S4 Mini not accepting my verified working Google login

[WhitetailAni]

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini. I only use it as a camera/flashlight (and occasionally I play Radiant Defense), but recently I started getting a message essentially saying (this is not the exact message):

Quote

The GUI has crashed. Restarting it now.

So I decided to factory reset it. It finished resetting and I'm on the "log in to your Google account?" screen.

I'd like to log into my main Google account, but whenever I try, it says:

Quote

Your username and password don't match. Try again.

 

To recover your account info, go to google.com/accounts/recovery.

Thing is, the info I'm giving it is verified working. I even changed my password and tried it. No change.

It is connected to the Internet, and when I go to the link given, I'm able to log in. It's just the system dialog that fails, no matter how I access it - setup, Play Store, Settings. It fails every time.

 

I'm not sure if it's relevant, but I have a 32GB Micro-SD card installed. It's one of the free Microcenter ones.

 

Does anyone have any idea what could be going on or why it's happening? It worked before with my secondary Gmail account.

[Biohazard777]

3 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Galaxy S4 Mini

Released 2013, July

4 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Does anyone have any idea what could be going on or why it's happening?

It is probably trying to contact Google via a seriously outdated API.
If you really, really must continue using an 8 year old phone and you've got time to spare then flash a newer ROM onto it. Something like LineageOS: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/rom-i9190-i9192-i9195-unofficial-11-0-0-lineageos-18-1-for-s4-mini.4189967/ , this will bring your ancient phone from Android 4 to 11.

[WhitetailAni]

1 minute ago, Biohazard777 said:

If you really, really must continue using an 8 year old phone and you've got time to spare then flash a newer ROM onto it. Something like LineageOS: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/rom-i9190-i9192-i9195-unofficial-11-0-0-lineageos-18-1-for-s4-mini.4189967/ , this will bring your ancient phone from Android 4 to 11.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to. It's an SGH-I257, and from what I've learned, they have locked bootloaders.

I tried running the twrp APK for it, but whenever I try and flash twrp, the app crashes.

Is there anything I can do or am I out of luck here?

[Biohazard777]

3 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Unfortunately, I'm not able to. It's an SGH-I257, and from what I've learned, they have locked bootloaders.

I tried running the twrp APK for it, but whenever I try and flash twrp, the app crashes.

Is there anything I can do or am I out of luck here?

Oh that sucks...
One of the reasons why I always buy my devices in retail stores / online (second reason being I don't like paying monthly for stuff I can afford to pay on the spot).
Anyhow, yeah you can't flash a new ROM and even if you could somehow fix it via ADB shell for example, it would be way too much work for such an outdated phone.
You can get some seriously decent new phones for 100-150$ nowadays. I know this isn't the answer you were looking for, but I honestly can't think of a better solution.

[WhitetailAni]

4 minutes ago, Biohazard777 said:

You can get some seriously decent new phones for 100-150$ nowadays. I know this isn't the answer you were looking for, but I honestly can't think of a better solution.

Do you have any specific recommendations?

[BiotechBen]

If you don't mind unlocked previous gen phones, the G7 Plus from motorola is great. That's the phone I'm currently running and it's honestly awesome. It's snappy, takes great pictures, and has a high pixel density for that FHD beauty. The battery is pretty good too. And it has support for 27W fast charging.

[NotFakeName]

4 hours ago, FakeKGB said:

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini. I only use it as a camera/flashlight (and occasionally I play Radiant Defense), but recently I started getting a message essentially saying (this is not the exact message):

So I decided to factory reset it. It finished resetting and I'm on the "log in to your Google account?" screen.

I'd like to log into my main Google account, but whenever I try, it says:

Thing is, the info I'm giving it is verified working. I even changed my password and tried it. No change.

It is connected to the Internet, and when I go to the link given, I'm able to log in. It's just the system dialog that fails, no matter how I access it - setup, Play Store, Settings. It fails every time.

