Facing Xperia U problems after updated to ICS I had updated my Xperia U to 4.0, after updating my phone am unable  to use otg... one app was showing that drive unavailable.
Can't use call recording softwares it will record only my voice without opponents.
Getting too slow while using Chrome and few social working apps even camera.
How to downgrade to 2.3, & can we use pattern lock,music player, data softwares of 4.0 in 2.3?

If your mobile is slow try to get a task killer from play store. It will kill apps that are open in your background and are not needed. (addendum not needed! - edit)

And to answer your last question I recently had to downgrade my Xperia U from 4.0.4 to 2.3.7. It's actually easier then it sounds, the process is the same when upgrading, you just have to download a few things ;D

Remember: Flashing will delete everything on your phone so make sure you backup your mobile.

Note
Back up your phone via Sony's PC Companion Suite before proceeding

Follow the steps:

Get the following:

Flashtool, found on github
Your Xperia Firmware
Xperia U Firmware 2.3.7: found on 4shared site
(put this one in a place that is "clean" best option desktop)

Install flashtool
go to your Phone's Settings > Developer options/USB debugging (and check that option)
Connect your phone to the PC (USB)

Before you continue
Go to the folder where you installed Flashtool, open Flashtool's drivers folder and run the installer. (Flashtools\Drivers)
In that installer select your phone and click next.
WARNING:
Xperia U is next to Xperia P it is not hard to find but you can easily miss it.
After installing proceed to step 5.
Open Flashtools (click yes if anything pops up, it could take a few second sto open)
Click the thunder-like symbol
Select Flashmode and click Ok. (NOT FLASHBOOT MODE!)
Click the (...) in front of the first line of the windows that will pop up
Select the place where you saved file from the above step II on. (This could be a bit tricky if you can't find the place on that Explorer copy/paste the file to the desktop to make it easier. The file won't appear in the window - don't worry it will detect it and load it automatically.)
Make sure everything on the wipe area is checked and that on the exclude area nothing is checked. Misc should be checked too (this is to prevent errors during the downgrade)
Follow the on-screen instructions. It will ask you to press a back button, on the Xperia U it's the VOLUME DOWN button. For some reason you have to unplug the cable from the PC too. After you turn off the mobile plug back in the USB to the PC and then press and hold the VOLUME DOWN key on your phone (keep it pressed and when you plug the USB back in the led's will light up green.) You can stop pressing the button when the process starts on Flashtool's window.
Wait until it's over, you can leave it. It should only take a few seconds
Your mobile will reboot when it's over.

Don't panic if you can't understand what it says
The file your installing is from T-Mobile's HU region. After it starts and you enter your SIM pin, it will take you again through the configuration.
You will have some apps on your mobile from T-Mobile, just uninstall them if you want.

Remember: Flashing will delete everything on your phone so make sure you backup your mobile.

Hope I helped!


HTC desire 816 insufficient space error I have an htc desire 816 that I just recently bought and it was fine at first but it stared giving me the error message that there was "insufficient space on the device" when I tried to download any app. I went and bought myself an SD card but even with the SD card in it, the phone is still giving me this error message. Any ideas why or how to fix it?

It looks like Android 4.4 does not support installing apps to SD Card.
Your best bet is to root your phone, then install an app that will enable you write to the SD Card.
Those steps will get you as far as writing to the SD Card. I don't have a device that I can test this on, but these steps look like they might work for having apps install to the SD card by default. Let me know if you have any luck!


Would a Class 10 MicroSDHC card ever be worth it on a Smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S 2)? Possible Duplicate:
  Is a Class 10 MicroSD overkill or is a Class 6 adequate?

first of all I am aware that there are similar questions, I've read them but they don't totally apply here.
I own a powerful Samsung Galaxy S 2 and I am getting a 32gb MicroSDHC card, however, I'd like to know if class 10 cars are totally useless compared to class 6, or do they ever get useful?

My phone is able to take 8megapixel photos and 1080p videos, is a class 6 way enough or a class 10 would be more appropriate?

I am asking this because that market evolves constantly and the other questions I saw were asking about class 2, 4, etc. As of now, Class 10 cars aren't really expensive so I wouldn't mind paying for it, however if I can't profit from its enhanced performance at all (compared to a sufficient ? Class 6), I will save these extra bucks.

No need for such high class card. This card is used mainly for photography where speed and amount of data to be stored does count. Classic sample, sport photography where you are not taking just single shot, but whole burst of 10-20 shots and later on analyse which is best


VZW Galaxy Nexus exhibiting bizarre charging behavior Lately I've noticed some weird behavior with my Galaxy Nexus. I am rooted, but running stock ICS.

Here is what it's doing wrong:

Phone sometimes will not charge, I must turn it off for it to start charging
Taking phone off the charger doesn't remove the lightning bolt [charging icon] from the notification bar.
Phone begins alerting constantly at 14% battery.
Battery life seems shorter

Is this likely to be an app doing this? I don't want to wipe my phone if possible, so is there a way to track down the cause?

According to the official bug report here, starting at about post 26, it seems the sentiment is that this is a hardware issue.

I have contacted Verizon and they are shipping me a replacement. I will update the question again if this does not permanently resolve the issue.

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=23789&q=label%3APriority-Medium&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20Stars


"My Calendar" and "PC Sync" -- How to Delete? These two (empty) calendars appear in the list of calendars inside the stock calendar app (at least on HTC Sense setups). I'm not entirely sure what they are but they are both unused and cluttering things up. I know I can hide them but is there anyway to just make them gone? When I select Remove Calendars, they don't show up in the list.

Why would anyone want to sync a calendar to a PC anyway? That's the big advantage to a cloud calendar like Google's...

More Information:
I have installed HTC's desktop Sync app (not for syncing, for development related things).

You can't delete them but you can uncheck them so no information from them shows in the calendar.

Many folks are still using Outlook for calendaring and need the ability to sync with the desktop.


Does anyone have experience wireshark running on Samsung Galaxy Tab? (Verizon) I need to get detailed request data times on Samsung Galaxy Tab on Verison network.  Does anyone know what is invovled in getting Shark to run on this device?

I run tcpdump command on my rooted Galaxy tab and capture the output onto SD card. When I have captured enough, I pull the captured file from phone onto a Linux box using adb pull  and view the output using Wireshark.


Is it possible to zoom in on any text in an app in realtime? I have an app that has tiny tiny writing that I need to read and I can't take a hundred screenshots to zoom in to read each one and the developer has yet to fix it but I was wondering if there was a way to have a magnifying thingy on top of this app and move it around the screen to enlarge whatever I can't read in realtime. Any tips?  And, the text is not able to be copied or pasted etc.

OS: 4.1
Phone: S3

If your Android version is 4.1 (Jelly Bean) or greater, you can find magnification gestures under your system settings.

Go to Settings
Accessibility
Magnification Gestures

Info:

Magnification Gestures
Usage


I flashed Samsung Galaxy S and now it won't start beyond logo screen I was trying to install Cyanogenmod and after the step in which I went into download mode and moved mod to SD card and do "hermidal zimage" which opened up Hermidal in which everything was successful; no errors and stuff.

Now about Zimage to be renamed recovery.img...that step I didn't do. Because that made no sense; first in the guide it said rename it if you are a Windows user but later on it says to use a file named that, so I had to rename it to the original. But I don't think this is the problem.

I can't get into recovery mode, or start it normally. What I can do is go in download mode.

Whenever I start it, it just shows a big "S" and  the Samsung logo and stays stuck at that boot screen.

It keeps flashing and then just stops flashing but after that the boot logo stays there.

If, as you say, you can get into download mode (Odin), then you can use the Odin desktop app to re-flash the stock firmware. I encountered the same symptoms multiple times for different reasons, and re-flashing the stock firmware fixed it.
The process is a bit tedious but not too complicated:

Download and install the Odin desktop app.

Obtain the firmware files. You can get them from samfirmware.com. For most Galaxy S4 models you can find them through GalaxyS4Root.com, which I find quicker. (You don't need an account to download, you just need to solve the advertising Captcha at the bottom.)

Boot your device to Odin mode by holding the volume down button, menu button, and power button. Add the power button to the combination last, and hold for a few seconds, until you see the warning that says A custom OS can cause critical problems..., then press the volume up button, which should bring up a screen that says Downloading...Do not turn off target!:

Connect the device to the computer with a USB cable. The Odin app on the computer should print the message Added!! in the message area in the lower left corner.

Click the PDA button, and browse to the firmware file with an .md5 extension (you may need to unzip the file you downloaded in step 2). Odin will go through a verification process. If you get an error message about a version mismatch, that means your .md5 file is for the wrong build number. The filename should include the build number (e.g. I545VRUNFNC5). If you don't know the build number—and obviously can't find out because you can't boot the device—just try all the firmware files available for your model.

Click Start. On the device, you should see some messages in red text (START followed by some numbers in brackets), and a blue progress bar. Wait for the process to complete and restart the device.

