Lock Screen suddenly asks for Password (always used fingerprint or pattern before)

[HelloPatricia]

I have been using the lock screen pattern for a little over a year now and I always remembered it so it was no biggie. Today, literally out of nowhere, my phone asks me to enter a password. I have no idea why it asked me this, so I tried entering a variety of passwords. All it does is lock the phone for 30 seconds before I can try entering another password once I've had too many tries.

I have no idea what password it wants from me, I only have so many and I tried all of them. It says: "Use password after restart (before I restarted it said Use password to unlock screen), Your password contains at least 4 characters, including at least 1 letter." What password?! See, that's why I hate installing updates, this is just bull*****. I also tried to unlock my phone using Find My Phone and it does not work as it is not connected to the network (I tried restarting it before and I guess that screwed me now). I honestly don't even know if a factory reset would work at this stage, since it does not show any notifications either (apart from:  Phone restarted, Unlock your phone to get app notifications).

Did anyone run into the same problem as I did and find a solution? I honestly don't want to try a factory reset (and I don't really think it's gonna work anyway since it's not showing any incoming notifications, either and I can't let my phone ring using Find My Phone).

This seems to be a major issue as I use my phone for work and can't log into the various accounts now as it is a two step verification...

[Lockedout]

I have an S24 Ultra so Im not sure if my problem is related to you guys or not but my phone also randomly demanded a PIN and the one I know I would use does not work. Are you guys seeing a non numerical keyboard to be able to enter a PIN? My phone randomly decided to ask for a PIN after 5 months of being fine with biometrics. 

[Firmwear]

Yeah it's also in the fine print, this is a safety feature that every so often and I think you can turn this feature off but it's opted in. 

And I don't know if it's an exact count or if it's just random but I think it's a certain number of logins using facial or thumbprint, fingerprint whatever, and then you have to do the initial setup password that you set up in the first place when you got the phone new. 

You would have had to have set up that pin no matter what. The pin can either be the standard four digits or you can force it to be alphanumeric, which is what I did. 

The reason they do that is a method so that you don't forget your from reboot your login password. Like when you reboot you can't use your fingerprint or your facial, you have to use your four digit PIN or special password if you opted in for that. There's no way you can get your phone to work without the pin once you reboot anyway so I'm really a little confused about your question.

I don't know what people are saying about you can go into your Google account and change the pin and whether or not you have to have Wi-Fi access for that I have no idea. 

Unless you've turned on Wi-Fi in your phone when it was unlocked you're not going to have your phone hooked up to Wi-Fi that's for sure. 

[Don_1949]

After all these years you would think that Samsung would have solved this problem. I bought a Samsung Tab A in 2016 and it worked fine via Screen Swipe , it didn't a PIN number, none had been setup, until about 10 days ago. It doesn't accept any possible number not does it provide a "Forgot PIN number" type solution.

Samsung technical support for tablets advise that the only solution is a factory reset, but that means losing the data - year of photos only some of which have synced to OneDrive.

[DLord420]

To anyone with this problem: Enter your Gmail password.

[Members_YJSAkiP]

Not the solution for me. When I connect my keyboard and start hitting letters, they don't register. They really are expecting numbers.

"Fun" fact: i always have used a 4 number pin. since yesterday it started to expect 8 number pin. 

[SGG]

Same is the issue with my phone too. I installed McDonand App, and while making payment I chose Gpay. at Gpay it asked me PIN. Normally i used finger print. I could not make any payment. But when i came out my phone was asking me PIN. I have to do factory data resent. And now it is not restoring the data backup. Recently, i ahve given my phone to Service centre at Karadi where i have shared my PIN to them. on receipt of phone it never asked me ayhting of this sort. This is Blunder. 

[Firmwear]

Well that's a problem dude because they changed it so you now have to identify yourself either through fingerprints OR pin, but the PIN will be required to go back into the app and read biometrics for fingerprint recognition.

You won't have to do your phones fingerprint recognition but to add it back to the app you're going to have to do that go back into the app and turn on fingerprint biometric.

they made it default to pin first then once you get in , you can change the settings to do biometric again because now it has been defaulted to off from the update and that's going to happen on every update to the app from now on. 

Unfortunately, you did not have to do a factory data reset. 

You only needed to go into Google pay and enter the pin and then add biometric, because the update turned it off.

[Members_Z4l0PJ7]

THIS WORKED. Thank you to the person that posted the solution is your Outlook password. Microsoft don’t warn before linking their authentication apps with the security login of your phone. I almost lost my Google backup and I was on my last attempt before it erased my backup for good. I just don’t know what to do to prevent this happening again!

[Tonetuga06]

Thanks a lot mate!! completely solved it! it was the outlook password, i had no idea 

[Firmwear]

Able to see I know I'm answering this very very late what 3 years now, but this is something that Samsung has built into their phones and still does it, and it's by design on purpose, it will do it randomly usually after 10 to 50 uses of logging into your phone, and it will do it for about a month and maybe three or four times in a month, and it's just to ensure that you remember your PIN for one thing, because you'll need to do that in order to change any features on your PIN like adding a fingerprint or doing anything else like that, so it's designed really so that you won't forget your PIN.