Android automatically corrects my volume I have a bit annoying problem. My Android 4.2 Jelly Bean automatically corrects volume down every few minutes. It is rather annoying than a problem.

I tried to find and switch off this functionality, but i was not successful.

Can somebody help me where i can find it and switch it off?

Tablet is not rooted.
This occure when I listen Google Play, when I am not listening to music, when i have switched on or off Google Play.
It happenes about every 10 minutes or something like that.
It happens when plugged headphones via connector or without it. Bluetooth not tested.

Thanks.

Possible reasons to why the problem occurs;

Power saving feature (both inherent or acquired from third-party applications.

Some users suggest that this can be attributed to a power saving feature in the ROM.

  As soon as it hits 30% battery and that activates, it changes all my volume settings. Volume settings auto-adjust themselves?

This suspected feature is also thought to be provided by applications such as AVG optimisation feature etc

Incompatibility issues with headphones with in-built mic

It was observed that when doing an action that generates sound (i.e driving, running etc), the mic input in the head phones, this extra sound is somewhere compensated by a reduction in device volume.

Another possible theory to explain this scenario was described by one user:

  When using headphones that does not have built-in controls the phone misinterprets small variations in voltage as commands to adjust volume. These variations are likely caused by phone’s own power saving, peaks in audio being played etc. Such small variations in voltage via the grounding pin are being interpreted by the phone as “volume down commands”. `

Bugs in Android versions

This problem has been noted by many users as a major bug in lollipop and I think earlier versions could have been vitims too. Not only is the Galaxy S4 model affected by this bug, infact other device models e.g LG, Galaxy S3 etc running  lollipop version seems to be affected as well.

Possible fixes

Using Volume locking applications

Various applications such as  Volume Lock & Mute were shown to be a working solution:

An alternative application Volume Control-Volume Lock has been shown to do the job

Replacing headphones

Following this evidence:

  I found the problem finally. I found that if I use headphones that have a mic built in, it was the cause of the problem. Luckily my headphones came with a lead that could be unplugged from the headphones so I bought a new jack lead with no inbuilt mic and ii fixed the problem.

Another user was affirmative with this workaround:

  Long story short, try not to use headphones with an inbuilt mic/volume control esp. while exercising (I find this is often the time this occurs).

Observing the device in Safe Mode

Try booting your device in Safe Mode. If the problem stops, there is definitely a third-party app triggering it.

However, if the problem is still there, it might be the Android software itself triggering the issue or a hardware-related fault. Simply delete the app that you suspect has compatibility issues with your music player.

Performing a Factory Reset

When the above solutions do not work, go to Recovery Mode and select Factory Reset. This will totally restore your phone to its factory settings. It will completely wipe all your stored files though, so remember to backup your data prior to this. You also wipe the cache partition in Recovery Mode if even Factory Reset fails.

Upgrading OS version

If the problem is due to an OS version update, wait for another OTA update that contains a fix from your unit’s carrier or manufacturer. When there are no updates or updates fail to fix the issue, you can root and flash your phone, then, install a custom ROM that will remove the issue. This is very risky though, so do your research about the process first or seek help from a technician.

Other workarounds

Another workaround is using automation. You can try using Tasker ($2.99 but available as a trial version for 7 fays)
Basically here, you want to set the media volume at constant level preferably when playing music or other media:

We need to create a Profile that can be linked to a certain Task say (Volume lock) when the conditions are met (variable is set to media volume, music app is opened)

Here is a workaround using Tasker:

Task

Go to the Task tab

Select "New Task + "
You can name this Task KeepSameVol or anything.
Click "+" to add new Action
Audio >> Media Volume  [Level :10 (or any value) Dislay (optional just a pop up alert)
Tap back to exit from this task
Press back all the way to exit (Your task is saved)

Profile (or Trigger)

Create a Profile which allows setting of predeterminded media volume level:

Goto Profiles Tab and click the "+"
Event >> Variable set >> %VOLM
Long press the "+" to add another option
State >> Variable value >> %VOLM != 10 (media volume isn't equal to 10)
Long press the "+" to add another option
Application >> Select your Music/Media applications
Tap back to exit from this window

Link the Task to the profile

Explanation: When an media application is opened,acheck is made if the volume is set to a defined level (i.e 10 in this case), if not
equal to ths value then a Taskis processed to adjust the volume to that level and make sure its constant

Hope this helps

References

Volume decreases when playing audio with headphones
Samsung Galaxy S3 Volume going crazy
Why does ringer volume keep going down?
Samsung Galaxy S4 Music Volume Goes Down on Its Own
Possible to lock volume to certain level, so volume buttons don't do anything?
S7 Edge, Volume lock?


How do I speed up media scanning? When putting new music files or images onto the sd card of my android phone, android needs to scan for new files. Is there any way to speed up this process? E.g. putting all files in one directory? Currently I organized my music this way: music/artists/albums/files.mp3 Any suggestions?

One method is to put a file called .noMedia in the root of every folder that you don't want to be scanned.  It won't improve the scanning of actual media, but it will prevent wasted time searching elsewhere (or indexing things that you don't want indexed, such as app assets).


Which version of Active sync does every Android version use? I discovered, that Google changed some things in the actual Active Sync / Exchange protocol on Ice Cream Sandwich, because I wasn't able to use the Lotus Notes Traveler as Exchange account on 2.3.7.

So does anyone has a list which versions of Active Sync the Android versions use?

As with most Exchange ActiveSync clients Android implements a sub-set of features from various versions of ActiveSync.

According to the Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) Platform Highlights, the Email client supports EAS v14 (scroll down to the "Improved email" section), in a comparison with Gingerbread (Android 2.3.x) though you also need to take into account the Android 3 (Honeycomb) changes which while they don't specify EAS changes did add support for policies for encrypted storage, password expiration, password history, and password complexity, all of which are EAS features.

There are probably more differences between versions than it's practical to keep up to date here, the Wikipedia page Comparison of Exchange ActiveSync clients has a pretty good table comparing feature support.


CM13 on Nexus 9: Any app that internally opens a webpage or otherwise uses System WebView crashes CyanogenMod 13 nightlies on Nexus 9 with Gapps installed.

I've been dealing with a persistent issue where any app that uses Android System WebView will crash. This means that any app that opens a webpage internally or otherwise tries to render HTML-based content internally (e.g. Email) will crash, rendering a large number of apps unusable.

Installing and updating WebView from Google Play does not help. In fact, it seems that the system is not using the downloaded WebView at all as there is no indication that the WebView app had ever opened at all.

An example error generated when this happens is as follows:

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Build fingerprint: 'google/volantis/flounder:6.0.1/MMB29K/2419427:user/release-keys'
Revision: '0'
ABI: 'arm64'
pid: 12135, tid: 12667, name: RenderThread  >>> com.android.email <<<
signal 6 (SIGABRT), code -6 (SI_TKILL), fault addr --------
Abort message: '[FATAL:gl_fence_egl.cc(65)] Check failed: g_ignore_egl_sync_failures.
'
    x0   0000000000000000  x1   000000000000317b  x2   0000000000000006  x3   0000000000000000
    x4   0000000000000000  x5   0000000000000001  x6   0000000000000000  x7   0000000000000000
    x8   0000000000000083  x9   0000007f7581a4bd  x10  0000007f7581a470  x11  0000007f7581a772
    x12  0000007f7581a4bc  x13  0000000000000054  x14  0000007f7a78c4f8  x15  0000007f8f772aa8
    x16  0000007f8f7646a0  x17  0000007f8f726b6c  x18  0000007f8f772a98  x19  0000007f7581c510
    x20  0000007f7581c450  x21  0000000000000000  x22  0000000000000006  x23  0000007f7581ad38
    x24  0000007f7ad78000  x25  00000000000005db  x26  0000007f7adab930  x27  0000007f7ac2b0f0
    x28  0000007f7581b14c  x29  0000007f7581a7b0  x30  0000007f8f724308
    sp   0000007f7581a7b0  pc   0000007f8f726b74  pstate 0000000020000000

backtrace:
    #00 pc 000000000006bb74  /system/lib64/libc.so (tgkill+8)
    #01 pc 0000000000069304  /system/lib64/libc.so (pthread_kill+68)
    #02 pc 00000000000211e0  /system/lib64/libc.so (raise+28)
    #03 pc 000000000001b980  /system/lib64/libc.so (abort+60)
    #04 pc 00000000006e0bc0  /data/app/com.google.android.webview-2/lib/arm64/libwebviewchromium.so

Any ideas?

The internal graphics driver was out of date. Updating the vendor image solved the problem. Updating also fixed a non-working camera.
CyanogenMod ROMs do not provide updated device-specific drivers ("vendor"), baseband firmware ("radio"; for cellular devices only), or bootloaders. These are stored on their own partitions and must be flashed manually at the fastboot bootloader. To do so, download the latest stock system image, extract it, and flash the applicable files:
fastboot flash bootloader <bootloader-image>
fastboot flash vendor <vendor-image>
fastboot flash radio <radio-image>

Update: An official CyanogenMod blog post states:

Nexus devices now ship with a large portion of their proprietary code in a vendor partition on the device itself. This is not something CM’s installation will update for you. If your vendor partition doesn’t match with the CM build, you will be met with an error on boot up that the system is potentially corrupted. To prevent this message (and ensure things like camera function), you should make sure you are on the latest available vendor image for your device. Vendor images can be found in the stock Nexus factory images provided by Google here. Extract the latest available zip and flash the vendor image through your bootloader with ‘fastboot flash vendor vendor.img’.

The error at boot-up looks like this:

Android System
There's an internal problem with your device. Contact your manufacturer for details.


How can I disable or password protect my device's 'factory reset' function? Is there any way to prevent a factory reset, like password protection? I would basically like to protect my phone from resetting if it gets stolen.

Not possible on any stock recoveries that I have seen.  A custom recovery would be needed for something like this, although there would be nothing preventing someone from flashing a different Recovery that doesn't have password protection.

