What to Do If Your Phone Has a Start-up Error: "Enter Password to Unlock"

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Learn ways fix "Enter password to unlock, 30/30 attempts remaining"

Co-authored by Hannah Dillon Reviewed by Luigi Oppido

Last Updated: November 15, 2024 Fact Checked

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What the Error Means

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Password Error Causes

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How to Fix the Error

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What to Do If You Can't Unlock Your Phone

Have you booted up your LG phone only to be greeted by a white lock screen stating "Enter password to unlock, 30/30 attempts remaining?" If so, your phone is in secure start-up, a type of encryption available on older Android devices (though LG phones seem to be affected by this screen randomly appearing). In this article, we'll go over what this error means, what causes it, and how to fix it.

Fast Facts: Secure Start-Up

"Enter Password to Unlock, 30/30 attempts remaining" appears because of secure start-up, a security measure on older Android devices and some newer LG phones. If you didn't set a secure start-up password, you can decipher it using your unlock pattern.

Section 1 of 4:

What "Enter Password to Unlock, 30/30 Attempts Remaining" Means

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This password error means your phone is in secure start-up. Secure start-up is a security feature on older Android phones. If you enable secure start-up on your device, the next time your phone restarts, you'll be prompted to enter a password, and you have 30 attempts to get it right.
- If the password is guessed incorrectly 30 times, your phone will be wiped. This is a security measure to keep your information safe in the event your phone is lost or stolen.
- Previously, you could enter a PIN or your Google account password to unlock your phone in secure start-up, but these methods were later removed by LG.^{[1]
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Phones that launched with Android 9 or earlier have access to secure start-up. However, as of Android 10, Android now requires all Android devices to use file-based encryption (FBE) instead of FDE, so newer devices can't enable secure start-up.^{[2]
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Section 2 of 4:

What Causes the "Enter Password to Unlock, 30/30 Attempts Remaining" Error

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There is no clear cause as to why secure start-up is randomly activated. Users have reported their phones randomly going into secure start-up. Some users stated that their phone was put into secure start-up after updating it. Others stated that their phone restarted on its own, and once it was back on, they were faced with the secure start-up screen. It's not clear what exactly causes the secure start-up screen to show up randomly.
- However, if you do have secure start-up enabled and restart your phone, it will then enter secure start-up.

Section 3 of 4:

How to Fix the "Enter Password to Unlock, 30/30 Attempts Remaining" Error

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Determine the password associated with your unlock pattern. When unlocking your phone with a pattern, you can create that pattern out of 9 dots arranged in a 3x3 grid. You can determine your pattern password by assigning the numbers 1-9 to the dot grid (the first row is 1, 2, 3; the second is 4, 5, 6; and the third is 7, 8, 9.)
- Example: You created a pattern to unlock your phone where you draw a square starting in the upper-left corner and moving clockwise around the grid. You then decipher that your pattern password is 12369874.
- The table below demonstrates how the password was determined by assigning numbers to the 3x3 pattern grid. The highlighted cells indicate which numbers are part of the password, and the arrows indicate the direction in which the pattern is drawn to determine the order of the numbers in the password. The star indicates the first dot of the pattern, which determines the first number of the password.
- If you can't figure out your password, don't keep guessing. Your phone will be wiped if you reach the maximum number of attempts.

Section 4 of 4:

What to Do If You Can't Unlock Your Phone

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If you can't remember the password used to encrypt your device, you can enter an incorrect password 30 times to force the device to wipe itself. Once the phone is wiped, you'll need to log in with the Gmail account that was associated with the device to use the phone, or it will stop functioning.
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Factory reset the phone. Instead of wiping the device, you can opt to factory reset it. This will also remove all of your data off the phone, and you will still have to log in with the Gmail account that was associated with the device to use the phone, or it will stop functioning.
- If you don't know how to factory reset your LG phone, check out this wikiHow article to learn how.
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Contact a data recovery specialist. Some data recovery specialists can recover data on encrypted devices. However, this is a very difficult process that requires expensive tools not available to the public, so it might be very expensive. Different data recovery firms will charge different prices, but the price tag could be upwards of a few thousand dollars.
- To find data recovery specialists near you, use your favorite search engine to locate them. Contact them via phone or online form (depending on what they offer), explain your situation, and ask what information is needed for a quote.
- If the firm you contact can't unlock your phone for you, ask if they know of any other firms that could.
- Unfortunately, you cannot recover your data without paying money. Due to the strength of the encryption, de-encryption tools available to the public won't be able to remove it. If you can't afford data recovery or no firms in your area offer the service, then you'll have to wipe your phone to use it again.