Is it possible to visit a localhost page of my pc on Android without wifi route? I don't have a wifi router.  I want to visit xampp localhost from my mobile. I have two android phone.  Is it possible with any app to use a phone like wifi router and another phone to visit the localhost pages?

You do have a hotspot available!

You can configure your own phone as WiFi hotspot, and connect to it from the PC!


Pixel 3 / 3 XL icons change Is it possible to change the pixel 3 / 3 XL icons to 3rd party icons on the stock launcher?

I understand its possible to change icons sets by installing new launchers. However, I would like to know if its possible to change icon set in stock launcher which comes with Pixel devices.

Thanks.

For the moment you camt. However, there is a modified version of the Pixel launcher, Rootless Launcher that can use icon packs

  Features:

  Search bar at the bottom
  Wallpaper based theme selection
  Regular Icon Packs
  Adaptive Icon Packs, such as my Google Icons
  Icon Shape selection on Android 8.0


In Samsung Galaxy S3 mini TalkBack is always speaking when switching home screens From one day to the next, TalkBack started to tell me on which home screen I am. It is always using the Google voice, even if I set it to Samsung TTS.

Texts:

Page 2 of 5. (German pronunciation)
Der Ordner ist geöffnet.
Der Ordner ist geschlossen.

(My locale is German)

TalkBack was switched of before and when I go to settings, the text entry of TalkBack reads "off". When I enter into the TalkBack settings however the slider is switched to "on". Switching it of does not help as it always stays on but displaying off in the textual list view.

My next try was deactivating the TalkBack app completely. This did not solve the problem either.

Is there a setting I do not know about or another trick I could try?

Problem can also be caused by airDroid. Go to settings accessibility and ensure AirDroid notifications are turned off. It took nearly 2 hours to find this one as I had done everything suggested in this thread. Frozen screens just remember to use 2 fingers


What's causing my phone to freeze? I Have a Samsung Galaxy S2.
I had it for around 2 weeks, when it first turned itself off and wouldn't turn back on again. The keyboard would glitch and stop working. and apps like Facebook, or Google Play, Internet etc would freeze then the error  'Application' Is not responding send error report etc.

I've just got it back from repairs, and the applications are still stopping responding, it hasn't crashed yet though. Any ideas what could be making it do this considering they've completely wiped the phone and screened it etc?

I removed Facebook and it seemed to have helped my phone run better. Before I was getting flooded with invites from the same person and my phone was constantly freezing.


Stream video over Samba or nfs to Android device I have a file server on the LAN that serves Samba and NFS. What applications can connect with any of those protocols and stream video from it, without unlocking/rooting?

VLC media player for Android? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.vlc.betav7neon


What is the "Attempting HD" icon when placing calls? I have an HTC One with Sprint, and I recently updated to Android 5.0.2.  After the update, my calls now say "Attempting HD" in the corner.  I tried googling for "attempting hd android", "attempting hd htc one" and "attempting hd sprint" with poor results. What is this?  Can I disable it if I don't want it?

This icon comes from Sprint's HD Voice feature.  The "Attempting HD" icon appears in all calls, but the feature only activates on Sprint-to-Sprint calls where both devices are supported.


How to dual boot Ubuntu on Asus Eee Pad Slider (SL101)? I am able to run Ubuntu in chroot environment on my Asus Slider sl101 (cousin of the original tf101 asus eee pad transformer).

But, for various reasons I would like to be able to actually boot into Ubuntu or Android at will.

I am currently running Cyanogenmod 9 ICS and have the device rooted.

Another thing to note is that any attempt in the past to use NVflash ... seems to fail
On top of that NVflash ubuntu dual boot instructions are usually fairly ... vague.

Being a Linux user, ideally I would LOVE it and be in complete bliss if I could choose to login to android the same way I can choose to login to Gnome or Unity or XBMC etc... login to an Android session and just have the option of logging into Unity or Android....

Since Android is really more like a  Java runtime environment, it would be ideal to just have Ubuntu as main and just be able to start up the Android runtime environment whenever I needed... But I am not able to do this kind of thing with my limited knowledge and do not understand what the raodblocks are.

That being said, anyone know how to get my sl101 dual booting ubuntu?

UPDATE 20120821

i found a couple instructions that look very promising.

These sights may go down in the future but I will be sure to post detailed instructions if they are successful.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1537566

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=23428126&postcount=3

I will be trying the files for both sites.

UPDATE 20120823

I've had a few CRIPLING problems so far.

1) the android.zip file from one site works but the one from the other site does not.
Be sure to get the android.zip file associated with your ROM that you are using. In my case , I'm using CM9 RC2 so I had to use the CM9 android.zip file found here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?labcx60jowrdx

or if that server is down in the future you might try to find it from this site again:
http://www.mediafire.com/?labcx60jowrdx

2) the ubuntu.zip file works from the oposite site but the one from the other site does not. The one that does not work is called ubuntu-31patch.zip and it was made to flash a more up to date kernel and 3.1.10 kernel modules were also provided but this zip does not work for some reason and I can't figure out why. The one that works for me is here 2.6.24.4 i think is the kernel version number:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/60048492/transformer/Ubuntu-mountloop.zip

if that does not work, you might find a new link here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1537566

3) The sl101 sliding keyboard does not work but if you plug in an external usb keyboard, the usb keyboard will work. no idea how to get around this problem but .... having the sl101 is useless if the sliding keyboard can't get working. How lame to have to carry around a usb keyboard when there is one attached already ... really want to get this working.

4) wireless internet does not work. I assume that is part of what the 3.1.10 patch was for but the patch doesn't work so I'm still working on this.

UPDATE 20120824

Finally got the android-mount.zip file working. I switched the kernelblob with the one that works with my wifi on cyanogenmod 9 and it works like a charm now. In fact, if you have wireless issues with your sl101 or tf101 you might just flash the zip file I made it it might fix them...

I'll make the file available with the answer but still trying to get the sliding keyboard working under ubuntu.

This is what happens when trying to use the ubuntu31.zip the file that boots ubuntu with 3.1.10 kernel

these are random errors with the kernel 2.6.36.4 ubuntu-mount.zip file. i wish i understood

Think i found the answer, there's no ramdisk in the blob from the 3.1 patch.. not sure if that's needed or not.. or if we're supposed to patch on top of the 2.6.24.4 kernel, basically i unblobbed it and found just a zImage, the 2.6.24.4 blob has both zImage and a ramfs..


Wifi keeps disconnecting and reconnecting frequently I have an android phone running 4.2.2. I am using TP-LINK ADSL router and the connection is stable. But everytime I open an app that tries to access internet, my connection keeps connecting and disconnecting frequently. I have other phone running on same version of android but the connection is stable on it. What could be the problem. Any useful suggestions are welcome.

I had a similar problem in that my tablets would connect/disconnect and my laptops would be just fine.

So here was my solution. This may or may not help but worth a try. You don't say what the other phone is. Different OS or whatever.

Anyway log into the router and look at the wi-fi settings.
First go to Accessories, Command Prompt, type in ipconfig and look at your gateway IP and put that number in your browser address bar and do a CR>. (I type in a different number than my Gateway IP, maybe because I have Mediacom as my IP provider)
Now you will see a box that comes up and something that calls for a Username & Password.
Type in ADMIN, PASSWORD. Either all CAPS or all lower case. If that doesn't work, just try the word "username". If that doesn't work then you need to call your IP and have them reset because ADMIN and PASSWORD is the default.
Anyway if you get in, go to SETUP Wireless Settings.Your channel should be on Auto, and your Security settings should be set to:
WPA-PSK[TKIP] + WPA2-PSK[AES
Grant you I have an "older" router. There may be newer stuff out there. But since this is the only answer you got so far, it's worth a shot to try and see if it gets better.

The other problem may be a short in the antenna which means cracking open the phone and soldering it, possibly blowing the warranty. Actually, I don't think I'd mess with that myself unless I figured I had nothing to lose and had tried all other options.
 I'd also try using a buddie's Mi-FI or another cell as a hot spot and see if that works. If it's a no-go, it probably is the antenna.


How to perform a factory reset without access to owner profile? I recently bought the RCA Voyager 7" tablet from Walmart.

I opened the settings app and added a slide password to my device. When I was finished I clicked 'OK' and the settings app closed and a message popped up saying

  Settings has unexpectedly closed.

I was unable to open the application until I rebooted my tablet. Upon rebooting it asked me for a password and I performed the slide gesture I had set as my password. It said the pattern was incorrect.

(Btw the tablet is running android 4.4)

I tried it again with similar results. Then again. Then again. It finally asked me if I had forgot my password and I tapped yes. It asked me to input my account information (email and password) and I did.

Then a message popped up saying:

  The username or password you have input is incorrect. Please try again.

I decided to input my username in the email text field and it still replied with the above pop up.

I remembered reading online that if I turn the device off and hold the power button and the volume down button simultaneously it would bring up a screen that allows me to wipe my phone.

I know this works because I tried it on my Android 4.0 phone after I downloaded a malicious Ubuntu 'unity' launcher from the Play Store. However the device simply booted up without displaying the options I wanted. I tried inserting a pin into the reset slot but it also didn't work.

I have no access to my device and everything has failed so far. Please help me. To recap, how can I go about resetting the device? There has to be some way to do it.

Follow the detailed instructions below on how to completely reset your RCA Android 7 Voyager (RCT6773W22) tablet.

Step 1. With your tablet off, press and hold the volume up (+) button and power button until you see the RCA splash screen with Nipper and Chipper. Release both  buttons to reveal the Android bot on his back with a caution symbol above him.

Step 2. A new screen will appear asking you to use your volume up/down keys to move and the power button to select.

Step 3. Use the volume down (-) button to highlight "wipe data/factory reset." Once highlighted, select using the power button.

Step 4. A new screen will appear asking you to confirm your selection. Use your volume down (-) button to highlight "Yes -- delete all user data." Press the power button to select once highlighted.

