Activated AT&T Pre3, wifi now, but App Catalog doesn't work?

Question

[copied here from Precentral post/thread: http://forums.precentral.net/hp-pre-3/303421-activated-t-pre3-wifi-now-but-app-catalog-doesnt-work.h... ]
Hey there,
Just a couple of days ago, with a borrowed AT&T SIM, I activated a GSM Pre3, creating a new profile, then when it turned off to reboot, I removed the SIM card.
My plan is to just keep it in airplane mode and use it via WiFi.
Then I went home and tried to play with the App Catalog. I can browse it, but I can't download anything from it, free or not; the download fails after trying. The download progress bar doesn't make any progress. The phone's only using wifi.
In the app menu in the App Catalog, my "Preferences & Accounts" option was grayed out.
This morning, I remembered about the email verification email that I should have gotten from HP from creating a new profile. I found it and clicked the verification link therein. I just logged into my profile via the browser, and my webOS Account Status says "Email verified".
I tried again to go into the App Catalog (less than 5 minutes after verifying my email), and the "Preferences & Accounts" menu option is still gray and unavailable. When I try to buy a paid app, it says "The action could not be completed. Try again later."
The Wifi network is fine; I've just verified by loading a page in the browser.
What could be wrong with my App Catalog access? How do I fix it?
This isn't exactly my first webOS rodeo; I've had a Pre, an unlocked Pre2 (which I did pretty much the same thing for--borrowed SIM to activate, then use as wifi-only, App Catalog access is fine), and a TouchPad (shares the profile from the Pre).
I've never come across this problem before...
-- STITCHING IN A FOLLOW-UP MESSAGE --
I've tried an old Cingular SIM (no active account on it), an old AT&T SIM (no account on it), and even a TalkMobile SIM (from the UK).
None of those made any difference in the App Catalog. Downloads always fail, and the Preferences & Accounts menu option is always gray.
I even went into the SIM Toolkit app several times, with each of the SIMs installed, and each time, the app advised that the "menu" could only be used after the phone had been on for 30 seconds. It gave me that message even after definitely waiting for longer than 30 seconds.
Perhaps troubling on a different front is that, even with the UK SIM in there, the Pre 3 didn't ask for an unlock code, which I thought it was supposed to do (as soon as it detects a non-AT&T SIM in the slot).
Anyone got any other ideas about what to try??
Post relates to: Pre 3 Manta (AT&T)
Post relates to: Pre p100eww (Sprint)

Answer 1

Hey, so I don't have much in the way of definitive answers, but I've made some progress.
Here's the story from where I last left off...
I posted most of what I'd said by that point in this thread into a post in the Palm support forums (as of right now, no responses):
http://forums.hpwebos.com/t5/webOS-Software/Activated-AT-amp-T-Pre3-wifi-now-but-App-Catalog-doesn-t...
I tried Impostah to just install from there using the app IDs for the apps in which I was interested, both free ones and paid ones. Those downloads also failed with no helpful error messages
Then I had a looooong chat with Palm tech support, starting here: http://kb.hpwebos.com/wps/portal/kb2/na/deviceselector/page_en.html#NA Palm.com : Support[/url] Phones . I chose to start the process using the "HP Veer" option. Not much useful happened in that chat, but the agent did suggest that maybe a doctoring would help.
I doctored it using the ATT Pre 3 webOS Doctor available here: [url=http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/WebOS_Doctor_Versions]WebOS Doctor Versions - WebOS Internals[/url]
I followed steps 1-12 detailed in this PreCentral thread: Global Paid App Catalog Access for new unlocked GSM Pre 2/Pre 3/Veer (using Impostah) (http://forums.precentral.net/webos-internals/281075-global-paid-app-catalog-access-new-unlocked-gsm-... )  At step 8, I did not have to set an activation country and language as that seemed to have been remembered from before (probably from the borrowed AT&T SIM I first used). At step 9, I created a new Palm Profile to use during this round of exploration. At step 12, wherein I was supposed to be able to confirm that I had paid App catalog access, I could successfully download free apps (Facebook, Skype, Clock Sync, Maps update), but paid apps still failed without making any progress. Note that this was all with an empty SIM slot.
I successfully unlocked the device. I put in an active T-Mobile SIM in there, booted it while in airplane mode, and the first screen after the HP blinking circle screen was dialpad screen asking me to enter an Unlock Code. I did, and it worked. I immediately placed a test call successfully with that SIM in into it, and the receiving phone showed that person's phone number, as it should.
I took a break from working with it, and, hours later, I just monkeyed around in Impostah a bunch more, and this is where it gets fuzzy, 'cause it was late by then. I think I spent most of my time in the Activation, App Catalog, Palm Profile, Accounts, and Backups scenes, both just viewing things and trying various things that mostly seemed to not make much difference. I also turned off the webOS automatic Backups a couple of times in that mix. I also managed to delete the Dr. Skipped Firstuse webOS account/profile from the device so that it no longer shows up in the Accounts app. But free apps still seem to download and install successfully...and I seem to be logged into my test profile. Note that I have not yet gone to step 15 of the "Global Paid App Catalog Access for new unlocked GSM Pre2/Pre 3/Veer (using Impostah)" thread, wherein you're supposed to doctor it again and activate/sign into the phone normally with. Mostly I've held off on it, because I'm afraid of losing the progress I've made so far. That and I don't have an active, data-enabled AT&T sim. My Accounts app is empty, not showing any webOS profile (it should, shouldn't it?), even though Impostah shows me signed in to my test profile.
Then, at some point, I went into the App Catalog, went into the details of a paid app (Homebrew Documentation), and tapped the "Download for $..." button. I then got a "Payment Setup" scene!!! So just now, I put in my credit card info, and I successfully downloaded the Preware Homebrew Application!
And I don't know which of my monkeying around bits actually made the difference!
So, now I've got a few main questions about how to proceed:
Is my Pre3 in some crazy intermediate state without a webOS profile really attached to it? It doesn't show any accounts in the Account app (I haven't added any email/contact/calendar/Skype/etc. accounts), but I'm concerned that it doesn't show the webOS account. The email and calendar accounts don't show any defaul accounts (should be the webOS profile, at least, I suspect).
If it is in some wacky state, do I need to doctor it to ensure that it goes into a normal state? In order, to ensure that, as step 15 in the Global Paid App Catalog thread says, "everything has been initialised correctly"? 'cause it doesn't seem like everything has been correctly initialized. But I don't like the possibility of losing the progress that I've made! Gr!
And I just found a patch that brings back the First Use app and allows you to run it...Maybe that's all I need?
http://forums.precentral.net/webos-patches/269972-patch-enable-profile-creation-activation-bypassed-...