How do I get a ROM onto my ICS (Android 4.0) tablet? I have a Galaxy Tablet 10.1. I decided to root it, that went fine. Then I decided to upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich. That also went fine.

It was only after upgrading that I discovered the camera does not work (yes, the warnings were there, but they weren't made very obvious). That sucks, so I wanted to go back down to an earlier version. I seem to have lost the ROM for my earlier version on the tablet, so I went to copy it back to my tablet, thinking that would be simple...

But ICS doesn't let me connect to my computer via USB.

After looking around the web, this is apparently because of a change in the way ICS is going to handle USB connectivity, which is an issue I don't want to embed myself into. All I know is I want to get out of ICS and back to Honeycomb.

How can I get the ROM onto my tablet so that I can install it?

There's probably tons of ways to do this, but here's what I can think of offhand:

If you have adb set up on your computer then use it to push the ROM file over: adb push /path/to/ROM /sdcard
Upload it to Dropbox, Box, or any other cloud file storage service and then download it via the associated Android app
Upload it to a file sharing service like Mediafire and then download it in your browser
If you downloaded the ROM from somewhere, visit that site in the browser on your tablet and download it directly
Install a file manager or other app that supports FTP and send it over via a wifi LAN connection (one example)
Try Kies Air - I think it supports wireless file transfer


Using Android tablet/phone as a bluetooth or USB touchscreen monitor I have an LG G Pad F 7.0 and a LG G4, and I'm wanting to know if I have any options that will allow me to make my tablet preferably into a second monitor with the touch screen controls?

I'm planning on using my device as a drawing tablet when I'm out all next week. I have a special fine-pointed stylus that allows me to use the android device like a wacom tablet instead of a device designed for fingers. My major limitation is that I will be in a no service zone for my data carrier when I'm out, also there is no wifi connections available, so therefor I will not have any sort of network to connect to.  I will need to be able to use my USB(preferred) or bluetooth(I'm a heavy bluetooth user). My laptop is running Windows mostly, although, I do have Linux I use semi-often, and I have a live Mac OS X bootable if needed. Solutions I have seen so far are geared to using a wifi network, which I can not use.

You CAN use WiFi! Get an old WiFi router from a thrift store, or an inexpensive new one. Take it with you, and you'll have a WiFi LAN (local area network) that you can use to facilitate communication between all your devices. You don't need Internet service to create your own WiFi LAN! (Depending on your router, you'll also have some Ethernet ports for wired connections, too.)

Some Android devices support WiFi Direct, which allows a connection between two devices via WiFi.

There are a few good Android tethering apps that can create a WiFi hotspot, running on one of your devices. Your other devices connect to it just like they would to a hardware WiFi router. Look for apps that don't require a rooted device (unless you have one,) and look for apps that don't allow carriers (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, etc.) to limit their functionality. One of the biggest/oldest tethering packages (PdaNet / FoxFi) has been forced to restrict their software so that the mobile phone companies can sell tethering as an add-on service.

Most recently I tried out Tether It, and  and found it to work great, but there are several good, simple tethering apps that provide essentially the same features.

My choice would be my first suggestion: pick up a cheap wifi router for $20-25; the D-Link DIR-605L and TP-Link TL-WR841N are two. That way your LAN isn't dependent on a tablet or laptop you use for other things. Hardware routers tend to make better routers than software solutions, and will generally be more configurable and more solid.


After Pie upgrade, lock screen is not hiding all sensitive content I recently upgraded my Pixel 2 from Android Oreo to Pie. I have "Security & location" -> "Lock screen preferences" set to "Hide sensitive content".

Ever since the upgrade, when I receive an email while my phone is locked, in addition to the email notification icon, it also displays my email address under it for a short while (Maybe 60 seconds.) Even after it goes away, if I double tap the screen or press the power button, it shows my email address again on the screen; note the phone is still locked at this point. (I'm fairly certain that) prior to the upgrade only the email icon was shown without also displaying my email address while the phone is locked.

I am using the standard Gmail app with multiple email addresses configured. I consider my email address(es) to be sensitive information and don't want them to be displayed on my locked phone.

Is this a new bug (or strange feature), or is it configurable? Or am I completely mistaken and it's always been this way?

It is not a bug, your email address is showing due to multiple email configurations u have made. However your point is valid that your email address is a sensitive information, u can try sending feedback to google by reviewing Gmail on Playstore.


quick way to add chrome (or internet) shortcuts to home screens On  the iphone, under the Safari settings, there was an option ADD TO HOME SCREEN.

that gets quite handy to have direct bookmarks launchable from a single tap on the icon.
How do you do that in the android world?

I got a note 3 & I'm dying to get this functionality in.

http://cubiq.org/add-to-home-screen

From Chrome, first add the site you're interested in as a bookmark by clicking the little star icon. Then go to Bookmarks (from Chrome's menu), and long-tap the bookmark you just created. A context menu appears, and the bottom item is Add to home screen. If you like, first click Edit bookmark to set the label the bookmark will use: it defaults to the web page title, which isn't always what you want.

If Samsung is still shipping their own browser in the Note 3, the procedure is the same there, but the bookmarks icon is a kind of banner with a star, and the menu item is called Add shortcut to home.

Update March 2017

The above is now more than three years old, and the Chrome UI has changed since then. You can't add a bookmark to the home screen that way any more. Now, you need to visit the bookmark in Chrome, bring up the menu (three-dots icon in the top right), and choose Add to home screen.

The method of using Chrome's bookmarks widget still works. Long-tap the home screen, choose "Widgets", scroll down to Chrome in the alphabetic list, and drag the bookmarks widget to the desired place.


Games laggy in Chrome I have the following system: Galaxy SIII i9300 with LineageOS 14.1 (latest Nightly), rooted. I would like to play a particular game (I usually do not play browser games) against some one to show him that my S3 is still able to handle it. It is not a Flash game, but pure JavaScript.

I've tried to play the game in Chrome. It is pretty fast but very - I do not know how to describe it in English - jumpily or shakily which does not do good for the eyes after some time. Jelly, in turn, which is based on Android WebView is able to render the game smoothly without jumps but is a bit slower than on Chrome.

I am certain that you can tweak Chrome somehow to render the games better on older phones. I played with some flags (GPU flags and so on) but could not achieve any improvement. Do you have any ideas?

The really first thing you should do is delete the entire history in Chrome. Sometimes this leads to strange behaviors.

The second address would be:

    chrome://flags

Override software rendering list
GPU rasterization
Number of raster threads
V8 caching mode.

If you are already using Developer Options - Force GPU rendering, it might help to use an older Chrome version (I was forced to do this because the latest version always crashes).If all this does not bring anything, I recommend you to switch to another browser like (Puffin etc.), which offload certain things, but i think you know this already.


Silent mode on Z1 Compact Lollipop 5.1? I have a Sony Z1 Compact. Android 5.0 had a beautiful silent mode. Pushing the power button the screen went on, locked, and when you pressed the volume button you could set it to silent, optionally for several hours.

Recently I've upgraded to Android 5.1, and this option has disappeared. The strange thing is that when I google for this, I find that Android 5.0 had no silent mode, and 5.1 has exactly what I want and how it was for 5.0 on my phone.

How can I use silent mode on my Z1C with Lollipop 5.1?

Just press the volume-rocker while the screen is locked. Then choose the ringing-mode by pressing the bell-icon on the left side of the volume-slider until the phone is silenced.


What purpose does the Notification Flash/Email setting serve? The Notification Flash/Email setting (Settings > Sound & display > Notification flash > Email) appears to have no influence on the stock mail app or gmail app. So does it serve any purpose?

In the stock mail app, even if Email notifications (Settings > Notification settings > Email notifications) are on, the flash doesn’t occur, regardless of the system wide Notification Flash/Email setting.

In the gmail app, the Email notifications (Settings > Email notifications) setting controls whether the flash occurs or not, regardless of the system wide Notification Flash/Email setting.

The Notification Flash settings are supposed to enable/disable flashing the LED on the front of the handset for events such as receiving an email or SMS.  If your handset has no LED (my HTC Desire does, my ZTE Blade does not) it has no efect but the option is usually still present as it's a stock option.


How to check which data gets cached by App? I decided to use a banking application (provided by german postbank), but ONLY to SEE my account transactions, so I do NOT want to make any new transactions, just VIEW them.

Im always logging out of my account. But still I'm wondering how safe this use-case of mine is. Imagine my phone gets stolen >> What is cached on my phone by this app?

Is it like I would have never logged in, i.e. no cached data of my downloaded transactions exist on my phone? Or is it that my transactions will get downloaded and cached in a (maybe simple unencrypted?) database on my phone and "everyone" could access it?

How could I check this myself?
Thanks in advance!

What an app stores on your phone is impossible to say without going through the source codes or at least examining the app's data folder.

That being said, valuable information related to banking (balance, account ID, your personal information, log in information etc.) are stored in the servers of the bank since it is actually them who own those information. The app merely accesses them.

As for the log in part, banking apps use a method called hashing. I won't annoy you with all the details but long in short, the reason they can't give you your old password or PIN code when you forget it is that, they don't store it as well. They store its hash. They check the hash of your password to see if it matches the one in their database and you can't reverse engineer a hash to find the password. Therefore as long as you don't choose to stay logged in, no harm can come.

But if you want to delete all personal datas related to any specific app (user data or cache) you can do it like here

Or, you can tell your bank to block every action other than viewing account information on mobile banking application.


Running dex2oat on host computer I have compiled dex2oat on linux-x86_64 for linux-x86. I can run it just like a normal application. The background is, I have a tool which can generate dex codes and I want to perform some basic checks that dex2oat does. So it is not important for me to get an actual runnable file.

