Can only "Unlock" phone with password on Eris

S

Sahil S

New member
Though the Droid 2.1 features seem nice, after the download this weekend, my phone forces me to type a password to unlock the phone every time. Pryor to 2.1, I used the pattern function to get in my phone. When I go to Settings/Security, the only option I have is "Change Unlock Password" under the "Screen Unlock Pattern" section and no option to disable password or use a the pattern option. My friend has an Eris and he didn't have a pattern set up and he can still do everything (password, pattern or nothing). Could this have been a glitch becasue I was using a pattern or is there a higher security function I do not know about. Thank you for any help you can give!
 
Interesting - one of the things that changed in Android 2.1 was "Improved pattern lock functionality.", which is meant to prevent the trick that allowed people to unlock your phone without entering a pattern.
 
Can only "Unlock" phone with password on Eris

The requirement to enter a password to unlock your phone seems to be coming from a security policy on the exchange server that you?re synching with (assuming you are synching with an exchange server). Apparently version 1.5 did not pass this policy along to your phone, but 2.1 does.

This was the problem I had and I fixed it by contacting my exchange provider (1and1.com in my case) and asking them to remove the passcode lock requirement for my account. Surprisingly, they knew what I was talking about and I am now no longer required to enter the password to unlock my phone.
 
Hi Bfunk3717 and welcome to the AC Forums.

Android 1.5 (and 1.6 for that matter) didn't have any native exchange support, so that's why it didn't inherit the security policy.

Some Android 1.5/1.6 phones running Sense UI had Exchange support of course, but that was provided by Sense, not by Android.

Thanks for the info though - hopefully this will fix it.

Scoot1717 - you can easily test this by turning off Exchange in the settings. Worth a try? Let us know if it fixes it.
 
THANK YOU TO BOTH BFUNK AND EXTORIAN!!! THIS WAS EXACTLY THE CASE. I have not contacted the Exchange server yet to see if I can have this removed, but I did prove the cause. I hope I can get out of it!

Thanks again, posting here was very helpful!!!
 
Hi Folks,
This exchange security policy support is the single largest annoyance on 2.1.
The lock just showed up a few days after my
upgrade to 2.1.
I have deleted the exchange accounts and rebooted. But I cannot get rid of the lock. Option greyed out in Security settings.

Any advice? Or is this a secret MS plan to piss off Android users?
 
This is interesting... The company I work for just banned the use of iPhones connecting over VPN for this, and other, non-compliance with security policies in the iPhone. It seems they don't mind Android 2.X devices. Maybe it's because they DO enforce this security policy.

Still, like most active security, it's a frequent annoyance for the user. Wouldn't it be great if we just didn't need PIN codes, passwords, etc...
 
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