[malpha]

Well, in the meta-script, the CUSTOM_MODEL_LIST reads P100EWW, but the device is listed as 'preplus.' So I wasn't sure if I should change the CUSTOM_MODEL_LIST to read P101VZW or change the device to just Pre. This is what the terminal gives me now:

Apr 7, 2011 12:33:13 AM com.palm.nova.installer.recoverytool.CardController logPrint
INFO: token returned by get_token() is : Verizon

Apr 7, 2011 12:33:13 AM com.palm.nova.installer.recoverytool.CardController logPrint
INFO: WARING: carrierList on the webOS Dr is : sprint and carrierToken on the device is : verizon

Apr 7, 2011 12:33:14 AM com.palm.novacom.internal.NovacomSocketStream waitForReturnCode
WARNING: Throwing Exception Cmd: file:///sbin/tellbootie
java.io.IOException: No return code found in stream from file:///sbin/tellbootie
Apr 7, 2011 12:33:14 AM com.palm.nova.installer.recoverytool.CardController logPrint
INFO: Reboot call complete

Apr 7, 2011 12:33:14 AM com.palm.nova.installer.recoverytool.CardController postFlashEvent
WARNING: Flash Failure
err -1 "TOKEN MISMATCH: Failed to find match for Carrier information. Prevent user from flashing"
at com.palm.nova.installer.core.FlasherThread.run(FlasherThread.java:276)

[rwhitby]

Well, in the meta-script, the CUSTOM_MODEL_LIST reads P100EWW, but the device is listed as 'preplus.' So I wasn't sure if I should change the CUSTOM_MODEL_LIST to read P101VZW or change the device to just Pre. This is what the terminal gives me now:

CUSTOM_MODEL_LIST=P100EWW CUSTOM_CARRIER_LIST=Verizon

-- Rod

[malpha]

Idk, I think maybe I didn't do the comm swap correctly. I can't get the doctor to run at all, I even tried the 1.4.5 doctor with the edited makefile. Or maybe it's just the novacom on this distro, I switched to Linux Mint Debian last week. I'll go through the steps again.

[malpha]

Okay, I got the 2.1 doctor running on it, I set the Sprint script to carrier Verizon and model P101EWW, but it's showing up on the Sprint network like it should. Man, those screws are tiny, I dropped one trying to stick it back in, I had to give up on finding it. -_-;; It was fun, though.

[Squawkt22]

So about the tokens and meta-doctor:

I have a Verizon Pre+ coming in and I'm currently on a Sprint Pre- meta-doctored to 2.1.

When I make the meta-doctor for the swap, is it okay to use the tokens from the 2.0 Pre-? Do I have to re-doctor to an official Sprint webOS (1.4.5)? Also, should I go through the entire process here, including meta-doctoring to Sprint 1.4.5, or can I skip meta-doctoring to Sprint 1.4.5 and meta-doctor straight to 2.1.0?

Also would like to know what to do in this situation.

[malpha]

Squawk,

What I did was instead I pulled the castle.xml file from the wr doctor used to make the Sprint Pre- and inserted my tokens, saving the file to the meta-doctor folder. Then I went to the script and added the custom xml file line. The Wiki page tells you where at the bottom. Then I changed the CUSTOM_MODEL_LIST and CUSTOM_CARRIER_LIST to P101EWW and Verizon respectively.

I did not do the 1.4.5 doctor.

[Typo Lad]

Okay, I got the 2.1 doctor running on it, I set the Sprint script to carrier Verizon and model P101EWW, but it's showing up on the Sprint network like it should. Man, those screws are tiny, I dropped one trying to stick it back in, I had to give up on finding it. -_-;; It was fun, though.

I'm going to be trying this in a week or so. Any hints?

Do you still need to pull the tokens?

[bubbahooska]

I have a Day 1 Sprint Pre-.

1. If I switch to a Pre Plus with a Sprint comm board, am I likely to see a meaningful difference in stability or performance with webOS 2.1? Or would the primary difference just be additional storage space?

2. Is there a significant advantage in using a Verizon Pre Plus rather than a GSM Pre Plus? Or is the difference immaterial, because comm boards are swapped out?

Thanks for all advice.