I do get the following output:

dex2oat I  4183  4183 art/dex2oat/dex2oat.cc:1239] out/host/linux-x86/bin/dex2oat --runtime-arg -Xms64m --runtime-arg -Xmx64m --image-classes=frameworks/base/preloaded-classes --dex-file=/home/marc/Apps/Example1.apk --dex-location=bla.apk --oat-file=bla.oat --image=out.art --base=0x60000000 --instruction-set=x86 --instruction-set-features=default --runtime-arg -Xrelocate --host --android-root=out/host/linux-x86 --include-patch-information
dex2oat E  4183  4183 art/runtime/runtime.cc:1108] Failed to return pre-allocated NoClassDefFoundError
dex2oat F  4183  4183 art/runtime/thread.h:330] Check failed: new_exception != NULL
dex2oat F  4183  4183 art/runtime/runtime.cc:284] Runtime aborting...
dex2oat F  4183  4183 art/runtime/runtime.cc:284] Aborting thread:
dex2oat F  4183  4183 art/runtime/runtime.cc:284] "main" prio=5 tid=1 Runnable (still starting up)
dex2oat F  4183  4183 art/runtime/runtime.cc:284]   | group="" sCount=0 dsCount=0 obj=(nil) self=0xf89a8e78
dex2oat F  4183  4183 art/runtime/runtime.cc:284]   | sysTid=4183 nice=0 cgrp=user/1000.user/c2.session sched=0/0 handle=0xf6b76700
dex2oat F  4183  4183 art/runtime/runtime.cc:284]   | state=R schedstat=( 17496280 53788 15 ) utm=1 stm=0 core=7 HZ=100
dex2oat F  4183  4183 art/runtime/runtime.cc:284]   | stack=0xff0f1000-0xff0f3000 stackSize=7MB
dex2oat F  4183  4183 art/runtime/runtime.cc:284]   | held mutexes= "abort lock" "mutator lock"(shared held)

Does anyone know what causes this error or did I supply the wrong arguments?

I have added a cout statement in the code and it turns out that the class being searched for is Ljava/lang/Object;

Taken from the android build process:

out/host/linux-x86/bin/dex2oatd --runtime-arg -Xms64m --runtime-arg -Xmx512m --boot-image=out/target/product/ranchu/dex_bootjars/system/framework/boot.art --dex-file=out/target/product/ranchu/obj/APPS/Telecom_intermediates/oat/arm64/package.odex.input --dex-location=/system/priv-app/Telecom/Telecom.apk --oat-file=out/target/product/ranchu/obj/APPS/Telecom_intermediates/oat/arm64/package.odex --android-root=out/target/product/ranchu/system --instruction-set=arm64 --instruction-set-variant=generic --instruction-set-features=default --include-patch-information --runtime-arg -Xnorelocate --no-generate-debug-info --abort-on-hard-verifier-error --no-inline-from=core-oj.jar


Connect my Android phone to a WiFi hotspot from my laptop I want to connect my rooted HTC Ville to a WiFi hotspot I made with my  laptop, since I don't have WiFi at home. I'm running fedora 20 on my laptop and CM 11 on my HTC One S.

I can see the WEP secured WLAN with my handy but it doesn't connect.

Do you have any ideas why and how to fix it?

Stock Android doesn't support ad-hoc WiFi networks.

If you have a rooted device, it's possible to work around this limitation as described here. Basically you can install a custom ROM that has this feature enabled, or manually configure the wpa-supplicant, or if you are feeling adventurous you can compile your own patched copy of wpa-supplicant that fools Android into thinking that ad-hoc networks are regular infrastructure mode access points.


Prevent reboot after fastboot -w image.zip? Is it possible to prevent the automatic reboot that follows

fastboot -w image.zip

? This would be quite useful for batch files. Thanks for any hint :-)

I believe you're looking for the "--skip-reboot" switch, ex:

fastboot -w update image-marlin-opm1.171019.012.zip --skip-reboot

C:>fastboot --help

commands:
  update <filename>                        Reflash device from update.zip.
                                           Sets the flashed slot as active.
  flashall                                 Flash boot, system, vendor, and --
                                           if found -- recovery. If the device
                                           supports slots, the slot that has
                                           been flashed to is set as active.
                                           Secondary images may be flashed to
                                           an inactive slot.
  flash <partition> [ <filename> ]         Write a file to a flash partition.
  flashing lock                            Locks the device. Prevents flashing.
  flashing unlock                          Unlocks the device. Allows flashing
                                           any partition except
                                           bootloader-related partitions.
  flashing lock_critical                   Prevents flashing bootloader-related
                                           partitions.
  flashing unlock_critical                 Enables flashing bootloader-related
                                           partitions.
  flashing get_unlock_ability              Queries bootloader to see if the
                                           device is unlocked.
  flashing get_unlock_bootloader_nonce     Queries the bootloader to get the
                                           unlock nonce.
  flashing unlock_bootloader <request>     Issue unlock bootloader using request.
  flashing lock_bootloader                 Locks the bootloader to prevent
                                           bootloader version rollback.
  erase <partition>                        Erase a flash partition.
  format[:[<fs type>][:[<size>]] <partition>
                                           Format a flash partition. Can
                                           override the fs type and/or size
                                           the bootloader reports.
  getvar <variable>                        Display a bootloader variable.
  set_active <slot>                        Sets the active slot. If slots are
                                           not supported, this does nothing.
  boot <kernel> [ <ramdisk> [ <second> ] ] Download and boot kernel.
  flash:raw <bootable-partition> <kernel> [ <ramdisk> [ <second> ] ]
                                           Create bootimage and flash it.
  devices [-l]                             List all connected devices [with
                                           device paths].
  continue                                 Continue with autoboot.
  reboot [bootloader|emergency]            Reboot device [into bootloader or emergency mode].
  reboot-bootloader                        Reboot device into bootloader.
  oem <parameter1> ... <parameterN>        Executes oem specific command.
  stage <infile>                           Sends contents of <infile> to stage for
                                           the next command. Supported only on
                                           Android Things devices.
  get_staged <outfile>                     Receives data to <outfile> staged by the
                                           last command. Supported only on Android
                                           Things devices.
  help                                     Show this help message.

options:
  -w                                       Erase userdata and cache (and format
                                           if supported by partition type).
  -u                                       Do not erase partition before
                                           formatting.
  -s <specific device>                     Specify a device. For USB, provide either
                                           a serial number or path to device port.
                                           For ethernet, provide an address in the
                                           form <protocol>:<hostname>[:port] where
                                           <protocol> is either tcp or udp.
  -c <cmdline>                             Override kernel commandline.
  -i <vendor id>                           Specify a custom USB vendor id.
  -b, --base <base_addr>                   Specify a custom kernel base
                                           address (default: 0x10000000).
  --kernel-offset                          Specify a custom kernel offset.
                                           (default: 0x00008000)
  --ramdisk-offset                         Specify a custom ramdisk offset.
                                           (default: 0x01000000)
  --tags-offset                            Specify a custom tags offset.
                                           (default: 0x00000100)
  -n, --page-size <page size>              Specify the nand page size
                                           (default: 2048).
  -S <size>[K|M|G]                         Automatically sparse files greater
                                           than 'size'. 0 to disable.
  --slot <slot>                            Specify slot name to be used if the
                                           device supports slots. All operations
                                           on partitions that support slots will
                                           be done on the slot specified.
                                           'all' can be given to refer to all slots.
                                           'other' can be given to refer to a
                                           non-current slot. If this flag is not
                                           used, slotted partitions will default
                                           to the current active slot.
  -a, --set-active[=<slot>]                Sets the active slot. If no slot is
                                           provided, this will default to the value
                                           given by --slot. If slots are not
                                           supported, this does nothing. This will
                                           run after all non-reboot commands.
  --skip-secondary                         Will not flash secondary slots when
                                           performing a flashall or update. This
                                           will preserve data on other slots.
  --skip-reboot                            Will not reboot the device when
                                           performing commands that normally
                                           trigger a reboot.
  --disable-verity                         Set the disable-verity flag in the
                                           the vbmeta image being flashed.
  --disable-verification                   Set the disable-verification flag in                                           the vbmeta image being flashed.
  --unbuffered                             Do not buffer input or output.
  --version                                Display version.
  -h, --help                               show this message.


Can't enable "Developer options" on Redmi devices The official guide says:

On Android 4.1 and lower, the Developer options screen is available by default. On Android 4.2 and higher, you must enable this screen as follows:

Open the Settings app.
(Only on Android 8.0 or higher) Select System.
Scroll to the bottom and select About phone.
Scroll to the bottom and tap Build number 7 times.
Return to the previous screen to find Developer options near the bottom.

I'm using Android 8.1 and there's no "System" option, but there's "About phone" right on the first Settings screen. However, inside "About phone", there's no "Build number". My phone is a Redmi 6, did they change the Android interface, or Android 8.1 interface is different, or what?
]
]

It is not a big secret that the Xiaomi uses MIUI which is a heavily modified Android OS.

Just searching the net quickly gets you the result that on MIUI you have to tap the field MIUI Version 7 times.

Anyway you could have found out that yourself by just tapping all available fields 7 times...


How to Hide an Application I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 Plus and I have one application listed in my Settings - Manage Apps list that I want hidden from the user.  This is not an icon - it is the application name in the list of apps on the phone under the setting section.  Is there a way to either 1. hide the app (make it not visible on the app list) or 2. lock the app list so the user cannot open it to see what apps are listed there.  I do not want to password protect the whole phone or individual icons, just the Manage Applications section under Settings.

Best solution is to figure out how to make that app name hidden from the Manage Applications list, but I am not sure that is possible without either deactivating or removing it.  Any help is appreciated.

If you don't want to remove or deactivate the application, then either:

you can install a 3rd party launcher (like Nova) and hide the application from the app drawer.
you can download Hide it pro and basically you can anything in your phone.


Why wifi file transfer does not work in my S5? I got my S5 yesterday. I have tried to use Wifi transfer pro and dooblou wifi file explorer to transfer file to my S5 external SD card, but they don't work. What I see is that my external SD does not show on the  Wifi transfer pro and dooblou wifi file explorer pages. Normally, I will see my SD card available space in their pages.