Be very careful to make sure the process is not interrupted!. If that happens, you can brick the phone (and I mean truly brick it; it's only soft-bricked at this point). Use a computer that's plugged into a power source, make sure your USB connection is not loose, and walk away from the general area until it's finished. Maybe leave the house and take a drive somewhere to make sure the vibrations of your footsteps don't disturb the connection. If that sounds exaggerated, that may be because I'm going through the pain of an interrupted firmware flash as I type this. ;)


Device with fake IMEI number that doesn't belong to me is shown under my Google Dashboard I have sync my google account on my samsung galaxy note 2 but recently i have lost it.

After few days when i was checking google dash board to recover my contacts, i saw 2 devices listed under my Android.

One device GT-N7100 is my own device whereas N7000 with fake imei (231961768368404) does not belong to me.

How is it possible.

I have given my phone for tracking by the police but now i am confused whether my handset imei is changed or it is showing someone else device under my google account.

A very possible reason is probably you have used your Google Account in another mobile also for downloading apps from Google Play or for accessing Gmail or whatever. Don't panic about such things if you've logged out from that devices.


Sd card not recognise in any pc ( but recognised in mobiles) My 32 gb memory card is readable in any mobile but it is not at all detecting in any pc or laptop. I can view, delete, add anything from any mobiles but when I tried to insert the same sd card to different laptops even using different card reader then also it not at all detecting. How to fix this?

According to you description of the situation, either of the two thing could have happened:

Your SDcard is formatted in a way that windows (assuming you use that) doesn't recognise. Ext4 is really common amongst Linux device (including android) but is not recognised by windows. If you can connect to the SDcard using a mobile in MTP mode, I recommend you do that and then format the card to FAT32 for compatibility with windows. Alternatively, you could use an Linux Live partition to use the card and format it.
Your readers might be broke (unlikely to happen on multiple devices suddenly in such short interval but a possibility). Try using a different card to confirm. This will also be signified by drive probably not appearing in Disk Management.

  To format a drive in windows:

  Press Win Key + x and then Disk Management on windows 8 and above. In Earlier windows, right click computer > Manage and then select
  disk management in the left panel.
  Right-click on the SDcard partition to format and click on Format.
  Select the file system as FAT32. Click OK to format the drive.


Wi-Fi Connection Issues Very recently the Wi-Fi Connection on my Verizon Galaxy S4 has decided to turn itself off at will. This issue is device specific as I have other devices that are not experiencing this problem. The device is Rooted. I have tried: setting a static Ip, resetting router, switching airplane mode on off, changing channels. None have worked. Next is a factory reset, which I do not want to do. So in summary, does anybody have any more tricks I can try to solve this?

Possibly there could be couple of reasons for this sought of behavior from your device..

Check if it happens only when any battery power saver app is switch on, as most of the inbuilt/third party battery saver apps have access to your device's WiFi functionality and they switch it off whenever there's a event triggering the app's pre-assigned/pre-programmed parameter telling the app about high usage of battery by device Wi-Fi transmission/reception.
Another Scenario which might make this happen is the low WiFi signal. Mostly all higher versions of Android OS have this inbuilt functionality to turn off the WiFi whenever available signals falls to a certain level. Some device manufacturers provide advanced setting under WiFi setting to enable this control of OS, while some keep this function as preassigned in OS disabling user. Look for WiFi Sleep Policy in your device settings and update the settings as per your requirement. You can also refer this tutorial to learn more about adjusting the Samsung Galaxy S-4 WiFi sleep policy settings.

Hope adjusting your device WiFi policy will will resolve your problem, incase if ever after the adjustment of WiFi settings, you still face any issues do revert back with exact situation, I'll try to look deeper into your case.


How to Stop apps from waking other apps? I've been running xposed on my galaxy note 2 with 4.1.1. I have greenify enabled as well as android tuner with perms blocked.  Also,  I have everything scrambled with xprivacy. I have facebbok selected for hibernation.  Everytime I open Plume, I noticed that facebook app comes out of hibernation.  I had this same problem with "Keep" months ago,  but was able to cut the directory path through greenify. I don't see that option anymore.  I have gone through and set everything I can think of to stop this,  yet facebook still wakes when I launch Plume. Also  whenever  I use  SwiftKey (which is everytime I enter text!) it also wakes Facebook.

This is in essence working against the Google cogs' planned L app integration/cross-communication. Integration is usually good/well received.

My first guess is that you have swiftkey set to sign in with facebook and possibly have plume (twitter) linked with facebook. Try to revoke these permissions first to see if it fixes the problem.

One thing that may help you is to get rid of the android facebook account and instead either rely on using the browsers mobile facebook page, or sign in every time. I'm not sure how much this path would muck up facebooks usability.

Another option is to set up automated facebook freezing: How can I automatically freeze and thaw an app on demand?

Freezing is one step beyond hibernation and no app link or background process can thaw without deliberate action.


How to downgrade Samsung Galaxy Mini S5570 from 2.3.6 to 2.2.2? I need help with downgrading my Samsung Galaxy Mini (S5570) from 2.3.6 to 2.2.2.

You can search and download "Samsung S5770 Android 2.2.2 firmware" in google or forum.xda-developer.com in Samsung S5770 section, you can get official ROM and Custom ROM there, then flash it via ODIN (if official) or via custom recovery if Custom ROM


How does Android Market WebStore's Silent Install work? I have been thinking a lot about this, and came to a point that since the silent install requires the user to give his google id, it might fix a notification against that google id, to let the device associated with that id know that an application installation has to be done, and it has to start download of a particular app from the market. So that, when the device syncs the google id, it knows that it has to do some installation.

Since the device keeps polling the server for sync quite frequently, thus it knows about the installation almost instantly. In other words, the delays are negligible.

On the other note, I also thought that C2DM might have been used to do this, but since my personal device uses 2.1 and C2DM is available to devices having 2.2+, the possibility of use of C2DM is quite less.

Can anyone explain how it is being done?
Am I correct with my thoughts?

Update

I disabled Syncs in my phone and tried to install using Silent Install, and nothing happened. this way, I am coming closer to realise that my first opinion is correct.

On the other note, I also thought that
  C2DM might have been used to do this,
  but since my personal device uses 2.1
  and C2DM is available to devices
  having 2.2+, the possibility of use of
  C2DM is quite less.

It is actually quite plausible for 2.1 Market to use C2DM. GTalk, Gmail, and many other Google apps have always used C2DM internally (even before it's named C2DM). In 2.1, C2DM exist as GTalk Service. In 2.2, Google opened the C2DM API for external developers since they realized that 1) most app developers does not have the resources to create a reliable Push notification service, 2) a unified Push service would save battery, 3) Reliable instant Push service is a good selling point for Android.


BT connectivity(connection / unpair) is not working properly I am working on Toradex apalis imx6q with Android Nougat. When we try remove the paired device(bu clicking unpair), unpair was done properly. But, still music playing on bluetooth headsets.

Steps::

1.Go BT and connect your phone.

2.start play music.

3.go to BT(headset/phone) and unpair the device.

Observation::

still song/error is playing in the bluetooth headset.

Regards,
VinothS

This is the problem in the bluetooth stack side. I identified and resolved this problem. The solutions of this problem is needs to disconnect after unpair the headset.


Repeating email notifications Can email notification sounds be repeated on an HTC Thunderbolt until the message is opened?

There's a APP that allows you to set custom ring tones and notification sounds. To your particular case, this APP allows you to loop endlessly when you receive an SMS.

SMS Sounds Plus paid

SMS Sounds free

On the APP, you can check the loop when you are in the ringtone picker.


Locate nexus 9 serial number I have a defect nexus 9 tablet, which is getting stuck in the initialization animation (Marshmallow). I still have a warranty, but I can't locate the S/N. I stupidly didn't save the original box, and it isn't written on the back of the tablet.
btw, factory reset also didn't help.
Thanks!

Ok, I've finally found how to locate the s/n.
When the tablet is off, press "volume down" + power until the hboot menu appears. Then pick the barcode option, and there you can find the IMEI, S/N and MB codes.


My Sensation is running 2.3.4, why hasn't this updated? I've got a HTC Sensation 3G, and I'm waiting for the Android 4 Update.

I understand this update might not be available for my handset yet, but I checked my Android Version and I'm currently running 2.3.4.

Shouldn't this be 3.x at the moment?

I've checked for updates, but my device can't find any.

Android 3.x is reserved for Tablets, and so would never be running on an actual phone. As for 4.x, it's basically a waiting game. If there have been assurances from HTC that the update will eventually be available for your phone, you'll just have to wait until your phone tells you it's available.  The only way to speed things up would be to monitor the forums and see when others have gotten the same update.  Then you'll have a chance to download it yourself and tell your recovery to install it.  Even then its still a waiting game.