[mu7efcer]

Ok. So, stupidly, when I made my Sprint Pre Plus, I forgot to extract the Verizon tokens before I overwrote the Sprint tokens onto it.

A friend of mine has a Verizon Pre Plus that he is returning to VZW with hardware failures. Are the tokens from his phone interchangeable on my Pre Plus? So, for example, if I wanted to put the Verizon Comms Board back into the Pre Plus and make it a stock Verizon Phone again, would I be able to use the tokens from his phone to make this happen?

I guess what I'm asking is this: are the tokens specific to the carrier or to the individual phone? More generically, what purpose do the tokens serve? I can't find anything in the wiki that describes this. Is there a thread somewhere that discusses their purpose? I've been looking but not finding it.

As an FYI, part of what is motivating this, is Derek's review of the Pre 2. I've found a used one for cheap that I would want to fund by selling the Pre Plus that I just bought. Obviously, I'd need to be able to put it back into stock configuration if I were to do that.

[mu7efcer]

1. If I switch to a Pre Plus with a Sprint comm board, am I likely to see a meaningful difference in stability or performance with webOS 2.1? Or would the primary difference just be additional storage space?

I think you'd see a big difference. I just recently did this, and I really can't believe how much better the experience is using the Pre+ compared to my old Pre-. The biggest difference stems from the fact that the Pre+ has 512MB of ram compared to the 256MB of RAM of the Pre-. This additional RAM makes the phone a *ton* more responsive, as it has reduced memory swapping to virtually zero. In addition, I seem to also have better battery life using the same battery as in my Pre-. My guess is that reading/writing to RAM is a lot less energy intensive than swapping to flash. But I'm just guessing.

2. Is there a significant advantage in using a Verizon Pre Plus rather than a GSM Pre Plus? Or is the difference immaterial, because comm boards are swapped out?

There's a very tiny advantage to using the CDMA Pre Plus. As I understand it, you have to use a CDMA back bezel in the swap. If you get a Verizon Pre Plus, you then have two of those back bezels. The back bezel contains lines to the antenna that have to be reconnected in the process. If you accidentally cut one, your phone will basically not work. So by getting a VZW Pre Plus, you reduce the impact if you break one of the back bezels or the antenna cables. This strikes me as a pretty low risk.

OTOH, If you think you're going to travel internatioally, you might have an advantage getting the GSM version. I suspect you could swap out the comms board before you left, get the device unlocked, and then get a SIM card in the country you're going to.

Long and short, there's probably tiny advantages either way. I'd go with whatever was cheapest.

[bubbahooska]

I think you'd see a big difference. I just recently did this, and I really can't believe how much better the experience is using the Pre+ compared to my old Pre-. The biggest difference stems from the fact that the Pre+ has 512MB of

Thanks very much for the info. You've convinced me. It's been a couple of decades since I did any delicate work, so I just picked up two semi-working Pre's to practice disassembly/reassembly before I risk my primary phone. I'm guessing I'll make the jump right after tax day.

[mu7efcer]

I guess what I'm asking is this: are the tokens specific to the carrier or to the individual phone? More generically, what purpose do the tokens serve? I can't find anything in the wiki that describes this. Is there a thread somewhere that discusses their purpose? I've been looking but not finding it.

Bump. Anyone?

Thanks very much for the info. You've convinced me. It's been a couple of decades since I did any delicate work, so I just picked up two semi-working Pre's to practice disassembly/reassembly before I risk my primary phone. I'm guessing I'll make the jump right after tax day.

I recommend the WebOS Internals instructions, along with assembly/disassembly guidance from the Sprint Pre 2 instructions. Step 13 in the latter is pretty important and something I missed during my initial reassembly.

Also, I would note that I have *not* gone to webOS 2.1 yet. I'm still on 1.4.5. I probably won't attempt the upgrade to 2.x until there's a way to reliably get updated PRL and Sprint Nav. The former is too critical to good operation on Sprint and the latter is too critical to my being able to get the the umpteen different soccer/flagfootball/activities of my kids.

[appsotutely]

Ok. So, stupidly, when I made my Sprint Pre Plus, I forgot to extract the Verizon tokens before I overwrote the Sprint tokens onto it.

