Tap & Go setup missed installed apps I have just executed a Tap & Go setup moving from Nexus 4 (Android 5.1.1) to OnePlus One (Android 5.0.2). It seems to be working all fine except for the fact that the setup misses the majority of apps installed on the Nexus 4.

Update: Followed TurboFools suggestion. Turns out that restoration is not using the device from the NFC connection. In fact, I missed the new lollipop  restoration process on my first try now the new device only restores from its own backup.  I am using the proper account. My other devices do not even show up as alternative options. Removing the new device from menu  in the play store did not help.

Am I lost?

Any idea how to restore from the other (Nexus 4) device?

Seems as of today, it is not possible to restore a 5.1 lollipop backup to a 5.0 device. :(

Backups not showing up for the restore process in Lollipop

Latest CM 12.1 snapshots (Android 5.1) seem to do the trick. I personally decided to skip the restoration and do it manually.


how to succesfully boot into bootloader/fastboot mode on alcatel 5049z smartphone I am having issues( i am a "novice" when it comes to unlocking a30 android bootloader with a PC...) with booting into bootloader/fastboot mode on my stock rom--android 7--Alcatel a30(non rooted 5049z?)smartphone;i have tried the power button/volume button sequence method...no luck there,and have tried the adb method using:adb reboot bootloader/fastboot..again no luck!!!

I would like to know if any forum members know how i may unlock my a30 bootloader without(if possible?)rebooting to the aforementioned bootloader modes or is this phones bootloader unlockable without removing FRP(Factory Reset Protection)????

Thanks in advance for any helpful replies!

You have several questions,
To answer the last one,  yes... and no

On device's that use MTK CPU's, you don't need to unlock the bootloader as the bootloader on MTK's is not Fastboot .   .MTK is famous for being UNBRICKABLE !!! Meaning you don't need to unlock the Fastboot at all...

The reason your having trouble is because it isn't necessary to unlock the bootloader ...

I'm not sure why Andy### thinks that being a MediaTek would make it harder, because that's just not the case... it usually means easier...

Let me explain why the Fastboot is useless..

On MediTek Device's, you dont flash new images via Fastboot because there is size limitations to each image, if you tried to flash a massive 3 GB system, it wouldn't allow you to, because of maximum flash size in Fastboot....   Instead MediaTek uses a Pre-Boot that is prior to the bootloader, it doesn't even have a GUI... This is called the Preloader on MTK Devices, and you do all your flashing using the Preloader... Usually you use a tool called SP Flash Tool for doing flashes....

Unlocking your bootloader isn't necessary, and disabling FRP is not going to make any changes to your bootloader unlocking... You flash a recovery image via the Preloader in SP Flash Tool, and then wipe the partition called FRP, and factory reset... it isn't like other Android ( HTC for example ) Htc devices need to be unlocked in order to install custom recoveries etc... this is not even a problem with MTK Device's because the Preloader gives you factory level flashing abilities.


Is there a way to completely disable the dialer including emergency calls to make an old phone a "tablet"? I have a Galaxy Nexus (running 4.2.2 if it matters but I'd presume the rules would apply to most Android OS' in general, it isn't currently rooted but I can root it if necessary) that I've recently replaced with a newer phone.

Now I'd like to give my 5 year old my Gnex as a basic "game/kids app device" that he can mess around with since he was used to playing a few kid games before on it.  I still want WIFI access so airplane mode is out.

However, I'd like to be able to completely remove the PHONE functionality from the phone.  The phone has no service, but can still make Emergency calls and I'm concerned about him possibly doing so before I can explain to 911 that it was an accidental call.

So, is there a way to completely disable:

the phone dialer
the ability to place emergency calls
the contacts/address book

Bottom line:  If you think in Apple terms, I'd like an "iPhone" to become an "IPod Touch", but for my Android.

If you root the phone, go into Manage Apps and you can disable the dialer, it will remove it from the home page. Contacts can also be disabled. There are also numerous ways to put the phone in Airplane mode so it's persistent after restart.

Click image for larger version

NOTE: disabling dialer does not disable the emergency dialer, but airplane mode does.


How to postpone all notifications? I want to avoid seeing any e-mails, messages, or other notifications in order to focus for a few hours. But I also use my phone to listen to music, so I can't simply put my phone in another room or otherwise avoid looking at it. Is there a way (preferably but not necessarily on an unrooted phone) to turn off all notifications so they don't appear in the status bar until notifications are turned on? It might be acceptable if notifications never show up when you turn notifications back on, but not ideal.

I use a Samsung Galaxy S6 with Android 6.0.1.

Some things I've tried and didn't do what I wanted:

Do Not Disturb Mode: prevents notifications from ringing or vibrating your phone, but doesn't prevent them from appearing in the status bar.
Settings > Notifications: doesn't seem to offer an option to turn off notifications for ALL apps (and them turn them back on), only for each app.
Airplane Mode: effectively postpones all notifications until disabled, but prevents me from streaming music.

I have the same problem and I've only just started using this app called Offtime

It has everything you're looking for.
Just select how long you don't want to be disturbed and that's it. You can whitelist the apps you really need to access. Leave the Wi-Fi on. And it'll intercept all the other notifications and swipe them away and show you a summary once the session ends.

Give it a shot and let me know if it works out for you.


Make Google Pay require unlocking for NFC payment? I have installed Google Pay and NFC credit card payment is neat. However, I don't feel safe about it. What if someone snatches my phone, then pays with it before I notice, or after I notice but before I can call my bank to stop the credit card tied to the account?

As things go now, payment up to 30 Euro (I am in Ireland) work without unlocking the phone, just by waking it up with the power button.

Is it possible to set Google Pay to work with NFC only when the phone is unlocked? In this way, if the phone is snatchedm at least it will take the thueves some time to find my pattern...

The only thing I figured out can be done, is to make a job on the phone which would disable NFC whenever the phone is locked and enable it when the phone is unlocked.

I read that it could be done with Tasker but it requires assigning some extra permissions with developer tools (but it doesn't require rooting the phone).


How can I notify my PC every time Android changes its IP? I'd like to send an email or post to a server every time the IP address on the phone changes. This way, I can continue to VNC into the phone, even when the IP changes. Is there an App that would let me send out the IP address, or a bash script I could use?

Rather than a notifier and managing all of this yourself, had you thought about using a Dynamic DNS client? This would allow you to always use the same name to contact your phone over the internet (or even a local LAN) and the 3rd party would manage the problems with changing IP addresses for you.

There are a number of Dynamic DNS clients on the Market, I haven't tried any, but it's a pretty common solution for machines that change IP, so I can't see why there'd be a problem.


Where is android syncing my photo's to? I just got an android and have it synced to my google account, the problem is that it is syncing my photo's to I don't know where on my google account, which is very bad because I take pictures of sensitive documents for my job. Every once in a while I get a notice that these synced photos are ready to share. I've looked in drive and don't see them, I've looked on plus and only see the ones I've said it's ok to share, but it's syncing them somewhere online which in the case of these particular articles is illegal no mater how "Secure" this may be.  So where the heck are these going?

Your Android phone may sync photos on Google +, Dropbox, Google Drive and Facebook.
 On Google + got to https://plus.google.com/photos/search/%23AutoBackup (Photos> AutoBackup), here are photos whose automatically synced through your android phone. How to Enable/ Disable auto sync on Android

Next is Dropbox, check this article for dropbox sync enabled www.dropbox.com/help/82/en

Next is Google Drive which may auto sync your photos & data to server.

& Facebook is also sync photos in private folder in your albums folder.

But in my opinion your photos are being synced by Google + in Auto Backup section.


How do I get rid of spam SMSs that do not want to delete? I get these spam SMSs on my Sony Xperia. I try to delete them, but I can't. I select the SMS to delete, then confirm to delete. It takes ages and then my phone tells me the message is deleted, but it is not. It is still there!

Go on setting and open application section . Now go to system apps and search message application . Open it and click clear data and also clear catch . By doing this your problem will be solved


How can I check the commit message of AOSP There is a bug in Android 4.3 and it is said to have been fixed in Android 4.4.

How can I know how it is fixed?

https://issuetracker.google.com/u/1/issues/36985755

Update 2018/03/01:

I searched with the keyword "mCurMethod" in gerrit and seems to find the related changes to fix it.

It is the commit. https://android-review.googlesource.com/c/platform/frameworks/base/+/68103

But IMHO, it is not merged into master because of merge conflicts.

How do we know how AOSP fixes it?

Git log in framework/base seems a lot of commit and is hard to locate the specific commit.

The Google Issuetracker offers an easy way to know the status of an issue: the sidebar.

Like any other issue tracking software, there are many different statuses an issue can be in.
To help clarify the status even more, there is a switch that tells whether or not an issue has been resolved and the changes are in "production" (ie. the current codebase of the project)

For your specific issue, the status is as follows:

Status
Won't Fix (Obsolete)
...
In Prod
(off)

This means that the issue hasn't been solved and will never be solved. It's probably not an issue anymore.


No rotation lock icon in quick settings in Lollipop on Nexus 5 I've seen in several reviews that Lollipop comes with a new rotation lock icon in quick settings:

ArsTechnica:

But my phone doesn't have it:

Click image for larger version

How can I get the rotation toggle to show up?

Found the solution

Goto settings-> accessibility-> enable AUTO ROTATE.... Then we have the toggle button in notification screen as well


Find out size of all data ever downloaded Is somehow possible to find out size of all data I ever downloaded on my HTC phone?

edit:source from which I downloaded data will be also super

Thanks

Your carrier would keep track of how much you've downloaded over 3G.  I highly, highly doubt they do enough logging to tell you where all of it came from though (and if they did, they'd probably make you pay to access the logs if they let you at all).

There's no way to tell exactly what you've downloaded over WiFi, apart from browser history for file downloads if you've never cleared the list.  Presumably you could modify Android to log everything, but as far as I know it hasn't been done up till now.


Typing emoji in SMS limits number of characters to 70 I have HTC One X running Android 4.2.2. While typing SMSs if I put an emoji character then it sets the maximum number of characters to 70. Why?

