On modern phones and tablets we store a lot of important and even confidential information. These can be personal photos, correspondence, audio recordings, logins, passwords, details bank cards and other. Often, users do not think about ways to protect such data until, for example, they lose a gadget. In the worst case, it falls into the hands of criminals who will gladly use your information for personal purposes. Sometimes that's the whole point. How to protect personal data?
Encryption and its meaning
To protect data, a regular screen lock password is most often used, for example, a graphic lock or a digital password. But often this method turns out to be unreliable. If you want one, and then all your personal data will be at your fingertips. A more effective way is encryption. The user himself will not feel much difference, but if the gadget is lost, even if attackers can somehow bypass the lock password, they will not have access to your data. This encryption is done quite simply:
- "Settings";
- "Security" and "Encryption".
After this, you will need to enter the code and wait some time until all the data is encrypted; this can take quite a long time, especially if the volume is large. It happens that over time you may see the message Android encryption failed, what should you do in this case?
Encryption failure: how to fix the problem?
In order to avoid such problems, you should always back up your data. For example, the Google cloud can become a reliable storage, this best option for all Android users. If you didn’t do this and saw a message about encryption failure, the main thing is not to rush to press the “Reset phone” button.
First, remove the external memory card, the data on it is not encrypted, this is provided for by the OS developers' policy. Only after this you can press this button, but be prepared for the fact that you may lose your personal data.
Only in rare cases, after rebooting the system, the failure is eliminated; in other cases, it will be necessary to roll back until the failure was detected.
Be careful about data encryption so as not to become a victim of your own vigilance.
In pursuit of greater and greater security of data on phones, software developers decided to resort to the most drastic method - encryption. But, as always, there are a lot of pitfalls and nuances, so you need to think twice before encrypting. What kind of troubles could there be, what does this type of protection provide, and what can you lose if Android encryption fails?
What is encryption and how does it work
User Actions
If you encounter such a message and do not know what to do when there is an encryption error in Android, start by rebooting.
Just do not press the button under the inscription under any circumstances! You need to reboot the device by reconnecting the battery. If you have a non-removable battery, use special button combinations for this action. Every self-respecting manufacturer is obliged to equip a device with a non-removable battery with such a combination - check this on the developers’ websites.
We carry out this operation several times: if the result is the same, it means that most likely you will lose absolutely all data from the device. This will not be so painful for owners of smartphones with the ability to expand memory with cards: Google does not encrypt data from them and you can remove the flash drive, saving the files.
You can prevent any error in functions by simply not including them. If you're wondering how to remove encryption on Android, there's good news: it's disabled by default unless you own Google's Nexus line. There, the feature is enabled by default and can only be removed by flashing it.
In other cases, it is better not to enable encryption at all: the speed of operation is reduced, all background activity is turned off (you can’t even set an alarm), and if you forget your password, say goodbye to your data.
Let's return to the problem. If it didn't help hard reboot, you need to try to do this programmatically, with the flash drive already removed.
Step by step instructions
To fix the encryption error in Android, click the restart button on the screen; you can't go wrong, since she's the only one there. As with the hardset, we do this several times to give the key a chance to load correctly. If our efforts are in vain and nothing works, we need to try to restore the device.
The first method (if you have USB debugging enabled). With the power and volume down keys held down (the key combination may vary depending on the brand and model of the phone or tablet), we connect the phone to the computer. It must have a proprietary program running. If you're lucky, you'll be able to easily restore the default settings.
Second method (if there is recovery). When loading, enter standard CWM (methods vary, check for each developer), use the navigation buttons to navigate to this menu(volume keys) to the “wipe data/factory reset” item and select it with the power button.
Then we agree to delete all user data by clicking on “Yes - delete all user data” with the same key.
After this, you can reboot the restored device by selecting “reboot system now”.
Not a single method helped
We use the most drastic method only in the most severe cases, when there is no debugging mode enabled or when the device is not displayed. This is a flashing of the device.
Firmware instructions
To flash the device, we need to download the required firmware and put it on a flash drive. Next, we repeat the entire second recovery method, only we also delete the “Cache” and “Dalvik” items.
During the operation of any phone or tablet on Android platform you may encounter an error "Encryption failed" preventing the device from starting correctly. This is one of the most difficult problems to solve, which, as a rule, cannot be eliminated using standard methods. Today we will tell you about the basic steps to save information from memory and the nuances of restoring your phone.
Despite the steps described below, you can independently restore the device from "Encryption failure", as a rule, it will not work. This should be taken into account in advance and caution should be exercised at all stages.
Method 1: Basic measures
When an encryption failure occurs and before the only button available on the screen is pressed for the first time "Reset" You need to use the power button on the case to turn off the device and remove the memory card, if one was installed in a special slot. If the memory card compartment is accessible without removing the battery, you can skip the shutdown and immediately remove the external memory.
On a device with the feature pre-enabled "USB Debugging" In chapter "For developers" you can try connecting to your PC via USB cable and pulling out everything important files. However, if the option is deactivated, this cannot be done, so the data will be irretrievably lost in any case.
Having dealt with the preparation, you can use the button "Reset" or "Reset" on the device screen to begin rebooting. In some rare situations, even this may be enough to restore proper operation of the operating system.
