I have forgotten the PIN of a device but I do have access to a root shell with adb shell and su
Is there some way I could remove the screen PIN lock or change it?
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Simson
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Does this answer your question? Can not unlock my Android device as have no internet connection? – alecxs Apr 27 '20 at 11:00
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no your comment above is a better answer than the link. – Simson Apr 28 '20 at 00:20
3 Answers
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if your device is not encrypted with login credentials you can delete locksettings.db
adb shell su -c "rm /data/system/locksettings.db*"
However, bear in mind the following files are required for FBE encryption. If you delete these files you won't be able to decrypt userdata partition, all data is lost
/data/system/gatekeeper.password.key
/data/system/gatekeeper.pattern.key
/data/system/locksettings.db
/data/system/locksettings.db-shm
/data/system/locksettings.db-wal
alecxs
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@alexcs solution can work without root / su (sorry I can't comment on his answer) :
adb reboot recovery
(wait for reboot)
adb shell rm /data/system/locksettings.db
and reboot into normal mode with :
adb reboot
Max
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Alas this isn't working on my phone either, In recovery mode, adb won't connect anymore. Reboot and it wiill. But in recover mode "error: no devices/emulators found". Recover mode offered a menu, and delete cache seemed safest but didn't help. – Bernd Wechner Mar 28 '23 at 20:58
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The big axe
A brute force solution existed as I had access to fastboot too.
To remove the PIN, removed the entire userdata partition with fastboot
fastboot erase userdata
as described here: https://android.stackexchange.com/a/175887/320098
Simson
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2To wipe the entire partition is pretty brute force to be - it removes everything – Simson Apr 27 '20 at 10:45