Because when you use emojis, you force the use of UTF-16 encoding instead of the regular 7 bit ASCII encoding. 7 bit ASCII encoding allows 160 characters per SMS, but since UTF-16 encoding takes up about twice as much data per character, it only allows 70 characters per SMS.


How can I turn silent mode on (Lenovo yoga 2) I just got Lenovo yoga 2 and can not find silent mode (power button offers just - power of, resrt and aeroplane mode). There must be silnt mode to turn every sound off...
Big thanks!

Most phones go in silent mode when you just press volume down and silence it to the end. After hitting lowest volume, pressing it again should put it in vibrate only mode, and pressing it again will put it in silent mode. I'm not sure if Lenovo phones have that implemented but most other OEMs have it implemented.


Alarm often does not ring if I don't "wake up" the phone The phone is a Samsung Galaxy J3 running Android 5.1.1. It is only a couple of months old. This phone has not been rooted.

When I set an alarm, very often the phone does not wake up and ring when the time comes up. However if I press the power button to open the unlocking screen the alarm starts going off, as if the phone was catching up to the current time.

I changed to using the application Timely, after seeing similar questions on the Internet about the built-in alarm app. I still have the exact same problem.

My phone is always on vibrate. I haven't made any tests as to whether that changes anything but I don't think it will, because sporadically the alarm does ring at the right time.

Keep your phone charged up
This is a solution I found after experimenting a bit. It seems that if the phone is plugged to a power source the entire night, then it will correctly wake up to ring the alarm at the right time.
This is obviously not the most convenient solution nor does it really explain why this solves the problem.


Disabling notifications for Samsung messages I switched to using Google Hangouts for SMS. I cannot disable the default Samsung messages notification, so I get a duplicate of each notification from the messages. How can I disable it? I unchecked "Show notifications" under Application Manager and it doesn't seem to work.

Did you try to change this option in your default sms app? Is under settings in the main screen...


How can i mount all partitions of harddisk in android x86? i installed android-x86-4.2-20130228 as a live but does'nt read my partition of my hardisk
i tried with Paragon UFSD Root Mounter but not work good in 4.2.2 and  es explorateur does'nt read any partition

i think that you could mount your partition from your hard disk with the mount command.

Usually all partitions are avalaible in /dev/block/.

So you could check what is mounted by typing "mount" in a terminal emulator app or through adb (computer).

After that, u could comparring the partitions names with an ls -al /dev/block/ command.

After that u could have a better idea of wich partition name is your hard disk.
Usually, and depending on how you have connected your hard disk to your android-X86 (SD or USB or by other method(s)), the partition block have "mmc" is it name.

Finally, you could mount your partition with theses followed command:

mkdir /hard-disk-partition
mount -t FAT32 -o rw /dev/block/partitionname /hard-disk-partition

-t argument is used to define the partition filesystem
-o argument is used to define the access type

-r is for read only
-rw is for read and write
-rwx is for read, write, and execute

I think that -t and -o arguments are sufficients for your usage.

Ah, and before i forget, it's possible that you have to install an "all-in one toolbox" like Busybox or Toybox, because maybe that some applets commands aren't installed on your Android system (/system/bin and /system/xbin/), it will be usefull if u have to use commands like egrep, sed or awk for exemple.


is there a common symlink in android multi-users, access use's `root directory` ？ On test tablet.
There are two users:

/storage/emulated/0/AAA  --onwer
/storage/emulated/10/AAA  --nomal user

My attempt:

adb shell "ls -l /storage/emulated/legacy/AAA" file dot exist.  --failed
adb shell "dumpsys activity | grep -E "mUserLru" | grep -Eo "[0-9]+\]$" | tr -d "]""  find the current user_id     e.g.: 10.
Splice string the path string.Format("/storage/emulated/{0}/AAA","10").  --succeed ,but it's too complicated.

I want to find a simple way.
like a common symlink or adb command,
When different users log in, can use the same method to access different root directory.Thanks.

You have already figured out that the path to user's home directory is /storage/emulated/USER_ID/. In order to find the user id of the the currently running user, follow my answer here. I have updated it along the lines of Android Oreo.


How to show screen recording permission prompt again? Android asks for permission before an app records screen as following (a standard Android feature, not a part of the app):

After I select "Don't show again", this prompt will not show up as expected.  How can I bring it back for this app without uninstalling and reinstalling it?

I have checked App permissions, but it is not there. I have also deleted the app's cache to no avail.

[Edit] 2016-07-08
The following screenshot shows all the permissions (no screen record/capture permission):

The following screenshot shows the permissions of the app:

it seems there is no way to do that without uninstalling app or restarting permissions Android Developer

but if you want to restart the permissions
Go to Application Manager -> App Permissions -> Requested Permission -> turn it off / on for your program .


How Can I get Google Natives apps in Samsung Galaxy S? As you know Samsung Galaxy S comes with yahoo apps (mail, chat, etc). My First Android Phone was a G1 and I really love the google natives apps like gtalk, search widget, etc..  The problem is that these apps are not in the market and I dont know Where to find them.

I know That I could install another Rom that brings theses apps, but I really like How works my samsung with Eclair. I just need back my google apps.

Some help?

Installing from Market is preferrable, but you probably can sideload them if you exhausted all other avenues.

Download the apk: http://forum.samdroid.net/f10/google-updates-3468/

If you have adb, then you can install the apk using adb install.

If you don't have adb, then save those apks to the SD card and use a file manager (e.g. Astro, Estrongs, etc) to install them.

You need to enable non-Market installation: Settings > Applications > Unknown sources


How to unlock samsung tab with the fingerprint scanner not working I have a samsung tab 2 and suddenly the fingerprint scanner stopped working and I'm not able to unlock my device.

Now my device asking for backup password. Which as you all guess I do not remember. After several tries of wrong passwords I get a message telling me that I have 5 wrong attempts with the fingerprint scanner(!) and that I should wait for 30 seconds before my new attempt.

I also tried to unlock my device using Google Device Manager following this article  but one more time nothing happened. I tried to contact Samgung and their only suggestion is to hard reset my device. The problem is that I do not want to loose my data from the tablet.

Is there any possible way to make the fingerprint scanner to work?
Is there any other way to unlock my device?
If there is no way to unlock it can I at least save my data before I hard reset it?

I have an S5 with fingerprint on it. After 5 incorrects there should be a button next to Alternative Password saying "Unlock via Google". Does yours not have it?

I looked at your article and there were a few methods they missed.

a) Try hooking up your tablet to your computer, after you've downloaded and installed the "Samsung USB Drivers for Mobile Phones.exe". Download adb and call it from your command prompt/console, like this:

cd c:\adb-fastboot
adb devices

If it shows a device with a long ID attached to it, you're in luck!
You can now use the ls command and adb pull to browse through your device and copy files and pictures back to your computer. adb pull instructions for pictures

If you're not in luck, try booting to recovery mode using the buttons and try adb devices again. If that doesn't work, always try another computer! It took me 5 different computers one time to get drivers working.

Along with the ls command, you can also remove your lockscreen PIN by running this command:

adb shell
rm /data/system/gesture.key

If that does not work, try this:

adb shell
cd /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases
sqlite3 settings.db
update system set value=0 where name='lock_pattern_autolock';
update system set value=0 where name='lockscreen.lockedoutpermanently';
.quit

If that doesn't work, you can use adb backup to get a full "app data" backup of your device before you reset it. Use this along with adb pull on all your pictures. Refer here for adb pull instructions for pictures.

I hope this helped, good luck retrieving your files/unlocking your device!


Will a Motorola DEFY+ sync with my Outlook calendar and contacts? I'd like to buy a Motorola DEFY+ as it fits my needs almost perfectly. However, I read some test reviews which are claiming that the Outlook sync options are quite weak.

Does anyone know if this phone will synchronize with my local Outlook calendar and contacts? Are there any known problems which might occur during the synchronization?

Actually I bought the Motorola Defy+ and I'm disapointed, as it seems there's synchronization is only possible via Google account.


How do I use voice input in Google Maps on a HTC Desire? I have an HTC Desire phone running Android and I use the Google Maps application. I can search for locations using text entry but I would like to be able to use the voice entry feature which was added last year.

  You can now search Google Maps for Android simply by speaking your query and Google Maps will search it for you.

I have the latest version of Google Maps from the Android Market but I don't see how to activate this voice search feature. I have tried opening Google maps, pressing the search key at the bottom-right of the phone, and then saying for example 'London' into the phone's microphone, but nothing happens.

How do I use the voice search in Google Maps for Android?

Updates

There is no microphone icon next to the search bar.

Version Information

Android Version: 2.1-update1
Google Maps version: 4.4.0 (#4414) gmm-android-htc

I have a Samsung Galaxy S on T-Mobile, so YMMV.

To use voice entry, I start the Navigation application, not Maps; one of the menu options it displays is "Speak destination".  Navigation wasn't available on the phone when I first got it; I first noticed it about a week ago (I noticed Latitude and Places arrived at the same time, so might all have been part of the same push).

EDIT: To get voice entry in Maps, press and hold the Search key, which gives you a general search.  To search for a location, I use Menu > Search, then there's a microphone icon on the search bar.  In Menu > Directions, you can focus on either the From or To input boxes, and again you'll get the search bar with a microphone icon.  If I use Menu > Directions to speak a location, it works as if I'm doing a map search, so I have to go back and select the location again in the Directions input box.


How to properly debug websites on the Samsung Browser The Samsung Browser is not Chrome nor Android stock browser. And our webdev teams have some bugs that only show up on this specific browser.
Is there any way I can remotely debug it as I can do with Chrome or Firefox? Either on an emulator or a real device.

The new Samsung Internet browser is based on the Chromium browser and thus supports its remote debugging interface.

Enable USB debugging on your device as described here.
Then connect your device via USB (Oh, surprise!).
Visit chrome://inspect on your computers Google Chrome browser and you will be guided to create the connection:

Then you just have to click on the devices inspect link and an developer tools window will pop up.

More info like why there is an Samsung Internet Browser at all can be found here.