A friend of mine has a Verizon Pre Plus that he is returning to VZW with hardware failures. Are the tokens from his phone interchangeable on my Pre Plus? So, for example, if I wanted to put the Verizon Comms Board back into the Pre Plus and make it a stock Verizon Phone again, would I be able to use the tokens from his phone to make this happen?

I guess what I'm asking is this: are the tokens specific to the carrier or to the individual phone? More generically, what purpose do the tokens serve? I can't find anything in the wiki that describes this. Is there a thread somewhere that discusses their purpose? I've been looking but not finding it.

As an FYI, part of what is motivating this, is Derek's review of the Pre 2. I've found a used one for cheap that I would want to fund by selling the Pre Plus that I just bought. Obviously, I'd need to be able to put it back into stock configuration if I were to do that.

Some of the tokens are generic, some are carrier specific, and some are unique to the device. If you didn't save your original Verizon Pre Plus tokens, I don't think you'll be able to fully revert it to being a stock Verizon Pre Plus. It will probably be fine as a developer device, but I'm not sure it will fully function as Verizon cellphone.

You could try to cobble together a Verizon Pre Minus with your current leftover parts and try to activate that on Verizon first as a test?

[mu7efcer]

It will probably be fine as a developer device, but I'm not sure it will fully function as Verizon cellphone.

Thanks. The thing is when I did this for my sprint comms board, I ended up booting into the Pre+ before I got the tokens loaded. So what I had was a Pre+ with a sprint comms board, verizon tokens and verizon webOS. And it worked just fine on the sprint network. I could make and receive calls on my sprint number.

And when I try my Pre- (with verizon comms board, sprint tokens & sprint webOS) it tells me that it's not activated on the Verizon network - which, of course, it isn't.

It makes me wonder if the only purpose of the tokens is to tell webOS doctor whether or not the software version is matched to the right device.

You could try to cobble together a Verizon Pre Minus with your current leftover parts and try to activate that on Verizon first as a test?

That's a good idea. But I'm going to wait until my friend first deactivates his working Pre+ from Verizon. I don't want to show up on their network twice. That could get my friend in trouble.

[RJKinsman]

OK, I fixed it! Phew!

Here's what I learned. I took it apart again and looked carefully at the antenna wires. When I put it back together, I paid close attention to how they were arranged, made sure they were nice and straight, not crossing each other or pinched in any way. Since doing that two days ago, the phone has been working like a champ. Stays connected constantly, and I'm getting great battery life, well, for a pre . Anyway, it's much better than when I first did it. I had three batteries, and I was cycling through them all day long, changing the battery about every two hours. I do have an external charger, so I always had one of the three plugged in. No fun!

I did notice one other thing the last time I took it apart. There was a little filmy rubbery gasket thing around the top of the phone where the speaker is. This stuff came loose and, as it turns out, blocked the contact with the speaker. So after I put it back together, the pre was mostly mute. The phone ringer would ring, but the system sounds and media sounds were silent. After kind of freaking out a little, I opened it up again and pulled this stuff out and it worked fine. I suspect it made the phone a little less moisture-resistant, though.

So, my experience was touch and go for a while. For a few days, I thought, this is an unmitigated disaster. But now I'm quite pleased.

[RJKinsman]

Thanks very much for the info. You've convinced me. It's been a couple of decades since I did any delicate work, so I just picked up two semi-working Pre's to practice disassembly/reassembly before I risk my primary phone. I'm guessing I'll make the jump right after tax day.

Having recently done this (less than two weeks ago), I have two tips:

1) Don't risk your primary phone! I stupidly did this, although it ultimately came out OK. After I did it, and had a problem, and read through the entire thread looking for an answer. I had a moment where I hit my forehead with the heal of my hand, and said, "duh!"

Here's what you do -- if you can, activate one of your "practice" Sprint pre's. Extract the tokens and use the comm board from it instead of your primary phone. If that works, doctor your pre plus and you're good to go. If it doesn't work, you can always fall back to your working primary phone.

2) The other tip is, when you're putting putting the hardware back together (step 4 of the original post), pay close attention to the antenna wires (the black and white wires that you plug into the comm board). If they're in anyway pinched or twisted, you'll have problems. See my earlier posts in this thread for details.

