I had this problem yesterday on my Du blackberry. ( Du is a telecom provider in Dubai, UAE- one of the only 2 providers)
Every time I tried to add a new email account it would give me an error “update failed “.
Tried many times with different tricks including reregistering routing table , hard resetting and various other options.
Finally a Call to Du saved the day.
Resolution
1. For some , it may work if you login to your email account from a PC, and add the same email account to your BB while you are still logged in.
2. If it still doesn’t work, they ask you to login to your account at du.blacberry.com and add your accounts using the portal. If you don’t have an account, they create one for you instantly.
I suggest not to try anything else like many forums suggest, a simple call to your service provider will most of the time do the trick.