Is there a way to create new files in Astro FM Astro File Manager has a text file editor built right in. Is there a way to create new text files in the app and edit them directly in it?

I am not looking for other apps (I know they exist) - specifically if and how it can be done in Astro File Manager (or the Pro version if that has the feature).

I should clarify - I mean plain text - not rtf/doc or something.

After looking through the Help file and through Astro quite a bit, alas, I believe the answer is no. While it does allow for editing, the only option for creation is Directory (Folder) creation, as you pointed out.

That being said, I think this would be an excellent feature, and might be worth suggesting to the developers.

I know you said you didn't want other apps, but to show one directly with the feature...

this is X-plore File Manager


3G/4G not working in Samsung galaxy S3 SGH-I747M My 3G and 4G is not working on SAMSUNG SGH-I747M. It's an AT&T version of S3 so according to specifications it must support both. Can anyone tell what should I modify in order to get it working?

Check if your settings are correct.

Go to Settings → More networks → Mobile network → Network mode and select as the image below is selected. If this doesn't work it may be the signal strength in your area

(Click image to enlarge)


Block app internet access through app ops hidden menu I'm on lollipop and want to deny some apps to use the INTERNET permission.
How do I block them? In the hidden app ops menu there is no INTERNET permission.
Do I need another app for that?

You might want to use Net Blocker:

  This app is used to prevent apps from accessing the Internet, either
  Wi-Fi or mobile data (GPRS/3G/4G).


How to connect your Nexus phone to a VGA projector? I would like to connect my Nexus 5 to an external projector or monitor. I know that there is a SlimPort to HDMI adapter (I have it), however, projectors and standard monitors still have VGA (and no HDMI) output.

In addition to the SlimPort HDMI adapter by Analogix, I also bought the deleyCON HDMI to VGA adapter. The problem is that the external displays do not display any content (the SlimPort to HDMI cable is working, though). I also saw an SlimPort to VGA adapter from Analogix, but three customers say that it did not work either; see here for such a case.

Has anyone succeeded in connecting the Nexus 4 or 5 to a VGA display?

I note that How to use an Android phone or tablet to make a projector presentation? also addresses the problem. However, using a HDMI to VGA adapter (mentioned there as a possible solution) is not working. I am not sure if a real HDMI to VGA converter would be working, but they are typically bulky and I am wondering if there is a specific adapter to solve this problem.

This is at best a partial answer, but I believe I have collected some pertinent information. I'm the author of that other question you link to, and my goal is exactly the same as yours: use the Nexus 5 with a projector with VGA input only.

You distinguish between VGA adapter and converter, which is part of what I was asking for in my question, and from the answer I got I thought there is no such distinction. Especially after I noticed that this HDMI-to-VGA product, which in the description claims not to need an extra power supply, actually does have a Micro-USB port to get power, and many customers comment that it only works with extra power, I assumed that the difference is a matter of marketing. In the (German) product description it says at some point "Adapter" and at another point "Konverterkabel" (converter cable). I still don't know whether there is such a difference. If there is, I'd assume that an "adapter" merely makes an analog signal which is somehow hidden (?) in the HDMI available, while a "converter" actually contains D/A circuitry.

I had a look at the "SlimPort to VGA adapter" from Analogix but didn't buy it for the same reason you give; moreover, the description mentions "LG G2" and "LG Optimus G Pro", but not the Nexus 5. The Analogix website also shows an "HDMI/VGA Combo Adapter", which appears not be for sale yet. I sent an Email to Analogix requesting clarification, but they did not reply.

In the end I decided to buy the "HDMI Adapter" from Analogix and the HDMI-to-VGA thingy linked to above. The first works perfectly, but the second doesn't work at all, at least not in combination with the first. I tested it using a projector and two different monitors, and in all cases there wasn't even a sign that a signal was received – with or without extra power. I'll send it back, but I don't know which other product to try next.

A possible explanation why it doesn't work would be that the native resolution of the Nexus 5 of 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) is too high for a VGA connection, or for the respective device. Since the Nexus 5 has no HDMI output settings, I used the app "Screen Settings" (needs root!) to change the resolution. This appears to work on the device screen (apparently scaled up again to the screen's size), but doesn't change the fact that VGA output isn't recognized. Strangely, if I connect to a monitor via HDMI, the monitor still reports an 1080p input signal. This might be a quirk of my monitor, but it might also indicate that the changed resolution only affects the software side but not the signal. I'm not sure whether HDMI supports arbitrary resolutions, but I think there should be at least 1080p and 720p.

Another possible explanation is that the HDMI output is "protected" by HDCP, and a "legal" HDMI-to-VGA converter won't simply strip the HDCP, thus just disabling output for an encrypted input. According to this thread on xda-developers, HDCP is activated by default and for all content on the Nexus 10, and the only way around it is to install a custom ROM. I suppose the same holds for the Nexus 5.

I made a post on Google's product forums about this, the chances for getting an answer might be slightly larger if more people favorite this and/or chime in.

Some additional information:

– CM11 allows to disable HDCP for HDMI output, but still many HDMI-to-VGA products don't work, so this does no longer appear to be a main obstacle.

– With CM11 on Nexus 5 on the one side and my Eizo FS2333, I tested six different "adapters" and "converters", and found that only one worked, namely the rather bulky Ligawo 6526619. I did not find any advertised features of these products that would have allowed to foretell whether one was going to work or not.

– CM11 on Nexus 5 does not provide any options to change the output signal resolution.

– "Screen resolution" apps do not allow to change the output signal resolution either, but only the "software resolution" – at least on Nexus 5 / CM11. If I set the resolution e.g. to 800x600, I get a 1080p signal in which the now lores screen content is scaled up. If a beamer or other presentation device cannot handle this signal resolution, the only solution is to buy extra expensive hardware that not just converts HDMI to VGA, but also scales down.


Android is upgrading ... so slow So I bought a replacement phone (I doubt the model matters but it's a Moto Z Play) and now it's catching up with upgrades and there are many updates and every one of them is taking like 15 or more minutes because at first it installed all the apps from the old phone... how could I tell it to install all upgrades first and only then optimize them?

You cannot

See the accepted answer by elderathis for a good explanation of what optimising apps does What kind of app optimizations do newer Android versions do at the first reboot? - re-creates Dalvik / ART (lollipop upwards) cache for each app. This is done with each OTA
It's only when the OTA is completed, the device looks for availability of fresh updates and proceeds to download and update next OTA. This is because the version on the device is checked for integrity and that it's not tampered with (as in the case of rooted devices or modifications to  /system partition ) to be start the OTA process.

Your case of updating multiple OTAs in one shot I suppose is not the usual use -case so it does ìt incrementally instead of applying all updates and then optimising, though in theory it could work that way

Edit: Some of these updates could be incremental updates, which demand the previous build

  Distribute an incremental package only to devices running exactly the same previous build used as the incremental package's starting point.


how to retrieve data stored in android apps I am using Moto G. downloaded a video through android app.I am able to play video through app. Where to tracethis video in phone memory and get this video for using in other devices

Find name of your app it will be like com.awesome.me
After you know name of application
Go to android/data/com.awesome.me/
This directory will be in your internal storage
U might see a lot of files and folders with different extensions
If its a video start looking for files with size of around 10 mb or more when you find it try to open with video player
After you find ur video
Change extension to video extensions
Copy it to your folder of choice
And enjoy

Sorry i am weak in English
N try x-plore file manager
Its  easy to use
Note:this is not advertising its just a suggestion/opinion


CCleaner app doesn't clear my Google Chrome browsing history I did check the settings on my CCleaner app. The browsing history is selected for cleaning.

Is this because Chrome is a system app?

It does, it seems like it doesn't because chrome stores history online if you are logged in with google account


GPS turns on every time WiFi network is changed Whenever i change WiFi network, GPS just keeps turning on. I turned off GPS and change system settings permissions for every app, but it still keeps happening. Recent location requests shows that no apps have used that permission. Turning off google's find my phone also doesn't help. What is going on?
Device: Samsung Galaxy s10

You can try to go to Settings -> Connections -> Wi-Fi -> Three-Dots-Menu -> Advanced -> Turn on Wifi automatically -> turn this setting off.
It seems like some devices claim access to GPS in order to find the available WiFi networks if this setting is activated.


adb.exe android gives me error with su I rooted my device (lenovo 2107a) and then updated new custom firmware with below instructions:

Downloaded new firmware into sdcard/clockworkmod
booted to CWM
selected "backup and restore" -> "advanced restore from internal
sdcard"
and chose my custom ROM
Then i selected "system restore"

So i saw an error that said cannot restore and restore goes to break. now when boot my device i see a screen that wants to select country code and after select device will reboot again and i see same screen.

so i decided to restore my old backup, but even old backup restoring gives me the error that cannot restore.

i find the problem, when i open shell with this command:

adb.exe shell
$su
su
segmentation fault

the problem is that all of data in /system is read-only and i cannot even root with su. i tried everything like re-rooting device, but still i cannot shell as root.

mount cannot be run (operation not permitted)

adb.exe remount (cannot be execute)

fixsu.sh cannot be executed because has not access to /system (everything is read-only)

psneuter gives (failed to set prot mask (inappropriate ioctl for device))

is there any way to delete /system and re-upload that or something that can solve my problem?

I got a tip from XDA dev's under Android-General Developing: give the custom ROM a new name by renaming "update.zip" on the SD Card. Under CWM, pick this "update.zip" under Update setting.

This was tested with Moto Defy+ 2.3.6 stock ROM and HTC One V GSM with a Sense 5.0 custom ROM when I tried to install MIUI 5.


Connecting Android device to a basic TV How can I connect my Android KitKat to a basic TV (not smart TV) with the cable of CD player or other? Any trick or tips?

Depending on the Android device you are using, this will connect to an old TV:

RCA Compact RF Modulator

What are you using for the video out on the Android device?


Can't set date via shell I've tried

date -u 1407697765

output:

time 1407697765 -> 1407697765.0
settimeofday failed Bad file number

and

busybox date -s @1407697765

output:

date: can't set date: Operation not permitted

I don't feel that I'm doing everything right (especially when date -u) but it looks like I have no permission... I'm trying it through adb shell

Why do I get these errors and how to set date through shell?

