Samsung Fingerprint Security Malfunction
Mike8972
Contributor - Level 1

I had a very unpleasant experience last night, when the fingerprint security feature failed to identify my thumbprint, and called for me to enter my fingerprint password to unlock my phone. I carefully entered the password several times, which I had written down, and the phone failed to unlock! It then gave me a warning that I had one more try, before the phone would be wiped of all data and files ,and that everything would revert to factory reset.  Needless to say, this happened, and I watched helplessly as I lost everything. 


I spent the night getting stuff back from the Verizon Cloud, but there was much, much more work involved in re-entering email addresses, and reloading apps back on the reset phone. I lost valuable photos and videos because the cloud backup was only through early June. It was a horrible experience. So my question is, has this happened to anyone else, because I, for one, will not use the fingerprint security feature again.

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Re: Samsung Fingerprint Security Malfunction
kyleria
Enthusiast - Level 2

You can turn off the auto factory reset. Settings > lock screen & security > secure lock settings > set the factory reset toggle to off.

I know this doesn't help you get your files back, but it will save you some headache if this happens again.

View solution in original post

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Re: Samsung Fingerprint Security Malfunction
kyleria
Enthusiast - Level 2

You can turn off the auto factory reset. Settings > lock screen & security > secure lock settings > set the factory reset toggle to off.

I know this doesn't help you get your files back, but it will save you some headache if this happens again.

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Re: Samsung Fingerprint Security Malfunction
Shawnmaloney01
Enthusiast - Level 2

There is also an option to unlock phone via your google account when this happens.

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Re: Samsung Fingerprint Security Malfunction
testerrants
Enthusiast - Level 3

interesting Shawnmaloney01  ... i did not know google allowed you to do that for a galaxy. Do you have a link for how to unlock phone via google account ?

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Re: Samsung Fingerprint Security Malfunction
Shawnmaloney01
Enthusiast - Level 2

Yes, read this article (link below). You can actually do it via google account or samsung account.

Works for all the screen lock types including fingerprint.

I have used it before.

What to do if you forgot your Samsung Galaxy S6 lock screen password | Android Central

Re: Samsung Fingerprint Security Malfunction
Mike8972
Contributor - Level 1

Normally, if your phone was lost or stolen, you would want this security feature active. In my case, the fingerprint password failure caused the phone to go to factory reset, something I never expected to occur.

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Re: Samsung Fingerprint Security Malfunction
Mike8972
Contributor - Level 1

Yes and I would have used this feature, if I didn't already have what I thought was a viable password to unlock the phone, which I specifically wrote down.

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Re: Samsung Fingerprint Security Malfunction
Mike8972
Contributor - Level 1

They are looking for me to check a correct answer here, but I do not see a correct answer to select.

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Re: Samsung Fingerprint Security Malfunction
rcschnoor
Legend

That depends on what you consider a "correct" answer. Reading your original post, the ONLY question is whether or not this has happened to anyone else. There is no other question in that post. What answer are you looking for? Is it to a question you have not yet asked.

It appears that Shawnmaloney01 gave you some other options for unlocking your phone if your fingerprint was not working and they in fact have needed to use this method in the past.

Re: Samsung Fingerprint Security Malfunction
Mike8972
Contributor - Level 1

I guess I should have more directly asked if this is a malfunction of the secondary fingerprint identification system password system in the manner that the auto rotate feature was defective for some phones earlier.

And the other options given for unlocking the phone should not come into play, if the follow up code for fingerprint identification, that you are directed to use, was doing its job correctly.

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