My Pixel 6a has been prompting me for my sim card pin code every time I use the phone for the past couple of days. Now the system has developed amnesia and will no longer recognize my pin code, however, if I transfer the sim card to my old phone, the pin code works just fine. Vry irritating.
Pixel 6a pin code amnesia.
Could be a small hardware issue, such as dust in the sim tray.
If the phone metal pins lose the physical connectivity to the card chip, it will count as
removed+inserted sim, so it will prompt for a pin code again.
Electronics cleaning spray could help.
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23Sha-ger This is a new phone and the sim card has not been removed since GrapheneOS was installed. While contact to the sim could in theory be lost, as you describe, I don't think that it explains the pin code amnesia. Either the phone has physical contact to the sim, or it would not register the sim card. Getting a dialog telling me that the pin is incorrect for the sim card does not fall within that scenario. Sorry, I m not buying your explanation.
anarchosax Can you try a different SIM card?
de0u Sorry, no. I don't understand how that would help anyway, as the sim card is recognized in both phones and the system in my old phone responds correctly to the pin code...
anarchosax The most diagnostic steps I can think of would be flashing the device back to the stock Google OS and then to GrapheneOS again. If the issue is present with the Google OS then it's probably some kind of hardware problem and a warranty replacement would likely fix it. If the issue goes away with Google's OS, and restoring GrapheneOS brings the problem back, then it might make sense to file a bug report with GrapheneOS.
But those steps are kind of disruptive compared to briefly trying a different SIM card.
Which potential debugging steps you choose to take is up to you.
are you sure you didn't opt in to reboot the device every some small interval?
de0u I have reinstalled Android and am currently running Android 14. I have powered off and started up a couple of times. When I get prompted for the pin code for my sim card, I enter it as usual and have yet to experience a problem with the system not recognizing the pin code.
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OK, I did not have any problems witht the pin code for my sim card at any point while using Android 14. I have now re-installed GrapheneOS, and at this point have yet to install any apps that didn't come with GrapheneOS. i will need to install some apps, but will first do that tomorrow. At this point, everything is stock. I have both checked the boot key hash and have also used the auditor app. Both are fine.
@ krysor asked if I didn't "opt in to reboot the device every small interval". I did not do that at the time, and I haven't done it now. No idea where I would change anything like that. Everything at this point, is stock. OEM unlocking has been disabled again, and developer options been turned off.
My device recieved it's first OTA update a few minutes ago. Rebooting after the install, everything appears fine so far. The pin code for my sim card was accepted. Interestingly, I haven't had any OTA installs and restarts without my intervention so far, this time around, which was an issue before.
anarchosax My device recieved it's first OTA update a few minutes ago. Rebooting after the install, everything appears fine so far. The pin code for my sim card was accepted.
That's encouraging. Thanks for reporting back!
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de0u My phone just received another OTA update. The message was that some apps had been updated and that there was a need for a restart. On restart, there was a new issue - the display was suddenly set at absolute minimum, so it was almost impossible to see where the number pads were or what pin code was being requested. Luckily I was in a relatively dark room, or I wouldn't have been able to figure out what action to take...
Not sure why the display settings were affected if there were no system updates...
anarchosax My phone just received another OTA update. The message was that some apps had been updated and that there was a need for a restart.
Hmmm. It is probably helpful going forward to record and report exact messages. An OS update is different from an app update. I don't think app updates require a system restart. Overall, from the description it's hard to be sure what took place.
Since the reinstallation, you don't seem to be randomly prompted for your SIM PIN?
de0u Since the reinstallation, you don't seem to be randomly prompted for your SIM PIN?
No. However, I just got hit with the pin code amnesia again after installing the latest system update. It is really starting to piss me off.
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de0u At this point, my phone is again non-functional, as I can't access anything, being unable to get past the sim pin code. Please advise.
anarchosax This does sound frustrating. Sorry to hear you're having this issue.
The fact is I don't recall ever seeing another person here on the forum with this issue, so I think the probability of you having a software problem vs having a hardware problem is very low, especially considering you've already completely erased and flashed your phone again. Is it possible for you to try getting a SIM reissued where you live? Also, what happens if you reset a few times? You can also try ejecting and reinserting the SIM card between reboots to see if that has any effect.
anarchosax Please advise.
Looking back at this thread, it seems as if when you re-flashed Google's OS onto the phone it went for a day or two without SIM PIN problems, then you went back to GrapheneOS for nine days and it also didn't have SIM PIN problems, but now it does. If there is a problem with the phone hardware involving the SIM tray, but the problem doesn't show up daily, that might be provable by switching back to Google's OS for a while (say, a month). If doing that, it might be good to subscribe to a beta-release channel, in case the issue is somehow triggered by updates.
Another option might be trying a different SIM card. This might help even if nothing is outright wrong with the SIM card -- it is possible that the SIM reader in your device is a little marginal and that makes it picky about SIM cards that themselves don't have something outright wrong about them.
A third option might be switching to an eSIM. If there is a problem with the physical SIM reader but not the eSIM chip, that could be helpful. On the other hand, if there were a hardware problem "higher up", then ejecting the eSIM might not be an option, so you might in theory end up completely locked out of the device.
If it sounds as if I'm trying to figure out which piece of hardware to blame, that's because so far the symptoms sound consistent with an intermittent hardware problem, and meanwhile other users are not reporting similar problems, which (as other8026 points out) would be expected if this were a software problem.
Which carrier are you using?
de0u OK, I see. I am using Oister as carrier.
anarchosax I am using Oister as carrier.
Interesting -- it doesn't appear anybody else on the forum has said they are. I don't particularly suspect this is a carrier issue, but maybe seeing Oister named might call forth suggestions from other users.