The following worked for me (once you have root permissions):

adb shell settings put global auto_time 0 && adb shell date 010219302018.00 set && adb shell am broadcast -a android.intent.action.TIME_SET

auto_time -> This is to switch off automatic syncing of time.

To reset the time back to syncing with the network, do:

adb shell settings put global auto_time 1 && adb shell am broadcast -a android.intent.action.TIME_SET


Debugging bootloop: Get an information log without ADB? Can an emulator help? Possible Duplicate:
  Android boot-up messages for debugging?

Related to this post I created:  Does the Android emulator generate some sort of log file I can access if it crashes?

I have been searching and trying to figure out if there is any way at all to get some kind of debugging information or any kind of kernel messages from an Android phone if it gets stuck at a bootloop state?  That means the phone gets stuck at the "Google" splash-screen, then crashes, then goes to that, then crashes.

I know the phone has several stages of bootloading, but for me to even figure out why my system image/modified kernel is making the phone crash, I need to at least know where the phone is crashing?

Is there any kind of log the Android emulator maybe spits out that shows it going through the stages of booting:  i.e. stage 1 bootloader, main stage bootloader, kernel being loaded, initialization process, Zygote, Zygote initializing Dalvik VM, execution of system server, then boot completed (when the ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETE flag/event is raised).

I've tried modifying init.rc to echo commands to a boot log (but it didn't work, though I don't know if the phone makes it to that stage, all I have is a useless splash screen), I've tried any of the ADB stuff but of course ADB doesn't work if the phone doesn't reach a stable state, the Linux dmesg command only works to show that the phone plugged in via USB, and the Android developers have chosen not to at least explain to me that only they hold those kinds of developer tools. Can anyone give me some guidance of what I can do to debug the boot process?  There has to be some kind of log you can access with the emulator at least.

In other words, how does anyone get any kind of log from their phone/emulator if gets stuck in a bootloop?

Further information, my kernel version I believe I have downloaded for my phone build is Linux kernel release 3.x (stock kernel pulled from the tuna folder and using the "omap" project), for Android Galaxy Nexus (maguro), with the platform being Android 4.0.3 ICS.

You will know if the kernel has hung, the led light stays on and not go further.

As for your question, you need to be more clearer and specific as we do not know and since you posted a similar question before. You have not stated, what device is it, what android version is it, what kernel is it, all those are left out and thusly playing a guessing game here.

Is it the ramdisk not created correctly?
Is it the address used for booting incorrect?
Is the ROM built for VMSPLIT 3G and the kernel is built with VMSPLIT 2G or vice versa?
What chipset is it? ARMv7 kernel with ROM compiled for ARMv6...
Is the kernel actually booting? if yes, how do you know?

Far too many things here to speculate.

Edit:

This bit is related to kernel level debugging.

The only way you can know if the kernel is indeed booting in the first place is to use a USB to Serial TTY cable with JTAG pinouts on a small circuit board clipped/soldered to the back of the device in question, and having the serial driver compiled into the kernel and treating the console as a tty device, and reading from it via minicom or hyperterminal to see the boot up sequence.

As for bootloops,

The cause of boot-loops are down to the ROM itself, the initialization sequence is crashing somewhere. Now be careful :), the kernel in itself, can boot-loop also due to malfunctioning driver, panic's and reboots itself.

So the question is, which is it?, Is it the kernel that keeps rebooting itself or has it got passed that stage and started loading the ROM? If its at the stage of loading the ROM, then something in the initialization is crashing, when the ROM crashes, it sends a signal to shutdown SurfaceFlinger, AudioFlinger, adb daemon, MedaServices etc.

What you can do is this - in the init.rc, where you have this:

service console /system/bin/sh
    console
    disabled
    user shell

Change disabled to enabled, the next time, Android will dump you into the console, i.e. no familiar graphical interface.

Also, look for the  lines containing servicemanager, if the adbd daemon is listed there, take it out as what happens is the directive clause critical and onrestart will cause you to not have any adb facility!


Notification Access in KitKat Can someone tell me where the Notification Access is placed in KitKat.
In JellyBean it used to be under Settings -> Security.

It's still in Settings > Security on my Nexus 5.

This option will only appear if there are apps that register as being able to read notifications. (I have verified this by uninstalling the apps that appeared in the list, and the option was no longer there)


How to save specific WhatsApp video when by default Media Visibility is off? I normally have the Media Visibility setting off so it doesn't store WhatsApp media on my phone but recently a friend sent some videos I want to transfer to computer/email. I cannot find these anywhere - I looked in the File Manager for all possible WhatsApp folders, both internal and SD card. I changed the Media Visibility to "on" but it's not a "new" video so it still doesn't save them. It's gotta be downloaded somewhere on my phone - is there any way to transfer them? The "Share" function only allows forwarding to other WhatsApp contacts and not email etc

Okay, finally found a way. From the chat, I have to click the group of videos, then tap and hold on one specific video, then the "Share" button shows up to share through email. Gotta do the videos one at a time - it won't show the Share button for multiple videos selected, only the Forward button.


Power button stopped on my Nexus S My power button has stopped working on my Nexus S, everything else works but this!

How can i get my power button back?

You can remap either of the volume buttons to be a power button. I have remapped my volume up button to power button.

To remap, you should have rooted phone, with terminal emulator and busybox application you can edit the file /usr/system/keylayout/herring-keypad.kl

change the line

key 115 VOLUME_UP WAKE

to

key 115 POWER WAKE

And reboot your phone.


Stream audio to windows10 through USB I want to listen to the podcasts I have on my android phone while i'm playing games on my computer and therefore I want to stream the audio from my phone to my windows 10 computer.
I'm wondering if it's possible to do that through USB?

While you probably can route audio to USB (I assume if you connect a USB device that identifies it as a USB audio receiver... thingy) your PC is a USB host.

So a better solution would be to get a USB audio adapter like this (may not be necessary if you have a mic in port), connect your headphone into the mic, and get something like VLC to play it.

Windows also allows to "Listen" to an input device which plays it out of your speakers so you don't need VLC or a special player.  (See image below). Note that this can be annoying if you do video conferencing as you will have to make sure this is disabled when you're on a call.


Adoptable SD card in Nougat I have recently formatted my SD card as adoptable/internal storage in android nougat 7.0. There is a option of ejecting the card. My question is, if I eject the card, would I be able to use it by a card reader, or would the data be corrupted/deleted?

Your card cannot be read by a card reader, as it is encrypted , when you converted it to internal or adoptable-storage. This encryption covers your device (internal storage) and SD. You can read more about that in adoptable-storage wiki
If you eject the card, data is not corrupted on the card, but as Izzy pointed out, your device would be pretty much unusable, till you re- insert


Can I undo the encryption on my Samsung Ace Style? I want to keep my info private, but I don't want to mess up accessibility or have trouble answering my phone when I'm driving.

Can I undo the phone encryption after I have applied it?

No, you can't decrypt an encrypted device. You can only remove the encryption by doing a factory reset.


Pushed apps into device from google play web browser, install failed. How to find out what apps failed? Yesterday I browsed into the play store from my pc, and selected several apps to be installed onto my tablet.

The tablet attempted to install the apps later, but several of them failed. I have cleared the notifications, now I don't remember what apps were not installed.

How can I retrieve this list of failed install attempts? I don't know what apps I tried to install (or I would just re-install them).

Device is a Samsung G-note 2014ed, running on 5.1.1

Your android version is lower version or, you must download the apps on your playstore tablet not on browser CMIIW


How to listen to loud music from an android device? I have a music app on my phone. I want to listen to it through nicer speakers than the phone's built-in speakerphone. If I had an iPhone, I'd either use a speaker dock (which both charges the phone and receives music through one port on the bottom of the phone), or I'd use AirPlay.

Neither of these options seem to be available for Android devices. So, what are the alternatives? Note, this is NOT a request for recommendations of specific products, but a list of available options.

Here are the options I can think of:

Plug a speaker into the headphone jack on the phone. Optionally also plug the phone into a charger.

Will work with any existing equipment.

A bluetooth speaker.

This recompresses the audio, reducing the sound quality, and inconveniently requires manually going into the settings app to connect to the bluetooth speaker every time you want to use it.

Use a Chromecast to stream to the speakers connected to my TV.

If you don't have an AV receiver, this means you're probably using the crappy speakers built into the TV. This also only works with apps that support chromecast.

Buy a Sonos.

Great sound. Works with any audio app. Expensive, proprietary system.

There's a system in some cars that can play music through some android phones' USB port, but I can't find any information on non-car systems that do this, or whether it uses an open or proprietary protocol, or even what it's called. I don't know if it works with all music apps.

If this is it, it seems to me that the state of Android audio is pretty shoddy. I hope I'm missing something. Am I? Is there any new standard on the horizon that might make things better? (If somebody knows of more options, feel free to plagiarize my answer and build on it for your own. I'd rather not accept my own answer! :)


Where in the Nexus 4 is the wire wireless charging coil? I've just received a "smartfox qi" wireless charger as a gift, but it won't charge my Nexus 4 despite its indicator light turning on, and the Nexus 4 says "charging wireless". Still, it doesn't charge, the battery graph shows a power depletion just as if it were just lying on a desk.
It's running stock 4.2.2 without a case.

The charger has the exact same dimensions as the Nexus 4, so I just placed it exactly on top. I'm thinking that the wireless coils didn't match up well enough. So my question is:

Where in the Nexus 4 are those charging coils? How do I have to place it to ensure maximum-efficiency charging?

Bonus questions:

Wireless charging heats up the Nexus 4 a lot. Is this really healthy? Won't it significantly reduce the lifetime of the (non-replaceable!) Nexus 4 battery?
What specific product would be a good recommendation, specifically for the Nexus 4?

