BlackBerry Classic (Q20) no longer stuck on setup, and an easier temporary bypass

Forgive me if this ends up being a long post but I have a fair bit to get through and I would like to make it as clear as possible for those who, like me, got stuck with the Ulitmate Fix. (Step 5). Thank you for all of the information already provided in the main thread and in its comments, they did help, even though it has been confusing as to why many things haven't worked for me!

I have finally managed to progress through the setup on my old Blackberry Classic (Q20).

I can't remember whether my phone was still logged into my BBID since I stopped using it quite some time ago but I do think Blackberry Protect was active (the anti-theft protection). It has been in a drawer long before the Blackberry servers were shut down so they were not removed. I had forgotten the login details and had factory reset the phone which I now realise may have been a mistake.

Like many others have mentioned, the problem for me was Step 5 in the Ultimate Fix. There were no comments being read by the Screen Reader about the Blackberry ID while on the Wifi setup and therefore no "skip" comment to wait for and double tap to progress through the setup. No matter how many different variations of the fix I tried, or all the different methods mentioned by others that worked for thier device, none worked for mine. I never once heard the Screen Reader talk on the Wifi screen even while waiting a long time. I could get it to make comments after swiping a few times but those are not a part of the fix.

Some extra things I found while messing around with the initial setup process:

1. You can use the trackpad to swipe through the setup pages or keep swiping the touchscreen. Both seemed to work the same.

2. The few times I was able to hear the Screen Reader say "skip" while on the Wifi page while swiping randomly. I would double tap quickly hoping to progress like Step 5 of the Ultimate Fix mentioned, but it never worked. When I let the Screen Reader finish its comment by not double tapping the screen, it was actually saying "skip button is disabled" or something along those lines. This is because it was reading from the previous Mobile Network setup (which was skipped) while still viewing the Wifi setup page. If you are hearing this after randomly swiping like I was, ignore it, you've swiped the wrong way and it is not a part of the setup fix.

3. If like me you do not automatically hear the Screen Reader talk on the Wifi setup and have tried swiping in different directions, you can eventually hear the Reader say things like "you need to login to proceed", "anti-theft is active" "blackberry ID uses your email address", "enter your password", etc, this was not a part of the setup fix either and you do not need to keep swiping, I wasted so much time here.

Now onto the more useful information.

Temporary bypass.

As I am sure a lot of people already know, you can temporarily bypass the setup and get to the apps homepage giving you access to your phone, but each time the phone shuts down you are back at the setup screen when you turn it on again. Some people mentioned they have managed to regularly bypass the setup by mashing a combination of multiple buttons like "end call" while swiping, or while the phone is booting up. Others say they have accidentally bypassed the setup after opening a sidebar where they can see a "save an image" option, then they press the "end call" button to get to the apps homepage.

I managed to find a simple quick way to temporary bypass the setup. You do not need the Screen Reader to be active but you will need to do this each time the phone is restarted. Again, this worked on my BlackBerry Classic.

1. Turn the phone on, proceed to the Wifi setup screen and click "Manual Setup" (If there is no Manual Setup button this is because you have already logged into your Wifi and the button has been replaced with a "Hotspot" button. Instead, click on any other Wifi connection so that you are prompted to enter the Wifi password in the text field).

2. Enter any character into the password text field, only one character is necessary.

3. Press the BlackBerry Menu button (the one with the BlackBerry logo). A black "Text Options" sidebar should open with the options "Select" and "Select All".

4. Press the "End Call" button and you should go straight to your apps homepage with access to your phone.

Again, this is only a temporary bypass and will need to be repeated each time you restart the phone. It is only a few quick steps so it isn't too annoying if you are still stuck with the Ultimate Fix.

By the time I had given up on trying different autoloaders to remove BlackBerry Protect, I finally ended up on version 10.3.03.3216. I don't know if this is important for the following steps, so don't rush to find this autoloader. Try the steps and see how you go. Also, I had already entered my Wifi details from a previous attempt, though I do not believe it would have made a difference for me if I had not entered them, and I did not have a sim card installed.

Permanent Fix (I hope, its only been 1 day but I can restart without seeing the setup anymore)

1. After reading a comment somewhere about Step 5 working with a low battery, I drained it so that it had around 20% power left. Once the battery is this low you start to see a low battery warning onscreen which needs to be dismissed. This was the most important step for me.

2. Next I restarted the phone so that I began the initial setup process again. English (UK) language was already selected but I don't think this matters.

3. Proceed to the "Connect To A Mobile Network" screen. I enabled the Screen Reader here with three quick presses of the Power button. There can be a delay until you hear the chimes to indicate the Screen Reader is activating, but when you do hear them, quickly press the "n" key on the keypad (i.e. the "Next" key). If you don't hear the chimes, keep trying to activate the Screen Reader with three power button presses. It can be slow to active, especially after a restart, so wait a little then keep trying to active. If you accidentally deactivate the Reader just reactivate again. The important part here is to press "n" as soon as you hear the chimes.

4. If you've done Step 3 correctly the onscreen prompt to confirm activation of the Screen Reader will appear on the Wifi setup page. DO NOT DOUBLE TAP ONSCREEN TO CONFIRM ACTIVATION OF THE SCREEN READER YET. If you do not see the prompt, press the "p" key ("Previous" key) to go back to Mobile Network setup and repeat Step 3.

5. At this point you need to wait for the low battery warning to appear while leaving the Screen Reader activation prompt onscreen on the Wifi setup page. It can take a few minutes for the battery warning to appear, so just sit and wait. It is a large onscreen prompt so you cannot miss it. It even appeared in an earlier step for me and seems to appear every few minutes. Again, if you think youve done something wrong or you feel have waited a long time, restart the phone and begin Step 1 again.

6. When the low battery warning finally appears onscreen while you are on the Wifi setup, which itself already has the Screen Reader activation prompt waiting on it, press "Dismiss" on the low battery prompt.

7. Next, double tap onscreen with two fingers to confirm activation of the Screen Reader.

8. At this point you should see the Wifi setup and the Screen Reader will began talking about the BlackBerry ID. If you don't hear the Reader, press the "p" key once (which is the "Previous" key) to go back to the Mobile Network page then press the "n" key once (the "Next" key) to go forward to the Wifi page. Keep listening to the Reader, it will say things like "Sign In", "Create Account". After a while it should say "Skip", then quickly double tap on an empty part of the screen to confirm the skip step.

9. I used THIS VIDEO from this point onwards. The link starts at 45 seconds to let you hear what the Reader should be saying but your screen should be similar to the one shown at 1 minute 33 seconds.

10. Follow the video, from what I can remember it is showing the same steps as I saw on my Classic Q20.

11. A few extra points of info. Just like in the video, I too had to connect to my Wifi a few times to get through the Regional Updates part. It maybe took 3 attempts but it did eventually progress. And again with their "Software Update" setup stage, I also had to wait a while for the software update to stop/fail, then I could skip that too. Just follow the video from Step 9 and it should be simple to get through the rest of the setup.

Hope this helps someone. I have been so frustrating trying to get my phone through setup that I had to get this out of my system and save someome else the same hassle, even though it has taken a lot of typing and a lot of testing, heh.