Restore whatsapp messages from one number to another Current whatsapp is linked to a non-existent number.
I want to create a new whatsapp account for my new existing number
I do not want to migrate my old whatsapp account to the new number.
If I were to move the crypto backup files of the current whatsapp, will I be able to restore it on the new account?

Note -
Non existent whatsapp number is currently installed on a Moto G2, un-rooted, stock.
New number is on a Nexus 5X, rooted.

Whatsapp FAQ page states the following:

  Restoring or transferring a backup

  WhatsApp will ask you to restore your chats and media from a backup
  when you verify your number. Simply tap "Restore" when prompted to do
  so. If WhatsApp does not detect a backup, it could be that:

  You are not logged into the same Google account.  2. You are not using the same phone number that was used to create the
  backup.
  Your SD card and/or chat history is corrupted.
  A backup file does not exist on the Google Drive account or locally
  on the phone.

The FAQ tends to imply that it might not be possible. I'm not sure if a google drive might do the needful. Has anyone had a swing with this?

Also, rooting the G2 might not be helpful as I'll need to unlock the bootloader first - which will wipe out the internal memory anyway!

As WhatsApp by default does not allow to transfer from a phone number to another, there's no way without root. Root would allow you to copy the encryption key and the conversation files located at /data/data/com.whatsapp folder to the target device.


Plugged a Bluetooth USB to Tablet but seems not working I have insert a USB Bluetooth dongle to a Tablet via the USB port and try to turn on the Bluetooth in the Android but fail.

So, how do one know if the USB Bluetooth dongle can be supported for a tablet that have a USB port? (Given that the USB Bluetooth dongle have been tested to work fine in a desktop PC and there is no further information on the tablet manual on which Bluetooth dongle is supported for the tablet.)

The Ice-cream tablet was not rooted yet.

Is there some kind of Android Apps that can check or verify the above scenario?

Most tablets that comes with the Bluetooth share app installed, and have a Bluetooth option in Settings, while not having a built-in bluetooth, typically indicates support for such dongles.

I have used generic Android TV Box (CDR-King brand) with no bluetooth built-in but has a menu for it. Plugging a bluetooth dongle to a usb port activated it. Based on this, your tablet's ROM does not support bluetooth. My advice is to root it, and flash a custom ROM with bluetooth support if applicable.


S Note larger canvas? The S Note application seems to have a limitation I can't get by. The only workable area is the exact size of the screen. Is it possible to change the size of the canvas?

As far as I know it is (still) not possible.  You can now "zoom" the canvas which might suit your purposes.  The original physical extents of the canvas remain.

As an alternative, I highly recommend Squid (formerly named "Papyrus".  I have looked for apps specifically for an "infinite" canvas and find Squid quite suitable.

My only beef with Squid is that it cannot be configured to replace Samsung's action notes (Samsung's fault; not Squid's).  It would be nice to be able to capture notes using Squid without unlocking the phone.


Settings, App and Messages Backup AND restore of non-rooted Android 6+ devices? I need to send in my phone for a repair. The phone still works normally, so I like to backup all my phone specific data (SMS, whatsApp messages, app settings, account settings (contacts and calender sync), ...) and wipe the phone before I send it in.

I read Full Backup of non-rooted devices - but the question is basically from back in 2012 - and so is the most upvoted answer (adb) which also disclaims "This solution will not back up and restore contact, SMS or calendar information" which makes it seem rather half-baked to me. (sorry.)

Also, Android 6 has a built-in backup, I'm just totally unsure how well that works. (And what app stuff it does or doesn't backup.)

settings > backup&restore > more > manual backup > (sdcard)

Here's what the backup (to SD card) confirmation looks like: (sorry German)

So what did it actually backup (seems like SMS are included / bullet Gespräche") and how can I verify that?
How do I check whether some app settings are included or not?
Can I be confident to get that stuff restored to the factory reset device once it is returned from repair?

Android Version is shown as 6.0.1

Question and answer you refer to (Full Backup of non-rooted devices) are mine – so I can assure you they are still valid. As for the "built-in" backup: that's usually backing up to Google's servers, which works pretty well. What has mixed results, however, is the restore of that – which the user has very little means of controlling. It either works on first startup and configuring the Google account, or it works partially, or not at all.

I'd suggest you follow the procedure described there, and backup your contacts and messages separately. You can find some suitable apps in my app lists.

If your device were rooted, you could simply use Titanium Backup and be done with that, but I understand that's not always an option. If you have a backup device, I'd additionally suggest doing a "test restore" to that, to see that your crucial data can be restored properly. WhatsApp is a completely different case; though it has its own built-in backup, restore to a different device is tricky at best. If you don't mind (and using WhatsApp suggests as much), use it's Google Drive capabilities which should make things easier. Not that I have much experience with that (I wouldn't use WA unless threatened really hard).


Samsaung S7 Edge, LCD and glass damaged, turns on but black screen. How to mirror on PC ? without installing anything on the phone It`s a S7 Edge sliver T-Mobile smartphone, the LCD and glass is shattered. It turns on and off when the phone is charging, you can see it in charging mode. And when you're turning it on, you can see the startup screen and the boot-up logos. Besides that everything else is working.

Unfortunately, it's very impossible to that..Unless..

IF YOU HAVE ALREADY TURNED ON USB DEBUGGING SKIP THESE

1.) If you have a TV, you need to buy Micro USB to HDMI Adaptor

2.) After connecting Find the HDMI Mode on your TV

3.) Then Turn On Your USB Debugging

  Go to Settings > About Phone > Scroll down And find Build Number
  > Tap it Seven times > Go back to Settings > Developer Options (A new option you will see now) > Scroll down and enable USB Debugging

Now that you have enabled USB Debugging don't forget to connect you phone to the computer

In Your Computer

1.) Download Google Chrome and the Vysor Chrome app. Since Chrome works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, this app will work on all platforms, including Chrome OS, which you should give a chance

2.) Start Vysor from the Chrome App Launcher

3.) Click Find Devices and select your phone

4.) Vysor will start up, and you will see your Android screen on your computer

Optional: You can set your phone to connect automatically every time the USB cable is plugged into it

 DONE

Glad To Help :)


Disable Touchboost not available in EX Kernel Manager following some threads on improving battery life, I want to disable touchboost on my Google Nexus 5.

I am on:

MultiROM TWRP
ElementalX N5 Kernel
Android 6.0.1, non CAF

And currently using the EX Kernel Manager to manage my CPU settings.

In this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidQuestions/comments/43cq7h/ex_kernel_manager_no_touchboost/

It says to reflash SuperSU and select "Do not install" when TWRP asks to install SuperSU. The problem is, I can reflash SuperSU, but the "Do not install" option does not come up.

Do I need to completely remove SuperSU to get this option? Thanks.

I don't think it matters. If you install the the correct kernel you should be able to disable touchboast. See my screenshot below.

Remember if you're updating to a new stock ROM, you can skip flashing TWRP recovery as may be patched on first boot anyway. So you'll need to flash TWRP and SuperSU again after first boot. So after first boot, put your device back into bootloader mode, flash TWRP, reboot the boatloader, then you can boot into recovery and install SuperSU.

TWRP does not ask to root anymore from my recent experience. I've flashed a Nexus 5, 2 Nexus 5x, and a 6P recently with the most recent version of TWRP, factory ROM with the latest security patch (July) for 6.0.1.

Again, each time you typically update to a new version of the stock ROM, you need to flash TWRP, then transfer the most recent ZIP of SuperSU to your SD and install from TWRP (make sure you wipe your davik/cache!).  Once you've done this, you can install EX Kernel and then modify your gov, cpu, and turn off touchboast.

I know you have a Nexus 5 but this post by SlimSnoopOS on XDA will show you everything you need to know on rooting, backups, TWRP, custom roms, kernels, etc. I'd also check out this post by soniCron, regarding the exact task you're trying to complete, which is modifying your gov on your CPU so your battery will last longer.

Hope this helps.


audio player ala winamp on android? is there any audio player that works similar to winamp? so it can play

most importantly files from within a folder (whole folder or one file)
playlists
streams

Yes! It's Winamp for Android :)
See Winamp for Android for QRCode


Why do refurbished android phones have 3 months warranty or, no warranty? I am planning to buy an Android smartphone, but I don't know whether I should buy a refurbished phone or not. I checked many websites and most of them say that their refurbished phones function like "NEW", but they give only "3 month" warranty. If refurbished phone's performance is SAME as the Brand new phones, then why they do Not give 1 year warranty? I am confused !

Refurbished phones are those that have been returned by customer due to hardware or software issues under replacement warranty.

These are then repaired, issues fixed and sold as refurbished phones by EBay etc and they carry less warranty because they are not covered by OEM or carrier warranty but warranty provided by these third parties which are lesser in duration -after all the cost is also significantly lower !

Nobody can guarantee it will or won't be as good as OEM direct sale phone performance - caveat emptor


How do I determine exactly which process is draining my battery? Every since installing Android 6.0.1, my phone runs very hot and my battery drains crazy fast.

With a little trial and error, I eventually determined that at least one process called AtFwdService was sucking the life out of my battery. However, even after killing that process, I still have periods of time where my battery drains rapidly.

I saw this question, though it seems targeted at Cyanogenmod phones, or maybe rooted phones. I have a stock, unrooted rom. In any case, I went with the accepted solution, to install an app called Watchdog, but it has revealed literally nothing. Maybe it needs root access to run properly.

I also installed Gsamm Battery Monitor Pro, and it tells me how hot my battery is running, what my battery drain projection is, and has nice graphs. But it also fails to tell me exactly what is draining my battery. For example, under "App Usage" it shows "Android System" as using 52%(!) of my battery. Clearly the problem is in there somewhere.

But, if I click on Android System, I see a huge list of installed packages. There's a "Manage" button which lets me act on specific packages, but none of the lists give me any indication of what package is the one draining my battery.

