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Too many attempts error every morning

CharlesLewis

Android Enthusiast
Every morning I get the error message that I had too many attempts to use facial or fingerprints to unlock and have to use my pin.

That's not a problem, but I can't figure out the reason for the message. The phone is sitting on my night stand, and I haven't touched it all night.

Does anyone know what's going on?
 
I believe that I read somewhere (probably here) that this will happen after a certain number of times (or at random) just for security reasons.

That does not explain your every morning case, though.

Are there any settings related to the facial or fingerprint unlocking that could have something to do with it?
 
It sounds like something is trying to wake up your phone. Maybe to sync or send you a notification. If there's no biometric input, after a specified number of attempts it will need the pin to unlock. These kinds of things can be really tough to track down. I guess the first thing I'd try is to reboot your phone right before bedtime and in the morning if you get the message, look at recent apps and see if anything was active that shouldn't be.
 
I'll try that tonight. Thanks

It sounds like something is trying to wake up your phone. Maybe to sync or send you a notification. If there's no biometric input, after a specified number of attempts it will need the pin to unlock. These kinds of things can be really tough to track down. I guess the first thing I'd try is to reboot your phone right before bedtime and in the morning if you get the message, look at recent apps and see if anything was active that shouldn't be.
 
Next thing I'd check is your security. Login to your Google account on a PC and go to https://myaccount.google.com/security Then you are going to want to review connected devices and recent security events. If you see any activity or devices that you don't recognize, then remove them and then change your password. If you do see unusual activity, I'd recommend enabling 2 factor authentication, at least for a while.

I'd also recommend you go to any PC you use to login to your Google account and open both the saved credentials in your browser (Chrome?) and the credential manager built into Windows or Mac (I don't know the name of the credential app on a Mac). I often have users (MS Active Directory) save logins on their PC but never update them when their password changes. We force password changes every 90 days so all of a sudden they are getting locked out of their account because the old password continues to try and authenticate until it hits the limit.
 
Every morning I get the error message that I had too many attempts to use facial or fingerprints to unlock and have to use my pin.

That's not a problem, but I can't figure out the reason for the message. The phone is sitting on my night stand, and I haven't touched it all night.

Does anyone know what's going on?

I have been looking for a few months for an answer to this myself. I wonder if it's a Moto Z4 issue since that's what I have. Sorry I don't have a solution but I'm following here. Not a huge problem, just odd.
 
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