How to retrieve files from Samsung Galaxy S4 stuck at samsung logo after dropping it? I dropped my Galaxy S4 GT-19500 and after i picked it up it was still open but when i tried to phone a friend it just turned off and kept turning on and off, it reaches the Samsung logo then immediately turn off and when i plug it to the pc or the charger it shows the big battery bar but empty with the circle and also flashing on and off like the Samsung logo, the problem is when i try to turn it off it doesn't turn off and when i take the battery and put it again it just go on alone, so i can't enter safe mode or recovery mode and can't connect it to the PC and Dr. Fone, i think it doesn't charge when i leave it too.

So what i need is to get the photos from my phone, i don't care what to do I will do it! Please help me I really need those photos i don't care about the phone XD.

If it's not possible to get the photos with the known ways, Is it possible to take the default SD card of the phone and take the photos from it ?

Thanks

First, odds are good you can salvage your photos.

Provided you did not encrypt your sd card, pull the sd card and take a look at it with a desktop/laptop (you won't be able to pull anything useable off of it this way if you did indeed encrypt it).  The images will be on there if you set up your camera app to save them there.  Otherwise...

Hardware repair on the phone will be required to get the connectors all back and sorted out (it sounds like you managed to short or unplug some bits, and perhaps damaged connectors on the motherboard). If you are feeling mechanical we can walk through looking at it; if not, we can suggest other repair options.


phone won't record or play back video I have a Samsung Vibrant.  Today I tried to use the "HD Camcorder" app that came with the phone.  The live video preview shows up, but when I press the record button it pops up a "Warning" box that says "Recording failed" with an OK button below.  I tap OK and the live camera preview comes back and updates as usual but the record button and other UI elements are gone now -- can't seem to do anything except quit the app.

The Camera app works fine, I just tried it.

I haven't tried to record video in a while, but if I go to "quick view" in the camcorder app it shows me the what looks like the first frame of a video I remember shooting a year or two ago, however if I tap Play it switches to a thing with playback controls and shows a progress dohickey for a second and then tells me "Sorry, this video cannot be played." in a box over a black background.

What are some things I could try at this point?  I tried checking to see if the storage was full, but both the internal storage and the SD card have plenty of free space.  I tried looking to see if I could find some other free video recording app in the Market, to see if that might still work, but no luck there either.  What could be wrong here?

The phone says it's running 2.1-update1, build number ECLAIR.UVKA2.

Powered it off and on again, the camcorder app works again now.  I feel silly for not having thought to try that earlier....


Enable USB debugging for Android at Android Linux command OS: Android JB.

HW Platform 1: sama5d31-ek (ATMEL ARM)

HW Platform 2: TI-Sitara SK

Enable USB debugging for android at android Linux command prompt.

Usually USB debugging for android is enabled through Settings > Developer option > USB debugging.

How can the same thing be achieved on a Headless Android Application? Since there is no user input from the touch screen what is the process to switch on the same feature at Android Linux command prompt.

The following links give some suggestions as to how it can be done but was not able to successfully achieve the objective.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1621602
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13326806/enable-usb-debugging-through-clockworkmod-with-adb
http://cphacker0901.wordpress.com/1900/12/02/manually-update-settings-in-command-line/

HW Platform 1: sama5D31-ek (Atmel ARM) board has two USB/Serial input from android Linux can be accessed. From one USB/Serial port the adb shell can be executed when the USB debugging is enabled. The access provides root privileges.

The other USB/Serial access point pretty much for debugging, and has very limited privileges.

Thanks

You should be able to just type:

setprop persist.service.adb.enable 1

This will enable USB debugging on the device and persist across reboots.


Is it possible to wipe data from ADB without turning on USB debugging? I'm on manjaro Linux. A friend of mine broke the screen of his note 3, it's working, the screen stays black though.

He wants to get all his data from it and format it, wipe everything, he's not going to fix it.

The back up part is easy, I plug it into my computer and take everything. But is it possible to format it without turning on the USB debugging? I bet the USB debugging on his phone is turned off and I can't turn it on without being able to see anything on his phone. So as far as I know I can't use ABD, can I?

To my knowledge if you do not have USB debugging ADB is not running and any tools that rely on ADB will fail to work.


TWRP Internal Storage(0 MB) I am trying to root my Samsung A7(2017). I have installed twrp to my phone but when I open it to install SuperSU it writes Internal Storage(0 MB) therefore I can not access to SuperSU. I am searching this topic for hours and tried many ways but couldn't solve it. How can I fix this problem?

Sounds like your internal storage is encrypted.

In order to fix this

boot into the Android OS.
Set a screen lock PIN or password.
Make sure you save it as requiring password on startup.
Then bootup into TWRP and it should ask you for your password to decrypt.
Put in the correct password

Your files should show up again.


How to get Google (Play) Services on Huawei phones bought in China? I have bought a Huawei Nova 3e (aka Huawei P20 Lite) from China but it does not include Google Play Store / Gmail and other Google services.

I have tried several things

Installing and running "Google Installer" (version 1 and 2.0)
Installation Google Framework, Google Play Services, etc. in different orders (as seen on different websites), either by copying from a phone with a working Google Play Store or from apps.evozi.com

Previously, I was using some Xiaomi and I had to install a Global ROM which included Google stuff.

Shall I also install a new ROM on my Huawei phone?

Or shall I root it?

Thanks

I spent 3 days struggling to solve the issue.

The trick has been suggested by a friend who is working in the phone industry in China as developer: you need to install Core GMS Packages.

There is an app which helps to install the GMS (gmsinstaller.apk): running it will download what you need and install it during a reboot phase.

I have found the information, as well as a link for the app, here: https://www.skmlifestyle.com/destinations/china/living-in-suzhou-jiangsu-china/core-gms-package-for-huawei-android-phones-google-play-services-apk-download/

There might other ways to download this app somewhere on the web.

Cheers


Stop emails from auto deleting I have a Samsung note 4.  I have an exchange email set up.  For some reason they auto delete on my phone.  How do I get them to stop auto deleting?  If I log in on the computer they are still there.

By default, setting up an exchange email with your job allows its system administrators to run a distant flash of your phone. Unlink your exchange sync if they can't manage it right


Why are there multiple versions of "Phone" installed under all apps in Android Lollipop? Why are there multiple versions of "Phone" installed under ALL apps on my Android Lollipop 5.1.1 phone?

Menu = Settings → Apps → ALL

There are three versions of "Phone":

Phone - com.android.server.telecom
Phone - com.android.phone
Phone/Messaging Storage - com.android.providers.telephony

These are not different versions, these are different apps. An app can have any name regardless of other apps' names. It is possible to have hundreds of apps with the same name on one phone because the name you see as a user has nothing to do with the name which sees Android (for example the system name for Shazam is com.shazam.android).

I have two "Camera" in my phone. One was pre-installed and the second is Google Camera whose visible name is also "Camera".


Disabling Verizon Galaxy S4 from sending usage data back to Verizon Its come to my understanding that Verizon gets information about how you use your phone reported back to it. Information such as "Amount of data used for Facebook, Snapchat, Netflix" etc. I know Verizon can always see the amount of data I used, but I'd rather keep the specific content/origination of the data private.

A friend told me that I can "root my phone and disable that reporting" but I didn't get all the information. I wanted to ask this community:

How to disable reporting back (hopefully without rooting the phone)
If rooting is required, what the most effective way of accomplishing all this is?

For some reason, googling around for this issue has given me no information! (I am a bit shocked at that as I figure it'd be a hot topic now-a-days).

FYI - In case you are curious, I do feel how I use data is a private matter and unless a company issues a warrant, should not look at the type of traffic I carry. Its just a principal I live by.

Note - Just in case, I am sure Verizon isn't specifically sniffing my packets. My concern is Verizon seeing things like:
100 Mbs on Facebook
200 Mbs on Snapchat
500 MBs on Netflix
etc
It just feels weird to me that they can see this information.
I'd like to disable that reporting.

Lastly: I'm using a Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4 running KitKat 4.4.2, Kernel vs 3.4.0.

The most effective way to block this, is by rooting your device, and remove or freeze the offending app. Try TitaniumBackup, AppQuarantine and AFWall+. But the simplest way, may be to try to install a hosts file that blocks all bad IP addresses, such as the one provided by MoaAB. You can try that without root, but I doubt it will work on your 4.4.2.


Connect LG Optimus 2X to Windows/Ubuntu via Bluetooth/Data Cable to use Internet I want to connect my LG Optimus 2X (P990) to my PC to use the Internet.
I tried using the LG PC Suite 4 available for windows, but it crashes as soon as I make a connection with my phone. And, There's no option in the suite to use the Internet connection from the phone.

Also, I can't get Ubuntu to detect a connection from my phone (both Bluetooth and Data Cable).

Please help me out with this.

Thanks in advance.

EasyTether is the easiest way to share your phone wireless internet with your computer. You install the program on your phone, set up the drivers (which can be found here) and run. To enable easytether, check the top box on the application screen. Easy as that!

After you install the drivers:

For Ubuntu:

start a terminal window
type easytether connect
it will connect, and give you another command that you can type into another terminal window to see status information about your connection.

