Wireless device remote recovery

An article of manufacture, comprising:

• a machine readable storage medium;
• and
• programming instructions embodied in said medium for execution by a programmable controller of a wireless device, wherein execution of the programming instructions by the programmable controller causes the wireless device to perform functions comprising:
• (a) detecting a potentially unrecoverable programming error during execution of a primary program by either the programmable controller controlling operations of the wireless device or by manual intervention;
• (b) responsive to the detected programming error, changing execution of programming by the programmable controller, from execution of the primary program over to execution of a backup program;
• (c) under control of the backup program, initiating communication with a recovery server, over the air through a wireless network serving the wireless device;
• (d) receiving programming from the recovery server via the communication through the wireless network, the received programming including a replacement version for at least a portion of the primary program;
• (e) correcting the primary program in storage in the wireless device by replacing the portion of the primary program with the received replacement version, to correct the programming error;
• and
• (f) resuming normal operation of the wireless device by resuming execution by the programmable controller using the corrected primary program from storage in the wireless device.

A wireless device for communication through a wireless network, comprising:

• a transceiver for over the air communication to and from the network;
• a programmable controller coupled to the transceiver, for controlling operations of the wireless device including communications of the wireless device through the wireless network;
• storage coupled to the programmable controller;
• and
• programming in the storage for execution by the programmable controller, wherein the programming comprises:
• a primary program, wherein the programmable controller executes the primary program to control normal operations of the wireless device including normal communications through the wireless network and executes the primary program to detect a potentially unrecoverable programming error during execution of the primary program;
• and
• a backup program, wherein the programmable controller switches over execution from the primary program to the backup program responsive to the detection of the potentially unrecoverable programming error in the primary program, and execution of the backup program by the programmable controller causes wireless device to:
• (a) communicate over the air through the mobile network with a recovery server, to obtain programming including a replacement version for at least a portion of the primary program;
• (b) correct the primary program in the storage by replacing the portion of the primary program with the received replacement version, to correct the programming error;
• and
• (c) resume normal operation of the wireless device by resuming execution by the programmable controller using the corrected primary program from the storage.