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isecureme

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2009
6
0
Yea, I know the obvious advice is to not lock myself out of my iphone...:(

I have a password on my iphone in order to comply with the Activesync policies for connecting to my Exchange email. Somewhere in the middle of working 30 hours straight on some technical difficulties at work, I was prompted that it was time to change my password, which I did. Once I got home and went to sleep, it was gone... I can't remember what I changed it to..

1. I'm not concerned about my email. I can re-associate my phone to Exchange once I get it back up in order to get my calendar and email.

2. I wasn't sure what would happen if I connected it to iTunes, so I did and it did its normal backup routine (at this point I wish it hadn't) before showing me all my restore options etc. It seems to only have 1 backup available to me at a time so the one that's there has this "new" password on it.

3. I performed a remote wipe (worked great) and then reconnected it to iTunes which promptly activated my phone so I could use it again but once I "restored" it fro iTunes, the password was back on it and so I was out in the cold again.

4. Talked to AT&T who verified me and then asked if it was a password on the SIM or the security password.. I told them that it wa whetever one that the activesync policy uses. They told me they can't help with that one and gave me a number at Apple. That number told me that if I was outside of 90 days and didn't have an Apple Care contract that they would "take" my call for a fee. Since I don't even know if they could help, I'm not going to pay them just for them to tell me they can't do it.....

Anyone else ever have this issue and have a way for me to get things back to normal?

Thanks!
 

skball123

macrumors regular
Sep 11, 2007
110
0
Since you are not worried about restoring, go into iTunes, delete your backup, and THEN restore. After restore, it won't put your backup back on, and you can put all your items back on and enjoy once more.:apple:

Or, simply if you want to keep that backup, after restore, click NEW PHONE. It will not put your backup (password) on it, and you still have it.
 

isecureme

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2009
6
0
I'm not concerned about the email part..... and most of my apps are free apps... but I do have a few paid apps (logmein etc) and lockbox that I would want to get my data back from. I see those apps in iTunes right now even without my phone attached. Does that mean if I just hook it up and don't doa restore that I can put those apps back on my phone and have my "stuff" back?
 

skball123

macrumors regular
Sep 11, 2007
110
0
If the application shows in iTunes a simple click will put it back after restore.

BUT I see lockbox stores passwords. If it only stores its database locally, which I think it does, it will no longer have your database of passwords. It will be like starting from scratch
 

acfusion29

macrumors 68040
Nov 8, 2007
3,128
1
Toronto
I'm not concerned about the email part..... and most of my apps are free apps... but I do have a few paid apps (logmein etc) and lockbox that I would want to get my data back from. I see those apps in iTunes right now even without my phone attached. Does that mean if I just hook it up and don't doa restore that I can put those apps back on my phone and have my "stuff" back?

You'll get your apps back but unfortunately, not your data within the apps.
 

rorschach

macrumors 68020
Jul 27, 2003
2,269
1,841
This might help: http://menoob.com/iphone/how-to-rec...s-photos-contacts-notes-sms-call-history-etc/

It tells you how to selectively restore specific data.

extractor4.jpg


You *might* need to jailbreak, but maybe not. Article says yes, some of the comments say no.
 

isecureme

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2009
6
0
Thanks... It seems to get back any of the app info I need that I would have to jailbreak it and I don't know if you can jailbreak it without knowing the password. What's weird is that most of the articles I'm finding keep referring to the password as a "4" digit code that looks like it is placed into 4 boxes when these folks are entering their passcode. Mine isn't that way at all. When it prompts me it comes up as just one long rectangle. Were the 4 digit squares the original version or something? My password has to be a minimum of 6 characters so it wouldn't even fit into what they are showing.

I guess this would be a good opportunity for me to try and prove/disprove the theories around how secure or not the iPhone is for having your work email on and I could try and break into it.

Are there no other ways to just get rid of the password since I am the owner and have the iTunes info etc? While I realize that I'm the id10t that forgot their own damn password, I still think it sucks that they have no way of helping you get around it should that happen. I can't be the only id10t in the world who has forgotten one of their passwords...
 

tctony

macrumors 6502a
Jun 15, 2009
684
0
You'll need to jailbreak to use that above method. You can use blackra1n to jailbreak without having to unlock the phone, but you'll more than likely need to install OpenSSH to use that method, which you won't be able to do without unlocking the phone.
 

isecureme

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2009
6
0
LOL.... I somehow knew that was coming when I was first posting this this morning..

I found another backup in my Windows.old directory of my Win7 box so I'm going to attempt to just restore from there. It's from November so at least I would have "most" of the info in my lockbox etc. It's in progress right now so we'll see how it goes.

I'm still torn between wanting to just get everything back to normal and wanting to see just how easy it would be for someone to get my email if I lost my phone and didn't wipe it. If it's really complicated then my assumption would be that it would take a fairly technical person who even cared about my email to do it. If that's the case then they would probably also have the skills to do it with a Blackberry as well. That's the on-going argument against having iPhones in the enterprise anyway.
 

MrDinga

macrumors newbie
Jul 25, 2010
1
0
Solution

I'd like to believe that this issue is long resolved by now. However, I figured since it never got mentioned, I would explain what (I think) happened here for the next people to venture across this page with a similar issue.

It sounds like you changed your network password at work and that is the password that you forgot. However, perhaps you didn't forget it? What happens when you've got an iPhone connected to an Exchange server that isn't actively being managed by Goodlink or some other administration software is that you need to manually update your NETWORK password in SETTINGS | MAIL, CONTACTS, CALENDARS | <Account Name> | ACCOUNT INFO. If you don't update that password, your iPhone WILL lock out your network account.

After that happens, you can then go into the area noted above and enter your correct password until you're blue in the face but you'll keep getting the prompt for your password since your account is locked out. It will need to be unlocked to get it back up and running.

What ISecure was locked out of was NOT his 4 digit iPhone pass code - it was his network account.
 

isecureme

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2009
6
0
I'm afraid that wasn't the case......

My network password only controls access to my email. Each time that I change it, my iPhone prompts me for my new password and I give it to it. My team supports both the domain and the Exchange system so resetting those is easy.

No, my problem was much more dire and, as it turned out no recoverable by Apple or anyone else for that matter.

Our Exchange system does Direct Push. We have enabled policies that control certain aspects of the relationship between the portable devices and the Exchange system. One of those policies is that you MUST have a password on your phone. When not being enforced by this policy, people just have the option of the 4 blocks to put a 4 digit password in. When the activesync policy is in place, it actually opens it up and you can use both letters and numbers in order to comply with complexity requirements.

That was the password that I reset in the middle of the night while working on some major printing issues. I didn't note it anywhere and when I woke up the next morning I could not think of it to save my life. Apple had no way of resetting it. There are no management tools available from anyone that will let you reset it. I decided to restore from a backup to get back to a password that I remembered. Mistake number 2! When I hooked my phone to my computer and started iTunes, I forgot that I had it set to automatically do a sync. Well, it synced and overwrote my last backup (why it only keeps one I don't know) with the current image with the password that I didn't know. DOH!!

Luckily I had a PC backup from a month or 2 earlier that I was able to pull an older sync from and get "most" everything back.

It's months and a new OS later and it seems that there is still no way to recover/reset these passwords for our users who have iPhones. Good nor MobileIron seem to have this in their feature sets either.

Anyway, just wanted to clarify what password I had my issues with.
 

eastercat

macrumors 68040
Mar 3, 2008
3,323
7
PDX
Lucky that you had an old backup. I know you've figured this out by now; when you change your password in the middle of the night after a 30 hour stretch of work, you might want to write it down. :D
 
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