Step 5. Once the tablet is finished wiping data, you may press the power button to select "reboot system now." This will restart your tablet.

Step 6. The system will begin to reboot and once again display the RCA logo with Nipper and Chipper. The next "Welcome" screen will prompt you to select your language of choice. Scroll through the options using your finger and press start when finished. Congratulations, you have successfully reset your RCA 7 Voyager tablet.


Any way to stop ridiculous translations in Google PlayStore? Most of the translations are nonsense in Google Playstore. Looks stupid, amateurish and most of all they are annoying.

Words by words meaning nothing!  My mother language is finnish and Im using finnish keyboard layout/language settings on my devices and not going to change them. I dont want to change my account info nor my language settings to english either.

I just want to see get rid of these stupid autotranslated infos in Playstore.

Most of them are just rubbish "A man has a spruce childish cat and his dock the bank a dog is letting manipulate processor and litter more green guy. Screen broken man shooting wife borrowed a child desktop. AMAZING APP! 95/100 stars!" - that sentence can be anything...

Im quessing im not wrong if I say that 99% means nothing when autotranslated. Only few infos are correct.

I cant believe that you cannot turn off the translation in Playstore!?

You can force the language that app descriptions are shown in on the web version of the Play Store by changing the language code in the link. This is shown in the URL as hl=language, for example hl=en for English, hl=fi for Finnish or hl=fr for French.

So for example, to see an English description for the GMail app you'd got to this link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.gm&hl=en

Or in Finnish:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.gm&hl=fi

Or to see it in French go here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.gm&hl=fr

Or in German go here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.gm&hl=de

You'll see that all that's changed between those is the &hl= bit at the end of the link, yet the whole Play Store page including the description and reviews has changed to the relevant language.


ADB not recognizing Moto G I've recently acquired a Motorola Moto G, and I plan to use it for development.
I downloaded ADT, updated the SDK tools and the KitKat platform, but Eclipse still doesn't recognise my device. I'm using 4.4.2 and the respective SDKs. USB debugging is enabled, and tried connecting with and without media sharing enabled.

Any idea of how to fix it?

Solved the problem by installing Motorola Device Manager and re-plugging the phone.

I felt so silly after finding that link.


How to connect new user to hotspot while vpn running? I'm running marshmallow  (6.0.1) rooted. I run the following commands

iptables -F

iptables -t filter -F FORWARD

iptables -t nat -F POSTROUTING

iptables -t filter -I FORWARD -j ACCEPT

iptables -t nat -I POSTROUTING -j MASQUERADE

ip rule add from 192.168.43.0/24 lookup 61

ip route add default dev tun0 scope link table 61

ip route add 192.168.43.0/24 dev wlan0 scope link table 61

ip route add broadcast 255.255.255.255 dev wlan0 scope link table 61

So I can tether the vpn connection. My problem is once tethered no new client can connect it stays at obtaining iptables address. How can I fix this?

Normally in plain hotspot mode (without VPN setup), clients will get
  an IP address from the phone's DHCP server.

  However, when the OpenVPN client is running, by default it is
  redirecting all traffic to the OpenVPN server, meaning any client
  traffic is also being redirected. Hence, the clients aren't talking to
  the phone's DHCP server any more - they are talking to the OpenVPN
  server, and if that doesn't provide an IP address via DCHP then the
  clients connection attempts will "hang".

There are possible workaround to keep tethering functionality on other connecting clients:

Using postrouting and forwarding rules

You can just add just  post-routing  and forwarding rules i.e

iptables -t filter -F FORWARD
iptables -t nat -F POSTROUTING
iptables -t filter -A FORWARD -j ACCEPT
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -j MASQUERADE

(this is the solution I'm using currently),

Setup IP addresses manually

You may need to assign other clients IP manually (static IP
address) to bypass DCHP server.

Exclude hotspot subnet from tunnel

  The fix is to identify the subnet used by the hotspot service and
  manually add it to Excluded Networks for the connection. i.e
  192.168.43.0/24.
  Now when the tunnel is initiated the hotspot subnet is always excluded from routing through the tunnel regardless of startup
  sequence and tethering always works.

or simply excluding 192.168.43.0/24 (and including  0.0.0.0/0) rules from iptables.

Acknowledgements

Wi-Fi hotspot enabled on host device with OpenVPN connected... connected client devices have no internet


How to use face unlock in Sony Xperia Z2 running Cyanogemod 12? In Cyanogenmod 12, how do you unlock based on your face? I went to "smart lock" and trained facial recognition. Now I go back to the Screen lock and there is still no option to unlock with the face.

Screenshot - No face unlock option(Click to enlarge image)

Set a screen lock with pattern or pin or password
Now smart lock will be enabled in Settings->Security below Owner Info
In smart lock select trusted face.
Lock your phone and you will see a smaller user icon at the bottom.
If your face is recognized it will changed to unlock icon. Swipe and it will unlock


How to protect my Wi-Fi password from being displayed by Android phones when sharing it with QR code? I would like to know if there is any workaround to protect or hide my TP-LINK Wi-Fi router password from being displayed on phones using Xiaomi (Redmi) phones.

If we go to Wi-Fi in a Redmi phone and tap on previously connected Wi-Fi, then the phone allows us to share the Wi-Fi network by scanning QR code by some other phone or the same phone.

See the screenshots below for a better understanding of my question:

And if I scan this QR code with any other phone, then we can easily see the password:

So how can I protect my Wi-Fi password?

The answer to this question is more general than the specific hardware you referenced in your question, and not Android specific in any way, but since this question seems to arise from time to time I will answer it as best I can so that people can see this isn't "magic" in any way.

The reason this is showing your password is that the QR code for WiFi information stores and transmits the WiFi password in plain text, so that anyone who scans the QR code will have your WiFi password. The QR code isn't something special here: although you can't "read" it per se, any device that knows the standard code used for the QR symbol can read it just like words on a piece of paper. This is just how QR codes for WiFi are done and it doesn't matter if it is a TP-Link, Asus, Linksys, or any other device creating them: the password is in plain text. It also does not matter what device is reading the QR code: whether it's Redmi, Samsung, Apple, Google, Huawei, or whatever, it can read the QR code and display the network name and password in plain text, although some apps might "mask" the password for basic privacy (but they do have the information).

The proper way to handle this security in a home environment is not to give your WiFi password out to your friends, only to your family (or set it up yourself for them, although they may still be able to retrieve the password). And for your friends' or guests' use, have a separate SSID with a simple password that is setup to only access the Internet (commonly called Client Isolation), possibly at a throttled rate. I don't know about TP-Link, but many companies like Asus have an app for your cell phone that can very quickly allow you to enable a guest WiFi network for a certain period of time (say 4, 24, 72 hours) then automatically disables it. This example is useful for friends who are over for dinner, the entire day, or weekend perhaps. Some people, myself included, just enable a guest network with a password all the time, but this network has client isolation (users can only access the Internet) and it is throttled to about 1-2% of my ISP speeds (they have 5Mbps down and 500Kbps upload to use) and I change the password 3-4 times a year and put it on the fridge. None of these are perfect answers to security, but they are usually good enough.

Otherwise, if you are giving people access to your network, you might as well just give them the WiFi password... Once they are connected to WiFi it is largely the same as if they plugged into your network with a cable and can access everything, so having physical access to the network and having the WiFi password are essentially the same thing. Besides, it is fairly easy to change the WiFi password later if needed to restrict access. It also isn't a bad idea to change your WiFi password on a regular basis, once every 30-90 days or so, so that if the password is out there, it cannot be accessed later if things change, like your friend for whatever reason is not your friend any longer.


Nexus 5 not connecting to PC I tried connecting it nexus 5 to my pc via USB. Although it shows as connected in my external devices and also shows up in My Computer, but when I try to open it and don't files to my phone, it just shows a plain, blank screen with the green placing had on top.

Enable USB debugging: Go to phone settings -> About -> Tap build number repeatedly until developer menu is enabled. Go there and tick USB debugging.
On your PC, go to your device manager (You can find it in Control Panel, System) when the Phone is plugged in and set to MTP.  Locate the phone, (it might come up as "Android Phone" if so open the tree a level. On my computer it says "Google Nexus ADB Interface" but it might be different on yours depending on how you've got things configured) right click on it and chose "properties" from the fly out menu.
Go to the Driver tab
Click Update Driver. . .
Click Browse my Computer for driver software
Click Let my pick from a list of devices on my computer
select USB Composite Device
Close the driver assistant

Your Nexus 5 should now appear as an MTP device on your computer.


if I know nothing about Android, is it crazy to have a rooted phone? I bought my first Android phone off ebay, a Samsung Galaxy S4 after always using Windows phones.  It was supposed to be unlocked and a "store demo", but when I started playing with it, I was getting warnings that it was rooted and couldn't update in the regular way, etc.

I tried to update using Samsung Kies, which gave me a ton of errors, I had to do it four times.  This was the error message I kept getting:

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q161/Arylkin/1%20error.jpg

Then I got an error that I needed to do "emergency firmware recovery":

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q161/Arylkin/error%202.jpg

I finally got it to work (I don't know what kind of update it was, because it's still running the same Android version after it).  I got it to work by just ignoring the emergency recovery message and hitting continue (or something).

I am apprehensive about keeping this phone, since while I really do like it, I am worried about having some fiasco and it refusing to update down the road.  Also, every tutorial about rooting and "flashing roms" (whatever that means) and doing anything to a rooted phone says, "WARNING- YOU MIGHT JUST BRICK YOUR PHONE!".  Needless to say, this worries me.

The seller is willing to take it back, but now I've already bought a otterbox case for the S4 as well as additional batteries, so I'm kind of roped in to having an S4.

What would you do, return it and try to find another person selling an S4 that is stock?  I really don't know anything about Android, and even after reading tutorials, I'm not really comfortable doing a bunch of stuff to the command line of my phone or whatever, particularly since there are 1,000 warnings that doing so might totally break it.

