Update regarding token availability and unlock issues
Since the launch of ChevronWP7 Labs a little more than a month ago, we’ve registered and successfully unlocked nearly 5,000 phones. We’re honored to have inspired many amateur developers to begin Windows Phone development!
As you may know, we recently deactivated the sale of additional tokens. This was done to prevent an over-sell situation and to give us time to implement a new payment gateway. We’ll talk about the latter in a future post. For now, we’re sticking with PayPal.
As you read this, we’re working hard to reopen the site and resume the sale of tokens. We should be done with this in the next hour or so. Before we go live, however, we want to outline a few important changes we made to the site.
First, we added a front-facing refund policy. The policy is simple – tokens not eligible for a refund include (but aren’t limited to) those involved in retail returns, resale, warranty repair, or theft. We’ll determine final eligibility on a case-by-case basis, so don’t be afraid to ask.
Second, we changed the order in which you unlock your phone. Previously, we implied that you purchase a token prior to downloading and using the unlocker. (It was listed as Step 1 and Step 2 respectively.) We flipped these steps to ensure users try the unlock client before purchasing a token. Why?
In some cases, the client may not work correctly with your Windows Phone. An issue plaguing us since launch involves a small percentage of Windows Phone handsets not communicating with the PC properly. This issue manifests in our unlocker as the error “Unlock your Windows Phone screen to continue.” Or if you wait long enough, our tool times out and presents the “Your phone is ignoring us” message. This issue also affects the official Windows Phone Developer Registration tool, showing an error of “Unable to connect to phone. Please check that the Zune software is running […]”.
After many countless attempts to debug the issue with a plethora of Windows Phones, we regrettably concluded this is a problem beyond our control and cannot fix. We understand how frustrating this must be, especially to our early adopters. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. If you’re affected by this issue, here’s what you can do:
- If you possess an HTC Arrive, try the troubleshooting steps listed in Microsoft Support KB 2537993.
- Try using Windows Phone Developer Registration tool (provided as part of the Windows Phone SDK).
If the tool returns an “Unable to connect to phone” message, keep reading.
If you receive a message other than “Unable to connect to phone”, contact us for support. This is likely a resolvable issue that we can help with.
- Try a new USB cable (particularly the cable that came with the device) and port on your PC. Remember, not all USB cables are created equal.
- Reboot the phone and/or the PC.
- Get in touch with Microsoft by posting in the App Hub forums, specifically the Tools For WP7 sub-forum. Be sure to state your phone cannot communicate with the PC via the official Windows Phone Developer Registration tool (see step 2) as App Hub is not a place for ChevronWP7 Labs support.
NOTE: A free App Hub account is required to post on the App Hub forums. If you’re signing up on App Hub for the first time, you may be asked to become an App Hub member for $99/year. At this step, simply click the Cancel button – you will then have a free account, allowing you to participate on the App Hub (but not publish apps to the Marketplace).
We will honor any refund requests via email for users affected by this issue.
To all our users: Thanks for your patience and Happy Holidays.
- Rafael Rivera, Chris Walsh, Long Zheng