The default Battery Usage in Settings also tells me that the problem is somewhere in Android System, but says nothing more specific. In Developer Options, under Running Services, I see a list of running services, but these are not processes necessarily, and the list is not as complete as what's shown in the Gsamm app, so it seems I'm not getting the full picture.

Is there a way to find out exactly what process is murdering my battery?

Try the following:

Is the battery drain exclusive to your phone model? Some phones are innately more prone to excessive drain. Find someone with the same phone and do a cross comparison.
Battery capacity degrades over time. From experience, phones over a year do show a significantly lower overall battery life. The battery could be faulty as well.
Check external media. I have seen cases where an external SD card trips the Mediascanner, causing it to run excessively.
Check your running apps. My go to app when dealing with battery drain is BetterBatteryStats. BBS has extremely extensive features to tackle problems such as wakelocks.
Are your running a custom firmware? There are occasions where custom firmwares drain more battery then firmwares issued by the OEMs.
Utilize the granular permissions to forcefully control rogue apps. Certain apps can silently access location or NFC functionalities.
Try a clean reinstall with stock apps and have it on standby for a full day. Check remaining battery percentage left afterwards. Use it as a control test to check if its the system or user app which is draining the battery.
Enable root and freeze system apps. Google applications and services, while often necessary, takes a good chunk of battery. Identify what you do not need and freeze them. Be warned, certain dependencies might stop your phone from booting.


Cancelling notifications for app updates Every time an app automatically updates, it shows a notification. I find this ridiculous. For me, a notification means "something I should be notified about". The thought that I should be made aware every time a random app I never use gets updated from version 1.5.2 to 1.5.3 is so ludicrous that it makes me want to sit back in my reclining chair, take the backrest all the way down and think about how big the universe is and how small our lives are.

Is there any way to make Android not show those notifications?

(Note: I use CyanogenMod 9.)

Switch to CM10 if you can - you can then adjust notifications on a per-app basis.

Note though, that for your problem, the only way to prevent " xxx app has been updated" notifications might be to disable the Play Store from showing notifications, which IMHO isn't a good idea.


How to remove data usage from droid 2 welcome screen? By mistake I checked data usage from android widgets, and now its in my droid 2 welcome screen. How can I remove it from the welcome screen?

Press and hold (long press) on the widget, then drag it to the remove/trash icon that will appear.


How do I root my Nexus 7? I am wanting to gain root privileges on my Google Nexus 7 tablet, running Android 4.1-4.2.1. How can I do this?

The Nexus 7 is probably one of the easiest Android devices to root - and all you need is the Android SDK (and 2 downloads).

Step 1

Install the adb and fastboot commands. On Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb android-tools-fastboot

On Windows you should download the Android SDK, however you can just download this zip which contains the adb, fastboot and dependencies.

Step 2

On your Nexus 7, go to System Settings->Developer Options->Check USB Debugging (You may need to slide the toggle switch in the action bar to on). If you do not see the USB Debugging option, go to System Settings->About Tablet->Tap on 'Build Number' 7 times.

Connect your Nexus to your computer.

Step 3

Make sure the drivers have downloaded and installed if you're on Windows - Windows Update should automatically find them.

Once connected, open up a terminal window (Windows: Win+R, type cmd press Enter. Ubuntu: ctrl+alt+t) and navigate to where you have unzipped the fastboot & adb programs (no need to do this on linux - they are in the path).

Step 3.5

Type adb backup -all -nosystem to backup your userdata to the backup.ab file.

Step 4

Type adb reboot bootloader.

Step 5

When the Nexus 7 has rebooted into fastboot mode, type fastboot oem unlock. Read the information on the device, and touch the Yes option. Your bootloader will be unlocked. This will erase all userdata!

Step 6

Download the latest TWRP recovery image. Save it in the same location as the fastboot binary. Issue the fastboot flash recovery twrp.img command to flash this recovery image.

Step 7

From the fastboot menu (green robot on its back with the cover open), use the volume keys to cycle through the options start, restart bootloader, power off, to recovery mode.  Push the power key to select recovery mode.
You'll see the google logo with an unlocked padlock, and then the TWRP splash screen for about 45 seconds. Then TWRP asks "keep system read-only?"  Instead of tapping on "no,"  swipe the swiper to allow these modifications.
This shows you the TWRP menu, 8 big buttons.  Tap on Advanced.  On the next menu, tap on ADB Sideload.

Download the latest SuperSU zip file and save it to the same location as adb and fastboot. DON'T UNZIP IT.

Step 8

On the Nexus 7, swipe the swiper to prepare it to sideload.
Issue the command adb sideload CWM-SuperSU-v0.99.zip, which takes about a minute, and then tap the reboot button.  This may take several minutes and several reboots, so don't worry.

The Nexus 7 is now rooted!

Step 9

Type adb restore <backup file made in 3.5> to restore from a backup.


adb unable to recognize Google Glass on Windows 7 On Windows7, I've updated the Google Glass android_usb driver configuration file to reflect the correct VID and PID and it does show up on Device manager as Android ADB interface.

While the device driver version is correct, it is showing up as SAMSUNG Android phone.
More IMPORTANTLY, it still doesn't connect to adb.

I had the same issue. Glass was showing as SAMSUNG Android phone as well. My steps to fix issue:

win7:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20435778/google-glass-is-not-listed-as-android-device-by-adb

Click on: Update Driver
Click on: Browse my computer for driver software
Click on: Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer
Click on: Have Disk... (that options is in the bottom right corner)
click on: Browse...
navigate to the location of your edited android_winusb.inf driver then click open then click ok then click next
wait a moment then you should see "Windows has successfully updated your driver software". then click close and close again.

!!!(now here is the important part)!!!

Right click on the device and click uninstall.
check the box "Delete the driver software for the device" then click ok
wait about 5 sec then unplug your Google Glass from the computer. wait 5 more sec then plug it in.
Watch the magic happen!!!! its working!!


How to partial sync Dropbox contents to my device? Is it possible to sync only some folders of Dropbox?

I have 5GB+ files on Dropbox cloud, but only want a few folders to be synced to my Galaxy Tab 7.7.

Yes there's a way. It's called Foldersync. It allows you to set up folder pairs to sync and the full version even allows you to sync on changes. It also supports several other cloud services.


Prevent other users to get Whatsapp notification Is there is any way to prevent other users to get notification when I joined Whatsapp?

Apparently, I don't want others to announce I'm using it as I'm trying to join it for only selective friends and family members.

Users don't get a notification or the like, when you join WhatsApp. (Maybe you're mixing up with telegram where users do get notified?)

But, when someone who has your number will try to send you a WhatsApp message, they will see that you have WhatsApp.

To prevent them from seeing that you have WhatsApp, you'll have to either block their number in WhatsApp or open a WhatsApp account with a new number that no one knows.


Google Nexus 7 not recognized via USB I'm trying to connect my Google Nexus 7 to my PC for Android development but so far I've been unsuccessful.

I've tried connecting to my PC using different cables. When I connected the device to my Windows 7 PC, I didn't get any notification on Android or my PC that a device was connected. In "Other devices" my PC shows an Unknown device. I tried using MTP and PTP, as well as disabling and enabling USB debugging. I've used Nexus Root Toolkit, Universal Naked Driver, Nexus 7 toolkit, and I've tried this tutorial and many others and nothing has helped me.

I don't understand why there aren't any notifications on Android. Could it be a hardware problem? How can I check it?

Make sure that:

Your device is in USB Debugging mode
You have the device drivers installed
With the device connected, delete any 'Android' devices in the device manager. Do this by highlighting it and pressing the delete key.
Disconnect then connect the device.


How can I merge WiFi passwords from a backup and from the current configuration? I have an old backup of the WiFi passwords on my Nexus 7. I also have a new configuration which has some passwords that are newer and some that are older.

How can I merge the configuration in a controlled manner without having to entrust my WiFi passwords to some third-party app?

If you have root access on your device:

Grab a copy of /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf, e.g. using adb pull, and save it to your computer
Restore the data from your backup, and grab a copy of that in the same manner
Use a text editor, and merge the entries to a new file
Put that file back into place, e.g. using adb push
Make sure the file is owned by system:wifi and has permissions 664.

Without root access, it might be possible as well, but would be much more tricky (plus the overhead would probably not be worth it). The following is untested, and requires at least Android 4.0:

Create an adb backup
Restore the "old data" to your device
Create another adb backup
Extract both backups to different locations on your device (see: [How do you extract an App's data from a full backup made through “adb backup”?])(How do you extract an App's data from a full backup made through "adb backup"?)
Merge the data from both wpa_supplicant.conf files
Re-assemble the backup file
Restore the re-assembled backup

A third way lies in between, but does not require to re-assemble and restore the backup file, nor to replace the wpa_supplicant.conf directly. But you will need a copy of that file, which you either can obtain via adb pull or by extracting the backup files.

Once you've got a copy of both files, you can simply read your connection data, and enter those you wish manually: everything is stored as plain-text here, completely unencrypted (including the passwords!). An example entry (slightly modified to hide the real data):

network={
    ssid="smartcafe"
    psk="cafesmart"
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
    priority=46
}

As you see: if you would like to use that data for the APN "smartcafe", simply edit your config and put the corresponding password (psk):

Go to Settings → WiFi
Scroll to the APN
Long-press its entry, select "Change"
Enter the new password

If it should be a new entry: At the same place, at the bottom of the screen, tap the "add network" button, and enter the data you've read from the file.


Help using RDP via a tether I run a PC which controls my astronomical telescope equipment, it works off batteries as there is no mains power at the site. There is mobile service at the site and I've successfully tethered my phone to the windows 10 PC via a USB cable tether, so I can get internet access using a browser on the PC.
I would like to use my PC at home to control the remote PC via its phone tether and I usually use Microsoft's Remote Desktop software to do this when connecting to PCs on a LAN or over the internet, but I can't seem to find the tethered PC's connection credentials. I'm probably missing something I guess.
I've searched for solutions on the internet such as ' how to rdp to a phone tethered PC', but not had any luck with that.
Could anyone explain how to use the remote desktop client to login to my tethered PC?
Many thanks for help.

