White blocks in place of the numbers on the lock screen

Question

My phone (Samsung Galaxy S4) updated recently to Android 5.0.1 and now I have a problem with my lock screen.

Instead of the usual number pad with letters I have lots of white blocks in place of the numbers and most of the letters. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Answer 1

This happens on many Samsung Galaxy devices (S3, S4, S5, Note 2 and Note 3). Android forums are full of this and it has nothing to do with language settings.

Long-press power button to restart phone clears it up for some time (days to weeks), then it comes right back. As of this writing, there's no real solution, but apparently it's memory related. Did your phone perchance start giving you occasional random error messages "Unfortunately contacts has stopped working"?

Answer 2

I had this same problem when I updated my S4 software. Within a few weeks I was having white blocks instead of numbers or sometimes it was letters. It also affected PIN lock numbers.

Would you believe I read all the reviews, but in the end I just turned my S4 off and back on nothing else. I didn't reboot, but I was happy when I switched my phone back on and everything was back to normal (no blocks). Please try it before you do anything else

Answer 3

I've had the same problem since the Lollipop update. Samsung told me to do the following:

1. Change PIN lock to pattern lock, then change it back to PIN lock
2. Go to Settings > Security
3. Scroll down to "Make passwords visible"
4. Uncheck and check that option

White boxes are gone. At least for now...

Answer 4

actually if you go into your applications and clear the cache data (which is useless cookies saved from the internet) it fixes it and it should also speed up your phone.