Honestly though, factory resetting your device is probably the best thing a thief can do, since this wipes your personal data (at least the portion that's stored on the phone's internal memory.)


cyanogenmod 7 mytouch 3g cannot connect to wireless Upgraded to cyanogenmod 7.0.3-slide a week ago. Just today the wireless (802.11G) quit working. Wifi Analyzer just shows "Nothing yet ;)". Rebooting doesn't seem to help. Any ideas?

I remove the saved networks and it started working again.

Hope this helps someone else.


MTP selected but PC doesn't show contents of external SD card I have a Motorola G2. I'm unable to to access contents of external SD from PC. I chose  MTP option for USB configuration. I can access the internal storage but not the external storage. The latter is shown as blank, nothing to display in SD card – but it displays the size of SD card.

I already checked solutions available for SD card not showing files when connected to pc to no avail.

I also tried to clear the cache of media storage and external storage app from Settings › Apps.

The simple way (for Lollipop and older versions): power down the Android device, remove the micro-SD, and connect it to the computer via a memory card reader.  Once you're done with whatever you're doing (copying music/photos, for instance), put the card back into the device and power back up.

As noted in comments, however, on Marshmallow, this only works if the storage is being used as "external"; if it's been "adopted" as internal storage, its contents can't be read except by the adopting device.


I have a Samsung Galaxy Ace GT-S5830i, can't make calls but can receive them! We have a phone at work that when ever the user makes an outgoing phone call it rings once then stops.
It was coming up with a message saying Call Forwarding is Active. So I disabled it to see if that was what was stopping it but that hasn't helped.
Has anyone had a similar issue? or know what to do?
He can receive calls on the phone just not make them.

Thanks for your help in advance!

Lewis Neville

Might be signal or network problem. Sometimes it also happens to me. While I have strong signal but still not going calls. It says your call is forwarding but not making calls.


Prestigio MultiPhone 5430 and nonexistant boot/recovery partitions I've got the Prestigio MultiPhone 5430. It's built on Intel Medfield platform. The phone isn't popular as it was released about 6-7 months ago.

Because (as far as I know) nobody before me has tried to hack into it, I'm seriously interested in getting this model's recovery and bootloader partition to have any modding start-point. I've already searched for any clues in init.xxxx.rc, xxxx.fstab and in /proc partition, however that research yielded nothing.

What I already know is:

The DROIDBOOT is locked and doesn't accept any fastboot commands besides some basic info commands like version and one oem erase. I'm trying to guess possible commands.
I'm not sure about the partition layout, devices are identified like mmcblkX and mmcblkXpY where X is device number and Y is partition number.
The recovery seems like it's a really limited CWM recovery; allows only to install updates from ZIP and reboot, but does not allow backing up whole filesystem.
Another way to flash bootloader is to use Intel SoC Manufacturing Tool and Medfield board drivers I got from Intel support (they actually responded and even provided some useful usage info), but then, I would have to get a bulk-upgrade file, like .KDZ for LG.

The partition layout in FSTAB file is:

/reserved hidden /dev/block/mmcblk0_none none size_hint=164
/panic    raw    /dev/block/mmcblk0p1    none size_hint=8
/factory  ext4   /dev/block/mmcblk0p2    none size_hint=32
/config   ext4   /dev/block/mmcblk0p3    none size_hint=16  ro
[then nothing helpful: media - mmcblk0p5, cache - mmcblk0p6]
/logs     ext4   /dev/block/mmcblk0p7    none size_hint=16  ro
[and then nothing really interesting, down to mmcblk0p9, then sdcard begins]

It's interesting that mmcblk0_none doesn't exist in /dev/block, at least at runtime. Another interesting fact is that some parts of init.rc were copied straight from Acer Liquid C1, as far as I can deduce from comment left-overs.

Is it possible the system is hiding some partitions from me? If so, how can I reveal them? Can I get service documentation for this Prestigio model anywhere? Has anyone done any research on this before?

I'd really appreciate pointing me into the correct direction, because I'm in dead-end of this research for about a week already.

Oh, and I already tried asking Prestigio support. They didn't answer (such a surprise!).

While I am not nearly as well up as you, I haven't seen any replies and this might be of interest - if not to you then to others looking for info on Prestigios.

I have a Prestigio PAP 4500 Duo which bricked itself spontaneously on New Year's Eve, sleeping the sleep of death. It's under guarantee so all I was looking for was a possible reboot mechanism. I happened upon this menu which seems to offer lots more than you described. Now I couldn't navigate the menu, but that may be because of a fault, but the menu is there to be accessed.

Thanks for your info and hope this adds a little,

MJF

 (Click in the image for larger picture)


Auto delete messages from a certain contact Is there an app where you can add contacts or numbers to a list and anyone on that list will have their text messages auto deleted when they try to send you a text? Preferably one that can have this list be password protected.

When you block a number it automatically blocks all incoming calls and messeges from that number and also deletes all of the conversations you have had with them. This is so they won't be able to reach you at all and no matter what they do they won't be able to contact u. When you block a person it also earases their phone number. If you try to call or text them it also won't go through since you have already blocked them. There Will be no problem since neither of you can contact each other . It is the best way to go. Hope I could help.


Google Play store asks to uninstall apps on sd card to free up space for new installations My phone internal storage has very less free space (about 450 MB), which is why I cannot install any new app, or update existing apps.

When I go to play store and click on any app to update, it asks me to uninstall apps to free space. However, the list also has apps that are completely on the sd card. When I click on the check box adjacent to an app that is on sd card, play store says that the required space has been freed.

But how is this possible? Apps on sd card should not take any space on internal storage other than cache. On the other hand, updates are always installed on internal storage. So, how can an app on SD card free up space on internal storage?

For example, consider the following app which is on SD card:

I want to update an app, which requires 46MB storage space:

When I tick the check box adjacent to it, play store says that space has been created for update to get installed:

How is this possible?

See App Install Location for what could be the reason

When your application is installed on the external storage:
The .apk file is saved on the external storage, but all private user data, databases, optimized .dex files, and extracted native code are saved on the internal device memory.

(Emphasis Supplied)


Inquiry about Galaxy Tab Can I install any of the software that we can install in an desktop PC? Can I use Adobe Photoshop 3, Adobe Photoshop 5? Can printers be connected through USB to this? Does it support any external USB mouse.? Can I insert a pen drive in it.

The Galaxy Tab runs the Android OS, so no, you won't be able to install any software that is made for a PC (unless they have re-made it for Android).

I do not believe you can connect a printer to it, but there may be ways to print wirelessly (I have no experience with this).

No mouse support that I know of as it is a touch screen device.


Gmail only reads my emails when I press the 'refresh' button - is this normal On my Samsung Galaxy S, gmail only loads new emails when I press the 'refresh' button.

Is this normal ? Or should I set some options somewhere ?

I thought gmail should push emails to the phone.

From the Home screen, go to Settings | Accounts & sync | <your account> and make sure that "Sync Gmail" is checked.


How to access a memory stick using a OTG cable? I have a OTG cable connected to my phone and a memory stick on the other end. My android phone is rooted and I have no idea how to find/access the files on my memory stick. How do I access files from my memory stick with my phone?

EDIT: Is it also possible to watch videos from the memory stick without moving it to the phone's storage?

You can access a memory stick via OTG cable if your phone supports it. See Compro1's answer to check if your phone supports OTG; you may need to specify the correct code / model in the USB Host Diagnostics site.

In case your phone supports OTG but does not support it directly, check out my answer which involves using USB OTG Helper.

As to your last question, YES. You can watch videos from the memory stick.


Does uninstalling updates to system apps wipe the data for it? Non-rooted users can't uninstall system apps but are able to uninstall updates to them such that they are reverted to the base version of the app that shipped with the system image.

When a user does this operation, does it clear the data for the app?

Context:
Newer versions of an app may write data incompatible with old versions of the app.

Uninstalling updates to a system app does clear the data, tested by uninstalling a system app with data and observing the storage consumed by the data portion of the app go to 0.00B.

For reference, it also outputs intents broadcasting android.intent.action.PACKAGE_REMOVED just as if the entire app had been uninstalled as usual.


Oneplus 3T Chrome/Downloads app on Android - "Can't open file" When I download a doc or docx file via Chrome, it often happens that I can't open it directly. Where with, say, a pdf, the file will open in e.g. Acrobat straight after i tap 'download', doing the same with a doc/docx just brings up a notification on the lower half of the screen. Tapping this opens the system download manager. If I tap on the file, I see the dialogue "Can't open file" appear.

Opening the file through file manager works fine.

Also, downloading the file via Firefox shows the expected behaviour of opening the docx file straight away in MS Word/Google Docs/Libreoffice Viewer.

Should this be understood as a Chrome issue or a Downloads app issue? Either way, I need an urgent solution to this for work reasons. This is not just an inconvenience for me - i work for agencies where several ppl are offered the same job, so if I am slowed down by just a few seconds, I can miss out on a job.

I had a very similar issue on Android 6.0.1 with a Nexus 5. It also occurred with various viewers.

I solved it by going to:
Settings->Apps >Microsoft Word>Open by default and then selecting the box clear defaults.

Potentially you should repeat this for the other viewers.


How to uninstall an application without removing the user data? The title says it all. Say I have an application, a game for instance. Which I wish to uninstall from my phone, and reinstall sometime in the future. However, I don't want my game save to be lost.

Is it possible to uninstall an app but to keep its data?

Thanks in advance.

If you don't want to root your device, you can use adb and pm instead.  These steps will be hard to follow unless you already are familiar with the use of command-line tools.

Install adb on your computer, and set things up so that it can communicate with your device.  Don't forget to enable USB debugging on your device.  It's a big hassle to get adb working for the first time; the consolation prize is that you only have to do it once.
Use a micro-USB cable to connect your computer with your device.
Use adb shell to connect to your device.
Use pm list packages to see a list of installed package IDs.
Use pm uninstall -k plus your package ID to remove the package but keep your user data.

See also this related post.

However:  It's probably simpler to instead just root your device and use a tool such as SD Maid.


Full circle with symbol like smiling mouth in notification bar Does anybody know, what is this icon in the notification bar in the top left corner?

I saw it on screenshot, thats why I cant check it on my mobile phone.