The main problem of RDP is that you need a public IP address for directly establishing the RDP connection on port 3389.
In your case there are two obstacles which make it next to impossible:

Nearly all mobile data plans do not grant you a public IP address. Instead you are getting a private IP address from a carrier internal network. To access servers on the Internet this network uses carrier-grade-NAT (NAT on carrier side, this implies that you can not configure a port mapping as you can do on DSL home routers which also do NAT).
The main reason for most carriers (nowadays) is that they don't have enough public IPv4 addresses to assign every device an own. And mobile networks providing IPv6 services (und may be a public IPv6 address) may exists but I have not yet encounter one.
Some carriers allows communication within this private network, in such a case you could use a second cell phone for the RDP client and then connect to the carrier network internal IP address of RDP server. The problem is how to get this IP - regular dynDNS clients I know only give you the public IP.

For tethering the phone acts as NAT router, therefore even if you would manage to get direct access to the IP of the cell phone attached to the RDP server you would still need to forward the RDP port from the phone to the PC.


Bad voice quality on phone calls, good with WhatsApp I have two Samsung Galaxy S5 minis, one of which has the following problem:

The voice quality is really bad on phone calls to other people (muffled sound, chopped, extra noise/interference, echo).

I suspect it has nothing to do with the network strength, as the voice quality of the other device is very good in the same spots.

To rule out hardware issues, I called other people via WhatsApp. Everything is just fine there. Also voice notes on WhatsApp do not show any problems. So I would suspect that the microphone is ok.

I must admit that I did not try to reset the phone yet (factory reset), as I would not like to spend the time on reconfiguring everything to my needs - just to find out the problem persist.

So is there anything I can do before trying a factory reset or even send the phone in for inspection? Is there any setting that I can change? I removed some of the preinstalled apps, could this be an issue? Or is there another caller/phone app that I can try?

I tried a factory reset to resolve the problem, but it did not help.
Also I send in the phone to the sellers technical service. They wanted more money for repairing the phone than the phone is worth.
However, there were suggestions on the internet stating that sending the device to Samsung could help. Even if they would not repair the device, it could help resolve the problem. However, it turned out that my phone had still warranty, so they repaired it for no cost! Now everything is working fine!


Open firefox and start typing to the address bar immediately Is it possible to set up firefox such that whenever it opens, it is "focused" to the address bar? So that whenever I open firefox, the keyboard opens as well and I can immediately start writing to the address bar?

If you use Google search you can start typing and web address and it should open in your default browser (Firefox if you have it set like default)

You can also add the Firefox search widget to your home screen as well if you want to get Firefox search suggestions.


Disable IPv6 entirely on a Xiaomi Mi A3 I am running Android One 9 on a Xiaomi Mi A3 and am trying to stop it from using IPv6 DNS servers, as they are essentially turning my RPI4 running Pi-Hole into a useless lump of silicon. How can I do this without having the phone ignore my instructions??

I have tried setting the WiFi connection to use a static IP and DNS info, as well as both the sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.wlan0.disable_ipv6=1 and the older echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/wlan0/disable_ipv6 commands but to no avail...the file retains the value 0 and my phone insists on using one IPv4 and one IPv6 DNS server no matter what I try!

Please help me end this madness! MTIA :-)

Nevermind, I finally managed to configure this at a network-wide level by disabling IPv6 on my router. Now Pi-Hole works across all my devices. Happy days! :D


Physical placement of specific sensors in Google Nexus 7 (2012) I am working on a project that requires me to know where specific sensors are physically located inside the device. I can estimate the location of NFC and light sensor (of course) but what about other sensors like magnetometer, g-sensor? If any of you know about the placement of specific sensors (doesn't have to be very precise) that would help me.

Here is a labelled photo of the nfc antenna behind the cover. It runs the perimeter of the black cover on the phone back

http://i.imgur.com/1ETQzow.jpg


Does the external sd card have to use FAT at all? link2sd allows one to fully move apps to a second partition on the external sd card provided its Filesystem supports Linux permissions. but does it have to be a second partition or could I simply format the entire card e.g. ext3?would this still work when USB connecting to my PC?

The reason why it can't be a single [FAT] partition is: "Because Android unmounts the first FAT partition to share files with your computer [when connected via USB] but the second partition remains mounted." [Link2SD FAQ]

The reason why it can't be a single EXT partition is because... well, because Link2SD says so:

I guess you could format the first partition as EXT, too.  So technically, no, you don't need FAT at all.  But it's nice to have it, as it's more readily visible to other Android app, and it also shows up immediately when the Android is connected via USB as a media device (MTP).

Now, "You [only] need to use a non-FAT file system (ext2, ext3, ext4 or f2fs) on your second partition in order to link app's private data files." [emphasis added] You can still move an app's binary to a second FAT partition. In fact, when Link2SD detects the second partition, it'll ask you what's the filesystem, at which time FAT is one of the options:

(No link to FAQ because I "need at least 10 reputation to post more than two links".)


"Ok Google" Greyed Out / Unavailable After Hard Reset After Android phone was hard reset to factory settings and restored from backup, inside Google Services Settings, "Ok Google" function was Greyed / Unavailable.

This is even after language selected was English(US) and updated language.

How to solve this issue?

The solution that enabled the "Ok Google" function was to Clear the Storage Data of Google Services Framework.

Caution, this will invalidate GCM ids of applications that have registered for one.  May require reinstall of those applications.


How can you increase notification size? I have a Samsung Galaxy S8 and I get notifications which are a bit longer than can be displayed.  For example

  Helen wants you know that there are items waiting for you

will be displayed as

  Helen wants you to know that there are...

Is there a way to increase the size of the notification so the complete notification can be read?

pull down the notifications or tap the arrow down to expand the full message or notifications


Choppy playback of HD video on Jellybean I run Jellybean on my Galaxy Nexus, and ever since I switched from ICS I've started getting choppy playback of HD video. I used to be able to watch 720p video without any problem in MX Player. If I switch to software rendering instead of hardware in MX player it improves somewhat, but it's still choppy at least every other minute or so until it recovers. If I play it in the VLC beta I get artifacts every now and then until it works itself out.

Anyone recognize this issue and has any idea what to do about it?

Try this app. I don't know how this app does it but worked for me in my Galaxy Core for palying 720p video smoothly which never played in MX Player or VLC.
Anyways give it a try!

Video Player Ultimate(HD)


How does the GPS work on Android phones? Today I used the GPS on my Android for the first time, and I was wondering how it actually works.

I know that Android phones have a GPS chip in them, but does the phone establish a direct connection to the GPS server or is there something else going on? If there is a direct server connection, does that mean that every Android user can make a direct server connection?

GPS itself does not need a network connection to any server to work. It just needs a signal from a least 4 GPS satellites to calculate a good position fix.

There is also the GPS Almanac, which basically provides future data on where the satellites are expected to be in a given time in the future, usually up to 7 days. This can be used to speed up the position calculation. The Almanac is broadcasted by the GPS satellites and it takes up to 15 minutes to download the full Almanac via the GPS system. That's why there are also Servers on the Internet that provide the Almanac data in an more convenient, faster way. Maybe that's what you meant by "GPS Server". Android makes use of that too.


How to find and access "device folder" using PC? I have a rooted Android phone. I would like to access the device folder in order to find all these other folders: acct, cache, config, d, data, dev, efs, ect, factory.

Here's a picture in order to be more clear:

(Click image to enlarge)

However, when I connect the phone to the PC (running Ubuntu) using the USB cable the only thing that I find are the Card and Phone folders:

If I try to look for the folders listed previously, I cannot find anything!

I already know how to find and access them using apps like ES File Explorer, however, my goal is to find and access those folders using my PC without using apps! What should I do?

What You see is output of libmtp (Media transfer protocol) and appropriate plugins for file-manager. To access root directory of Android device from Linux, you might use

a) adb shell (using terminal - easy solution)
b) several mtp packages listed nicely here

steps described in b) should allow You to mount root of Android device and access it from file manager, however it requires some non-trivial system modifications.


WhatsApp sends messages before I've finished typing I've had a BQ Aquaris M4.5 phone with Android 5.1 for months and have never experienced any problems. However, since last week and without having changed anything that I know of (and not having installed an update from WhatsApp), my phone sends the message before I finish writing it on WhatsApp only. I can only write one or two letters before it sends the message, without me pressing the send button. It continues doing this until I close the app and open it again, but it happens dozens of times throughout the day and I have no idea why. I have erased the cache, used cleaning apps to clean the phone, etc., but nothing solves it. I installed yesterday the latest update and the problem seems even more frequent now. I have searched online but I can't find users experiencing the same problem.

I've thought of doing a factory reset for my phone, as I would like to do it anyway for general cleaning. However, if I have a Google backup and another backup on my SD card, will everything be exactly the same when I restore the phone? Will I actually clean it?

Thank you

As @beeshyams suggested, the problem was not WhatsApp but my keyboard (I am using TouchPal). I don't know what exactly was causing the problem, but uninstalling and reinstalling the keyboard solved it completely.


Does Android suffer from the same "over a period of time" performance degradation that OSes like Windows do? To clarify, yes, I run a custom ROM on my phone. I thought to myself "I'm going to flash this and keep it stable because I need to depend on it for work".

Almost a full month later, I'm finding that the interface is lagging, apps don't spring open with the same swiftness that they used to, and in general, I'm finding I need to reboot more often. Nothing is critically wrong, logcats don't seem to show any malfunctioning, it's just.....sluggish.

Flashing the ROM over again is starting to feel like Windows; I reinstall fairly often to keep it running smooth, but if it's something I'm doing wrong, I'm entirely open to suggestions. As I grow older and less obsessed with flashing anything I see on XDA, I want to keep something stable and dependable.

The effect you are describing is not caused by the OS. It's caused by more and more background processes that accumulate over time and maybe more apps registering to system hooks that need to be evaluated when certain events occur.

