FRP and OEM locks bricked my Samsung phone after root I recently flashed my SM-J701F (Samsung Galaxy J7 Nxt, Android 8.1) with TWRP and Magisk.

Both OEM and RFP locks somehow turned themselves on when I tried to reboot, effectively bricking it by leaving me unable to either boot into any mode or flashing anything using Odin. (Odin always returns FAIL)

It's now asking me to use Smart Switch's emergency recovery feature, but that software refuses to recognize my device too.

Base on my research you can fix the OEM lock by flashing Samsung stock signed firmware using Odin or Samsung tool pro. To remove the frp you need to create a modded boot where the USB debugging is on. You can make one in assayyed kitchen you just need your stock boot, you can get stock boot at the firmware files, let's assume you flash the modded boot. You will boot to your phone but the frp locks is still there what you need to do is connect your phone to your PC then open Samsung tool pro find your phone model there then remove frp using adb.

P.S. Factory data reset your phone after flashing modded boot (optional)


Android 4.3 external and internal sdcard I am new  in Android so please be gentle.
I have the problem, that my phone doesn't use the external sdcard and try to save everything on internal 2gb storage.

So I rooted the device and get a shell on my device.
then I checked the mount point and saw that the /dev/fuse is used everywhere

   /dev/fuse /mnt/shell/emulated fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
   /dev/fuse /storage/emulated/legacy fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
   /dev/fuse /storage/emulated/0 fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
   /dev/fuse /storage/emulated/0/Android/obb fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0

   /dev/block/vold/179:33 /storage/sdcard1 vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0702,dmask=0702,allow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0

my idea is to change the mounts everywhere and change /dev/fuse to /dev/block/vold/179:33

is there any special program technically location in Android to edit and save the new mount points?
Thanks!!

Try the SDFix application (for KitKat Writable MicroSD) on Google Play, which simply adds a line to the platform.xml permissions file (at /system/etc/permissions) to allow writing on the extSDCard.


What kind of app optimizations do newer Android versions do at the first reboot? I received from my phone carrier, Vodafone IT, the official OTA Google update to Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 on my Nexus S. When automatically rebooting for the first time after the update, the system displayed a notice stating that it was optimizing the installed apps. What kind of optimization does Android 4.0+ do at the first reboot?

Digging into the PackageManagerService class on grepCode (warning: this class file is huge, your browser may chug a fair bit when rendering it), the optimizing message is displayed in the following context:

public void performBootDexOpt() {
    ArrayList<PackageParser.Package> pkgs = null;
    synchronized (mPackages) {
        if (mDeferredDexOpt.size() > 0) {
            pkgs = new ArrayList<PackageParser.Package>(mDeferredDexOpt);
            mDeferredDexOpt.clear();
        }
    }
    if (pkgs != null) {
        for (int i=0; i<pkgs.size(); i++) {
            if (!isFirstBoot()) {
                try {
                    ActivityManagerNative.getDefault().showBootMessage(
                            mContext.getResources().getString(
                                    com.android.internal.R.string.android_upgrading_apk,
                                    i+1, pkgs.size()), true);
                } catch (RemoteException e) {
                }
            }
            PackageParser.Package p = pkgs.get(i);
            synchronized (mInstallLock) {
                if (!p.mDidDexOpt) {
                    performDexOptLI(p, false, false);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Here the value of com.android.internal.R.string.android_upgrading_apk is the string "Optimizing application". In layman's terms, it loops through each application on the device, updates the message on the screen by calling showBootMessage() and then calls performDexOptLI() on the application. So naturally, the next question is "What does performDexOptLI() do?" Well here's what that looks like:

private int performDexOptLI(PackageParser.Package pkg, boolean forceDex, boolean defer) {
    boolean performed = false;
    if ((pkg.applicationInfo.flags&ApplicationInfo.FLAG_HAS_CODE) != 0) {
        String path = pkg.mScanPath;
        int ret = 0;
        try {
            if (forceDex || dalvik.system.DexFile.isDexOptNeeded(path)) {
                if (!forceDex && defer) {
                    mDeferredDexOpt.add(pkg);
                    return DEX_OPT_DEFERRED;
                } else {
                    Log.i(TAG, "Running dexopt on: " + pkg.applicationInfo.packageName);
                    ret = mInstaller.dexopt(path, pkg.applicationInfo.uid,
                            !isForwardLocked(pkg));
                    pkg.mDidDexOpt = true;
                    performed = true;
                }
            }
        } catch (...) {
           //I've trimmed out a bunch of exception handling here, it basically just writes to
           //the log and sets the return value
        }
    }

    return performed ? DEX_OPT_PERFORMED : DEX_OPT_SKIPPED;
}

So this invokes the dexopt utility on all of the applications that need it. It's difficult to find any simple documentation regarding dexopt, but there's a high-level overview here. Suffice it to say, it's being used by the Just In Time (JIT) compiler to create optimized .dex files that help improve the performance of the apps on your device and it outputs them into the VM cache. The reason it stores the .dex files in the cache is because otherwise it would have to re-extract them any time you want to run the app (the .apk is just an archive, it is not an executable file!). Thus, it makes sense to just keep them in the /data/dalvik-cache directory to reuse them, and dexopt performs some optimizations during the initial extraction while it's at it.

TL;DR (or non-programmer summary, I guess): It's rebuilding the Dalvik cache.


How to check where an app is sending data over internet on Android? How to check where an app is sending data and making requests over the internet on Android?

Is this possible with ADB or something else?

I want to monitor an app for data it is sending over the internet.

No-Root firewall does the same. The advantage is that it is all displayed in a GUI-interface. To function, it creates a VPN(disadvantage of this is that you can't use your own VPN at the same time of course). Then it lists the apps that want's to access a certain IP address over a certain port, and you can decide if you want to allow or disallow in the ip or range over WIFI or mobile.

This works great for dedicated apps, but for some system apps this is tricky, because they are displayed bundeld. Also there are requests for certain IP address of '...cloudfront..' servers. These servers are hosting servers that change continously and you will never know who is behind it and what data is send to it.

And example of a bundled app from android that I have is:
"Android System, Atci_service, com.mediatek, com.mediatek.batterywarning, com.mediatek.voiceextension, Common Data Service, FloatWindow, FotaProvider, Fused Location, Input Devices, Key Chain, MiraVision, MMITest, Mobile anti-theft, MTK Thermal Manager, Permission Control, Phone, Schedule power on & off, Settings Storage, Setting, SmartcardService, UpgradeSys, Voice Unlock"


Why is the looking direction often completely wrong while going by bus? I noticed that the displayed "looking direction" of Google Maps is often (always?) exactly the opposite when I'm going by bus:

This is astonishing for me, as it is most of the time correct when I'm walking. Why is that the case?

I registered the same phenomenon when going by one type of electric tramway in Prague on my old Motorola phone. It is happening because of strong electromagnetic fields from electric motors. But it happened only when accelerating or decelerating not all times.
Is your bus by any chance equipped with some strong electric engine?


Can I install Skype on my xperia? I want to install Skype on my xperia x10 but I cannot find it in the market
when I go to Skype.com/m and try to download it, I get the following message:

  item not found

A friend of mine who has a Nokia C5 was able to install it.

How can I install it?

There are regional and phone network restrictions for Skype. They may well be different for Nokia phones than Android phones, and your friend may not be on the same phone network as you.

There (is now) one official Skype app in the Play Store, and one I know of that isn't in Play Store:

Skype on Three- Three UK customers only, follow directions on the linked page to get it
Skype - requires Android 2.1+, works on all phone networks (outside of the US) where your phone network allows it.

The above options for finding Skype in the Play Store only work if your country has its own Play Store, if your country currently uses the "Rest of the World" Store, then you won't be able to find Skype. According to Skype's FAQ, if this is the case then you should go to GetJar.com and download Skype from there.

Assuming you're not in a country/network that's blocking Skype then your problem may be the Android OS version on your phone, I think most Xperia x10's are still running Android 1.6 and the normal Skype app requires that you be running Android 2.1 or newer.

I think most countries have an Eclair (Android 2.1) upgrade for X10's, check what Android version your phone is running, and then find out if an upgrade is available.


Questions about "Speed Dial" screen on Nexus' Phones app The "phone" dialer app on my Nexus 6P (the app that launches when you press the "phone" icon from the homescreen's launchpad) is driving me insane. Is there any way to configure it to go straight to the dialpad when launched? Or at least the normal phonebook?

I'm specifically annoyed by the "speed dial" page it shows when you first launch the phone app:

It almost seems to pick contacts to display on it at semi-random, and as far as I can tell, there's no way to manually override its decisions about whom to show on the page.
The page is like a minefield of clickable tiles. The slightest accidental touch on 95% of the page (anywhere besides the tiny 2mm x 2mm zone around the three vertical dots used to trigger "other actions", or the ~1cm diameter action button for the dialer) will instantly and irrevocably trigger dialing the contact. If you accidentally touch somebody's icon at 4am and hit "end" instantly, there's nothing you can do. The call is going to be made, and show up on their phone as a missed call. On at least 3 occasions, I've accidentally dialed whomever was on the icon flanking the action button that launches the actual dialpad.
It also makes the phone almost completely unusable for one-handed use, at least, for anything besides accidentally triggering phone calls to random contacts with your thumb.

I've gotten to the point where I've started having anxiety attacks every time I have to make a call, terrified that I'm going to accidentally trigger some unwanted action while attempting to get away from that quick-access screen and get to the actual dialer or the real phonebook app.

Is there a settings page somewhere to do things like disable the "speed dial" screen, or at least choose who's on it and/or what the default action is for touching somebody's tile on it?

Is there any way to configure it to go straight to the dialpad when launched?

No, at the moment, there isn't. You will need to first press the Phone icon, which will load up the stared contacts screen, then press the dialer icon at the bottom center of the screen to get to the dial-pad

Or at least the normal phonebook?

Contacts app does this. You can place it on the homescreen for quick access.

It almost seems to pick contacts to display on it at semi-random, and as far as I can tell, there's no way to manually override its decisions about whom to show on the page.

If you star a bunch of contacts, they show up at the top of this window. You may rearrange them by pressing and holding on the contact tile. What follows the starred contacts is the set of contacts whom you frequently contact.

