Saturday, April 7, 2018

7.0 nougat - Setting/finding Android 7 encryption password


With some hassle I updated the 2016 firmware on my Lenovo P2 to Android 7 (I think my carrier decided that their own app was more important than security updates).


Now that I wanted to put the TWRP recovery onto the phone instead of the stock one, I find out that the phone is encrypted, which it wasn't before. I have not asked for it (it appears Google does this by default now for Android 7) and I have never entered a password explicitly for encryption.


However, TWRP asks for a password for decryption purposes, I believe.



I use fingerprint/PIN as screen lock. This answer and others suggest it should be the PIN, however while that works fine for a normal startup of the phone, that doesn't work in TWRP.


How would I find or set the right password to use (doubting there is a default password!)?



Answer



It turns out that there either is a bug in TWRP in that it won't accept a blank password (or that there is a default password in Android 7).


In either case, if I set the password under


Settings -> Security -> Screen lock -> [PIN] -> Password -> Require password to start device

(which I have never set before), then this password can be used in TWRP and must then also be used to unlock the phone instead of the PIN.


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