Every OS that supports this will be vulnerable. My Android has run for the past 1 1/2 years without any performance degradation. Always question and confront app developers if they run a service in the background for a long time (without any need/use). Interval-like started background services that check/pull for some information and terminate after that are fine. Google Play Music is was1 a perfect example: The App sets an Android Alarm (that is not an user alarm, but more a programmatically scheduled event) in intervals to perform its sync.

But some apps start a long-running service that can't be disabled by the user, and if you have many of these running, your performance will in-fact degrade.

1Google Music seems now also to run all the time. :( But there are other good examples of apps, that understand that they shouldn't run all the time. Or where the user is able to deactivate the background service. Or where the app developer was competent enough to make use of the rich (push) API of Android provides to keep the impact of the app at a minimum.


Connecting Huawei Comet via USB -- shows as CDFS? I'm trying to install a custom ringtone to my Huawei Comet, and when I connect it to my computer via USB it shows me a drive named "Mobile Partner" that is CDFS and has 0 MB free of 6.59 MB (not the 2GB MicroSD card I have installed). Do i have to use a separate SD card adaptor to plug it into my computer? Or how do I get my phone to show me the SD card?

T-Mobile Comet Manual, p.14:

Using the microSD Card as USB Mass Storage

To transfer all your favorite music and pictures from your PC to your mobile phone’s microSD card, set the microSD card as USB mass storage.

Connect your mobile phone to your PC with the USB cable. Your PC will detect the microSD card as a removable disk.
Open the notification bar, and then touch USB connected.
Touch Turn on USB storage in the dialog box that opens to confirm that you want to transfer files. You can now transfer files from your PC to your mobile phone’s microSD card.


How to monitor tethering bandwidth Is there any way to monitor 3G tethering usage. ie excluding regular 3G bandwidth. (This is for a UK GiffGaff plan, where normal use is unlimited, but tethering charged per GB.)

If you're rooted you could try Wireless Tether for Root Users.

More info and more recent versions here: https://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/

Besides having way more options than the stock wifi tether application it also allows you to have a look at the bandwith used when tethering is active.


Is it possible to run Android applications on (normal) Linux? Since Android is a forked Linux kernel plus software stack I am wondering whether there are any projects or ideas regarding creating a version of Android that can be added to a Linux system to allow a Linux system to run Android applications (compiled for, say, x86).

Does anything like that exist or would it be possible?

(I don't mean the emulator that comes with the SDK.)

Nothing like that exists yet since the apps are not run natively in the OS, but they use Dalvik Virtual Machine instead (Wikipedia). It's somewhat comparable to Java in the sense that it uses bytecode and creates a separated environment for each app. So unless the Dalvik environment is ported to other platforms, they can't be run on normal hardware.

There is a project called Alien Dalvik by Myriad that tries to run Android apps in different environments, but there's not much info on it. Myriad Alien Dalvik


Schedule automatic updates - not from Google Play? I don't use Google Play with my Android-based phone; mostly I use APKPure and its app.

However, I do want to be able to schedule periodic updates of all apps (or of some apps) - instead of me having to manually approve app update downloads and/op individual app update installation. It could be via APKPure or anywhere else that's sort of respectable, I don't mind - but it can't require something like logging into to Google/Facebook/etc.

Is this achievable?

Notes:

In case it matters - I use Xiaomi RedMi 3s, Android 6.0.1, MIUI 9.2.2.
I'd rather not have to root my device in order to do this. If you think I must, please explain why.

You can try APK updater , also available on F-droid ( if you add  Izzy's repo) and
is meant for cases like yours where you are not using Play store.

  Update sources
  At the moment four sources are supported:

  APKMirror
  Google Play
  APKPure
  Uptodown

You can schedule daily or weekly updates, time of update and update on startup

Edit: It requires root permissions to update all. You can download the updates for apps you want to update by ignore others, followed by clicking the blue circle icon and install them.

You would need to give permissions to install from external sources. In screenshot below , I updated a single app "aSpotcat" which shows "installed" and other apps showing "Install"

Not an ideal solution for auto updates since it requires manual intervention if device is not rooted


Where does YouTube put videos on my device? I want to know where YouTube stores the videos when I go offline. I know it's on my device somewhere, but I can't figure out where.

Try navigating to Internal storage/Android/data/com.google.android.youtube/files/Offline/(system generated folder name)/streams.
Alternatively, you could also use a video downloader that can retrieve videos from YouTube. There are several of these on Google Play.


VLC tags don't show, need to edit When accessing audio file information, no tags appear like desktop version. How am I supposed to edit tags

Screenshot of "information" menu

This feature is not inplemented and has a low priority: https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/7072

There are many alternative tools in the play store that offer this feature.


Change the default app in "Open with" dialog I have at one point chosen Truedialer as the default app for opening contacts.

I would now like to set Google Contacts as the default app.

I have cleared the Launch by default setting for Truedialer.

However, when I click on a contact (found using searchbar) I get a dialog stating

Open with View contact
                  [JUST ONCE] [ALWAYS]
Use a different app
Contacts

(View contact is the Truedialer app, Contacts is the Google Contacts app)

Now, I can choose View contact as ALWAYS, but I cannot choose Contacts as ALWAYS, I can only click it to use it once.

This same dialog shows up every time, no matter how many times I search for a contact. It only gives me the option of setting View contact as default, never Contacts.

How can I set Contacts as default?

I had the same issue with a widget.

For me the following worked:

Go to Settings->Apps and click on the menu button (the three dots in the right top) and select Reset app preferences.

This resets a lot of stuff, but I was able to select Alwaysfor the right app again.


Device keeps on asking me to sign into my wifi network This issue just started today and I am at my wit's end because my phone still asks me to sign in to a wifi network which I have been using perfectly well for the past week.

These are the details:

I'm using Samsung Note 4
I can use other wifi networks since the issue started, but I can't use the one at home.
I can go online but it disconnects automatically after a few seconds.
Page directs me directly to google and there isn't any sign in prompt there
Nobody else is having the same problem that I have

These are the remedies that I've tried:

Obvious reset of router/phone, I've even restored the router to default and reconfigured it again (still didn't work)
Changed wifi setting from DHCP to Static, sign in prompt disappeared but so did the internet
Cleared cache data
Took out my sim and turned it off for a few minutes (still didn't help)
Downloaded a few apps which were suggested by a few forums I read, nothing happened.

I hope anyone can suggest something that I haven't tried before, thank you.

When you are asked to sign in to continue, instead of allowing the redirect to open in chrome or any other browser you installed open it with androids built in browser instead.


Single application tablet possible? Possible Duplicate:
  How to make run only a single application with all other application stopped?

Background:

I would like to create a weather station alarm clock from an Android Tablet. This would sit on my bedside table. When I tap the screen or press the button or something, it would wake up and show me the local weather forecast.

Question:

Is it possible to make an Android tablet behave in a single application way like this? I.E. no apps, no app store, no 'slide to unlock', no other logos or screen clutter, that kind of thing?

Added:

This is more of a user interface question. I don't care if there are other applications on the device, I just want it to behave to the user as if this was a weather station device only, rather than an amazing multi-purpose computer.

I don't need it to be secure against someone who really wants to get past the main application, I just want to prevent it always annoyingly switching out of the main app. Since it's going to be a weather station only, I don't want it always offering me irrelevant things, like a handy screen saver, other apps, slide to unlock, etc. and making me have to do loads of interaction to get back to its main app.

Theoretically, yes.

I would assume you could accomplish this by the following process:

Root the device.
Remap every button to the one app you want to run
Configure your device to operate as you want

remove lock screen, etc.

Fill in the gaps

There's where it gets tricky, you could uninstall your launcher as well, but I have not tried mapping buttons to apps (which might require a bit of custom program), and I do not know if you could get to them without a launcher installed, as that is where the system defaults to after rebooting. That being said, removing too much (like the lock screen) could de-stabilize your system, although you may be able to find work arounds for each specific issue (like using No Lock).

This is an interesting idea, and definitely one to play around with. It could yield some interesting applications.


Galaxy S7 edge - How do I use a sound downloaded as part of a theme? I want to use the sounds I have downloaded as part of my theme (Blue Polygon) as my ringtone and alarm sound. However, it is not in the selection of sounds when I tried to change it.

Please advice. I have no root access.

I have asked the developers and found out that this is a bug caused by setting one or more of the sound settings (notification, ringtone and volume) to silent.

To fix it, follow these steps:

Start by going to Settings - Themes, select the theme named "Default", and then apply.
After this, go through all of your settings and make sure nothing is set to Silent.
Once this is verified, re-apply the theme and it should be working.


How to prevent brightness from going to full when the battery low popup appears? Whenever the "battery low" popup appears in my tablet, the brightness goes to full. This makes no sense because the brightness should be decreased to the minimum instead of going to the maximum, as battery is low. This is also annoying as I have to lower the brightness.

I've looked in the settings to disable this but found no such option.

So, How do I prevent brightness from going 100% when the battery low popup appears?

I am running Android Kitkat 4.4.2 and my tablet is not rooted.

Automation is the preferred option, or rather only option in this case, since Android OS does not offer any settings for requirements quoted.

Many apps are available. I prefer using MacroDroid , since it is free (upto 5 macros) and easy to learn.

MacroDroid creates and runs Macros to automate

  A macro consists of the following (elaborating on app help):

  Trigger

  Event(s) occurring on the device (e.g incoming SMS, headphones inserted). Multiple triggers are evaluated to logical (OR)- meaning, any of the trigger conditions met would fire macro

  Actions

  An action that the device can perform (e.g. set wallpaper, take picture)

  Constraints

  A constraint that must be satisfied for the trigger to fire (e.g. day of week, battery level). Multiple constraints are evaluated to logical (AND)- meaning, all  the constraints must be satisfied to fire trigger

Notes on solution offered

Tested on KitKat. I don't visualise any issues with higher Android versions
This cannot "read" when the low battery level indication comes up, but for this macro assuming it to be 15 %. You can see the battery level in your tablet and accordingly tweak the macro
Doesn't require root
This solution does not address Android system explanation for high/low Brightness and  how they are activated

System Settings

Do not Greenify MacroDroid and exclude it from task killers, if you use them.
Enable MacroDroid in "Auto Protect"(Huawei phones) or "Stamina Mode" (Sony phones or "Power Nap" (Stamina Mode Xposed module for non Sony devices). Also, if you update to Marshmallow in the future, exclude MacroDroid from Doze. Refer this: Is there a way to exclude an app from Doze?

