Locked out of my own phone?
 

Right this is a really frustrating, about 10mins ago I tried to update my blackberry so I connected it to my laptop, started the software up and when presented with the box to enter my password, my phone, after a year of use and the same password, has decided that its not my password??
Thinking it might be a seperate password possibly that I have forgotten I disconnected my phone and tried to use it, where i was presented with the unlock phone password dialog, and as per usual i entered my password but rather than coming up with astericks it showed my password and wouldnt accept it? now im on attempt 9/10 and its still wont let me into my own damn phone with the password that has worked day in day out for a year now. What the hell is going on?

Passwords don't just change on their own. It's simply not possible.
A few ideas:
1. You're on a BES and your admin changed your password.
2. Your keyboard is damaged and what you think you are typing isn't actually what's being typed.
3. Someone knew your password and changed it manually on the device.
4. You forgot your password.
5. You never knew the password and this is a strange attempt at finding a way to circumvent it.

Regardless of the reason, you have one more attempt to enter it correctly.
If entered incorrectly 10 times, the device will wipe itself and you can then set a new password.
You'll then need to restore your data from your most recent backup.

Hmm I guess I explained the situation badly, basically i tried to use the blackberry app loader application and when it asks you to plug your phone in and enter your pin, which I did, it wouldnt accept it, so upon unplugging my phone to use it, it continued to tell my my password to unlock it as incorrect and rather than displaying the astrericks that it normally does when you enter the unlock password it was displaying my password so I know that neither the keys are not faulty nor the password is incorrect. Its simply not accepting my password anymore.
It might be worthy to note that the first time I plugged it into the laptop, the laptop crashed, not sure if that would have effected it in any way but im not sure. Im self employed n have the phone for personal use but it contains a lot of contacts I cant really afford to lose and seeing as i cannot regain access to my phone, cannot backup the phone (yes im an idiot and have not backed it up in the past, lesson learnt there). Wiping isnt really an option either.

the world stupid phone lol.....my situation same as above,
whats the diffrent between device pin & device password?

Like I said earlier... how you reached this point is completely irrelevant and doesn't change your course of action for moving forward.
You're stuck in a position that you can only get out of in 2 ways:
1. Miraculously type in the password that the BlackBerry is looking for and unlock the device. You have 1 chance to get it right before the device wipes and you have to start over.
2. Intentionally enter an incorrect password to wipe the device and start over.

Those are your only two options.

Right ok thanks, guess i gotta just bite the bullet and remember to back my phone up in future. Thanks for the clear answer though

hi,
I've just had to wipe my BB after I plugged it to the PC and it asked for the password, I entered the password I enter everyday... It didn't work. So I unpugged the BB, pulled the battery off, and reloaded it. It prompted for the password... same as it did every other time... and I entered the password one last time, same as I used to do so far... and wiped!
I plugged the BB to make a backup of it. In the end, I just lost everything.
Please do not answer me that either "I entered my password wrong" or "somebody changed it". It's simply NOT POSSIBLE. Any feedback on that ? did it happen to anybody else? I have the 5 something device OS and 5.0.1 desktop.
Cheers !

Look at post #2 by Penguin3107

yea thats pretty much identical to what happened to me, has to be some kind of bug because it jsut will not accept your password afterwards O_o

Same as above. I am in the exact same situation. Last night I plugged my BB to my PC to perform the first backup after I had updated ALL MY CONTACTS and it kept asking for a password I don't remember having ever set.... I am very careful to save every single password that I use, I would have written somewhere this PW...If I had ever set it!!!! I am so mad!
Anyone has any suggestion before I "kill" my BB with the last attempt?

See my post (#5) in this thread above.

Not in conjunction with backup, I have had my BB suddenly not take my password, which I do have written down. After 5 tries it asked me to type "blackberry" and then it displayed what i was typing. Even though I was doing it as I always had, it displayed CAPS where I had lower case. Caps Lock was not set on. it was just recognized my normal key pressure as a CAP this time. I don't know if that was the issue, the next time it displayed correctly and I am good to go.

jan

I had the same experience that I was asked to type "blackberry" and then it displayed the password that I typed. I typed the same keys as I did in the first 5 attempts and it was OK. This happened to me several times. I believed there was a problem with the device since I had no doubt that I pressed the correct keys in the first 5 trials each time I experienced this problem. Today, in my sixth trial after typing "blackberry" as I was asked, I have seen that the pressing the same keys had capital letters displayed for some of the charcaters in the password. I just realized that, in the first 5 trials, I was pressing the keys very hard (and holding longer). I was no way of telling before since they showed up as astericks in the first 5 trials. When you press the keys harder/longer, the letters turn to capital letters. This is normally a very useful feature when typing, but not when you are entering the password.

