Android Unlocking Bug Personified, Solved

Android phones have down away with key guard combinations. Users slide out a pattern on a nine-dot grid instead. At least one problem with this locking pattern has made the online rounds however, and nothing makes the effects more clear like a personal anecdote:

There, I had another brilliantly fatal idea: I clicked on the “forgot the unlock pattern” button which just appeared, just out of curiosity to see what would happen next. The phone asked for my Gmail account and password. I filled the requested information, but it didn’t unlock the phone; apparently this is a known Android bug that I didn’t know about. And, contrary to what I naively assumed, there was no way to get back to the unlock pattern screen. I rebooted the phone. No change, no escape.

Then it dawned on me that I was 600 kilometers away from home, for almost a full week, without all my computer tools. And I was locked out of my own phone.

Our protagonist then racked his brains and Googling skills to come up with a workaround, and luckily he had access to a Windows PC. Unfortunately, that represented 5 hours of lost time. Good thing he came up with a list that owners of Android OS devices—especially those who know how to manipulate their gadgets through a terminal—should be aware of:

1. Don’t play with or (worse) monkey-test security systems, especially when away from home
2. Set up a recovery shell for future use, to cater for possible bugs
3. Android is still a bit rough on the edges, to put it nicely
4. It’s nice to always have a real computer handy; and possibly a spare IP connection, too
5. I’m glad Android makes this kind of hacking possible, almost easy and legit.

Easy? I don’t even know what “recovery shell” means! The full story, including how the phone was made usable again, is here.