These features prevent app(s) to be active when the device is not awake, conserving battery. May not be pertinent to your phone but adding this as a general precaution.

Enable MacroDroid in accessibility settings and also allow it as device administrator in security settings.
For Lollipop, enable notification access from notification settings

tl;dr:  Your macro would look like this

Trigger:

Battery Level → decreases to → (choose percentage by sliding scale or 15 %)

Actions:

Brightness →0 (Choose On sliding scale- doesn't require root)
Wait before next action → set to 10 seconds (recommended to separate previous and next actions ensuring both happen)
Dim Screen →Dimmer On → 10% (Choose On sliding scale- doesn't require root, if the earlier action is not good enough for you -    this is akin to "screen filter" apps like Darker)

Constraints:

None  (Macro always runs)

Testing Macro

Name and save the macro and from 3 button menu on right side

Test Actions:  To see how macro behaves at each action without reference to trigger/constraint conditions
Test Macro:  To see how macro behaves as expected
( with reference to trigger/action/constraints, that is, macro as a whole)

Trouble shooting

Macro doesn't run at all- In most cases, it is due to correct system settings not being applied. To verify this, from the 3 button help option on the main app interface select System Log and see if your macro had run when it was triggered. If your macro name doesn't figure, recheck system settings


Google asistant keeps playing sounds My google assistant keeps playing sounds even when th screen is off, the sound is the same as when it proposes to speak to the microphone. But I can't stop it, even after the screen is off.
So I need a simple solution, I know I can stop he application by forcing stop, but I relly prefer to do it by app settings if possible, just becouse if I open the app again the problem starts again, and I use this app often, so It's anoying.
I'm on Galaxy A10 running android 9.0

If you don't want to use the Assistant, you can:

Open Google app
Select More -> Settings -> Google Assistant
Choose Assistant tab -> Phone and turn off "Google Assistant" switch

This should disable the Assistant and let the rest of Google app still work fine.


Can firewall block connection over VPN? I would like to block specific apps from making connection to internet. I sometimes am connected by VPN but not always. How can I make firewall work for both VPN and not VPN, wifi and mobile data? My phone has root.

Android permits only one VPN to be working on the phone and that is the problem since firewalls also usually create a VPN and you are forced to switch off the VPN to make the firewall work.

However, there is a workaround, at least in some cases. I use Adguard which is an Adblocker with an integrated firewall. It creates it's own VPN on the device locally to filter ads. I also use Keep Solid VPN which is set to always use in my settings (Pie) . Adguard has a proxy mode which permits both VPNs to be used and since your device is rooted, it is easier.

However, note :

All VPNs may not work in this fashion. Check the Adguard forums.
In proxy mode, the efficacy of Adguard firewall is reduced but in my case I have no problems in blocking internet access to apps.
If I want only the Firewall functions but not Keep Solid VPN, I simply disconnect it from the notification panel.

To sum up, it's possible but you need to invest time in checking and ensuring both work.


Remove minimum number of points from pattern unlock I've recently gotten a Samsung Galaxy J5. Its default (insecure) unlock procedure involves simply swiping anywhere on the phone in any direction. My primary concerns are (a) being able to quickly unlock and use the phone and (b) not accidentally unlocking the phone when it's in my pocket.

As it is, the 'swipe to unlock' feature is too easy to accidentally unlock, since any movement in any direction is sufficient. A solution to this would be to setup a simple unlock pattern that can be executed quickly and easily. That would make the phone much less likely to be accidentally unlocked whilst in the pocket. However, setting a pattern lock requires a minimum of four points to be used, for security reasons. Using a three-point unlock would make life easier as it would just be a quick swipe in one direction (crucially, a very specific direction, which would make the system much less prone to butt-dialing)...

I understand why four points are mandated as a minimum, but my concern here is not around security. Can anyone offer a solution that would allow me to either (a) remove the minimum number of points required for a pattern lock or (b) replace the lock screen with something similar that involves a more specific swipe than 'anywhere and in any direction'?

Note that as the phone is new and therefore still under warranty, I have no plans to root the phone unless absolutely necessary.

A quick google search for android custom lock screen presents me with a list of lock screen apps (for example this one: https://www.androidpit.com/best-android-lock-screen-apps). I don't think these apps need root access to function.

Many of these apps support "slide to unlock". Which is basically the same as a pattern consisting of a straight line, which is what I assume you want.
Most apps I saw require you to swipe from left to right on the bottom of the screen. This is a specific direction starting from a specific location on the screen, yet the pattern is incredibly fast and easy.
This prevents most cases of "butt-dialing" without giving up speed of unlocking your phone.

Take your pick from the many lockscreen apps that support this and enjoy! :)


Installing to SDCard by default I would like to know whether there is a way to tell Android to install applications on the micro SD card by default instead of having to download applications to internal memory first and then having to move them to the SD card manually.

Thanks

This article at HowtoGeek describes a possible way utilizing the adb:

enable USB debugging
connect your device to your computer
execute the command adb shell pm setInstallLocation 2
(or, new syntax, adb shell pm set-install-location 2)
disconnect, done.

This command will set the devices default installation target to your SDCard. That doesn't necessarily mean everything gets installed there: only apps supporting this will go there, and devs can "overrule" this in their apps manifest if they think it's needed. From the linked API reference:

  Changes the default install location. Location values:

  0: Auto—Let system decide the best location.
  1: Internal—install on internal device storage.
  2: External—install on external media.

  Note: This is only intended for debugging; using this can cause applications to break and other undesireable behavior.

For more details on ADB, and how you can e.g. get a minimal version of it to your computer (without the overkill of installing the entire SDK), you can take a look at the adb tag-wiki.

Update: To avoid confusion with t0mm13b's answer, some clearance on the installation process:

you find some app on google-play-store and decide to install it
after you've clicked "install" and agreed on terms/permissions, the apk is downloaded to /data/local, i.e. to your internal-storage. You can't change that.
when the download is completed, the .apk will be installed automatically. Where to, depends on multiple things:

if the dev did not specify the android:installLocation property in his apps Manifest, the app will be installed to internal story. Full stop, no other choice (see: API reference).
if this android:installLocation is set to preferExternal, and external storage is available, it will go there.
if it's set to auto, it again depends:

does the app contain widgets, services, wants to start at boot, and several other things, it goes to internal storage. Full stop, no other choice.
it goes where the devices "default install location" points to


Locked out of Android Vortex MID *permission denied with ADB Here's the back story:

I bought an used Android tablet. The guy said the power connector was broken so the tablet wont be charged. I took it apart and figured out the battery was dead. I have an adapter from the wall powering the device.

My problem:

There was a pattern lock. My daughter thought she would help me, and exhausted the 20 attempts, so it's now only giving me the option to use the Google account to unlock. I emailed the guy and he gave me his Google account info, but it didn't work on the tablet. It is the correct info for Gmail, as I tried it on my PC.

I have been trying to use ADB to get in to the tablet to no avail... I'm denied permission when I try to use wipe_data. I can't understand what the problem is.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

I know I'm a bit late, but you can remove the lock by performing factory reset.
To do that:

Shut down the tablet
Hold volume up key and power button at the same time
Recovery boot menu will open. With volume keys select wipe data and press power button.
The tablet will do a factory reset, all data will be lost and pattern lock will be removed.

You probably got denied permission on ADB because debug mode wasn't on.


How to create a POI database for OsmAnd? OsmAnd is a map/navigation app.

On top of the map, I would like to display "Points of Interest" (POI), for instance my city's best restaurants.

I already have a CSV file containing for each POI: name, latitude, longitude.

How to make OsmAnd use this data?

The wiki page How To Use Your Own POI Database suggests it is possible but does not give any specific instructions.

By reading this unanswered question, I get a feeling that somehow converting my CSV to ODB might be part of the solution.

I would like the database to be easily downloadable/usable by anyone.

For the curious: Actually, my long-term goal is to create a database of all POIs in the Wikivoyage travel guide (maybe split by country if too big).

Just a guess, but worth trying: I did the same with Locus Maps. I created a KML, which imported fine, and could be used as layer there (Locus even supports KMZ containing images and more, so you could use that for a "self-made travel guide").

The article Using KML Files on the same site suggests at least the KML part should work with OsmAnd as well, so I considered placing this as answer (instead of making it a comment). This article even explicitly mentions POIs – which probably is the reason your linked article contained that few details:

  You may use any format containing your POIs, if you are able to convert it to osm format.

and

  All points inside the kml file are converted into osm points, assigning them some properties like tourism category and museum type.

Note the categories mentioned here match those on your linked article.


Is it possible to use NOGAPPS and Maps API with Uber app (or apps similar to Uber)? I have installed LineageOS 14.1 on a Wingtech 88047 (Redmi 2 Pro), without Gapps. I installed microG UnifiedNlp, and my phone finds its location correctly. I also tested some proprietary apps that I need (mostly bank apps), and they do work perfectly. However, I cannot use apps that need the Maps API.
For example, neither the Uber app nor an app by on of their competitors in Brazil will work (the app opens, but gets stuck and doesn't show the map).

I do have  NOGAPPS version of Maps API installed (version 0.5, which is the only release available from Github. But maybe there is an updated version? It seems that version 0.5 only covers MAPS API v.1, not v.2.

So -- is there any way to get apps like those (which need MAPS api) without installing Gapps?