Even video tutorials on rerooting or whatever have a bunch of comments like, "Now my phone is broken!  Thanks a lot!"  Everything I read says how rooting is the coolest ever, but I really don't want to break it since I will not be able to replace this, financially.

I'd appreciate any words of wisdom!

If it's rooted, leave it be. It's very unlikely for the S4 to receive many (if any) more Android OS updates officially since it's now a couple of generations old. I use a rooted S4 myself, and love the fact that I can remove bloatware at will and make backups of everything.

With that being said, some more info from your device might help us direct you to info on your particular ROM if you have one, and how to lock it back down if you still so desire. Go into Settings>About Phone and see what Android version you're running and the build number for starters. All of those scary warnings in forums are there for a reason: with root you have unrestrained access to the very innards of your phone. If you start changing things in certain areas you can mess things up. However, it generally takes more than doing everyday tasks to do it.

Armed with the information from the About Phone section, head over to the XDA Forums to find out just about anything you'd ever want to know about that phone, along with some generally very knowledgeable and helpful people.


Ways to consume Linux and open-source related news on Android device? I would like to read Linux and open-source related news from my Android device. My current solution is a gReader Pro, which supports 4x4 widget and I have configured it to display RSS feeds from multiple sources:

The problem is, that often those RSS feeds show only the title or short summary and one still needs to visit the web page to read the whole article. Is there a way around this or only solution is to use RSS sources which publish full articles as RSS? In addition, I tried with few "personal magazin" apps like Flipboard, but I still ended up at the news-source web-page.

Try Pocket or Readability. They are both Android apps that parse HTML into more readable formats without having to visit the site.


How can I make my phone/tablet ring remotely without a SIM card? I appear to have lost my Streak somewhere in my apartment, and I can't call it since I don't have a SIM card in it.  I've remotely installed Plan B just because, but unfortunately the GPS coordinates are not specific enough to find it inside my apartment :P.  Is there any app I can install remotely that will start making noise so I can find the device?

Bahh! Just found a way to do this! I'm so excited!

First, install AndroidLost from the online Google Play Store.

this is the app you can use to control/wipe/access info about your lost device, yadayada

Give it a little time to install to your device, then install AndroidLost Jumpstart from the online Google Play Store as well

  This app will wake up the registration process on the androidlost app
  when ever a phone call is made, an SMS received, battery is low, a
  package is added, removed or changed.

So you have to install an arbitrary app from the Play Store as well to activate the service, but you can then go to androidlost.com to access functions to control your lost device! Including ringing an alarm ;)

I haven't tested this yet, but I will as soon as I can I tested this on my own phone (although the page for Jumpstart only specifies tablets), and it works! It says it will register on SMS or app install, I did both first, and the activation worked. This is an awesome utility.


Change auto-lock timeout by GPS? I have a PIN to lock the phone so in case someone else gets my phone, they will be deterred from accessing any personal info that might be on it.

But I don't really need this everywhere. When I am at my desk, I always keep the phone there, and I would like for it to not to lock, or to lock less often. (At times, I will be adjusting music, or using the stopwatch or whatever)

Is there a way to change the PIN lock timeout depending on GPS location? If I am not at home or the office, it might as well be on instant lock as soon as the screen goes off.

There are apps that disables the lock scren when you are connected to certain WiFi or when your phone cell is connected to certain tower or as per your requirement, on GPS.

I believe, but not sure, tasker can do it with GPS.

But why not use the WiFi address to disable unlock. I reckon it will be more useful than GPS.

Look at http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/automatically-disable-android-lockscreen-when-connected-to-home-wifi/ for automatically disabling locks creen on WiFi.

Also don't forget to check llama, awesome and free location based profile management. You can do tons of stuff based on what cell tower you are connected to.


Why i cant access my internal sd card after flashing a new ROM? I am using Micromax unite 2 phone. Its an MT6582 phone running on KK . Recently i flashed a new rom ( exception OS) and after booting up , i found that i cannot access the internal sd card. The stock file manager doesnt even show that there is an internal sd card. I also tried ES file explorer but to no avail. Also when i connect to my pc via usb , after selecting usb storage, only the external sd card shows up. Lastly , i tried accesing the internal sd card via recovery( PhilZ touch 6) and strangely it works. Also when i mount the usb storage via the recovery , my pc shows the internal as well as external sd card and im able to access both of them from pc. I have tried flashing the same rom again and again and also some other roms but the problem persists. Any help would be very much appreciated.... thank you..

OK guys I think I found a Solution. This is what i did :-
I flashed another ROM today ( Resurrection Remix, CM 12 based) and flashed a 6.08 GB Repartition zip and booted the phone. The first attempt was unsuccesful and the problem persisted , so i booted into recovery, then wiped all , and flashed the ROM again, this time, without flashing the repartition. And when i booted up , i found that it had been fixed. Settings showed a total of 6.08 GB Internal Storage. if any of you have similar issues , you could try this.


Reset only the settings for HTC One I have an HTC One (4.2.2) & I need to reset my settings ONLY, just the settings.
Is there any way not to lose my data, without making a backup?
I mean I want a factory settings for the settings only.
Thanks.

Goto Settings-->Apps-->All-->(you can find Settings App)click on Settings--> Clear data and cache


How to turn off Yahoo Mail notifications in 4.1.2.? I just upgraded my Android OS to 4.1.2. and the Yahoo Mail is pushing audible notifications again (I had disabled them in the previous version of OS).  When I go into the app, there is no settings in the menu.  How do I disable the notifications?

When such a notification appears...

Open your notification area
Long-press on the notification. This opens the app's settings in the system configuration.
Here you can disable all notifications from the app.

This is a feature introduced with JellyBean -- as you've stated your device is running Android 4.1.2, this setting should be available to you.


How do I get a full screen caller photo id? What do I need to install/change so that when I get a call the picture of the caller is in fullscreen mode instead of the regular small image.

Maybe you need something like that:

BIG! caller ID,
Full Screen Caller ID.

Notice: Both are free just for first five contacts. For more, you must purchase full version. Both require to assign HD photos manually (from SD Card, Camera or Facebook). None of them support images stored with your contacts on your Google account.


Internal space near full but shouldn't be and not according to other stats So yesterday i was seeing how many apps i have installed and i noticed this...according to which only 248 MB is free. Which looks wrong to me too.

But that is not the case according to storage analyser app...and which i also think should be the case as i know what i am installing and keeping eye on space a certain app takes.

...you can also see it's the same thing (as storage analyser app) in my computer!

So how come..? is it a problem, and what can i do to fix it?

Apps and their data are stored on a different partition (/data) from media (/sdcard0) and removable storage (/sdcard1).  If you are rooted, you can use an app like Disk Usage to check what's taking up space on your internal memory.


How to manually remove wifi connection details I have a problem with my rom where it does not successfully "forget" wifi connection details and so I find myself connected to the wrong unwanted network.

I had a look at this thread which showed the location of the setting but I'm unsure if it's just safe to delete it, or I need to edit it.

I do not mind having to remove all wifi settings if that's the case.

Thanks.

You cannot manually clear Wi-Fi connection details in a non-rooted device other than going to Wi-Fi settings and clearing all the connections and general settings or doing a factory reset which would bring everything to default factory state.

The reason is simple. You, a non-root user, are not privileged to delete the files holding the Wi-Fi connection details and settings.

As for the link you mentioned (a post and not a thread), the files settings.db and wpa_supplicant.conf are inaccessible to a non-root user. You would observe  permission denied error if you try to enter their parent directory.

However, if the device is rooted, then there is no restriction on you to access them. Simply download a root file explorer, access those file's parent directory, and delete those files. Of course, copy them in PC before deleting, to be on safe side.

And before you even attempt to copy them  into PC, make sure a custom Recovery is installed already so that you could save yourself from a mess if things go south after deleting those two files.


Cannot add some YouTube videos to offline mode I'm trying to add videos to offline mode, but it added only one video successfully. For any other videos I try, it says,

  Offline Unavailable. Sorry, this video can't be taken offline.

What should I do?

There is nothing you can do, since it seems not all videos can be taken offline. From an article on Techniqued,

Note: Remember not all videos can be taken offline and some videos might show this error "Sorry, this video can’t be taken offline" message. YouTube does not clearly mention what is the criteria for videos to be available offline. So in case you encounter this issue, you will not be able to view the video offline.

Based on research, there is a possibility that videos with copyrighted content (e.g. Vevo) can't be taken offline. A commenter wrote,

Most of the videos I tried, are giving error, ‘This video can’t be taken offline.’
Most of them are from vevo, however I tried for an old hindi song and that one worked.

Or, it might be related to YouTube Music Key.

Availability
You must be a Music Key subscriber to take music videos offline.

Other than that, there's almost no clue.


Cyanogenmod 10.1 becomes unstable with usage? Does CM 10.1 become more and more unstable with usage? I have a Galaxy Mini S5570 running CM 10.1. After flashing the ROM my phone works fine for one or two weeks. But soon my phone starts crashing more often. The phone starts rebooting every now and then. Apps (especially Camera.apk) start crashing often even though I haven't installed any new apps. This doesn't happen for the for the first few days after flashing the ROM. Is there any fix for this? Any patch available so that my phone can run smoothly even after 2 weeks?

I wouldn't run the "Addon Apps" like "RAM Manager" or the "Seeder" script. I am not sure if you are using those, but the RAM manager could cause instability because it forces applications to close to "free ram".

The need to free RAM is a myth, if an application kills other apps, to free up some RAM, the OS will find something else to fill that RAM. Android does not want free RAM, it sees free RAM as wasted RAM.

As for "Seeder", if you are running that, I would either try updating, if you don't have the latest, or fresh install official CM without this script. Even the developer of this is acknowledging that it has been causing instability, like locking and reboots.

The biggest issue, really, that I see is that you are trying CM 10.1 on a device that has not been supported by CM for some time. This device's last official build was CM 7.2. So another reason you are seeing instability is because you are trying to run a version of Android on hardware that really doesn't support it. The CM team usually only drops support for a device when they can no longer get the latest builds to run on the device.