If you want to clear the frequent contacts, press the 3 dot overflow menu on the top right and tap on "clear frequents"

A simple way to avoid going to the dialer is to directly search for the contact name from the persistent google search bar at the top of the screen. This will in turn show the contact you're looking for along with  the telephone number details from where you may place the call.

Another option would be to open the phone app, then search or directly type in the entire number(if the contact isn't stored). If the contact is indeed stored, their name will directly show up. If not, you'll see something like  "Call 9xxxxxxx".

If you fancy handsfree calling, it is as simple as saying - "Ok Google, dial 9xxxxxx" or "Ok Google, call Mr.X on his cellphone"

One other option is to try out some other custom dialer apps! There are plenty on the play store.


How to root ZTE Zinger (Z667T) running Android 4.4.2? I've tried looking around, but I can't figure out how to root my ZTE Zinger (Z667T) running Android 4.4.2.

Towelroot is a good rooting app with no need of a computer.

SuperOneClick uses the computer but still reliable.

Can't 100% guarantee that it will work, but it has a possibility. Good luck rooting your phone!


Bluestacks using about 30GB I have installed Bluestacks 4 android emulator on my 64bit Windows PC. I have not installed many apps but in the data folder it is using about 29GB of data. In the folder Program Data/Bluestacks/Engine/Android, I can see Data.vdi and Data_0.vdi, The second one is 27.4GB and fomer is few 100 MBs. My question is what could be the reason for such large file size? Is there a way to clear unnecessary data from bluestacks?

BlueStacks is a virtual machine using image files that contain the whole "persistent memory" that is available to the virtual Android device.
Such virtual image files can be crated in two ways:

When creating the virtual machine you can decide of much memory (persistent not RAM) you assign to that virtual machine. And to make this space available an image file is created of the chosen size. The file internally is then formatted as needed by the virtual machine and contains a lot of free space, but this free space is only visible inside the virtual machine. From the outside from the beginning on the full virtual disk size is allocated in form of a file

To avoid allocating a full virtual disk size some virtual machines allow to allocate space on demand. This means that if the virtual machine writes data to a sector of it's virtual disk the will be appended to the virtual disk image the first time it is written to. The main problem is that the BlueStacks is not aware which sector has been written before or not, hence if you write and delete files inside BlueStacks other sectors may be written and so the image file is growing larger the more often you use BlueStacks.

VirtualBox contains command-line tools that allows to compress images that have grown too large but don't contain much data. But that is no longer an Android topic. Search Superuser.com for how to trim/compress VirtualBox images.


Is it possible to permanently supress app updates? Possible Duplicate:
  How to hide updates from market?

I've been using a certain app for some time now, but according to the many 1-star reviews the latest "update" has got, it breaks compatibility with Tasker, which is not something I want.

Is there a way to at least temporarily remove the regular update notifications I receive, or stop the app appearing at the top of my update list every time?

Using Nexus S with official 4.0.3.

You can use Titanium backup for this purpose.
However you'll need root access for this to work.
From this Titanium backup wiki:

Can I tell the Market that I do not want to update a specific app?
Yes. Just long-click on an app in the Titanium Backup list and hit
"Detach from Market".


Dialer, Contacts and Messenger apps closing automatically in Oneplus X Since a week, the Dialer, Contacts and Messenger apps have been crashing frequently whenever I try to open them. But after few hours after crashing somehow they start working normally. I have tried clearing the data and cache, tried resetting the phone, installing third-party apps for making phone calls and messages. But even those apps are crashing, if they are related to making phone calls and messages. I tried wiping the data and making a hard reset, but still the problem persists. So please help me solving this issue. Thanks in advance.

I had one plus 1 back in 2015 and it was really good but with age it started showing similar issues. I took it to the service center and they said the problem is with OS and they are going to format and reinstall.

Luckily i got the upgraded OS but it didn't really help me, after 1 month i started facing the same problem then i visited the service center again and finally they end up replacing my handset to a new one.


com.htc.bg 'process stopped unexpectedly' on HTC Desire when Facebook sync active Once per hour, I get a message on my HTC Desire saying that a process has stopped unexpectedly. It is the com.htc.bg process. The problem disappears if I disable the syncing of my Facebook account to the phone. To back this up, I have found that the list of contacts downloaded from Facebook is incomplete, so I am wondering if it is crashing halfway through the sync process.

Rather than just disabling it to stop the error, I want the Facebook contact sync to work properly. Is there a way to fix this?

I've had a similar problem with the contacts sync for an Exchange account.  I found that deleting the account on my Desire and re-adding it made the errors go away.  Give it a try.


Google play services, please help So my Google play services won't update saying I need to sign in but when I try, it doesn't seem to work

Try below given possible solutions. I hope one of the below given tips fix Google Play services issues.

1st Way: Clear the cache Google Play Services

settings > Apps > Google Play services > Storage > Clear cache

If not work then clear all data of Google Play services storage using below settings.

Settings > Apps > Google play services > Storage > Manage space > Clear all data

2nd Way: Uninstall Google play services updates

Settings > Apps > Google Play services > More > Uninstall update > OK

3rd Way: Remove your Google account

4th Way: Reset app preferences

settings > Apps > More > Reset app preferences > Reset apps

If none of the above trick worked, check Google Play service version, make sure latest version updated.


How to mount NFS on Android with correct permissions? I am trying to mount an NFS share on my Android phone.

I have already compiled and installed all the needed kernel modules. The NFS share mounts flawlessly but I can only mount as the system user.
This wouldn't be an issue if I could set the correct ownership for the mounted file system.
The problem is that the share is always mounted as user=system and group=system, making it inaccessible to regular apps.

I would like to be able to specify the ownership of the mounted filesystem at mount time.

This is how I mount the NFS share

su -c "busybox mount -o nosuid,nolock,nodev,rw,nofail,noatime,intr,tcp,actimeo=1800,context=u:object_r:rootfs:s0,user -t nfs $REMOTE_URI $LOCAL_DIRECTORY"

where REMOTE_URI is the remote location and LOCAL_DIRECTORY is the local directory. The above command is inside a script.

This is the relevant line of the /etc/exports file on the NFS server (a raspberry pi 3)

/media/neo/BLACKBOX XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/0(rw,insecure,sync,no_root_squash,no_subtree_check,anonuid=1000,anongid=1000)

System Specs:

LG V20 H990DS
System - V10i-TWN (6th-Nov-17) 7.0 Stock, Rooted & Xposed
Kernel - D.O.T.S. v1.4
NFS version 4

PS: The UID and GID on the server are 1000 and 1000 respectively. In Android those are reserved for the system user and group. All my other computers have UID and GID 1000 and the same username neo. It would be much easier to just modify how Android mount the share. I would like to map uid=neo(1000)->root(0) and guid=neo(1000)->sdcard_r(1028) where neo:neo is the user on the server and root:sdcard_r is the user on the phone.

I would like to map uid=neo(1000)->root(0) and guid=neo(1000)->sdcard_r(1028) where neo:neo is the user on the server and root:sdcard_r is the user on the phone.

Files ownership root:sdcard_r (0:1028) on Android won't work for apps. It should be root:everybody (0:9997) with mode 0770 for directories and 0660 for files.

HOW TO MAKE NFS WORK WITH ANDROID APPS?

Traditional *NIX DAC (UIDs/GIDs) was designed to isolate human users, not programs. On Android devices - meant for one human user usually - apps need to be isolated and protected so that they can't access each other's data. So Android treats every app like a human user - with a unique UID/GID.

External storage (/sdcard) - whether physically external or internal - is meant to be shared by all apps i.e. multiple UIDs. If it's a traditional *NIX filesystem (like ext4), every app would create files with its own UID/GID which makes it nearly impossible to share files among all apps with read/write access. To come up with a solution, Android opted emulated filesystem - based on FUSE or sdcardfs - with fixed ownership and mode. See details in What is the “u#_everybody” UID?

These UIDs/GIDs and modes also control apps' access to files in /sdcard. So if we want to mount NFS to be accessible by all apps, we need to mitigate these permissions according to Android's storage design.

PLAIN UNIX SECURITY ON NFS:

sec=sys mode enforces UNIX permissions without any translation. As explained in previous section, files would be created with random ownership by different apps. So those have to be readable/writable by world (o+rw), otherwise apps won't be able to read/write. But there is no way to enforce file creation mode globally, neither it's a good idea to share files with too open permissions. A possible solution is to use ID mapping and/or anonymous mode.

NFSv4 ID MAPPING:

With NFSv4 it's possible to map different UIDs/GIDs between client and server. If a user with same name but different UIDs/GIDs exists on both sides, files on client look owned by the same user name, not same UID. Linux key-management facility * is used to store mappings of remote user IDs to local user IDs. A good explanation can be found here.

So the idea is to create user:group neo:neo on NFS server (1000:1000) and on Android (0:9997). For this, rpc.idmapd needs to be running on both server and client which queries user database (/etc/{passwd,group} in simplest case) through NSS.  On more recent kernels the NFSv4 client instead uses nfsidmap, and only falls back to rpc.idmapd if there was a problem running the nfsidmap. Kernel calls /sbin/request-key binary in userspace which executes nfsidmap to query users database. So the kernel would map server's neo (1000:1000) to client's neo (0:9997).

In simple case, if UID/GID range 10000 to 19999 is not assigned to any user/group on NFS server and Nobody-User = root/Nobody-Group = everybody is defined in /etc/idmapd.conf on client, all files (created by Android apps) owned by non-existent users on server would be returned as owned by 0:9997 on client. But it doesn't resolve the problem of random ownership of files on server.

Running rpc.idmapd or providing nfsidmap on Android is a complicated task (static linking and all that). However - making use of keyutils (request-key and keyctl) - we can trick kernel to show fixed ownership 0:9997 for all mappings regardless of what the actual ownership is:

On NFS server:

Run services:

~# mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd
~# rpc.mountd -g -N2 -N3 -N4 -N4.1 -N4.2 -p 4000
~# rpc.nfsd -N2 -N3 -N4 -N4.1 -N4.2 -U --p 2049 4
~# mkdir -p /run/rpc_pipefs
~# mount -t rpc_pipefs sunrpc /run/rpc_pipefs
~# rpc.idmapd -S -p /run/rpc_pipefs
~# echo -n N >/sys/module/nfsd/parameters/nfs4_disable_idmapping
~# exportfs -o rw,insecure,hide,no_subtree_check,sec=sys <CLIENT_IP>:/SHARED_DIR

Or configure and run required init services. Also unblock ports though firewall on client and server.

