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Help How to Reset a PIN in Android when U forgot it.

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My 12-yr old son set up a pin on his Moto G (original) phone for the first time yesterday. Yay, security conscious! Unfortunately he didn't write it down and has forgotten it today. Lesson learned the hard way.

We have been googling around for solutions and came upon the Android Device Manager website. It looked for his phone right away because his computer is signed into his gmail account. Finds his phone and brings up that little window with the 3 buttons showing: ring, lock, erase. We put in a new password and confirm it, and a little blue bar shows up under the window with the 3 buttons that says "we successfully sent a lock request to your device." The blue bar quickly changes and says "Since Google verified that a screen lock is already set, the password you entered won't be needed." We still tried the new password and it didn't work.

WTH? Even googles website says this is the way to reset a forgotton pin. Arrrrgh. Any other ideas, or do we have to remotely erase it and reload everything on the phone? Thanks!
 
LitrosNub said:
on your phone, keep getting it wrong until it says to put in your email. it gets rid of your lock.
Click to expand...

I am having the same problem with my mom's phone (S4, Verizon), except every time we get the PIN wrong, the phone warns us that we only have so many more tries before the phone wipes itself and resets to factory defaults.
My stepfather is in a coma and my mom is terrified of losing her photos and texts. Unfortunately, she did not back her phone up, nor did she save anything to the SD card. When I plug the phone in to the computer, there are no visible files.
Is there anything else I can do???? Please. I can't keep entering in the wrong PIN and risk resetting her phone. She would be devastated.
Thank you.
 
You are right, you can't risk it. This is a "security" option that's been recently added to certain handsets - a case of prioritising corporate interests (data security) over most customers (who'd rather have a way of getting in without wiping the phone). Irritating as all it does is remove the option of using an alternate password if you forget the PIN.

If USB debugging was enabled then there would be another way, but that sounds very unlikely (it isn't by default, and you won't even find the option to enable it unless you know the "trick" to make the menu visible). Otherwise all of the ways of backing up I can think of require getting past the lockscreen to do them. If you have WiFi enabled there used to be a way, but with a recent Android version I don't think that will work unless you've used the apps previously.
 
Have you tried checking the sd card on the s4? Usually Samsung phones try to default to the external SD card for saving photos unless the user declined.
 
So....It sounds like we don't really have much of a choice but to risk entering the wrong PIN? Wi-fi is enabled, but I think the phone runs OS 4.3, which is too new for some of the other lock screen bypass apps I've looked at.
Why is this Device Manager not allowing me to reset the freaking PIN? The lady at Verizon tech support said she's used it to reset her PIN many times. Furthermore, when you search Google Help for "resetting PIN" the results indicate you should be able to change it in your account settings under sign-in options. But when I look at my mom's account, there are no settings that have anything to do with a PIN!
 
QUOTE="chanchan05, post: 6951106, member: 585012"]Have you tried checking the sd card on the s4? Usually Samsung phones try to default to the external SD card for saving photos unless the user declined.[/QUOTE]

As I indicated above, yes.
 
I think you misunderstood. As long as the phone is locked, you won't see anything on the SD card because it is also protected. You have to remove the SD card and put it in an SD card reader and connect it directly to a PC, separate from the phone.
 
chanchan05 said:
I think you misunderstood. As long as the phone is locked, you won't see anything on the SD card because it is also protected. You have to remove the SD card and put it in an SD card reader and connect it directly to a PC, separate from the phone.
Click to expand...

I appreciate that you're trying to help, but I
have done that. It's a micro sd card. I put it in a micro sd adapter and plugged it into the sd card drive in my laptop. Nothing.
 
stfne1985 said:
Why is this Device Manager not allowing me to reset the freaking PIN? The lady at Verizon tech support said she's used it to reset her PIN many times. Furthermore, when you search Google Help for "resetting PIN" the results indicate you should be able to change it in your account settings under sign-in options. But when I look at my mom's account, there are no settings that have anything to do with a PIN!
Click to expand...
Is Google's Android Device Manager set up for the device? If it is, the instructions here claim you can use it to reset the password using the "lock" option. Sorry, I never use that thing so forget that it exists!

I just tried it and it worked for my device, but only when I also entered the optional recovery message text as well. If I just reset the password but don't send that "optional" message it does nothing.
 
Hadron said:
Is Google's Android Device Manager set up for the device? If it is, the instructions here claim you can use it to reset the password using the "lock" option. Sorry, I never use that thing so forget that it exists!

I just tried it and it worked for my device, but only when I also entered the optional recovery message text as well. If I just reset the password but don't send that "optional" message it does nothing.
Click to expand...

Thank you, but like the post that originally started this thread, device manager tells me that a screen lock is in place and the password I entered is not needed. This happens even when I send an optional message. The message appears on the phone, but when I try to enter the new PIN I set, it never works. I've already wasted two of our ten attempts trying this method.
 
Oh, that's odd. It worked on mine even when my PIN was enabled, though it was very tempermental (sometimes didn't work, sometimes claimed to lock but then wanted a PIN rather than a password, sometimes didn't give me a way of unlocking except by pressing "emergency call" and then using the back button to get out of the dialer, when I'd then be asked for either password or PIN randomly. But with persistence I could get it to show me the new password box rather than the PIN input).

Since you set a password with Android Device Manager, if it comes up with the keypad for the PIN that means it's not set it - it should be a password entry box.

I wonder whether Samsung's "Knox" software is interfering? It might be best to ask in our S4 forum, where people with the same device can advise.
 
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