Can't switch off functionality do not disturb I've activated the functionality do not disturb for 6 hours for my phone, so all the sounds were turned off. Then I switched off my phone while thr functionality was still on without switching it off. When i open it up again I found that do not disturb it's still on, i can't deactivate or activate it, the volumes seekbars look like when they are switched off by the functionality, but i can hear sounds, and I can't move the volumes level, apart from the multimedia one

You need to create an avent of some minutes, that starts and stops the do not disturb, after that everything will be ok


Unsupported File Type: Why did my Samsung Galaxy S suddenly stop supporting MP3s? All of a sudden my Samsung Galaxy S claims to not support mp3 files (the phone has been idle for a few hours, I did not touch anything). Ogg files however still play without problems. When this happens, no app can play mp3 files, e.g. my custom ring tone is not played anymore (it just vibrates as if it were muted). A reboot of the phone fixes the issue but within 3-4 days the problem comes back. It does not make a difference if files are stored on internal or external sd card.

This also affects video playback, I'm just not sure if it happens at the same time or independent of each other. The youtube app can no longer start videos (unknown playback problem), and the video player app claims all video files as unsupported. I suppose the issue may not be the video playback itself but the audio codec used in the video (mp3).

Any idea how to fix this or debug this? I don't want to reboot my phone every couple of days - it takes 2-3 minutes to do this and a phone should just work.

I applied 2.2.1 firmware lately and this only seemed to make the problem worse. I had this before 2.2.1 (with 2.2) but only very rarely.

I'm curious if TitaniumBackup may be the culprit as the backup scheduler seems to stop processes sometimes. Maybe others experiencing this issue use scheduled TitaniumBackups, too? The hint was that since upgrading to 2.2.1 I also upgraded to the licensed TitaniumBackup version and scheduled daily backups. But this may just be coincidence. What contradicts this theory: Backups are scheduled at night but last time I saw this issue it happened during the day - mp3 worked in the morning, failed in the afternoon. The phone was idle during the time it "decided" to no longer play mp3.

Looking at forums (I only found a few hits in Google), people having the same problems suggest to simply reboot the phone - but that is no fix at all. Or they suggest to send the phone back for replacement - and guess what: It has not fixed the problem for people experiencing this issue. So I suggest it is not a hardware issue (neither related to sdcards nor to the phone itself).

A last resort is always a factory reset, which should fix this problem. You could also have a look at the logcat output, maybe this will give you a hint about the cause of the problem.


Proc-folder: App generated almost a thousand sub-folders When I was searching with the "File Manager" app (com.alphainventor.filemanager) for some files in the root-folder, it generated hundreds (almost a thousand) folders in the proc-folder.
[I don't have root-access btw., but still can see some files there.]

They're named just 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.
Each folder has about ~40 files in it.

I already found out, that those are virtual files, that eat like no space.
However I would still like to clean those up.

Is there any smart way to do this?
I was hoping, they would be removed by restarting the system or deinstalling the app, but so far nothing worked. :/

I am on an LG G7 with Android 8.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

/proc is very special in that it is also a virtual filesystem. It's
  sometimes referred to as a process information pseudo-file system. It
  doesn't contain 'real' files but runtime system information (e.g.
  system memory, devices mounted, hardware configuration, etc). source

Therefore the directories and folders you observe just represent the processes started by the app. If you see them that the app has still running processes. Some apps contain ant-reverse-engineering technologies by using multiple processes for monitoring each other. Also the Android system may start multiple smaller processes for one app e.g. for background service(s).

Conclusion: The proc file system is nothing you should worry about. Just ignore it.


Force close messages; no access to phone Have only had my new Samsung Galaxy Ace GT-S5830i one week and while playing "Flow Free" game downloaded from Play Store my phone suddenly switched off and from then on constant "Force Close" messages appeared. I have no access to my phone. How can I get my phone back?

Safe Mode
You could try to boot your Ace into "safe mode", as described e.g. in the article SAFE MODE On Samsung GALAXY ACE:

Switch off the phone by pressing on the Power button.
Turn the phone back on, while it is turning on press and hold the Menu button.
Continue to hold the Menu button until you see the Home screen. On the home screen you see it say Safe Mode on the left hand corner.

Now that you are in Safe Mode you can go and remove any buggy apps that you don't want to keep. To exit safe mode after your cleanup:

Turn off the phone by pressing the Power button.
Pull out the battery. Wait for 30 seconds.
Put the battery back in.
Start up the device and see if the Safe Mode on the left hand corner has disappear. If it's not there then you have successfully started your phone in the standard mode.

Factory Reset
If that does not work out, there's always the factory reset. But be aware that this removes all your data plus the apps you installed yourself!
How to perform a factory reset on the Ace is e.g. described at hard-reset.com:
Press and hold the Home plus Power buttons simultaneously, or try Volume-Up + Home + Power together.
Of course there's also a menu for this -- but as you wrote you have no longer access to your phone, above key combinations are the only things left working.


HTC XE turned itself off and won't turn back on I charged my phone overnight for at least 6 hours. It was working fine when I checked my emails first thing this morning.

Then, the phone restarted itself (not uncommon!). Since then, I can't turn it on. I have taken the battery out and left it out for around 2 hours; it still won't turn on.

I have tried to turn it on in recovery  (holding the down volume button and the power on button) and still nothing happens.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Nick

Have you tried holding the button down? When the phone is running, a single quick press on the power button will usually wake it up. When it is completely off, like due to the battery being removed, you often have to hold the button down for a short while.

You should also make sure it is charged using a wall charger. A completely depleted phone may not be able to charge from the USB port of a laptop.

Beyond that, I have seen cases where the power button wore out.


Are there any known conflicts between the official Samsung GpsRestore App for the Galaxy-S and custom roms? Samsung have released an app for the Android Market in order to reset the GPS to factory settings, on Galaxy-S devices that experience problems using it. It should fix the GPS problems that a lot of people are experiencing.

(Android Spin: Samsung Finally Has a GPS Fix)

However, I know that several custom ROMs also attempt to fix the problematic Galaxy-S GPS. Does anyone know (or experienced) any problems after running that application on a custom ROM?

The app only changes the settings, so it doesn't matter which GPS code the ROM has.  All the custom ROMs I know of use GPS code from Samsung anyways.

One note: This will fix very few people's problems.  The factory settings cause most of the problems, so restoring will probably hurt more than help.  It is possible that the new 2.2 releases will fix some issues, however, and in that case it's probably better to use whatever settings Samsung tested with the new GPS code, i.e. the settings GpsRestore uses.


Cannot receive files using Bluetooth on Karbonn Android One I have Karbonn Android One. It is unable to receive files via Bluetooth from any Android device, but there is no problem with sending files to every device.

I could not understand what's the problem. How can I receive files using Bluetooth?

Try resetting your phone... This usually works. Remember to take a backup.


Do odexed programs have any runtime (vs load time) performance gains? From my understanding, odexed programs are programs that are pre-compiled for specific architecture.

It is obvious that this process would help decrease the startup time for the program.

Am I correct in thinking that odexing would have NO effect on the performance of the program once it is already loaded in memory? What about memory footprint?

I would expect it to have an impact on both.  An odexed app is optimized, not just precompiled.  Android runs on a huge variety of hardware, so platform-specific optimizations could result in significant performance gains.


Does HTC Sync work well with Thunderbird? As I no longer have access to Outlook, I have to look for alternatives for managing mail, agenda's and contacts.

My first guess would be Thunderbird, but I wonder how well this syncs with HTC Sync as I never had any trouble setting it up with Outlook, I would prefer that it stayed that way.

So does anyone have any experience with syncing their Android phone through Thunderbird?

I'd recommend, rather, using Thunderbird as an IMAP client with the Google Contacts and Lightning add-ons ( http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/7307 and http://mozilla.org/projects/calendar). You should be able to manage your contacts and calendar in Thunderbird and sync with Google. So then your Thunderbird and phone will each synchronize to and from Google.


How to adopt SD card as Internal Storage I currently own a Samsung J3 emerge with Android version 6.0.1 (Marshmallow). However, I cannot format my AD card as Internal as I do not have that option. I cam only format it as portable. What must I do?

Well the device may have option of using SD CARD as internal storage if it is marshmallow  or up ,as it was a feature introduced in ANDROID 6.0

Usually it can be found by
Method 1
SETTINGS<

Method 2
If Sd card is not inserted then insert it and a notification will appear  in notification panel that you want to SETUP or EJECT
Select SET UP and it will present you option to format as internal storage
Select it and you will get it done
(if sd card was inserted beforehand only just eject it and reinsert to get that notification )

Method 3.               #root required #
Download an app Root Essential
Grant Root Access
Go to storage tab
Select Adoptable storage
Proceed with instructions
And Now SD card will be used as internal storage


How do I reset the launcher app? Possible Duplicate:
  I checked 'use as default' when choosing the default launcher, but now I can't start ADW.Launcher any more

I've installed and set up LauncherPro as a replacement launcher app. How do I reset the phone to use the Android default launcher app?

Go into your Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications.  Find Launcher Pro and select it.  Hit the button that says Clear Defaults.


Is it possible to install Android L on a device that will not get the update in the future? I have Sony Xperia M2, and as you probably know, this phone will not get the new Android L update from Sony.
So is there any way to install the Android L manually?
I don't care to root my device and install a custom ROM which compatible with the new version... but is it actually possible to update my device version?

It is technically possible to install a newer version of Android on that (and probably every other) device.

First you have to make sure the bootloader of your device is unlocked. In doubt just try to unlock it, it won't relock again without notifying you.
Then you flash (in most cases) a custom recovery like CWM, TWRP or Philz.
After that you can install every custom ROM or other zip on your phone.

  The best place for specific Android devices is xda-developers. (imo)
  Most developers meet there and publish their custom ROMs like CyanogenMod as well as modded official firmwares.