The charging coil is embedded into the back panel of the phone and is located directly over the battery, as shown in steps 7 and 8 of IFixIt's teardown.
The battery isn't quite non-replaceable, as the above mentioned teardown shows.  It's somewhat involved to replace it (you'll need a Torx screwdriver, a Philips screwdriver, a plastic opening tool, and some patience), but it's perfectly doable.
If you're wanting something that will work for sure, the official wireless charger would probably be your best bet.  However, it's not exactly cheap at $50.  I personally use this charger with my Galaxy S3, which I added a wireless receiver to.  I find it works well and charges right through my lifeproof case.


Does the HTC One X support GLONASS? I'm looking to buy the brand new HTC One X (Tegra 3 version) but I want to know if it's compatible with GLONASS (Russian GPS satnav equivalent).

I already know that the Snapdragon S4 version supports it but does the Tegra 3 support it as well?

Acccording to this XDA thread, it does NOT support GLONASS

They ran GPS tests on both Galaxy Note and HTC One X, the former of which does officially support GLONASS; and the former showed 2x the amount of detected satellites.


phone stuck while loading cyanogenmod I am using a Samsung Galaxy Y. Everytime I switch on my phone it goes from samsung logo to cyanogenmod loading.

What do i do? I have waited for an hour.

It might take a minute or five, but certainly not an hour. But I know what happened to you as it happened to me too when I flashed my first rom.

Keeping it short: the ever-looping boot animation you're seeing is silently saying that you forgot to clean the caches after you've flashed your CyanogenMod rom.

To fix that, do:

Reboot into ClockworkMod.
Whipe the "Dalvik cache".
Optionally, while the "Cache".
Reboot into Cyanogenmod.

Most of the time, it's simple an unwhiped "Dalvik cache" messing things up. Yet, in the unlikely case that shouldn't fix it (for example - when you weren't running a previous CyanogenMod rom before you flashed your current one), you'll have to do a "Factory Reset" too. But 1-4 should get you going, so I would not factory-reset it on the first attempt. ;)


How do I force Google Photos app to refresh? I deleted some images on photos.google.com but the Photos app on my phone doesn't reflect these changes and still show the images. How do I force the app to refresh? I already tried clearing cache but that didn't do anything.

Sometimes just dragging down just below the notification bar and releasing will give the circling "I'm refreshing" arrows and start the sync.


CyanogenMod HTC One X+ can't boot What I did so far
Today I'm trying to get CyanogenMod on my HTC One X+, however I'm stuck now.
I successfully unlocked my phone and the phone rebooted and everything was fine so far.
Now I wanted to put "cm-10.2.1-enrc2b.zip" on my HTC, which I got from:
http://download.cyanogenmod.org/?type=stable&device=enrc2b
and I followed this guide: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_enrc2b. However if I booted into recovery mode I still don't boot in ClockworkMod. I also can't select recovery, because then I will get a red exclamation mark (so I don't have a ROM backup, smart of me...). So I saw the note at the bottom of the tutorial which said "fastboot flash boot boot.img", which I did, however the only thing that has changed is that if I normally start my phone it gets stuck in showing the HTC ONE logo and just freezes there. My question is: How do I get CyanogenMod working on my phone?
Summary problems

Normal booting device stays stuck at HTC ONE logo
I don't have ClockworkMod working
I flashed kernel through "fastboot flash boot boot.img" (can't start phone normally anymore)
Not sure if "cm-10.2.1-enrc2b.zip" (enrc2b is HTC One X+) is in right location of phone.
In recovery mode I cannot select recovery (get red exclamation mark)
I can still get into recovery mode and fastboot. I'm still able to send commands through cmd (Windows)

ClockworkMod
HTC One X+ is not in the list of ClockworkMod: clockworkmod(dot)com/rommanager (Can only have 2 links)
flash boot
It seems I have to rename the /system/recovery-from-boot.p (to /system/recovery-from-boot.p-bak): android.stackexchange(dot)com/questions/18932/why-isnt-clockworkmod-recovery-sticking ,
but I cannot use an app like Root Explorer anymore, because the device doesn't boot...
cm-10.2.1-enrc2b.zip
How do I get this file on the right location on the phone by using cmd commands? I already copied manually to the phone storage directly in the first folder when you open your phone. Not sure if this is okay?
Thanks
Thanks for reading this and I really hope anyone can help me. How do I get CyanogenMod on my HTC One X+? I'm a bit desperate in what to do next now. Thanks in advance!

Got it fixed :D with thanks to Izzy and Chahk
I did a lot of things so I'm not sure if I write down every step I took, but I hope it will help other users someday. This is what I did.

Restore manger

Install a restore manager (TWRP/ClockworkMod). I used TWRP which I installed by using WinDroid Universal HTC Toolkit: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2499926
(If you still have a working ROM, backup this now by booting in recovery mode)

Flash ROM

Check in cmd if your device is recognized with "adb devices". If not try "adb kill-server" followed by "adb usb". Check again with "adb devices". If recognized use "adb push cm-10.2.1-enrc2b.zip /sdcard/" (or your own ROM-name.zip)

Flash Kernel

Now you should flash your kernel, not like how I did it at the beginning. "fastboot flash boot boot.img" in cmd. (Check first if your device is visible with "fastboot devices".

Extra Tip

Install playstore with Gapps or manually by moving "GmsCore.apk + GoogleLoginService.apk" + "GoogleServicesFramework.apk" to /system/app/ and run a playstore.apk (in my case "com.android.vending-4.6.16.apk")


Where can I download a specific version of an app? Possible Duplicate:
  Where can find older versions of Apps?

I require certain versions of apps like facebook, twitter and Temple Run in order to perform research. I have already looked at freewarelovers but that doesn't give me options of downloading specific versions.

Your best option would be reaching out to developers of these apps.  Other alternatives would be unsafe.


How can I configure Telegram to open links using Opera Browser instead of Chrome? My Android is v6, but answers for any other modern version are OK too.

Install Better open with, reset all defaults and use that to select the Telegram link to show an option to open with other browsers ( I don't have Opera installed but you can see other browsers in the screenshot below). You can set it by "always open with" or give you the choice to select (it has a timer option for selection)

click to enlarge


How to find the unboxing date of an Android device? Someone told me that he has opened a phone only 4 days ago, but by the look of it, it is not less than a month.

When trying to buy a used phone, is there any way to check how long this phone is in use? Or the date when this phone is turned on the first time? Or the time of unboxing? Or the time of the first usage?

You can simply go the Service menu of your phone and see the total call time which is very hard to reset. By that, you can assume how long it has been used.

As of Android 4.3 Jellybean, that is the best you can get.


Can you stop your phone vibrating when changing to vibrate mode (without disabling vibrate altogether)? Samsung S4 running Android 4.4.2

I use the Llama app to manage my profiles depending on where I am (work, home, cinema, etc.).

This works well until Llama doesn't know where I am and can change between my profiles depending on where it thinks I am.

This is very annoying when every time Llama changes to a profile set to use vibrate mode, my phone (the OS not Llama) vibrates to say it is in that mode.

My question is therefore can you stop your phone vibrating when changing to vibrate mode (without disabling vibrate altogether)?

I know you can go to Settings > My Device > Sound > Vibration Intensity to turn off vibrate altogether but I only what to disable it when vibrate mode is being enabled if at all possible.

I solved this problem using an Android app called VibraFix, but this app requires root.


How to properly increase system partition on Moto G xt1033? I tried parted like

unit MB
rm 34
rm 35
rm 36
mkpart 34 823 2400
mkpart 35 2401 2441
mkpart 36 2441 7818
name 34 system
name 35 kpan
name 36 userdata

and then

mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p34
mke2fs -t /dev/block/mmcblk0p35
mke2fs -t /dev/block/mmcblk0p36

And after reboot nothing applyed.
I used
this guide this guide

What i'm doing wrong?
I need to install Mokee 7.1 but there is no space for gapps. This is a problem. Help me, please, i spent about 8 hours to trying solve it and nothing got( It's sad(

Update:
My question is "After i have had resized '/system' partition and after reboot - '/system' partition has the same size. What i'm doing wrong in my flow"

Update
"This guide" link fixed (typo)

Update

So finally what have i done:

I read guide described above completely. My device is Motorola Moto G xt1033 (codename 'falcon')

I wanted to install Mokee (android OS) and after installing Mokee there are no left free space for opengapps even for the most small pack (pico).

So i decided to increase 'system' partition. I did everything that was in guide mentioned above and i tried 2 or 3 times and each time after rebooting device 'system' partition remains the same size as before resizing.

The feature of this problem is that i did everything described above with my device XiaoMi RedMi 1s (C/W) (codename 'armani') and 'system' partition (in case of Xiaomi) has been increased (i used guide mentioned above).

So my question is - Why partition remains the same size as before resizing? How to prevent it? What did i miss? What i'm doing wrong? And finally - how to increase 'system' partition for my Motorola Moto G xt1033 (codename 'falcon')?

It is not possible.

Adopted storage works for marshmallow version and later. You may not use it on jellybean or even if you updated to lollipop.

I might have been wrong in understanding your situation, so please let us know of root status and latest rom or android version you have.

There is also more complexity when creating more than two partitions.
Try what has been discussed in https://android.stackexchange.com/a/145458/90095


Why are APK'S buggier than Play store downloaded apps? I had downloaded an early copy of some game, as its apk was put on apitoide after the app was available for 15 mins. Its an app that allows you to fling spheres at imaginary monsters.

Anyway (Ha-Ha!) The apk was a horrible, buggy mess, whilst the play store version was significantly cleaner.

** Is there any reason to why APK's are more 'broken' than their play-store versions? **

The Play Store version is the official version, which often has updates pushed out on a regular basis. Developers put effort into maintaining the play store version. If you are using an APK version downloaded from elsewhere, there is both the danger that you have put malware on your device and the high probability that it's older than the official release.


Do I have ROM in my phone? How can I find how much ROM I have? This is my phone, Samsung Galaxy S LCD I9003. Samsung Galaxy S I9000 has a ROM of 2 GB. What are the uses of ROM? I heard it is used to flash custom kernels. Cant I flash custom kernels in mine as nothing about ROM is mentioned?

