N200 weirdness

[Rgarner]

My friend's phone messed up today. He was in a meeting when he got a call and he shut if off entirely. Later he tried to make a call but got stuck with some googoo crap about signing in with his email address or phone number. At least that's what it was showing when he brought it to me. Some alleged computer expert couldn't fix it. When I saw it I just typed in his email address though I hated to do it, and that apparently fixed it. I noticed, however, that instead of having an app drawer, his N200 brings up a keyboard and asks him to type the name of the app (!?). I have never seen such nonsense (of that particular type). Before somebody mentions Nova, allow me to mention that although I might very well choose that for myself, he has almost no idea of how to operate these things. Then again, if I did, I probably wouldn't keep asking all these crazy questions. Another thing: there is an app that he absolutely loves and which I could have sworn I downloaded for him, but it wasn't listed, even in settings. I did get the apk, but now it wants his password. Of course he has no notion of what it is and neither do I, which is why I asked for a reset. I keep checking email and it still isn't there, spam either. I've noticed that he does not seem to have a googoo account associated with the device (thank goodness) and that the googoo apps are correspondingly bare (mere m or even k rather than gb). Does this have something to do with it? I've been checking his email account on my phone, and the other stuff he regularly gets that way is there. I don't want to risk opening the floodgates over that single app.

 

[AugieTN]

Maybe it's just me, but your paragraph is really hard to understand.

 

[Rgarner]

I'm sorry. I probably should have subdivided it. Why would googoo bother him to sign in and make the phone unusable otherwise? I know money has something to do with it but making people mad isn't going to win them friends. Why is there no app drawer? No one should have to type in the name of an app in order to find it. The Moto G Play has the apps just a swipe up away, no typing required. Why has Gmail not delivered the password reset request hours later? I'm using the Moto because it unfortunately does have a googoo account associated with it.

 

[ocnbrze]

sorry but i completely hate oneplus as a phone brand. they are on the cusp of being called off-brand IMHO.my friend had one and has always had issue like your friend is having. it was just one thing after another. i told him to toss it and get something else........not trying to diss your friend, just being real with some of these budget phones.

it should have an app drawer. again maybe try nova as the launcher rather than the crappy one that comes with the phone.

and i think it might have to do with the fact that there is no google account attached to the phone.

 

[mikedt]

Sounds like it hit factory reset protection, where a device may request to verify registered account details. Did your friend acquire the phone used, from someone else? As for the launcher, no idea, I've never had a OnePlus device. But I know they use something called OxygenOS, which is OnePlus's own flavour of Android. OnePlus phones originally came with CyanogenMod, but that's a long time ago now.

 

[Rgarner]

I wish they still had Cyanogen. He got his phone apparently brand new from a phone store. He really hates it and wants to switch carriers. I guess we'll see.

 

[nickdalzell]

When I read 'N200' got confused and thought you were referring to a Nokia N-series smartphone, and was going 'um...no wonder they're having issues!'

 

[mikedt]

sorry but i completely hate oneplus as a phone brand. they are on the cusp of being called off-brand IMHO.my friend had one and has always had issue like your friend is having. it was just one thing after another. i told him to toss it and get something else........not trying to diss your friend, just being real with some of these budget phones.

it should have an app drawer. again maybe try nova as the launcher rather than the crappy one that comes with the phone.

and i think it might have to do with the fact that there is no google account attached to the phone.

IMHO OnePlus is off-brand in their home country, China. But on the other hand BBK's other phone brands, Oppo and Vivo, I see plenty of them, and are quite popular here. Plus I've had Oppo phones myself, and was always happy with them. In fact I saw an R11 I bought in 2017, I sold on is still in daily use with the current owner, when I took a recent trip to Hohhot.

 

[Rgarner]

Now the darn thing's apparently been hijacked. He went to some sketchy sites and he's been getting pictures and other junk, $12,000 from a bank (if only), etc. I thought I fixed it by cutting off notifications from chrome, but I guess not. Just this morning the screen was really dark and the brightness slider turned out to ineffective. I rebooted for him and that took care of it for a while. Then it started getting dark again, but this time I was able to take care of it easily. It got bright before I even adjusted it. Maybe the threat of using the slider was enough. That happened more than once, and there have been some redirects to unwanted pages. What is going on and how do we stop it?

 

[Rgarner]

Here's the latest. His phone had some message in Chinese, I guess, on the lock screen. It was in red and blue. When I checked it out it seemed to have been factory reset. I couldn't get it to take his email address at first, but it worked on the second try. When it set up the googoo account (nasty), it shoved in four extra apps. Maybe we should be thankful that they at least admitted that and the horrible things could be uninstalled. Is his phone infected? I warned him but I don't believe he's taking it seriously.