On Android:

Create /sbin/nfsidmap_pseudo and /etc/request-key.conf:

#!/system/bin/sh

uid=0
gid=9997

case $2 in
    uid:*)
        printf '%s\0' "$uid" | /sbin/keyctl pinstantiate $1 0 ;;
    gid:*)
        printf '%s\0' "$gid" | /sbin/keyctl pinstantiate $1 0 ;;
    *)
        # won't do anything to "user" or "group" types
        exit 1 ;;
esac

# /etc/request-key.conf
create  id_resolver  *  *  /sbin/nfsidmap_pseudo  %k  %d

Place files, set permissions and enable ID mapping::

~# chmod 0755 /sbin/request-key /sbin/nfsidmap_pseudo /sbin/keyctl
~# chmod 0644 /etc/request-key.conf
~# chown 0.0 /sbin/request-key /sbin/nfsidmap_pseudo /sbin/keyctl /etc/request-key.conf
~# chcon u:object_r:rootfs:s0 /sbin/request-key /sbin/nfsidmap_pseudo /sbin/keyctl
~# chcon u:object_r:system_file:s0 /etc/request-key.conf
~# echo -n N >/sys/module/nfs/parameters/nfs4_disable_idmapping

Since NFS isn't supported officially on Android, SELinux policy doesn't have required rules. You may need to set SELinux permissive or allow kernel to read/write keys, execute files in userspace and make connections:

~# supolicy --live 'allow kernel kernel key { search write view read }'
~# supolicy --live 'allow kernel kernel capability { net_raw net_bind_service sys_admin }'
~# supolicy --live 'allow kernel { rootfs shell_exec system_file } file { execute_no_trans execute open getattr }'

Mount:

~# mkdir -p /sdcard/NFS
~# busybox mount -v -t nfs4 -o vers=4.2,sec=sys,rw,tcp,port=2049,context=u:object_r:sdcardfs:s0 <SERVER_IP>:/SHARED_DIR /mnt/runtime/write/emulated/0/NFS

Unfortunately what we get from all this setup is that now apps apparently see files in /sdcard/NFS owned by 0:9997. But with sec=sys security, actual file access is not governed by NFSv4 UID Mapping **. Permissions are enforced by RPC mechanism which is not yet ready to work with ID mapping. So UID Mapping without Kerberos security works only if user/group name and number spaces are consistent between the client and server. It means that neo user on server should have UID/GID: 0/9997 (which nullifies the whole purpose of ID mapping). On the other hand Kerberos security (sec=krb5) is too hectic to be tried on Android.

Similarly file locking on NFSv2/3 requires portmapper (rpcbind) and rpc.statd running on server and client both, which is not the case with Android client. So, we need to use nolock mount option. On NFSv4, however, locking is built-in NFS protocol, NLM isn't needed. So better is to not go for UID Mapping (on NFSv4, and File Locking on NFSv2/3). If you need all NFS features (including Kerberos) working on Android device, rather try a tiny Linux distro in chroot.

* On kernel older than v4.6, /proc/keys is exposed if kernel is built with KEYS_DEBUG_PROC_KEYS.
** References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

NFS ANONYMOUS ACCESS:

One of NFS security flavors is anonymous mode. Every request from any UID/GID on client is treated as the anonymous UID/GID on server. Initially all files in shared directory must be owned by this UID/GID and all subsequently created files from client side would also have the same ownership:

Export share with sec=none on server:

~# exportfs -o rw,insecure,no_subtree_check,anonuid=1000,anongid=1000,sec=none,root_squash,all_squash <CLIENT_IP>:/SHARED_DIR
~# chown -R 1000.1000 /SHARED_DIR; chmod 0700 /SHARED_SIR

* For NFSv2/3 also run rpcbind (on default port 111)

Mount with sec=none On Android:

~# busybox mount -v -t nfs4 -o vers=4.2,sec=none,rw,tcp,port=2049,context=u:object_r:sdcardfs:s0 <SERVER_IP>:/SHARED_DIR /mnt/runtime/write/emulated/0/NFS

* Use -t and vers= according to your kernel build configuration CONFIG_NFS_V[2|3|4|4_1|4_2].
* Use -t nfs -o nolock with vers=3 or vers=2.
* Make sure you are mounting from root mount namespace.
* Mounting with sec=none doesn't work with NFSv3.

All apps on Android can now read and write to NFS directory and all files are created with single anonymous UID/GID on server, easy to manage by a user. However apparent ownership (if ID mapping not setup) and permission mode is not according to Android's flavor, so...

TRY IT THE ANDROID WAY...

Let's make use of FUSE or sdcardfs as Android does:

~# mkdir -p /mnt/NFS /sdcard/NFS
~# busybox mount -v -t nfs4 -o vers=4.2,sec=none,rw,tcp,port=2049,context=u:object_r:sdcardfs:s0 <SERVER_IP>:/SHARED_DIR /mnt/NFS
~# mount -t sdcardfs -o nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,mask=7,gid=9997 /mnt/NFS /mnt/runtime/write/emulated/0/NFS

If your device doesn't support sdcardfs, use bindfs and replace SELinux context u:object_r:sdcardfs:s0 with u:object_r:fuse:s0:

~# bindfs -o nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,context=u:object_r:fuse:s0 -u 0 -g 9997 -p a-rwx,ug+rw,ugo+X --xattr-none --chown-ignore --chgrp-ignore --chmod-ignore /mnt/NFS /mnt/runtime/write/emulated/0/NFS

It leaves us with no remaining problems. For more details see How to bind mount a folder inside /sdcard with correct permissions?

GIVE CIFS A CHANCE...

NFS being Linux's native filesystem (like ext4) is meant to enforce *NIX permissions. Non-native filesystems like FAT and CIFS let fixed ownership and permissions be set across whole filesystem. So what you are looking for is relatively easy to achieve with CIFS:

~# mkdir -p /sdcard/CIFS
~# busybox mount -v -t cifs -o vers=3.0,nosuid,nodev,noexec,noatime,rw,hard,context=u:object_r:sdcardfs:s0,nounix,uid=0,gid=9997,file_mode=0660,dir_mode=0770,nouser_xattr,port=445,username=USERNAME,password=PASSWORD //<SERVER_IP>/SHARED_DIR /mnt/runtime/write/emulated/0/CIFS

* Kernel must be built with CONFIG_CIFS and preferably CONFIG_CIFS_SMB2, use vers= accordingly.
* For mount options detail see mount.cifs(8)

OTHER OPTIONS?

Other FUSE-based mountable filesystems are sshfs and rclone. Latter offers a large range of protocols and configurations while requiring a very simple setup.


How do you remove words from Swype's dictionary? I know how to remove words from Swype's user dictionary. I want to know how to remove words from Swype's built-in dictionary. I get very frustrated with all these random words that I know I'll never use! I can't tell you how many times I've had the word "Getty" show up instead of the word "get".

If there is really no way of removing words from Swype's built-in dictionary I'll probably need to find an alternative. That's probably another question though.

Swype uses a separate dictionary. You can access the settings for both from within the system settings:

From the homescreen, open settings → language & keyboard

for Swype continue: Swype → Personal dictionary
for the default keyboard: My dictionary

There you can edit/add/remove words from your user dictionary.


I softbricked my china tab I bootlooped my tab and forgot to turn on debugging option. I used framaroot for rooting. Only way to make my tab go back to normal is by factory resetting through recovery mode, but my Power button isn't working.

I have an HKC Q79 tablet (in the box it says the model is an H8 but its actually a Q79) any idea how to bring it back to normal?

Heres a simple solution to that:

Download and install Shuame from http://www.shuame.com/
Its an app is full of android tools.Its in Chinese, though.
Install your tablet's device drivers. Youll have to find these according to the chipset your tablet uses as many chineses tabs and phones pretty much dont exist on the internet and so, youll have to search by chipset. Its probably by Mediatek.
Connect your tab to the PC and launch shuame.If your tablet isn't detected automatically, click on the blue button next to the phone icon in the main page.
4.Once your tablet is detected, click on the icon with foure squares on it in the navigation tab.
Click on the button on the left column with the phone icon and the text "recovery.

That should get your tablet to recovery mode.


Block my smA10 pro with IMEI I wish to block phone Samsung galaxy  A10 pro with IMEI. The phone was stolen. I don't want the end user or thief to have access to my data. Also to render the useless and unuseable.

IMEI blacklisting is done by cellular service  providers, not by users. That said, the phone can still be used barring the functions which require cellular services. Your approach with IMEI blocking/blacklisting won't do any good to your data because it has no bearing on data.

If you had Find my Google enabled you can use it to remotely wipe data (subjected to the device connected to internet). If you are a user of a US based cellular service provider, they might be offering a service to report a stolen device for IMEI blacklisting.


Files left after formatting I factory reset my android phone. When I saw the log after formatting(yet no app installed), I was getting

Processing Container com.mapswithme.maps.pro
Container com.mapswithme.maps.pro-1 slate
..
..

and for other apps that i earlier installed. Why is android looking for it after i format the phone. If these files still exist on phone how to remove them. My phone is NOT rooted. {and i intend to keep it that way}. the apps are in mnt/secure/asec

any possible solution ?????

I can think of two relevant facts.

Apps that were pre-installed as part of the system (i.e. came with the phone) are not deleted by a factory reset: they just go back to the original version, and will probably be updated by Google Play later.
If you had Back up my data turned on in the device settings (on the Backup & reset page), then as soon as you signed into your Google account, the phone will have started to reinstall all the apps you had installed previously, and the data of all the apps that support Google backup.


Using Apple Lossless with Google Play Music I have a lot of music encoded in Apple Lossless (ALAC), but Google Play Music doesn’t seem to support it.  Instead Google Play Music supports FLAC, but iTunes doesn’t support it.

I don’t care how encoded my music are, but want to encode these without any loss.  How do you guys manage your lossless music using iTunes + Google Play Music?  I believe it’s not only my problem.

Edit: Okay, I finally gave up, and encoded my all files encoded in ALAC/FLAC to normal AAC.  There seems no way to use both at a time as of now.

First are you talking about storing the music on your Android device or on the Google servers?

If you are planning on streaming music to your device from the Google Music Play servers then you can't store your music in a lossless format see this page about formats on Google Play Music, and notice this line:

  FLAC, ogg, and aac files are transcoded to 320kbps mp3

However, if you want to store the music locally on your device then your question makes more sense.

