The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge variants which carry the Verizon branding were updated to Android 6.0 Marshmallow a few months back. However, there have been various bugs in the software and Verizon has been constantly releasing maintenance updates to address these issues. Among those bugs, one in particular is quite nasty, it can cause a device to lose all its data. The latest software update will help prevent both devices from performing an unintentional Factory Data Reset (FDR) after fingerprint recognition has failed numerous times, 10 to be exact.
Samsung’s software is supposed to allow a user to use fingerprint recognition up to ten times, and if that fails, the device will prompt the user to enter a backup PIN or password. However, this hasn’t been the case for some of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge devices on Verizon. The prompt will not appear after fingerprint recognition has failed and instead, the device will automatically perform a full factory data reset resulting in the loss of a user’s personal data. This issue has been resolved for both devices with the latest software update. After installing the update, all users should get 10 tries to unlock their device using fingerprint recognition. If all 10 tries fail, users will be prompted to enter their backup PIN or password and will get 5 chances to do so. Only after failing all 15 attempts to unlock the device will the device automatically perform a factory data reset to wipe all personal data on the device.
The software update will come in the form of an Over The Air (OTA) update and users will just need to be connected to a Wi-Fi network to allow the update to automatically download. If the device doesn’t automatically download and install the update, users just need to head over to the Software Update section in the Settings and just select Check For Updates. The new update will then appear, and will be ready for you to download it. The new software update will bring the software version on the Galaxy S6 to MMB29K.G920VVRU4CPF2 while the software version on the Galaxy S6 Edge will be MMB29K.G925VVRU4CPF2.