You need FakeStore for microG to be detected correctly and a recent version of microG GmsCore (you need to use the drop-down menu).

Check that you have at least the version 0.2.4-103 of microG GmsCore.


battery drain AFTER kitkat update On Samsung S5 AFTER installing KitKat last week, the mm-qcamera deamon usage has drain down full battery in 7hours (before update 12+ hours uptime was the average.
Hopefully an urgent fix is coming. So far the key argument for me for Android was the lack or quick fix of bugs...

There is a bug report that has been filed to AOSP about this with a FutureRelease status (a bug fix will be coming soon). Read it here.

  It seems that a reboot provides a temporary fix for the problem.
  A factory reset fixed the issue permanently for most users.


How to get exact call time? How can I get the exact time that a specific call took place? If I go to "recents" in the phone app, I see entries with times that read like Mobile, Yesterday. I need the exact time, down to the minute.

For Android 5.0.x Lollipop:

Either on "Recents" or "Call History", tap the entry you want to see. It will open a mini-menu under the entry with options "Call back" and "Details".
Select "Details" to see the call details.
From here, you can see the time when you receive/miss a call, and also the duration of the call.

Click the image for larger variant


Editing fstab to mount /data from a different partition Is it possible to edit the fstab to mount /data, /cache etc. from a different partition on the
a.internal memory?
b.external sdcard?

Details: The default partition for /data and /cache are too small for my needs and I can manage to format the (internal) /sdcard in ext4.

Edit: My question may superficially seem to be like other questions asking for a way to increase size of /data, but it's not. Here's why:

(1) I need to do it specifically by editing fstab, which is the usual way of doing the same thing on a GNU/Linux desktop.
(2) The other questions don't ask about /cache and other partitions.

As you already expected, the way your question is phrased it looks like an XY problem: There are different ways to achieve your goal (mounting /data, /cache etc. from a different partition), while your question focuses on "editing fstab".

For a working solution, see e.g. Mount a folder from external sd as /data: What's described there should work on all devices/ROMs – while "editing fstab" bears some problems:

While that's of course the way it works on Linux, we're talking Android here – which uses a Linux kernel, but a very different setup (see: What's the Android equivalent of /etc/fstab?)
An fstab file is not present on many/most Android installations (see How to list all major partitions with their labels? for details)
If an fstab file is present, it's usually part of the boot image (see initrd for details). This means, your edits to the file would be in vain: on the next boot where you'd expect them to be processed, instead the file would be overwritten from the boot image and then processed – without your changes

Verdict: Even if your device has an fstab file, you cannot simply edit it and be done. You'd have to rebuild the boot image instead – a task that goes beyond the scope of this site (which is end-user orientated, and creating/rebuilding a boot image rather is in the domain of developers). It might not be straight "off-topic", but at least border-line/gray-zone.


Understand new icon in Android 11 call logs In the phone call log, what does the green network icon mean after I upgraded to Android 11?
Does that mean that the phone call went through the Wi-FI network instead of 4G/5G ?

Yes, this is voice calling over Wi-Fi but not related to Android 11.
I have a Pixel 4a, Android 11 with Wi-Fi calling enabled but do not see that symbol in call logs. I couldn't find any reference to it in the Android 11 changes.
Wi-Fi calling needs to enabled by a) carrier b) compatible devices. Both need to be compatible.  Probably your carrier, recently upgraded to this facility and hence you see this symbol. This symbol has been reported in call logs on certain devices four years ago on Galaxy S7 Edge. So, it looks to me like an OEM specific feature.
Related
What is this icon depicting a phone and Wi-Fi together?. You should see this or similar symbol when you are placing a call on Wi-Fi.


Can I use Tasker to activate grayscale mode on my Galaxy S5 running Marshmallow? The Marshmallow upgrade for the S5 removed grayscale rendering from the Power Saving mode. It can be manually enabled in the developer options as described in this answer.

I would like to use Tasker to easily toggle this setting on and off. Is there a way to do this in Tasker? And can Tasker be used to modify other system preferences?

Yes, if you have root access.

Tasker does not have the developer options built-in as something it can manage.

However, the developer options, like most preferences, are stored in a database behind the scenes. They can be modified via command-line, and Tasker is able to run shell commands. You just need to know what command to run.

Unfortunately, the catch is that you must have root access. While these settings can be changed via ADB without root, Tasker needs root to be able to run the same commands.

Determining Setting Key

To find out which option is needed, the easiest way is to list all preferences, change the preference, then list all preferences again. Then find the difference to determine the namespace and key which must be modified.

One easy way to do this is via ADB. On your desktop computer with Android Development Bridge installed, connect to your phone via adb shell.

Run these three commands: settings list system, settings list secure, and settings list global. After each one, copy the output into a new text file and save the files. Next, change your desired preference using your phone, and then run those 3 commands again, saving them into new text files.

Compare the files using diff (on Linux) or any other utility designed to compare differences in text files. This will quickly show what changed from 'before' to 'after', letting you know which setting key was modified.

For this example, we find the specific setting is accessibility_display_daltonizer_enabled in the namespace secure. When it has a value of 1, it's enabled, and the screen shows grayscale.

Creating a Grayscale Task

So back in Tasker, create a new Task called "Grayscale On". Add an Action, and go to Code -> Run Shell. The command to run is settings put secure accessibility_display_daltonizer_enabled 1. Check the box that says Use Root.

Clone that Task and call it "Grayscale Off". Modify the command to have a 0 at the end instead of a 1.

Then, you can use Tasker however you like to run either of those tasks to turn grayscale mode on or off.


App permission management is running notification Is there any option to get rid of those not useful, permament notifications on Android 5.1, in particular App permission management is running

They are just taking space and focus, are not helpful to the user at all.

Edit: please note that I'm asking about the notification messages, not the icons.

I am sorry to say that it is not possible without root access.

If you do have root access, then there are a number of options. One simple method which I have used in the past is an app called "Notifications Off" from the Play Store. Another more advanced option is to use GravityBox via the Xposed framework.

But care needs to be taken. You can only choose between all or nothing for a given app. Therefore it is only safe to disabled the App Permission Management notifications if you have Permission Management switched off, otherwise you will miss all the dialog boxes which occur when an app requests a permission, causing many apps to be completely unusable.


Wi-Fi connected but there is no internet access I have a Samsung Galaxy S Advance (Android upgraded to 4.1.2 Jelly Bean) which I got only one month before. Wi-Fi was initially working great, but now it doesn't have any internet connection even if Wi-Fi gets connected.

The Wi-Fi gets connected to my laptop, my PC and my father's Android mobile phone, but not on my device. What might be the reason?

You can try changing your wifi network settings from DHCP to Static and a little tweaking of DNS server addresses should work. refer this link for complete solution.

Under advance settings Change IP Settings from DHCP to Static

IP Address : Most probably your Gateway address will be 192.168.1.1 change your IP Address my changing last digit in this address use any value preferably between 2 to 20.

Change DNS1 to 8.8.8.8

Change DNS2 to 8.8.4.4


Unknown apps/processes with number only are shown in the battery screen There is a mysterious app, 99070 that is consuming power on my Nexus 5X. Any idea how I determine what it is?

There is no option to stop or uninstall it. My phone is a Nexus 5X running stock Android 6.0.

Possibly right answer:

It's a sandboxed process from a removed app.

For such a number over 99000, it is the Unix UID for an isolated sandbox process (u0_i70).

In Android's UID system, called "AID". Android allocated 1000 special UIDs for isolated sanbox processes, 99000-99999. Some apps use that for security reasons, like Chrome (Incognito mode).


mount: Permission denied (when mounting /system directory on android device) I have rooted Samsung Galaxy S4 (Int) using CynongenMod OS. I am trying to install and run an executable file which needs its configuration file to be copied to the /system directory.

Now, after copying my files from PC to the /sdcard folder, i am unable to copy the .conf file to /system/etc and I can't also copy .exe file to /system/bin.

I know that I have to mount the /system directory. I restarted my phone and boot into Recovery Mode and then mounted /system directory, but it did not work.

I also tried mounting it manually from the adb shell using the following command:

mount -o remount wr /system/

still it is not mounting and I can't perform the copy. It shows me in the terminal the following message:

mount: Permission denied

so please help me mounting the /system directory

The command is mount -o remount,rw /system


I can not get rid of information about a file transfer Hi I have HTC phone with Android system. Several days ago I tried to transfer a picture from another phone by bluetooth. Now I can't to delete a notice about transfer.
I mean that when I click on transfer notice and I next click on accept or discard this notice is still visible.

Any suggestion?

Try clearing all notifications. There is a button, my phone is in Spanish but I guess in English it should say "Clear" or "Remove all" something like that.


Why do I always lose this file? I run a dual-booted HD2 from SDCard/HaRET with MIUI Android & stock WM6.5.

I keep a copy of this file in \Storage Card\My Documents for listening in CorePlayer and survive possible hard resets.

However, everytime, and I really mean every time I boot MIUI this file disappears from the SD card. I'm unable to locate it from Android and when I reboot into Windows I see no traces of it.

Why the hell (can I say hell?) does Android delete the file from SD on every single boot? Does it hate M3U files?

Android scans your sd card. When it finds an MP3 playlist (m3u file) it looks for media files in the same path, if it does not find any, it deletes the playlist because it thinks it is empty.

To stop this from happening create a file in the folder with the m3u file called .nomedia. This will tell the media scanner to ignore the content in the folder.


Recent emoji on keyboard Are the recent emojis on my phone s7edge my own recent ones? Or from people using them in group chats?

The recent emoji tab on the Samsung keyboard, display the most recent emojis that you've used with the keyboard. You can test it simply by selecting a new emoji, and you'll see it appear in the recent tab.

In the screenshot, you can see I'm in the recent tab, and it displays the emojis I've selected in the other tabs.


Why doesn't my device ever show 100% charged? I have a Samsung Google Nexus S I9020A which showed fully charged @ 92%. 100% charging doesn't seem possible. What is the reason?