Thanks.

Finally I found it. Its Android application - Breaking News notification icon.


S4 won't see connection to PC at either end Have a Verizon 4.4.3 Galaxy S4 using the standard cable. When I connect to the PC, the PC doesn't show it in explorer. The phone doesn't bring up the connection notification. I have enabled/disabled developer options. Re-installed the drivers. Tried different USB ports. In the end all it does is charge. I know this worked before as I have done it before, but this was before many updates ago.

The reason I need this is for debugging an android application I am developing.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Samsung usb cables have a history of being finicky with data connections. I know it personally from trying to root several Galaxy phones over the years. Your best bet is to buy another usb cable. I highly recommend cables from Monoprice as they are cheap and high quality. However to be fair, any good quality cable you can find from another manufacture would be your best bet.


How do I easily bookmark sites on delicious.com? On my desktop I often use delicious.com chrome plugin to save bookmarks to interesting sites. Quite often I also want to save interesting sites to delicious.com when browsing on Android browser.

What is the best way to do that?

Install DeliciousDroid, it will add an entry in the share menu of your browser where you can bookmark the current page and define tags for it and so on.

Edit: I tried some different tools (don't remember wich, sorry) some time ago and this one was the best in my opinion. Also I defined a tag called mobile-home and pointed my browser's homepage to the list of so-tagged bookmarks.


How to change my default storage location for play store on samsung J1? I have tried searching through the whole settings list and 'my files' for the settings I have been told would be there, but I just can't find them. Please help.

In Android ... Go to settings, Apps and press menu to select options, I think it's even called default storage location !...   Some devices dont have the option ... You need a app like Apps2Sd


Help with internet on Samsung Galaxy S3 I have just got a Samsung S3 and am having trouble getting it working on the internet properly, I've put in all the settings required from the giffgaff site and checked the network coverage link on giffgaff website and it says the area I am in has a strong signal strength. I've sent an agent on giffgaff an email to ask if my SIM has a bar on it as couldn't access the internet very good either in my iPhone just before I got this Samsung. So I know it's probably something to do with the SIM and the settings and apn all entered.

I am unsure if the phone is locked to only one network but when I brought it in the title it said it was unlocked to all networks. Can anyone else suggest anything else before I have to put in a new SIM card and have a different number?

What do you mean by having a "a bar" on the SIM card? I don't fully understand your situation but I'll try to give you an answer you can work with. I've checked out Giffgaff and apparently this is a pre-paid network in the UK.

Let's forget about Internet for a second. Can you make calls with the Giffgaff SIM card in the phone? If you can, then you know your phone is not locked.

Get a Giffgaff SIM card.
Unlock your phone (if not unlocked already).
Activate your SIM card online.
Top it up.

Check out the joining giffgaff guide.

When you're done with all that you need to receive and apply the MMS and Internet settings. I believe Giffgaff will send you a special SMS message as soon as you activate your SIM card. This is a special kind of SMS that holds your Internet and MMS settings. The phone will usually prompt you to save the settings.

If you don't get this prompt you need to check the phone user manual. If you don't receive the SMS you need to re-send it from the Giffgaff website (if possible) or contact Giffgaff to have them send it to your phone number.

This covers the automatic method of setting MMS and Internet settings. This can be also done manually (recommended only for experienced users). In that case you will need to configure the APN and MMS settings.

These are the details you will need to put in the phone.

For Internet:

APN - Access Point Name: giffgaff.com
Login - Username: giffgaff
Password: password

For MMS:

APN - Access Point Name: giffgaff.com
Username: giffgaff
Password: password
Server - http://mmsc.mediamessaging.co.uk:8002
Port - http://mmsc.mediamessaging.co.uk:8002
MMS proxy: 193.113.200.195
MMS port: 8080

You can find a more complete guide here.

For settings these values in Android, you will find a guide here.

Android might ask you for details like MNC and MCC. The details above are usually enough, but here are the more complete details you will need for manually configuring MMS and Internet access on Android.

Access point name: giffgaff
APN: giffgaff.com
Proxy Server Address: 193.113.200.195
Proxy port / MMS port: 8080
Username: giffgaff
Password: password
MCC: 234
MNC: 10
Server / MMSC: http://mmsc.mediamessaging.co.uk:8002
APN type: mms

You will find a step by step instruction here. For instructions specific to your Samsung device you will need to see your user manual for the phone. You should have received a printed copy with your phone, but if you didn't receive it or have lost it you can find it online here.

For further assistance please contact Giffgaff here. You will need to log in with your username and password. There is also a community forum here. Same thing here, to ask questions you need to log in with a username and password.

You're probably better off presenting your problem to the Giffgaff community than asking here at Android SE, as these are Giffgaff users who probably better understand how this network works and what the requirements are than any average user here at Android SE would know.

If you still need Samsung specific instructions for setting up Internet and MMS, drop a comment here below. Good luck!


Why has my Android become half-rooted? I had rooted my Samsung Galaxy S 4G, and for some reason it seems to be only partially rooted now. What I mean by this is that while SuperUser is installed, apps such as BusyBox and Titanium Backup are complaining that they cannot get root access. Using apps from the Google Play store, I can neither remove the root or re-root the device. I cannot get to the Recovery menu because the key combinations done at startup just end up rebooting my device. Why is this happening and what can I do to fix it? Resetting the phone to factory settings does nothing.

Despite all this, AVG Antivirus is complaining that my device is rooted. So, what's up with that?

You probably have su installed (the program that allows you to become root) but it may lack the right permissions to run. In this scenario, AVG is probably just checking if su is installed but apps that need root fail to run. You might be able to change the file permission using adb and chmod (I don't know the exact command but may be easy to google for it).


How do I get rid of "System Data" that takes up half my hard drive? So since I updated my phone, there seems to be a mysterious 3-4GB of "System Data" on my phone's hard drive that I can't get rid of.
Here are some screenshots of this:

I have an LG Leon running Android version 5.1.1

Is this a known issue with updating Android or is this a new thing?

After reading the question again and looking at screenshot this may be reffering to the System data stored on your /data partition.  If you can tap that entry and see if it gives you any more details as to what it is reffering to.  This probably contains the OTA update in full (along with other settings as well).  So you could possibly drill down inside of the system data option to see what is all there.  an Update Zip is going to be rather large (for android and mobile device files anyways) on the order of 300-400 MB + (depending what is all in it).  You would be safe to delete the OTA files since they are no longer used after the update is installed, BUT AGAIN A WARNING...  This System Data Items Entry is probably reffering to a lot more than just the OTA download itself I would not just delete that entry I would instead go in to it for detail, and if none is given there then use something like ES File Explorer (once open in app settings>view check the box for showing hidden files) and go looking in /sdcard/ for a directory containing most likely a zip or a couple zips (may be separate zips for the ROM, Recovery, Fastboot, Radio, etc. depending on your device and manufacturer and how they handle things).

Reminder: as long as your google account is syncing correctly all your app data (not all apps but the majority have this enabled) along with your contacts (and even pictures if you set that up) are all sync'd back to Google so even if you delete this whole directory and have issues and have to do a factory restore and wipe all data when the phone starts up and you login again it will re-download all that data for you.  Just be sure to go in to system settings>Accounts and tap google and tap the entry for your account and make sure every box is checked (is OK if browser data has ! and you see a chrome entry there your OEM browser is failing to sync but Chrome is not and has everything)  Also can uncheck items if you don't care whether the data is backed up or not (like Google Fit LoL).  I will still leave the original answer below as others may find the info useful.

The system partition by default is not accessible to the user.  NOW that is not to say it forgot to clean up behind itself if you did an OTA update.  Without rooting your phone the only way to probably adjust this is to grab a factory zip from LG for your device and flash it using their instructions.  This will remove everything in system and do a fresh install.  You are right though it should not be anywhere near that size.

BUT BUT BUT

If you are not using a rooted device you will never be able to write anything to that /System mount point so as long as the phone works it really does not matter if that partition is maxed out it will never be written to anyway.  If you don't notice other little issues, and are happy with the phone I would just use it as is.  Even if you have root again you will not be placing anything in /system (if you do it will be one or 2 tiny things mostly).

/system does NOT affect /Data so no matter how much storage your /system uses it will never take away from nor add to the storage space in /data.

For instance even if you update a google app that is installed in /System Android actually installs the update to /Data and stops using the version in /System (while still leaving it there untouched in case you go to Settings>Apps> and tap Uninstall updates.  If you do this it removes everything for the app in /data and begins to use the copy in /system until the next update).

Basically, Android writes things to System during SYSTEM install (and that only really happens through the recovery menu not the actual Android OS itself (the recovery menu can actually be thought of as a second tiny OS that lives inside your device alongside the full larger Android OS kinda) and after that everything gets stored on /data and nothing gets written to /System only read from (it's a security thing if the system can write to /system so could say a virus which would be a bad thing).


How to reset OTT TV BOX? I forgot my pin and tried entering it too many times, so I need to reset my OTT TV Box.

What are the key combinations do I hold
on boot to reset the device?

If you are talking about the OTT M8 follow these instructions (Source):

(Click image to enlarge)

The reset button is located in the A/V port on the back of the device.
Using a jewelers screwdriver, place it in to the port until you feel a click
Hold the reset button down

Insert the power cord while continuing to hold the reset

Once you see the screen below, it is then safe to release the reset button


Is there a Japanese input method for tablets that fits the screen better than Simeji? I do a fair amount of e-mailing in Japanese from GMail in Android. On my cell phone (Nexus One), I use Simeji to type Japanese characters, and it does a good job. However, I recently got a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, and I've found the Simeji doesn't scale well to the large screen.

Samsung's Android keyboard, the stock Android keyboard, and Hacker's Keyboard are all installed on my tablet, and all of them have a nice, large, easy-to-type-on display on the 10" screen. Simeji on the other hand, although functional, is displayed with keys sized more appropriately to a 4" screen, and is stretched awkwardly around the bottom 10-15% of the screen. At least this is true in landscape mode.

I'd like to have a Japanese input method for my tablet that makes better use of the screen real estate, and is easy to type on with two hands. Does anyone know of one? Or alternatively, is there some way I can change Simeji's configuration so it works better on a 10" screen?