Usually, Read-Only Memory is called internal storage, specifically the system partition on that storage (since other areas are writable by default). The image of the phone's firmware and OS is the ROM.  (That's how we do it on this site, anyways).

So your internal storage is 2 GB, and your phone's firmware and OS is installed on that storage space.  You can flash new kernels or entire ROMs (kernel + other firmware + OS) as long as they fit on the internal storage.  Generally, this isn't a problem; you won't find a ROM image for your phone that doesn't actually fit on your phone.


Use 4G while being connected to a WiFi direct printer Is it possible to use 4G for internet while being connected to a wireless printer with WiFi direct?

If not, are there any alternatives to use both, the printer as well as the internet, simultaneously without requiring another WiFi access point?

(The printer in question is the Epson L3150 Wireless Printer)

This is an ongoing issue that has been described as an optional implementation of the wifi direct. Or rather a lack of implemented options. My self a team testing an app for a developer, found that some phones have an option or feature for load balancing over wifi and data as a feature. Those that have this balancing, print and access internet without issue. Those without have no data over cellular while connected to wifi.


Cannot upload picture because browser refreshes When I try to upload a photo to most sites, my low-end phone (an LG Optimus F6) refreshes the page after I select the file, regardless of what browser I use. Chrome at least explicitly tells me that it could not complete the operation due to a lack of memory. This is true regardless of whether I use the camera to take a new photo, or whatever app I use to choose an existing photo.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? Is anyone aware of a workaround?

I was have the same problem with my Motorola Fire XT311 from 2 years ago, but i tried X-plore FM to select the files and it's works great sometimes, try it and tell me the result!


How to set custom ringtone for contacts group in Lollipop contact app I'm using Moto g with Lollipop 5.0.2. I can add contacts to group by edit contact.

How do I add specific ringtone for specific contact?
How do I add specific ringtone for specific group?
If there are no options, where do I give feedback for these options?

I don't think it is possible in stock Android to set a specific ringtone for an entire Circle. You can however, edit a specific contact and in the edit menu you can set a custom Ringtone.

If this is not what you want then you can send Google Feedback any time.


Pairing Bluetooth speakers I'm looking at buying some Bluetooth speakers, I haven't used Bluetooth in a long time and can't remember exactly how it worked.

If I pair my phone with the speakers, what's stopping someone else attempting to pair with the speakers?

Once paired do the devices become undiscoverable?

You can pair Bluetooth speakers with multiple devices.  My Bluetooth speakers are paired with BOTH  my tablets, my phone and my laptop.  You cannot not, depending on the device, connect via Bluetooth to more than one device at a time.

Pairing doesn't make the Bluetooth device undiscovered.


com.android.providers.settings does not exists I am using Lineage OS 14.1-20171111_14ß556-UNOFFICIAL-cedric on my Motorola G5
Android 7.1.2 and i am not able to locate the file/data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db

i tried ES File Explorer(with root) , adb shell (with root) and also SQLite Editor from the Play Store does not seem to find that file.

Since Marshmallow, all the settings are scattered everywhere, you won't find settings.db

many settings are available under /data/system/users/0/ saved as XMLs. Try looking there.


Transfer Android app with offline data to NEW PHONE without ROOT I've purchased a new phone and have transferred most of the data from the old device to the new one using various means.

There is one app, however, that does not have account login, so I cannot save cached data in the cloud. Meaning that I have no choice but to move/restore the app to the new device with the offline (cached) data.

This app is quite important to me, and I need the offline data.

I know of the following techniques to do this:

Backup and restore app + cached data using Helium: copy & replace the 'sdcard/carbon' folder from the old phone to the new phone. After doing this, restore the app with data on the new phone.
Root the device and use Titanium backup to do the same.
Backup apps using the 'Backup' feature in Google Drive.

Helium just did not work (with a brand new phone with Android 8.0!).

I cannot use Titanium as I cannot root my old phone at this point (before backup is complete). And restoring the app this way will in all likelihood require that I root my new phone as well, which is a deal-breaker.

Does Google Drive Backup work with all third party apps? I did not see the app I want to save in the list of apps whose data was being saved by Google Drive.

What should I do? Can anyone advise?

EDIT:

All of the techniques given on various sites for both partial and full backups (including nandroid backups) are device specific, i.e. you can restore to the same device only, not from one device to another. This includes both Droid Explorer and Simple ADB Backup too, apparently.

Is there no general way of restoring an app with data to a new phone without root? Google Drive backup does this without root. If it can do that, why can't other apps?

Also, various people suggested using MyBackup Pro / Android Assistant / DrFone+. All these tools give up before even trying: they all seem to require root.

You can use adb backup. You can specify the package name for backup a single app (for comprehensive details refer to Nikolay Elenkov)
adb backup [-f <file>] [-apk|-noapk] [-obb|-noobb] [-shared|-noshared] [-all] [-system|nosystem] [-keyvalue|-nokeyvalue] [<packages...>]
adb restore <file>

Note: some apps won't allow adb backup. even if adb backup is allowed, cache is not included.
Find a [GUIDE] How to enable adb backup for any app, decompile, recompile and sign the apk, where you have set the following flags:
android:allowBackup="true"
android:fullBackupOnly="false"

On the source phone, update the apk with your modified one. To do this without uninstalling, this may require to increment the android:versionCode in AndroidManifest.xml, and you must sign the apk using the same original signature that was used previously for the apk from the Play Store. This is the pitfall if you are not the author of the app it is not possible. However, if you manage this the install will succeed without data loss. Otherwise install will be rejected. (You still have the option to set allowBackup directly on rooted phone, but this may be out of scope because with root you can backup app directly) apparently there is no way to override AndroidManifest.xml during runtime
Once you have installed the modified apk you can make a backup of your app from source phone, and restore it to destination phone without root.
Install the latest Platform Tools and run from cmd.exe as Administrator:
adb.exe backup "-f C:\example.ab -apk -obb com.example.package"

edit:

be aware you have compiled a different app that can't be updated via PlayStore anymore

starting with api level 30 modified apk is no longer required as the flag seems ignored
xda-developers.com


So if Draw Over Other Apps is a bad thing, why are so many people wanting to enable the process? I'm trying to keep my storage down because the apps I move to my SD card won't stay there, so whether it has any bearing on storage or not, I disabled it wherever I could. If I notice that an app doesn't look right shouldn't I just enable it for that app instead of having it on all my apps? And what about Background Data? I haven't googled that yet but sounds kind of the same.

There's a few issues going on here.

Permissions and storage use

The "Draw over other apps" permission and "Allow background data" permissions have nothing to do with storage. If you're only changing these settings because you want to reduce storage use, you're doomed to fail.

What is "Draw over other apps" for?

This permission allows an app to draw an overlay on the screen, through which you can see whichever app you're trying to use. There are two main reasons an app might want this.

One is for screen dimmer apps like Twilight. To change the colours of the whole screen, they draw an overlay across the whole screen, all of the time, in front of the app you're using.

The second reason is for a "chat bubbles" feature, where an app can display a floating button or picture that pops out into a bigger window you can interact with. It's possible to do some "chat bubbles" features without this permission, but that limits what the app can do.

So what's the problem?

When an app is drawing over other apps, it's not just displaying stuff: it's also receiving your input events (touch and keyboard). This is how the chat-bubbles-type feature can tell when you've clicked on it. Normally, the overlay app will just pass all the touch events through to the app underneath, but this means it can monitor everything you can do and even fake touch events. The overlay app is literally in between you and the app you're trying to use, controlling all your interaction with it.

This makes the overlay quite powerful. An overlay app can see all the passwords you type, and it can click "accept" buttons for you. To protect this, Android has a feature for developers to mark some controls as sensitive. Controls marked in this way can't be touched or used by an overlay.

One of the sensitive controls is the "Allow" button in the permission dialog. This stops the overlay app from silently giving itself more permissions by just bringing up the dialog and clicking "allow" for you. Another one is the "Install" button in the package installer. Making this sensitive stops the overlay app from silently downloading and installing more apps. Third-party apps with buttons that spend money (e.g. in-app purchases) or perform sensitive actions on your behalf (banking apps) should also use the same "sensitive" setting.

The downside of this protection is that you can't grant permissions to an app, or install a new app, or any other action like this, while you're using a screen overlay. It looks like you're clicking on the "Allow" button, but you're only clicking on the overlay, and the overlay isn't allowed to click on the "Allow" button for you. To do this, you need to turn off the overlay app (or this permission).

What about background data?

That just lets apps use the internet while they're in the background (that is, while they're not shown on the screen). Normally, this should be on. For example, an email app might sync your email folders while it's in the background, so that when you start the app it already shows the right information without making you wait. A music app might download your new album in the background so it's ready to listen as soon as you start it, even if you don't have an internet connection when you want to listen.

Most apps should have settings inside the app to let you control this. They might let you control what or how much to download, and choose whether to download over Wi-Fi or mobile data. For those apps, you don't need to change the "Background data" setting, because the settings inside the app are more specific.

But some apps are written or designed badly. They might download too much stuff, without giving you any control inside the app. If you have limited data on your cellphone plan, or if you have to pay per megabyte of data, bad apps like this might cost you money. Even if you don't, they might be using your battery unnecessarily.

So you don't have to uninstall these apps completely, you can turn off the "Allow background data" setting. While the app is shown on the screen, it'll work as normal. But as soon as you switch away from that app or turn the screen off, Android will pretend that the internet connection stopped. The app won't be able to use the internet while it's in the background. (Play Store can still download new updates for the app, though.)


How to lock the screen to remain vertical/portrait? When screen rotate lock is off, the screen on my tablet has four possible orientations: A, B, C, and D, as illustrated below:

I know that it is possible to lock the screen to one orientation -- A or B or C or D -- by deselecting the screen rotation icon in the Notifications pulldown:

But I want to lock the screen so that it is always in either the A or the C orientation (vertical/portrait), and never in the B or D orientation (horizontal/landscape).  In other words, I want the screen to always be oriented vertically, but still respecting the particular vertical orientation (gravity).

Is this possible?