There are a few ways to put ALAC music on your Android device in FLAC

Keep your library in ALAC and convert songs to FLAC as you want them. Then move the new FLAC files to your device.  A program like Max should be able to handle the conversion for you.
Convert all of your ALAC files to FLAC in place and then use fluke to enable FLAC playback support in itunes.

What option you select depends on how much you like to keep your OS free of plugins like fluke and how ofter you are moving music to and from your device.


How can I change the double-tap zoom in the Android browser? I like to use double-tap to zoom in on web pages with small text. (Multitouch pinching has been hard for me to get the hang of.)

It very often zooms too far, though. Is there a way I can get it to zoom in a little less on a double-tap?

The answer is in the browser settings.

In the default browser, this is found in Menu | More | Settings | Default Zoom. Options are "medium" (the default), "far", and "close".


Is there a way to display calendar notifications without having to unlock the screen? For SMS there is an application called SMS popup which will display the message over the lock-screen.

Is there anything similar for calendar notifications that allows you to clear or snooze the notification without having to unlock the screen?

WidgetLocker is a great lock-screen replacement that will allow you to put any widget installed on your phone on the lock-screen.  You can also configure it to allow your Notification bar to be usable.  The actual calendar popup I'm not sure about, but I know you'd be able to see it when it shows up in your notification bar, and from there you can open it up and snooze/dismiss it.


If I install a ROM that doesn't exactly match my phone, will it work at all? As you know, manufacturers of popular mobile phones often times will release a modified " clone " version of their mainstream models. Often these clone models will be re-released models that are designed to be a downgraded version of a high end phone, usually released for prepaid network. These dumbed down androids will have the exact same hardware as their big brothers, but will be lacking in some performance features such as a smaller lower resolution screen, or a weaker camera. But the are essentially their own kin. They'll have the same chipset, the same sensors and I/O devices, but will be cut down much like an entry level laptop. The problem with these phones is that the manufacturer rarely publishes software updates for them because they aren't very popular and most of the time it's impossible to find third party roms for them for the same reason. So, how likely is it to work if you download and install an OS made not for the prepaid, but for it's big brother?

Say you have a Motorola XT957C3
This phone is a prepaid, entry level version of the Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX. is uses the Texas Instruments OMAP3040 chipset, just like its cousin, and it has the same Broadcomm WLAN chip, the same Wolfson Audio hub, the same accelerometer and gyro, even the same battery and power IC.
( note that these figures aren't factual, I'm just making an example )
The only differences are purely aesthetic. A smaller display, lack of a front camera, less internal memory etc. etc.

How likely is it that installing a ROM for the Droid RAZR will work on this off-model phone? What other than basic drivers does the OS need to work right? And what about the baseband software? Would it be the same as the one on its brother?

The answer is almost definetly no.

Although there might not be much difference between the models, there are bits that are different. These bits won't work. Other bits may depend on these bits, and they won't work either. The baseband and radios might work fine, but the rest of the mismatched components will lead to, at best, a soft brick. I have a Moto G LTE second gen, and accidentally flashed a ROM from its non-LTE brother. Almost exactly the same apart from the radio, and a different model number of processor (both Snapdragon 400s though). I ended up with a brick that was very hard to sort out (not helped by the fact my nandroid backup was corrupted).

Also (correct me if I'm wrong), I believe that a number of ROMs will refuse to flash if they detect the wrong device. I found that out when an old copy of TWRP kept feeding a zip the wrong information. Don't try and test it out though :)

In short, flashing ROMs on devices they weren't intended to be flashed with is a bad idea, no matter how similar in specs they may seem.


Update Android SDK Platform Tools via Command line I want to write a script to update the Android SDK platform tools and I need the command if available to run in order to achieve this. What I have found is that I can use the Android command under the /tools directory to update the software (images, sources, etc.), but nothing to update the tools themselves.

The guide on Factory Images for Nexus Devices says that I must be sure I have the latest tools

  Be sure that you have the latest version of the Android SDK Platform-tools from the SDK Manager.

So, is it possible? If it is, how to do that?

Use of android tool is deprecated; instead use sdkmanager:

 androidsdk/tools/bin/sdkmanager --update

https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/sdkmanager.html


Reinstalling core / stock messaging app on android 4.0 I have got samsung galaxy nexus running ice cream sandwich (android 4.0).

I accidentally uninstalled the core messaging app on my phone and no longer have the stock messaging app. Is there anyway I can reinstall it without resetting my phone?

Please advise.

Since you were able to remove a system app, I assume that your Galaxy Nexus is rooted. Depending which ROM you are running, you should be able to download a copy of that ROM, extract the "Mms.apk" from system/app subfolder within the zip, and then push it via ADB to the same location on the phone. (For stock ROM you might also need Mms.odex file from same location.)

adb remount
adb push C:\path\to\file\Mms.apk /system/app/Mms.apk


How do I prevent the Browser and Dolphin HD from deleting old history entries? So I've noticed that for both the default browser and for the Dolphin HD browser, all the history entries get deleted when you go beyond a certain number of pages visited. Does anyone know how I can prevent this from happening? I often do like to look at what I visited in the far past.

Dolphin Settings

Well, for starters, I'm looking at my own Dolphin Browser Settings page right now and under Data settings, you have the option to manually clear certain data types like history and cookies and also have the option to manually back the data up to your local or external (SD) storage disk.

Data Backup

In addition, under Sync settings, you can actually backup an unlimited amount of your history, bookmarks, cookies, etc. to your Dolphin Connect Account (which you can connect to Google or other social services). So that may be an option you may want to look into, is data backup so you'll actually have access to unlimited amount of the data you use from any device you use Dolphin on, despite Dolphin's local limit.

Drawing The Line

As far as I'm concerned (and someone, correct me if I'm wrong), at this stage I don't know that there is an option for you. The new Dolphin Browser doesn't have any limit so I'm not sure how much assistance any one of us will be knowing that Dolphin HD is an outdated version of Dolphin which is no longer supported.

The new Dolphin Browser can be found here.

Good luck and let me know if I can help any further! I'll continue looking in the meantime, but it is doubtful that I'd find much.


How to start Android Lost app on stolen Samsung S4 after pushing it through Google Play? My phone was stolen, unfortunately I dont have find my phone switched on but do have location history on. I cant locate it via Android Device Manager. I done some readimng and installed Android Lost as my email is active on the phone.

On the site Android Lost its telling me to refresh and wait for a congratulations messgae.. Ho do I remotely start the application, it's showing as installed in Google Play website????

There's no other way to REMOTELY ACCESS A phone other than Background Data or SMS... I could have said you open Pokémon GO and follow your balls around in circles until you find it but i went with the logical answer !.....    All remote access programs made for Android use Background data or Auto sync to control the device.. This means logging into the website and pressing connect to device over data... The Only Working Alternative is a Secret SMS that gets recognized and deleted by the target program, This usually contains control words like Locate Me 46432 ... Locate-Device-Password ...etc...


Why does my SD data get messed up when i connect to PC with USB? Every time I connect my phone to my computer via USB (Huawei U8666E, Android 4.0.3) even after I've disconnected my phone, the following 2 things happen (that I can tell): My ringtone goes back to "Default" (i'm using a custom one which is saved on the SD memory) and my music playlist (the only one i have) goes empty. No music file is missing, they're just removed from the playlist, and they, too, are on my SD memory.

What can i do to fix or circumvent the issue?

Edit: The problem is not that it happens while the phone is hooked on the computer, but that it persists AFTER i disconnect it. In other words, after disconnecting the phone, i have to manually rebuild my playlists and change the ringtone again. Is there a way for me to transfer data between PC and phone without having to "reconfigure" the phone after the process? Or better yet a way to use the USB normally without the "reconfiguring" having to take place?

It sounds like your ROM doesn't properly reset settings when the sdcard is re-enabled (since it obviously becomes unavailable to the OS when using USB Mass Storage). Unfortunately, this is likely an issue with your ROM and I don't think there is a likely setting that would fix it.

However, in Android 3.0, Google added MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) support and it has been in all versions since. This allows the sdcard to remain mounted in the Android system while also allowing it to be accessed on the computer. I can't remember the exact layout of ICS, but to be able to change it to MTP from UMS, it is probably pretty close to Settings -> Storage -> Menu -> USB Computer Connection -> enable MTP


Why has Google started asking questions when reviewing apps in Play Store? I went to review an app today after receiving help from the dev and after selecting the star rating I was then asked three questions about the app. "Does the app have whiteboards?", "Does the app allow you to make checklists?", "Does the app have online storage?", with options, "No", "Don't know" and "Yes" for each. After that I was able to write the review. The app was just a fun app that measures vibration, comparing it to earthquake intensity, so none of the questions are relevant.

I checked a couple of other apps. One didn't ask any questions, the other did but the questions were different and more relevant to the app.

I have not been able to find info on this. Does anyone know why Google are doing this and how they decide the questions? Would also be interested in knowing when they started doing this.

Thanks.

Since Aug 2016, Google has been testing a new feature called "Top Features" of an app.
Android Police reported,

[...] it seems that Google has begun testing another change in the same arena - Top Features, a new element that aims to make determining what functionality an app has easier. [...] Top Features is situated above Review Highlights and contains user feedback about certain abilities of the reviewed app.

How Google gets this data is by crowdsourcing it to reviewers (similar to how Google Maps crowdsourced maps improvements)

In addition, the reviewing process has been tweaked. [...] The new process asks reviewers (up to) three questions about the app. Basically, Google will ask if x function is available in the app; if it is, you give a thumbs up; if it isn't, you give a thumbs down; and if you're unsure, you click "Not Sure". The process itself is pretty straightforward, but it is unclear how exactly Google comes up with these questions; all we know is that they eventually contribute to Top Features.
(Emphasis mine)

As reported, it's unclear how Google comes up with the questions. It could be from app's manifest (e.g requires internet connection or not), or from app's category (e.g. social network, etc), ...


Useful or cool Tasker recipes In a similar vein to this question, I'm interested in finding any useful recipes for Tasker.

I've found several profiles and "Step Throughs" on their wiki, but would be interested in any others that people have found helpful.