NOTE: the original terminal window you open (that you typed easytether connect into) must stay open while you are using the connection

For Windows:

right click the Easytether logo in the taskbar (lower right hand side, by the clock)
choose connect via (big number here)
you're connected!


Nexus 5X data recovery with bad recovery partition I have a Nexus 5X, fully updated to 7.1.1, that I used today to take pictures at a site for my research.  The Photos app is set to backup when on WiFi.

Of course, however, the phone decided to randomly crash on the way home (let me tell you, navigating in a foreign country without GPS all of a sudden... not the most fun thing in the world) and subsequently will only go to the fastboot screen.

When I choose Recovery Mode, nothing happens (but the volume up/down keys no longer have any affect).  In effect, the device is frozen, still showing the fastboot screen, but not actually in fastboot mood since  on booting to the fastboot screen, my device is visible using the fastboot devices on my computer (I develop apps so the developer options have already been enabled).  However, after choosing Recovery Mode, the device is no longer visible under either fastboot devices or under adb devices.

Clearly, there is a problem with the recovery partition.

Is there any way I can dump the hard drive so I can later recover data (I have all the passwords / screen lock codes, if that's necessary to access the data)?  Or can I replace the recovery mode partition with a fresh copy?  Most guides seem to indicate that this would delete all of my user data.

Is there anything that can be done to salvage the data?  While any other day losing a single day's worth of pictures wouldn't be a huge loss, there is no way I can go back to take the pictures again for months, and then requires me having to explain to people of all levels of bureaucracy why I need to be given access again =/

I don't believe flashing a new recovery will wipe your data partition. I would refer to user7610s answer as this seems like a similar issue except that you would like to access the /sdcard to recover your pictures. Best of luck! Edit: This is assuming you already have an unlocked bootloader as you seem to know what fastboot mode is.


How can I disable cellular data on an Android device? Can I easily disable cellular data on an Android device and just use Wi-Fi? Does this change based on whether or not I have root on the device?

You can pretty easily disable cellular data on an android device without root.  On Android 2.2 and above, you can go to home --> menu --> Settings --> Wireless & networks --> Mobile networks --> and then uncheck Data enabled (on phones with Motoblur, the Data enabled setting might be in home --> menu --> Settings --> Data manager --> Data Delivery instead; YMMV).

If you have Android 2.1 or less, or just want a widget that will let you turn mobile data on and off, there are several apps that do the trick, for example Widgetsoid and APNdroid.
Like Matthew Read said, the major carriers won't let you put a smartphone on their network without a data plan.  However, you might have better luck with smaller carriers that operate on the big carriers' networks.  You end up getting better prices but the same coverage areas.  For example, Walmart Family Mobile plans include unlimited talk and text, and pay-as-you-go for data.  So if you don't use any data, you don't pay for data.  They run on T-Mobile's network, and you can either buy one of their phones, use a T-Mobile phone, or an unlocked GSM phone.  Here are a few other examples:

Boost Mobile (Sprint)
Simple Mobile (T-Mobile)
Virgin Mobile (Sprint)

And then you've got other carriers that operate their own smaller networks, but have roaming deals with the bigger carriers, so once again you still get coverage areas comparable to the major carriers:

Cricket Wireless
MetroPCS
US Cellular

There's a more comprehensive list of US wireless companies that operate on the larger companies' networks here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_MVNO


How can I get the new Google Talk on a Droid Incredible running 2.3.4? I have the original Droid Incredible (hardware rev 0003) with the new Market. I just got the Gingerbread OTA but it didn't include the new Google Talk. I know I could manually install the new apk from some random website, but I'd rather get it the "official" way, if such exists.

Without having a custom recovery, such as Clockwork Mod, I don't know of any way you can get the new talk.  If you have a custom recovery (which I don't think you do), you can install two zip files through ClockworkMod


Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 keeps restarting as mad when charging (until airplane mode) My Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 keeps restarting as mad when I charge it, but when the airplane mode is turned on, it tends to behave.

I suppose it's not a hardware issue, but something more complicated. I suppose the device tries to upgrade software when charging and it fails which causes software (it kept asking me about manual updates, each time I tried to update, it failed). My current MIU version is 6.1.14 beta, I have no idea how outdated it is. That misbehaviour makes it impossible to charge phone, because each restart eats more power than it was charged in the meantime, until airplane mode, which renders phone useless when charging.

Is there anything that can be done to save the phone, or it simply belongs to trash bin?

The phone is relatively new, it was used by about half a year.

Your phone is in beta rom.Try to flash latest global stable rom by edl mode,maybe this may solve the issue.


ADB app uninstall from bootloader I have a Galaxy Core Duos that I was playing with. It is stock rom, unrooted. However, I installed one app which is crashing the phone after startup. So I cannot use the phone anymore and I need to reset it.

However, I would like to save some data from the phone before. Especially the contacts, which unfortunately haven't been synchronized completely before this app caused crashing.

Is it possible to access my contacts data somehow via ADB from the bootloader/recovery menu? I didn't have ADB enabled in the settings, though. Or is it maybe even possible to uninstall the app from ADB from bootloader/recovery menu?

Or what else could I do?

No, it is not possible to remove the app from bootloader. ADB daemon is not running in the device in that tiny environment when the device is in fastboot mode and stock recovery doesn't offer shell access.

Your best bet is to flash a custom recovery, such as TWRP, CWM or Philz Touch from fastboot/download mode or from a tool using PC (if at all possible for an ordinary user) and boot straight into that recovery. Note that if the bootloader is not unlocked, unlocking a bootloader may (nowadays it does) cause a full wipe of user's data.

Once you're in a custom recovery environment, follow the instructions to remove the app:

mount data partition at /data/, if not already mounted through GUI using volume buttons or touch as appropriate;
determine package name of the troublesome app;
Using shell or through a file manager feature of your recovery, go to /data/app/ or wherever the app is installed per /data/system/packages.xml or per this answer from Izzy
remove the apk or the app's directory (for Android 5.0 and above) containing the apk using the command:

adb shell rm -rf PATH   # PATH refers to location of APK under /data/ (excluding /data/media)

#Example:
adb shell rm -rf /data/app/com.android.chrome-1.apk
adb shell rm -rf /data/app-private/org.mozilla.firefox/

Optional: remove the data of the app from /data/data/ by removing the directory with name as package name of the app using

adb shell rm -rf /data/data/PACKAGE  # PACKAGE refers to package name of the app

If the aforesaid instructions do not work out for you, make the Android boot into safe mode. My answer can help you out.

If you intend to backup contacts, make a backup of the directory /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts. The database inside it contains the contacts. To restore them after a factory reset, boot into a custom recovery and restore the backed up directory.

By the way, it does not matter whether you had USB debugging enabled in Android or not, once you've booted outside of Android OS.


Send a notification (or just vibrate) to phone via ADB/shell I would like to be able to send some kind of notification to my android using a remote shell script (SimpleSSHD running as root, so basically the same as an adb shell).

On an iOS device I can use the commands cvibrate to make the device vibrate and sbalert to display a notification via SSH. I would like to do the same, but on android.

It would be great if it could be an actual notification like any other app would invoke, but a way to just vibrate it would suffice aswell if both isn't possible on android.

This seems like a very simple task, but I've not been able to find a solution...

You can setup a Task in Tasker which you can invoke from command-line. The task can be setup with actions of your liking in combination, such as show a notification and vibrate with XYZ pattern. When setting up a task in Tasker, setup the action like this: Alert → Notify

Fill up the fields as you like. Make sure to enable Allow External Access setting under Preferences →  Misc, accessible from three-dots line on the right edge of top bar in Tasker's homescreen.

As for invoking the task from command line, run:

su -c am broadcast -a net.dinglisch.android.tasker.ACTION_TASK --es "task_name" "YOUR_TASK"

Replace YOUR_TASK with your task's name.

Tip: you can setup Tasker to show text of your liking in your notification  by a bit more tricks. Setup a task to watch for a file for changes and assign an action to change the value of a tasker variable to the contents of that file. In your aforesaid vibration/notification task, when filling up the field for "text", assign that local variable instead. So next time, when invoking the task, change the contents of the file for a custom text notification before sending that command.

Tip2: it is also possible that send variable directly to a task using command-line, but I don't have much experience with it so you've got to ask uncle web.


CLI commands in android? Since Android is linux, cant i use standard linux commands inside android? I know there are applications that allow for a "Command Line Interface" (CLI). I also imagine that adb would provide access to command input (possibly as root?).

Can i run bash scripts and use commands like mkdir, rm, and cp in android?
If not what caommands can i use? does google provide a list?
How would i input CLI commands in android? ADB?

Does adb provide root?

Note: I run an android emulator, from Eclipse, with Fedora 20 as my OS. I do not presently have an android device to work with, or i would probably just tinker until i figure it out.

Any and all information is greatly appreciated.