With all due respect, Penguin
 

Seems to me that there is a software issue with the device. And according to evidence, this is a 4-year old problem. Funny that.

If you found this thread, I encourage the reader to ignore Penguin's initial unhelpful and cold response that the problem is "impossible" and the user has "simply forgotten" their password.

I JUST PURCHASED my brand-new BB Bold. I have not even had it for 12 hours.

I told it what password I wanted and entered it. Twice. As the day went on, the phone asked me for that password while I was testing it, sending and receiving emails, etc etc. The password worked fine. I have not forgotten it.

I left it on my desk for a few hours. When I came back, I wanted to send out an email. It asked for a password. I had not forgotten it. I entered it. It accepted it. I put the phone down where it locked into standby. Then it alerted me that an email had arrived. I pick up the phone, and it asks for the password. I have not forgotten it. I enter it.

:bb:"Incorrect"

???:-?

Let's try that again: I did notice the "t" wasn't always accepting the type.

:bb: "Incorrect"

WTH?

Again. Same password that I used NOT ONE HALF-HOUR AGO.

:bb: "Incorrect"

...up to eight times now.

All I can say is: I'm glad it happened to me on the FIRST day of ownership: so I don't have to worry about lost information. But this is obviously a problem with the device and it certainly teaches me not to trust it.

Penguin - I'm surprised that your answer to this problem continues to remain the same after so many years. Your immediate response to anyone bringing up this issue is along the lines of "there's nothing wrong with the device. You are making the error." I'm telling you that simply is not true. Perhaps you lucked out and own one of the devices that does not have this problem. Good for you. Now please offer assistance when you can but kindly refrain from essentially calling these people who are asking for help "liars".

My position remains unchanged, because I'm right.
Passwords don't change on their own. You're entering it incorrectly.
Most likely, as a new user, you are holding down one of the keys for too long and it's auto-capitalizing the letter. Most new users don't realize this is a BlackBerry feature.
Passwords are case sensitive, so capitalizing any one letter will change the password entirely.

There's no bug. It's user error/inexperience.
I know you don't want to hear it, and that's perfectly fine.
You can think of me as the bad guy, and my feelings won't be hurt. I deal with users like yourself every day for the past 16 years.
Hundreds of people... hundreds of devices... never once has anybody had a case of a password changing on its own. That's not luck.

And, after all these years, he is still correct.

The answer, clearly and accurately, is PEBKAC

This is a Known Problem
 

Since December, I back up my Bold 9700 religiously on the 28th of each month. No problem.

3 weeks ago, I began using the Password feature, which I've set to prompt after 1 minute. So, I enter the password dozens of times each day.

However, today, when I connect the Bold 9700 to the computer to perform my monthly backup, the Blackberry Manager (on the computer) prompts for the password. I enter it but then says it's invalid. I enter it several more times and then it wipes out my the entire Blackberry device.

I call Tech Support and after a while they say they know about the issue and are looking into it.

Thankfully, I backed it up with my backup from a month ago. But, I did lose a month's worth of data.

There's definitely several reported problems when connecting the phone to the computer when the Password Protection is enabled. It's the strangest thing.

Can you substantiate this at all?
Case number from RIM support? RIM KB article? Any kind of documentation at all?

I believe you think you're using numbers in your password when you're not. Does your password contain numbers such as pass1234 or something along those lines, but you're not pressing the Alt key?

If that's the case then your password would be passwers.

I didn't request a case number, since I had restored my phone based on a previous backup. I was simply calling to inform them, and possibly get a fix. She said they receive many calls on this issue, couldn't help me because I must have forgotten the password. She also said they are looking into it.
In addition to me, there are 2 people in this thread, not to mention others on the forum and elsewhere who've called tech support.

However, I called back again and spoke with a Technician who said he had 7 years experience. He pointed out what jsconyers said, which was the following: I typed in a 4-digit password assuming it to be numeric. But when I connected my phone to the computer to do my monthly backup, the computer Blackberry Manager requested the password. I entered the numbers from the computer keyboard. After numerous attempts, it prompted me to type in "blackberry", which I did a few more types. Following that, it wiped out my entire phone.

Like I said, I've since restored my phone (although I lost a month's worth of data...but gained an important lesson).