(If you’re here looking for the info on how to reset the Pre when the MSL isn’t working, it’s at the bottom of this postThe first step is admitting I have a problem, right?
I have this love/hate relationship with cell phones. Approximately 3 months after I get one, I want a different one. It’s an addiction–but it’s an addiction I have no intention of kicking.
I’ve been a Sprint customer for 8 or 9 years, and have never had any major complaints. There was an occasional glitch here and there, or a CSR that didn’t know what they were talking about, but for the most part their coverage and customer service did the trick for me. I started with one of the Sanyo 8100 (?) phones, and kept it for a good 2 years. Then I discovered the “smart” phone. My first was a Treo. I’ve had experience with Palm in the past–the Palm Pilot was my best friend back in the day. From there I discovered the Blackberry, and went through several of those. Still love the Blackberry for what it is.
A little over a year ago, I had the opportunity to mess around with a friend’s iPhone. I was in love. I waited until Sprint changed something in the contract that would allow me to leave without the ETF, and I jumped ship.
The iPhone is a sexy, smooth, brilliant piece of technology–except for one thing. It dropped almost every call I made from my house, and a good majority of the calls I made around town. I don’t live in the sticks, there should be adequate coverage in Portland, Oregon to actually allow me to make a phone call, but no. I work from home, so dropping calls to my boss or conference calls with the advertising department just didn’t fly.
I stuck it out for six months, then ate the ETF and bailed. I crawled, tail tucked between my legs, back to Sprint. It took a bit, but they set me up with a new account, gave me back whatever privileges I had earned from my previous account, and set my old Blackberry Curve back up.
Then the Blackberry Tour came out. I had to have it, and since I had just reactivated my old Curve instead of buying a new phone when I signed back up, I got a discount on the Tour. Unfortunately, I got one of the Tours with the bad trackballs, and while on a business trip, gave up and bought an HTC Hero outright.
The Hero is awesome. Hell, the whole Android platform is awesome. The only problem I had with it was that it was a wee bit sluggish, and the on-screen keyboard was a pain to type on. So I took it back and tried the Samsung Moment. It had a physical keyboard, but something about it just didn’t quite work for me. The Palm Pre came next.
The Palm Pre redefines sexy, as far as I’m concerned. It looks good, it feels good in the hand, it’s exactly what I was looking for. Except for the slide-out keyboard. Those things always break. But I’m careful with my electronics, so I figured it would probably last me quite awhile.
But, me being me, I got bored with it, and switched back to the Hero. Kept it all the way through this past January, when I decided I just couldn’t live with the on-screen keyboard, and went back to the Blackberry Tour.
I know what you’re thinking; this guy needs to seek professional help. You may be right, but I’m not sure if insurance covers that kind of help, and I kind of enjoy being a little “off”.
Today, I got bored with the Tour. So I came up with a plan. I’m going to start watching Craigslist for deals on slightly used Palm Pres, Heros, and any other phone I think I might like. The best part about Sprint is that I can switch my phones on their website. So today I found a Pre in decent condition for a great price.
Now, if you got here via Google, this is probably the part you’re looking for. Activating my used Palm Pre…
When I got the phone, it still had all of the previous owner’s data. I resisted the urge to prank call people in his address book, and dodged the desire to flip through photos, bookmarks, etc. I did a reset on the phone, and put it away until I got home and could activate it on Sprint’s website.
I went through the steps to activate the “new” Pre, but when I got to the end, it told me I’d need to contact customer service to make the switch. No biggie–Sprint has a chat feature on their website, so I pulled it up and started chatting with a rep.
The phone was stuck on the create/sign in to Palm Profile screen, so he had me hold down the Orange button and tap # twice. This brought up the dialer screen, where I entered 786#.
For the record, I love getting to these “secret” screens. I was told to scroll to the bottom and hit the “Reset” button. No problem. Now it’s asking for a MSL (Master Subsidy Lock) code. The CSR gives me one, I type it in, and… “Authentication Failed”.
Damn. He gives me another number to try. This one almost works. But I get a message stating that the radio settings can’t be reset. So we’re stuck.
The CSR tries suggesting a few more things, like waiting a bit to see if provisioning is just taking awhile. Apparently the little EV icon has to show at the top of the screen before it will let you sign in or create a Palm Profile. In the end, I thanked him for trying, and told him I’d give it some time.
An hour later, it still wasn’t working, so I pulled up the chat feature on Sprint’s website again. Talked to a different CSR, went through the same steps, but this time the MSL flat out wouldn’t work. I even tried the alternate one the first CSR gave me, but always met with the “Authentication Failed” error. Frustrated, she told me I’d have to call Technical Support.
I called Technical Support. At first, he sounded optimistic; he said there was another way we could go about activating the phone. I’m not sure what that “other” way was, but it didn’t work. The MSL still wouldn’t authenticate, and without that, we were stuck. He transferred me to Palm, which was closed.
I figured I’d just wait till tomorrow and take it into a Sprint store, so I tried to reactivate my Tour so I’d have a phone for the night. Fail. Not sure what the problem there was, but the site wouldn’t finish the activation process.
At this point, I was sick of trying. I figured there probably wouldn’t be too many people who needed to contact me between tonight and tomorrow morning anyway, so I sat back and finished watching whatever show was on TV at the time.
Then I had an idea… I went back into the programming screen with ##786#, hit the reset button, and tried using 000000 as the MSL code. It worked. The phone reset, and after about an hour, I got the EV signal and signed into my Palm Profile.
I assume that since it was a used phone, the Pre was looking for the previous owner’s MSL code. I have no idea why 000000 worked, but it did.
So if you’re stuck in the same scenario–buying a used phone and having trouble authenticating with the MSL Sprint gives you–try using 000000.
This post dragged on far too long. I had really just planned on posting the 000000 info, but I’ve been meaning to write about my phone addiction for awhile now, and tonight seemed like a good time to do it.
On a side note–when I signed back into my Palm Profile, all my apps were placed back on my phone, and my email accounts were there (just had to sign in to each one.)
I’m now letting the phone do the OS 1.4 update, and buzzing from yet another hit off the new-cell-phone-pipe.
[UPDATE]
I thought it was working, but it had actually somehow grabbed the number for the second line on my account. A web-chat with Sprint didn’t fix it, so I tried 000000 again. Success. Not sure what glitched last night, but now my Pre has the correct phone number and everything is working as it should.