Yes, Android has a command-line interface just like a desktop GNU/Linux system. But because it's an embedded system without storage space to throw away on features most users don't want, there aren't a lot of commands installed by default: just some specific ones used to interact with Android services (such as am and pm). Because the manufacturer can customize the system image, there's no definitive list of what commands are available: it varies from device to device.

To add more commands, you can install Busybox, which is a single package containing a set of the most-used Unix command-line utilities. There are several "Busybox installer" apps on Google Play, but as it's open-source, you can also install it from F-Droid or build it yourself from source.

As you've already seen, there's a wide variety of terminal emulator apps. These run on your Android phone and provide a window into which you can type commands and see the results. Often they come with SSH clients and the like built-in, because the most common use for a terminal emulator on an Android phone is to SSH into a bigger computer.

In addition, running adb shell from a desktop computer that's connected to the phone via ADB gives you a shell on the phone. You can instead run adb shell command to run command in a shell on the phone.

Neither of the above methods of starting a shell make you root by default, but if your phone is rooted, you can use the su command in the usual way to become root. Whichever root manager you have on your phone (Superuser, SuperSU, etc.) will probably pop up on the screen for you to confirm the root access.

Shell scripts run on Android in the usual way, but as I've already mentioned, you don't get a lot of commands to play with by default, so many scripts written for desktop simply won't work.


Automatic Lock Screen prevention if the line is engaged I am an Atrix owner. One thing makes me annoyed. I try to place a call and if the line is somehow engaged, the phone automatically locks the screen. Is there any way that I bypass this automatic feature and use the gadget without hassle?
Thanks in advance for the repsonse.

If you are rooted, disable your Proximity Sensor in a call. To do so, add following line to /system/build.prop file: gsm.proximity.enable=false.

If you don't use Proximity Sensor other than in call, you can disable it fully. To do so, use Hardware Disabler app. But, make sure you have selected correct driver of proximity sensor, otherwise you will brick your device. To find correct driver of proximity sensor, you can either Google or find it using Android Sensor Box app.

Plus, make sure to make screen timeout period long. You can use Widgetsoid app (or, other toggle apps) to make it infinite.


Is the Whatsapp backup Feature activated by default? If you use Whatsapp on your android phone, are the chat backup features activated by default?

If so, how is the backup intervall by default? daily, weekly or monthly? Are the chat backups being stored on the phone or on google drive?

By default WhatsApp would make a local backup daily (Stored in the phone), but if you wish there is an option to also backup to Google Drive after the local backup finishes, i am not sure if the Google drive backup is set to ON by default but the option is there.


Do some localizations of Android require significantly more memory? This is something that I only recently noticed but many Android phones are built amounts of RAM that differ yet different versions are not distributed equally. For example, my phone from Spain has 2 GB of RAM but when bought in Asia comes with 3 GB. Internal storage is treated differently such that there are 16 GB and 32 GB versions available on both markets.

The recent Moto Z2 does the same thing. North America and Europe get a 4 GB version while in Asia, it comes with 6 GB.

Why the difference? Why offer not offer both at different price-points? Does Android require that much more memory when dealing with large character sets such as Chinese?

Yes.

Adding to Andy Yan's answer, I would like to bring up another reason: The absence of Google.

Because the China government, driven by an evil party, does not like Google, all Google's services are blocked in China, except for Ads, Maps and Translate (the only 3 availables). Apps using GCM or any other kind of Google service will not function correctly on that part, so Chinese companies pretty much have made their own "chain services" for IPC and push notifications. These services however, does not comply with Google's developing standards, nor do they follow the general rules of UX and memory management. Most of them keep themselves in background by creating extra processes and use those to wake themselves up periodically, taking extra RAM, which dramatically decreases battery life and hurts UX.

Even worse, instead of having one service family exist, big Chinese companies are making their own service families one by one. So Alibaba has an Ali Service, Baidu has a Baidu Service, Tencent has a Tencent Services, and even Xiaomi has a Mi Eco Services. To make things worse, one Chinese app may use multiple services at once. Even if an app is calling a small function from a Chinese service, it may potentially wake up all apps using that service (unless terminated), and can eat up your RAM in a few seconds.

As China is a growing producer, Chinese products are selling abroad, especially South Asia (India) and Africa. By selling phones without GMS, the aforementioned Chinese service families are also spreading abroad, damaging UX to those users. However, situations seems better outside China because most foreigners do not use Chinese daily services like IM (WeChat and QQ) and online shopping (Taobao and Jingdong), and fortunately the services they use (WhatsApp and Amazon) don't utilize the Chinese services. So markets in India and Africa don't get that much "inflated".


storage problem from internal storage to phone storage In my mobile there are three types of storage- 1) internal storage 2) phone storage and 3) storage card. My internal storage is almost full and i am not able to do upgrade the apps or download new apps. I want to move few apps to other storage but not able to as it does not show the option to move to phone storage or sd card. Please help me as soon as possible.

If you are not rooted, you can merely do anything beside deleting personal data (e.g. pictures, movies) apps and cache of apps.
You can move pictures to the external sdcard with the internal file explorer.
First thing, delete the cache of your browser, e.g. Chrome, often this is big.


How to stream audio to my PC from my phone without AUX cable? I'm trying to use my phone as a soundboard, but i need it to play the sound in my PC when i press a button on my phone

I was wondering if there is a way to do that with USB as i dont have a AUX cable

With this app (Weezzler) you can easily play audio from your phone in your browser as long as you are connected to the same wifi network in the device and the computer.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.weezzler.android


Remove Sensitive Data From Work Phone I've moved on from a previous job, and as part of the process I need to return my work provided phone.

I have factory reset the phone, as well as electing to erase the SD card. There was some sensitive data on the phone (pictures, documents etc) that I want to make sure are unavailable to whoever uses the phone next.

Can I be certain that this data cannot be recovered via an undelete application? Does the factory reset + erase sd write zeros to the drives or simply mark them as empty space?

One more hint is Nuke My Phone:

  Nuke My Phone protects your privacy by secure deleting your personal data, such a photos and videos, and returning your phone to factory settings. Now you can safely repurpose old devices or upgrade your current one without worrying about unauthorized data recovery. Nuke My Phone delivers the peace of mind that comes only from knowing your personal data cannot be compromised.

Works directly on the device.


Linux on Android and HW support I see that there are some projects about installing Linux on an Android Device, but how is the Hardware support?

If I install linux, can I have access to the hardware via Python, like in Android?

Technically you don't "run Linux on Android". In fact, every Android device runs "under" Linux (That is, Android uses the Linux Kernel). What happens when you install a Linux distribution (I think that is what you meant by refering to Linux) on Android is that the Android OS and the Linux dsitribution share the same Kernel. Even if you replace the Android installation with a pure (GNU/)Linux one, the used Kernel is "the same".

Therefore the HW API calls are identical, and you can access the hardware from e.g. Python without any difference.


what to do if my all google apps are not working properly I need a serious advice from android experts. When I was managing my apps space in my android phone, I accidentally crashed all inbuilt google apps like google account manager, google play services and all related apps of google. If I open any regarding app of google like play store, a popup showing google play not responding properly and google maps not responding properly. This is my problem so please help me to solve my problem.

Its is not necessary to fully wipe the phone. You can go to app manager and reset all google apps to their factory states and update them once they are functional. This is only for not working apps in case you did not get stuck during rooting. If in case you tried to root it, then try unrooting and rooting again and if this does not fix the problem, then do a factory reset.


How to switch my SGS3 to a 'google play' edition phone? My Samsung Galaxy S3 contract ends in few months. I'd like to get rid of unwanted stuffs like touchwiz,  flipboard, allsharecast, etc. and pull latest updates directly from 'google play', just like the rest of nexus phones.

Is rooting the only option available for me? Shouldn't Samsung allow me just point my phone update link (?) to whatever I want, as my contract expires?

Is rooting the only option available for me?

Yes.

  Shouldn't Samsung allow me just point my phone update link (?) to
  whatever I want, as my contract expires?

No.

The manufacturers do not have a legal or moral obligation to do so. They can provide the sources to the kernel on their site, that is about how far they can go.

This is where the community comes in, have a look at this titled "Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device?"

Google Nexus line of devices are free from carrier related slow-downs in rolling out updates and fixes to Android, which is why you pay the odds over for a Google Nexus device.

Not all devices are deprived of the pure Google experience, i.e. no carrier bloatware, touchwiz, etc. It can be done by selected few talented developers, depending on the community and popularity of device in question.

You are free once the contract expires and do whatever you want without violating terms and conditions.

You can:

SIM unlock/Network Unlock
root the device
modify it
flash a custom ROM on it (refer to the linky above)


Does "adb backup" also backup /data/misc/vold - the Encryption Key for Adoptable SD card? I want to make sure that using adb backup -apk -shared -all -f ~/backup.ab will also save /data/misc/vold?

I am trying to backup before rooting, in order to be able to gain access to the encryption key in /data/misc/vold (got corrupted SD card adopted as internal). So I want to make sure ih something bad happens during the rooting, I could still access the backup version of /data/misc/vold?

