We rebooted our phone (Galaxy Note) after an app crashed (Waze GPS). After rebooting the phone locked itself, with the siren and alarm (this phone has been lost or stolen). It shows the IMEI number and asks for our password, which doesn’t work ! The SMS commands are not responding either (we can see the phone is getting the SMS notification in the background, so we guess it is not intercepted by Avast).
We tested the SMS commands not long ago, they were working fine and we didn’t change any setting since then.
Can this crash have altered the password somehow ? Can you think of a solution for us ?
Well, if there is no option in the dialog to send a recovery SMS then you probably didn’t set it. The only thing you can try is the default password - 0000. Are you sure you didn’t change the SIM? Did you ever inserted a different SIM into the device?
I’m afraid there is no such option. The 0000 doesn’t work either. We didn’t change the simcard. And we are certain we’re entering the password we set !
I’m afraid I can’t help you then. The PIN recovery and avast! Account are two options we are giving to recover/set forgotten PINs, no other options exist.
I have a similar porblem.
Yesterday Night I installed avast! mobile security on my SAMSUNG S3 (GT-I9300), but as the app didn´t ask me, I didn´t set any new PIN. I didn´t register my phone to the avast! homepage as well, because I didn´t think it would be necessary, as I didn´t see any hint to do so.
Since today (about 12 hours) later, my phone suddenly locked (permantnetly playing the siren and saying “This phone has been lost or stolen.”) for whatever reason, because I didn´t send any SMS to it.
As I didn´t set any special PIN (I now know I better should have done… :-[ ) I can´t enter any PIN… 0000 doesn´t work as well, even my SIM-Card´s PIN doesn´t work.
I can access the phone via Kies (to backup contacts, messages etc.), but don´t know how to put my phone back to proper work.
Maybe I should mention, this is my first smartphone and I own my S3 about three weeks now.
but I´m surprised it´ll activate itself without checking if any recovery-option is configured before.
But right now I found a way to get my phone back to work again.
As the USB-Hub was still working, I managed to make a backup. Afterwards I did a hard reset and everything´s fine again.
To be honest:
I´d like to suggest some improvement: I think, anti-theft is representing a great idea, but there should be a routine preventing to activate anti-theft without any recovery option being configured.
And maybe the installation routine should inform the user tat he has to set a pin and a trusted phone-number, beforeenabeling anti-theft.