Here's a good one I found on Lifehacker a while back.

http://lifehacker.com/5611003/build-a-find-my-iphone-clone-for-android

I changed a few things when I did it, like allow the text to come from any phone and send the reply to that phone, and making the SOS text a passphrase so that nobody accidentally sent it to me.

I also made one that turned my ringer up and played a song for when I lose my phone around the house. I can just text my phone 123findme and it will play a song even if I left it on vibrate mode.


How can I browse some document-like apps offline? Some Android apps are actually some kind of documents/ebooks, but it seems that I can't browse it offline. for example, it seems that when my phone is not connected to a network or mobile data service, the following app doesn't load

LeetCode Cracker

How can I browse such apps offline?

Thanks.

The app doesn't save anything, and it's using in-app browser to load the codes from GitHub repository. From its app description,

All of my solution files are on GitHub, and are in Java. It contains almost all of the problems of LeetCode except some of them I haven't came up with a good solution. Since this app read files from GitHub repository, it requires network connection. I think this will not require too much data usage. And it make it easy for me to update solutions without update this app.
(Emphasis mine)

Searching based on it returned the corresponding GitHub repository.
Now, given the GitHub repository, the next step is to clone it to the device (e.g. for offline usage). As of current, I only found and tested SGit, and it worked for me.
Usage:

Install and open SGit
Tap Clone (plus icon) on the top bar
For Remote URL, input https://github.com/softstar1990/LeetCode.
For Local Path, input anything that can be used as identifier (e.g. LeetCode).
Tap Clone. The cloned repository will be stored on: [sdcard dir]/Android/data/me.sheimi.sgit/files/repo/[Local Path]
Browse the repository from SGit offline.


Extract the apk of Live wallpapers To extract the apk of any android application , it is simple just use any apk extractor tool and get the apk. However in the case for live wallpapers the apk extractor do not show the apk for wallpapers .

I just want to get the apk for live wallpapers from my phone .

You can use ES File Exporer

Goto App Manager (press menu to get app manager)
There you can see list of applications installed in your mobile
Select Live wallpaper apk
click on Backup
You can find apk in location /sdcard/backups/apps

*Edit:*

System Live Wallpapers are located on your phone in path:

  system/app/LiveWallpapers.apk

You can use ES File Explorer for the same.
But your device need to be rooted to access system apps.


"Add widget" option not appearing on home screen I would like to add a widget to my home screen. According to the official help page, I should touch and hold an empty space, and then tap "Widgets". However when I touch and hold an empty space on the home screen, there isn't any "Widgets" button, all I see is "Home settings" and "Wallpapers". However, I found a screenshot on internet where that button is clearly visible, the problem isn't that I'm looking in the wrong place.

My phone
Screenshot of someone else's phone I found on internet

So it seems like this "Widgets" buttons exists on other phones, but it's disabled on my phone for some reason. I tried googling for why this button could be disabled, but I couldn't find anything related to my problem.
I also tried clicking on "Home settings" to see if there was anything related to widgets in there, but there wasn't. I also tried opening the settings app and searching for "widgets" in the search bar, but it didn't give any results.
In case it matters, I'm using a Motorola Moto E6i.
Why is that "Widgets" button disabled and how do I enable it?

Your phone Motorola Moto E6i is running Android 10 Go.
On Android Go the default launcher has no widget support. This is the reason this option is missing.
I am not sure if different launcher apps also face this limitation. You can try to install a different launcher app that has built-in widgets. Widgets of other apps may still be impossible because of Android Go.


Is there a way to use PC browser bookmarklets with the Android Browser or Dolphin HD? Can I make these work on Android or is there a google place to create or convert bookmarklets to make them Android Compatible?

Finally got it to work and it wasn't complicated at all.

Simply create a bookmark and paste the javascript into the URL field.  I've tried it on this bookmarklet that does a google definition search:

javascript: s = (window.getSelection ? window.getSelection() : document.getSelection ? document.getSelection() : document.selection.createRange().text); if (s == '') { l = parent.frames.length; if (l != 1) { for (i = 0; i < l; i++) { s = parent.frames[i].document.getSelection ? parent.frames[i].document.getSelection() : parent.frames[i].document.selection.createRange().text; if (s) { break; } } } } if (s == '') { void( s = prompt('Google Define:
Enter a term or mark some text.','') ); } if (s) { s = String(s); s = s.replace(/^s*|s*$/g,''); s = escape(s);void( bmw = open('http://www.google.com/search?num=100&start=0&q=define:'+s+'','GoogleDefineBM'+String(Math.round(Math.random()*1000))) );}

To get it saved as a bookmark I just saved the text in evernote then copied it on my phone an pasted it in the url field of "new bookmark."  To make it even easier to access I created a custom dolphin gesture that opens it as "Go To URL".  Now when I'm browsing and I want to lookup a word I hit the gesture button and draw a "d" and it brings up a popup that allows me to lookup the word.

I've only tried this on Dolphin Browser HD.


Is it possible to Install cyanogenmod on Galaxy S2 I have galaxy S2 which I bought two years and still is in its Prime Condition with no scratches or smudges at all. So Im planning to install New Version of Android OS on it.

I like cyanogenmod So I want to install this on my phone. I have never flashed ROM on it. It still got the same Stock version of Gingerbread 2.3.3

And yes my phone is root-ed

Mobile info

Model No = GT-I9100
Android Version = 2.3.3
Kernel Version = 2.6.35.7-I9100JPKH1
Build No = Gingerbread JPKH1

Can someone please tell me what are the pre-requisites to install cyanogenmod

Thanks

Yes - you can install Cyanogenmod for the i9100 S2.

Get the CyanogenMod (nightly if you feel adventurous or stick with the stable since you're new at this) from http://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=i9100

Also, you'll need to flash the appropriate gApps package from http://goo.im/gapps

I highly recommend you read through the major posts of this thread on XDA

Also, learn how to use CWM or TWRP recovery - Youtube has a number of videos. See how its done, before attempting to do it yourself, and of course - please back up your data to the cloud or to your PC / laptop / external SD card before attempting this and if possible, perform a NANDROID backup so you can revert back to how things were should the unexpected occur and you need to recover.


Can receive but not send SMS My Samsung Galaxy 2 (SC-02C) has been rooted and upgraded to 4.1.2. It seemed that everything, all phone functionality, was fine.

However, I've discovered that I can not send SMS with my phone. I can receive SMS from anyone from any carrier in my area just fine. I've asked at my service provider (DoCoMo, in Japan) and was told that I have the service enabled and my account with them should be fully operational.

I wouldn't have imagined rooting and upgrading the phone would impact SMS, but that seems to be the case.

How might my SMS functionality be impacted by my current ROM, and how can I fix it?

It could be a ROM bug - have you communicated to the author/thread of the ROM and asked if there are any issues with SMS sending?

If there aren't, I suggest that you wipe factory data completely, and then try again. You may wish to use an app such as My Backup Root or Titanium Backup to back up your apps before you do so.


Decryp sd card on samsung s9 I've encrypted my sd csrd on my old phone. This has since broken and wont turn on. I upgraded to a samsung s9 and put my sd card in. It wont let me decrypt the sd cre through any password or pin an tells me to decrypt it on my old phone first before being able to use it on my new phone. Help please

Unfortunately, the encryption is tied to the phone as well as the password.

Have you tried connecting the device to a computer to see if it will come up enough to let you transfer files or is it hard bricked?


Restore IMEI of Xiaomi MI4C Without Another Phone In short: I have a Xiaomi Mi4c that shows has an "unknown" IMEI when checked via the settings in the stable and developer versions of MIUI and Cyanogenmod 13.1. However, when viewed through EFS professional or NV RF Manager, the IMEI is read correctly. Not having a "valid" (or any?) IMEI means I have a 5" wifi tablet, rather than a phone, which is something I've been trying to fix.

The long version:

The problems started right after I flashed CM 13.1, and I couldn't detect my sim card. Thinking it was my ROM, I reflashed my stock ROM and when that didn't solve the problem, I quickly deduced that the missing/unknown IMEI was the problem.

I finally got NV RF Manager working, and read all of the NV values from my phone. After finding the IMEI related value, I followed the odd schema for rearranging my IMEI and filled the boxes out and clicked "Write NV." However, I only received an error that read "Parameter is write-protected and thus read only." The same results were achieved with EFS professional. (Again, this was on CM) Now, I reflashed the stock ROM, and tried again. After rebooting the phone, I was able to read the correct IMEI values from the phone using both EFS professinoal and NV RF Manager, but the phone still showed baseband and IMEI as "unknown." Dialing *#06# causes the numbers to disappear, but nothing else happens.

So far, this is what I've tried:

NV RF Manager
EFS Professional
MTK Droid Tools
SP Flash Tools (Did not work at all, only for MTK chipsets?)
Apps like XPOSED IMEI Changer (Results in nothing changing)

There are a few related questions, but none of them work for me.

How to restore IMEI and get back network functionality?

Might work, but I have been unable to find the "modem" or nvram files on my phone. I also don't have an "efs" folder on my phone (that I can find.)

Mi4i full partition corrupted. Unable to restore EFS partition

Isn't jiving with me. The thought of uploading mi4i (rather than mi4c) specific files after removing my only remanents of my efs files seems like a bad idea to me.

How to restore the IMEI number on the Samsung Galaxy S4 I9505?

Is ROM specific, and since it doesn't work on multiple ROMs, I've ruled it out as related.

Again I have a Xiaomi Mi4C, the 32GB/3GB version with the Qualcomm MSM8992 Snapdragon 808 chipset.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated, I've hit a wall fixing this problem.

What you need.

Download MTK Droid Root & tools.
A Windows computer.
Have already set USB Debugging mode enabled on your device.
A USB cable.
Have setup ADB & Fasboot on your PC.

Instructions.

Connect your device to PC, then launch MTK Droid Root & Tools.
Droid Root and Tools will detect your Android device.
If your device is detected, you will see its IMEI on the Phone Information tab on the droid root and tool interface.
Then find the Root button that's located on the lower right side of the interface.
Select Yes button if asked whether you wish to Root. You will see Root Shell Script Access.
Then you'll see a window box named Change IMEI, Backup/Restore, NVRAM.
Now replace the IMEI on the window box with the IMEI number from the rear side of your Android device.
Then choose Yes. Reboot your device for the changes to apply and finish.

I got the instructions from the following page; repair MTK IMEI, that page contains pictures to clearer its point.