Thanks!

My solution to Matifow problem was ...

I cannot extract the token because my device was not rooted.

I bought a new microSD and clone in it the microSD from my device.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/227924/sd-card-cloning-using-the-dd-command

When i put this new card the phone recognize as the old one.

I recover photos, media from whatsapp, apps installed ...

I lost some files ( the corrupted I assume) but can recover the most.


Nexus 4 disable vibrate I am using a Google Nexus 4, running Android 5.1.1.

I am trying to disable vibrations when I use the unlock pattern, or the main button panel home, back, and open apps tray.

All of these buttons cause a vibration. I just did a factory reset and this problem arised. Before factory reset they did not vibrate. Factory reset did not change android version.

I have already disabled vibrate in the keyboard options. Where else can I disable it?

Here's what needs to be done:

Launch Settings app → go to Sound & notification → tap Other sounds and slide leftwards the switch for Vibrate on touch to disable the latter.

(Click an image to enlarge it)


Can you use a minute plan with Google Voice? I recently learned about Google Voice and was wondering if I could apply it to my current cellular situation.

I have a pre-paid minute plan with an Android phone. Ideally, I'd like to use minutes whenever I'm not under a Wi-Fi network, and when under a Wi-Fi network texting and talking would be free. Is this possible with Google Voice?

You can use Google Voice with a non-smart phone, but it will be somewhat limited. If the only device you carry is the dumb phone, you won't be able to do any calling over wifi (obviously).

However, if you carry a wifi android device with you, you can set up Google Voice over wifi using a few methods, such as GrooveIP, or SIP Droid with these setup instructions.

To only show your Google Voice number to callees when using your non-smart prepaid, follow Option 1 in this answer. Note that it will cost you 10-15 seconds each time you call someone, as the phone will manually dial the number after calling your own google voice number. Receiving calls won't take up any extra time.

If you don't care about your friends and families having 2 numbers for you, you don't need to do anything different for your prepaid. Just know that if they call you on your non-GV number, you won't be able to accept it on your wifi android device (it won't ring). You would need to explain that they should only ever call you on your GV number.


Check if an app is installed on the device I'm trying to use the package name and determine the apk path of an app to check if my app is installed in the device.

pathCmd = './adb shell pm path ' + packageName

pathData = os.popen(pathCmd,"r")

for pathInfo in pathData:

    print pathInfo

    if not pathInfo:
        print "App not found on the device"

    else:
        print "App found on the device"

This doesn't give me the list of apps that are not installed. Any idea whats wrong with my script?

This did the trick guys.

pathCmd = './adb shell pm path ' + packageName
result = os.popen(pathCmd).read()
if result:
    print "App found on the device"
else:
    print "App not found on the device"

This give system output as string and looks for string length to confirm the presence of an app in the device. Its usually an empty string that is received for a package name that doesn't exist in the device.


How to recover game data from a smashed phone? Hey guys so it happens my Dad has been having a huff lately because he smashed his phone screen and he can't remember the password to his gmail account however he has months of game data stored on the device snd he's angry because he doesn't want to start again lol any advice?

Does the device itself have a passcode? Either way, the device is probably accessible through USB. Get ADB, plug the device into a computer, and using ADB (hopefully USB debugging was enabled before your dad sent it to hell) first type adb devices to make sure your computer sees the phone. If you're successful, you'll see your phone get listed on the screen. Then type adb backup -all -f C:\Backups\Android.ab This will create an Android backup file. You'll need to get an android backup extractor in order to retrieve your data files (like this. Google is your frienemy...;) Hopefully, this will resolve your problem. Good luck!


Samsung Tab S: Camera don't work in apps (although it works perfectly on camera app) I can take pictures with my tablet using camera built-in app from Android. My problem is when i use apps like Facebook Messenger / Snapchat / Skype / Hangouts ... the photograph is wrong scaled (stretched). It only occurs on apps. How can i fix that?

You could try clearing the cache for the afftected apps. Just go to settings> apps> click the affected app the press the "clear cache" button.


Radio service using battery I haven't used any type of radio services on my HTC one, not even Pandora or anything else because I just never listen to music outside of radio in my vehicle, but I have radio usage on my phone. What else could cause this service to be running?

Battery stats always lists consumers. If the mentioned entry would refer to "fm radio", it had listed the corresponding app as consumer.

You must be aware that the term "radio" is ambiguous here. It stands as an abbreviation for "radio waves", which in fact are used by "fm radio" – but also for communications using the cellular network. The latter is what you're seeing references as "radio" in the battery stats on some devices. Different devices might use different terms here, so a screenshot helps identifying the "item" by its associated symbol/icon, see e.g. What is Cell standby and how can I keep it from eating my battery?

With that link, I've also named how other devices might refer to this ("cell standby"). If your symbol looks similar to the one shown in the screenshot there, that would confirm what I've written here (note that it might look a little different on your device, not only due to a different manufacturer – but also due to the fact the screenshot on the linked question was taken with Android 2.3 ;)


How to Remote Control Google Doc Presentation? I want to remote control Google Doc Presentations. Is there an app for this?

Bonus point if it can connect via Bluetooth to my Linux-based PC.

You could simply use a bluetooth/wifi mouse app like PRemoteDroid. There are a bunch of others, and generally speaking they just allow your device to be used as a mouse/keyboard input. If you can pair with your PC it should work, although I've never tried it myself (I do use PRemoteDroid to pair with and remotely control my Xoom, though; works great).

Another option would be some kind of VNC or remote desktop client, but that's not as lightweight and some of them don't support Linux (Splashtop, for example, doesn't have a Linux server, IIRC).


What are the features that Motoblur has that vanilla Android does not have? What are the features that Motoblur has that vanilla Android does not have?

Motoblur has a bunch of widget-based applications which bring your social networks and/or emails together for ease of viewing, as well as weather, rss feeds and other simple UI elements/widgets that can come in handy. However, Motoblur keeps a process running in the background for each service (type of widget) and thus many people (myself included) forego it and install a non-Motoblur ROM to conserve RAM, CPU and battery. But if you are an avid user of social networking sites then it is a good choice and worth the battery drain.


Forgot my password to my samsung galaxy tab E My sister kept changing the password on the samsung tab until i tried the hard reset. but the issue is it asks to verify the account and the account was set on my grandfather who isn't here anymore. so we can't move forward without it.
what should i do?

thanks

This is from the T-Mobile Support website at This link

Samsung Galaxy Tab E

Master reset with hardware keys

A master reset restores the original factory settings and may delete your personal data on the internal storage, such as downloads, ringtones, images, apps, contacts, and Visual Voicemail. It does not delete data stored on the SIM card or SD card.

If the device menus are frozen or unresponsive, you can master reset using hardware keys.

Turn off the device.

Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
When the Samsung Galaxy Tab E logo screen displays, release only the Power key
When the Android logo displays, release all keys ('Installing system update' will show for about 30 - 60 seconds before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
Press the Volume Down key several times key to highlight 'wipe data / factory reset.'
Press Power button to select.
Press the Volume down key until 'Yes -- delete all user data' is highlighted.
Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
When the master reset is complete, 'Reboot system now' is highlighted.
Press the Power key to restart the device.

If you no longer have access to granddaddy’s google account, you may have to start one of your own :)


init: cannot execve('/system/bin/custom.sh'): Permission denied I have a rooted system-as-root Samsung Device and I am trying to run an init service which runs custom.sh script using u:r:su:s0 SELinux context.

# define service, use executable here if script not needed
service custom /system/bin/custom.sh

    # don't start unless explicitly asked to
    disabled

    # Use `seclabel u:r:magisk:s0` to run with unrestricted SELinux context to avoid avc denials
    # can also use "u:r:su:s0" on userdebug / eng builds if no Magisk.
    # It's required if SELinux is enforcing and service needs access
    # to some system resources not allowed by default sepolicy
    seclabel u:r:su:s0

# start the service when boot is completed
on property:sys.boot_completed=1
    # Use it to start the service
    start custom

As per my understanding, the rules for transition from init context to su context is not defined so, I should get avc: denial error.

But, I am getting permission denied error as following:

  init: cannot execve('/system/bin/custom.sh'): Permission denied

I have checked the permission of custom.sh file and it is as following:

  -r-xr-xr-- 1 root root 153 2019-11-04 13:25 /system/custom.sh

Please suggest what is happening here and how can I fix it?

As evident from init source code:

...
static bool ExpandArgsAndExecv(const std::vector<std::string>& args) {
    ...
    return execv(c_strings[0], c_strings.data()) == 0;
}
...
        if (!ExpandArgsAndExecv(args_)) {
            PLOG(ERROR) << "cannot execve('" << args_[0] << "')";
        }

For whatever reason if init fails to execute the script custom.sh (i.e. syscall execve returns non-zero exit code), you will get cannot execve error. Permission denied (EACCES) is returned by execve in multiple situations e.g. unable to read file path, no +x permission on binary or filesystem mounted with noexec. Inability to read|open|execute script or make context transition is returned as EACCES.