For your device there is a big guide on how to unlock your bootloader right on xda: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2743694
Installing a custom ROM is then done through your recovery.


How do I set unique ringtones for individual contacts? I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 and would like to set text notifications to be unique to each contact (just as I can set unique ringtones for each contact).  Is there a way to do this?  For example, I would like 1 ringtone/notification for my sister for both calls and text and a different ringtone/notification for my mother for both calls and text.

There are many apps available for these tasks. But soon it becomes pain to have many apps running one for each purpose. At these situations, you can remove all those apps and use Tasker.  You can set the Tasker such that when your mother calls or sends a text it can play a preset ringtone - and it can even say the caller name or any predefined text. This is just a tip of the iceberg and there are so many things that can be done with it.

It is a bit complicated for the first use and involves a small learning curve. But once you are used to it, you can eliminate many apps and make your phone a true smartphone.

Note: I am not in any way associated with Tasker other than using it in my device.


Nothing is working after updating Android 2.3 to Android 4.1 I have Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos S-6802 (originally Android 2.3). I followed the steps described here to update it. In short, I installed ClockworkMod and then JellyBlastGenED.signed in my phone.

After this update, My phone is showing Android v4.1.1 under settings. The icons, fonts etc are looking very small. Also my phone is not detecting any SIM and SD card as well. The phone is having two SIM card.

I just wanted to know that how can I undo the update or fix these errors?

The files you downloaded from that site are for a Samsung Galaxy Y. Your phone is a Samsung Galaxy Ace Duos. You need to find a ROM suitable for your phone. You're lucky that installing that ROM didn't brick the phone completely.

You can't undo an update: to get back to what you had before, find a stock ROM image for your phone (probably from http://sammobile.com for a Samsung phone) and install it following the provided instructions. Alternatively, if you still want Android 4.1, look for an unofficial 4.1 ROM for your phone and install it in the same way.

See also: Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device?


Can I copy/paste cyanogen files to another SD card, plug it into a rooted tablet, and expect it to work? Long story short:  I've got 10 Nook Colors, each of which has previously been rooted, but of which 6 of the 10 SD cards have gone missing (don't ask me how).  I've also got 3 non-rooted nook colors that I'd like to root.  I'm using the tablets to conduct questionnaires using ODK.  If I take a SD card out of one of them and put it into another rooted one, it boots into cyanogen just fine.

Plugging the SD cards into my computer (I'm running Ubuntu), I see that they have a fairly complex partition structure.  How can I recreate both the files and the file structure onto new SD cards, so that I can boot my rooted tablets into cyanogen?

Following these instructions ruined the tester SD card that I bought -- the computer now doesn't recognize the card when plugged in.  Not sure why -- I umounted it.  I've got the disk image file, the gapps file, and the cyanogen file sitting on my hard disk.

Also, how can I root new tablets?  The uNooter file described here is a dead link.

Or is cyanogenmod old and deprecated?  Is there something else that I can do to get these tablets to run ODK?

Help!

You probably can't copy and paste the files, because the blank SD card doesn't have the same partition structure and filesystem flags.

What you can do, though, is clone the original SD card onto the blank one. Note: the new SD card must be the same size (or larger) for this to work.

These instructions will make an exact copy, including partition structures, partition flags, and even disk fragmentation. It is an exact bit-for-bit copy.

Warning: This could mess up your computer. If you put in the wrong parameter for the of= part of the dd command, you could completely overwrite your main hard drive. Make sure you triple-check the destination mountpoint. Especially if you think the mountpoint is /dev/sda

Option 1: Mount both cards at the same time

If you can mount both SD cards at the same time, you can save a step and some time.

Insert the original SD card on your computer and find out the mountpoint of the original SD card.

Open up the Disks application
Click on your SD card in the list on the left.
At the top right, just below the name of the SD card, it will list the mountpoint.

It will look something like /dev/sdc or /dev/mmcblk0 or similar.

Insert the blank/target SD card on your computer and find its mountpoint (using the same steps)
Open a terminal (aka command line)
Run the following command, but replace original_mount with the mountpoint you found, and also replace the target_mount with the mountpoint of the blank card.

sudo dd if=original_mount bs=128M of=target_mount

The command will not show any progress until it is finished, and it could take up to an hour, depending on the maximum size of the original SD card (a 1GB won't take that long, but a 64GB might).

Option 2: Mount one card at a time

If you only have one SD card reader, you'll have to make an image of the original SD card, then swap the cards and write that image to the new SD card.

Insert the original SD card on your computer and find out the mountpoint of the original SD card.

Open up the Disks application
Click on your SD card in the list on the left.
At the top right, just below the name of the SD card, it will list the mountpoint.

It will look something like /dev/sda or /dev/mmcblk0 or similar.

Open a terminal (aka command line)
Run the following command, but replace original_mount with the mountpoint you found.

sudo dd if=original_mount bs=128M of=/tmp/sdcard.img
The command will not show any progress until it is finished, and it could take up to an hour, depending on the maximum size of the original SD card (a 1GB won't take that long, but a 64GB might).
Remove the original SD card and insert the blank card. The mountpoint should be the same, but open the Disks app again just to make sure.
Run the following command, but replace target_mount with the mountpoint you found.

sudo dd if=/tmp/sdcard.img bs=128M of=target_mount

The command will not show any progress until it is finished, and it could take up to an hour, depending on the maximum size of the original SD card (a 1GB won't take that long, but a 64GB might).


How to make a complete factory reset, without anyone being able to retrieve my data? I will have a few Android phones that I will have to let go.

I would like to make a proper clean wipe of the data, without no one being able to retrieve them, and do a factory reset.

I have read about the Schneier Method, encrypting the device before doing a factory reset, doing both, etc.

Since I am not an Android/adb guru, I would like to know if some of you would have some idea on how to achieve this with certainty.

I know "certainty" is a big word when it comes to proper data erasure on flash memory but still.

I have found some answers here and somewhere else, saying that encrypting and doing a factory reset on your Android device is enough, but I could not find a reliable source.

Just a few information that could be useful:

I'm running Linux as my OS and, therefore, I'm not looking for a Windows-based solution
My devices are non-rooted and (almost) identical (Samsung A510F + 1 A510FD)

HOW DELETED DATA IS RECOVERED?

Data (un)deletion strongly depends on how a storage media (HDD, SSD, eMMC etc.), filesystem (NTFS, FAT32, ext4 etc.) and OS save and delete files.

File carving / signature search / content-aware recovery identifies standard signatures values in the headers of deleted files (as file command and antivirus programs do to identify known viruses hiding in files) e.g. JPEG files start with 0xffd8 and end with 0xffd9. The data in between blocks is assumed to be the file (considering the file is contiguous; no fragmentation). Other checks may also be performed on header like a checksum, the file’s length, or date/time etc. But not all file types have a standard header/footer signature, so determining where the file starts/ends is difficult. Metadata (including filenames) isn't recovered with this method.

This approach works for deleted files, filesystems or partitions. Photorec, scalpel, foremost and popular Android app DiskDigger (in dig deeper mode) work on this approach.
Recovering as much as possible information about deleted data blocks from within filesystem e.g. from directory entries, journal, inodes etc. Filesystem is basically the catalog which holds file name vs. file location information and journal is a kind of backup information. So recovery of filenames (and other metadata) is more probable with journaling filesystems.

This approach works only if filesystem and partition are intact, or are recoverable using first method. DiskDigger (in dig deep mode) and extundelete work on this approach.

WHAT MAKES RECOVERY OF DELETED DATA DIFFICULT / IMPOSSIBLE?

A file/directory is simply deleted e.g. from some File Explorer app or with rm from commadline.
A file is renamed to some random string, then deleted.
Filesystem on the device is not journaling, so no information can be collected from journal. Ext4, the commonly used filesystem on Android, is journaling.
Filesystem on the device is a Flash Filesystem e.g. F2FS.

In this case you are left with minimum tools (e.g. no debugfs to list deleted inodes and to lookup corresponding data blocks from journal) and also data is always written to new blocks as a wear-leveling strategy. Garbage Collection makes recovery less probable from filesystem because Logical Block Addresses (LBAs) of data blocks get changed. So only carving method is applicable, and it works.
Filesystem or partition is deleted, making it harder to search directory structures and journal from within filesystem. Android's stock recovery deletes filesystem during a Factory Reset. See this answer.
Whole disk is erased including Partition Table, boundaries of partitions and filesystems are vanished. This isn't possible on Android devices because there are partitions required to boot the device.
File was fragmented (not saved contiguously as a single piece), particularly if no information can be recovered from filesystem.

Fragmentation is higher on Windows as compared to Linux/Android; Ext4 is self de-fragmenting because of Delayed Allocation and reserved-blocks-percentage etc. But usually large files on an older filesystem are always fragmented.
You overwrite file/filesystem/partition with other file/filesystem/partition, or zeros, or random data (shredding).

If you have root access, throw a stream of /dev/urandom on block device to overwrite all data including filesystem. Now forget about its recovery, though it doesn't nullify the possibility of data recovery directly from flash storage (raw NAND), by chipping it off the board (who will do this except in forensic lab!). Official tool from SD organization: SD Memory Card Formatter also overwrites with zeros in full format mode. Please note that repeated overwriting wastes precious E/P cycles of flash memory.
Filesystem is TRIMmed or SECURE TRIMmed, or ERASEd or SECURE ERASEd.

These are special commands for different types of flash storage devices. TRIM is issued by the filesystem to the firmware of flash device, requesting the actual physical erasure of data blocks (LBAs) which have been deleted from the filesystem. Filesystems mounted with discard option always send FITRIM ioctl whenever a file is deleted. Android does a scheduled TRIM, or you can do manually with fstrim command. See this answer.
Partition is BLKDISCARDed or BLKSECDISCARDed.

blkdiscard issues TRIM command for whole block device i.e. partition or disk (roughly equivalent to issuing TRIM on a newly created filesystem).
TRIM saves filesystem's superblocks/inode table and drive's partition table, BLKDISCARD saves nothing on block device.

