[Adela Corina Marinescu]

Hello,
I need your help, if possible. I was installing the latest Samsung updates on my S3 this morning (I live in Romania, so it's 10:25 now) and it crashed before finishing. I have since tried to unlock my phone (it is password protected) but I cannot since the keyboard is not working. I don't have an alternative keyboard installed and hence I cannot use my phone . Can you please help me?
Thank you.
Regards and a Happy New Year!
Adela

[Adela Corina Marinescu]

I need to add that reading the other threads that seemed somehow related, I read about rebooting it into Recovery mode.
I tried to clear cache and then to reboot it into Recovery mode, but to no avail...

[Golfdriver97]

Hello,
I need your help, if possible. I was installing the latest Samsung updates on my S3 this morning (I live in Romania, so it's 10:25 now) and it crashed before finishing. I have since tried to unlock my phone (it is password protected) but I cannot since the keyboard is not working. I don't have an alternative keyboard installed and hence I cannot use my phone . Can you please help me?
Thank you.
Regards and a Happy New Year!
Adela

Welcome to the forums.
Might it be possible for you to go to Play on your PC and choose to install another keyboard?

[Adela Corina Marinescu]

Hello and thank you
I did that this morning installing SwiftKey Keyboard. Play says it is installed, but since I cannot unlock the home screen, I donnot know

[meyerweb#CB]

The password lock uses the stock Samsung keyboard, regardless of what other keyboards you have installed.

Are you rooted, and did you by any chance freeze or delete the Samsung keyboard?

I'm trying to think of options that don't require a factory reset. Before this happened, did you enable developer settings and USB debugging? If so, you might be able to push the keyboard apk via adb, but I don't know if that will even work with the phone locked.

[Golfdriver97]

The password lock uses the stock Samsung keyboard, regardless of what other keyboards you have installed.

Thanks Meyer, didn't realize that part.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using AC Forums mobile app

[Adela Corina Marinescu]

Hello again.
"Are you rooted, and did you by any chance freeze or delete the Samsung keyboard?

I'm trying to think of options that don't require a factory reset. Before this happened, did you enable developer settings and USB debugging? If so, you might be able to push the keyboard apk via adb, but I don't know if that will even work with the phone locked. " - perhaps I should have mention this before... I am a totally "illiterate" and "non technical" person so I have no idea what being rooted means... sorry for all the trouble... "did you by any chance freeze or delete the Samsung keyboard" - no
"did you enable developer settings and USB debugging" - I have no idea if I did...

[meyerweb#CB]

If you didn't knowingly turn on those settings, it's pretty unlikely that you did.

I don't think this will solve your problem ,but it won't hurt anything to try. Power your phone completely off (not just screen off). Press and hold, at the same time, the Volume Up, Home and Power buttons. Hold them until you see the word "Samsung," then release all the buttons immediately. This will cause your phone to boot into recovery. (If it boots to the lock screen, you released the buttons a little bit too early or too late. Just power off and try again.)

You should see a menu of options. Use the volume up or down buttons to highlight the one that says Clear Cache, then press the power button. Then select reboot, and press the power button again. If you can enter the password after this, GREAT!

If you can't, I'm afraid the only way to fix it is likely to be a factory reset. Do the same as above, but instead of selecting Clear Cache select Factory Reset. This will, unfortunately, completely wipe any data not on a removable SD card. If you contacts, mail and calendar entries are synced with Google, they'll be restored later, and all your apps will reinstall from the play store, but anything else you haven't separately backed up will be lost.

[Adela Corina Marinescu]

thank you. in the meantime I had received the same answer (on another forum... sorry, but since it took a while, I had asked the same question elsewhere yesterday morning) adding that I had to use odin and then only a factory reset worked
unfortunately I lost the original IMEI no in the process and I have no service now
Thank you, anyway

[mssca]

Factory rest should not change the IMEI #.

[newbroot83]

thank you. in the meantime I had received the same answer (on another forum... sorry, but since it took a while, I had asked the same question elsewhere yesterday morning) adding that I had to use odin and then only a factory reset worked
unfortunately I lost the original IMEI no in the process and I have no service now
Thank you, anyway

Something like that happened with my razr maxx. Its pretty suckish

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

[Adela Corina Marinescu]

I installed 4.3 firmware and now everything is working perfectly.

[Golfdriver97]

I installed 4.3 firmware and now everything is working perfectly.

Thanks for posting the follow up. See you around the forums.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using AC Forums mobile app

[Adela Corina Marinescu]

it only seemed right, since I stated the problem, why not the (accidently found) solution...
Have a lovely New Year, everyone! Take care.

[squadmz]

To work around this issue, after clearing the cache in safe mode didn't work,

Since the touch is working, I have installed the (Kii) keyboard from Play Store ----> Category ----> Pesornalization ----> Top Free ----> and used the Keyboard Color to find another keyboards available and choose the Kii. And during the setup you choose it as the Default Keyboard.

It's looking great for me and works well so far

[teddyzee]

Welcome to the forums.
Might it be possible for you to go to Play on your PC and choose to install another keyboard?

If you have voice search soon, use it to go to the store soon and get another keyboard

[scarletthelp]

to reboot my phone how much seconds do i hold down the Volume Up, Home and Power button???????????? i have the same problem i just need to reboot it with my lg phone

[scarletthelp]

how much seconds do i hold the Volume Up, Home and Power button????? im doing it a little to early or a little too late. HELP ME!!!!!!

[72127]

Hi Adela corina.marinesca did u fix it?.if yea can u help me please. Xx

[chrexy]

hello please help me the same thing happened with me and i held all my buttons and saw some options the options are reboot system now, apply update from adb, apply update from external storage, apply update from cache, wipedata/factory reset , wipe cache partition , reboot to bootloader, power down and view recovery logs! please help which one should i choose

[luad]

I use a samsung GTs- type phone i couldn't unlock coz the keyboard was not working.... i tried holding all my buttons i didn't see any option either.... the only option i saw was something about updating my os with odin.... pleASE I NEED HELP

[BrooklynBeddingcom]

This happened to me and I actually was able to fix it. I opened up the emergency call screen and pulled down my top screen from the top bar. I had my energy saving on and I pushed on that icon and my password screen opened up again but this time there was a little keyboard next to it I pushed on that keyboard and changed from Samsung keyboard to Swype and was able to unlock my phone and now everything seems to be working properly

[enrushka]

I use a samsung Galaxy ace 4 neo- type phone i couldn't unlock coz the keyboard was not working.... i tried holding all my buttons i didn't see any option either.... the only option i saw was something about updating my os with odin.... please I need help

[Mike Tan3]

Hello Guys,

I had exactly the same problem with my Samsung S7 and I was able to solve this and hopefully this can benefit you guys. Here is what I did.

Since the phone keyboard was not popping up and the unit keeps rebooting what I did was to attach an external keyboard via micro usb slot. Once the screen asks for your password use the keyboard to immediately input your password. If you have logged in immediately go to settings and TURN OFF your security settings meaning turn off the fingerprint or password of your unit or the swipe method. As in put your phone to have no security whats so ever. If your phone becomes stable already meaning it doesn't do the endless rebooting and heating up. Go to the last application that you installed and delete it or uninstall it via settings. Next go to general management then go to reset look for reset settings and when your ready press reset settings. This will make your device go to the original factory default setting without wiping your data. That's it once the phone reboots it should be normal again. If this does not work then your last option is to go to factory reset.

I was really happy that just resetting the phone to factory default setting was able to make my phone normal again. Actually it now runs faster. The best part is that my data was still intact! I hope this help guys good luck!