Missing Keyboard on Lock Screen I got a system message that the keyboard had crashed. Then my keyboard won't restart. And now that my phone is locked, I can't unlock it to try any of the normal fixes, such has disabling and enabling the keyboard. Yes, I have restarted the phone, that's why it's locked now.

I need to save some of the contacts, so a simple factory reset won't work. ADB does seem to be enabled, but I don't know how export the contacts, or install a keyboard.

How can I either restore the keyboard, or export the contacts.
First things first. There's something that I'm confused about. You said that the keyboard crashed, but did you try turning the phone off and restarting it? That should reinstate the keyboard and you should be able to unlock upon restart.

You can also remove the battery from the phone to "kill it" and power it up again, in case it is needed to accomplish the above mentioned. Although removing the battery would be rendered irrelevant on phones with concealed (non removable) batteries (without opening the case, ofcourse).



In any case, to backup contacts from your phone, you can use the command "adb pull" to retrieve the following file:


  adb pull /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts2.db


https://chombium.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/android-how-to-backup-contacts-and-sms-messages/

EDIT: You will probably get a permission denied error, in which case you would need root access to do this. Post that, you could also try "adb shell" and copy the file to /sdcard