Also cannot execve is logged by init but avc: denied is logged by SELinux subsystem through audit subsystem or kernel logging. You should get both errors in dmesg or logcat -b events or logcat -b kernel. If you don't, may be there is a dontaudit rule defined for source or target or both contexts.

  Please suggest what is happening here and how can I fix it?

As explained in my answer to your previous question: How to run an Android init service with superuser SELinux context? define SELinux rules to allow init read / execute custom.sh script and make transition to u:r:su:s0.


Can we delete Android system WebView app to free up space? I am looking to free up some space on my android device.

you cannot delete it without root as it is a system app.
even if you could delete it, it wouldn't free up space for other apps. System apps reside in their own space (/system), which during normal operations is mounted read-only.
even ignoring the other two points: deleting Webview would cause several apps to just stop working as they depend on it for displaying content (even local one).

TL;DR: No, don't.


Mobile Google Maps' setting for receiving location share notifications tl;dr: Is there any specific configuration switch or setting that controls whether mobile Google Maps is or isn't showing notifications about someone sharing a location with me?

I've been sharing location with my wife and friends and vice versa for past few months. Every time someone wanted to share location with me, I've been receiving two kinds of notifications -- regular email sent to my Gmail account and mobile Google Maps' notification. Tapping the other one always led directly to mobile Google Maps application with shared location shown in map's center.

Recently I have turned off many of Google Maps settings, privacy switches, I have disabled most of, if not all, of suggestion tips notifications etc. One of those turned off was most likely responsible for Google Maps's notifications, because I'm no longer receiving them.

Right now, if anyone shares a location with me, I'm only getting a regular email sent to my Gmail account. Because my mobile Gmails (actually PC's one also) has a regular lag of 5-50 minutes in receiving emails (since they're actually sent) such notifications are pretty useless for me.

I'd like to re-enable mobile Google Maps' based location share notifications, but I don't know exactly which configuration switch, option or parameter is responsible for them. Can anyone help here?

First of all try clearing the cache of Google Maps application.

Secondly try changing the appropriate notification switch using the following steps:

Open the Google Maps application
Tap Menu Menu, go to  Settings >> Notifications >> People and places >> location sharing (get updates when people share with you on maps)
Next to the notification (location sharing), turn on the switch (if enabled already, turn the slider off and then on).


Reinstall Android OS on my HTC Butterfly I accidentally wiped all the data in the internal storage of my HTC Butterfly. Due to this incident, my smartphone is unable to connect with PC. The ROM cannot be copied into phones's internal storage. Finally, I cannot recovery my phone. It is stuck in bootloader or screen flash nothing.

Problems:

Unable to connect phone with PC
Storage card does not appear its connection with PC
Unable to copy ROM Recovery.img into storage card
Unable to install Android OS on phone
Finally, it's stuck in bootloader

Please share your knowledge and experience as well as solution to solve this matter.   Thanks.

To fix this you will need the android sdk, your recovery, and your rom.
First, go to [your sdk]> sdk> platform-tools. Then put your recovery in the platfotm-tools folder. Next open a terminal there (shift + right click and it will appear in right click menu (Be carful of doing it on a folder)) then connect your device to your computer, then (Drivers may be needed) type in to terminal

fastboot update [Your rom.zip]

to flash your rom
 (if it comes in a .tar then get 7-zip and open it). Finally use

fastboot flash [your recovery .img]

to flash your recovery, then it should boot and be fixed !


Is it possible to selectively limit background data usage? I have a sufficient data-plan so I've never worried about this... tomorrow though, I'm travelling abroad. Due to this, I will have restricted 3g usage.

Are there any apps or Android settings to prevent certain applications from syncing in the background while allowing others to work unrestricted? For example, if I only want to use WhatsApp or check emails, without "Android OS" or Facebook playing around online, would this be possible?

If I could have this as a "roaming only" profile/mode would be an advantage. If I could also allow these applications to run as normal when WiFi is available, that would be a bonus!

My device is not rooted and I would prefer not to root it to achieve this. Are there any apps or solutions to achieve this?

If your device is running at least Android 4.0, you can use Androids native data management:

Data Usage configuration on Android 4.0+ (source: Droid-Life.com, click image to enlarge)

Here you can setup an overall data volume (a requirement for the second step -- but one can set that rather high, like 4 GB): tick the Set mobile data limit checkbox, and play with the bars.

That done, select the apps to block (tap their entries you can see in the second screenshot at the bottom), and set their limit to 0 (scroll to the end of the app's page, and activate the checkbox labeled "restrict background data"). A popup will inform you that the app might stop when there's no WiFi available, as it will no longer be able to use background data on the mobile network -- plus that there might be additional controls inside the app itself.

Now these apps no longer can "silently eat your dataplan", but only when you actively trigger actions. You find described screens in the system settings, mobile data (the one with the pie-chart symbol -- see above screenshot).

P.S.: If the above is not applyable for you (Android <4.0, or a WiFi-only device with Android 4.3+), please also see my answer here.


How does the gmail Android App compare to the Webmail experience when using multiple gmail accounts? This is a "pre-sales" question as I don't currently have an Android device. I did try out one when Android was version 1.6, but was dissappointed. I am interested to know if 2.2 or 2.3 is better.

In particular, I use Gmail as my only email client. It operates all my email accounts (3 corporate and 2 personal). Every email is sent and received via the gmail server and is therefore filed and searchable in gmail. When I compose and email, I can choose which account to send it from and it comes via the domain server (i.e. not from gmail).

My impresssion of android is that is can set up seperate email (pop, imap etc) inboxes and operate them directly with each domain server as pop/imap - but I don't want that as emails will not be kept on the gmail server and therefore filed, backed up and searchable from the webmail client.

How does email account aggregation actually work in Android - is it true Gmail Webmail handling or is it just multi-account handling direct with domainemail servers missing Gmails servers in the process?

Thanks

Just use the GMail app and not the Email app.  You can select what email to send from -- it shows all the addresses you have set up in GMail -- and has a surprising number of GMail's features for a mobile app.  It does go through GMail's servers and you will have your archive.  I don't think you can set up and manage POP accounts from it, but if you're not abandoning the web interface entirely then it doesn't matter.


Default email app's notification is disabled on Samsung Galaxy S4 In my Samsung Galaxy S4, under Applications Manager, the email app has its notifications turned off by default.

This is stopping me from knowing when any of my emails come in. How can I turn this on?

I have found that others have the same issue but have not found a fix for this yet. The other people just changed apps to K9 email.

I had the same problem and this is what I did...
Start at your home screen and swipe down from the top to display your notifications. At the top right, tap the gear/wheel (which is settings). Then, tap accounts. Next, email. If you have more than one email on this app, you have to do the following for each email address--I have two on mine.

You will have a screen that has an accounts heading and common settings heading. Tap settings, then, on the next screen, tap the email you would like to adjust. Sync settings will come up. check the email notifications box and then select a ring tone that won't make you crazy every time you hear it! lol! And that should do it!

p.s. you can also change your signature here as well, to personalize your outgoing messages by tapping signature and turning that function on..  :)


Is there a way to grant myself MANAGE_USERS permission while inside the adb shell? The thing is that I'm fed up of some stock adware apps on my Micromax phone and want to disable them for good. So, as per this answer, I used adb shell to disable the app, but I'm getting the following error:

shell@Q4260:/ $ pm hide com.micromax.trendingapps
Error: java.lang.SecurityException: Neither user 2000 nor current process has android.permission.MANAGE_USERS.
1|shell@Q4260:/ $

The error message indicates that I need android.permission.MANAGE_USERS to achieve that. So I even tried granting that permission to the shell app, but no use!

shell@Q4260:/ $ pm grant com.android.shell android.permission.MANAGE_USERS
Operation not allowed: java.lang.SecurityException: Package com.android.shell has not requested permission android.permission.MANAGE_USERS
1|shell@Q4260:/ $

Is there any other way to get myself that permission?

Finally, the smart-phone is Micromax Q4260 running Marshmallow if that matters. This could probably be solved by rooting, but I don't have any intention of rooting as it could be risky on this little known model.

I solved my problem with a little help from Google and XDA Forums. Though this doesn't answer the exact title question, I found an alternative way to disable OEM bloatware on Android M+ without requiring MANAGE_USERS permission or root:

pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.micromax.trendingapps

(you may use or not the -k option, which is to keep the data and cache directories)


Rooting Samsung Grand Duos without Windows I need to root my Samsung GT-I9082 (also known as Grand Duos) with Android 4.2.2 but I have no Windows computer (I have a Linux one).

Which are the preferred methods?

It seems z4root does nothing (seems just to crash).

Towelroot supports most Samsung devices. Based on a quick Google search, it sounds like it has been confirmed to work on GT-I9082. It's extremely simple:

Navigate to towelroot.com on the mobile device.
Tap the big red lambda (λ) to download the APK file.
Find the APK file, either in the notifications or the Download folder, and tap it to install the app.
Open the app and tap the make it ra1n button.