Please help

Yes, I believe these kind of apps don't show for some reason your external SD card.
What I can suggest to you is:

Try another app like Airdroid. Maybe there it will work.
Somewhat of a workaround - transfer the file to the internal SD card and then use a file explorer (on your phone) to transfer it to the external SD card.


Haptic feedback settings in Android 4.1.1? Just got a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini with Android 4.1.1 factory installed. The phone is not locked to any carrier. My problem is that I can not for the life of me find the setting to turn on the haptic feedback, neither for the keyboard nor other touch events (such as the menu button, etc.). I've looked through the settings menus several times without finding anything.

The actual vibration hardware is working, because if I go to Settings -> Sound -> Device Vibration it vibrates.

The only other mention of this issue I've found was one unanswered thread on the Samsung Galaxy Forums.

This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder if Google (and others) are actually trying to make things worse with every update. My HTC Nexus One running Android 2.3.6 never had any oddities like this. Only problem with that old phone is it's limited internal memory.


Why I cannot grant "Allow all the time" location permission to Whatsapp? I have a Pixel 4 and Android 10 stock, and the system only offers me these options for location permission of this app:

Allow only while the app is in use
Deny

But there is no "Allow all the time".

I want to share my location for a few hours to a friend using Whatsapp, and I'm afraid that it won't work without that permission.

I guess Google removed that option for that particular application, other apps have it enabled. Is that right?

PS: I'am aware of who owns Whatsapp and their issues.

So here is the problem: the latest (non-beta) WhatsApp is set up with a target platform of Android 10, but the developers failed to include a request for
ACCESS_BACKGROUND_LOCATION in the manifest.xml file in the apk. This is a problem because this is a new permission introduced in Android 10 and any app not requesting it which also targets Android 10 is assumed to not want background location access


How to prepare touchscreen-based Android device for [emergency] calling using only hardware buttons? If my touchscreen Android phone gets smashed I expect that it can happen that only touchscreen is broken (as it seems to be the most fragile part) while the device itself able to function somehow; and I maybe need to call somewhere using only hardware buttons (without screen at all).

Are there any programs to place and/or answer [emergency] calls by entering some pattern of hardware buttons without using screen as input or output? This can also be helpful when you are using the device in frost, in gloves, etc. so using touchscreen becomes problematic.

Having wet/cold/cracked_screen phone and not being able to call for help just because of touchscreen is not working can be unpleasant. With hardware buttons you can type the "sos code" sometimes even if both your and your phone's HP is low...

My device is SE Xperia X10, but I expect the thing to work one way or another with all devices with at least 1 hardware button.

I started implementing my own solution for my device.

Here (source) is a program that (started as root) will allow you to start shell scripts using series of button presses. Currently having started this monitor ( andrhard 66 /h/andrhard < /dev/input/event2&) I can easily toggle the flashlight without unlocking the phone (using /sys/class/leds/lv5219lg:fled/brightness)

Now the problems is how to call/answer from shell scripts...


Fastboot's command boot What can I do with fastboot's boot command?Can i boot into twrp recovey with my bootloader locked?I have to recover some data from my phone but I have adb disabled...I have a nexus 5 and I have thought to some solution but nothing...I don't know what to do

Fastboot boot command allows a Bootable image to be started on the device without flashing it permanently... It can be a custom boot kernel image, a recovery environment (TWRP, CWM, Philz), or other custom image. Having an unlocked bootloader is a requirement to boot an unsigned (meaning not stock) image like TWRP.


Want to change country in Google Play store This is not duplicate of other questions. I've been struggling with this issue for last 3 weeks and have contacted Google over chat, forums and other avenues too without any luck.

I moved from USA to India and now some of the apps can't be downloaded due to payments profile being in USA with an active Google Domains subscription.

So far I've tried following steps -

Went to payments.google.com and created another profile with India as country. Now I can see two payment profiles as USA and India.
Added credit cards etc so that it's a valid one
Went to Apps > Play Store and cleared cache and data. Removed my google account and restarted my phone to add Google account again.
Can't delete my cc info from USA payments profile due to active Google Domains subscription. Tried cancelling it, but it takes me to Domains billing page which again asks me to go back to payments page to cancel. So kind of catch 22 situation here.
Unless I cancel Google Domains subscription, can't close my USA payments profile.
Went to Google play to purchase something and it doesn't allow me to buy anything with India card, so other solution to at least reach 'Accept & Buy' stage can't be done.

I'm stuck with USA google play store now and would appreciate any help to change country so as to get to useful apps.

One option to do that is going into your Google Wallet Setting and add a new profile for that Country / Region


Make Android open a page at a specific time every morning I want to login to a site for 50 consecutive days. For this, I will have to visit their homepage for 50 days.

Is there anything that can be used to do this?

Using Macrodroid:

Add Day/Time trigger, then select Monday to Sunday and input the time.
Select the Open Website / HTTP GET action, then enter the webpage that should be opened.
Select Set Variable action. Choose "New variable", give it a name and select Integer.
On the Constraints tab, select Macroid Variable, select the variable create during step 4, select "<", and set Value to 51.
Give your macro a name, save it. It will look like the image below:

The macro will trigger daily at the exact time you entered opening the desired webpage for 50 consecutive days.

Disclaimer: I am not related to Macrodroid developer(s).


Remote log out of Google Apps I had to leave my phone at a repair store and give them them the lock screen password. Is there anything I can do remotely to secure certain apps, such as Google Drive, Keep and Gmail? I know you can logout of Gmail for other devices but I'm not sure if it counts on Android since it's so integrated. Also what about apps like Whatsapp and Snapchat?

I can log in with Airdroid.

Just change your Google account password. This will sign you out of your Google account on all of your devices, preventing the repair person from sending an email in your name, loading new emails, creating new Drive documents, etc.

In fact, there's a whole Google support page on your issue here.


Google apps losing connection to the servers when on mobile data I'm struggling with a weird connection problem I have with Google Maps 6.14.1 (#6140011) on the Galaxy Nexus (running Android 4.1.2/CM10).

The problem comes with the following symptoms when on mobile data:

The app stops loading additional tiles from the network that haven't previously been cached (while displaying cached ones without any problems).
The app no longer synchronizes starred places.
Whenever trying to calculate transit directions, it gets stuck on the "Getting transit directions" progress dialog (there is no error message, the dialog just stays there forever).
When trying to find a location (any search query), it gets stuck on the "Searching for: X" progress dialog (there is no error message, the dialog just stays there forever).
When switching to navigation, it gets stuck on the "Getting driving directions" progress dialog.

Things I've tried:

Rebooting: has no effect whatsoever.
Switching to wi-fi. Then everything works. This might make it sound like my network provider (a T-Mobile US MVNO) is blocking Google Maps traffic, but read on!
Tethering my tablet (CM9) to the phone: Google Maps works fine on the tablet, leading me to the conclusion that it's not the network blocking certain kind of data. However, when putting the SIM card directly into the same tablet, it again doesn't work.
Stopping the process, then clearing all data: this fixes this issue "for a while" (a few minutes to a few hours). I haven't yet figured out what causes the problem state to come back. It could be a fixed amount of time, it could be the first switch from mobile data to wi-fi and back, I don't know. UPDATE: I've had it happen 5mins after a 'clear data' with wi-fi all the time disabled, so the next connection to wi-fi does not seem to be the trigger.
Connect ddms: Getting transit directions does not cause any warnings or errors to be logged.
Reinstalling Google Maps: same as 'clear data', it helps for a few minutes.

Potentially related problems:

Gmail doesn't load any images. Other than that Gmail works perfectly, including background syncing e-mails on mobile data. This problem also occurs when on wi-fi.
Goggles always says "Network error" and "Authentication failed" (again, it works fine while on wi-fi).
Google Now reports "Requested content '…' cannot be accessed. Access is not allowed for this user agent."
In GMaps -> Settings -> About -> Network, I see the following error "Error - Bad HTTP response code: 403 for 62,71,72 class java.io.IOException". I can't get any additional information for this however. It might be weeks old, as I see this even while everything works perfectly fine.
Some things in the Facebook app work (notifications are shown), but some just lead to a "cannot find secure connection" error message (navigating to an individual post).
Other apps using the WebView control in some cases do not show content properly. (NewsRob for example can synchronize just fine, but when trying to switch to the web view of an article that was not previously cached, it shows an error message similar to the one of Google Now above.)

Further notes:

The mobile network indicator is blue/green during all of this (indicating a working connection to the Google servers) and everything else seems to work perfectly.
This has happened on various builds, including the CM10 final, installed from a factory reset.

This turned out to actually be a network provider problem (in my case: SimpleMobile in the US) and the fix is incredibly simple: remove the proxy server from the APN and everything works.

The final hint I needed was the Google Now error message, googling that took me to this thread on xda-developers.

I have no explanation for why 'clear data' fixed the issue for a few minutes and why this didn't occur when tethering the tablet through the phone (maybe a cached server connection somehow?). It does however explain why the problem occured again when putting the SIM card into the tablet (the APN comes with the problematic proxy as a preset), and that should have tipped me off, I guess.


How do alarms work with Period Battery Optimization? My G4 just got delivered an OTC update (V30c-FEB-11-2016, not sure why I just got it now), that contains the troubling text:

  The battery will now be optimized automatically when the phone or apps
  are not in use for a certain period of time. Alarms may not sound and
  notifications from apps that are not updated to the latest OS version
  may not be received during battery optimization.

What exactly is the alarm behavior if it happens to fall on a battery optimization? How long does a battery optimization session take, and will the alarm sound after the optimization finishes?

This is 'doze', a new power optimization feature introduced in Marshmallow.

Apps have to be compliant to doze specifications (APIs), to work continously across system low power states.,

While Google alarm app from stock android will work as it will be already doze compliant, any third party app (motorola apps or playstore apps) may or maynot have doze support, and hence might not function as normally..


