What a strange issue. Glad to hear you found a work around. Thank you for sharing!
Regarding that Note 4: If you ever get locked out of a device again you can try to reset it. Here is how to do this for an Android phone:
https://support.google.com/android/answer/7663172?hl=en
You can also perform some actions remotely, if you have the option enabled on your Google account:
https://support.google.com/android/answer/6160491