A Google engineer said (on Google+, I think) that Nexus phones are designed to not charge the battery to 100 %, as it is stressful for the battery. Even when a phone shows 100% and charged, the circuitry actually charges and discharges the battery, always keeping it under 100% (and above 92%, I think).

I tried to find the source, but Google search hasn't turned anything up yet. Will add it here if I find it later.

So when your device does not show 100%, do not panic. That's by design.


How do I create a reocurring calendar entry that ends at some time? I am taking a class at the same time on several date throughout the month. Is it possible to copy the calendar event from one week to the next without retyping the event each time. I will be attending the class a total of thirteen times.

I've never found a way to copy and paste a calendar event - something for the wish list!
But... you can use the repeat function within the event to repeat it to your requirements.


How can I graph or chart date related values ( each date having one value ) NEW QUESTION

I wish to enter dates with corresponding values, and have these values charted in a line or block graph. If the chart and values could be exported, that would be nice.

UPDATE

Since the original title containing the words graph and commodities did not seem to produce any results, I have now changed the question to a more general question. Original question was: I am looking for a way to edit and graph my own commodities off line ?

USE ( to clarify the question )

I could use this to create a graph from manually entered stock exchange values, but also to follow up my weight, or hart beat values, or whatever chart whose values change daily.
I know that you can use a spreadsheet to do this, but I am looking for a more specialised program.
I am running Froyo 2.2.1 on a Samsung Galaxy S and Archos 101 pad ( if this should make a difference ).

UPDATE AFTER INITIAL COMMENTS

Left the original question here, so that any read could understand the initial comments.

I am looking for a stocks program where I can add and edit my own daily/weekly stock figures.
I want some graph too.
I don't want nor seek a program which offers real time or on line updated stock quotes.
I have looked in the marked, but there are tens or hundreds of stocks programs, and I really don't want to try them all ( especially because most if not all of them emphasise how easy it is to have real time updated values ).

After a lot of searching I found this nice little program which does exactly what I was asking for: Easy Graph from BH Soft.

Nothing fancy but what is does it seems to do well.

The developer should add more chart types, for sure, but at the moment it allows me to enter, save and chart different sets date + value pairs in a line chart.


how to recover data from android 10? My Samsung A80 had an issue and could start up
i had to flash it
tried to recover its data but could not
i  HAVE used windows and i used different apps, no thing worked
my friend rooted the phone SO MY PHONE IS ROOTED
the rooting is verified
used more programs and apps
nothing worked
DrFONE
Disk digger
all says its rooted but no data recovered
THIS IS ALL WHAT I DID
what should i do?

New versions of Android force disk encryption. Since your device is not so old and it was unrooted before the wipe happened, the encryption was definitely enabled.
I do not want to disappoint you, but the fact is that no data can be recovered anymore from the device. The encryption uses a security key that is stored on-device. A new encryption key is generated when you reset the device to encrypt the storage again. So, in the absence of the old encryption key, you will not be able to decrypt the data even if your recovery software manages to recover some bytes.
I'd recommend to avoid wasting time and other valuable resources to recover the data now. It is permanently gone.


S3 On CM 14.1: Made SD Internal Storage, Reversed, Now "Empty" Internal Shared Storage On PC I have a Galaxy S3 on CM 14.1 (Android 7.1.1).  I formatted the SD Card as internal storage.  Then I couldn't access my internal storage from my PC, so I switched back.  I formatted the SD Card to portable storage.

Now, my internal storage (now listed as "internal shared storage") is "empty" when I connect it to my PC.  I've tried:

wiping data, cache, and reinstalling CM 14.1
taking out my SD Card
reconnecting to PC as PTP, etc.
using another USB cable, port, etc.
restarting multiple times

Nothing seems to work.  What can I do?

I fixed it by doing the following on Clockworkmod Recovery:

Clearing all caches (go to mount/unmount --> clear all caches (system, etc.))
Unmounting, then mounting everything (System, SD Card, Media, etc.)
Format SD Card (from CWM).  (then I had to restart to connect SD Card with CM 14.1 zip file).
Reinstalling CM 14.1

Now I finally have the internal storage and portable SD Card formatted correctly.


View internal Storage use I'd like to view use the meager internal storage on my HTC Evo.  The phone is rooted, and I have used Link2SD to move apps to the SD card.  I am also using DiskUsage by Ivan Voyosluk to monitor use of storage.  The DiskUsage app, however, does not seem to make a clear distinction between internal storage and external.  It appears it may be calculating the total by following the symlinks onto the SD card.  I'd like to know how much internal storage is actually being consumed by my apps.  I am continuing to run into the problem of running out of my meager internal storage while there is a huge amount of unused space on on my SD card.

Several helpful apps are mentioned in the answers to What can I do to manage my phone's internal storage? Guess the question and its answers would be useful/interesting to you anyhow.

Apart from that, there are also our useful command line utilities, which you can execute in a terminal (either via adb shell, or using a terminal app):

df: stands for "disk free", but also shows the used space. Is not interested in files or symlinks, just operates on the entire partition. So this should list you up how much space is used/free on each storage.
du: a close relative, "disk used". Is not interested in "divisions" such as partitions or directories by default (that can be dealt with via parameters), but checks "anything below". It doesn't follow symlinks, which might prove useful to you – as will the parameter -s (summary). Without that parameter, each directory would be listed up with the space consumed; with -s only a summary of all space used below the current location will be printed.

You will find several other useful commands in our command-line tag-wiki. For your low memory, you also might want to visit our insufficient-memory tag-wiki.


Connect an Android tablet to ethernet I use tablet with Android in a professional environment and the it department doesn't accept to install wifi.

My tablet need to synchronise with CSV file on a LAN share.

I'm looking for solutions. Is it possible to connect a tablet on ethernet (possibly with builtin firmware)? If yes, which model?

I looked for solutions and I found some interesting links:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1274656 / a pack to add ethernet support to Asus
http://www.sosandroid.fr/forumAndroid/topic1980.html Iconia Tab a500
http://discuz-android.blogspot.fr/2011/07/step-by-step-to-enable-lan-access-for.html Motorola Xoom

Does someone have experience with this? I prefer avoid root my tablet or use a custom firmware or launch some custom command when connected to the network, but if no Android tablet come with this feature built in, I would be willing to root it.

Alternate solution:  connect the tablet to the PC with USB and access the LAN share located on the computer (it was possible with Windows Mobile) and maybe access the whole network.

I own a Galaxy Tab 8.9 and the best would be to find a solution with that tablet.

Your Galaxy tab 8.9 connectivity specifications don't include wired Ethernet:

╔════════════════════════╦══════════════════════╗
║ Connectivity           ║                      ║
╠════════════════════════╬══════════════════════╣
║ WiFi                   ║ WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n  ║
║ USB                    ║ USB 2.0 H/S          ║
║ Bluetooth              ║ Bluetooth 3.0        ║
╚════════════════════════╩══════════════════════╝

To solve your issue a simple USB to Ethernet adapter would suffice, but as pointed out on the first comment on this answer, your device uses a proprietary connector, so an initial adapter is required:

Samsung Galaxy Tab™ USB & SD Connection Kit

Another pertinent issue as mentioned, relating an Android driver and the support for USB to Ethernet adapters, but this Plugable USB 2.0 10/100 Ethernet Adapter (ASIX AX88772 Chipset), as mentioned on their support forum might help you.

From Amazon:

Plugable USB 2.0 to 10/100 Fast Ethernet LAN Network RJ45 Adapter (ASIX AX88772 chipset)


Galaxy S3 Can't boot to teamwin recovery I'm trying to Install CyanogenMod on my Samsung Galaxy S III, while using this guide
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_i9300

For that end I need to install a new recovery mode.

Everything seem to work fine, until I'm trying Manually reboot the phone into recovery mode, the newly teamwin recovery( (Flashed with heimdall ), when I try that (holding vol up+powr+home in the download mode after flashing the new recovery mode) it gets me to "downloading do not turn off target" screen. if I reboot and try again the "vol up+powr+home", this time it gets me to the stock rom recovery.

How can I boot to the teamwin recovery after flashing it with heimdall ???

I have GT-I9300 with stock Android 4.3 not rooted!

Problem solved. Full Process to the solution can be found at AndroidForums. Basically, it seems it was a broken download (image file corrupted): I downloaded a fresh image from twrp.me and repeated the installation process, now everything works.


Android: Default Battery Percentage Level for individual services to switch off We all know Android OS switches off services one by one when the battery reaches critical level. But is there any fixed battery level to cut down individual services. For example, Bluetooth will be switched off at 20%, Mobile data at 15%, Wifi at 10%, etc. I am searching these information in Android documentation and Googling as well. But I am not able to find such information. Any help please.

"Services" doesn't mean what you think it means. A service is an app component that can run in the background. For example, an email app might have a service that's started every 15 minutes to check for new email (and stops itself when it completes). This means it's background apps that stop, not things like the Wi-Fi and mobile data.

App developers are encouraged to check for the low battery condition and stop battery-draining activities. This broadcast also triggers the "low battery" dialog, so it's easy to tell at what level it fires. It can be changed by the device manufacturer (since Android is open-source), but it's usually set to trigger at 15%.


How to use different keyboards in different apps without paid software? Is there a way to use different keyboards in different apps? I want to use GBoard for every app except for my Terminal, in which I want to use Hacker's Keyboard. I want to do this because GBoard is a great keyboard, but I can't use arrow keys, ctrl+c, etc.

How could I use different virtual keyboards for different apps without using paid software?

This is different from Use fixed keyboard for a given app because the answer includes paid software.