Coverting ROM for MTK 6575 My phone was already a dead unit but can still be detected by SPFT (Smart Phone Flash Tool). What I  have is a Stock Flashable Rom which is in zip file. Is there a way to convert this into .md5 or .pmt? Or how can I flash this through SPFT.

And also, while doing the (SPFT) memory test, I got an error saying "NAND Flash not detected on phone" How can I solve this?? Thanks!!

I'm using Alcatel OT 5020a

For MTK devices you should use SP Flash Tool please find a complete Tutorial here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1982587 propably this will save you from the currently situation. I am not responsible for anything may happen.


When I tap on a phone number, why doesn't my HTC automatically call it? Please see the screenshots beneath. When my grandma tapped 'Mobile' beneath in screenshot #1, her HTC Desire 825 failed to, but ought've, instantly connected. Rather, a "No Internet calling account" message appeared.

But when she input that 647 number manually, her phone connects perfectly as in Screenshot #3.

Do you have an application called "Voice Changer" installed? I've heard that it can cause this. Likewise, if you have google voice installed, do you have it set to "Never Dial with Google Voice"?

If those are not the reason, do you have any other "Telephone Linking" applications or "Sip Dialers" etc, remove them and check whether your issue stops.

If none of these options above work go to:

Settings > Call > Use Internet CallingChange this setting to "Just for Internet Calls" Additionally, Change WI-Fi Calling to Disabled


Phone using GPS while the screen is off Recently I noticed that when I press the home or power button to turn my screen on, I notice that the GPS indicator is on for a split second.
What is happening here? Is there something trying to use the GPS only when the phone is idle? It sounds fishy to me.
Phone: Samsung galaxy s3 mini. Standard rom.

What is running?

On today's Android phones, Google Play Services samples and records your location occasionally, even if you have "location sharing" (what used to be called Latitude) turned off, in order to support a number of use cases:-

It allows apps on the device to define regions in space, and notifies an app if you go into (or out of) a particular region. This way, only Google Play Services needs to be running and checking location, rather than every location-based app on the phone keeping track of your location separately and using power unnecessarily.
It looks at which Wi-Fi hotspots are visible, and sends them periodically to Google, to support the feature of finding "coarse" (less accurate) location without turning on GPS.
It looks at your speed to determine whether you're stationary, walking running, cycling, or driving. Google Now uses this information to show you a "you've walked five miles this week" card, if you turn that on, and the statistics are also made available to other apps, again so that they don't all have to burn battery by tracking location individually.
It samples where you spend time in office hours and the evening so that Google Now can work out where your home and work are, and when you commute. This lets it offer you relevant traffic and weather information, and it tells it when you're travelling away from home to suggest places to visit &c.

Why only when the screen comes on?

This is to do with the way Android power management works. Usually, when the screen is off, your phone is asleep. Apps can't run in this mode: it only does the minimum necessary to keep the device connected to the phone network. Some devices can save power by even turning off the main CPU of the phone, switching to a smaller, more efficient (but slower) CPU while they're asleep.

In this mode, Android tries quite hard to avoid waking up, because each wake-up costs a lot of power. Most apps that run periodically have their run delayed, and all run at once, so as to wake up only once instead of many times. This includes the location sampling discussed above.

When you turn your screen on, the phone has to wake up, so at that point any periodic background tasks that were held back will run straight away. Google Play Services isn't trying to use the GPS only when the phone is idle: it just runs for that split second when the phone wakes up.


How do I transfer all my contacts from HTC Wildfire to HTC One? My HTC Wildfire does not have an SD card. I am changing phones and providers, from HTC Wildfire on 3 Network to an HTC One on Vodafone. Please advise how I can transfer my contacts from my 3 Network sim card?

I will recommend you this HTC's official app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.htc.dnatransfer.legacy


Call from Skype with front speaker My phone has two speakers, one in front that is used during normal call, and one in the back (the "loudspeaker") that is used to play music and in hands-free mode. When I'm using Skype for Android, it uses the loud speaker. This is very uncomfortable if I want to make Skype call in public place. I could use headphones and mic, but I don't always have them with me.

Is there a way to call on Skype just like normal voice call, with the front speaker?

Eventually, any other app would be good, that can make calls to PC using any of major protocols (Skype, GTalk, MSN), and that uses front speaker.

I believe you should be able to switch between Loudspeaker and Earpiece like this in the screenshot at the bottom while in a call. On my Samsung Galaxy 3 running a custom 4.0.3 ROM, it's working fine.

But after searching on Skype Forums I found this - Speaker only on Android device

Looks like a lot of people are having the same issue from initial releases of Skype for Android. Devices and OS are different in each case, so there really is no solution for users other than to wait for a fix from Skype.

You should perhaps look for alternative apps like these-

Fring (Fring Google Play)
SIP  (SIP for Android)
GTalk for Android app. (Supports Video/VoIP from Android 2.3 onwards). See here - xda-develoeprs GTalk w/Video & Voice for 2.3.3 roms


Is there a way to start a torrent on my Android stick remotely? I have a Windows home computer with uTorrent installed. With the BitTorrent WebUi addon to Firefox I am able to start downloads from my office computer.

I am planning on buying an Android stick, is there an app combination that can do the same? So I browse from my Android tablet, find a good magnet to download, do something not too complicated, and the Android stick starts to download it?

You might want to take a look at Torrent Manager:

  Torrent Manager allows you to take control of your remote uTorrent, Vuze / Azureus, Transmission and Deluge clients. With this app you will be able to list, add, remove, start, stop and manage the queue order all your torrents from your remote desktop.

Other, similar alternatives are e.g. TorrentToise and Remote Transmission (Transmission is a torrent client on Linux, so this is not for you). Find more on AppBrain (or Google "Tiles" Play) by following their related apps ;)


AutoVoice and Tasker: Speak recognized Variable says "percent varname" I am trying to automate my phone and later also my home with tasker. Therefor I need to define all those little Voice Actions.

My actual Workflow:

Task Voice Recognition:
Speak "What do you want to do"
Voice Recognition
Profile Recognize Start Call 1:
Match to Regex: " (?<%callername>.+) anrufen" (Later also "ruf ... an" and "ruf ... auf ... an" and "... auf ... anrufen")
Start Task "Voice: Call"
Speak "Calling %callername" (%callername was selected in the Variables dropdown)

That workflow speaks "percent callername", so it speaks the name of the variable. But it should speak the content of the variable.

Later I want to look in the contacts for that name and get the corresponding telephonenumber to start dialing. Or is there any finished Calling Voice Action for Tasker out there I can have a look at?

I found an answer/ got it working now: I needed to create the Task direcly from the Create Profile screen after defining the Profile. Assigning an already existing task didnt work, whyever.


Maximum (micro) SD card speed class for HTC EVO? What is the maximum class (e.g., 2,4,6,8,10) supported of microSD card supported by the HTC EVO?

I noticed an improvement in performance when upgrading from the Class 2 to a faster card on my Hero.  I don't want to pay extra for performance that won't benefit my EVO.

HTC and Sprint have not included this information in their specs and I can't find it elsewhere.  Either I'm not understading something fundamental about SD classes or it's not published where I'm searching.

It looks like someone sent HTC an email back in July and got the following response:

  I understand you want to know which speed is the best for your device as far as SD card is concerned. We have tested the devices on a class 4 speed. I could not recommend anything higher than that. The phone may be capable of running a higher-class speed, but we have only tested it on a class 4.

You may also want to email HTC support and see what they officially say.  From I've been reading, people have been using Class 6 just fine.  Not sure about 8 or 10.


What is the easiest way I can send one contact's phone number to another on my Android? I have to send two contacts in my phone book to another contact, on my Nexus One Android 2.2. How can I do this easiest?

On my old SonyEricsson this function was on a nearby menu, but I can't find it on Android.

I have also tried to copy the phone number when in edit mode of the contacts, but I can not paste it when composing the SMS to my contact. Is there really no way to transfer a contact via SMS or MMS on Android other than writing the numbers down on paper and then write them in the SMS message later as in the stone age?

Copy and paste from Contacts app to Messaging app should just work without any problem, I've used it a few times before to copy lines from addresses, emails and that sort of thing into an SMS.

Are you sure you long-pressed long enough in the SMS message to get the input menu up with the Paste option on it? Or that you copied it properly in the first place? Copying data from a Contact is most easily done by Editing the Contact, then long-pressing on the field you're interested until the input menu comes up with the Copy All option.


Can hangouts send text-only MMS to certain contacts? Most of my friends and family have iPhones that are capable of receiving MMS messages. I'd like to be able to type longer messages without having them be broken up into smaller SMS messages, because they often arrive out of order when going to a different carrier.

Is there a way to force Hangouts to send MMS messages when the text is too long for one message? Even better would be if I could have certain contacts set to always receive MMS no matter what.

To convert a long SMS into a MMS, Long press the attachment paperclip to add a subject line in the hangouts app


What can I do to manage my phone's internal storage? If you're not used to seeing the 'low on internal storage' notification, what is it that you're doing to keep your phone's internal memory from filling up so quickly?

The 'SD Card and Phone Storage' menu in the settings doesn't really tell me much other than how much is free. And, I don't really have that many applications installed. The top 5 storage hogging apps on my phone are Gmail (18.6 MB), Twitter (17.5 MB), Facebook (12.55 MB), Maps (9.63 MB), and Swype (6.06 MB).

So, are there apps out there (besides your normal file manager ones, like Astro) that will help monitor internal phone storage? Is there something I should be doing to keep my phone storage use to a minimum?

I'm using an app called DiskUsage which helps visualize what's using both my internal storage as well as the SD card.


Browser for multiple tabs? I like using many tabs when browsing. It's a bit annoying to click links and open it as a tab on firefox. It's annoying to close and switch between them too (Next tab so I can read VS pull a list and click the next one).

