Unable to authenticate phone after hard reset.

[verkisto]

I tried doing a backup of some data on my phone, which didn't work correctly, so I did a data wipe and did a hard reset of my phone.  Now, I can bring it back up to the original factory settings and set it up with my wireless network, but I'm unable to authenticate my phone.  I've attempted to reprogram the phone using the *288 method twice, but it didn't work either time.  Is there anything else I can do to resolve this issue, short of taking it in to a retail Verizon store?

[Wildman · Accepted solution]

You could contact CS and they should be able to walk you through the process to manually program the network settings into the programming menu.

[stonent]

If you used a program like Odin to wipe your phone OR if you had the phone transferred to another cell provider (some small companies will let you activate Verizon phones on their network) you may have lost your authentication keys and you may have problems.

It is an easy fix if that was the issue, you just need a non-activated verizon phone.

First take the deactivated phone and dial *228 and activate it.

Second shut the phone off after you've confirmed it is working and you can make calls from it.

Third power up your Fascinate and then dial *228 and attempt to reactivating it.

Verizon's activation service won't send you the authentication keys (sometimes called certificates) if it thinks the phone should already have them. I.E. they don't show that phone was deactivated so it still should have them.

By temporarily reactivating another phone it has to resend them because they are no longer valid.

[Wildman]

Never used Odin, that something to know...  Thanks

[NuDroidUsrr]

stonent wrote:

If you used a program like Odin to wipe your phone OR if you had the phone transferred to another cell provider (some small companies will let you activate Verizon phones on their network) you may have lost your authentication keys and you may have problems.

It is an easy fix if that was the issue, you just need a non-activated verizon phone.

First take the deactivated phone and dial *228 and activate it.

Second shut the phone off after you've confirmed it is working and you can make calls from it.

Third power up your Fascinate and then dial *228 and attempt to reactivating it.

Verizon's activation service won't send you the authentication keys (sometimes called certificates) if it thinks the phone should already have them. I.E. they don't show that phone was deactivated so it still should have them.

By temporarily reactivating another phone it has to resend them because they are no longer valid.

I saw on another thread somewhere that a person did this with just a basic phone as their backup, and they lost their unlimited data plan as they activated a phone without a data plan and caused it to drop the plan. When they activated their Fascinate again, it activated the data plan again, but in the 2 GB tiered mode.

Can't you just call Customer Support from another phone and have them activate your Fascinate?

[stonent]

Odin is typically not used by regular every day phone users because you can wipe the wrong things and make the phone unusable.

It can also be used to restore firmware on the phone (provided you have a copy of the firmware)

Again, not something for the average user, you can put your phone in a condition that will void the warranty.

[Wildman]

Yeah I researched that and noticed that being the case but it was something new for me so it was helpful information to store away...