My iPhone says "Security Lockout" and won't let me enter a password to get in; how do I open my phone without erasing it?
iPhone XR, iOS 15
I woke up this morning to see the Security lockout my iphone, even without attempting any wrong passwords, if my iPhone had disabled for 5 minutes to 1 hour as usual I don't think this should've occurred, I think this is a malfunction
erynw45 wrote:
Plus, if i get it fixed, how will i know how to get out of security lockout without losing all my data and erasing my iPhone.
Losing all your data is virtually certain. That’s why backups must precede catastrophes.
I have considered getting it repaired but i don’t know where to go.
Bcubedb3 wrote:
I actually think this behavior *****. If you can enter your appleid and password to erase your phone you should get at least one more chance to enter your pin. This happened to my husband as he left his phone in his pocket while playing pickleball. Evidently in the dark of his pocket it prompted for the unlock PIN number…. Enough times to get the final deadly security lockout. Unfortunately all his Disney pictures we just took got deleted because we had to erase his phone! Apple needs to rethink the final option.
Apple doesn't read here in this use-to-user forum for feedback and suggestions. You can let them know your thoughts here:
Ugh! Happened to me a couple of weeks ago! Really only 2 reasonable choices
There are many ways of preserving photos and videos. Did you do any of these?
A final option is if you synced your photos to iCloud, you have a Mac, and you use Time Machine to back up your Mac automatically, you can open Time Machine and restore the photo library to an earlier date. To do this on your Mac open Finder, then click on Pictures in the sidebar and launch Time Machine. Go to a time before the photos were deleted and restore
Photos Library.photoslibrary. (If you had ever changed the name of the photo library restore that file instead).
If the answer is no to all of the above your photos are gone forever.
Or, someone could ambush you and turn your phone into a brick with a quick succession of attempts. This is why a user should be able to unlock the security wall through iCloud. What if you are far from WiFi and simultaneous power and therefore not backed up? Engineering fail.
In areas where we pay through the nose to connect to the internet still and have the slowest speeds on earth, there is a reason why we cannot link daily to icloud backups. Too easy to have all our data taken for the month reducing us to not being able to do business online because corporations simplify backups to everything all the time. So backups need to scheduled about 6 monthly once we know the next lot of data is arriving and we have enough left to complete a full backup. But minority communities are not catered for as Apple and other corporations cant be bothered.
The simple fact is that the iphone screen should be able to tell between a shirt pocket and someone trying to open the phone. And should be using the 2 factor security to check and hold what is going on before going nuclear with a "Security Lockout". Whats the point of collecting all this personal information if the program cant ML to seek clarification on what is going on the screen!
K_Wren wrote:
In areas where we pay through the nose to connect to the internet still and have the slowest speeds on earth, there is a reason why we cannot link daily to icloud backups.
If you have trouble making a backup using iCloud, you can always use a computer.
OMG! I am so dumb. Yes, I will carry my computer with me while hiking the PCT and back up every 15 minutes so I don’t lose pictures. But, in town at the cafe, I can plug in and pay for wifi instead. You are so brilliant KiltedTim! Brilliant!!!
MegaNUT721 wrote:
Yeah this is the exact reason I'm switching to android. Do you not think it's illogical how you have to enter your apple id password to reset the phone? Why not enter your apple id passcode to unlock the phone?
No, I don't think it's dumb at all. When Apple introduced Activation Lock, thefts of iOS devices feel by as much as 40% in some areas. Both consumers and law enforcement had been begging, for years, that Apple do something to help cut down on theft.
1990SE30 wrote:
OMG! I am so dumb. Yes, I will carry my computer with me while hiking the PCT and back up every 15 minutes so I don’t lose pictures. But, in town at the cafe, I can plug in and pay for wifi instead. You are so brilliant KiltedTim! Brilliant!!!
What are you on about? No one is suggesting that you need to back up "every 15 minutes".
I put my phone in my Spibelt to take a run. Finished my run and found that I was locked out of my phone for 48min. Restarted my phone and it brought up another screen saying that I could erase my phone or wait 55min. After about 20min of waiting, it still said 55min more so I shut off my phone as I made my way back home. Turned it back on after 45min or so and it said that I had to wait an hour. Thanks Apple, I missed both a video meeting and a call that I really needed to be on.
The security lockout is a nightmare! I get why they have it- but I wish there was a workaround for the legit owner who made the mistake of having a phone in the pocket for an hour and didn’t know it exceeded the number of available tries without my even knowing it!!!
ugh!!! Had to erase my phone and reload from the cloud backup losing some valuable things that I had been working on during the day (I auto backup each night).
What a nightmare!!!!! The cloud backup takes hours!!!!!
Acm4488 wrote:
• Ugh! Happened to me a couple of weeks ago! Really only 2 reasonable choices
click on “emergency erase” at the bottom and then reinstall everything from your cloud backup which you hopefully have. This is what I ended up doing and got most everything back. Took a long time tho
• pay someone (lots of options if you google “security lockout “. Of course you have to use a different device to google! I wasn’t comfortable with or willing to do that.
• I find this security lockout incredibly annoying too. It happened cuz the phone was in a pocket. There should be some other way for the legitimate user to get back in other than the above 2.
• good luck!
If there was a way for a legitimate user to get back in then an illegitimate user could use it to get in also. That’s why there is no option to do so.
If you are going to carry the phone in your pocket turn off Raise to Wake and keep it with the screen facing away from your body.
Woke up this am and used my iPhone 14 Pro Max which was working fine. Fell back to sleep and when I woke up an hour later with it next to me, it indicated my passcode was incorrect. 6 failed attempts later using the same passcode I’ve been using for years, my phone is in security lockout and I’ve no option Apple tells me but to erase. Outrageous that whatever malfunction my 2 month old phone made on its own fugue state means I’m poised to lose certain data I elected not to store in the cloud for my own privacy reasons (my notes that I defaulted in settings to “on my phone”). I don’t see much point in entering the same correct passcode my phone is incorrectly denying every three hours until I alienate my entire household with bouts of unnecessary rage and yet I’m poised to lose my most valuable data. Apple needs an appropriate security answer to these loopholes because I was already on the fence to becoming an android a****** when I once again stood by what I know and what I know is Apple is in fact the antithesis of security. The definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over again and expecting different results and here I am hoping my device will fix itself every three hours…
1990SE30 wrote:
Nightly backups, even weekly backups are not always possible. A lot of us work and play in the wild.
So you never have a Wi-Fi connection, or a cellular 5G connection (iPhone 12, 13, 14 or SE 3rd edition) for weeks at a time for automatic backups? Then you need a local SD card backup device.
Security Lockout on iPhone
