Android: "Your device has been modified."
2013-08-05 Off topic 0 274
Today my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 had unexpectedly turned off. I pressed the Power-button for a few seconds and the phone started normally. Curious about why this had happened I wanted to check if the phone had received an over-the-air update, since "everyone" is talking about the next upgrade to Android 4.2 or 4.3 and Google pushing out the Device Manager update. I pressed Settings, About device, Software update, Update and waited. To my big surprise I got this message in return: "Your device has been modified. Software updates are not available". Rather strange since the phone is running stock Android 4.1.2, and has never been rooted or modified in any way by me, and it was brand new when I started using it. I pressed Settings, About device, Status and scrolled all the way down to Device status and could see that it said Modified. I did some googling and found lots of suggestions on how to reset the phone device status back to normal, most of them involved factory resetting, flashing ROM or rooting the phone. In the end I tried what seemed to be the simplest solution:
- Turn the phone off.
- Remove the phone back cover.
- Remove the MicroSD memory card.
- Restart the phone.
- Insert the MicroSD memory card.
- Replace the phone back cover.