Can I resume downloading app in play store? I started downloading a game using Wi-Fi, the game was about 1.5GB . When almost 800 MB was done i closed wifi. The download paused. Will i be able to continue from 800 MB  when i connect to Wi-Fi  again..  Or from the beginning?

Usually the download resumes. But in some cases the file is downloaded again.


Removing the USB storage is removed notification My Moto G has USB OTG mass storage drivers - I can use a USB drive with a standard USB-OTG dongle for extra temporary storage.

This is awesome except for one thing -after I properly unmount and remove the USB drive I seem to be unable to dismiss the USB storage is removed notification until I reboot the phone.

Thats the notification I get. I can't slide to dismiss, and tapping on it throws me back into the home screen

I also have this little icon on top when I'm looking at other things

I'm running a Moto G XT1033 (8GB Asian edition) with the 4.4.2 update. I'm using a standard USB OTG adaptor with different USB drives, and as I said, have properly unmounted the drive (there's an error message if I'd been silly enough to do that). I've not rooted the phone in any way, and USB OTG mass storage support is natively supported.

Is there any way I can dismiss this notification without restarting my phone?

Yeah this happens on Moto X too. You can long press on the notification and click on App Info. Then force stop the application that posted the notification (System UI). Doing so doesn't seem to affect anything else. Annoying we have to do that but better than restarting phone.


Search for files using Droid Explorer I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 rooted. Is it possible to search for files using Droid Explorer and Windows 7? If it is possible, how can I do it?

Currently, no. You cannot search from within droid explorer for files. This is something that I eventually want to do, but have not yet had the time to do so. (I am the developer of droid explorer).


Removing Gmail account from Gmail app, but keeping it in Google Inbox app On my Android I run the Google Inbox app as my personal email client. I run the Gmail app for my company mail. Problem for me is that since I have my personal Gmail account synced with my phone it will automatically show up in Gmail, causing double notifications to show up for each new email I receive, one from Gmail and one from Inbox.

How do I remove my Google account from Gmail, and only keep it in Inbox?

AFAIK you can't configure an account only for inbox, or only for gmail.

But you can disable gmail notifications for your personnal account.
In gmail, top-left menu, settings, "your-personnal-account", uncheck "notifications".


How to allow a call recorder app access to call logs? How to allow a call recorder app access to call logs?
Since Android 9 (pie) Google Play has forbidden apps that are not the primary telephony app to access the call logs. The other problem seem to be that the phone recording call quality especially of the party on the other end has seemed to be severely degraded since the prior Android version.
For context, read Google Play Store Changes SMS and Call Log Policy.
Related post: Access the call-log to complement what has been banned by policy

You can't unless your device is rooted or if you are running Android 8 or earlier

Details

Call logs

Thanks to Irfan who commented

  On Android 9+ an app can read call logs only if it holds READ_CALL_LOG permission, which is intended to be granted only to the apps registered as default phone app (on Android 10+ it also requires whitelisting restricted permissions during app installation). Additionally apps published on Play Store cannot hold READ_CALL_LOG permission if they aren't capable of being used as default phone app which includes call recording apps.

  For the same reason some call recording and other apps which need to access call logs or ongoing call's phone number publish two different versions of their apps; one on Play Store (without READ_CALL_LOG permission) and the other with the said permission.

Call recording

Android has blocked call recording from Android 9 onwards (country specfic)
. This has been resisted by several users as you can see in the issue tracker.
Only silver lining is that at some point of time it may be restored in future versions as mentioned in the issue tracker

  Our development team has been adding call recording APIs on their road map.  Its something that we would like to address in a future version of Android.  However due to the security and privacy implications of such APIs it is not something we can deliver for the Q release.

Without root, you cannot overcome these limitations - poor quality of recording, one sided recording, caller identity not being tagged (as in the related question which you linked). You can see these complaints in the latest reviews of the app you linked.
Side loading an older APK isn't going to help if you are on Android 9 or above, since OS itself is blocking it. Some call recorders like Boldbeast have made Magisk modules to overcome these limitations. On OnePlus devices, you can similarly record using a Magisk module.
If you don't want to root your phone, star the issue tracker and hope that call recording and maybe access to call logs is restored in future versions


Why an SD-card saved app uses phone memory Lately I had issues with my phone's (Samsung Galaxy Mini GT-S5570) internal memory aw well as with the SMS memory. I deleted all unwanted messages, rooted my phone and used Link2SD to move some apps as well as link other ones on my SD card.

Yesterday I installed some apps from Samsung Apps and I am facing a rather weird situation. Note that before the installation I had ~20 MB free phone memory.

All those apps are installed on the SD card(at least that's what Link2SD says). The moment I finished the installation I got the error message that

  my phone's internal memory is nearly full

I used APPMGR III to see what is my free memory and I found out that I had only ~5 MB left! I was so surprised!

I decided to delete all the new apps only just to find out that after that I had only ~12MB free!

Why did that happened? I checked to see if any app cached but everything seems OK. I keep having the message about the internal memory as well as the SMS one.

How can I fix that? Where did my free memory go?

Link2SD only moves the app itself to your device's SDCard. App data still go to internal storage (/data/<package_name>). For every app you install, the Android system automatically creates this directory – and I don't know of any app that doesn't put at least a few files here.

For details, please take a look at the app2sd tag-wiki. It not only explains the different App2SD approaches taken (including Link2SD), but in "Extended Methods" also holds hints for a possible solution to your problem (S2E).


Phone Shuts Down, Apps Force Close Since New SD Card I've got a Sony Ericcson Xperia Play that comes with an 8GB microSD card, which is definitely not enough for me as I like to put a lot of music on my phone (streaming is very poor on my network). So I bought a Sandisk 32GB MicroSDHC Class 4 Memory Card which is a MicroSD card like any other, right?

Ever since I put the card into my phone, my phone keeps shutting down and nearly all apps have a Force Close error. I've not installed any new apps since installing the new MicroSD and I've even uninstalled a bunch to see if it would help. Why does my new MicroSD break my phone?

If it helps, I'm running Android 2.3.3 stock.

Formatting the SD card on the phone itself seemed to do the trick. My apps are finally running and my phone longer keeps shutting down with the new SDHC. :)


Set two different lock setting on different triggers I am using Android L on Lenovo phone. Mostly I don't hand out my phone to anybody or keep it unattended. So, I prefer not to bother myself with a lock (password or pin) and just keep swipe lock screen. But while many a times when I have to keep my phone away from my attention, I want to put lock password over it.
For this I have to go to the settings and change it and change it back when I am done.
Is there a way to keep two different lock screen setting(say swipe and pass) on two different triggers (say power button and option on long press power button menu)?

You could use Android's Smart Lock feature for this, see e.g.:

Use Smart Lock in Android 5.0 and Never Unlock Your Phone at Home Again
How to use Trusted Devices in Android

If you have e.g. any Bluetooth device, you can tell your Android device it's "safe" as long as it can see it (so: no lock), but "not safe" otherwise (device gets locked). To have your device locked, you'd simply have to shutdown or disconnect the BT device (or have it out-of-reach; for Bluetooth-devices usually being away 10m is enough – even less with walls in between).

Smart Lock works natively with Android 5+ – and for earlier versions, there are fitting apps (e.g. Zwype Lock Screen, SkipLock, or using one of the more generic automation solutions to build your own: I e.g. use tasker with the Secure Settings plugin for this).


Problem in setting up google account - "couldn't open connection to server." I had just installed custom ROM cynogenmod-9(ICS) in my S Plus device and now I am not able to add Google Account in my android device. It gives the following error message,

  Couldn't finish
  couldn't open connection to server.

So, what is the problem? why I am getting such kind of error?

It seems that there was a network problem or gmail was blocked in my office which was making the server not respond and giving exception -> couldn't open connection to server.. I tried at home with my wifi and it worked finally.


Restoring APKs + data from 4.1 to 4.2.2 I migrated from Android 4.1 (Omega) to Android 4.2.2 (SuperNexus) on my Samsung Galaxy S3.

Before I did the migration I did a backup of apps with Super Backup. After this was done I moved all the files from the SmsContactsBackup folder to SDCard.
After flash, I've installed Super Backup again from the Play store and putted the SmsContactsBackup folder in /storage/emulated/0/SmsContactsBackup. Now I see all the backups in the Super Backup app.

After I do a restore/install of an app, the settings are not being picked up by the apps.

Plague Inc.: I see the settings in data/data/com.miniclip.plagueinc. But the app crashes on launch.
Lazors: I see the settings in data/data/net.pyrosphere.lazors. But my progress is gone.

Do they need to be somewhere else? Or do I need to use some other tool which can use my previous backups

Essentially, for backing up apps or SMS, TitaniumBackup works wonderfully. I've always relied on it to get my job done. But since you've already backed up your apps, I'd suggest you to try moving your app data folder to storage/emulated/0/Android/data/ folder instead of where it is now, and if it is a .obb folder, move it to /Android/obb. It'll pick up your settings.


How do I set up my wifi router for my Android device? I have a wireless network set up with a Sweex LC000070 router, WEP encryption and while my HTC Hero can connect to the network, internet doesn't seem to work.

Is there any setting on the router I have to change in order for Android devices to connect?

Apparently WEP support is thoroughly broked in Android 2.0.1 and above.

http://answerguy.com/2009/12/11/android-2-0-1-update-breaks-droid-wi-fi-wep-encryption/

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-general-discussions/1253-wifi-problem.html (also includes a possible fix for WEP by disabling/enabling the router firewall, though I haven't tried it and ain't gonna...)

http://www.draconos.com/blog/2009/11/19/wifi-on-the-droid

http://www.611connect.com/howto/merben_how-to-enable-wi-fi-on-the-motorola-droid (comments) (also suggests that, if you initially upgrade to WPA to get it working, you can later drop back to WEP and it will continue to work...)

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=130d8d289ec5c8f2&hl=en

That said, WPA is a better choice all around anyway.


Unlocking Bootloader to wipe internal storage I know that unlocking bootloader does wipe the /data partition. However, can it also wipe the /storage partition and others, too?

There is nothing like storage partition. What you see under /storage/emulated is a FUSE implementation of /data/media/userID. Whenever you unlock or relock the bootloader, fastboot causes factory reset of the device which wipes data and cache partitions. No bit of data escapes it, including what you see under /storage.