You might wonder why I want to do this -- I am physically disabled, and it would (really help me out if this were somehow possible.  I'm running Android 7.1.1 on a Samsung Galaxy Tab A (2017).)

It looks like the app called "Ultimate Rotation Control" will do what you are asking. Here's the link:
Ultimate Rotation Control


Why is the FrameBuffer missing on some Android devices? I'm curious about the display device on Android. I know that on Linux, device devices are represented as /dev/fbX, which "fb" stands for FrameBuffer. I also heard that Android uses FrameBuffer as well

in Android it’s /dev/graphics/fbX, usually /dev/graphics/fb0
Kaustav - Introduction to the Android framebuffer

and

Android relies on the standard frame buffer device (/dev/fb0 or /dev/graphics/fb0) and driver as described in the linux/fb.h kernel header file.
Display Drivers | Android Open Source

However, on my device, which is OnePlus 7 Pro running Lineage OS, I could not find anything related to that. I even cannot find any device nodes called *fb* under /dev. However, I heard that someone has some devices with fb, and their other devices don't.
I'm just curious, why? Where is the display device on Android?

I had a lot of similar questions until I asked them here. The essence of the infos you get over this post is these:

No android app handles directly /dev/fb0, does it exist or not. Instead, they are communicating with the system process named "Surface Flinger", which is the analogy of the X server on the Linuxes.
This communication happens with Binder, which is an android-specific localhost-only RPC protocol similar to the unix pipes.
Not even the Surface Flinger can see the /dev/fb0 directly. Instead, it talks to the HAL (hardware abstraction layer). Until Android 8, the HAL was a set of shared libraries in /lib/hw. Since Android8, also the HAL is a set of system services talking over binder with the Surface Flinger (although legacy shared lib HALs are still possible).
Direct display access happens in the HAL library (service) responsible for that.

HAL libs (services) are developed by the phone vendor. Ha can develop a /dev/fb0 driver and use a hal capable to handle it, but he can also develop any custom method. In the second case, you won't have a /dev/fb0 in the kernel.

Furthermore, and it is already a linux-specific thing: /dev does not need to have all the device files existing on your system. Commonly it is so, but it is not a requirement. (On most Linux distros, the software named udev automatizes this task, but Android does not use it.) /dev has device files, on a Linux you can see that they start by a c (character device file) or b (block device file) in the ls -l output, and also on Android:
crw-rw---- 1 root video 29, 0   Dec 10 09:08 /dev/fb0
brw-rw---- 1 root disk   8, 0   Dec 11 07:21 /dev/sda
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  1302248 Apr 18  2019 /bin/bash

/dev/fb0 is a character device file, /dev/sda is a block device file, while /bin/bash is an ordinary file and not a device.
You can create device files with the mknod tool, but note: it requires root.
It is quite possible that /dev/fb0 is created elsewhere on your system, maybe on a location which is hidden behind same userspace-only mounts or so. It is also possible that fb0 is not created at all, despite that its driver is compiled into the kernel.
We can check, which device files are compiled into the kernel, in the procfs file /proc/devices. It should contain the line
Character devices:
...
29 fb
...

This procfs file is practically always readable also as a user. If it does not exist, then your HAL responsible for the display communicates over some other way with the kernel.
If it exists, then you can create the framebuffer device by a command
mknod /dev/fb0 c 29 0

as root. (Actually you can always create it as root, but if the line above does not exist in /proc/devices, then it won't be usable.)
P.s. in LineageOS, my experiences are far the best by compiling an userdebug image. It did not slow my system at all, but all the rooting, adb things worked in it very correctly.


Nexus 4 / 7 and Wi-Fi incompatibility I have a Nexus 4 which works on most Wi-Fi networks, but not with my D-Link router running DD-WRT.  It connects, but data transfer is sporadic at best, and essentially useless.

Amongst the myriad of advanced settings in DD-WRT, there must be something that can get the Nexus 4 working?

(This question is also valid for the Nexus 7 as some users report similar problems).

Updating dd-wrt to the latest build (15778 - D-Link 615 D2) fixed it for me.


Rooted S7 but cannot get pass FRP I managed to root my Verizon s7 sm-g930v but am unable to disable the frp lock. I was locked out of the phone because of the Google verification. It still starts up in the wizard but I installed a side bar app that pops up giving me access to everything on the phone. But I cannot go pass the Google verification in the set up wizard. I tried adding a new user, goes straight to the Google verification page. I tried adding new users then factory resetting...doesn't work. I tried using rootjunkys quick shortcut maker, won't give me the option to change the user login information. Frp is locking this option. I thought maybe there would be some sort of option through adb commands but I'm a newbie at this and not sure how to solve this problem.  So, to clarify...I Rooted my S7 but cannot get passed the FRP/Google verification Lock. Any guidance would help a lot. Thanks.

Here is a list of steps I wrote for the same device, just the Edge so SM-G935V instead of the SM-G930V, although the process will work exactly the same. If you'd prefer to see an example then here's a link to my video that follows the steps https://youtu.be/UU-nEuCbyfk.

With the phone powered on, hold both volume keys, the home button and then the power button all at the same time until the device shuts off. The very moment it turns off let go of all the buttons and you will boot into maintenance boot mode.
Use the volume buttons to scroll down to enable usb debugging.
Download and extract the files from the following link https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3i3FRXRZ9VtbEJlSThqS3A4cFk/view and put them somewhere on your desktop.
Open the extracted folder and then open a command prompt or terminal from inside the folder.
Connect the phone to a computer with ADB installed and type the following commands, one at a time, followed by enter:

adb push gam6.apk /sdcard/Download

adb push gam7.apk /sdcard/Download

adb push dcow /data/local/tmp

adb shell

cd /data/local/tmp

touch file

echo FFFFFFFF >> file

chmod 777 *

./dcow /sdcard/Download/gam6.apk /system/priv-app/GoogleLoginService/GoogleLoginService.apk

./dcow file /system/priv-app/GoogleLoginService/oat/arm64/GoogleLoginService.odex

content insert --uri content://settings/secure --bind name:s:user_setup_complete --bind value:s:1

Return to the phone and you will find that the last command you have typed has enabled the functionality of the "Edge" feature. Use this to create 2 shortcuts on the sidebar, one for Settings, and the other for Setup Wizard.
Open Settings and connect to WiFi.
Scroll down from the main screen of Settings and choose Storage > Explore > Downloads and install gam6.apk.
Install Rootjunky's FRP-Bypass.apk and then open the app. Choose the 3 dots in the top right and select Web Sign-In.
Sign in with a Google Account that you own.
When finished you may see an error, don't worry this is nothing to worry about. Just swipe your finger in from the "Edge" to display the shortcuts you created earlier and this time choose Setup Wizard.
Now just proceed through Setup Wizard and you will be able to successfully complete it. At this point I recommend going to Settings and then enable OEM Unlock under Developer Settings (this turns off any trace of FRP).
From here also I recommend to factory reset the device via the Backup & Reset method located inside the Settings menu. When your device finishes you will have unlocked it and are free to do as you please.


SMS on HTC Desire is not working My HTC desire has problems with the texting (sms). Sometimes it doesn't show the thread of my text messages or if it does and I try to click the person to see what they've texted, its a white screen and doesn't do anything. Then sometimes it does go to its original screen and when I click SEND to send a text, it says please wait for a very long time until I click the home button and it goes back to a white screen and its only the texting that is messed up.

Does anyone know how to fix these issues?

Both the default Android messaging app and the HTC Sense app are buggy, as far as I've heard.  Until they get their act together, I recommend trying another SMS app and seeing if it's any better.  Handcent SMS would be a good choice.


How do I get dictionary suggestions while typing? Possible Duplicate:
  How to enable real text prediction for android / stock keyboard on LG optimus one?

I'm using android version 2.2.2 and the default keyboard (at least it appears as 'Android keyboard' in the configuration menu). I have suggestions enabled, but I only get autocomplete suggestions for my contacts, I don't get suggestions for common words. It doesn't really matter which language I choose for the input (portuguese or english).

The device is a LG Optimus One (P500h), and it came with another keyboard installed (called 'LG keyboard'). If I choose this keyboard as the input method, I get the suggestions. The problem is that this keyboard is really bad, and I like the default one.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

if you're willing to switch keyboards, you have several incredible options.

SwiftKey has (by far) the best word prediction so far, and tracks how much it improves your typing speed, which is around 30% for most people.
FlexT9 has some great features (including traceType, like Swype), and pretty good word prediction, but not quite up to par with SwiftKey.
TouchPal is supposed to be the next revolution in keyboards. It combines the first two strategies (word prediction and traceType) for incredibly fast input. As of now, it does not support traceType, only word prediction. But look for the update soon ;)

These are my favorites, the first two are paid and the last is free, but you might be able to find free or trial versions of the other two. Let us know if there's anything else we can clear up for you!


What are the consequences of installing CWM? I installed CWM sometime back and switched back to a stock ROM. When I installed CWM I lost my userdata, by which I mean the phone started as it would for the first time after opening the box. I used fastboot oem unlock to unlock the bootloader so I could install CWM.

I want to root my phone, but I don't want to lose all my userdata this time. Is CWM is a must for rooting?

fastboot oem unlock always deletes userdata for security reasons, so it must be used only once (until you lock again manually).
CWM is needed if you want to flash a root package (you can't push it via fastboot), but that is not usually the only way to root a device.  The CWM install needs only the fastboot flash recovery recovery_name command, which does not affect user data.


Why won't Kies let me tried to update to Froyo again after a failed upgrade attempt? Yesterday I connected my i9000 to Kies which showed a message about the Froyo upgrade. I clicked on Firmware Upgrade, it started with an progress bar, and when it got to 100% it tried to reconnect to the phone and it again showed "Firmware available. Want to upgrade?" I clicked on upgrade again but it did not show any progress bar, just but tried to reconnect and then displayed the update message again.

Now whenever I connect the phone to Kies the "Firmware Update" link is disabled.  I thought that the phone might have been successfully updated despite everything in About it still shows 2.1 update 1.

How can I fix this and update my Galaxy S to 2.2?

