Help New Android lock screen virus?

[neil12]

Hi, woke up this morning and unlocked my phone. Nothing unusual. After it unlocked a second lock screen appeared (see attached image). I have never seen it before. I have not downloaded anything in the past week either. Just randomly appeared out of nowhere. Only options within the screen is "sleep for now" that appears when you press the dots in top right of it and the ">slide to unlock" at the bottom. Every time I plugged/unplugged my phone into/from the charger it would appear while the phone was unlocked. Same thing for after pressing the lock button, it would appear after using the normal lock screen. I then restarted my device and it still appeared. Downloaded norton 360, ran a scan, no issues found (other than speedtest.net tracking us all of course ). After doing this I restarted my phone and the mysterious lock screen was gone. I'm completely at a loss and found nothing about it in a hour of searching online. I'm not sure if this is a new or old issue so I am posting it here in hopes that someone will know about it.

P.S. it is actually a quite decent looking lock screen. Would have fooled me if it wasn't for the pink text in /sample text/ font and if it didn't appear after my normal lock screen.

Thanks,
Neil

 

[touringhaggis]

Hi Neil,

First of all... Welcome to the forum!

Actually the second lock screen is being added by the Peel remote app. I thought that it didn't effect all phones (since mine didn't have this problem until yesterday), but the "feature" appears to auto sleep when the update is installed. After a period of time... voila you have a second lock screen. I would see this as a dirty way to confuse people so that they don't know where the lock screen is coming from and so they don't know what to disable. It seems to be working, sigh.

I checked in the apps settings and there are a number of options to sleep certain "features", but only for up to a month. The only way to get rid of it forever, I assume, would be to disable the app (which some other people on this forum are doing). The problem for me is that I use the damn thing, so I will have to get by with sleeping it every month. What joy.

Regards,
Eric.

 

[Hadron]

What I don't understand is what the purpose of this is? What do the developers of Peel Smart Remote get from adding this lockscreen? Or will it have adverts next...?

A possible solution: go to apkmirror.com and download an older version of Peel Smart Remote without this nonsense. Uninstall your current one, install that, and don't allow automatic updates.

 

[touringhaggis]

What I don't understand is what the purpose of this is? What do the developers of Peel Smart Remote get from adding this lockscreen? Or will it have adverts next...?

Aside from having every possible app servicing every single application (probably badly), the only thing that comes to mind is that you could possibly want your custom remote to appear on the lock screen. I know I tried this feature when it was an option with the standard lock screen on my Note 4, but it was ugly as sin and I quickly disabled it. It could be that their custom lock screen integrates better, but I am guessing since I would not replace my current lock screen. I even downgraded from Marshmallow to Kit Kat to keep the look I like.

A possible solution: go to apkmirror.com and download an older version of Peel Smart Remote without this nonsense. Uninstall your current one, install that, and don't allow automatic updates.

This is a good tip, thanks, and something I'll keep in mind should the 30 day sleep become annoying.

Regards,
Eric.

 

[Greg S]

Hi Neil,

First of all... Welcome to the forum!

Actually the second lock screen is being added by the Peel remote app. I thought that it didn't effect all phones (since mine didn't have this problem until yesterday), but the "feature" appears to auto sleep when the update is installed. After a period of time... voila you have a second lock screen. I would see this as a dirty way to confuse people so that they don't know where the lock screen is coming from and so they don't know what to disable. It seems to be working, sigh.

I checked in the apps settings and there are a number of options to sleep certain "features", but only for up to a month. The only way to get rid of it forever, I assume, would be to disable the app (which some other people on this forum are doing). The problem for me is that I use the damn thing, so I will have to get by with sleeping it every month. What joy.

Regards,
Eric.

This was driving me crazy and I was about to do a factory reset. Thanks for the solution.

 

[Julian Honma]

Just got this today. It's not always the same app. For me it was Opera Mini.
Cause: Opera Mini
Trigger: Plug/Unplug phone charger
Solution: Opera Mini > Settings > Lock screen news > Disabled (or uninstall)
How to determine which app is causing this: When the screen appears, press your 'Recent Apps' button, and you'll see which app is the culprit. Note: in my case, it was a fake lock screen, since I can't normally press 'Recent Apps' from a locked screen.