Source:

printf("oem unlock requested:\n");
printf("\tUnlocking forces a factory reset and could\n");
printf("\topen your device up to a world of hurt.  If you\n");
printf("\tare sure you know what you're doing, then accept\n");
printf("\tin %d seconds via 'fastboot oem unlock_accept'.\n",


Install SSH Server or other terminal viewer for HTC X one I'm trying to set a SSH server in order to execute and download and upload files into my HTC One X. I tried Dropbear. and Dropbear 2 but they both failed.

Can I do it without rooting my htc?

Guy

QuickSSHd works on rooted and non-rooted phones. There are some limitations on non-rooted phones (running on port 2222 instead of 22, etc.), but other than this, I have yet to see any problem with it on any device (tested from 1.6 through 2.1 to 4.1). Costs approx. US$1.5


External Hard Drive to Smartphone without additional power supply I) Goal

Use external hard drive without power supply - no hub either - to backup smartphone directly.

II) Configuration

Huawei Mate 20 Pro, this - I own this.
USB C male to USB A (3.0) Adapter (i.e. OTG adapter), this - I own this.
any of the following external hard drives:

WD ELEMENTS PORTABLE 4 TB WDBU6Y0040BBK-WESN - I think about buying this.
LaCie Rugged Mini 4 TB LAC9000633 - I own this, brand new & ExFAT formatted.

III) Problem

I don't know the power output of my smartphone or the power requirements of those hard drives exactly and am therefore not sure if my goal is achievable. When I connect my LaCie 4TB to my phone - via said USB-C-A-Adapter or directly via a USB-C-cable - the drive is not recognised and doesn't seem to spin.

IV) Known information / How I am trying to solve my problem

According to this and this my goal is achievable, according to this (Android Enthusiasts) maybe not.

I searched the web, but didn't find any official/trustworthy information from the manufacturers, from sellers or from users about the power in or output of either of those devices. The following information regarding the HDDs I found seems somewhat ambiguous:

WD = 1 watt (WD on Amazon, somewhat trustworthy, but only info about 3TB version, here).
LaCie = max. 2.9 watt (quite trustworthy actually, here).

My smartphone is able to supply an Apple Keyboard (wired) and an Apple Mighty Mouse (wired) at the same time over said OTG Adapter and a USB hub (hub power supply not plugged in!)... But I don't know the power consumption of those peripherals.

V) Main Questions

A) Is my goal really achievable? How?
B) Is my assumption right, that my LaCie HDD won't spin because of power supply issues?
C) Will the mentioned WD HDD do the job? If no, other suggestions, please.
D) How do I have to format my drives to be read by Android? (I've read ExFAT should work...)

VI) Additional, optional Questions

E) What are the actual power requirements (in watt) of those drives? What is the actual power output of my Smartphone over OTG? Maybe someone with experience (and/or who has these drives) knows those numbers? Don't bother looking into the spec sheets of those drive, there is no information about the power requirements in there.

VII) Disclaimer

I know, these aren't questions directly regarding Android. But,

first, there is no Stack Exchange Site about Smartphones,
second, I was sent here by the people of the Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange Site after posting this very question there (and deleting it now),
third, my smartphone is an android device,
forth, this might be a Android-ExFAT format problem (?),
and fifth, the Android community is really competent when it comes to tech questions,

so this is the right place for this, I think... Please don't hate on me for posting my questions here - I shall kindly migrate to another Stack Exchange forum if you know a more suitable one.

Many thanks.

VII) Update

Confirmed by Huawei support: The Mate 20 pro has 1 Ampere / 5 Volt output.
Confirmed by LaCie support: Said LaCie Drive - and as it seems every thing hooked up via USB 3.0?! - needs 0.5 Ampere (no voltage info) to function properly. - So why doesen't this work? Too low voltage?

A) Is my goal really achievable? How?

Unsure, see the answer to the second question of item E.

  B) Is my assumption right, that my LaCie HDD won't spin because of power supply issues?

Yes. The HDD isn't spinning up because the power supply isn't sufficient.

Another reason would be the HDD being broken otherwise, but this is unlikely the case given your very detailed description of your problem.

  C) Will the mentioned WD HDD do the job? If no, other suggestions, please.

For the same reason as B, this is unlikely. 2.5" HDDs nowadays have a fairly similar power consumption, regardless of brand. Older HDDs and HDDs with higher capacity tend to draw more power, but not making a huge difference.

  D) How do I have to format my drives to be read by Android? (I've read ExFAT should work...)

Nothing. You're done it correctly - exFAT is the right filesystem for them.

  E) What are the actual power requirements (in watt) of those drives?

As given in whatever you've read. Those claimed power requirements are usually correct.

  What is the actual power output of my Smartphone over OTG? Maybe someone with experience (and/or who has these drives) knows those numbers?

So, this is the most tricky part...

I haven't used any Huawei phones, but from my past experiences phones don't output much power (usually less than 2W) to OTG devices. It's likely that your phone is doing the same - not supplying as much power as needed by the HDD.

From previous news (in my local language Chinese - sorry), Mate 20 / Mate 20 Pro is capable of running as a power bank, or "reverse charging". I'm guessing that the claimed 5V/1A output is only achievable in reverse charging, not OTG.

The conclusion is not quite delighting - you have to get some kind of external power supply before you can use your HDDs with OTG.


LinageOS update reboots into TWRP I downloaded the LinageOS update (linage-14.1-20181107-nightly-*-signed.zip) and rebooted to complete the install. It booted into TWRP (3.2.3-0). What do I need to do?

You have to manually install the update by

Click Install.
Select the file /data/linageos_updates/linage-*.zip.


Developer options in Android 6.0 and 7.0 The developer options of Android Nougat are the same of Android Marshmallow? Or are there new options?

I didn't make an exact comparison between the developer options of both Android versions. But as far as I can see by just looking at them on my phones (Stock, Android 6-7), they look exactly the same.


Use Google Maps maps in Maverick How can I save Google Maps tiles so I can use them in Maverick offline?
I tried Mobile Atlas Creator, but it seems it does not have Google Map as a map source.

Install MapsOn by coderminus.

Go to Menu > More > Preferences > Configure Maps and set /sdcard/maverick/tiles/Google/ or /storage/sdcard0/maverick/tiles/Google/ as the path for the tiles of Google Maps. Now you can use the "Cache area" feature of MapsOn to download the tiles of selected areas.

Since they are stored in the Maverick folder, they are used by Maverick if you select "Google" as the map source. This also works for other map sources if you adapt the corresponding paths in MapsOn.


Preinstalled SNS Application I have deleted the SNS application and now im not getting any of my Facebook notifications. Is there a way of getting this appplication back on my phone? I have looked in the app market and cannot find it. Cheers

You either have to restore it from backup if you have one, or reflash the phone, either with a third-party ROM or an official one from your phone manufacturer. Can't go into specifics unless you mention your phone model.


USB Error after failed attempt at flashing After using Odin to flash my Samsung Epic D700 (and apparently doing something wrong), I can only boot to Download mode.  If I try to boot, I don't even get to the Samsung splash screen.  All I have is an image showing a cell phone with a dotted line to a PC, and a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark between the cell phone and PC.

When I boot into Download mode and connect the USB cable, I get the message:

USB device not recognized
The last USB device you connected to this computer malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognized it.

I had flashed the phone back to stock, and was attempting to install Clockworkmod recovery when I did this.  I had specified a PIT file and a PDA file. The PIT file was probably a mistake.

Is there a way forward from here?

Answering my own question:  I fixed it, and I'm not sure how.

I did several things, and I did them several times. Can't tell which thing or combination of things worked, but here's what I tried:

Removed the sd card.
Connected the phone to the pc without booting the phone. This took it into Recovery mode, sometimes but not always, and I didn't figure out why sometimes it went into Recovery mode and sometimes it didn't. From Recovery mode, I selected and ran the Factory Restore option.
Removed the battery and left it out for several minutes. (I kind of think this was important.)

Eventually the USB error vanished, Odin discovered the phone, and I was able to reflash the stock ROM.


Unable to download apps from Market, after factory reset Problem description

I did factory reset of my phone, (Droid X), and I changed primary email, and I am not able to download any application from market. I get a message like application will be downloaded, but its never download app .

And I am using this same email id, as test account in developer account.

How can I download application from market? I am using wifi network.

Try clearing the data for the Market app:

Go to Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> All and find the Market app
If it's running, kill it with the button there
Clear the data (this will clear the cache as well, no need to do both manually)
Restart your phone

Then try the Market again.

Edit: Since that didn't work, I would try wiping the data partition (similar to a factory reset):

Power off your phone
Boot into bootloader mode by holding down Volume Down, Power, and the Camera button.
Pull the battery and power back on while holding the Home button. Once you see an Android with the triangle & exclamation point, press the Search button.
Using the side volume buttons to move around and the Power button to select, select the "Wipe Data" option.
Once the wipe is finished, select "Reboot system now".


How to root the LG Optimus 2 AS680? I have an LG Optimus 2 AS680. It is running the gingerbread 2.3.4 system. I have yet to find a program or any reliable method to root the phone.

I am looking to increase my internal memory to about 1 or 2 GB because I am tired of running out of memory and it just makes things complicated.

Thank you.

This may or may not work for you and do it at your own risk but I jut rooted and loaded a custom ROM to a LG Optimus S that many had said couldn't be done because of the OTA update that would put it out of the reach of the exploit. It required a little extra work, but was doable and only took me about 2 hours.

Now I am not 100% certain this will work for you because I don't have this particular device to try, BUT, the foundation of the rooting method is valid for it and should work for this as well, no harm in trying.

Get the drivers specific to your device from LG if you can find it and if not just get it here, this is not related to me but I got some stuff from them in the past and its been clean.

Then after that, try following the instructions put out here, note its for the Optimus S but the way to do it is the same for pretty much all the Optimus line, its your driver that is important and you can get that. You can use the Manual method if you know what you are doing and are comfortable with it, that's how I did it but you can also download the optiauto.zip or .exe to do it as well so its somewhat automated for you.

Good luck with it, let us know how it goes and if you run into anything that you can't figure out, shoot me a message here and I will see what I can do for you.


Confusion between system/xbin/which and system/xbin in android Hi I am trying for root check of android device I am using following code to check whether the device is rooted or not but bit confused,

public static enum SHELL_CMD {
check_su_binary(new String[] { "/system/xbin/which", "su" });

String[] command;

SHELL_CMD(String[] command) {
    this.command = command;
}}

For checking binary SU in this code when I run the code with "/system/xbin/which" code shows me device is rooted(command run successfully), but if I remove "which"(i.e. "/system/xbin/") and run the code it throws me an exception that access denied.

