Norton Mobile Security

[bvkuhn]

Ok, I'm getting VERY irritated! Thursday, Jan 12th, I went to the hospital, and my phone was working fine. Today, Wednesday the 18th, after it had been off for most of the time (battery life is pathetic), I turn it on, and NMS wants to block access to my phone and tells me the SIM Card has been changed. Nothing could be further from the truth!

First of all, I use MetroPCS & they don't put SIM Cards in their phones. My phone, the Samsung Galaxy Indulge 4G LTE, in the case of MetroPCS does have a special phone-specific card installed, but I haven't messed with that card, because MetroPCS warned me when I bought it, that if tampered with, it may cause the phone to become inoperable. I have a password to clear the error message, and unlock my phone, but I can't figure out what it is. I contacted my "buddy" via SMS using a website to send him a message explaining how to unlock me, and either I mistyped the instructions (left something out) or the "buddy" otherwise didn't understand me.

Seeing as how there's no SIM in this phone - and there never has been - is there a way to clear out the message (without my password, and without my "buddy" assisting me?

[erik_carlstrom]

Do you know what version of NMS you have?  Does the Lock scren have a help tab?  

What instructions did you send to your buddy and was the phone they sent the text message the number that you had for them when you added them as a buddy?  Also, do you have the Norton AntiTheft Plugin installed?  

[bvkuhn]

I don't have a clue what version I have - there IS a help tab, but it only tells me to come to the NMS Help website, or there's a button to click where I can place a phone call to my "buddy" to have him unlock me. I originally sent him a message online via vtext.com asking him to text me back with the word unlock (because my phone was in lockdown thanks to a software prob.)

After I posted this, and after the above text was sent, I looked at similar threads and it looks like the correct thing to ask the buddy to text is the word unlock followed by a space and their complete phone number I entered into my NMS Account information as the buddy unlock command phone number? (e.g. unlock 555-555-5555 for a US phone number)

Am I correct?

Also, if I can't (for whatever reason, get in touch with my buddy, and still keep drawing a blank on the password to self-unlock the device, is there a way around this? Like I said, MetroPCS doesn't use SIM Cards in their 4G LTE devices, so there should be no reason the NMS Software is telling me a month after I bought the full version (and yes the add-on you asked about IS installed) that the SIM Card has been changed - there never was one to start with.

[erik_carlstrom]

If he just replied to that text, it's possible that special characters were added which would have invalidated the command.  With the latest version, your buddy only needs to text the word unlock.  If it's an older version then you would have to have them send unlock with their phone number (no leading 1, spaces or dashes).  For example:

unlock 9876543210 

If their phone number was 987-654-3210.  

There was a problem with a very old version that would lock CDMA phones when there was a long enough delay while attempting to initialize the modem.  This was addressed in newer versions as well as unchecking SIM card protection (of which you don't have) can prevent this as well.  When did you install NMS and where from?  That might help in determining your version or you could have your buddy try both versions.  

[smithy Super Virus Trouncer Mobile Master (Norton Mobile Users Discussion Forum)]

Hi bvkuhn

You could try and log in to the Norton Anti-theft website with a computer -

Norton Anti-Theft

Use your Norton Account details that you would have used to register the

device with when you installed and setup the Norton Ant-Theft addon for NMS.

Make sure your device is switched on and when logged in to the NAT

website select the device from My Devices list then select Lock Device.

Select confirm then enter a pin or password then select Lock Device.

Check the locked device which should now have a different lock screen

message where you can enter the pin or password set when locking the

device from the NAT website.

This should unlock your device.

Let us know how you go.

Cheers.  :-)

[erik_carlstrom]

That would be simpler, though only if the NAT Plugin were installed and configured.  It was the main reason why I asked.  

[bvkuhn]

Ok, I got NMS from Android Market. Dec 5th, '11 was when I paid the $30 to unlock the full features and installed the add-on you're talking about.

I tried the idea that was suggested about logging into the Norton Anti-Theft site and putting it in lockdown from the website, but it wouldn't let me - it said the phone was offline, although clearly, I was looking at it and it wasn't because there was a big screen asking me to unlock the thing! (Sorry, getting a little frustrated here and ready to rip out what little hair I have left.) It said it last detected the phone 18 days ago. Now, granted, between the 12th and 17th, I could see it saying phone offline then because I was in an ICU, but that's neither here nor there.

I just re-messaged my buddy asking him to re-try texting me the unlock command - he's probably thinking I'm losing my marbles lol.

[erik_carlstrom]

Do you see an active data connection for your phone?  If not, that would prevent it from being unlocked from the website.  

[bvkuhn · Accepted solution]

Well, I kind of fixed it on my own. The unlock screen was in "full-screen" mode, so I couldn't have seen if there were any type of data connection or not, to answer your question. HOWEVER, I came up with a solution for this time: I just pressed (and held down) the menu button, which brought up my list of open programs and a button to bring me to the task manager, which I pressed. When I got to the Task Manager, I simply clicked end for the NMS software. Once that was done, I regained full control of my phone.

If only I would have been able to figure that out hours ago? *shakes head* I guess it's true that sometimes the simplest solutions really are the ones that you never think of until the end, and always use.

I would like to thank all of you who tried to help me, though. :)

[erik_carlstrom]

I'm sorry we couldn't fix this sooner.  You probably have the latest version installed.  It's likely that there was some sort of connection issue occuring that caused a delay in the modem load delay.  I recommend you go into the NMS settings and uncheck the SIM card option.  If it's checked, then that should prevent this from ever happening again.