Update on August 20, 2011

As of August 2011, I've noticed that Simeji has been updated to work well on a tablet now, so it's no longer necessary to have an alternative. Still, this question may benefit future searchers who just don't like Simeji for whatever reason and want an alternative.

Since I first asked this question, Google has released their own Japanese Input method for Android.


Phone randomly cannot recognize my Wifi network I have a few WiFi network in the neighborhood and the Nexus S will always detect those networks that I never use. However, for my own WiFi network, it randomly fails to recognize the network, even though I sit right next to the router. I know that everything else is OK, because I can access the network through my laptop, and if I just restart the router, the phone will start to pick up the signal again.

I think there might be something wrong with my router, because I never have that problem with the network at work. The only difference I can think of is, I turn off my router right when I stop using WiFi...

What might be wrong? Is this a known bug? Are there workarounds (that does not involve restarting the router?

Update: I do find some clue. If I turn the router on before turning on wireless on the phone (via the power management widget), then things work just fine. If I turn on wireless on the phone before the router, I'll need to restart the router. I don't know how much sense it makes though.

I've found the problem. Both the router and the phone was working correctly. The problem is with the Wifi channels. According to Wikipedia's List of WLAN channels, some places only allow channels 1-11, some others 1-13. Devices will provide support accordingly. My router supports channels 1-13, while the phone (I guess) supports channels 1-11. So when the router uses channels 12 or 13, the phone cannot detect the network!

Solution?

Buy another router which only support channels 1-11.
Logon to your Routers config through your browser to find whether the router supports limiting the channels. Refer to your Routers user manual on how to do this
Change the channel settings on the router to be manual (i.e not automatic), and somewhere in the range 1-11 (preferably 1 or 6 or 11).


How to override the time zone for some particular country? How can I get my Android device to show a different time zone for a particular country?

So, when I pick the country I’d see the overridden time zone instead of the default one.

I have a rooted device with system version 4.4.2

Edit

Say I want to pick London, Dublin with automatic time zone disabled, but rather that showing GMT+0:00, I want my device to show something else, say GTM+0:30, is that possible with a rooted device?

Also I want that "fake" time zone to be reflected in the clock as if it were the actual time zone. So when it's 12:00 in London I want my device to show 12:30 instead.

First of all: There is no official way to change time zones because they are provided from the server so you would need to add the time zones there.

Second: if you go into settings -> date and time you can change the time there and subtract/add the amount of time you wanted the time zone to display.

With something like UCCW and a status bar customizer you could customize widgets. You could, of course, create a clock with an offset and display a text next to it saying: GMT +0:30 but this would not be in the entire android UI.

If you have a status bar customizer like Omega Status Bar you can customize your own status bar and set/remove text so you could set the time in android to be 30  minutes less and display 5 "GMT -0:30" next to the clock on your status bar.

If you have any questions feel free to ask.


How to Prevent CM13 Calling by Itself? I noticed today that my Samsung Galaxy S4 with CM13 (unofficial Kyasu's ROM) called two my contacts itself; those contacts were those which I keep in my blacklist; which was also why I had react to the incident.
I have a passlock in my phone so calling itself is not possible without a break into my system.
This implies me that my ROM was cracked, and used for own targets.
This is the second time, I notice that my phone calls itself; first time, it called my favorite contact one week ago; in the other end, my friend heard only machine/random noise.
Therefore, I would like to add additional measures to control the security/privacy of my phone.

How can you prevent your phone calling itself?

I found out more stable ROM. It was not the official one which has noise artifacts, for instance.
I found some patches made by Temasek/arter97 here at points (8) and (9). Using them solves the artifact noise problem, which occurs in the official CM13 and kyasu's ROM. I also switched to Temasek ROM which seems to be one of the most used unofficial ROMs. It is the most stable ROM that I have found for the device. It also supports updates directly in the software.


How do I figure out which version of Android is supported on my device? I am a Pixel 2 that is running Android version 9.

I also have a much older Nexus tablet.  I get an update on my tablet almost every day but it is only for Androids version 5.1++.

Why can't I upgrade to version 9 on my tablet too?

Is there some sort of hardware limitation and if so, how do I figure out what the latest supported version for my device is?

It is not a hardware issue but rather a resource management issue in maintaining a device. Which is evident through custom ROM's they are able to maintain updating Android devices to the current Android version.

Since your device's are maintain by Google you have you recieve the most dependable update schedule with a straightforward device update policy.

Nexus policy:

  Nexus devices get the latest version of Android directly from Google.

  If you bought your device from the Google Store, updates will typically reach your device within 2 weeks. If you bought your device elsewhere, updates can take longer.

  Nexus devices get Android version updates for at least 2 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store. After 2 years, we can't guarantee more updates.

  Security updates
  Nexus devices get updates for security issues documented in our Public Android Security Bulletins.

  Nexus devices get security updates for at least 3 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store, or at least 18 months from when the Google Store last sold the device, whichever is longer. After that, we can't guarantee more updates.

({Device then end of update guarantee date}

The first date is:

No guaranteed Android version updates after.

The second date is:

No guaranteed security updates after.

The third date is:

No guaranteed telephone or online support after)

  Nexus 6P

  September 2017 -
  November 2018 -
  November 2018

  Nexus 5X

  September 2018 -

  November 2018 -
  November 2018

  Nexus 9

  October 2016 -
  October 2017 -
  October 2017

  Nexus 6

  October 2016 -
  October 2016 -
  October 2017

  Nexus 5

  October 2015 -
  October 2016 -
  October 2016

  Nexus 7 (2013)

  July 2015 -
  August 2016 -
  August 2016

  Nexus 4

  November 2014 -
  November 2015 -
  November 2015

  Nexus 10

  November 2014 -
  November 2015 -
  November 2015

  Nexus 7 (2012)

  June 2014 -
  June 2015 -
  June 2015

How do I figure out which version of Android is supported on my device?

One of the benefits of owning a Nexus and/or Pixel is the fact that it is maintained by Google and all firmware is freely available. You can verify what official Android version you device can be updated too by simply go to Googles developer factory image repository.

Why can't I upgrade to version 9 on my tablet too?

After your nexus stops recieving official Android updates it does not mean your device cannot be upgraded to a newer android version. The great thing about open source is anyone can utilize the the source code to develope updated Android version devices that are no longer officially supported by the OEM.

The Nexus is a very developer friendly device. The possibility of getting the up to date Android version are higher through a custom ROM.
For example I have a nexus 7 (2013) Flo. I am running a custom Android 8.1 ROM. Iin the process compiling and  updating things. Trying getting things to hopefully work with android 9 pie for my nexus.


recovery does not recognise / mount SD card As reported in an earlier post, I have rooted my HTC Desire Bravo with tacoroot and revolutionary, and my idea was to install a recovery ROM via the SD card.

The problem is that neither ClockworkMod nor TeamWin recovery image recognise my SD cards. I first had the cards (16G) partitioned into ~50% Fat32, ~50% ext{2,4} and about 100M swap. When that did not work I tried 100% Fat32, a much smaller Fat16 only partition and some other things, but the recovery images don't accept that an SD card is in there.

And that is essential for the 'install ZIP from SD card' feature.

Now the strange thing is that, from the shell prompt, I can do

adb push cm-11-20140921-UNOFFICIAL-bravo.zip /sdcard
adb push gapps-kk-20140105-signed.zip /sdcard
adb push Superuser-3.0.7-efghi-signed.zip /sdcard

to push CyanogenMod 11 (for the Bravo), the corresponding Google Apps, and Super User, onto the SD card while the recovery image is running and what is more, if I start a terminal (in TWR) and type ls /sdcard, then the files are listed there.

The SD card seems to be mountable, accessible, and usable by the recovery images, but so much so that it is treated as 'internal' storage, and that no extra SD card for installing ZIP files from can be found.

Has anyone seen such a thing before? And found a solution? Do other recovery images maybe install ZIPs from other places than only /sdcard?

The mount point /sdcard does correspond to the (micro) SD next to the SIM doesn't it?

Well, that one is solved!

The problem was not the SD cards, but the fact that rooting etc. the Desire caused it to USB-brick. Never heard that before. Some people can cure that with fastboot commands (did not work for me) but the 4ext recovery provides an USB un-bricking function.

Long story short, I'm running Spezi77's version of LiquidSmooth 3.2 on my Desire now after changing to 4ext! (following the advice on this link)


Replacing the dialer I have recently replaced the stock samsung system on my note 2 with paranoidandroid, but I don't like the dialer.  I have tried a few alternatives and found some I like, but none of them replace the bit that actually makes the calls.  When I use, e.g. dialer one, I get a great interface that I like, but the moment I press the call or answer button it goes back to the original interface.  Is there any way to completely replace it?

I don't think we can do this just by installing an app.

I mean, we can't define our new app as default app for making/receiving calls.

So, I think it's in ROM developer's hand. Only they can replace it with custom one, AFAIK.


android bootloop after flashing supersu i can't turn on my android device after i did following actions.

i flashed twrp using odin. then flashed supersu.zip with twrp.(latest version of supersu) then i rebooted and stuck with SAMSUNG logo.then i removed the battery, again inserted and went to the twrp    custom recovery. Then i did a normal reset,without changing any settings.then the phone shows the boot   screen and samsung    animation, after that the phone boots again from start. this process infinitely repeats.

Model : SM-J120G
Android : 5.1.1 Lollipop
SuperSU : Latest Version

Please help me fix that. I am sorry if this is not the right place to post this. Thanks!

Samsung is notorious for boot loops.

You are having problems with the system integrity check that's run by the kernel.

You need to install System-less root, Magisk uses systemless root however I'm a SuperSU fan and I hate magisk.

You just need to install the correct systemless root zip.

I have a SuperSU installer for Android 5.1.1,
SuperSU v2.82 Systemless

For some strange reason, I was able to enable full root access after installing the systemless zip.

