Since the Virgin drones on the Facebook page and their foreign phone support are clueless... and this is a common issue popping up everywhere... I'm trying to get the word out. So please let people know there is an easy fix if you have been bitten by the EVO activation bug on Virgin USA.
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Since I had been without a phone for the better part of a day and didn't get a response in 14 hours regarding my issue, I decided to be bold and try a few things. Fixed the issue myself.
If you got bitten by the HTC Activation Bug... the fix is actually fairly simple. It's just frustrating because nobody seems to know how to try to fix it. "Try a few things and it should work."
Virgin reps, PLEASE pass this around to everyone so that they can help other people fix the activation bug. There will be no need to replace phones as a result of this issue.
If:
You try to activate the HTC EVO while your old phone is still powered on, it may fail the activation. Disable your old phone (power off, pull battery), do the swap in your account, wait until you get the email that says the swap is successful and THEN put the battery into the HTC EVO to do an activation. Yes, I know, this means no playing around with your new toy until you're ready to activate it.
If:
You were unable to do an activation due to an error like: "vDC has stopped unexpectedly. Would you like to tell HTC?"
Stop trying anything else. The phone is fixed in a state due to a bad attempt at activation that it could not complete. If you continue to try to Update Profile in Settings, you will continue to get the same error message. If you try to manually activate via Settings (Activate This Device), it will give you the error message saying to call 611 or the 800 number for customer services.
You will need to do the following:
Go into Settings (Menu, Settings), Power > UNCHECK "Fast Boot"
Power off the device. Pull the battery. Put the battery back in after a few minutes. Before you power the device on, hold down the volume down button and keep both the power button and volume down button held down.
You will boot into HBOOT RECOVERY. There will be a menu with 5 options. "FASTBOOT, RECOVERY, FACTORY RESET, SIMLOCK, IMAGE CRC"... Press the Vol Down button twice to highlight "FACTORY RESET" and tap the power button to select it.
You will be doing a full factory reset on your phone.
When it reboots your phone will attempt to auto activate... and this time it should succeed.
---
Since I had been without a phone for the better part of a day and didn't get a response in 14 hours regarding my issue, I decided to be bold and try a few things. Fixed the issue myself.
If you got bitten by the HTC Activation Bug... the fix is actually fairly simple. It's just frustrating because nobody seems to know how to try to fix it. "Try a few things and it should work."
Virgin reps, PLEASE pass this around to everyone so that they can help other people fix the activation bug. There will be no need to replace phones as a result of this issue.
If:
You try to activate the HTC EVO while your old phone is still powered on, it may fail the activation. Disable your old phone (power off, pull battery), do the swap in your account, wait until you get the email that says the swap is successful and THEN put the battery into the HTC EVO to do an activation. Yes, I know, this means no playing around with your new toy until you're ready to activate it.
If:
You were unable to do an activation due to an error like: "vDC has stopped unexpectedly. Would you like to tell HTC?"
Stop trying anything else. The phone is fixed in a state due to a bad attempt at activation that it could not complete. If you continue to try to Update Profile in Settings, you will continue to get the same error message. If you try to manually activate via Settings (Activate This Device), it will give you the error message saying to call 611 or the 800 number for customer services.
You will need to do the following:
Go into Settings (Menu, Settings), Power > UNCHECK "Fast Boot"
Power off the device. Pull the battery. Put the battery back in after a few minutes. Before you power the device on, hold down the volume down button and keep both the power button and volume down button held down.
You will boot into HBOOT RECOVERY. There will be a menu with 5 options. "FASTBOOT, RECOVERY, FACTORY RESET, SIMLOCK, IMAGE CRC"... Press the Vol Down button twice to highlight "FACTORY RESET" and tap the power button to select it.
You will be doing a full factory reset on your phone.
When it reboots your phone will attempt to auto activate... and this time it should succeed.