Lock Out Me

*IMPORTANT TO THOSE VIEWING THE VIDEO: Please follow along with the steps I wrote in this description to help you out. There is stuff I left out (accidentally) in the video that is helpful!*

Please note, I'm just a poor college student trying to help people out who had the same problem as me. I'm not majoring in engineering, computer technology, or ANY technological major (I'm actually majoring in the social sciences areas), so don't expect me to be able to solve all your problems. Rather, this is just a fix to a VERY INCONVENIENT AND ANNOYING problem on the Samsung Andriod cell phones from Sprint. And sorry about the shaky quality...I recorded it using my 16 GB video Nano iPod.

I recently was eligible for a phone and data upgrade on my family's cell phone plan. So, I decided to upgrade my cell phone to the Samsung Moment (from Sprint) and get the full data plan. This is an Android phone and it is pretty sweet and useful. However, recently I was locked out of my phone because I incorrectly entered the unlock pattern wrong more than 5 times. In doing so, I, like many other people have been forced so far, from what I've read on the internet, was forced to try to access my phone by entering my Google account and password. However, there is a bug that, if you are using the Unlock Pattern security device that is built into the phone, you will not be able to access your phone AT ALL. This happens when you INCORRECTLY enter your security pattern more than 5 times in a row. Ergo, if you use that function, don't screw up 5 times in a row. However, if that does happen, you will be asked to enter your Googlemail account and password, which will not work. (Before you attempt to follow my steps, PLEASE attempt to enter and see if it works, because this process does take up some time in addition to the time spent watching the video as well (so if it works, then you just saved yourself from watching a 9 minute video that doesn't pertain to you)!

So, how do we deal with the problem? Follow the video/these steps:
1) Have someone call your cell phone.
2) When you start to get your incoming call, hit the end (power) button.
3) *IMMEDIATELY* (and I cannot stress that enough!), begin tapping your Home button on your screen very rapidly. This should exploit the 1 or 2 second window available to you, which will bring you to the homepage on your Android's OS.
4) Hit the Menu button, then go to Settings.
5) In Settings, select Security & Location.
6) Uncheck the box next to Require Pattern. This disables the security pattern feature.
7) Using your PC (NOT YOUR PHONE!), go to your Googlemail account and change the password to a new password.
On your phone again, have someone call you, hit the end button, and once again tap very rapidly on the home button, thus bringing you back to the home screen.
9) On your phone, open the Email application (your Gmail app), and it will have a synchronization problem (which is good!) since, after all, you just changed your password on your pc!
10) It will prompt you to enter your new password. Do so.
11) Let your phone time out while on the home screen (or just hit the power button to put it to sleep/standby).
12) Here, some people experience the next steps differently (again, it is slightly different sometimes for different people), but this is how I fixed the problem. Wake your phone up from sleep.
13) It will prompt you to enter your password and Googlemail account. *THIS IS IMPORTANT! I forgot to include this in the video!* Enter your Googlemail account WITHOUT "@gmail.com" or "@googlemail.com" etc. and enter your new Gmail password. It should work.
14) Next, the security pattern screen should pop up again and prompt you to enter a new pattern. Do so once, then reconfirm it by entering it AGAIN.
15) FINAL STEP: Go back to Menu, Settings, and Security & Location. UNCHECK the box next to Require Pattern. This will once again turn this function off.

If you have trouble with this, here is a source I highly recommend you read through:

http://www.google.ru/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=0844ae7b3c1c03ff&hl=en

It is quite a bit of reading and comprehension, and will take more time than my video (unless you are a REALLY fast reader), but if you honestly have trouble with this, consult this. This is how I figured out how to fix this problem (after having read through about a dozen entries in the thread).

Hopefully this helps those of you who run into this problem. I know that I was tempted to throw my phone at the wall when I encountered this [profane] bug. Hopefully I helped you fix your cell phone and you didn't have to take a sledgehammer to your phone, the nearest car window, or the door to your boss's office just to relieve your anger (in which case you did any of these, you might want to seek anger management therapy...just a suggestion).

Duration : 0:9:11

what would you do if you lock yourself out of the house?

Technorati Tags: account, bug, cell, data, error, fix, Google, help, lock, Moment, pattern, phone, problem, Samsung, security, Sprint, technology, unlock, video

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