Ting Tang Posted November 17, 2022 Share Posted November 17, 2022 (edited) My mother-in-law has been without a phone since last week because she is "locked out." Her phone shows that it was updated, but she is locked out of it. It says she set it up using an email address she's never used but is similar to her current one. I tried getting into that email, and it is associated with a phone number ending in digits we do not recognize. We have to wait 24 hours to see if Hotmail has enough information to let us access that account, in the event she did set it up a long time ago. She does have an iPad but nothing it getting sent between the two, even though the iPad shows her phone is one of her devices. I can update the Apple ID on her iPad but not the iPhone. I suspect the phone is a bit glitchy---it welcomes you in different languages. I'm wondering if the update locked her out of her phone? I was told it is about six years old. She thought one of our kids was playing on it and got her locked out, but I am wondering if something else is going on. She hasn't been able to articulate much of this to Apple, and ATT could not help her. Any thoughts? I am not very tech savvy. Edited November 17, 2022 by Ting Tang 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted November 17, 2022 Share Posted November 17, 2022 7 minutes ago, Ting Tang said: . I suspect the phone is a bit glitchy---it welcomes you in different languages. That sounds like the welcome screen after the iOS update. It tends to welcome you in different languages until you click next. My iPhone 6s is about the same age as your mom’s phone. Is there an Apple store near you? The best bet would be to soft reset her phone and relogin to her phone using her Apple ID. Did she activate two factor authentication for her phone? If she did, does she know which cellphone number she put in for the two factor authentication? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ting Tang Posted November 17, 2022 Author Share Posted November 17, 2022 5 minutes ago, Arcadia said: That sounds like the welcome screen after the iOS update. It tends to welcome you in different languages until you click next. My iPhone 6s is about the same age as your mom’s phone. Is there an Apple store near you? The best bet would be to soft reset her phone and relogin to her phone using her Apple ID. Did she activate two factor authentication for her phone? If she did, does she know which cellphone number she put in for the two factor authentication? Thank you so much for these hints! I am not sure about the two factor authentication, but I will ask about a soft reset. I know she has been there, but she didn't get much accomplished. She is worried about losing pictures. She is in her 70s, so next time I may need to go with! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted November 17, 2022 Share Posted November 17, 2022 40 minutes ago, Ting Tang said: She is worried about losing pictures. She is in her 70s, so next time I may need to go with! Get a USB to lightning cable. Hook her iPhone to your laptop if she doesn’t have a laptop/computer. Go to File explorer (Windows) or Finder (MacOS) and see if you can see her iPhone as an external device. The photos should typically be in a DCIM folder. You can then copy the entire DCIM folder with its contents to your laptop. Mine is setup to backup to the iCloud but I did have to pay for extra storage. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitestavern Posted November 17, 2022 Share Posted November 17, 2022 Is it possible her email was hacked? Could they have changed the login credentials in her phone? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ting Tang Posted November 17, 2022 Author Share Posted November 17, 2022 20 hours ago, Arcadia said: Get a USB to lightning cable. Hook her iPhone to your laptop if she doesn’t have a laptop/computer. Go to File explorer (Windows) or Finder (MacOS) and see if you can see her iPhone as an external device. The photos should typically be in a DCIM folder. You can then copy the entire DCIM folder with its contents to your laptop. Mine is setup to backup to the iCloud but I did have to pay for extra storage. Thank you! Yes, I am wondering if she ran out. I will see about this. 9 hours ago, whitestavern said: Is it possible her email was hacked? Could they have changed the login credentials in her phone? We definitely wondered. Thank you! Apple doesn't make it easy to fix this issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted November 17, 2022 Share Posted November 17, 2022 10 hours ago, whitestavern said: Is it possible her email was hacked? Could they have changed the login credentials in her phone? 55 minutes ago, Ting Tang said: We definitely wondered. Thank you! Apple doesn't make it easy to fix this issue. The login credentials are synchronized across Apple devices. It is possible that your mom accidentally keyed in the wrong password and got locked out of her phone. Apple is not very forgiving of typo errors when keying passwords. Even if her email was hacked, the person would still need to know the password for her Apple account. If someone changes her Apple account password, she won’t be able to use her Apple ID on her iPad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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