To enable the full root like I did, you need TWRP 3.2+

Open TWRP and install SuperSU with TWRP
( Install full root using TWRP )
Do not reboot yet, Install the systemless root zip, it will automatically change to " system root mode " and install root access bypassing the systemless install.
after literally 10 minutes boot time, my device boots with full root access.


How to upgrade my AnkiDroid flashcards from 1.x to 2.0? I am upgrading from AnkiDroid 1.x to AnkiDroid 2.0.

What is the upgrade procedure to make sure my flashcards and learning progress is not lost?

How to upgrade to AnkiDroid 2.0
Introduction
With the release of AnkiDroid 2.0, you need to upgrade your decks to the new (significantly improved) Anki 2 format. Besides upgrading your decks, you also need to upgrade to version 2.0 or later of Anki on your desktop if you use it. Anki2 brings a number of fundamental changes to the learning style which also affect AnkiDroid. Please take some time to read about them here.
Upgrading Decks
This guide is for Windows users; please allow 15-60 min to do this depending on your level of familiarity with Anki/AnkiDroid/PC.
If you are still having trouble after following this guide, post in the forum for personal assistance.
Please ensure that you have the latest version of AnkiDroid installed!
Part A: Backup old AnkiDroid files to your PC

Connect your device to the PC with USB cable
Open windows explorer and click on your Android device
You should see a folder called "AnkiDroid" listed in your device
Copy this "AnkiDroid" folder to your Desktop
You should see all of your decks as DECKNAME.anki files. If not, go to the backup folder and copy and paste them into the AnkiDroid folder.

Part B: Upgrade old decks with Anki desktop software

Install the latest Anki desktop software from http://ankisrs.net
Open the Anki desktop software that you just installed
In this Anki desktop software go to file->import
Now navigate to to Desktop/AnkiDroid -> Change ("Files of type" > "Anki 1.2 Deck") -> Choose the first .anki deck
Do the same thing for each .anki deck in the AnkiDroid folder
Check that all of your decks are now listed in the main Anki software

Part C: Copy the upgraded decks back to your device

In Anki Desktop software go File->Export and click "Export" button
You should see a message saying a file called "collection.apgk" has been saved on your desktop
Go to your desktop and copy the "collection.apgk" file
Now open your mobile device again with windows explorer
Navigate to the AnkiDroid folder
Right click and paste the "collection.apgk" file
Now open AnkiDroid, open the menu and choose "Import cards" then click OK
Now you should see all your decks there ready to start reviewing.

Part D: Move any media on your device to the "collection.media" folder
This is not necessary if you don't use media

In windows explorer open the AnkiDroid folder on your Android device again
Confirm that there is a folder called "collection.media" and some other folders that look like "deckname.media"
Open the first "deckname.media" folder
Select all files (press Ctrl+A on the keyboard)
Right click and Copy
Now go back and open the "collection.media" folder
Right click and paste
Wait for all the media files to finished moving
Repeat steps 4 to 8 for each of the other "deckname.media" folders
Confirm that all your media files are now in the "collection.media" folder
Optional: you can now delete the "deckname.media" folders if you like since these are not used in AnkiDroid2

Note: This method can't handle different files with identical names.
More help
If you are still having problems with upgrading, please visit the main Help page.


Secure keyboard application from android market Is it safe to install a keyboard application from android market that asks full internet access permission? Will it not lead to certain security risks?

There are several free and paid keyboards that are very popular with millions of downloads. Some of them asks that permission while others do not. What is the difference?

It's definitely a valid concern and you should be wary of apps that can record keystrokes with "Full Internet" privileges.

It's best to reach out to the developer of such keyboard app and ask them this question directly.  I imagine such a permission would be required for something benign, like downloading language packs (from within the keyboard app) or showing ads, for example.


How to keep Google Maps sounds in Phone, while calls in Car Sound system, while driving? I am driving with Google Maps, while Bluetooth on. I cannot hear any Google Maps sounds if Bluetooth is on, my car stereo system is not playing them, while listening radio (I know you could change the input source but I do not want that).
So I turn Bluetooth off because then the sounds of Google Maps come from the phone.
How can you force all sounds from Google Maps to come from the phone, although you have Bluetooth on and connected to car stereo?

Current version of Google Maps (10.47.1) seems to support this function:

tap on your avatar icon
tap on "Settings"
Scroll down and tap on "Navigation Settings"
Disable "play voice over Bluetooth

Tested with Bosch Infotainment headunit in Suzuki car and it worked exactly as expected.


How can I watch TED videos offline on Android? I'm looking for a way of subscribing to and watching TED talk videos on the HTC Desire, but I want support for off-line viewing.

The Mother TED app seems to require an active network connection, which isn't suitable since I want to be able to watch videos on the underground.

There's an RSS feed of the mp4 videos here - is there anything like Google Listen that supports mp4 video?

I use BeyondPod (the full version) to watch TED Talks all the time.  It pulls in a list of the videos from the feed and you can choose to download which ever ones you want and then play them right in BeyondPod.  There is no data connection required.


How to restore the active applications widget in home screen? In the home screen of my Galaxy Tab I accidentally deleted the widget which showed me the active applications running in the background. Can anyone tell me how I can restore this?

Sounds to me like you deleted a widget.  Long-press on a home screen, choose Widgets from the popup menu, and see if there's one matching your description.


Make Titanium Backup work across multiple user accounts I'm using CyanogenMod 12.0. I have installed Titanium Backup in primary user account.  I have an another user. I tend to let the other user have apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, some games, etc., while letting the owner for maintenance of the device.

The owner has root access while the other user doesn't, so I can't use Titanium Backup as the other but I need to make backups of the other user's apps.  Titanium Backup only lists the apps installed under the primary user account.

So, how to make backup of apps installed in a secondary user account, using Titanium Backup?

Note

I know there exists other backup options but I want to use Titanium Backup (one day or another I'll have to).

If there are other ways besides "using SuperSU instead" I'd appreciate it.

I messed up somewhere with multi-user functionality of my Android 5.0 ROM and because of that the following method was tested only on stock Android 6.0.1.

  The owner has root access while the other user doesn't So I can't use titanium as the other but I need to make backups of the other user's apps. (sic)

SuperSU supports multi-user functionality. In its settings you would find the option Enable multi-user under the section Security. Enable it. When you would attempt to enable it, SuperSU would show a dialog stating that all users need to have SuperSU installed in their account and the way to go is to have SuperSU installed as a system app.

Make SuperSU app accessible through every user account

It's very simple to do using ES File Explorer. Copy the apk of SuperSU into /system/app/, reboot and you're done making it a system app.

Alternatively, you can setup adb in PC and execute this command:

adb install -r FILE   # replace FILE with file path of latest and stable SuperSU apk downloaded in your PC

-r would  (re)install the app in all the user accounts.

If you've a terminal emulator app and apk available under /sdcard, then you can execute this command:

pm install -r FILE  # replace FILE with file path of SuperSU apk wherever it is available in /sdcard

Do the same with Titanium Backup app's apk as well, or alternatively, you can always go into that secondary account and side load the app (I doubt whether a secondary user is allowed to do that).

Protect SuperSU from unauthorized access

Protect your SuperSU app with a PIN code so that nobody can grant root access to any app without entering that code. You need to set PIN code in SuperSU when you're logged in as the owner. The PIN code would apply on all user sessions.

You can set PIN code from settings of SuperSU app. It is available under Security section.

This would cause some (major) inconvenience to you since even when logged in as the owner in primary account, if an app demands root access you would be given the option to grant the access only when you enter that PIN code. That's the price you've to pay.

Set Default access to Prompt in secondary accounts

In the SuperSU app of your secondary account(s), make sure the Default access type is set to Prompt only.

Time to launch Titanium Backup in secondary account. Titanium Backup would look for root rights and you would be shown a window  by SuperSu to  provide PIN code. Provide it, grant root access and that's all to be done for setup.


Rooted phone having problems with switching on I recently rooted my samsung galaxy s5, i did something wrong on one of custom roms, I thought I was installing the new system or something, it got me into the boot system.
I choose apply (something) and it restarted... ever since I cannot switch my phone.
I mean it does switch on but then the home screen is completely black, and the notification shows unfortunately, settings has stopped it shows a notification to almost every single app saying it stop working. Once I press OK every single notification, it just black screen, nothing changes if I press anything.
I tried to restarting, rebooting, re-rooting...nothing.
Does anyone have a solution for this.

i suggest going back to official firmware. its the only thing i can think of. if you want to download official firmware got to this page http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/ and find your variant, its latest firmware, and install it. the page has instructions as well.


Force volume buttons to always change Media Volume I want my phone to be on "Vibrate" mode about 99% of the time.  I've found that every time I hit the volume buttons on the side of my Evo, it's either accidental (and I don't want the phone to either go silent mode or ringer mode), or I was trying to control the media volume.

Is there a way to force the phone into interpreting every volume button press as a media volume change, and not a ringer volume change?

There is no setting for this as I'm sure you know. The only way l see this working is if you potentially write an app to capture all volume button changes and then act on the changes from within the app.

You could potentially use registerMediaButtonEventReceiver to register your app as a BroadcastReceiver for all media button calls. I say potentially because I'm not 100% sure if this BroadcastReceiver will handle these Intents since I'm purely looking at documentation and haven't actually tried this myself.


Nova Launcher displaying wrong icons I'm using the Glim icon pack with Nova Launcher and everything displays correctly on my home screen and drawer. Though in my recent apps screen and notification screen, lock screen it shows a different/incorrect icon for the app. I've reapplied the icon pack via Nova and the Icon pack itself, it doesn't fix this. How can I fix this?

Click image(s) for larger version

Any icon pack (not themes like Cyanogen Mod themes for example) can only apply to launchers and apps not the Android system itself.

(Except that the system supports icon packs which is not common in official ROMs.)

And Nova Launcher (like most launchers if not all of them) only displays the home screen and the app drawer, anything other than that (like recent apps, notifications, and lock screen) is controlled by the Android system not Nova Launcher.

Note: The lock screen icons can be changed by a lock screen app but not Nova Launcher.

