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FAQ: What is the BlackBerry “Help Me!” Screen & Why Do I Need It?

by Ronen Halevy on Dec 9th, 2009
14 Comments »
 

Help-me-screen The BlackBerry “Help Me!” screen is one of the most useful screens on the BlackBerry but every day I run into users who have no idea it exists. The “Help Me!” screen is one of the first places I go when I am trying to help a person with their BlackBerry and it should be something every user knows about. It still surprises me that RIM does not have a icon for it!

To get to the “Help Me!” screen follow these instructions:

  • Full QWERTY keyboard BlackBerry:
    • Press the keys Alt+Shift+H at the same time
  • SurePress Touchscreen BlackBerry: 
    • Hold the escape/back button and tap the top left, top right, top left, and top right corners of the screen sequentially
  • SureType BlackBerry Pearl keyboard:
    • Press the keys Alt+EACE at the same time

This will show you a screen with useful information like:

  • Vendor ID – Your carriers special code from RIM
  • Platform – The platform of the OS (Not the number most people reference)
  • App Version – The applications version (The number referenced by almost everybody)
  • PIN – Your devices personal identification code
  • IMEI or MEID  – This is your cellphones identification number to carriers
  • Uptime – How long your device has been on
  • Signal Strength – How strong of a signal you have (-90 is better than -100)
  • Battery Level – How much of a charge you have left
  • File Free – How much application space you have free
  • File Total – Total application space

Those numbers are crucial for diagnosing a device. For example, the biggest cause of emails and phone logs disappearing from your device is a lack of “File Free” space.

Let us know if you have any other questions!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 2:15pm EST and is filed under BlackBerry FAQ.
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14 Comments to “FAQ: What is the BlackBerry “Help Me!” Screen & Why Do I Need It?”

  1. Comment by: artie
    Not Registered
    December 9, 2009 at 8:39 pm EST

    I have an 8130 Pearl and get nothing when I press Alt+EACE at the same time (no easy feat).

  2. Comment by: impak875 (View Profile)
    Newcomer - Posts: 77
    December 9, 2009 at 9:07 pm EST

    Thanks for the shortcut! I am one of those who had no idea this existed…

    Private Message impak875
  3. Comment by: Phoenix
    Not Registered
    December 9, 2009 at 9:12 pm EST

    “For example, the biggest cause of emails and phone logs disappearing from your device is a lack of “File Free” space.”

    Funny thing is, on older devices that had 64 Mb of memory, this was one of the things I routinely removed to free up memory.

  4. Comment by: Phoenix
    Not Registered
    December 9, 2009 at 9:13 pm EST

    Whoops, mistaking what you said with the 3 Mb help module. Disregard my previous comment.

  5. Comment by: technomage
    Not Registered | Posted from my BlackBerry 9000
    December 10, 2009 at 12:44 pm EST

    Yea, I missed that screen, mine comes with os engineering screen instead
    After unbranded my bold

  6. Comment by: thebroken177
    Not Registered | Posted from my BlackBerry 8330
    December 10, 2009 at 7:53 pm EST

    Blackberrys suck I can’t add a signature my blackberry can’t play video and when it does it sounds horrible like an echo of a cow screaming its glitching and everything and what sucks is I havnt had this phone blackberry curve more than 3 weeks ill go from having 4 sinal strength to 0 and back and forth without moving somebody convence me I didn’t waste a 161 dollars and a 2 year contract on this stupid phone(is dollar spelled with an a or e)

    • Comment by: Damien
      Not Registered
      December 10, 2009 at 9:54 pm EST

      How random.

      How about you ask people for some assistance with your problems rather than just ranting.
      You’ll probably get solutions very quickly.

      ANY device will suck if you don’t give it a fair chance.

    • Comment by: Derek Brown (View Profile)
      Beginner - Posts: 212
      December 10, 2009 at 10:35 pm EST

      Don’t be a troll, it will get you nowhere. The fact that you can’t add a signature just shows you don’t know what you are doing, as it is possible, and I have different signatures for my different e-mail accounts. Which Curve do you have? Are you running the latest available OS? I have a Tour on Sprint, and I have no issues with video playback or signal coverage. Many people maintain that Sprint has very poor coverage, but I often have coverage in Cincinnati where AT&T customers will lose coverage. Regardless of what carrier you use, if the phone is less than a month and you are having such difficulty with getting a reliable signal, exchange it for a new one.

      On a side note, the BlackBerry platform is focused on the business market first, and the consumer second. If you want to play games or watch movies on your phone, you might be better off with an iPhone (at least until the bandwidth runs out).

      Private Message Derek Brown
  7. Comment by: mystro2b
    Not Registered
    December 11, 2009 at 1:52 am EST

    I couldn’t get the help me screen to show up on my wife’s new 8530 Curve..It took me several tires with “Alt+Shift+H at the same time” but it finally showed up. Thanks for this

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