />I imagine the business community would be much less tolerant of the outages.<br /><br />The observable lack of danger's interest in the lucrative business market leads me to surmise that they must be aware of the short comings of there technology, and are trying to make what money that can off the less "discerning", while, presumedly, they fix things.<br /><br />Then I return to the question of why don't they fix it? And I am invariably faced with the answer: "They don't know how".

Sidekicked in the butt!

I've been down for atleast 48 hours... this morning I woke up with a full connectivity also recieved some emails that were sent to me during the outage, but I'm down once again. Back to the 2 dance, well its really not dancing just stuck on 2 dots! I would really appreciate a simple update on whats going! It's no secret we have are having problems but jesus, shed some light!

Sidekicked in the butt!

I've been down for atleast 48 hours... this morning I woke up with a full connectivity also recieved some emails that were sent to me during the outage, but I'm down once again. Back to the 2 dance, well its really not dancing just stuck on 2 dots! I would really appreciate a simple update on whats going! It's no secret we have are having problems but jesus, shed some light!

Out to Lunch (and stay there)

Interestingly, two top executives at Danger are out of the office this week, just as the their hiptop data service hits the pits and scids to dead stop, according to auto email replies. Both the CEO and the SRVP of marketing are enjoying the beach?? while their customers are suffering from a lack of information (if you can't get me my data, at least give me an ETR) and a genuine lack of leadership.

Out to Lunch

Curious... What are those email addresses???

Out to Lunch (and stay there)

Interestingly, two top executives at Danger are out of the office this week, just as the their hiptop data service hits the pits and scids to dead stop, according to auto email replies. Both the CEO and the SRVP of marketing are enjoying the beach?? while their customers are suffering from a lack of information (if you can't get me my data, at least give me an ETR) and a genuine lack of leadership.

Out to Lunch

Curious... What are those email addresses???

You gotta be kiddin!

Are you kidding? Get a back up? When you buy a brand-new car and 2 days later it just completely breaks down because of a defect from the dealer / manufacture, are you just gonna go buy another brand new car for backup? I dont think so. We as customers pay for things to WORK.

[thenet411]

Ugh

No one seems to get my original point. Of course you pay for a service to work. Otherwise, what is the point? But my point is that you have to expect some issues with a young, feature rich service. True, none of us signed up to be a beta test group. But, if you understand the technical development process, you would know that you can never have a full scale test without going live. The amount of people needed for a full scale test is just not feasible. Look at Google. Their GMail service is an example for the whole world to follow. When you have a large service that you want to test, start with a few people. Look for issues. Then, add more. Look for issues. And so on. Notice that you have to be invited to join GMail? Absolutely incredible idea on the part of Google. <br />And if these services are SO important to your business and/or personal life, HAVE A BACKUP METHOD IN PLACE TO GET AT THE DATA. If you're a technical person, this is a no brainer. If you're not, get your IT staff or hire a consultant to make your data redundant.

You gotta be kiddin!

Are you kidding? Get a back up? When you buy a brand-new car and 2 days later it just completely breaks down because of a defect from the dealer / manufacture, are you just gonna go buy another brand new car for backup? I dont think so. We as customers pay for things to WORK.

[thenet411]

Ugh

No one seems to get my original point. Of course you pay for a service to work. Otherwise, what is the point? But my point is that you have to expect some issues with a young, feature rich service. True, none of us signed up to be a beta test group. But, if you understand the technical development process, you would know that you can never have a full scale test without going live. The amount of people needed for a full scale test is just not feasible. Look at Google. Their GMail service is an example for the whole world to follow. When you have a large service that you want to test, start with a few people. Look for issues. Then, add more. Look for issues. And so on. Notice that you have to be invited to join GMail? Absolutely incredible idea on the part of Google. <br />And if these services are SO important to your business and/or personal life, HAVE A BACKUP METHOD IN PLACE TO GET AT THE DATA. If you're a technical person, this is a no brainer. If you're not, get your IT staff or hire a consultant to make your data redundant.