Final answer: You can change the icons everywhere in your phone (CM13) if it has a theme engine and you install & apply an icon pack that is compatible with the theme engine or apply a compatible theme with the desired icons. (Note that you need to choose to display system icons from Nova Launcher afterwards.)


Tap off raw RF data from antenna I was wondering if it is possible to pull out the raw RF data from the antenna for use in an application.  I have a device that operates as a separate entity with an an antenna feed, but I am interested in trying to put our processing on an Android.  This would be the most useful if I could tap off the RF data from the existing antenna, rather than attaching a separate one.  I don't know much about Androids - just getting a feel for this before I put too much effort into the research.

Thanks,
David

You mean the antenna on in the internals of Android handset, underneath the battery or nearby it?

If so - the short answer is no - am afraid!

The firmware and radio base-band is definitely off-limits, closed and proprietary.


Is it possible to add any arbitrary application as a shortcut in the Car Home app? In the Google Car Home app, when I click "Add Shortcut" on one of the available Car Home icons, and then select "Other applications", I am only presented with two options:

Blast Monkeys
Launcher

Why just these two? Do apps have to register themselves specially to be available here? I know that is true for the "Car Applications" list, but I wouldn't think that were true for "Other applications". It's hard to imagine that Blast Monkeys (a game) would be car mode compatible.

Should I be able to add any app as a shortcut? Or should I just find another car mode app?

On my Nexus One (2.3.4) the “Other Applications” list has the usual list of everything.


How can I resize the system partition in NAND using PhoenixSuit / Livesuit? I'm using a Android 4.2.2 ROM (sun7i_android_sugar-cubieboard2-8192cu.img) for Cubieboard.

I need more room in system partition for install more goodies!

After flashing, the partition table is like this:

NAME          SIZE MOUNTPOINT LABEL
nand          3.8G
|-nand1        16M            Volumn
|-nand2        16M
|-nand3        16M
|-nand4       512M
|-nand5       512M
|-nand6        16M
|-nand7        32M
|-nand8       320M
|-nand9        16M            PRIVATE
|-nand10      256M
`-nand11      2.1G

The SYSTEM partition is the nand4 (nandd). As you can see, its size is 512MB.
(http://linux-sunxi.org/Android/partitions)

Inspecting the sys_partition.fex file, I can see nandd info:

;------------------------------>mmcblk0p7/nandd
[partition]
    name         = system
    size         = 1048576
    downloadfile = "system.fex"
    user_type    = 0x2

The first point is: 1048576 is not 512MB ( it's 1GB ).

Any changes in this file do NOT changes anything in final result after flashing the re-packed image (the partitions size does not change).

How can I change the partitions size in "Stock" ROMs before flashing to NAND?

All of these steps is working fine: Unpacking stock ROM, repacking stock ROM, flashing stock ROM (with PhoenixSuit).
I don't need resize the partition IN the device. I need resize BEFORE flashing, to share my new ROM with other people.

You must say yes when PhoenixSuite ask if you want to format the flash, Else it don't change the partition size, even if you changed the sys_partition.fex.


Termux - help installing a package I am trying to install TeX Live using Termux. It's in the Package Manager, but unfortunately the package has some faulty instructions.

Specifically, the package calls wget with a faulty option. If you view https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/tree/master/packages/texlive then the package maintainers have notice this.

So, my question is, does it take a few days to get the new package?
It appears the wget change was made 12 days ago, but I tried to install it today with the same old error.

Second, I can simply issue the wget command manually to get the package, but I don't know where I can put it and force apt to use that package.

The maintainer of Termux, Fredrik Fornwall, owns a discrete site (termux.net) for the APT repository. Before you can apt-get a package, it must be compiled from source and packed up as a Debian package (.deb). So it will take a few days for a commitment to a package.

If you have a Debian package stored on your device (use only Debian packages compiled for Termux), you can let APT install it by apt install /path/to/package.deb or dpkg -i /path/to/package. When apt detects a slash in package specification, it will think it's a path rather than a package name, so apt will install from the file instead of downloading one. In this case apt will also check for dependencies. However if you installed the package with dpkg, then you probably would like to run apt -f install to make sure dependencies are met.


Transfer apps and settings to new smartphone Moto G android 5.1
I have bought an Samsung S5 neo, running on android 6 Marzshmallow.
To have all my current apps (in Moto G android 5.1) with their settings in S5 neo, it is actually as simple as to sign in my google account with the new phone or what should I do the simplezst way?
For photos, videos and docs in general I already made a back up in google drive.

Many thanks

No, that might not cover all apps. Though the apps themselves might show up on your new device (provided you've used the Google Cloud Backup on the old one and decide to restore that on the new one), to have the apps' settings transferred, apps must explicitly support that (at least with Android 5.x that's still the case) – so from those which don't, the date wouldn't show up on your new device.

However, there is a way to transfer those data manually using adb backup. Details are described in answers to Full Backup of non-rooted devices. If you're not that "command-line savvy", take a special look at my answer on that, the app Helium Backup should make such transfers easy – especially with its full name being "Helium - App Sync and Backup" :)

Still, some apps might have "opted out" of being backed up (developers can specify that) – in which case you'd need root to accomplish a full transfer.


Is it possible to have a higher level of lock-screen security only on boot up? Many of my apps are protected by an lock app ('Smart Applock' - asking for a pattern unlock before access to gMail, install/uninstall, etc). As most of my apps are thus locked individually, I would like to have the convenience of a swipe-only unlock during normal use ... however, none of the app-locking apps I have tried offer protection just after boot-up! While the various bits of the system are loading, one can still access, say, gMail, and other functions for ~ 30 seconds.

To get around this problem of reduced security during the startup process, I was wondering if it would be possible to have a pattern or password unlock requested by the system once only, after boot?

Edit: one suggestion is to disable the 'power button instantly locks' and the automatic lock after sleep, which would mean that a password/pattern is asked on startup only and never thereafter. However, for the lock after sleep all one can do is select a time up to 30 minutes, not disable the auto-lock after sleep entirely. Is there a hack to extend or remove that limit?

You can encrypt your phone and it then will ask for a pin each time you boot your phone


Maps Update Degraded Off-Route Traffic Display I've been using Google Maps Navigation to help with my commute for about 2 years now.  One common action that I take is to start Naviation to my destination, and then look at the traffic display on other interstates to see if there's a quicker route.

The last update to navigation changed the display so that the red/yellow/green traffic overlays over the orangish/brownish roads are thinner, making it much harder to see the off-route traffic.  Also, the off-route map stays "light" even when I move the map around with my finger, exacerbating the problem -- it used to not do that as well.

I'm currently working around the issue by uninstalling the last update, but

Is there a way to fix the issue without unintalling the latest update?
Is there a way to give google feedback so that they fix the issue in future versions?

Thanks.

No one has answered my question, so I will share what I've learned with my own investigation.

No, you have to uninstall updates from the manage apps menu selection from the home screen.  I'm currently doing this as a workaround.
I didn't find a way to email google and get an answer, but I did find their forums.  The related question on their forums is at

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=0d337324bcc86a55&hl=en&fid=0d337324bcc86a550004b349bee9f864

There has been particiption in the discussion from a google employee, which is a good sign.  Also, version 6.0.0 is an improvement of 5.12.0, but still not as good as 5.8.0.


Find out available mobile network bands in my area and disable scanning for unused bands I have an HTC 626g+ which was supposed to be released in India, but I'm using it in Russia, which probably has different cellular frequencies available. I've read on certain forums that smartphones try to scan and find the best band available, and sometimes they are set to scan for bands that are not supposed to work at all, which allegedly wastes precious battery life.

I would like to know if disabling scanning for unused bands would save any significant amount of battery life (10 minutes is significant IMO) and if so, how to figure out which bands can be used.

From personal experience messing with the bands on my HTC One M8 & M9, disabling CDMA and unused WCDMA bands no significant impact on battery life.

If you want to figure out which bands can be used, a quick search on "carrier" + "bands" will tell you.


Do you have to reformat an SD Card before you can copy its contents to your PC? My phone has been stuck in a boot loop and I need to safely retrieve the contents via card-to-PC transfer, then PC-to-new card, then new card-to-phone, etc. I read somewhere on here that you must reformat your SD card before you can connect it to your PC to copy its contents. Is this true?

If so, will I lose my stuff from reformatting my card? Every time I've tried reformatting my card, I get a dialog box that tells me all my card's contents could be destroyed if I go ahead, so I refrain.

Seems like it would be pointless to try and retrieve my card's contents if I must destroy them first. I'm fairly new to this stuff, so please excuse my lack of knowledge for it.

Also, once I get all of my content into my new SD card, do I need to format the new card when inserted in my phone? I notice that whenever I put an SD card with files on it into a new phone, I get a prompt saying that all contents could be destroyed if I format, even though I want these files on my phone and certainly not destroyed.

Thanks for any and all questions answered, I appreciate it.

No, you MUST NOT reformat it before copying! Formatting a storage device means to prepare it to hold files, and it will delete everything on it (see the tag wiki of the formatting tag for details). So yes, formatting woul imply losing all contents on the formatted device (in this case, from your SDCard).

New cards usually come pre-formatted, so there's no action needed either: Simply insert and enjoy. I never heard a device prompting you to format a newly inserted card, and I've had some of them. Of course, a warning is issued when you manually select to format a card, so you do not accidentally fall into such a trap.


HTC Hero - How to delete all calendar entries? Currently i am developing a calendar based application from which i am inserting events into the native calendar of HTC HERO (Firmware version: Android 2.1 update 1).

At this point, calendar is full of events so i have tried lot to delete events, but by one by one event it takes long time to delete all events. I have also try to "Remove calendars" and then "Add calendars" shown as below:

This options are showing while clicking on "Press menu button -> More -> Calendars" while watching a calendar view.

One more try i have done, that is, i have also done "Clear data" in "Calendar storage" from "Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> Calendar storage -> clear data". I think this is not deleting events actually as it is showing events inside the calendar same as earlier.

So, how do i delete all the entries from the Calendar?

Since the Calendar App syncs with Google Calendar - why don't you create a "Test" calendar, add events to that calendar and then delete the calendar from a web browser on your computer?

I just did this myself and it worked fine.