Android's stock recovery tries to do at least one of the both during a Factory Reset. See this answer.
Something similar happens with bootloader unlock and fastboot erase, though it depends on implementation inside bootloader but that's what Google expects from OEM/SoC vendors.
Deleted file is encrypted or file doesn't have an identifiable unique signature (at start or end), so no carving is possible.

Like an encrypted archive or file that mostly file explorers can create. Or a file with some uncommon format, not known to recovery programs.
Filesystem or block device is encrypted so the data becomes unrecognizable (like FBE/FDE on Android). Mostly new devices come with forceencrypt or fileencryption flags set in fstab, so vold encrypts them on first usage. If not decryptable (e.g. formatted), data is impossible to be recovered on such devices.
Flash storage device is self-encrypting, common for SSDs but not for eMMCs.
Flash storage device is erased with SECURITY_ERASE or ENHANCED_SECURITY_ERASE ATA commands, common for SSDs but not for eMMCs.
Storage device isn't accessible e.g. on embedded system if bootloader is erased, device is bricked and no more bootable. There is no protocol to communicate with eMMC, even if the data is there, except through something very lower level like JTAG or a chip-off.

Also see: Bootloader/BIOS, flashing ROM and correlated risks. Why Android devices are more brickable than PCs?
Storage media is physically damaged; mechanically or electrically.

Large size storage solutions like NAS or the more complicated SAN that makes use of LUNs with advanced protocols likes iSCSI, and data integrity solutions like RAID also complicate the data recovery process. However single disks like on home PCs or the flash memory like on Android phones are rather simple cases.

So while a Factory Reset with stock recovery suffices in most cases, you can combine any of the above described steps, whichever applicable to your device, to make sure your data is not retrievable.

RELATED:

Can user data be recovered after formatting and flashing stock ROM?
How to recover a deleted file from /data partition?
How to get data off a completely dead Android phone?


Charging the Asus Transformer (Prime) Can you charge the Asus Transformer (or the newer Prime) without the keyboard dock?

Since the tablet itself does not have any USB ports, I don't see how you could charge the tablet without the dock or a very clunky proprietary charging cable. However, It seems insane to manufacture and market a high-end tablet that can't charge without a giant peripheral (and sell/price the thing independently too).

Am I missing something? Or, is Asus just insane?

It comes with an AC adapter and a charging/data cable which can plug directly into the tablet, though it does still use their proprietary cable connection since it plugs into the same connector that the keyboard dock uses (the other end is male USB).

Using proprietary charging cables is not unheard of - Samsung and Apple have done this; I don't personally like it when companies use proprietary cables, but in this case it's mostly because the charging/data port doubles as the dock connector.

Here's an image from Engadget's unboxing/review of the Prime. The AC adapter is at the bottom.


How do I allow Chrome Android to load "insecure" or "phishing" content? How do I allow Chrome for Android to load insecure content?  I would like to know this so I can log in to my Hotel WiFi.
The message it gives me is:

Your connection is not private

Attackers might be trying to steal your information from
www.google.com (for example, passwords, messages, or credit
cards)

Seems like the Hotel WiFi Captive Portal is attempting to impersonate any URLs it sees, which will cause an error if it is an HTTPS connection. This error is there to prevent a Man-In-The-Middle type of attack.

You might need to use a non-HTTPS URL in order to view and accept their Acceptable Use Policy.


How to transfer text messages from iPhone to Android with iOS 5? I'm trying to switch from an iPhone 3GS to a Galaxy SII and got multiple questions. This one concerns migrating the text messages (SMS).
I've found quite some articles, basically they fall into two categories:

Getting the text message SQLite database from the Itunes backup and exporting stuff manually to CSV files.
Importing the SQLite database directly with tools.

Most pages link to this article

Problem:
Apparently, this only works in IOS < 5.0 or Itunes < 10, don't know. With newer backups, the SQLite database can not be opened anymore, the Android tools mentioned do not work anymore.

So I'm looking for any other suggestions on how to correctly migrate the text messages to Android.

Note:
I'm aware that maybe this is more a iPhone question than Android. Nevertheless, I hope to find someone here who faced the same problems. This is exactly the reason why I'm migrating in the first place.

Worked like a charm for me with the 2nd option (web service convertion) on this page: http://faked.org/isms2droid/
I´m running the latest Itunes 10.5.2.11 and Win 7 32-bit Enterprise. My IPhone runs iOS 5.0.1 My Android is a Xperia Arc with Android 2.3.3

What I did was basically create a PC-backup (used to run ICloud but changed that option in Itunes), look up the needed db-file (according to the guide), convert it with the web service and then load it on to the Android phone memory-card, and then use the SMS backup and Restore to restore the sms-database.

Only problem I had, was that all the sms-es that had been sent or received with iMessage was corrupted. Apparently they dont store phonenumber with these posts and therefore all these messages where put in a "Unknown" thread, with no date connected to them.

Regards
/Jimmy


Samsung Galaxy S2 on Sprint sudden Drop in Battery Life Since I got this device in mid November to now, I have had great battery life usually lasting almost two full days and never having a problem for one day unless I'd been using it excessively. Suddenly yesterday I started losing power and the device is dead in just about 8 hours, with the graph of battery loss showing only Skype and Android OS. I haven't used Skype at all and don't know why it would even show up on this graph, but Android OS usually hadn't been showing up as more than about 5-15% of my total battery usage, much less overshadowing everything else. I uninstalled Skype thinking it may have updated and have noticed no difference at all.

I've started looking for solutions online, and found forums for "android OS bug fixes" but nothing that detailed anything similar to this situation. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1135033

I have had Gingerbread 2.3.3 since I got this phone (annoyingly.. where is ICS Samsung??) I'm pretty sure and have had no battery drain problems such as this at all until just recently. I had not made any changes to the system nor any applications or widgets and see no reason why suddenly the OS would start to consume my battery erroneously.

I don't have WiFi on typically unless I'm in a zone where I do have it and sketchy service such as at work sometimes (I am a student and only work about 15 hours a week on top of classes) and at home if I'm updating apps or using my phone a lot and want the quicker service. GPS and Bluetooth are always off, along with 4G unless I will be currently using it a lot in a 4G zone.

Basically, I see no reason why my battery life should suddenly become awful when I had been having such a wonderful experience with this phone for months. What could have caused this and how can I reverse it?? Thanks!

Are any apps showing suspiciously high cpu use? You can check with Seepu, or with 'top' command at the terminal or adb-shell.


How can I prevent applications from running on startup? Possible Duplicate:
  How can I stop applications and services from running?

I've installed some applications that I mostly like, except for the fact that they all decided they were too important not to auto-start.  None of them give me any option within the application to disable the auto-start "feature."

Can I stop these applications from auto-starting?  And if so, how?

Note: My phone is not rooted, so I'm especially interested in solutions that do not require a rooted device, but all answers are welcome, even if they require rooting the device, since I may do this eventually.

Also note: I'd prefer not to fiddle around with clumsy auto-kill features in task-killer programs, as I've found them to be incredibly unreliable on my phone (Motorola Milestone/Droid).

Please, please, please, please put down the task killer.

It isn't needed.  The operating system knows how to handle and end applications just fine.  Otherwise you are going to waste performance/battery because when you kill a task it is going to re-spawn back up.  And if you  killed a task that was writing to disk (or a database), then you could potentially create corruption.

The only time you ever, ever, ever should kill a task is if it is obviously running wild or hung up (and usually when this happens you get the Force Close screen.  If not, go to Settings --> Applications --> find your app and kill the task there).


How to keep 4G on while on WI-FI My home Wi-Fi connection doesn't have Internet access, so I need to keep my 4g on while connected to the WI-FI. I tried "smart network switch" and it doesn't work, it is kicking the WI-FI off because it doesn't have Internet access. Also tried the "Download Booster" same thing. It kicks the WI-FI off.

Any way to have them both connected? My Wi-Fi as LAN and my 4g for Internet navigation.

Thanks

As of until Marshmallow, stock Android does not support connecting to both WLAN and Data network simultaneously.

You may keep them both turned on, but the OS will then choose to connect to WLAN or Data depending on Internet access and network quality.

Reference: Personal experience only.


StackExchange apps and LaTex rendering Is there any app which allows to browse Stack-Exchange sites and is able to interpret and render latex formulas inside the posts?

I have already tried StackAniwhere and Droidstack which apparently can't do it, unless I'm missing something.

I doubt that there is one one and that there will be one in the (near) feature.

A look at stackwrap4j, the only Java Stackexchange Library that runs on Android, shows that the body (the content) of a post, which can be a question or an answer, is returned as plain String. The Tex equations are just included as plain Tex in that String and get rendered on the client side by the browser.

So, for example, Droidstack would need a Tex library that parses the tex code and returns a picture with the compiled tex. And I am not aware of such a library for Android.


Flashing ROMs with adb sideload Can I flash roms with adb sideload without rooting my android device ?

I have tried installing custom recoveries once, but it didn't work. I had rooted my android device before, but due to some reason, I unrooted my device. From then, I can't root my device because, when I try to root my device with Framaroot, my phone hangs for a few seconds, and then the app just closes itself directly. I also tried to root using the Kingo Root app, but my phone just restarted several times. It was of no use.

I am using Samsung Galaxy Core GT-I8262 running Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2.  I have tried factory resetting the device, but it was of no use. Please help me with this problem.

Flash CF-Auto-Root in downloading mode then a recovery right after. Boot into recovery and flash a new ROM, obviously make sure it is the correct ROM and correct CF-Auto-Root file before you flash it. You might want to make a backup NAND file. With my experience the rooting applications you download onto your phone such as "King Root" tend to fail more times then they succeed..