Make sure you have the official drivers installed from Samsung.com, then reboot your device and PC and try again.  You can also try putting it into download mode before using Kies:

Remove the battery
Hold VolumeDown plus the Home key plus Power.  While holding,

Reinsert the battery.
Release the power button, still holding the others, about 1 second after the white "GT-I9000" text appears.
After a few seconds a yellow triangle with an android in it should appear, this is Download Mode.  If it doesn't, try this again while holding Power the whole time.


Problem with connection to home Wi-Fi - how to debug? My Android device (GT-S5570 running 2.2.1) is having connection problems with my home Wi-Fi network (ZyXEL adsl P-660HW-D1). The device connects ok, gets an IP address, and sees all other computers on the network (using Overlook Fing). I have good signal strength, and there are no conflicting Wi-Fi networks around.

However, ping results are rather mixed. Depending on the attempt results come back with packet loss of anything from 100% to 0%, usually one or the other, but something around 20% or 60% happens quite often too. This happens with all the devices on network, including the gateway. Other devices can ping each other just fine, independent of connection type (Wi-Fi or Ethernet wire).

There are also some other wlan problems with one (but only one!) of the computers: 1) It has some random touble connecting to the wlan (authentication failure), but when it gets a connection it stays connected without connection issues. 2) Sometimes ping results show some random packets with weirdly long latency, and occasional lost packet (<2% if even that). This would point to trouble with the Wi-Fi settings. However, the packet loss doesn't appear parallel: The Android can get packet loss while the computer at the same time reports perfect ping.

The Android device always gets a connection, and stays connected to the Wi-Fi even when it's getting 100% packet loss. The Android device also works perfect in any other Wi-Fi I've tried. Also, any visiting computer I've tried connecting to my home Wi-Fi has had no trouble.

The router has the original (which is also the latest) firmware, and I haven't meddled with the settings it came with - I woudn't know which settings to meddle with.

How do I debug this further? What Wi-Fi settings could be causing this?

(This also seems oddly similar to the trouble described in this question.)

(Cross-posted to Super User since while the main problem is with the Android device, the problem itself appears wider.)

My Android tablet also stopped connecting to my home wireless and reports connection out of range even when sitting in the same room as my access point (AP). I've looked everywhere for a solution doing everything from restarting my AP and tablet, changing the PW and even security mode (WEP, WPK, etc) with no success. My AP is an old router set to AP mode and uses a single broadcast channel. I went in and reset the channle from 13 to 11 and VOILA! Instant connection with my tablet.


Mounting a remote folder as local folder I have spent hours researching this and unable to come up with a solution, if anyone knows of one please let me know. I am looking for a way to mount a remote folder on a server (using either WebDAV, FTP, etc) on my Android device as a local folder so that all apps can have access to it and save and read from it as if it were just any other folder on the phone or SD card. Note that I am not looking for a way to "sync" a folder on my phone with a folder on my server, everything in this folder should be stored on the server only and read as if it were local.

On a rooted phone you have several options -- via 3rd party app, directly through a unix mount command, see How to mount SMB/CIFS Network Shares on android device?

If your phone is not rooted, I do not know how to do that, maybe there can be some app on a play store that is able to mount a network share (NFS, SMB, FTP, ...) via normal privileges (it is definetly possible under unix).

If you want to share just music and/or video you can use DLNA (your phone does not have to be rooted for this to work) -- install a DLNA server on your PC/router and than something like XBMC for Android or BubbleUPnp on your android device.


Installing Android 4.1 or higher on Sony Tipo with permanently locked bootloader My operator (Telecom HU) has disabled unlocking the bootloader of my Sony Tipo. I would like to get Android 4.1 or higher on my device, but so far this seems impossible. I successfully installed ParadoxRom, but I found out that it is just a re-skin of the same android version I had before. My choice would be installing Cyanogenmod 10, but every tutorial I've seen so far relies on unlocking the bootloader, and as I found out from the service menu, this is impossible in my case.

If this doesn't prevent me from upgrading to 4.1 or higher, I would like to know what rom(s) can I use that are actually a newer operating system rather than a heavily edited ICS.

Have you tried FlashTool?

This is a particular software suite for flashing ROMs on Sony handsets, however, I am not 100% confident if it supports the Tipo.

The full forum thread that discusses about this tool can be found at XDA so it might be worth a try to read the thread from beginning to end, to see if others have used it successfully on the Tipo.

If no luck, try posting a question there on that XDA thread, identical to the above question that is asked and wait for a while for someone to answer - you do need to be patient, as people are answering in their own personal free time.

Be warned though, using this tool, you could lose data, as a result of unlocking the boot-loader, there is a FTF (Flash Tool Firmware) file available for listed and detected devices, which can circumvent this and also can re-instate the boot-loader lock mechanism.


How to connect Superpad II P041 to pc I've a superpad II P041 and I would like to connect it to my pc. I would like to use Logcat for check exception thrown by my application.

The problem is that when I connect it with the USB cable, the pc doesn't recognise the tablet. I've already enabled the Debug USB.

What can I try to let the pc to communicate with the tablet? Maybe I need the drivers?

Thanks for your help.

Yes, try the drivers.  This post looks like it contains a link to a package with drivers.  Try installing the drivers from the Android SDK if the above doesn't work and you can't find anything more official.


Force system to always ask for wifi password I use my institutional credentials to connect to my work wifi network (using 802.1x EAP), and I don't want my password stored on my phone (i.e. I want to retype my password every time I connect). What's the best way to do this? A Google Pixel running stock 7.1, if that matters.

If you are rooted you could just run the command chmod 0440 /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf. Before you do it you should first delete the WiFi network. Also make sure that you have all other WiFi networks saved because after you ran this command you won't save any other network again until you chmodded the file to r+w again.


Creating copy of phone (apps, settings etc.) I have two rooted Huawei P9 Plus phones running Android 7. Now I would like to copy the apps, the settings of the apps, the system settings etc. from one phone to the other phone so that both phones are exactly the same.

How can this be easily done? I have root, so I could also use an app requiring root.

It can be done using many ways,

if you use the same Google account on both devices then just a simple cloud restore from the initial setup screen would setup everything just the same. (when I was switching roms frequently which are all based upon lineage, or same feature sets, I noticed even personal settings appeared to be restored along with all apps, messages and other data) So I think It'd be the easiest.
Mentioning root You could also use apps like titanium backup etc (btw I faced lot of after restore stuff like setting up permissions for each app and its just for the apps) also do note that new apps for doing the same are also available.
Assuming you are rooted on both of your devices with a working twrp recovery(as with most cases) and every config of both phones being the same then you can do a nandroid backup (backup from twrp menu) to your sd card transfer the backup folder to your other phone and then restore it there.
ps.
(tl;dr I don't recommend this to you by any means but It can work taking your case.)
I haven't tried it on two phones and would have a high chance of breaking your phone if things doesn't match well (nandroid backups can break even on cases where the new roms doesn't match older ones)


Is kernel samepage merging safe? In the performance section of android 4.4.4 Oneplus one i saw kernel samepage merging . i want to know is it safe ? as when i entered the performance section it gave warning that these setting are experimental .

I used samepage merging a long time ago until I just recently updated my device and back then it worked perfectly. There were no problems regarding speed, errors (no graphical artifacts, inaccuracies, bricks etc.) or safety.

Samepage merging merges two identical portions of data in RAM to the same memory pointer which then saves the extra amount of memory needed to store additional images, sprites, binary files etc. for instance.  It's correct that these features are being tested before they get released/activated in the default source code.

From the KVM site we read about KSM (kernel samepage merging):

  KSM is a memory-saving de-duplication feature, that merges anonymous (private) pages (not pagecache ones). Although it started this way, KSM is currently not suitable only for Virtual Machine use, but rather, it can be useful to any application which generates many instances of the same data


How/where to query phone spec from phone OS and build details I have data that looks like this:

Linux; U; Android 5.0.1; SAMSUNG-SM-N910A Build/LRX22C
Linux; U; Android 4.3; SAMSUNG-SM-G900A Build/JSS15J
Linux; Android 6.0.1; SM-G900P Build/LRX22C

and I would like to attach characteristics to these devices, to do an equity study of student data. I can kind of know how old the phone is based on the OS used, but I would like to know more (how do I judge that a phone is "good" to help a student study). Is there an open data base that can be queried automatically? What other knowledge can I get from these data?

Fully endorse comments of Death Mask Salesman

  Is there an open data base that can be queried automatically?

One reliable database I am aware of is from Google itself

PDF at this link may help you List of all devices supported by Google Play

There is also .csv available

Devices are listed in the following format - Marketing Name (Build.os.DEVICE/Build.os.MODEL)

To get device specs , there are many sites - PDAdb is pretty good


People can't hear me on my Samsung Galaxy S3 When I send or receive a call, the person on the other side can't hear me.

Sometimes, the microphone goes mute during the call. But when I check if the phone is on mute, but it isn't. It happens randomly.

The microphone seems to be OK, and I think this is probably a software problem. Would upgrading the OS (from ICS to JB) fix this?

I  was a having the same problem, look next to the charging port (that would be to your right) there a tiny hole CLEAN IT OUT it is blocked. I used a sewing needle to clean it out. After that people on the other side could hear me again. That hole used for talking.


How can i turn off the message received tick I have a sony ericsoon xperia x10 mini.  when I send a text message, a tick appears to let tme know it has been received by the recipient.  This costs me money, how do I turn this off?  I have looked through the menu and cannot seem to find the answer.

Message App--> Setting -->Turn off  Delivery Report


Get rid of "welcome to your new inbox" in gmail The message and graphics for "welcome to your new inbox" has been in my gmail app since priority inbox showed up,  and I can't get rid of it.

What to do?

I am on Lollipop, but the problem was also there before I upgraded both OS and the GMail app.

Clear the Gmail app's data & cache in Settings > Applications.

It achieves your desired result - getting rid of that message permanently after a single swipe. I can't tell you why, only that I had the same problem, found the solution above online and that it worked for me - so I came to report back on a result that had no solution posted.