I hope this is something really stupid that I am overlooking. I am trying to unlock a Rogers Sony W580i so that we can use an AT&T sim in it when we visit the US next month. The problem is I don't have an AT&T or other (non-Rogers) SIM to test the phone with and I won't have this until we head down, when it may be too late to do any more flashing of the phone.

I have flashed the phone with the firmware W580_R8BE001_FS_AMERICA_1_RED52.fbn and W580_MAIN_NAM_1_LA_RED52.mbn then used the custpack HB1-06_Gen_CDA102568_106_R8A_GENERIC_AMERICA_1 because I couldn't find any complete firmwares that were R8A or any custpacks for R8B. The phone originally had R6E001 or something like that and I took a backup of the phone before starting (and it saved me once alrady!)

I took several tries and even had a non-booting phone for nearly 2 hours while I researched this issue, but I will post my last set of steps since I hope this is the information you guys will need to help me:

I used JDFlasher with FAR to flash both firmwares onto the phone, I then used qapatcher and created a quick access patch from my main firmware listed above, and used JDFlasher to apply that patch, next I used SimLockPatchGen to create a patch to remove the sim lock and applied that with JDFlasher as well. When I connect the phone to setool2 and run 'identify' here is my output:

Welcome to SEtool2 ( LITE edition ) v 1.11
supported DB2010/DB2012 CID49/50/51/52, DB2020 CID49/51/52
Loaded 51 flash descriptors

if you like LITE edition - please visit www.setool.net and buy FULL.

ChipID:9900,EMP protocol:0301
PHONE IS RED RETAIL PRODUCT
FLASH CID detected:52
Speed:921600
Flash ID check:897E
Flash props sent ok
OTP LOCKED:1 CID:51 PAF:1 IMEI:35988601797207 CERT:RED
FLASH CID:52 COLOR:RED

Model:W580i
Brand:Sony Ericsson
MAPP CXC article: R8BE001 prgCXC1123481_NAM_1_LA
MAPP CXC version: R8BE001
Language Package:AMERICA_1
CDA article: CDA102568/106
CDA version: R8A
Default article: cxc1123364
Default version: R8BE001

Network LOCKED
Operator: 302-72

Elapsed:7 secs.

Its the "network LOCKED" part that concerns me. Have I screwed up? The entire patching process produced no errors with JDFlasher (although when I tried several times with SETool it did fail). I am trying to find somebody local with a fido SIM to try the phone in advance, but I am not having a lot of luck.

I would appreciate any suggestions or advice you guys can give.

If you go into the service menu then 'sim lock' you will see the lock status. All the lock icons should be open.

Because you have patch unlocked it, SETool2lite can't differenciate between a patch and a full IMEI unlock, so still displays LOCKED.

So nothing to worry about.

So, if I enter the service menu and select "Service Info" --> "SIM Lock" I see the following:
Network (unlocked) 5
Network subset (unlocked) 5
Service Provider (unlocked) 5
Corporate (unlocked) 5
Extended (unlocked) 5

I dunno what the 5's mean but I think you are right and I am an idiot But hey, I don't mind looking stupid as long as I have finally got this right!

Thanks for the advice, here I was all worried about that message in SeTool.

As I thought! BTW the 5's indicate how many attempts left to unlock with a key.
...and you're not stupid

Cool, your phone is CID52.
Use the db2020 bflash unlock method, don't use the AnyCID unlocking, your phone won't boot up.
Just search around for jdflasher tutorials. Also you can use SeTool2 1.11 !
hv fun.

??? Needless post akshay, he already knows how to patch and has succesfully unlocked his phone!!

Yes this phone is CID52 and it is pretty old as far as w580i's go. I tried using setool2 1.11 several times, in fact the log is from v1.11, but every time I tried to unlock it using this version it had strange results. The flash would never complete properly or I would be able to flash it but then the phone would no longer boot afterwards. First try with FAR/jdflasher and it worked properly. I don't know a whole lot about these programs since I am new to modding sony phones so maybe it was a simple mistake. Good news is that the phone is now properly unlocked so I feel a lot better and will be able to use it in the US without issues

That's nice to know, and can you tell me which procedure you followed using Jdflasher ?

Unfortunately I don't have the link here. Before starting I had used XS++ V3.1 to flash both the .fbn and .mbn onto the phone, then I opened JDflasher, set to db2020, connected to the phone (jump down the rabbit hole), selected "bflash", browsed to the .mbn file and hit 'copy'. From there I selected the quick access patch and hit 'copy', and last I picked the sim unlock patch and hit 'copy'. After this I disconnected the phone.

Unfortunately I made a mistake trying to get the log files from SeTool2 and accidentally re-flashed the phone (my mouse batteries died and I didn't notice the cursor jump when I clicked...) so I went back and did it again, this time I only applied the QA patch in jdflasher and applied the sim unlock patch through SeTool2.

I am trying to remember the error messages I encountered with SeTool2, I googled them at the time instead of writing them down and I have since cleared my history so I don't have them handy. I remember 2 of them came back as communication errors and when repeating the steps they did not re-occur.

The main one which plagued me was when I selected both the main firmware and the patch file (using MISC files) then hit 'flash', it would comlpete the process, then when it went to patch it would give me the yes to remove no to apply menu. If I hit yes it would finish, but nothing would happen (i.e. if I had selected the QA patch it would not function when trying to use it after). If I hit no, it would always tell me the contents didn't match, and whether I hit yes or no to continue the phone would not boot afterwards. Of course XS++ v3.1 does not yet allow flashing, but when using JDFlasher it went fine using exactly the same files.

The other error that I got a lot was the returned 00000000 message, when it is trying to read blocks from memory. I suspect this one was user error though I think it was caused by forgetting to pick w580 on the phone type list.