HELP!!! MOBILE PHONE LOCKED, ASKING FOR PASSWORD: "Your password contains at least 4 characters, including at least 1 letter."

[DanijelDomazet]

My (wife's) phone (galaxy A52), exactly 1-year-old on this date, suddenly, out of nowhere, started asking for an unlocking password: "Your password contains at least 4 characters, including at least 1 letter."

The phone was not ever locked, neither with PIN, nor fingerprint, nor with a password.

All we can think of is that some OS update happened, and the phone just locked because of a bug in the update procedure.

We tried to unlock it via Find My Phone, but UNFORTUNATELY, even though the phone was located successfully and the service connected to it, but when we tried to unlock, it just said that the remote unlock option was not ON.

This is just terrible. No words to say. Desparate.

Factory reset is out of the question.

What to do?

[renia23]

I have the same problem, after an update and while in airpane mode , after restart A52 is aksing for password....Your password contains at least 4 characters, including at least 1 letter.", I have never defined. I have tried to restore it to factory settingd but it is impossible 

[Members_9gIrn2A]

If you don´t have the knowledge to understand the problem, just refrain from answering. "Give it back to rightful owner" is not the answer when Samsung is unable to make correct updates. Thanks

[Majorbafe]

I also have this problem on a Galaxy A21s. Without user intervention it is now asking for a password which was never set.

Has Samsung given any help on this matter?