How can I enable Google's voice recognition? I want to enable Android's Voice Input on my Archos 70 Internet Tablet.  Voice Input/Output isn't even visible in the settings menu.  Is there an apk file to add this or some other way?  I'm happy to take 3rd party Voice Recognition suggestions like vlingo if they don't need access to the Google Voice Recognition Engine, but I'm most interested in getting the standard Android voice input working.

Device: Archos 70 Internet Tablet running Android 2.1

Android 2.2 is now available for your device, which includes voice search:
http://archosfans.com/2010/11/30/froyo-firmware-2-0-54-for-gen8-released-2/


Looking for a parts list application I am looking for an application like a shopping list, that will let me put in items with the prices and give me a final total...so that if I have a project, I can put in all the prices(scanning barcodes would be a plus) of items in the project while i am out and about.

I have tried a couple different searches, but havent gotten any really good hits on it.

A quick Google search returned ToMarket . It looks like its original purpose and design is for Groceries but you can use it for any type of item. The description says it supports bar codes and lets you put items with prices and quantity in the cart and gives you a final total. Sounds like exactly what your looking for based on the question. It looks like a nice app, I'm downloading it now for myself.

EDIT: This app is actually pretty cool, it has some default items when you first open it but if you go over to the "need" tab it is blank. When you add an item it gives quite a few details you can add to it, including whether or not it is taxable. I also noticed there is a feature to export your lists or to share it with others via SMS or email.


Sync between two Android devices without Internet connection Is it possible to sync between two Android devices directly when there is no Internet connection (like a remote location or an outage at the Internet provider)?

Using a direct wireless connection between just these two Android devices (without using a PC or a WiFi router)

I need to sync all data (contacts, calendar, photos, ...)

I asked the same question for iOS devices:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/35515/sync-between-an-iphone-and-ipad-without-internet-connection

I'm afraid this isn't possible, at least with the builtin apps. All of the sync profiles are client-side, and can't act as sync servers. Furthermore, normal Android phones don't support ad-hoc wifi connection, so you'd need to connect through a router or possibly with bluetooth.

Some of these can be achieved manually over bluetooth, such as sending photos and contacts, but you'd have to manually select which files to send. For photos, go to Gallery, select the photos you want to send, and tap the Share icon and select Bluetooth. After this you need to select the other device, assuming it's paired. A similar menu should be found in your Contacts app.


Remove/disable guest account on Android 6.0.1, but still allow restricted accounts? I've been researching this exact issue and am aware of these 2 Q&A's on this site:

Is there a way to remove the Guest account?
Removing the default guest user account on Android Lollipop

Neither of these either cover what I'm asking or are wrong (the 2nd one mentions how to delete the guest account, but it continues to be shown if you switch back to the main account, for example).

I'd like to disable the guest account completely and still retain the ability to have multiple restricted accounts on my Samsung Tab A (model GM-T350).

We purchased these for our kids and find the lack of security to restrict them disturbing. I have a Nexus 7 tablet and am able to restrict access to restricted accounts there without issue, however on the Samsung version of Android this has proved challenging.

The method using the adb shell to set guest_user_enabled to 0 but this appears to only work if you have no other accounts, besides the administrator account, so that simply won't work.

Putting a password on the guest account will not work either, since you're able to simply "Start Over" and wipe the account and install whatever apps you like.

Deleting the Guest account will get rid of it, however if you slide the top level pulldown and switch to the administrator account, and then hit the power button and slide it down again you'll see the Guest icon show back up and you can simply start a new instance of the Guest account.

Worse still, when doing this same thing you'll be presented with a "Add User" button which blows my mind, since why would I want anyone to simply start making accounts on my device.

NOTE: The below reference is the best overview I've found thus far around parental controls in Android, but many of the screenshots are from non-Samsung variants, best I can tell.

References

What are Android’s inbuilt parental controls?

Create a restricted account named Guest
Sign into that account
Go back to administrator account
Delete the account that you made in step one

You can still access the Guest user in the user section of the settings menu but not from the lock screen. This works for me. I hope it works for you too.

As for the add user button that can be disabled by going
Settings>Users>...>Add users when the device is locked


Nexus 7 system update notification My Nexus 7 permanently displays a 'system update downloaded. Touch to install' notification' that I can't seem to clear. I've touched the notification to install but am just taken to apps. Can anyone help me get rid of this notification, please? Many thanks.

Download the updated image and manually flash it instead. That is what I did with mine.


How can I get Google Photos app to see old/other photos stored on SD card? On my wife's LG G5 she uses Google Photos as her choice of photo gallery app. She took photos until her device memory filled up, so I bought her a micro-SD card. I went into File Manager and moved all the photos from internal memory to the SD card, then set the camera app to store new photos on the SD card as the default location.

Now when I open the Google Photos app it doesn't show any of the old photos. It shows new photos taken since the SD card was installed, but not the old ones. If I look in the Gallery app I can see all the photos on the SD card, both old and new.

I suspect the same issue would occur if I wanted to side load photos taken with another camera onto the SD card.

How can I make the Google Photos app library find the old files in the new location? Or in other words, rebuild the index of photos, or clear the cache, or whatever I need to do so the app will start looking at the contents of the SD card?

First check if in Google photos app options under Device Folders if you can see the photos on external SD.
If you can't,  from Settings → Apps → show System apps → Media Storage → Clear data (this is the path in Marshmallow ). Don't worry, you won't lose anything
Reboot and wait for a while for media index to be rebuilt

You should now see photos on external SD


Storing data on external SD Card in Android 4 (ICS) for Sony Xperia J? I searched the web and several forums, but still haven't found a good answer.

I bought a Sony Xperia J. It's a pretty basic phone with Android 4 (ICS). It has 800 MB of Phone memory and 4 GB of Internal storage. I wanted to download Sygic navigation and the maps that I wanted to use. The phone said "not enough space" because Sygic wanted to use 2 GB and I had only 1.4 GB of my Internal storage available.

I thought that if I bought at least 16 GB microSD card, that would solve the problem. No, it didn't, because the stupid phone won't install downloaded apps to the external card. My previous phone (Blackberry Curve) did it all automatically. I just inserted the SD card and the phone downloaded and installed all to the microSD card (I had just 2GB card, because it was enough).

I can store music and pictures on my external card which I download to my phone via USB from my PC. But I want my phone to recognize the external card as an available space to download apps from Play Store and so on.

How can I define my external card as the primary storage? I'm not an expert and I don't really want to root my phone if there's any other way. If the only way is to root it, can anyone write a step-by-step guide for Android ICS?

Thank you all in advance! :)

You can move the apps in your phone memory to your internal storage easily with your app settings. Goto Settings -> Apps and select the apps you want to move. Then click the Move to internal storage button.

Or use an app like App to SD to do this conveniently.

If you want to make your SD card the default location, go through the below steps.

Install android SDK
Connect your device with USB debugging enabled
Run the command Cd C:android-Sdk-Windowsplatform-Tools in cmd
Enter the command adb devices and you should see your attached device listed on the screen.
Enter the command adb shell pm getInstallLocationwhich will show you the current value of InstallLocation of your device. It would be one among the following:

0 [Auto]: Let The Phone Decide The Best Location For An App
1 [Internal]: It Installs Everything In The Internal Storage
2 [External]: It Installs Everything In The Memory Card

Enter the command adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2 to change the install location to external memory.
If everything works fine, you would not see any message on the screen. You can now disconnect your device from the PC.

Refer this for more information and screencaps


How can I restrict a user's ability to modify settings or install apps? Our team is planning to buy around 10 Android phones for the team members. We don't want them to install any applications other than the ones provided. Is there a method or an application which would allow me to restrict the ability of a user to install apps?

As an analogy, on Windows the admin can configure the system so that other users cannot access Internet settings, task manager, or install new software. We'd basically like to do something similar to that.

One idea I had was to download the Android source code itself and then program it according to my needs and install it on the devices. However, I would prefer to avoid doing that, if possible.

You can't... unless you manufacture the device by yourself.

You can't stop power users from flashing ROM which would flush your software based protection (even if you have embedded the solution in ROM to survive factory reset). Unfortunately, almost all devices in Market support it. If not, there are ways to hack bootloaders, too.

If you are still interested in software based solution, try contacting Soti. They provide such type of solutions at a cost.


Google play constantly asks for permissions A few weeks ago my Xiaomi phone (MIUI 8) started showing a permission error, stating that more permissions are necessary. After enabling all of them, the error reoccurred after a few minutes, this time asking for other (previously enabled) permissions (mostly body sensors, storage, sms, etc).

It is somewhat annoying, since I get a notification every few minutes with the same error, which wakes up my screen. How can I fix this problem and make sure the permissions are always enables?

This issue seems to me like a bug with Google Play Services, probably caused by some of your data within the Services app given that this isn't happening to everyone. Try these steps in order until the issue is resolved:

Check Google Play Services for an update in the Play Store, and if available perform it.
Force Stop Google Play Services in Settings -> Apps -> Google Play Services -> Force Stop.
Log out of your Google account.
Restart your phone.
Log back into Google Play Services.
Clear its data and/or cache in Settings -> Apps -> Google Play Services -> Storage -> Clear Cache/Clear Data.
(According to OP, not necessary): Clear your phone's system cache.

Note: See OP's comments above for how they fixed the issue.

Happy to hear this helped!!


Is there any WEP cracking application available for android? Is there any WEP cracking application available for android?

If not is WEP cracking technically possible with the API's and hardware available on your average android phone?

This is a purely academic question please leave ethical arguments out of it.

The Broadcom bcm4329 chipset in a lot of android phones (Nexus One, Evo, G1) probably many more) supports monitor/promiscuous mode. The driver needs to be modified to allow monitor mode to be enabled.

Here is the source of the current drivers:

monitor mode flag

method to that sets the mode

In the second link, you can see that monitor mode flag is not even in the switch statement so it's just gets ignored when called.

Someone also got tcpdump working on a G1 so it's possible, we jsut need to put in some work to get it functional though.