Can the android keyboard input be forced to display on the screen? I have a galaxy n5110 tablet. Previously holding the menu button down brought the keyboard up in scummvm but now it tries to open a search app. I have changed the action to nothing but all that happens is the scummvm input window loses focus when I hold down the menu key.
I am currently on Android 5.1.1

ScummVM (2.0.0) in particular has its own keyboard which you can access by tapping the button in the top left corner.


Is it possible to root a Kindle Fire running software version 10.2.6? Is it possible to root a Kindle Fire running software version 10.2.6? If so how, and if not will it ever be?

I can't stand this keyboard! I'd root just for Swype!

From this thread:

  Well Everyone, seems Amazon went and did an update and just wanted to
  confirm so that everyone knows the steps in Root Working 10.2.4 Kindle
  Fire 2 Root made easy still do work on the updated 10.2.6

Here's tutorial about rooting kindle on 10.2.4.


Deleted play store accidently form my rooted Sony Xperia C2305 using lucky patcher I've already read the answer of this similar question here but in the first answer in step-6 it is not asking for replace the application because I've deleted it from my phone and it is not disabled. And the second Answer is for non-rooted devices. So this is not duplicate of that question.

I've also tried to factory reset my device but it is not working.

I've also tried to download play store from the browser. But when I installed it and tried to update it, it shows Google Play Store Stopped Unfortunately.

When I try to open apps like YouTube, It shows the message YouTube relays on Google Play Services, Which is not supported by your device. Contact the manufacturer for assistance.

How can I install it again? Is there any solution for this? My device is SONY XPERIA C 2305, Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

If you are running a custom ROM, you will need to re-flash it along with the corresponding GApps package.

If your phone is unmodified stock (beyond rooting) you will need to re-flash the original phone firmware as described in this guide, and optionally re-root it.

Quote of the guide from the above mentioned post:

  *Download wmshua
  *Download ftf file of 16.0.B.2.13 or ftf file of 16.0.B.2.16(preferred)  (these files are specifically for Sony Xperia C C2305), If you have any other deivce, download their firmware files.
  *Install Sony PC Companion
  *Switch Off your mobile phone and get the Original USB Cable pf your device
  *Open Wmshua and then Connect your device to PC pressing the Volume Down Key
  *As Soon as connected Wmshua will install device drivers (taking about a minute), then go to "Flash" option and select the ftf file from
  there. And click on Start. It will take about 10 minutes or maybe more
  to flash the file. Wait Till It Completes.
  *Now your device is ready on 16.0.B.2.13 or 16.0.B.2.16 whichever you selected


Virtual Sd-card won't transfer I have a Verizon Galaxy Nexus 32GB. I've installed AOKP on it and it has been running pretty okay with no bugs etc...

But after I connected it too my Nintendo Wii I think it mounted sdcard as FAT32 itself :\

I'm receiving the following error when trying to download something from 4Shared sync app(But actually none can download or transfer anything to Virtual sdcard):

  XXXXX.apk: open failed: EACCES(Permission denied)

I already restored my old backup wiped all data etc, nothing seems to work.

Note that I can access my sd-card, i can't only transfer, take pics... basically data.

PS: I showed 4sync problem because it was the only one that specify something

basically the Galaxy Nexus does have a "virtual sd-card" that isn't data wiped with the data factory reset from CWM but it is when wiped via stock recovery, for me the only option was to downgrade the phone to a stock version, as it locked and unlocked partition. But there are other ways to do it, but all of 'em includes formatting your "sd-card"(sad).


Is GetApk Market application trustful? Is "GetApk Market" application trustful or malicious? Will it affect one's smartphone or tablet?

I have checked via VirusTotal & it mostly detected as Android.Riskware.Downloader:

Can anyone please help me out by confirming that, is it malicious for the tablet or not? Should I install it on the tablet?

GetAPK seems to specialize in warez. It takes pride in hosting paid Apps from Play Store for free. Putting aside the blatant violation of intellectual property rights for the moment, paid Apps for free are infamously known to infiltrate the user's device as a malware.

It would be unwise to proceed installing such app even if Virustotal doesn't show anything suspicious. However, curiosity sometimes cannot be put to rest, so if you want to test this app, I suggest you try it in a virtual machine in a PC using Android-x86 or the likes of it.

You can also use a disposable Android device and see how well the app is behaving. Even than, that could only increase your confidence slightly. The risk would always linger as long as you continue to use such an app.

In short, if you plan to install paid Apps for free whether directly or via a market, be prepared to have your data (assume everything that rests or is loaded in the phone) misused and taken hostage.


Windows 7 Driver for Bluetooth on LG G3 I tried today to connect my LG G3 phone to my PC running Windows 7 64 bits, via bluetooth. I could not find any fitting bluetooth driver anywhere: neither on windows update or LG.com, nor on any other reasonably reliable website. Therefore, it is impossible to explore the content of my phone from my PC without cable, and for example send an MP3 file quickly to it, which is the feature I was looking for.

What is even more alarming, is that almost no one reported this problem on the web. Am I the only one who likes to update his music list on his phone this way?

Does anyone know why it is so, or whether there actually is a driver I was unaware of? Did LG give up on Bluetooth pairing with a computer, leaving only wireless headphones as an application for Bluetooth? I find it really weird...

Thank you for your help!

No, you are not the only one. Following the steps below did the trick for me (taken originally from here):

  1 - Download the 'Windows Mobile Device Center' (current version is
  6.1) which you can download it here for 32-bit OS or here for 64-bit OS. This works for both Vista and Windows 7. I've tried it on both.

  2 - Install the downloaded software but it may not look like it worked
  on Windows 7 PCs. Vista automatically configured the settings on the
  bluetooth devices but for those who have Windows 7, here are the
  things you should do:

  3 - Go to 'Device Manager' from 'Control Panel' -Or- just right-click
  on Computer Icon and choose 'Properties' and then click on 'Device
  Manager'.

  4 - You'll see an 'Unknown Device' named 'Bluetooth Peripheral Device'

  5 - Right-Click it and click on "Update Driver Software" -Or- anyway
  you find it easy to bring up the Update driver window.

  Click "Browse My Computer Image for Driver Software" button.
  Click "Let Me Pick from a List of Device Drivers on my computer".
  Select 'Bluetooth Radio' from the list if it asked you to select and then in the next window, it will show a list of drivers with Company
  Names in one list and Drivers in another. In the Company List choose
  'Microsoft Corporation', not only Microsoft.
  From the drivers list there may be one or more drivers with the name "Windows Mobile-Based Device Support" with different driver versions.
  Select one or the latest.
  Ignore any warnings and keep pressing next and then Finish at last. If all goes well, the last screen will show the message that device
  driver is successfully installed.

After doing this and pairing my PC and phone again, I was able to send files between them through bluetooth.

I hope this helps.


What are the correct specs of Tecno W3 smart phone? I would like to by Tecno W3 smart phone (Android 6.0 Marshmallow).

I googled to know its GPU. Some websites said it's Mali-400 GPU such as:

http://bestmobs.com/tecno-w3/
http://naijaquest.com/tecno-w3-specs-features-reviews-and-price-official/

And other websites said it's Mali-400MP2 GPU such as:

http://www.androidphonesinnigeria.com/tecno-w3-full-specifications-features-price/
http://www.droidafrica.com/tecno-w3-brings-android-60/

The official website of the phone does not give any information about the GPU nor the part number of the CPU IC.

How can I know the real GPU when I test the phone at the shop? Is there an android test code? Thank you very much,

Test it with CPU-Z when you're in store and permitted to access the device.


Host usb application not recognizing my usb devices? I ran Chainfire's USB host diagnostics in my tablet. After completing the diagnostics, I got the following results:

  KERNEL
  claims support             yes
  device detected            no
  VERDICT
  os support                 no
  3rd party apps             no

If this is the result in my tablet, can I get the list of USB-connected devices through USB host applications running in my tablet?

Please let me know.

This result indicates that your device claims to support USB host mode, but that it doesn't actually work.

There are 6 reasons I can think of that would cause you would get this result:

A. You did the test wrong and didn't plug things in at the specified time.  Try it again and follow the instructions exactly.

B. Your USB host cable is defective or is not actually a usb host cable.  Try it again with another cable or the correct cable.

C. You used an improper device (e.g. a device that tries to draw more current than the tablet can supply, like an external hard drive, rather than a flash drive) and thus the test failed as it couldn't detect the device, because the device was unable to power up successfully.  Try it again with a different device.

D. Your device claims it supports USB host mode, but due to a software bug, it doesn't work.  An update or custom ROM may fix this.

E. Your device claims it supports USB host mode, but the hardware doesn't actually support it.  You're SOL unless you can return this device to exchange it for a Real Tablet.

F. Your device is a weird piece of work regarding USB.  Some android devices (such as the HTC Incredible S) technically implement USB host mode, but they won't provide power to the attached device.  In this case, you need to provide the juice yourself, via a self-powered hub or similar.


Android Boot loop causes Greeting fellow enthusiasts

My daughter(device) is an asus zenfone c. And She has already been rooted. The other day, i've downloaded a game which tell me that the game can't be played on a rooted device. But before I proceed on de-rooting my daughter. I've been warned by the de-rooting software provider that playing with root access could cause boot loop.

And now here i am wondering "what is the connection in playing with root and boot loop?" So what i want to ask is. Can anyone told me what thing i should and shouldn't do to avoid boot loop.

Thank you in advance and sorry for bad english and not pinpointing my question

There are a lot of causes ! You don't need to have a list of thing can causes boot loop. Better is need to prepare a nice plan and check everything is ok before do something risky. Must to know : read root/flash guide entire before play with a device.


Download queued and stuck I have Android 5.0.2. A notification showing in Line 1 "Downloading English (US) and Line 2 "Queued". I long touched on it and the text changes to Download Manager. How to get rid of this annoying notification?