What browser is good for tabs? I tried firefox and the default web browser. I tried looking up android firefox for gestures or some way to handle tabs better but it looks like I can't open tabs easily on it

Yes, Firefox wastes too much space (especially when showing open tabs), maybe they fix that someday. In the meantime, have you tried with Chrome for Android? It has new gestures to switch between tabs:

  In Chrome for Android, you’ll be able to:

  Swipe horizontally across the top toolbar to quickly switch tabs.
  Drag vertically down from the toolbar to enter into the tab switcher    view.
  Drag down from the menu to open the menu and select the item you want    without having to lift your finger.


Unable to change mobile data cycle date on huawei p9 lite with android 7.0 My old phone had an option to change the mobile data cycle date. As you can see in the image below the option is gone. Does anyone know where I can find it in this "new and improved" version of android??

and yes I have seen this question but it has changed since this update and it no longer works

Screenshots (click images for larger variants)

It seems that Huawei phones don’t seem to have that feature, which may be due to certain manufacturer's reasons. Its skinned UI (EMUI) provides the feature in a slightly different place.

  If you go to your data management screen, you will find that it does
  not offer that feature at all. Instead, it shows you your daily usage,
  and that is about it.

This similar feature is found in data traffic management.

Depending on your EMUI version, follow this proceedure:

Go to Settings (All) → Data traffic management → Package settings (or gear icon in later EMUI versions). You should get a screen looking like this:

  Here you actually get the Android Data Traffic manager, but a super version of it. You can set daily limits, start the day of the month
  for your package, disable data if you go over limit to save you money,
  and set various limits and reminders

Since the feature is somewhat hidden, another probable workaround is installing a 3rd party open source tool Activity Launcher(No root required).

  Under activities select all activities.
  Select Settings
  Search for data usage

Here you will find the options you need to change the mobile data cycle date similar to  what you do in stock versions.

Another workaround is installing an altogether data manager application, that takes over the default monitoring of data, cycles etc.

From experience of many users you can search the appropriate one from Playstore e.g ( My Data manager, 3G watchdog etc) which are also very flexible when it comes to changing data cycles, limits, reminders and so forth.

Acknowledgements

How to: Enabling data limits on your Huawei or Honor smarphone (EMUI 3.1)
Change mobile data cycle date


App as Lock Screen? -OR- Allow app to run when device is locked? I've got an old android device running CM11 (KitKat) that I'm using mainly as an alarm clock.

I'd like to be able to run only the clock app (Gentle Alarm) .... and then if I want to use any other apps like email or whatever, I'd have to unlock the device.

A lock screen widget doesn't quite cut it, as I'd like the full functionality of the alarm clock app (or actually, any app I select, for that matter) available, but as soon as I click the home or back button, I'd be taken to my lock screen.

I could see this feature being useful for lots of reasons... say if I had a tablet as a remote control for the TV/stereo that guests could use, yet i didn't want them running other games or apps.

Is this possible?

I'd be willing to consider other ROMs if that's what it takes.

Kiosk mode at your service
What you need is a solution that can put your app in kiosk-mode. There are many apps in Play Store that can do this job for you. Simply search kiosk in Play Store. I believe that some of the apps providing child protection would more or less fit your need too. In that case, Izzy's list on app-locker should help.
Anyhow, I tested four apps that should help you  without requiring flashing any ROM:
clyd Kiosk Standalone Lockdown
It is free/paid app. Free version restricts you to a maximum of two apps. Once the app is closed you'd be shown an interface with selected apps' icons and that is all. You can only launch those apps and nothing more. You cannot access Status bar either. You'd easily know how to exit this once you start using it.
MobiLock Kiosk Lockdown
It is a free/paid app. Free version does the job for us. I didn't test it beyond two apps so I do not know its restrictions, if any. Its usage and behavior is similar to aforesaid app. It's also easy to exit.
SureLock Kiosk Lockdown
It is a free app with in-app purchases. Free version should suffice your needs. It explicitly has Single-application mode and Multiple-application mode. The latter behaves in a manner similar to aforesaid apps and the app can be exit very easily. However, Single-application mode isn't very elegant. The traditional way of launching password prompt didn't work and hence, I had to force-close the app using adb.
Make sure you test this app in Single-application mode only when you've adb setup in PC and usb-debugging enabled and authorized in the device.
KioWare for Android Kiosk App
It is a free/paid app. I believe free version should be enough. Although I saw the documentation, I couldn't figure out why the app always expects that I want to visit a website and hence expect a browser. I couldn't make it work in Multi-application mode at all. Single-application mode worked but I didn't see a way to exit. Again, adb came for rescue.
Make sure you test this app only when you've adb setup in PC and usb-debugging enabled and authorized in the device.
It is very much possible that I didn't understand the usage of or couldn't satisfactorily use this app. Feel free to let me know in comments its correct usage.

Screen pin the app
If you can switch to, or are, already running a Lollipop ROM then you can use screen pinning. On Pin and unpin screens, Google has noted

You can use screen pinning to keep an app's screen in view until you unpin it. For example, you could pin a game so that you don't accidentally exit the game while you're playing. Then, when you're done with the app, you can unpin the screen to get back to the rest of your apps.

Read through the link to know how to pin or unpin an app or go to Settings → Security → Screen Pinning and read the instructions for its usage.
Know that you can easily unpin an app, more easily because Android directs you to unpin it using a toast, should you press a navigational key.
A simpler solution, only for rooted Android devices, is to block such toasts from showing up. Through jan's answer here I found EnhancedToast1 and UnToaster2 app very useful (individually) to block particular toasts. Since they are Xposed modules, you would need Xposed Framework appropriate4 for your Android version.

Lockscreen on-demand
On a rooted Android, you can try ProtectedApps3 app. Use ProtectedApps to protect your launcher app. Now whenever you would press the Home key or go back to a previous app (it must be protected too) you would see default or your custom lock screen. The app would show you its know-how at first run.

Ever-ready Tasker
You want to get your hands more dirty on a rooted Android, use Tasker, AutoInput and optionally, Xposed Additions.
Run Tasker in application context and choose your Alarm or alternative app(s) as trigger. Configure Xposed Additions to disable Home button globally or use AutoInput in a Tasker's task to do that. You can also use AutoInput to disable Back button specifically when you're at main activity of your app.
Follow my answer at Is there any way to disable/enable the back button? to know relevant usage of AutoInput and Xposed Additions, if required.

A tablet with Kitkat
If you happen to have a tablet with Android KitKat, this answer by user77535 may prove to be helpful. (I don't have a tablet so I can't verify it.)
It says, inside Settings → Users, you can create a Restricted profile which would more or less be an app locker to you. The profile however enables system apps and Settings app can't be restricted. It further adds that Xposed module Restrict Me can take care of Settings app here.

1: XDA: EnhancedToast
2: XDA: UnToaster
3: XDA: ProtectedApps
4: Xposed Framework: Android 4.x, Android 5.x and 6.x


ROMManager does not backup my sd-ext I am using rooted LG P500 running stock 2.3.3. Recently I partitioned my SD card using ROMManager in to three partitions (swap, ext and usb storage). I checked with Mini Partition Tool and understood that the sd-ext type is ext3. Link2SD created mount script and linked apps perfectly, releasing loads of space in memory.

To try an unofficial CM10 ROM, I backed up using ROMManager (NAndroid) and installed the unofficial CM10 ROM.  While using CM10, I wiped sd-ext partition and linked few apps with belief that backup is done. Since I was unhappy with the CM10 ROM I decided to restore the backup and while doing so only I observed that my sd-ext partition contents were not backed up.

Thinking that I might not have backed up properly, I tried again to back up in restored backup of stock 2.3.3 and observed a message:

  "Could not mount sd-ext. sd-ext backup may not be supported on this device. Skipping backup of sd-ext"

Had if I had noticed this message, I would not have installed the CM10 ROM at all.

Question: How can I make ROMManager to backup sd-ext partitions as well? I guess just because it was unable to mount, it just skipped sd-ext backup. When Link2SD was able to mount, what is stopping ROMManager to mount it and how can I fix it?

Info:

I tried this with ClockworkMod Recovery version 5.0.2.7 and ROMManager version is 5.0.2.1
I have seen the question "Ext4 partition clockworkmod recovery backup" and this question differs because the partition used is ext3 and was created by ROMMananger itself.

Update:

I have seen this modaco forum thread and it just only helped me to come to a assumption that my present recovery version 5.0.2.7 does not support it. I will be glad to confirm it either from any authoritative source or burst the myth if some other user successfully backed up (either with 5.0.2.7) sd-ext.
When I attempted to use "mount and storage -> mount /sd-ext" option in CWM recovery console, I just get "Error mounting /sd-ext!" message.

A possible solution is described e.g. in this modaco forum thread. In case of that user, the sd-ext partition got corrupted as it was mounted wrongly by the Android system (he used GPartEd to create his partitions which, regardless of the filesystem created (ext2/3/4, fat32), then were mounted as ext4).

So what he basically did: He factory reset the phone, deleted the partitions on SDCard, recreated them on phone (i.e. not with the card mounted to any PC, but directly on the phone, using CWMs options as far as I understood).

I didn't try that solution myself, as I'm not affected by the problem.


Missing "left screen" in my SGS1 . How can it be added? I have stuff on the 7th screen and I've expected to be able to reach it on left swipe from homescreen, but it is not so.
How can I configure it ? Does it require some non-default launcher?

If you're using the original Samsung supplied OS with  Samsung's Touchwiz interface, then it doesn't wrap around, to get to the 7th screen you have to scroll seven screens to the right.

Alternatively you can "pinch" zoom out on any of the home screens to zoom out and see an overview of all of your screens, and tap any of them to move straight to them. You can also add and remove screens (up to 7) from here, by dragging unwanted screens to the trash bin at the bottom of the screen, or clicking the plus sign to add another (up to 7).