Unfortunately, most often this will only lead to permanent data loss, and a notification will appear on the screen again "Encryption failed". To save at least some data, you can use the web version of your Google account to save files in the cloud and disable synchronization on your device.
Method 2: Reflash the device
The only thing that can be done to restore the phone's functionality is to install new compatible firmware. This procedure has been described in detail in other articles on our website and in fact is no different in the current situation. It is best to use official firmware from the manufacturer's website.
Method 3: Service Center
Often enough regular update firmware of the device does not lead to positive results and the same error will appear when turned on. In this case, it would be best to contact service center to specialists, since to fix the problem it is necessary to intervene in the hardware component. Although you can do this yourself, but only with the appropriate knowledge.
Conclusion
We have presented all possible actions in the event of "Encryption failure" on Android and we hope you don't have any questions. One way or another, the problem is serious and it is best to immediately contact professionals to diagnose and restore the device.
An error like this can only appear if the user initially turned it on (on a tablet or other mobile device).
This function protects personal data stored in the memory of the Android device. Encryption in this case is performed by the ICS system using a master key with a depth of 128 bits. If a password or PIN code is set to unlock the screen, then Android by default selects it as the “source” for creating a decryption master key.
After enabling the encryption function, each time the OS is rebooted, the device will request the specified password or PIN.
However, no system works without errors and periodically the Android encryption also fails here, which makes unexpected changes to the 16 kilobyte master key.
Such a failure can occur at any moment, so to ensure you don’t lose the necessary information, always save backups data. To do this, for example, you can make a backup to your Google account.
Otherwise, the cost of decrypting the card will be much more expensive than the cost of all the information stored in the phone’s memory (which will need to be decrypted). In the worst case, decryption will take so much time that the information will long ago lose its relevance.
Android encryption error: what to do?
So, what should you do if your phone says “encryption failed”? This message appears before the graphical shell is loaded for the reason that the module responsible for encryption (Cryptfs) is loaded one of the first. It allows all other modules to decrypt settings, read data from the cache and load a full version of the OS.
- 1. First, you need to remove it from the device microSD card. Due to Google's policy, information on it is not encrypted by default, and, accordingly, this data may still remain accessible.
The worst thing you can do now is press the only soft button on the screen - Reset phone.
After activating it (in most cases), you can say goodbye to the information stored in the /data and possibly /sdcard folder.
- 2. After removing the card, try rebooting your Android device using the mentioned button. If you were unable to resolve the encryption failure on your tablet the first time, try a few more times: perhaps the key is simply not loaded correctly due to an error in the code located on the external card.
Unfortunately, in most cases a reboot does not fix the encryption failure, since either the internal map Android devices or its controller.
- 3. If restarting the phone/tablet did not help resolve the encryption failure, you should “roll back” the firmware and install new version cryptographic module: so that the device can be used.
This will require external card, preferably at least 8 GB (you can use the “old” one if all important data has been backed up), on which temporary partitions /data and /sdcard will be saved.
- 4. Insert the microSD card into your Android device.
The next stage is preparing the phone for flashing. To do this you need to enter the mode Android recovery. Depending on the model and manufacturer of the device, access to this mode can be done in different ways, but the most common key combination is to simultaneously press the power and volume down buttons and hold for one or two seconds.
In recovery mode, find the properties of the SD card and divide it into segments that will be allocated to the above sections. For the /data area, 2 GB of memory should be enough.
For "swap" select 0M. The map preparation process will take some time - during this time you can download latest version ICS corresponding to your phone/tablet model.
After downloading, save it to an already partitioned SD card.
At this point, the recovery mode option should enable the external media option.
When the connection to the computer is secured, do not forget to make a complete “backup” of the information stored on the Android device.
This time, starting the device will take a little longer, but after a reboot, the encryption failure will be “cancelled” and work with the device and external card will continue as before.
– an error that can only happen on those devices where such a function was initially enabled. This is used useful option to encrypt all data stored in the gadget’s memory. The device PIN code is used as a master decryption key for tablets, which selects the OS as its source. And since no system works perfectly, without errors, you need to know if encryption fails on your tablet, what to do?
Encryption failure: what to do?
If the model that is responsible for the encryption procedure is loaded one of the very first, an error occurs. It is he who will not allow all other modules and options to make settings, load a full operating system. To solve the problem, you can try the following steps step by step:
- Without turning off the device, carefully remove the microSD. It is on it that the data will not be encrypted, and therefore it is they that can remain accessible. Do not press Reset. This is the worst thing a user can do for their tablet. Otherwise (if the button was pressed anyway), you can say goodbye to all the data stored in the /data directory, as well as in the /sdcard folder.
- Use the Reset button only after removing the microcard. If the problem cannot be solved after the first try, experts advise rebooting the system several times. in some cases, the key may not be loaded correctly due to an error in the code, which is located on the external card. In the vast majority of cases, the actions taken will not bring any benefit, but this is where you still need to start.
- If the failure cannot be resolved, you will need to reset the OS to factory level or roll it back. After this, you can install the cryptographic module. To complete this task, you will need an external card with a capacity of at least 8 GB. It is recommended to transfer all important documents to it. Type 0M in swap and download ICS. After connecting, you can clear the cache and make a full backup of the information stored on the device. After installing ICS, you can reboot your device.