Why does my wife's android phone have a pin lock when it didn't before?

November 10, 2015 4:19 PM

Testing sim cards at a booth in the mall has led to the phone being locked with a pin # password. She has not set up a pin number password at any time in the phone's [~1 month] career. This is not ideal and I am searching for a way to rectify this without a factory reset [Android Device manager is not installed].

This morning, in an attempt to shop for a cell phone provider [in canada], my wife took her phone to the mall. She has a doogee valencia2, and is currently using a pay as you go sim card from 7-11 which is [probably] no longer the best option now that she needs a data plan for work.

She tried wind mobile [apparently they have incompatible networks?] and Fido.
At the Fido booth, they popped in a test sim card, but a pin lock screen appeared, and hasn't gone away since.

Previously, she had a face lock [it uses the camera] with the backup being a pattern lock. Never a pin lock.

She does not, sadly, have android device manager installed.

Removing the sim card does not remove the pin lock screen, so I don't think it is a sim card pin lock. testing some random numbers [0000, 1234, 1111, etc.] has led to the discovery that it also does not have a "you have forgotten your password, please log in with your gmail name/password" like some other phones seem to have. It just eventually stops accepting attempts for a while. Her lock screen background is very light in colour, and this text is all white, so I can't read it.

Any ideas about how this came to pass, and if there is a way to access this phone? Factory reset is an option, but would probably cause sadness due to lost pictures

posted by Acari to Technology (11 answers total)

Response by poster: Yes, I just checked that now, and they are not backed up to google drive.
[mine are, and i have ADM installed. I don't know why I didn't make her do the same...]

Also of note to future people - not rooted
posted by Acari at 5:10 PM on November 10, 2015

Did you try the last 4 digits of the phone number?
posted by eatcake at 5:20 PM on November 10, 2015

OK. Well plug it in to a pc and get the photos off it. You won't need the pin for that. Then resume trying things.

Also, assuming you tried forcing power off by holding power switch and then turning back on with original sim card?
posted by chasles at 5:24 PM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Yes, as well as the 7, 10, and 11 [country code] versions
it asks for this pin with the sim card out, too, so i don't think it will be tied to the phone number
[i also looked up the default fido sim card password 3436 and it is not that, either]

it does not show up as a usb device on any of the 3 computers i tried to plug it into, either.
posted by Acari at 5:26 PM on November 10, 2015

Have you tried taking it back to the store that put the Pin on? Maybe they use a default pin.
posted by willnot at 7:45 PM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Does the phone have a mini sd card? You should be able to get whatever was saved onto it (by removing it from the phone and connecting it to your computer without the phone).

When I connect my (android) phone to my computer I can't access the content until I unlock it. Not that it helps, but it might explain the not getting picked up by 3 computers thing.
posted by eisforcool at 8:06 PM on November 10, 2015

Have you gone to the Fido booth and asked them?
posted by AppleTurnover at 8:59 PM on November 10, 2015

Response by poster: I wasn't present, but at the booth, the [guy/girl] was puzzled that it locked, and didn't know what to do about it. The lock came on as soon as the sim was inserted and the phone was powered back on [these sim slots are blocked by the battery]. There was [again, I am told] no access to any menus of any kind since that one time it was powered on.

the phone does have a mini sd card, and that will be removed during the factory reset [which I am told wouldn't wipe that card anyway, but better safe than sorry].

This is already more time than I want to put into this, so I will reset in the morning and set everything back up in the morning [including android device manager and whatever google photo backup thing i've got going on my phone]

Thanks, everyone, for your help and for your time. I was pretty sure that there wouldn't be a[n easy] way around this lock screen thing, but I appreciate your efforts.
posted by Acari at 10:15 PM on November 10, 2015

Response by poster: and now I can't get into recovery mode!
I tested last night and volume up + power got me to a [chinese] menu which included the right menu option for a reset [ends with the english characters eMMC, so easy to pick out of the list], but this morning I am in a constant cycle of rebooting this phone without being able to enter the recovery mode menu. I am taking the battery out between each cycle for maximum off-ness of the phone.
I have tried volume down+power, volume up+power, and both buttons + power, to equal lack of success each time.

the same keys that worked yesterday on this phone do work this morning on my phone, so...?

I'm going to be googling this for a while to see if there is something that I am doing incorrectly.
posted by Acari at 7:13 AM on November 11, 2015

Response by poster: factory reset achieved - all it took was doing the same thing approximately 300 times.


AND NOW IT STILL WANTS A PASSWORD!

googling how to reflash firmware now, I guess?
posted by Acari at 9:07 AM on November 11, 2015

Response by poster: final update for the zero people reading this now [but maybe future frustrated people]:
I can't get any of the drivers to work - the phone appears in device manager for 2 seconds at a time.
The mediatek vcom drivers do nothing
the google drivers do nothing
i can't flash the firmware because all of the firmware flashing programs i've tried can't see the phone [or, can, but not for long enough...]

my fingers are dead from pressing the buttons of this phone to reset it one million times today.

my wife is getting my phone and i am going back to the nokia bar phone. it has four colours and it works.
posted by Acari at 2:15 PM on November 11, 2015