Android madness..... too many pattern attempts

[hello_hello]

Yesterday I removed my phone from my pocket to be greeted by a "too many pattern attempts" message and a request for my Google account and password. I've never used the "pattern" method of unlocking the phone, only the PIN number method.

I know the account name and the password. The phone won't accept them. I'm fairly sure it's because the password's not saved to the phone so it requires an internet connection to verify it. WiFi is disabled along with the carrier's internet service and I can't enable either because the phone won't let me in. Not since attempting to transfer large files between a Windows mobile phone and a PC running ActiveSync has the risk of my head exploding been so great.

I spent over half an hour talking to my service provider today, then a similar amount of time chatting with someone from Motorola. No one can offer me a way in. I'm pretty sure I've tried every method of temporarily bypassing the password screen the internet can offer at least twice.

I can reset the phone and not lose much. I haven't synced it in a while but the world won't stop spinning. My head on the other hand will probably keep spinning for a while. I'm in disbelief.

[vhelp]

Here's my story of this same experience.. yeah, this happened to me early this year, on an LG pad tablet. I was in a meeting, and I was showing my tablet to someone. I kept flipping it over and whatnot, and before you knew it, I had locked the device out of the knock-knock screen. In my case, I had forgotten my password. I have too many important things on mine to give up through resetting. I kept it for a month trying various things. I contacted LG and was in a rather lengthy conversation with them over text for several days. In the end, It was not successful, they told me they are not responsible and could not offer any help to bypass security (password) etc., and that I should contact google or the developers of the operating system. So I continued searching google for an answer. I even went to places I shouldn't, but I was desperate. And I still couldn't find an answer. However, a few days later I remembered the password after a few tries and it opened up for me!

[aedipuss]

hello-hello have you hard reset the phone by removing the battery? i would think it would boot up into the standard pin unlock screen.

[Baldrick]

hello-hello have you hard reset the phone by removing the battery? i would think it would boot up into the standard pin unlock screen.

Your post crashed the server....

[october262]

hello-hello have you hard reset the phone by removing the battery? i would think it would boot up into the standard pin unlock screen.

some phones, the battey cannot be easily removed.

[TreeTops]

hello_hello just keeping your phone in your pocket can do the swipes necessary for that pattern error. I once had my phone dial someone automatically when the phone was in my pocket. It had managed to touch an object in my pocket (keys) and just the correct bumping caused the phone to dial.

[redwudz]

hello_hello, in the future please use a more descriptive subject title in your posts to allow others to search for similar topics. I will change yours this time. From our rules:

Try to choose a subject that describes your topic.
Please do not use topic subjects like Help me!!! or Problems.

Thanks,

Moderator redwudz

[aedipuss]

hello-hello have you hard reset the phone by removing the battery? i would think it would boot up into the standard pin unlock screen.

Your post crashed the server....

how? what part of it didn't the server like??? it's was normal text only reply.....

[aedipuss]

hello-hello have you hard reset the phone by removing the battery? i would think it would boot up into the standard pin unlock screen.

some phones, the battey cannot be easily removed.

sorry i tend to forget some android phones are like iphones. personally the first thing i look for in a phone is a replaceable battery and a memory card slot. without both they are worthless to me.

[hello_hello]

hello_hello, in the future please use a more descriptive subject title in your posts to allow others to search for similar topics. I will change yours this time. From our rules:

Try to choose a subject that describes your topic.
Please do not use topic subjects like Help me!!! or Problems.

Thanks,

Moderator redwudz

Hopefully you don't mind, but I changed it again, given you changed the title to something that doesn't have anything to do with the problem. The password isn't lost, so I changed the title to "too many pattern attempts" given that's the search I used when looking for a solution via google. Not that "too many pattern attempts" is the actual problem either, but if I can come up with a thread title that's descriptive, accurate, and brief enough to still be a title, I'll change it again.

[hello_hello]

hello-hello have you hard reset the phone by removing the battery? i would think it would boot up into the standard pin unlock screen.

some phones, the battey cannot be easily removed.

sorry i tend to forget some android phones are like iphones. personally the first thing i look for in a phone is a replaceable battery and a memory card slot. without both they are worthless to me.

It is a phone with a non-removable battery, but I haven't reset it yet, so I think I'll ask Google how to remove it and if it's something I can do, I'll give it a try.

I've always carried a spare battery so I can swap them if need be, but I bought this phone when my usage had dropped considerably, and it was a good deal, so a non-removable battery wasn't as important. Mind you while I was talking to someone from Motorola yesterday I asked about replacing the battery as it's on the way out (we were conversing via "instant chat") and the initial reply was "you can't", but eventually I was told it could be replaced if I took it to one of their repair centres, of which there's only two in the entire country (Australia) and while there's one in Melbourne where I live it's on the opposite side of the city and completely impractical for a simple battery replacement. I kind of expected to be given a list of Motorola approved repairers. Silly me. Hopefully it won't be hard to find somewhere local to have it replaced, but still, it's not the sort of thing that encourages you to become a repeat customer.

[hello_hello]

hello_hello just keeping your phone in your pocket can do the swipes necessary for that pattern error. I once had my phone dial someone automatically when the phone was in my pocket. It had managed to touch an object in my pocket (keys) and just the correct bumping caused the phone to dial.

I have it set to lock when I turn off the screen so if it somehow turns on while in my pocket it can't start changing settings and making calls because it requires a PIN. Mind you there's been times when that hasn't worked as it should, or occasionally I've put it in my pocket without first turning of the screen. That's always possible, but even so, I had it set to require a pin number, not a pattern. I've never used the pattern function or even entered a pattern (however it works) which makes the whole thing even more frustrating.

The day before I was locked out there was a message in the notification thingy at the top of the screen asking me for my gmail password, and if I dismissed it, it'd return after a short period, and I've never had that happen before. The phone definitely wasn't locked because I was using it, but I didn't have the password with me and the phone wasn't connected to the internet at the time anyway. That may be total co-incidence, although I doubt it. Maybe it's some odd bug in the OS. The phones a few years old, so if it is a bug, hopefully it's been rectified in newer Android versions.

[aedipuss]

ouch - so how do you reset it if it hard freezes? i've had 2 camera apps crash and lockup my note4 - black screen and no response to any buttons. the only thing that works is taking out the battery and re-booting. i suppose if you wait long enough the battery would drain completely?

[hello_hello]

Yeah.... when I had an old Windows phone I'm sure I shut it down by removing the battery as often as using the power button. From memory it had a recessed reboot button but that could only be pressed with a pin so removing the battery was easier. Chances are your note4 does have some method for forcing a reboot, but it's probably just as easy to disconnect the battery. For my phone holding down a couple of buttons for a certain period of time is supposed to force it to reboot, but I've never had to do it. The OS has frozen a few times but the power button kept working.

[hello_hello]

For anyone who may stumble onto this thread in the future, I gave up and reset the phone. Since the last time I synced it I'd added a few new contacts and there were some text messages that I would have preferred not to lose, but in the end continuing to spend time on it didn't seem worthwhile.

For the record, after I reset the phone I added my gmail account again and it synced and restored all my backed-up contacts etc so there's no way it was an issue of being locked out because I'd forgotten the google account name or password or I was getting it wrong. I'm 99% sure I was locked out because the Android OS decided it needed my account details at a time when WiFi was disabled and therefore it couldn't connect to verify them and I couldn't enable WiFi because it'd locked me out. I still find it hard to believe that could happen.