[UPDATE: It seems newer devices don’t have a cache partition? So I guess the question simply becomes “How do I get into my phone when it won’t accept the correct PIN?”]
I’m locked out of my phone, and entering the correct PIN does not work. I’ve seen instructions online saying to boot into recovery mode, select Factory Reset, and in that menu there should be an option to “wipe cache partition”. When I do this, that option is not there. I definitely do not want to wipe my phone! How do I wipe the cache, or otherwise gain access to my phone?
(Yes, I’m definitely entering the correct PIN. Ironically I got here by showing someone what happens when you do the wrong thumbprint too many times!)
Yes, “Factory Reset” will wipe out your userdata partition which is where all of your apps, files, etc. are all stored, so do not do that.
But to your issue, I don’t know of a way to get into your phone if the pin isn’t accepted. I am sure you know your pin, as after each reboot it is required (fingerprint is only accepted after that first pin entry). I’ll do a bit of looking but I am sure you have already done this.
Okay, so somewhere online I saw a suggestion to let the battery run out, so I set out the phone to do just that. By this point I’d tried the PIN so many times that it was an 800+ second wait between attempts.
When it was down to about 10% I tried one more time, and it worked! I have no idea why it didn’t work, then did work. Maybe the system cleared the cache after a certain amount of time?
but the issue is resolved. See my other comment.