I am using the OnePlus 5 with OxygenOS 4.5.10 (Stock ROM) (Based on Nougat 7.1.1)

Using this kernel: https://build.nethunter.com/nightly/3.20-20170903-2143/kernel-nethunter-oneplus5-oos-nougat-3.20-20170903-2143.zip

Rooted with Magisk tiny.cc/latestmagisk

Using the Kali Nethunter terminal: https://github.com/offensive-security/kali-nethunter/blob/master/nethunter-installer/update/data/app/Term-nh.apk

Kali Nethunter installed with this Magisk module: https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/software-hacking/kali-nethunter-magisk-t3676681/page1

You can try Macrodroid

Steps :-

Download, install and launch
Go to Marcos
Add new Marco
In trigger select the app launched and select the terminal app
In actions select Keyboard switch(i guess this would cause the keyboard list popup so you will need to tap once on hakers keyboard)
Repeat same for App closed trigger (add both trigger in same macro)

Hope it gets the job done

Do report back

Update:

Try putting constraints of app running or app in foreground on app closed action

And app not running or not in foregroung on app launched action

I would also suggest to try to keeping 2 different macros for launching and closing and also it should work without legacy support


How to fix emojis showing gibberish on incoming SMS messages Google Fi service Yesterday for no apparent reasons I started to see text like this in the body of the text if the sender had both text and emojis:
hi you smell like poo!
~9weuaisigjei3

When I expected to see:
hi you smell like poo!

Now if they send only emojis I would see this:

~06WjjgASrCDcGQg

In any case it's annoying.  How can I fix this?

I got on chat with Google FI Support who walked me through through these fixes.

Goto Settings>Apps>GoogleFi>Storage and tap Clear Data
Open Google FI app and complete setup.
If this recurs make sure to contact support to make sure your network is fixed.


With the Android 4.2 camera app, how can I tell if I have a GPS lock? My Galaxy Nexus has just been updated to v4.2 of Jellybean, Google seem to have totally changed the camera app in this update and there's a few functions that I just can't find.

As I'm travelling a lot at the moment, I like to make sure that most of my pictures are geo-tagged so that I can work out where I was and when later! As I'm not in my home country, I have data disabled to save on extortionate roaming charges, so most of the GPS-Assistance functions don't work and GPS locks take longer than normal.

Previous versions of the Android camera app have had a small icon near the top of the screen in the camera app that flashes to indicate that the GPS is searching for a lock, that then turns solid when a good GPS lock is achieved. There doesn't seem to be any similar icon in the built-in camera app in the stock GED version of 4.2.

Is there any way that I can tell if the camera has achieved a GPS lock before I take a picture?

You can press the right soft-key (switch application soft-key). The application switcher in Android 4.2 includes the notification bar, which shows if there´s a GPS fix. You can press the right soft-key again to return to the camera app.


How do I get Application name from APK file? When we click on apk file on android phone (assuming allowed installation from unknown sources), Application name appears.

Example screen-shot for jackpal.androidterm-1.apk:

Now, If I want to get this Application Name "Terminal Emulator" from apk file (jackpal.androidterm-1.apk) without installation prompt, then How do I do that?

So, My question is How do I get Application name from an .apk file?

As you know (from screen-shot) I use terminal, also I've installed busybox. So, Is there any command (like: foo /path/to/.apk) with the help of which I can get application name?

If I've to use application to do that, then I recommend to suggest FLOSS type application.

Note:- This is not about getting package name but application name. Also I am not talking about application that is already installed.

Works only on Cyanogenmod or forks that base on CM:

aapt may not be present on your device. It's suspected that this binary is part of CyanogenMod (and its forks). Confirmed to be present on my S3 running Resurrection Remix (CM12.1), Izzy's Milestone² running CM11 and the LG P880 running CM11 as well.

You can use aapt (Android Asset Packaging Tool) to dump the data to your terminal.

Command:

aapt d badging <path to apk>

call aapt
     [d]ump the data
       print the badging (label and icon) of
               <the apk>

Your output will contain many lines beginning with application-label; those are localized labels so the one you are looking for is plain application-label:.
Use grep to filter your output and you will end up with this command:

aapt d badging <path to apk> | grep "application-label:"

This gives you the localized application label for a given apk.

Update: Thanks to Izzy for providing aapt for all devices running Android 4.1+:

Izzy put together an archive containing the aapt binary for ARM devices (nearly all phones and tablets use ARM CPUs).
Get it from his website: http://android.izzysoft.de/downloads.

Note: the command to get the actual application label is slightly different, you need to use awk to isolate the application label from the rest of the output:

aapt d badging <path to apk> | grep "application: label" |awk '{print $2}'


Write permission on certain paths, like the SD card (extSdCard) In an attempt to transfer a file from a remote server to an Android device I ran into permission problems.
It turns out that I do not have a write permission at the location of the SD card (/mnt/extSdCard).
I am using SSHDroid as an ssh server on the Android device and vSSH as an ssh client to engage in ssh on the Android device.
Since both sudo and su seem to be absent on the ssh server app (SSHDroid), I am wondering how I can change/get permission to write to the SD card location. Or is root privilege not enough to  change write permissions, and is this thus governed solely by the Android OS, so a limitation of the OS?
What I can do is write to the home path of the ssh server (SSHDroid). This path, however, is very cumbersome and can not be reached from the regular Android file browser. This is the reason why I wanted to transfer the file to an accessible path, like the SD card.
Supplement. The Android version is 4.4.2. The kernel version is 3.4.0-1539356#1.

One of the restrictions introduced with 4.4-kitkat was moving the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission to protection-level "SignatureOrSystem", which means even if requested, a "normal app" (i.e. one you install yourself as "normal user" without any root specialities) will no longer get it granted. So there are very few things you can do to "work around" this:

obviously: rooting the device, and removing this limit
using the app's "personal" directory as storage for your sync'd files (i.e. <sdcard>/Android/data/<package_name>/, as this is the only place an app can write on SD with Kitkat)
using your internal-sd card as storage (as here the limitation does not apply)


What values to set in Static IP Settings of Wi-Fi when changing DNS? I have nearly the same problem as Set Open DNS in Android 5.0.1
and the answer helped me.

Although I just want to change the DNS for blocking porn, what values for the following fields should I enter?

IP Address
Gateway
Network Prefix Length

I have HTC mobile with 5.1 Android version.

You should use OpenDNS Family shield which blocks porn and malicious websites.

Dns1: 208.67.222.123
Dns2: 208.67.220.123

If your ISP blocks other DNS's, try a secure connection (use Port 443):

Dns1: 208.67.222.123:443
Dns2: 208.67.220.123:443

If you're phone has root access I recommend using a paid app called OverrideDNS which encrypts your DNS queries like DNSCrypt and makes you forget about all DNS issues that you might have, it also works on cellular data.


2G disconnects Frequently I have Intel XOLO (X900), I use a Airtel data connection(India). The network in my mobile 2G
disconnects whenever I go home(at home there is poor network coverage). After I come out of my house, still the 2G is not enabled,even after enabling the mobile data multiple times.
Every time I had to switch off the mobile and then start to get the 2G connection.

Any idea on what's wrong?

Most of us are experiencing the same issue,

Sometimes in home there is no packet data, only city areas we are having great connectivity,

This is because of Heavy network traffic, Load on serves which they are not able to transfer to another Base Station,

If you observe carefully at peak hours your network will be down as between 6 to 10...

It's not device fault it's most probably Service provider/Mobile company's fault and Indian govt.. due to poor devices/setup less satellites for telecommunication & more number of peoples in one network


How do I get my apps from device A to automatically install on device B when I sign in to my Google account? I have heard that it is possible for apps to be automatically synced between Android devices so that when you sign in to another Android device with your Google account, your applications will automatically be redownloaded for you without you having to manually do so.

I have a Nexus S which I do reset often, but it has never redownloaded my applications when I sign in to my Google account. I have checked the box 'Backup data to Google servers' in the settings.

So how can I get my apps to be automatically downloaded when I sign in with my Google account?

If you go Menu -> Settings -> Privacy there are two options.  They are Back up my data and Auto restore.  Are they both checked?


Can't disable pattern screen lock I recently installed PdaNet+.  To use wifi tethering it asked my to accept a certificate and set a screen lock pattern. I have since uninstalled it and removed the FoxFi certificate, but I still can't disable the screen lock (which I don't really want).

Any suggestions?

I just had that same issue today.

Go to Settings, and make sure you've removed Foxfi as an administrator. Go to Trusted credentials > User > and remove Foxfi. Then go back into Settings > Security > and Clear credentials. It'll let you change the lock code then! :)


How do I take a full image backup of an Android device? I am trying to do a full system image backup of a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4.
It is unrooted at present, and is running Android Kitkat 4.4.2 . I have no desire of rooting it as of now.

I have tried creating a full image backup of the device using the ADB (Android Debug Bridge) method (adb backup -apk -shared -all -f C:\backup.ab), which looks like it works, but when it completes, no backup files are created (Although the backup process is shown as having been completed).

Can anyone either offer advice on why the adb method doesn't work, or present an alternative solution to this? The end result should be a full backup image (including all apps and data) that I can use to restore the device back to its exact backup state.

Yes, you can, by taking a full NANDroid backup. This takes a backup of everything, including the app data, the accounts, the system, etc. with the exclusion of the files stored on the SD cards (both internal and external).

Such NANDroid backups are usually taken with the help of a custom recovery, like the CWM (ClockWorkMod) recovery and the TWRP (TeamWin Recovery Project) recovery. If any custom recovery such as the ones mentioned here, or any other custom recovery based on them; is installed on your phone, then, you can proceed to do so.

For more information, and some helpful resources you might want to see, please visit here and here.


Galaxy Note and stock Google Calendar app How can I install stock ICS Google Calendar app to a Galaxy Note with original ICS ROM? I found Calendar.apk and CalendarProvider.apk on the net and tried to install. According to the install these are system apps and I was not able to replace the existing ones that I can't understand because there's no stock calendar on the phone.

I've found a slightly modified, adapted version on Google Play that works well:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.concentriclivers.calendar


Rezound in a boot loop My Rezound has randomly just turned off and on for a while and it doesn't stop until I take the battery out and remove the SIM card.  Any ways to fix this?  Thanks!

Do a hard reset, remove sim, set network type to WCDMA preferred.