Syncing iPhone contacts to Google so I can have them in my Galaxy Tab S I still currently have a iPhone and I want to sync my iPhone contacts to my tablet to through google. How do I do this?

Transferring with Gmail and iTunes
First, you’re going to need a Gmail account, which will make moving contacts to any platform simple. If you don’t have a Gmail account, quickly sign-up for one on Gmail’s homepage. Before you even touch your new Android phone, plug your old iPhone into your computer and open iTunes. Then, find the Info tab on the menu bar at the top of the window. In the drop-down menu next to the “Sync Contacts With” box, select Google Contacts, and then type in your Gmail account information in the window which appears. This allows Gmail and Apple to update your contacts so all of the names, numbers, and emails from your phone’s contacts are now stored in your Google account.


Galaxy S2 - Unable to perform a hard reset My S2 froze, I took out the battery and restarted it but it kept freezing on the pin screen. I have tried both soft and hard resets but still cannot get the phone to work. When performing the hard reset, I am able to reset it, but on rebooting it freezes on the 'installing applications' screen.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

Have you tried starting it in Safe Mode?

Press and hold the Power key to boot up your Samsung GT-I9100 Galaxy S II.
After the start-up animation begins to display, press and hold the Volume down key.
When the lock screen is displayed Safe mode is displayed in the lower-left corner of the screen. To boot your Samsung GT-I9100 Galaxy S II in normal mode again restart your device.

If you've installed / updated something recently, try removing it and see...

If that doesn't work, you might need to effectively re-install the OS by flashing a ROM of choice

If you can boot to recovery, flash a new ROM (or a new version of the stock Samsung ROM). Check out the relevant forum on XDA-Developers. Else, use ODIN to flash via your PC and USB cable.

Be mindful of the model and variant - the international i9100 differs from other US based variants.


How enable monetary parental control for Google Play ? The last Google Play update removed the PIN option.

The new solution is email login.
My kids know, and should know, their email logins,
so that is not protecting me from Google Play purchases.

How to enable monetary parental control for Google Play ?

I'm only interested in monetary protection
(content protection is another topic).

The easiest solution is to not have a credit card linked to their account. Even if you did still have a PIN for protection, they could still use the card online with any place that takes google wallet. The PIN (and now password) really only protects purchases from the device itself.

There are a few options that come to mind for them to have paid apps:

Second Google Account

One option is to add your Google account to their phone, and use it for all the purchased apps. When they want to buy an app, they switch over to your account, and then you put in your password to buy it. The downside of this method is that they could easily change the sync settings so they get your contacts, email, etc.

Temporary Second Google Account

Alternatively, you could temporarily add your google account, make the purchase, then remove the account. The purchased app will remain on the device and should work, and they won't have access to sync data. But the app won't get any updates, and you'll have to do the same process any time they want another app.

Third Google Account

Or you could create a third google account that only is used for purchased apps, and not for emails or contacts. They would still need your password to buy the app, and you wouldn't have to worry about them activating sync for your information. And since the account would remain on their phone, their paid apps could be updated as well.

Prepaid/Gift Card

Another option is to put a prepaid card, or a Google Play Gift Card (min $10), on their account. They can purchase up to the limit of the card, either for paid apps or in-app purchases.

Alternative App Stores

You could also try using a different app store, such as Amazon's app store. It has most of the apps that Google Play Store has. It doesn't have PIN/password protection for paid apps (but it does have that option for in-app purchases), but Amazon gift cards can be bought in denominations as low as 15 cents. You could just buy the specific amount to cover the app they want, then gift it to them so they can buy the app.


xiaomi redmi note 4: unable to acquire unlockinng bootloader permission Straight to the point.
I've created a MIUI account through my Redmi Note 4 and applied for permission to unlock bootloader through the official Xiaomi unlocking link.

The problem is that after i enter my phone number so that they send me the code in which I'd use to apply for the permission -which takes a lot of time to receive but i was patient and waited- it gives me a pop up message in Chinese in which it's roughly translated to: "You have reached the limit for this IP".

Please keep in mind that i haven't signed up with many accounts from the same PC. I've tried another email, phone number and a new MIUI account from a totally different PC and it STILL gave me the same pop up message.

I really want to root my device. Please help!

It is a known fact that ISP's are allocated a bunch IP addresses which are then dynamically distributed among the public so every-time you connect to the internet it is possible you allocated a different ip address and sometimes it might be the same (TRY whatismyip on your browser to see your ip address) so try the procedure using mobile data if it still doesn't work i would like to suggest you an unofficial method mentioned in xda and i request you to go through the entire thread


Does Gboard remember what is said? I was using Gboard to write a message (with the microphone message). I said something rude I don't want it to save or repeat in predictions. Does Gboard save what is said anywhere, and if so how do I delete it?

I know some phrases you say to your phone do get stored in your Google Account, but I think this is mainly with "ok google".

By the way, on my phone it's called "Gboard" not Google Keyboard.

Yes, at the end of every mic message the keyboard make a toast appears that says

  Audio saved to your account


How can I hide phone number during incoming call and display only contact name? I wish to show only contact name during incoming call, for some privacy reasons I wish to hide numbers and display only contact name.

I won't usually pick up anonymous calls, is there any option to achieve this?

Android version 4.4 and without root option is preferable.

It seems that there is no out-of-the-box way to achieve this. Maybe knowing the device that you're using will help (by editing your question, or commenting on it), but I doubt that.

That being said, You can achieve your goal with an app, like Full Screen Caller ID. In there, at Settings->Display there are check boxes for Display phone number and Display name.

Personally, I wasn't too impressed with this app, but it does what you wanted.


Linux Deploy: Making new disk image (size) ... fail I am trying to use Linux Deploy on my rooted Galaxy S3 with Android 4.3 / Slimkat 4.4.4. But when I press install:

Updating configuration file ... done
>>> begin install
Checking mount points ... done
Checking installation path ... done
Making new disk image (1023 MB) ... fail
<<< end: install

go to installation type and select custom, then put a path you want and install it.


Not able to add words to dictionary while texting on Jelly Bean 4.1.2 I just installed Jelly Bean 4.1.2 on my Samsung Galaxy Note N7000. I am not able to add words to the dictionary. I use more than one language while texting. There are no options in the settings either.

How do I get myself out of this rut?

I have been able to add and edit words on my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Jellybean 4.1.2 by using a free app called QuickShortcutMaker. The app allows me to create a home screen shortcut to the user dictionary.

A detailed tutorial can be found here: How to Add & Edit Words in the User Dictionary on Jelly Bean 4.1.2


Many devices for one android user. Are there limits? I'm a teacher in the UK and have 30 kids in my class.We have bought 35 (older) Nexus 7 tablets.

I have one Google account which I want to use across all devices so that the young children don't have to remember user names and passwords.

The trouble that I'm having is that not all of them are able to be logged in at once. There appears to be a limit as to how many devices can be online with this account at once. We're doing this to be able to use Google Drive so that the kids can produce work and save it into Drive.

We are finding that as tablets are booted up, already online device are logged out from Google and I have to log them in the android backend.

I'd love to get this sorted. It's for the kids!

This is as close to an answer as I can find at the moment. Looking at the site for the (soon to be launched) Google Play for Education site, one of the benefits that they mention is:

  For Educators

  Android tablets in the classroom

  Google Play for Education brings the innovation of Android technology
  into classrooms. Educators can set up and deploy large numbers of
  devices in just minutes or hours rather than days.

  ...

  Over-the-air delivery to student devices

  After finding apps they want to use, educators can push them instantly to student devices over the air. They can send the apps to individuals or groups of any size, across classrooms, schools, or even districts.

(My emphasis, from http://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/edu/about.html)

Which sounds promising, but if you go to the Sign Up/School Interest Page it has this interesting bit of wording on the form:

Which suggests that there's a limit somewhere around the 30 device number. Which would match up with what you're seeing. As I can't find anything else official mentioning this limit, I can't find any official advice for getting round the limit either, sorry.


my computer is not recoginizing my phone but charging it 3 days ago my phone would connect to my computer perfectly fine, but now it isn't working. At first I thought it was the usb cable, but after purchasing a new cable it still doesn't work. It isn't my computer because my dads samsung connects to my computer. I noticed usb tethering is off and greyed out. Is that the issue? If not, what is?

Depending on your computer os and your phone. After connection via usb, theres normally a popup in the notification bar where you are able to choose from various usb modes. If that won't work, it could be a driver issue. Samsung devices tend to have Samsung Kies installed, which ships the usb driver.


What is the difference between my Android 7 x86 Live CD, and actual installation? (Stuck on Boot Logo after installing) I am trying to install Android from the Android-x86 project on my PC.  I successfully built an ISO from source, and I can boot from it.  The Live CD comes up without any issues.  My problem only shows up after installing Android on my computer.

Grub comes up, allows me to select Android, and starts the android boot process, but then I get stuck on the "android" logo animation screen.

I used GPT for partitioning, made one primary partition, and formatted it with ext4.

My problems sound very similar to this question, but the OP is in a Virtual Machine.  Is there some way that I need to "Accelerate 3D Graphics" or something like that?

It seems especially bizarre to me that it is booting successfully from the "live" system, but stops working when I install it...

Edit:

Looking into this some more, I found a workaround.  If I use ntfs or exfat instead of ext4 when formatting the partition, it works.  There is a catch: it becomes a read-only filesystem.  The x86 installer helps you set up another space for user data, so this just might be usable...  I am still open for answers on why ext4 will not boot though.

try installing the newest Ubuntu fresh. then install android x86 over the ext4 partition. select yes on grub and uefi and read write. do not format anything! ANDROID X86 formatter is broken.


What causes the error "No certificate found in USB storage." when trying to import a certificate? I have a Samsung S3 with Android 4.04 and to get on my WiFi at work I need to install a certificate .p12 file.  So, I navigate to "Security and lock screen"-->"Install from device storage."  BUT instead of giving me a field to specify the location of my cert ( on /mnt/extSdCard )  it just says "No certificate found in USB storage."