By they way, don't take this as a nag, but you'll probably benefit a lot by taking the time to read through this entire thread (as tedious as it is) before starting. I did not do this, but I wish I had.

Good luck!

[rwhitby]

Having recently done this (less than two weeks ago), I have two tips:

1) Don't risk your primary phone! I stupidly did this, although it ultimately came out OK. After I did it, and had a problem, and read through the entire thread looking for an answer. I had a moment where I hit my forehead with the heal of my hand, and said, "duh!"

Here's what you do -- if you can, activate one of your "practice" Sprint pre's. Extract the tokens and use the comm board from it instead of your primary phone. If that works, doctor your pre plus and you're good to go. If it doesn't work, you can always fall back to your working primary phone.

2) The other tip is, when you're putting putting the hardware back together (step 4 of the original post), pay close attention to the antenna wires (the black and white wires that you plug into the comm board). If they're in anyway pinched or twisted, you'll have problems. See my earlier posts in this thread for details.

By they way, don't take this as a nag, but you'll probably benefit a lot by taking the time to read through this entire thread (as tedious as it is) before starting. I did not do this, but I wish I had.

Good luck!

Note that I always recommend NOT removing the wires from the comms board and transferring comms board and backplate as one unit.

I've asked for the first post to be updated to say this many times, but the author is not to be found, abandoning the community to forever more support flawed instructions that should have been on a Wiki page where they could easily have been corrected by others.

-- Rod

[RJKinsman]

Note that I always recommend NOT removing the wires from the comms board and transferring comms board and backplate as one unit.

I've asked for the first post to be updated to say this many times, but the author is not to be found, abandoning the community to forever more support flawed instructions that should have been on a Wiki page where they could easily have been corrected by others.
-- Rod

Very interesting, makes sense. Would have saved me a considerable amount of anguish. Yet another reason to read through the whole thread before attempting.

[ALuckyGuy]

What I did was instead I pulled the castle.xml file from the wr doctor used to make the Sprint Pre- and inserted my tokens, saving the file to the meta-doctor folder. Then I went to the script and added the custom xml file line. The Wiki page tells you where at the bottom. Then I changed the CUSTOM_MODEL_LIST and CUSTOM_CARRIER_LIST to P101EWW and Verizon respectively.

I'm about to embark on this very thing... I have a Pre- running WebOS 2.1 and I'm about to do the comm swap with a Verizon Pre+. I concerned about how this differs from the other recommendations that tell you to have the Pre+ masquerade as a Pre- and wonder if there will be some fall-out later.

Is this safe to do, or should one first try to activate the device as a Sprint Pre- and only if that fails, fall back to this plan?

[RJKinsman]

I'm about to embark on this very thing... I have a Pre- running WebOS 2.1 and I'm about to do the comm swap with a Verizon Pre+. I concerned about how this differs from the other recommendations that tell you to have the Pre+ masquerade as a Pre- and wonder if there will be some fall-out later.

Is this safe to do, or should one first try to activate the device as a Sprint Pre- and only if that fails, fall back to this plan?

If I were in your situation, here's what I would do. I would leave my running Pre- with 2.1 alone. I'd get the cheapest Pre- I could from Craiglist or ebay, minumum requirement being that the comms board functions (i.e. it can be activated on Sprint). I would follow the procedure as described (with rwhitby's astute modification) but then, on the last step, instead of doctoring with the regular Sprint webOS 1.4.5 doctor, upgrade your new Pre+ to webOS 2.1 as you did before. Then restore from there.

That way, you don't risk your running Pre-, so you can fall back if needed.

I haven't done this myself, so take it for what it's worth. As for my experience, I plussed my pre and doctored with Sprint webOS 1.4.5. It was a little rough hardware-wise at first, but it's working great now and I'm glad I did it. Now I'm contemplating going to 2.1.

I suspect you'll be glad you went to a plus, as with more memory it should be able to handle 2.1 better. Again, no personal experience, just speculation.

As always, you'll be glad you read through the entire thread before attempting. The original poster is long gone, so modifications to his procedure are strictly by follow-on messages.