 

I'm not sure if it's relevant, but I have a 32GB Micro-SD card installed. It's one of the free Microcenter ones.

 

Does anyone have any idea what could be going on or why it's happening? It worked before with my secondary Gmail account.

How did you reset your phone? Settings of recovery menu? On the first time when you wanted to use google play, you logged into the secondary account? If so, then log into with your secondary account

[WhitetailAni]

1 minute ago, NotFakeName said:

How did you reset your phone? Settings of recovery menu?

Yep, booted into Recovery Mode and reset the phone. It's how I did it after I got it from my grandma.

1 minute ago, NotFakeName said:

On the first time when you wanted to use google play, you logged into the secondary account?

I logged into Google in the setup menu.

I just tried logging in with my secondary, and it worked...?
What is going on here?

[NotFakeName]

Just now, FakeKGB said:

Yep, booted into Recovery Mode and reset the phone. It's how I did it after I got it from my grandma.

I logged into Google in the setup menu.

I just tried logging in with my secondary, and it worked...?
What is going on here?

Google FRP(factory reset protection) if you don't reset your phone from settings it will store current google account, so that after someone would reset phone from recovery they will need to check if it is you who did the reset and put account that was previously in use(if you added google account to your phone, if not then it would normally work just like you would buy new phone), you're welcome.

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, NotFakeName said:

Google FRP(factory reset protection) if you don't reset your phone from settings it will store current google account, so that after someone would reset phone from recovery they will need to check if it is you who did the reset and put account that was previously in use(if you added google account to your phone, if not then it would normally work just like you would buy new phone), you're welcome.

I just reset from settings, no change. Can't log in to main account.

Settings shows no Google account attached, but I can still log into my second account.

[NotFakeName]

34 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

I just reset from settings, no change. Can't log in to main account.

Settings shows no Google account attached, but I can still log into my second account.

I don't know how it works on older models(but on my old phone, older than yours, I can't even remove google account from settings without factory reset and it hasn't been reseted before, so I don't know if it would do what you have), but since galaxy S5(and i think S4) it works like I wrote.

[NotFakeName]

52 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

I just reset from settings, no change. Can't log in to main account.

Settings shows no Google account attached, but I can still log into my second account.

Ok did some research, you can add another google account, just need to be logged in on your phone and from browser go to https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps and turn that on. Just I don't know if it will allow you to add your normal account as first after you would factory reset phone again after turning that on, or remove that secondary account from settings after adding normal account

[Biohazard777]

7 hours ago, FakeKGB said:

Do you have any specific recommendations?

Saw that you got it working via your secondary account, great.
If / when you decide to retire that phone and you want a new cheap one my suggestion would be to take a look at Xiaomi phones, in the 100-150$ range you've got currently Redmi 9, 9A, 9C (all of which are leagues ahead of S4 mini), if you are willing to spend more (~250$) Redmi Note 10 or Note 9 Pro.

[WhitetailAni]

7 hours ago, NotFakeName said:

Ok did some research, you can add another google account, just need to be logged in on your phone and from browser go to https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps and turn that on. Just I don't know if it will allow you to add your normal account as first after you would factory reset phone again after turning that on, or remove that secondary account from settings after adding normal account

 

5 hours ago, Biohazard777 said:

Saw that you got it working via your secondary account, great.
If / when you decide to retire that phone and you want a new cheap one my suggestion would be to take a look at Xiaomi phones, in the 100-150$ range you've got currently Redmi 9, 9A, 9C (all of which are leagues ahead of S4 mini), if you are willing to spend more (~250$) Redmi Note 10 or Note 9 Pro.

I think I've figured it out.

Back when I had a Chromebook (maybe 3-4 years ago) my parents put Family Link on my account.

I no longer have that Chromebook, but Family Link has never come off.

I'm fairly certain this is why I can't log in, but can on my secondary, since my secondary doesn't have Family Link.

Thanks for the help and advice though!