There are some USB devices ( called "UsbDriveA" through "UsbDriveF" in my /mnt folder) but I cannot copy the cert onto them because they are read-only.

So, how do I get this certificate imported?  I tried using "Android Certificate Installer" from the app store and that didn't work for me either: it launches a browser and the browser fails to prompt for the cert password.

I figured out a workaround.  The workaround is to download a File Manager tool and then double click the .p12 cert, which opens up and prompts for the password.   I still don't know why the control panel doesn't do what it suggests, but at least I found a solution.


Can I restore my HTC Hero to its stock ROM? I have a rooted HTC Hero with the latest Cyanogen mod installed on it.

I'd like to get it back to its stock status, restoring the original, official ROM and unrooting it. Is this possible? I have found this thread with what seems to be stock ROMs, however, I don't know whether that will do the job and also unroot the phone.

If you install a completely original ROM for the device, it will be unrooted. flashing the correct Stock ROM for your device will revert it back to its original factory state. Remember to Wipe both the Cache and Data when you flash.

in the post you linked it also says:

  Notice: These are NOT rooted, and contain radio/hboot rom updates


How to create manually create my own ᴏᴛᴀ update file to be used for adb sideload? In my case, I don’t want to permanently root my own device and if possible, I want to modify the /data partition directly.

In order to do so, I want to add a single file to the /system partition or even apply capabilities on a single executable. That means no apk ; no new apps ; no bootloader changes.

But everything I found for creating my own ota for rooting explains how to use adb to apply it, not how to build such a file myself. Or suppose that I’m building for a firmware I designed myself for which I have the signing keys (whereas the aim is to do it for stock Samsung).

So how to create my own file‑based (with the aim to modify file permissions to existing files) ota zip file which can be installed through adb sideload on all devices as SuperSu does ?

You can't create or modify OTA zip without the proper OEM signing key. However, there exist holes in older devices like Samsung Galaxy Y which allow flashing unofficial zip with test keys, but these kind of hacks are outdated (source)

if you want to create OTA zip you need update-binary for your device and write updater-script in EDIFY language

you can also replace update-binary with shell script which makes things easier and device independent

learn how to sign your zip (scroll down to Zip Signing)


Does anyone have a real solution to the "Unfortunately ______ service has stopped?" I have had a Samsung Note 3 going on 2 years. I love it but this problem is driving me crazy. This has been a problem for at least the past year. I know others that have the problem as well and I have yet to find a real solution.

It usually comes in the form of "Unfortunately Google Play has stopped," but since the update to Lollipop/Android 5.0, it has been Kindle. I hardly ever use the Kindle app.

I have tried everything and searched numerous online forums, etc. Nothing works.
Including the "Clear your cache, settings, etc," and battery removal.
These solutions do not work.

Does anyone know if anything different I can try? It is getting really annoying. Happens on Samsung Galaxy Note Tablet as well. Both unrooted. I'm hoping there's something I'm overlooking.
Thanks.

Welcome to Android Enthusiasts! There can be many reasons for a {service has stopped} error. You can actually use aLogCat to view device logs. This will help you better understand what's actually going on with your device.

It is difficult to pin-point an issue like that with Android because of its very nature. We can all have the same devices but have completely different experiences on them, based on configuration, how we use them, etc. Hopefully that will give you a better understanding of what's going on with your device. aLogCat doesn't work for your needs, try Android Remote Stacktrace.


Rooted, but su hangs I've had my phone rooted and flashed/reset/reflashed it several times in the last couple years. However, I recently reflashed to the stock image found here.

When I try to use SU apps, it prompts to allow, I say yes, it seems to proceed as I'm used to, but nothing happens.

So I open up trusty terminal and get a $. I type su, prompt/approve, but it just hangs. I never get a #. No error, no permission denied, nothing. I'm assuming this is the underlying cause of why SU doesn't seem to work for anything.

I've checked and confirmed that setuid is set:

-rwsr-sr-x root root ..... su

So I'm kind of at a loss here. Any help would be appreciated.

Matthew was right. Though since most of the steps had been already done from original rooting, I simply redownloaded the Superuser.zip and installed from recovery.

Fixed the problem.

Thanks.


Device stuck on "obtaining IP address", then sets network to "disabled" I've just arrived at some place which offers wireless internet. When I try to connect my computer, it sends me to some specific URL in which I need to accept some terms of use, and then the Internet works fine. When I try to connect to that network with my Android, however, it's stuck on the "obtaining IP address" stage of the connection for long minutes.

After a few tries, it just gives up and moves that SSID to a "disabled" status - which I haven't seen until now - in which it is remembered but it doesn't attempt to connect to it.

I can't navigate to any special address on the device's browser because it outright refuses to connect to the network.

How can I solve this issue?

The issue is not with your device but with the wireless provider. That is the typical behavior when connecting to a defective hotspot, either over capacity or just a tad too far for a reliable connection...

Sadly there is nothing you can do about it. It happens a lot to BT hotspots in the UK, in London most of them are overloaded during working hours.


Icons segment triangle Segmented triangle with up and down arrows inside triangle appears on the status bar. Can not find what this means. I have checked four different sites.

It is the notificattion for data saver ON for OREO update.

Looks something like this.

Go to settings > connections >  Data Usage > Tap on Data Saver and turn it off

The icon will disapperar. Hope this helps


How to increase memory for debugging of Developer options I would like to know how to increase memory for debugging of Developer options without DDMS connection. Please kindly advice me.

Background: I have a problem with my smartphones sometimes does not work well when to use application out side of my house without my PC. So, I would like to keep logs as much as possible. I would like to keep them for a day at least.

See this related question on our sister site for programming questions, Stack Overflow


Is Microsoft charging for its patent from each Android device sold? I read here that Microsoft is cashing Android handset ODMs for some patents that are allegedly used in their Android handsets. Why is Microsoft able to do that? Is this a HW or SW-based problem?

The list includes 73 standard-essential patents, but there’s also 127
  patents that Microsoft claims are implemented in Android. Some on the
  list, as Ars Technica notes, include patents that Microsoft acquired
  as part of the Rockstar Consortium to bid on patents from Nortel.
  ...
  Microsoft is estimated to earn as much as $1 billion a year from
  Android-related licensing revenue.

ref : http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/16/5813710/microsoft-android-patents-list


Recovering internal memory on SGS2 (CWM, not root, boot to recovery only) I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 (i9100), which stopped booting into the normal OS. I have no idea why - one morning it turned itself off, and when I started it, it went as far as the "Samsung" screen, and just hangs.

I have pictures on the "internal" SD card (flash memory), which I would like to recover.

I can boot into recovery, and have installed the latest version of CWM touch, which allows me to mount both the internal and external sdcard. I can do a "browse for update" on both internal and external sdcard, and all the files I want are there. However, even when internal sdcard is mounted, I cannot access it with adb, presumably because I don't have root.

Just to see what I can do without root, I used CWM allowed me to backup the system, but because the backup is written to the internal card, I cannot check whether it's worked. However, it is taking about 1.5GB of space on the internal card, so I assume it must have backed up something.

Any ideas? Could I write a script that would copy the contents of the internal sd card to the external sd card, without root?

If I rooted the phone, would I loose the content on the internal sd card? (I have looked into rooting, but only with heimdall so far, and I could not get it to recognise the phone on linux or OS X.)

Any thoughts and suggestions will be much appreciated!
Thanks!

I initially installed CWM v5 (as zip from CWM site), but that appears mount the internal sd card memory with root permissions only. I finally tried CWM 6.0.4.5 (again as zip, not from cwm site). The zip failed verification, so I couldn't install it. However, in v5, there's an option to ignore that, so I was able to run v6. It seems to run fine so far, and the storage is mounted correctly, and I can now pull with adb!

So - solution:
- Boot into stock recovery
- Install CWM v5 (from cwm site) from sd card (as zip)
- Use that to install CWM v6 from sd card (as zip)
- Then use adb to pull /storage/sdcard0. (adb will not preserve time stamps, but you can do a "ls -laRe" if you want particular file stamps

So in this way I was able to retrieve the contents of the internal sd card. Full details
http://www.sciencemedianetwork.org/Blog/20140304_Samsung_Galaxy_S2_data_recovery

However, after factory reset, the phone still doesn't boot. Follow up question here:
Complete reset of SGS2 (factory reset not sufficient)


How to disable FLAG_SECURE by modifying an apk filie? I want to mod an apk so that its FLAG_SECURE can be disabled. Can anyone please guide me in doing that? I have used Apk tool to decompile the app, I don't know which specific file to find in smali to disable this.

There not one specific file you have to edit. Instead you have to search all smali files for a specific call. Luckily the Smali syntax is very specific so that you can search easily using a full text search tool. I prefer Agent Ransack (Windows) or  grep -R (on command-line).
In detail you have to search the smali files for one of the following calls:
Landroid/view/Window;->setFlags(II)V
Landroid/view/Window;->addFlags(I)V

Before each call in the same line there is noted which registers contain the parameters.
addFlags
const/16 v2, 0x2000
invoke-virtual {v1, v2}, Landroid/view/Window;->addFlags(I)V

The second entry in the curly brackets in the interesting one (v2 in the example).
If this parameter is set to 0x2000. In detail this it a bit mask and if the 14th bit is set the screen-shot protection is applied to the current screen.
Effectively only the fourth position matters. If it is 2 or 6 (2+4) or A (8+2) or C(2+4+8) then the bit you are searching is set.
But in usually (in 99% of all cases you will find the value 0x2000)
Search the lines before the invoke-virtual if there is an command that sets the register we are looking for such as: const/16 v2, 0x2000
If there is the call and the second parameter has a parameter with the hexadecimal 2 at the mentioned position you can simply comment out the whole invoke-virtual ... line by placing a # in front of the line.
setFlags
const/16 v1, 0x2000
const/16 v2, 0x2000

invoke-virtual {v0, v1, v2}, Landroid/view/Window;->setFlags(II)V

For setFlags it is very similar just that the 0x2000 parameter has to be present in second v1 and the third v2 mentioned register in the curly brackets.
Do that with every occurrence of setFlags/addFlags invocations.
Again comment out the whole invoke-virtual ... line by placing a # in front of the line.
Rebuild APK
Then rebuild(apktool b ...) and sign the built APK with a custom certificate and you are ready to install the app.