Is there any specific significance of "/which" in rooting android device.
I am running this code in CyanogenMod 11S(One Plus device) Thank you In advance

/system/xbin/which is the path of a program this script needs to execute (run). /system/xbin/ is a directory, so obviously you can't execute it.

If you've never used the which command on your desktop GNU/Linux system, you might be interested to read its manpage. In this case, the script is using it to find out if the su command exists, and the actual program it will run.


Android Auto language tied to phone? I have a Nexus 6P and just got a car with android auto, i use my phone and most of my things with English language (i'm used to English for tech) even tho i live in a Spanish speaking country.

Now heres the question, is there a way to set Android Auto to Spanish for example without changing the entire phone setting? Other people than me might want to use the head unit and would have to use English.

And then here's another interesting thing, when using the TTS feature to read messages, obviously its impossible to understand anything when reading Spanish with an English voice but what happens if i have messages in both Spanish and English, wouldn't it be nice to have it auto detect the language and use the appropriate TTS system regardless of the phone language?

For future reference: What worked for me was setting the search & voice language inside the Google App to German. Voice commands / TTS is now German while the UI is still English (my prefered way).


How do I force timer volume on, regardless of Vibrate or Mute mode in Android 7.0? I always keep my phone on Vibrate.

That being said, I've never had this issue before until I had to get a new phone on 7.0. Previously, the phone I had from 6.0 through the upgrade to 7 would always make noise with the timer in the default Clock app while set to Vibrate. Now that I have a new phone (same model), it's never made noise with the timer unless my phone's sound is on.

The same questions were asked for 4.4 and 5.1, so this will be the 7.0 version.

This is no longer possible with the default Clock app in Android 7.0. If you set your phone to vibrate, there is no way to enable notification volume which the timer depends on.

I removed the Clock app shortcuts everywhere on my phone and started using Alarm Clock Xtreme for timers.


Is there a glossary of Android's UI elements Often, when I'm looking for the solution to some problem I'm having on my phone, the hardest part is knowing what to call the specific menu, or piece of the UI, causing the issue.

Is there an official (or non official but accepted) glossary of the different UI elements?

I don't know if an official glossary exists, but information below is in line with what is generally used.

Be aware that the same thing may be referred differently causing confusion - for instance , what you use to access menu in an app or browser is called 3 dot(s) menu or overflow menu (official name):

Hamburger menu only refers to those displayed as 3 horizontal lines and expands to show a side panel when clicked on - different from the 3 dots which does what the MENU hardware key does -This icon is on the left hand side of screen (thanks to Izzy and Andy Yan)

From Beginner's guide to Android - How to use Android's home screens. These pictures pertain to Android Version 4 and latter Android versions have incorporated changes and additions but the essentials are same - a status bar is still the same, but the symbols have changed, same with navigation bar

Notifications and Status

From my device

Notification tray

Quick Settings (Varies from device to device and modifications by user )

Also see Popups, dialogs, notifications, toasts: what's the difference? and What are the other "home" screens called?


how can I stop Outlook calendar from syncing? since I updated the OS on my intercept, my outlook calendar is now syncing and I want it to stop.  I only want to see my personal google calendar appts on my phone.  Any ideas how I can turn it off?

Go to Settings -> Accounts and sync, select your corporate (Exchange) account, and uncheck Sync calendar.


How can I force Chrome into loading facebook as a desktop site by default? I hate the Facebook messsenger app, so I ditched it. However, my current work-around is:

Open the messages tab on m.facebook.com
Wait for Play store to load
Close, enable desktop mode
4, Go to the Messages tab again.

As per the title, how can I make Particular sites I.e. Facebook load desktop site by default (in chrome)?

Note- I only want Facebook affected. Other sites are fine.

-Edit- No root, please. I don't have access to the stuff to root, and I just don't want to. Also, I want this for Facebook Only, which excludes Beeshyams related question. Sorry Beetroot!

Download & install this app "User Agent for Google Chrome" and after you opened it select "chrome desktop" it will now open sites in desktop mode, you can switch back to default... [requires root]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.linuxjet.apps.ChromeUA


Sharing contacts on HTC Desire HD I have a stock Desire HD using HTC Sense and am having trouble sharing contacts. When I choose mail as a method to send contacts it doesn't offer me the choice to use my Gmail account?

Anyone have any idea why?

Really wish there was an option to turn off sense without rooting :(

2 suggestions which are more workarounds than answers:

set up the Mail app to access (and send from) your GMail account via IMAP, or
send the contact to your GMail account using the 'Mail' option (i.e. from whatever account you do have set up) and then forward it on from there.


USB configuration within Developer Options doesn't save Just bought a Samsung Galaxy s7 Edge with Marshmallow pre-installed.
I'm trying to get my phone to work with Android Auto.

The only way I could make my phone connect to my car is to enable Developer Options in the settings menu and change the USB configuration to "MTP Media Transfer Protocol".

My problem is that whenever I disconnect my phone, the change I made goes away and reverts back to "charging".
So, now, every time I want to connect my phone to use Android Auto, I need to enter the settings and change the USB configuration back to MTP for it to work... really a pain in the butt.

Does anyone know if this is an Android issue or a Samsung issue? Also, is there a way to correct this?

I can confirm that this issue is not limited to you. This is the same on my Nexuses (running Marshmallow) and it's a pain.


How to enable adbd to listen to a port at boot time in Android? I have a rooted HTC Hero, and what I want to do is to enable the adbd
to listen to a port at boot time.

I tried some code found here:

setprop service.adb.tcp.port 5555
stop adbd
start adbd

in an Android shell and it works great.

I tried to change the init.rc file. I added the above code in init.rc
and I replaced it with the original file, through these commands:

adb push init.rc sdcard

adb shell
adb su
mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /
adb cp sdcard/init.rc /

The file is replaced successfully, but when I reboot my phone and try to connect
through:

adb connect <IP>:5555

the connection is not being established.

Any ideas?

(PS. I don't want to use the remoteADB application and a shell command like
    am start -n ...
)

The reason it does not work properly is this:
The init.rc script resides in within the RAMDisk attached to the boot image.
Hence the init.rc script that was edited and pushed across is now overwritten by the boot image's own script upon reboot - effectively changes are lost!
You need to extract the boot image, using every boot image has the kernel and the RAMDisk. The tools available to do this can be found here.
Extracting
When invoking the script split_bootimg.pl on a boot image it will recreate the following:

boot.kernel
boot.ramdisk.gz

The two files are obviously self-explanatory. To extract the ramdisk, create a directory called RAMDisk and from that directory, invoke this: gzip -dc | cpio -i, to recreate the directory structure that is used in the RAMDisk which gets flipped over to the live file-system upon boot. In there, the file that is of pertinent information is init.rc. Now that can be modified to your heart's content.
Putting it back together
Go back up a directory level, and issue this - mkbootfs ***RAMDisk*** | gzip > my_custom_ramdisk.gz.
Then, to "attach" the original kernel to the boot image, issue the following: mkbootimg -base 0x.... -kernel boot.kernel -ramdisk my_custom_ramdisk.gz -o my_custom_boot.img.
At this point now, a boot image has been constructed, then that boot image will now have to be flashed via fastboot flash boot my_custom_boot.img.
TL;DR
Changes are lost upon re-boot because the script is not properly edited which required extracting the boot image and modifying it and re-packing it. Once re-packed and then the boot image is re-flashed, the changes will be permanent.
This is done every-time the changes are needed.


Cache transfer when switching phone Is the content of the web cache of my phone transferred when I switch from one android phone to another? How about web history and DNS cache?

Thanks

You must first understand what cache data is.

Cache data is CPU specific and instance specific. For the same app, different CPU may create different cache depending on what part of the app is running as a process. Moreover, even the same CPU running at different instances may have different app cache. If you open an app, keep it running in the background, but never open it in foreground, the cache created will be different from the one created if the app has been running in foreground. Moreover, once the app has been closed and its process has been killed, then cache space for that data is allowed to be overwritten by new incoming data. So, cache data is never constant.

Don't even think of transferring cache data, because no one can ever do that, and you don't even need to do it. It does not contain anything that you need to transfer. Cache is created and deleted by the microprocessor. You as a user should stay off from cache data intricacies other than clearing it at times to boost speed of CPU.


Removing SMScontactsbackup folder I have read a similar post here
Accumulation of APK's?

I have about 8Gb of my SDcard on a Samsung Galaxy S7 used by the apks folder within the SMScontactsbackup folder

Now from what I have read and understood (which may be wrong)

This apks folder contains the installation material for new versions of Android apps. Surely the apk should be deleted once the app upgrade has been successfully installed?

I don't have the Super Backup and Restore installed on the phone (which some people claim is the cause of the problem) but I can't be sure whether that app was installed in the past and now removed.

My question is

How do I delete this apks folder and its contents which are taking a large part of my SD card? I could not find those instructions anywhere - but maybe I missed them

Thanks

Clive

Super Backup and Restore application creates a folder named SMScontactsbackup on internal storage. The application is used to backup and restore contacts, call logs, sms, apps etc.
Each items are kept in separate folders.
The app also saves  each  app's previous apk's which are updated through play store.
You can delete this folder by these methods.

By removing Super Backup and Restore application from your device, it will also ask permission whether to delete folder and it's contents.
Using any file manager app (here Samsung file manager for Samsung devices),you can delete that folder from internal storage. (N.B if Super Backup and Restore application is not removed, then folder will be created again ).

Note: You need to make sure that, you've restored everything before removing app/ deleting folder.


Make calls directly from contacts There are many contacts in which I have more than one phone number listed. I want to call the default number of the contact directly without going to the Infinity view and select the number to call. How to do this?

You can create a "Direct Dial" shortcut on your home screen to do this:

On Android 1.x through 2.x (and on some replacement Launcher apps on newer OS versions) long-press on empty home screen space, and select Shortcuts -> Direct dial.  On Android 3.x and above, open the app tray, and swipe to Widgets.  Then find the Direct dial widget and drag/drop it to the home screen.
Select the contact's phone number from the list.

Now by tapping on the created shortcut you will call the number directly, as opposed to having to select the number from drop-down.