Used Galaxy A6+ shenanigans (need explanation!)

[anon(10181084)]

Backstory:

So back on Monday I bought a used Galaxy A6+ for €140 (from a very small local phone repair and used phone shop) that is in pretty decent condition aside from some light scratches on the back metal. Nothing wrong with it (no burn-in, only 122 charge cycles on the battery, perfectly working everything). I did an extra factory reset after purchase just to ensure the phone was clean. First thing that came to light was that it defaulted to UK English, so I switched it to US English. So then (after setup) I pop in my two sim cards (mt:s for texting and talking, Telenor for data) and SD card. I install DevCheck (had a spare APK on my SD card) and see that the CSC is for the UAE, which is kinda off considering that I live in Serbia. Also, the phone's About screen says "United Arab Emirates" below all the other stuff.

The weird issues:

1) After using the camera for the first time, all the pictures (except an old video) got erased from the camera folder on the SD card. I have no clue why and am pretty annoyed. Maybe this is a Samsung OneUI thing or something? I stupidly didn't back this stuff up thinking it wouldn't be necessary just because of a phone switch. At least the pictures weren't too important.

2) Now for the spooky part. So I go into the Google settings and couldn't find the add account part. Maybe I just don't know where it is because this is my first experience with OneUI and Android Pie. Then I open the Play Store and it just hangs on "checking info". I switch the mobile data from my Telenor card to the mt:s card (this has very little data, but more than enough for a login), and only then did it let me log in to my Google accounts just fine. At first I and my father suspected that it might've originally been distributed via an mt:s plan, but that was quickly debunked by the fact that this phone is from the UAE. Any explanation as to the weird login behavior would be great. The only other thing is that the original owner may have used an mt:s card and that the phone has one of those weird anti-theft features that cause future users to have issues because it remembered aoemthing about the original network it was used on regardless of factory reset.

 

[B. Diddy]

For the card issue, I'd wonder if the card or the reader is defective. Does the problem happen with other cards?

For the UAE issue, do you think someone might have flashed the UAE firmware onto this phone that was possibly a different SKU? Flashing a different variant's firmware can cause various glitches, so maybe that's why you were having problems with the Add Account option.

You clearly know your stuff, so I'm just throwing some possibly lamebrained ideas at you to see if anything strikes a chord ...

 

[anon(10181084)]

The SD card reader is fine. Everything else works fine and SD card is a few months old (it is a Samsung 64GB microSD, not sure about exact model). I can take pictures with this phone and everything gets saved properly. As for the SIM slots, they seem to work fine. Not sure why the whole Google account thing happened because what if I didn't have an mt:s card? I even checked the first IMEI number (this is a dual SIM phone, so it has 2), and it is clean.

Not sure if it was originally an mt:s phone and the phone shop just wiped the original firmware with the first download they found on SamMobile?

 

[B. Diddy]

Is there a way to see what the exact model number of the phone is anywhere else besides the About Phone menu? Like on the box, or on a sticker on the phone? If there's a discrepancy, that'd tell you that someone flashed a different firmware.

 

[anon(10181084)]

On the back of the phone is shows SM-A605F, along with the address of Samsung UK. The settings also shows SM-A605F. Weird thing is that the original CSC code is missing (see below). The phone is working great for me but I'd just for the heck of it would like to know more about its origin.