Screenshots (click images for larger variants)

It was google photos for me. I do not use google photos so I disabled it and it went away. Otherwise I am thinking it is waiting for wifi to download.  connect to wifi and it will download and intall and go away. The burning thing is that it attempts this without permission and I have not found a setting to disable the update in the app without disabling the app


HTC G2 crashes, comes back on falsely saying battery level is 0% Recently my G2 has started dying whenever I use it for more than 5 consecutive minutes. When I reboot it I need to plug into a power source or it will not reboot and it reports that I have 0% battery even though I actually may have 95% or more. Removing the battery does not help - only a 5-minute wait period - could it be some overheating issue? It does not feel warm to the touch.
If I leave it off for about 5 minutes and reboot it, it then correctly reports battery life. I have had this phone since September 2010.
I am running Gingerbread 2.3.4.
Has anyone else experienced this?

It is possible that the problem is in your battery more precisely in battery controller.

There are a few possible solutions:

Try recalibrating your battery.
Try removing /data/system/batterystats.bin.
Put somebody's battery inside (if you know somebody with the same model) and look how phone works. If it works fine with somebody's battery then just buy new one.


Disable voice notifications on SGS2/Android 2.3? I don't know what I've modified recently, but my Samsung Galaxy SII (running stock Android 2.3) keeps notifying me vocally whenever I get an incoming call or an SMS.

Is there a way to disable this feature?

Look under SETTINGS > ACCESSIBILITY for Talkback or something similar. Also check under settings of individual apps - Phone/Dialer and Messaging.

Finally check to ensure that DRIVING MODE has not been recently enabled. That might also be the cause. Look under SETTINGS > VOICE INPUT


Any way to push files onto android phones? There is any way to push files from a computer to an Android phone? Maybe to its SD card. It may work like Android Notifier, but the opposite way (PC to phone), as in Chrome-to-phone.

I looked some apps like FTP servers, web servers, but I would like something more close to "right click on file, push" than to "connect to server using a ftp client or browser, drag  or select file, and send".

Dropbox and Ubuntu One has Android client.

FoxToPhone has a hidden feature to push arbitrary file from Firefox to your phone.


Choose which Exchange contact folder(s) to sync to phone On Office 365, my folder structure is this:

My Contacts [container, not a folder itself]
- LinkedIn
- Contacts
- Contacts2
- Skype for Business Contacts
-...

I want only contacts from my "Contacts" folder to sync to my phone, and not from the other folders.

Is there a way to achieve this?

I don't mind installing a sync app, but don't want to install the Outlook app.

I have seen a hacks using Categories to only show selected contacts in the Contacts app on the phone, but this has 2 problems:

I would have to add a Category to every new contact I make in my Contacts folder to get it to sync, which is very error-prone.
I think it still syncs all of the contacts from every folder, using phone space and sync bandwidth.

Any help is much appreciated.

Versions:

Android 8.0.0 on Google/LG Nexus 5X
Stock GMail (NOT the Outlook app)

Well, if you don't want to install autlook app then I guess you'll have to install syncing app. I can recommend you https://www.akruto.com/ for this purpose.


Folder or Folder Shortcut on Honeycomb 3.1 home screen I have a Toshiba Thrive and want to have access to several files in a folder, but can not figure out how to do that without going through the effort of using File Manager?  Is there a way to do create a shortcut like you can do in Windows desktop?

ASTRO File Manager can help you with this, just install it and run it once, then you can add folders by long-pressing the desktop, selecting More and tapping ASTRO. It will let you browse folders and one can be selected by long-pressing it.


Partition MicroSD card to exFat and Ext 4 for link2sd? I've been poking around using GParted on my 128GB microSD card so it can use two partitions for link2sd. Problem is, no matter what I do, each time I place the card in my phone, it says that the card is corrupted. I had been using the card just as storage (it was formatted by Android itself).

Technical details:
Phone: Samsung Galaxy Express 3 (SM-J120A)(sometimes called Samsung Galaxy J1)
Version: 6.0 Marshmellow
SD Card: Samsung EVO Select 128GB
Root status: Rooted

When I look at the partition after the phone formats it, it is an exFat partition with the Flags "boot" and "lba". Reformatting it myself to exFat with no Flags causes it to give an error in the phone "This card won't work".  If I try to give it flags, only the "boot" flag is applied. Anytime I press the "lba" flag option, it won't even check the box (its not greyed out). Other flags work fine. Even if I use the command-line (Parted) it still won't apply the lba flag.

To confirm that the card isn't broken, I have stuck it back into the phone for it to format. Works perfectly. I've even formatted the entire card to Fat32. Stuck it in the phone, no problems. Fat32 and ext4 partition combo does work.

Other than that, it simply will not accept a exFat/ext4 combo. Or even exFat alone. What I really want is to have 32 GB as an ext4 partition, and the rest being exFat. I don't want to be limited by Fat32's 4GB file size. Though aside from video, I'm not sure what large files I might have (emergency storage?).

Recommendations, advice, and solution(s) would be most appreciated.

Try to use this app for Windows to partition sd card: MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Then use App2SD Pro: All in One Tool [ROOT] to create a mount script for the second partition.


Enable USB Audio out on ASUS Slider SL101? I have an ASUS slider SL101, and I want to know how I can enable USB audio out. Running Android 4.0.3. I broke the headphone port, so I need an alternative. Solutions greatly appreciated.

Depending on your device (does it support USB OTG) and your Kernel (does it support USB audio) you could probably use any USB class compliant USB interface. You also need to use software that can "talk" to the USB audio device.

One that worked for me was the Shure X2u with one XLR input and a stereo output. I used it to record high quality audio; it also plays back all my music when plugged in. The device I'm using does not have a SIM card so I don't know if this also works for phone calls.

Look at this Android Enthusiasts post for more info.

EDIT: at the moment it's quite hard to find out if those things work on a specific device. Manufacturers don't include the necessary data in their specifications. If your kernel does not support USB audio you can try others but most kernel threads on xda developers don't give information on USB audio so trying yourself is the best option.


Do I need a custom recovery to install CyanogenMod? I want to install CyanogenMod on my Galaxy S4. Do I need to install a custom recovery first in order to do it?

In order to install most any ROM, you need to install custom recovery first. I assume by asking this question, you may also be wondering why. Flashing a new ROM or recovery happens before Android is running. Basically, when you're rooting your device you're getting root permission, which is full access to your Android OS. Truly administrative privilages, and only you can limit/extend your own rules. This is much like Linux, Ubuntu and any other Linux-based operating system, though when we talk about Android it's a different story. [Sort of, but in a similar respect. Android is Linux.]

Why you need custom recovery: The main advantage of creating a custom recovery is to provide a way to reset an Android device when it may be impossible to boot into it. In addition, it is an environment separate from Android that allows diagnostic updates, and the ability to perform factory resets.

You can use Odin to root your device, it's easiest in my opinion.


How to adjust the threshold for the "storage low" event? There's almost no Android user (and certainly no regular visitor of our site) who hasn't heard of the "insufficient storage" error – or even experienced it him/herself. That there must be at least 10% of storage free on /data sounds ridiculous at least when the total space on that partition goes at or beyond 8 GB. Thus we quite frequently have questions on this topic here.

On one of the latest I've done some investigation of the relevant code, and discussed that in my answer. Let me quote the relevant code-block (taken from the latest code) here again:

 * This class implements a service to monitor the amount of disk
 * storage space on the device.  If the free storage on device is less
 * than a tunable threshold value (a secure settings parameter;
 * default 10%) a low memory notification is displayed to alert the
 * user. If the user clicks on the low memory notification the
 * Application Manager application gets launched to let the user free
 * storage space.

Now please focus on lines 2+3:

  If the free storage on device is less than a tunable threshold value (a secure settings parameter; default 10%)

(emphasis mine). So here comes my question:

TL;DR: If that threshold is tunable, how to tune it?

Is it something in settings we overlooked all those years? Is this supposed to be "tuned" by the "ROM bakers" only? Or, taking the hint of a "secure settings parameter", is there some app utilizing the WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS permission to take care of that? By which means are we supposed to address this (if at all)?

Low storage threshold is the minimum value of the two:

sys_storage_threshold_percentage (default is 5%, was 10% on Android 7 and older). It's multiplied with the total storage size to get threshold value in bytes. This setting is there since the early days of Android.
sys_storage_threshold_max_bytes (default is 500 MiB). This setting was added in Android 4.

In JellyBean both settings were moved from secure namespace to global. And the logic to calculate low threshold was moved from DeviceStorageMonitorService to StorageManager.

If the 5% of total space on /data is greater than 500 MiB, the threshold is always 500 MiB. In order to set the threshold to even smaller value, e.g. to 100 MB:

~$ settings put global sys_storage_threshold_max_bytes 100000000


"System Update Available" after already sideloaded Oreo I recently sideloaded Oreo onto my Nexus 5X, and everything went smoothly. However, today I received a "System Update Available" notification to "upgrade" to Android 8.0. I'm a bit confused; if I go through with this update, is it any different to what I sideloaded? And even if it is, is it better that I go through with it so that e.g. my phone believes that I have indeed upgraded?

As far as I can see it'll be a new build update, but simply prefaced with the android Oreo blurb.

I had exactly the same thing... And after updating compared the previous sideloaded build to the new one (even though it had been the sept 2017 security updates originally sideloaded) and the build number had bumped up.


System UI constantly crashes after installing incompatible theme on CM13 I installed a theme on CyanogenMod 13 that is incompatible. Now my System UI keeps crashing.

I can't find it with the file manager. How can I delete the theme?

Is there any way I could fix this without reinstalling or factory resetting?

Although I'm still on CM12.1, I can relate to you.

Reboot to Safe Mode.
Go to Settings > Apps > (Your Theme).
Uninstall it.

Hope this answers your question.


Do most devices support side-loading? I've googled about application side-loading (i.e., installing an application on an Android device without having to go through an app store), and most instructions mention that the device might need to be rooted to do that.

I am looking for an Android tablet to host a custom-built application, but I don't want to root the device (for reasons of warranty, stability and support). Do most devices officially support sideloading of applications? I've tried googling but only found results related to particular devices.

Usually sideloading is not prevented by the manufacturer, but by the operator. All the tablets I've tried had no operator customizations and supported sideloading. Of course, this depends on your country and operator.