Success! Installing Ovi Store Symbian^3 After Three-Fingers-Salute

1. In my blogpost dated November 28th 2010, entitled “Funny Things About Qt for Symbian^3″, I mentioned something about Ovi Store 2.0 installation failure :-

10. But that is not all…

Qt is installed in Phone Memory. Will be wiped out (DELETED) if you do factory-reset

11. If you factory-reset your Nokia N8 (and other Symbian^3 devices), the Qt runtime will gone. You need to install Qt using files I mentioned above or using a Qt application that has been packaged with Smart Installer. And you wont be able to install Ovi Store 2.0. Yep. IMPOSSIBLE.

12. Even with the correct Qt 4.6.4 installed, you will never be able to install Ovi Store 2.0 after a factory-reset on Symbian^3 devices. The ONLY way to get Ovi Store 2.0 back is via reflashing from your nearest Nokia Service Centre. Or using Navifirm and Phoenix to reflash. How did I know? I HAVE TRIED

2. Ovi Store 2.0 installation failure will happen to you if you do “three-fingers-salute” i.e. the “real” hard reset i.e. the “real” format. Not soft-reset, not user data deletion. Not *#7370#.

3. Three-fingers-salute is by pressing the following combination on your Symbian^3 smartphones :
– Menu button
– Camera button
– Volume down
– All of the above must be pressed together, and then, press the Power button.

4. But. Today, February 26th 2011. I felt I need some adventure. And I decided to give my N8 a treatment it deserves and went to apply this procedure. I know, I wont be able to use Ovi Store on it. But that is not a big deal to me because I kept a number of SIS/SISX files inside the microSD card, which I can use to install all my favourite apps later.

5. And the journey begins! 1, 2,… 3,… Boom!

6. Wiped out all data inside my N8. Phew….

7. After the process, I switched on the N8, blablabla… and the first thing I did was to check SW Update. Lo and Behold!!! Ovi Store is there to be downloaded. The size of the file is 15 MB but hey! I’m on unlimited data plan so it’s nothing!

8. Downloaded it, took a couple of minutes. After installing Ovi Store downloaded from SW Update, it prompts me that there is an update, and asked me whether I want to install it or not. Yes please…

9. So, another few minutes and the latest Ovi Store is now installed. I wont use it that much but for completeness sake and also once in a while, I just want to know what’s new, I use it.

10. Thank you Nokia for finally making it possible to install Ovi Store 2.0 on Nokia N8 after hard-reset, WITHOUT the need to use Phoenix, or bringing it to the nearest Nokia Service Centre. \

Cheers!

*** Some weird thing happen to my WordPress. I cant upload files to my server. Can someone assist?…

Asri al-Baker