Samsung J3 Phone and FRP Removal

You need a windows PC to get pass it.

http://www.samsung.com/global/download/smartswitchwin/

1. Download and install the app from the above link.

2. Run the app and connect your phone via the bundled USB cable and follow on screen instruction to do a recovery.

It doesn't appear that the J3 is a support device for the latest version of Smartswitch. Any ideas?

Cheers
Chris

You need to update the app first.

I have not tried the procedure in the link below but it is worthy to try.

https://youtu.be/1yXQUFrEWg4

Jackie the "more" button never appears. The software says that the phone is not a supported device. I have updated the app to the latest version.

An update for you...

If I go to the Downloading screen there are some items there which could be a problem....

Software Revision: Check fail BOOTLOADER Device: 3 Binary: 1

Does anyone know what this means? If I have inadvertently deleted the boot partition how do I recreate it? I have downloaded the Odin application for the PC. Can I use this to reinstate the boot partition?

Does anyone know what this means?

There is no valid bootloader.

If I have inadvertently deleted the boot partition how do I recreate it?

It is just too risky to do it even for the experts.

I have downloaded the Odin application for the PC. Can I use this to reinstate the boot partition?

Please post back the exact model number. Samsung J3 is just a generic model name.

If it is Samsung J3 (2018), the model number can be:-  SM-J337U (USA unlocked); SM-J337A (AT&T); SM-J337V (Verizon); SM-J337T (T-Mobile); SM-J337P (Boost, Sprint, Virgin Mobile); SM-J337R (US Cellular); SM-J337W (Canada).

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_j3_(2018)-8928.php

Your answer depends on whether there is official ROM for the model number which you can download.

If there is none, you can pay Samsung for their help but it does not make sense as Samsung J3 is an entry-level model which means that the support fee will be higher than replacement cost.

Hi there, Jackie

The exact model number is SM-J330FN is that enough in the way of ID or do you need more.

Yes - I don't want to pay for support. As you say that would be silly considering the level of the phone, however, I do wish to attempt to recover it as it's for a company we do business with and would be great to be able to give the phone back working.

All the best and thanks for persevering.
Chris

If it's just about saving face, you could just pay for the replacement for a $100
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-2018-16GB-J337A/dp/B07MGKGHGP/ref=sr_1_3?

Just wondering was there user data on this cell phone. Did the return to factory defaults fail, or were you trying to recover the phone data?

Return to factory defaults:
Samsung Galaxy J3 (Android)
Press and hold the Volume up, Home and Power buttons until the Samsung logo appears on the screen.
The start-up screen will appear briefly, followed by the hard reset menu.
Scroll to wipe data/factory reset by pressing the Volume down button.
Press the Power button.

Did the user backup his data using his Google account, or backup using his Samsung account?
If so, then using the return to factory would make more sense as then you just have to restore the data.

Assuming that this is a second phone for the user( or a replacement phone) why are you using the smartswitch app.
Is the J3 his original phone, or the replacement phone?

Think I also tried to use the smartswitch on a J3 a few months ago, and ended up just using the Samsung backup on his old phone, then used the Samsung restore on the replacement phone.

The exact model number is SM-J330FN is that enough in the way of ID or do you need more.

The link below has the files for flashing the firmware (ROM) via Odin.

https://firmwarex.net/samsung-j3-sm-j330fn-official-firmware-5-files/

It seems that someone has attempted to unlock the bootloader but fails.

Well - another one has come in! This time I'll be more careful about what I do with the phone and, hopefully with your expert help, will manage to get this one's FRP removed.

Scenario - the company decided that they didn't want to pay for Google accounts anymore because they had moved to O365. Instead of waiting until all users had logged out of their Google accounts or waiting until we could get past the FRP by logging in with the Google username and password, they deleted the entire Google account. This has caused untold issues with the FRP on the phones because we can now no longer use the account. Stuck!

The current user has forgotten his password on the phone and attempted it too many times. The phone has gone into factory reset. What that means is as soon as you start the phone it goes through the "new phone" process and then up comes the Google FRP asking for a login. Of course there is no login because the account has been deleted at Google, so the user sits at this point forever.

I have purchased a Windows app called iMyFone LockWiper which states it will remove the FRP "easily". Yeah right!

I connect the phone to the laptop, load up iMyFone LockWiper and it sees the phone.
I get the phone into recovery mode
The app asks for the PDA - on this specific phone it's J330FNXXU3BRJ2 - I enter it
The app goes away and says "Searching for the data package..."
That's where I am at the moment.

Is there another way to get the FRP removed without using an app such as iMyFone LockWiper

There are nearly 100 of these phones and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be sent them one by one so would be great if someone could lend a hand with this.