How do I limit 3g speed on my Nexus One I have 1gb of traffic per month. Internet speed is 2.2mbits, so it's pretty easy to waste all gb in a few days. I don't usually watch youtube from my phone, and 500-700 kbits would be pretty enough for me. Is there an application or way I can manually limit 3g speed manually, without rooting the phone?

If all else fails, you could set the “Use only 2G networks” option...


Root Nexus 4 Lollipop without PC Is it possible to root Nexus 4 Lollipop from the phone, without needing to connect to a PC of some sort? Since Lollipop update, Android file transfer cannot find my phone.

Try Framaroot. I'm not sure if it will work with Lollipop, but it is the only option I can think of that does not require a PC. More info and FAQ in the link. Download the latest version from the bottom of the first post.


Stuck in a boot loop with no explanation why Device: 2012 ZTE Score
Android version : Stock 2.3.4 Gingerbread
Status : Never rooted

I was right about to charge it when the battery died and the OS shut down the power. I reconnect it to charge while it's off, and unplugged after about 30 minutes. It starts up and works fine, but stays in a loop between the MetroPCS bitmap shown before loading the lock screen and the ZTE animation binary that comes after the initial Android logo. I left it sitting and it did those 50 times in a row.

I have tried clearing the Cache in Safe Mode and rebooting but nothing helped.

Note: I do not want to Factory Restore it because nothing is backed up and there are important files in the Internal Storage which cannot be accessed externally (at least from what I know).

Can anyone explain why this is happening?

All boot loop issues I find online are occurring and circulated around the notion that this only happens when files conflict, usually associated with custom ROMs and such but I have never done any of that or altered anything, as well as any program I'm aware of.

It has done this boot loop error before but it would always eventually get out of it, but this time it's been doing it non-stop all day no matter what I've tried. What could I do?

Seems Like your Lock/Power Off button might have been stuck. Get it checked or keep constantly pressing it during boot up. Might just help.


Kindle Android - Refresh a book cover? I use the Kindle app for Android. I had 'bought' one of the classic titles which they have - War and Peace, which, like many of the classics, had no cover image.

They have since updated the title on the Kindle store with a picture for the cover. I would like to update the title on my device so that it shows the cover art. How can I do this?

I tried "deleting" the title (it then goes to "archived items") and then redownloading it but this did not work. I also checked in Quick App Clean Cache to see if there was a cache I could clean, but Kindle is not listed. I also tried doing a 'sync' from within Kindle. None of these steps has helped.

My device is a Samsung Galaxy S Captivate, running Eclair yet (I think I'm getting my Froyo sometime this month).

If possible, I would certainly prefer to do this in such a way as to not lose my positions in the books I'm reading.

You could try deleting the app cache. Go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications and find the Kindle app. Click on it and then hit the button that says "Clear Data". This will clear cache and start you off at square one again with the app. Then see what happens.


Setting username and password in proxy to access internet in android 2.3.6 I have Android 2.3.6.

I am able to connect to wireless connection. To access internet in this network, I need to provide a proxy (IP address with port) with username and password. In the advanced options, I am able to find proxy_ip_add and proxy_port, but not username and password. Because of this, I am not able to access internet.

How can I set the username and password in the proxy to access internet?

Android only supports proxies with credentials in Android 4.0+.

In android 2.3 or below I recommend you use the proxydroid app to use the proxy. This app supports authenticated proxies but needs root access.

The reason you have a proxy setting could be due to additions by your device manufacturer.


Why does Orbot need root for transparent proxying but OpenVPN doesn't? Orbot requires a rooted device for transparently providing proxying to all applications, but if I understand correctly, the application OpenVPN doesn't.

I understand those two applications do different thing, but it seems to me that if OpenVPN can route all your traffic through a VPN without root, then Orbot should also be able to dispense with it.

The problem here is that Orbot is built as a network proxy, rather than a VPN service, and Android does not expose any APIs for raw proxying of network packets.

Per the Orbot description on F-Droid:

  Orbot allows access to Tor by accessing a local SOCKS or HTTP proxy. On a rooted device, the proxying can be completely transparent i.e. the app that accesses the network need not be aware of the proxy's existence.

The important distinction here is that Orbot is acting as a proxy, not a VPN. Therefore, it has two options for routing application traffic:

Work on an app-by-app basis, with the user setting up proxy settings on each app they want to run through Orbot. No root needed for that, since each app will appropriately route its own traffic to Orbot.
Work system-wide by re-routing all network traffic.

Android doesn't provide any APIs for accessing or re-routing arbitrary network traffic because this would of course be insecure. Therefore, Orbot must resort to using iptables firewall rules instead, which requires root access. A VPN app, on the other hand, is able to leverage the VpnService API to construct a VPN connection.

The main difference here is that the system is deeply involved in the creation and management of a VPN connection, even when it is initialized by a third-party application. The user must still approve the connection and the system provides a notification and information dialogs that (in theory, anyway) cannot be hidden or tampered with. The system is also responsible for setting up the virtual network interface that's used for the tunnel.

I am not entirely privy to the Tor protocol, so it could be that acting as a proxy is the only feasible solution at this time. If that is the case, then they simply cannot avoid the root requirement for system-wide routing.


Reboot drops battery by 2% each time I have installed custom ROM, Official Lineage OS 14.1 on my Redmi 1S. I used to reboot device sometimes. And, I noticed that each time after reboot, battery percentage reduced by 2%. I also, tested on my Redmi 3S, running stock ROM, But, there, it won't drop battery. Does the device really use 2% of battery to reboot?

Yes and no
It does take energy to reboot, but it isn't the phone rebooting that takes this energy. The energy is lost through hystersis which the battery algorithm is accounting for.
Krexington_III, who worked for a summer as a fuel gauging engineer for a major cellphone manufacturer in northern Europe and says:

Hysteresis is simply the fact that once we've got the battery
discharging, if we stop discharging it (say, by turning the phone
off), it will keep on discharging by itself for a short while.

(Paragraph 3)
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qrdc9/eli5how_do_digital_devices_know_how_much_energy/
Phones need time to tell how much energy the battery has, and don't keep track of the battery while it is off. Your phone was programed to estimate that 2% was taken away while the phone was off due to Hystersis. Your other phone does not make this estimation (the user won't notice).
I suggest reading Krexington_III's post for (a lot) more information on how phone batteries and their algorithms work.


Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime direct call shortcut I was a apple user and had to switch to Android to take the benefit of dual SIM capabilities. I purchased a Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime.

My question is how can I add speed dial or direct dial shortcut to my home screen, so that I can call my most frequent numbers using my preferred SIM with a single press?

I have seen people have this highly convenient feature in their phones. I can't figure out how to put this in my phone. I have both SIM (4G) cards inserted. The call needs to be generated from the SIM 2, if that information is required.

Thanks in advance for the help.

In google Play Store, search for a app called "Shortcut Dial."
It's a 1x1 widget that will then prompt you to pick which contact
(with whatever number you choose)
 to call with just one touch of the icon on one of your home screens.


Galaxy S3 Tmobile - Can't boot into Clockword Recover? I hold down power up + home + power and it brings me to a screen that says Android System Recovery - I can't get the Clockwork Recovery.
What could be the problem?

You will need to flash an other package after you install CWM. The Galaxy SIII has checks in its start up scripts that if the recovery has been modified it will replace it with the stock recovery.

You can try this Root Package and flash it after you flash CWM. Besides installing SU and superuser, this removes the scripts that does the Recovery Check.

The actual scripts that are responsible are :

/system/etc/install-recovery.sh
/system/etc/recovery-from-boot.p

The package, that I linked, will install root, busybox, and it renames these files so they don't execute.

When the device boots, these scripts run and check the recovery, if you modify it, it replaces it with stock. The only way around it is to stop these scripts from running.


Can I Bluetooth tether my Acer Iconia A500? Anyone have an Acer A500 (just got mine today) and have luck with bluetooth network tethering.
I've got an OG Droid, so WiFi is not a possibility at the moment.
Tried the directions here: http://www.droid-life.com/2011/03/01/how-to-bluetooth-tether-to-motorola-xoom-using-original-droid/

but had no luck.  I realize that those are for the XOOM, but I was hoping it would be the same since they both run stock honeycomb.  I got as far as pairing the devices, but when I click on the droid device on the A500 it shows nothing under profiles, where it should show Tethering.

would really like to be able to tether with this until I get a new phone

The user guide for A500 says bluetooth only supports mikeless head phones.  I'm, miffed too.


How to record my calls on Nexus 4 with Android 4.4.2? I've got a Nexus 4 with Android 4.4.2 and want to record my voice calls.

My first idea was to simply use a recording app, so I've tried a whole bunch of call recording apps, but none of them work. They only record my voice, not the other side. Or they require the speaker / handsfree mode in order to record the other person (and then still sounds like crap).

After some reading it seems not all phones/models support full 2-way voice recording. However I did read some claims about people pulling ot off on Nexus 4 (although it's not clear to me if this necessarily involves rooting and/or custom roms, which I'd rather avoid).

Is there ANY way (preferably without rooting) to do proper 2-way phone call recording on a Nexus 4 running Android 4.4.2?

Try Easy Voice Recorder. It works for me (Nexus 4, Android 4.4.2 without root).

When you have root privileged, it is much easier. But without root, I don't know any apps that can record the other side in a way that you can hear him "clean". But as I said, Easy Voice Recorder did a very good job for me. Not perfect (crystal clear), but good (I can here the other side in the record without any issues).