A few more links about the chipset, drivers, and modifications to them:

http://forum.aircrack-ng.org/index.php?topic=281.0
http://aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=b43
http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43


Rsync does not preserve permissions while rsyncing from Android to Laptop I am trying to do rsync from my android phone to my laptop.  The problem that I am facing is that the permissions are not getting preserved even when the -p flag  is used. I have also used the other flags such as -o, -g.

What may be the reason and a fix for this?

Is your SD card formatted as FAT32? If so, that's why - it's a FAT32 limitation.


Using ADB shell, How I can disable hotspot / tethering on lollipop Nexus 5 My screen got broken and I've been using my phone with a VNC Server installed on it, but this morning i'd the stupid idea of enable hotspot just to see if I can use my mobile data plan on my laptop, but when I did this, the wi-fi got disconnected from my router and now i only have access to my phone using adb shell.

I need to disable hotspot from ADB, already searched on google but didn't find anything, i also tried disable and enabling wi-fi, doesn't works.

adb shell input keyevent 3 # home

  adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.android.settings/.Settings

  adb shell input keyevent 20 # down

  adb shell input keyevent 20 # down

  adb shell input keyevent 20 # down

  adb shell input keyevent 66 # enter

  adb shell input keyevent 20 # down

  adb shell input keyevent 20 # down

  adb shell input keyevent 66 # enter

  adb shell input keyevent 20 # down

  adb shell input keyevent 66 # enter


Backup and restore Android Settings and Application through ADB I would like to ask if it possible to backup and restore all Android Settings and applications through ADB.

I tried:

adb backup -all
adb: unable to connect for backup

It is not working, while all other commands are working.

Is it possible to use this bmgr ?

Make sure debugging is enabled and the device is connected.  Also, remember to actually select the "backup my data" button on the device itself (the device requires confirmation).  If you don't see such a screen on your device, you're quite possibly running a pre-ICS (< 4.0) phone, which will unfortunately will not have the feature.

Also, bmgr is not a solution for this-  It's a tool for testing apps that handle their own backups using the backup API by manually firing the "backup" and "restore" methods on the backup agent in the application, not shelling into the device and copying data to/from the development machine.


What are the official APKs sites? Where can I find the official APKs to download them, in order to install them later on my phone without using my Samsung phone data?

Regards.

I recommend APK Mirror, legit APK files, never have had an issue.


Enable “USB Internet” for Android 6.0 With earlier versions of Android there was the option to connect your mobile phone via USB cable with your windows PC and enable "USB Internet" to share the internet connection from your PC with your phone (in case you don't have Wi-Fi nor Mobile Data). But with Android 6.0, this option is no longer available from the settings.

Is there a way to a) enable this setting again or b) to share the internet connection (reverse tethering) via additional mirroring apps (all without hacking/rooting the phone)?

Not using Reverse Tethering NoRoot, there are two ways to make reverse tethering.

Method 1:

  It requires Android 5.0+, a 20KB .apk to install, and a command-line PC program (1MB).

You can use Gnirehtet (It is similar to Reverse Tethering NoRoot, but uses less space and has no usage limit), which can be downloaded here on GitHub. You will also need the ADB tools in the same folder.

Method 2:

  It works with all versions of Android (without ADB), but requires Windows 10. It, again, will require a program on your Android device and PC.

This article explains how to create reverse tethering using OpenVPN. It will take much more space on your devices (and much more time setting up everything), but it also works.


Web Page Not Available on StraightTalk Android ZTE I have a StraightTalk ZTE Merit, and the browser keeps on saying "web page not available".

Data enabled and Data roaming are both checked under Mobile network settings. For some reason, it will not let me edit the APN settings.

I cannot use any internet-based apps.

This is the third day it has been like this.

Any help would be great.

Some troubleshooting results:

Cellular network is AT&T, MVNO is StraightTalk.
Voice/Text still works.
No installation of apps prior to the issue
Have cleared the Browser's cookies and cache
It has worked on previous occasion
Disabling data roaming did not seem to help
Does not work over Wifi
APN is set to:

Name is WAP.

APN is att.mnvo
Proxy is proxy.mnvo.tracfone.com
Port is 80
MMSC is mmsc.cingular.com
MMMS proxy is proxy.tracfone.com
MMS port is 80
MCC is 310
MNC is 410
Authentication type is none
APN type is default,mms,supl

Am suspecting the proxy within the APN setting, could be the fault, or that the service provider has changed something somewhere.

OP was advised to check with their cellular network's web-site to see if there's a page somewhere, (it would require registering details such as name/email/number) and perhaps a button to send the APN details via SMS.

Proxy.mvno.tracfone.com  make sure that the letter P is on upper case
and this is an old apn settings
your internet is slow on this kind of apn
use the current LTE one


Are the HTC Desire HD video issues solved yet/solvable by the end user? I'm considering getting an Android phone, and at the moment, my choice is between the HTC Desire and the HTC Desire HD. As the price difference is minimal, the obvious choice would be the newer one, but some reviews have mentioned video issues on the device.

Since that looks like an issue that could be solved in software, and that review was written at the time of release. Are these issues still present on fully update HTC Desires, and can they be solved if they are?

I guess these issues are solved as I have never encountered such on my Desire HD.


Android lag issues in Galaxy S3? I know I have previously asked a similar question and I am asking again : why does my Galaxy S3 lag when doing routine tasks ?

When pressing HOME button , the screen is supposed to smoothly fade away. Instead, it fades away in a stammering manner. Sometimes, it just stays and then disappears in an instant without the gradual fading effect. This was in case of Mozilla, Chrome and some other apps.
The  drop down menu on the top of the screen also stammers when I open it. I do not drag my finger all the way to the bottom, I just click and flick and let the menu go down on its own.

Is it a hardware issue ?
I do clear my cache once in a while. No task killer. No root.

As a side note, I play Real Racing quite often and I DO notice an occasional lag when there are like 20 cars driven together. Apart from that, game works like a charm.

With as advanced of a phone as the S3 is, you shouldn't be experiencing much, if any, lag at all. Chances are, it's something you have or haven't done to the phone.
1. Try restarting it. Often times, RAM will remain in use even when applications are no longer being used. Restarting it will bring your phone back to where it's not using ram from all the apps you've been using since the last time you restarted it.
2. You said that you clear your cache... I'm assuming you mean RAM cache, versus data cache. Android's way of memory (RAM) cache "clearing" isn't always (or even often) entirely effective. An app I've fell in love with for cleaning out RAM (as well as it's anti-virus abilities) is 360 Mobile Security - Antivirus, which you can download from the app store. It'll force out memory in ways many apps don't, and also gives you the benefit of having an anti-virus program built in. Root gives more functionality to it, but you said you don't use root, but I thought I'd throw that out there for anyone reading this that might have root.
3. Update your android system. 4.1.2 is not known for it's "buttery smooth interface and performance".   Settings -->  About phone --> Update (may be in status tab) will likely be able to update Android's platform for you. If not, outside of rooting and changing your rom, guess you'll be stuck with 4.1.2 unless your carrier provides an update service for you.
4. Check your settings. THere's things in the developer's options menu that'll effect transition speed, which can give appearances like lag.  Developers options --> window/transition animation scale  is the place you want to check. x1 seems to be a standard setting, but the lower you go, the faster the system will react visually, and (when available), I set mine to x.25, but that's not always an option (in ROMs), where-as x.5 usually is available. Use x.5 if x.25 isnt available. There's a couple other things in developer's options that could help you out too, take a look around.
5. Keep on researching the issue if this doesn't help. The answers are out there.


Galaxy S7: Difference between various European versions On Amazon France, once can choose from the "France", "Germany" and "Italy" versions of the Samsung Galaxy S7 (not carrier locked).  They are priced slightly differently.

What is the difference between all these? Can't each be set to either language? Do they come with different software? Are they locked to a specific country in any way?

I am new to Android and I am confused about all the different versions each phone comes in.

What you see are different versions of the exact same phone.
The non-french versions are import phones (it says it in their title).

With literally any european/international phone, the only differences are (from my experience):

Different default language (makes sense, your phone will be in the language of the country you bought it in), this doesn't mean you can't change it; usually 99% of all languages are available.
Different baseband: this is not very important for international variants, but carrier-exclusive models sometimes come with some bands disabled, so you can't use them on other carriers' networks.
Pre-installed apps: Makes sense, in some countries some apps are predominantly used and in other countries other apps. This depends on local laws (what and how these apps are allowed to be offered) and local developers trying to get their app around using a different (often more expensive) way.
Included accessories: Yes, sometimes you get more accessories (or extra accessories) in some country than in another. This may be a case, a screen protector etc.
Most important: Warranty!
Warranty is often bound to the country of sale. So you may need to send your phone via international parcel services, which you may need to pay on your own because they only cover national postage. Sometimes they may even deny warranty claims!

Important for you: Make sure the model number ends on an F.
Most Samsung devices in the last years changed their model no. from the GT-Ixxx(Y) to SM-xxxY, where x is a number and Y is a letter, F denotes "international".


Writing to /dev/log/main from command line It is possible to write encoded messages into /dev/log/main and then see them in the adb logcat output.

The command should be executable through adb from the host PC. Ideally, it should look like:

adb shell ... my log message

Is there some way to encode the logs without installing anything?

So far, we have used very simple native application, which will print whatever is passed over its command line to the log.

Write the following in terminal (replace 123456789 with the device serial number/id):

adb -s 123456789 shell log -t "TAG" "MESSAGE"


How do I find the incremental upgrades direct download links? Some time ago, I found this page that contains links for incremental upgrades: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=20843237&postcount=1

I'd like to know if there is a way to find such links for myself. If I try to go to http://android.clients.google.com/ I get a 404 error.

Apparently it goes something like this:

somebody gets the OTA update on their phone
they use a logcat tool to find the URL in the logs.
they post the URL on some forum.

Source: http://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-droid-incredible/31295-how-get-ota-download-location-share.html#post309933