Belle Shell For Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

How to fix Belle Shell and myExplorer install problems ?
Belle Shell fails to install or start. Why ?

Check if your phone has Qt libraries
How to install Qt and Qt Mobility on your phone
Belle Shell fails to install or start. Why?
Most of new programs for Nokia Symbian phones (including Belle Shell and myExplorer) use the Qt libraries. These libraries provide much more capable and easy-to-use program interface than allows writting better programs.

On newer phones or phones with Symbian Belle, the Qt libraries (or at least most of them) are preloaded on the phone and all Qt-based applications work without (major) problems. However, on older phones, the Qt libraries must be installed on the phone before any Qt-based app can be started. If you install Qt-based applicatin but you do not have the Qt libraries (or they are not the correct version), the program will not start at all.

Nokia are well aware of this problem and with every Qt-based application they include a small program, called Smart Installer. Smart Installer checks if you phone has the Qt libraries and if they are an older version, it downloads and installs the latest version of Qt libraries on your phone. Unfortunately, in many cases this process fails for one reason or another and the phone owner is left frustrated that (s)he can not install or run the program that is paid for.

This is also a big problem for app developers because all their hard work goes for nothing if the user is unable to install and run the program that they created. Additionally, this creates a lot of negative reviews and discourages further development.

Read bellow to see how to download and install the needed Qt libraries manually. Once you do this, any Qt-based application will install and run on your phone.

NOTE: This article is about the Symbian S60v5 touch phones (Nokia 5800, Nokia 5230, Nokia 5530, Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia C5-03, Nokia C6, Nokia X6). The newer phones can be upgraded to Belle firmware, which has the latest Qt libraries preloaded.

Check if your phone has Qt libraries

First, you need to check if your phone has any Qt libraries and what is their version. To do this, download and install a small free program, called QtInfo. It is very small and should download and install very fast.

After QtInfo is installed, launch the program. If you do not have any Qt libraries installed, the program will show an error message "Failed to start QtInfo (-1). Do you have Qt installed?". If you have Qt libraries, the program will run for about a minute and then will display a report with the versions of Qt libraries, which are installed on your phone.

The latest version of the main Qt library for S60v5 phones is 4.7.3. The latest version of QtMobility (or just Mobility) is 1.1.3. You must have both Qt and Qt Mobility in order to run Belle Shell, myExplorer and most other Qt based programs. If you do not have one of them or their versions are lower, you need to download and install them as described below.

How to install Qt and Qt Mobility on your phone

WARNING: The instructions and downloads bellow are only for Symbian S60v5 touch phones (Nokia 5800, Nokia 5230, Nokia 5530, Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia C5-03, Nokia C6, Nokia X6). The newer phones will not work with these Qt libraries.

WARNING: All Qt libraries MUST be installed on disk C: (phone memory). If you install them on other disk (for example the memory card), they will not work properly or most probably will not work at all. Make sure that you have at least 20 MB free space on disk C: before installing the Qt libraries.

First, you need to download and install the main Qt library, version 4.7.3. The file is about 13 MB and you can download it from here: http://www.milincorporated.com/downloads/qt/Qt-4.7.3-for-S605th.sis. The installation will continue for a few minutes and will install a lot of components, so be patient. On some phones, it may display an error message and in such case make sure that you choose to continue with the installation anyway.

Now, run QtInfo again and it should display Qt version 4.7.3 on the screen.

Next, download and install the Qt Mobility library from here: http://www.milincorporated.com/downloads/qt/QtMobility-1.1.3-for-S60v5.sis. It is a smaller package and will install faster. After the installation is finished, run QtInfo again and check its output. The version of Mobility must be 1.1.3

This is all you need. Most Qt-based application now will install and run without any problems. Most probably Qt 4.7.3 and Qt Mobility 1.1.3 will be the last versions of Qt libraries for S60v5 phones, so you will not need to do this again in the future.

Download Belle Shell for Symbian S60v5