Many thanks
Chris

@Rob Hutchinson

If it's just about saving face, you could just pay for the replacement for a $100

Rob this is not about saving face. It's about me trying to save the company from having to buy a whole bunch of new phones because they made a mistake and deleted the Google account before we had a chance to unhook it from the phones.

See my updated comment above for more details. Hope you can help.

Cheers
Chris

Ah I see now, this is 'not' just a one-off, and I understand now what you are doing...
Looking for more info on this:
"How to bypass “Verify your account” (Factory Reset Protection)"

Okay, without providing specific instructions here( and it might be against EE policy too to post anything as you are bypassing security--sort of)
there is "a lot" of info and YouTube vids when searching for "How to bypass “Verify your account” (Factory Reset Protection) J3"

I'd search through the results; but not sure I'd use any unknown third party software to reset this as you might introduce a whole new set of problems.

Scenario - the company decided that they didn't want to pay for Google accounts anymore because they had moved to O365. Instead of waiting until all users had logged out of their Google accounts or waiting until we could get past the FRP by logging in with the Google username and password, they deleted the entire Google account. This has caused untold issues with the FRP on the phones because we can now no longer use the account. Stuck!

Please ask a related question instead of posting another question here.

Jackie this is not another question - it's exactly the same question. If you had read the update you would have seen that. I now have two J3 phones with the same issue - that I need to remove the Google FRP to continue onwards. Can you help with this? The answer regarding Smartswitch is incorrect because (a) Smartswitch is not designed to remove the FRP and (b) it doesn't work on the J3 phone.

The underlying issue here is FRP. If no-one can help in the current audience I'll wait to see if someone else can.

Thank you
Chris

Removing FRP is a completely new question. I do read it very clearly in your question and I do not see FRP in it.

Nevermind, an Android smartphone is essentialy a personal device if you do not have a MDM on it if it is a corporate-owned one.

You need to unlock the bootloader and root the phone and load a their party firmware/ROM (OS) not from Google. Of course, there are risks involved and FRP is out of the question as you are not using anything from Google or Samsung.

But, in actual practice, I will not help you by answering such a question as it is a one-to-one service which requires time commitment and have physical access to the phone.

Jackie I’m not sure I understand your comment about MDM could you elaborate please?

https://www.manageengine.com/mobile-device-management/android-management.html

MDM (Mobile Device Management) is the software to deploy to Android phone so that you can manage the phone like remote wipe or get rid of the FRP from the personal Google account of the users as the company account (not a Google account) is the device administrator.

Hi Jackie

The problem is that the user forgets his or her password tried too many times and the phone goes into factory reset. Then the user sends the phone to me because they think I know everything (clearly that's not the case! :D) and I'm kinda burdened with getting the FRP removed and the phone rebuilt.

SO... I have a phone currently that I've screwed by removing the boot partition and is now in the "throw away" pile. I have another phone where when it boots it goes into the "new phone" mode if you know what I mean, then immediately once connected to wifi comes up with the Google account verification. ... And that's where I am at the moment.

So I guess this entire question revolves around getting rid of FRP. As someone said earlier in this thread, the phone is not worth spending money on because it's a cheap little phone but it would be great to be able to get around the FRP because I just have this lovely feeling that I'm going to see a good deal more of them floating my way with the exact same issue.

Can you give me any help along the road to getting the FRP removed? At this point there is no way to get to apps or anything else because Google FRP is in the way.

All the best
Chris

Hi again, Jackie

I've changed the question title to make it clearer what the problem is. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

Cheers
Chris

An update - I am going to use something I found by searching Google. I will update the question when I have completed the task, whether it works or not.

If I were you, I will advise the end user not to waste time on removing FRP. FRP is a security feature to prevent stolen phones to be re-used easily.

If FRP can be easily removed by any tricks you found via googling, the Android OS will be a total failure.

Actually, I am really confused why your end users will have the phone locked by entering wrong passwords for their Google accounts many times. By default, there is no such lock feature unless the device administrator of the phone has purposedly enabled such feature. For normal users, there are no such lock to be unlocked. You will only see such FRP lock when you buy a used  phone from eBay where the sellers are not the owners of such phones.

Jackie thanks for the advice. however there are just under 100 J3 phones in the company and because of their mistake (cancelling the Google account before signing each phone out) there is no other way other than to spend a whole bunch of money on replacing every phone. This is not about stealing phones. Its about trying to restore each phone so each user can make use of it without the company having to replace them all. thanks for your advice - I’ve been in this business for nearly 40 years and my ethics are good. as I said before, if you don’t want to help that’s OK - I’ll see what happens. if I succeed it means I will potentially have saved my customer some 30k. it’s worth the attempt in my opinion.

 okay in order for me to see the solution I have to leave a comment to so I'm leaving a comment so I can see the solution LOL