That's it. You should get a message within about 5-10 seconds telling you that you have root access. You don't need a PC, and you don't even need to power off or reboot. It's so simple it's dangerous, because one doesn't need to have a modicum of technical ability in order to gain root access.


Tablet touchscreen too sensitive My tablet (Asus TF300T) has been starting to show sensitivity issues. It repeatedly shows touch moves that aren't there, such as these:  (this screenshot was taken using the debugging option for showing touch input)

It started out with an occasional movement that was already annoying, but it went worse: these dozen concurrent presses are persisting, moving and raising in amount: The tablet is uncontrollable now. Is there a way to turn down the sensitivity so that these fake fingers don't show up or to turn the touchscreen off completely?

Although the tablet itself isn't accessible anymore, USB debugging is turned on, the tablet is not rooted. Standard Rom, updated to 4.2.

No, there's no setting for the sensitivity. The touchscreen controller already filters the input it gets from the screen itself, so probably you wouldn't be able to filter out the faulty touches without also filtering out real touches.

What you describe sounds like a hardware problem. I'd recommend giving the screen a wipe with a damp, soapy cloth, then a rinse with a damp cloth, then drying it. It might or might not improve matters, but it's worth a try. If that doesn't help, you probably need to replace the screen completely.


Cannot flash twrp-3.2.3-0-cedric.img (Motorola Moto G5) ("Image not signed or corrupt") I have followed all the steps of this guy but flashing twrp-3.2.3-0-cedric.img failed.

When I open my Ubuntu console and type fastboot flash recovery /home/username/folder/twrp-3.2.3-0-cedric.img, it says:

(bootloader) slot-count: not found
(bootloader) slot-suffixes: not found
(bootloader) slot-suffixes: not found
(bootloader) has-slot:recovery: not found
target reported max download size of 536870912 bytes
sending 'recovery' (14572 KB)...
OKAY [  0.463s]
writing 'recovery'...
(bootloader) Image not signed or corrupt
OKAY [  0.502s]
finished. total time: 0.965s

What did I do wrong? Did I use the wrong version? Looking at this similar problem did not help me. sudo fastboot flash recovery /home/username/folder/twrp-3.2.3-0-cedric.img does not help either.

The locked bootloader doesn’t let unsigned images to be flashed. So, the Image not signed... error indicates that there is a possibility of the bootloader not being unlocked.

Make sure the bootloader is unlocked.
Make sure you are using right version of TWRP for your device.
Try fastboot boot /path/to/twrp.img instead of flashing. If it boots, flash the recovery image from within the recovery. Afterwards, any zip should be successfully flashed (custom ROM, GApps, mods etc.).


Is deleting our gallery after having saved our photos in Google photos safe? I wanted to know if it was possible to delete our gallery after having saved all our photos in Google photos ? Will our photos be saved in like our Google account or something like that ? Or it will delete all our photos in our gallery and in Google photos ?

The purpose of google photos is never running out of storage on your phone. So if you backup your photos on google photos you put them in a cloud storage, you can access this cloud everywhere and everytime you want.
If you delete your gallery but you saved it before on google photos there is no problem, as i said before the purpose of this app is to gain internal storage on your phone


What does the *#*#4636#*#* dialer code do? Has anyone tried the *#*#4636#*#* or *#*#7780#*#* dialer codes on HTC phones? They're not working for me.

Secondly, what does it show, means what kind of information? Is it safe to run on brand new phone?

Yes, I have a Samsung Galaxy S and the *#*34636#*#* does actually work.

It gives all sorts of statistics.

You might read my following question: regarding this exact number and contact lists.

-- EDIT --

Sorry, didn't see the HTC phones bit. Just noticed the 'Samsung-Galaxy-tab' tag, and thought you were talking about the Samsung Galaxy S phone.

The part about the statistics , is ok , though.

On my phone.

Phone information
Battery information
Battery history
Usage statistics ( I was very interested in this option )
Wifi information

Usage statistics

Usage time
Launch count


Viewingtext messages and call log on synced phoned via google account I have my google account synced on two phones, I want to view my text messages and call log without placing an app on other phone. Is it possible?

Text messages and call logs are related to the SIM being used and have nothing to do with Google account , unlike contacts.

Without using an app to transfer it's not possible


How to preview all UI elements/widgets and dialogs I need to view all the different UI elements and dialogs on a device. This would be helpful while developing new platform level themes.

Is there an existing app that will do this? Are there other ways to view all the UI elements (e.g. android.widget.Button, android.widget.CheckBox, etc).

You should take a look at the Android API Samples.

The APIDemos application is exactly what you are looking for:
http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/ApiDemos/index.html


Make screen lock after call if it was locked before? I think that I had this feature in my Galaxy S way back in the 2.1-2.2 era, but now I can't figure it out on my Galaxy Nexus (takju, 4.1.1).

What I'm looking for is this: if I have the phone locked in my pocket and I receive a call, after I finish it, I'd expect to be able to return the phone to my pocket with no extra hassle. However, after the call I'm thrown into the recent calls list and have to back my way out from the app and lock the screen. And despite the oh-so-buttery experience of Jelly Bean, this usually means frantic back-tapping, waiting for the phone to exit to the launcher and annoyed grunts, or - if I have an app open under the lock screen - accidentally closing said program, reopening it, browsing to the wanted section and, well, annoyed grunts.

This is by no means a difficult task, but it's annoying as I have to do it every time.

Oh yeah, another thing: if I call someone and the line is busy or he/she rejects my call, the screen locks. Doesn't matter what state the phone is, you'll be thrown into the lock screen. Why? Why can't this happen after received calls?

I apologise for the ranty (is that an adjective?) tone, TGIF.

You can use Lock Screen After The Call. For more details, visit this link.


Recover Notes data after factory reset? I have an OnePlus One phone that was then on an old version of Cyanogenmod I factory reset by accident a few years ago. I used the OS notes app back then (it wasn't backed up) and I would like to recover them.

When looking at the files on the phone from USB on my Macbook pro a while back, I noticed there was a folder called O which has seemingly a whole new OS file tree.

I used the phone after the factory reset and after a while when I ran out of disk space quickly (it has 64gb) and on using the space calculator in settings I found out 22gb was being used Misc! I am assuming this is the old OS and so wonder if the notes can be recovered. Looking through the files on my Macbook file explorer on the phone I have not been able to find the notes data files. I Googled a while back and I think the notes are stored in XML.

Is it possible to recover these?

Coolmuster Lab.Fone for Android can help you recover notes data after factory reset from Oneplus phone. You just need to make sure the notes data not being overwritten by new data.


Run script using init.rc doesn't work I'm trying to run a script that exectues when the device has finished booting. This particular device does not support running scripts from an init.d directory, which is why I am using init.rc.

The init.rc file has been modified to include the following code

on property:sys.boot_completed=1
start initAsic

service initAsic /data/local/tmp/runn.sh
user root
group root
oneshot

The boot image has then been rebuilt and flashed to the device. The changes can be confirmed by viewing the init.rc file located at /

Currently I am only using a simple test script (testScript.sh) which issues the following command

echo hi >> /data/local/tmp/test.txt

The testScript.sh and text.txt file has 777 permissions set and both have been pushed to the device using adb push.
Their current location is /data/local/tmp/

For some reason it seems that my script is not running, as I can't see any text being written to test.txt.

Am I missing something?
Could it be an issue with SELinux?

My device currently has SElinux set to permissive. This was done via altering the BoardConfig.mk file and doing a rebuild of the boot.img.

By running the command dmesg | grep -C5 initAsic I saw that I was getting this error code returned

service initAsic does not have a SELinux domain defined

The issue what that I needed to add the line seclabel u:r:init:s0 to my init service as this is a requirement of init. The complete service now looks like this. The disabled keyword has also been added as suggested by Irfan.

service initAsic2 /data/local/tmp/runn.sh
seclabel u:r:init:s0
user root
group root
oneshot
disabled

Also note that SElinux must be set to permissive to allow this service to run or  preferably - as setting SElinux to permissive is a security risk - defining the appropriate rules for SElinux and using the modified policy.

More information on the topic here: https://android.stackexchange.com/a/207647/218526

This post was where I found the suggestion to add seclabel property. It also has more useful information regarding the SELinux issue I was encountering: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43600261/init-warning-service-myservice-needs-a-selinux-domain-defined-please-fix


What information is more reliable -- battery capacity or stand-by time? Stand-by time (not talk) because I rarely use the phone actually ;-)

Let's say there are two phones -- Xperia Mini and Wildfire S -- both have very similar battery 1200 mAh and 1230 mAh (respectively), so one could expect similar stand-by times as well.

Yet for Xperia Mini it is "Up to 340 h (2G) / Up to 320 h (3G)" and for Wildfire S "Up to 360 h (2G) / Up to 570 h (3G)".

You can see that for 3G network the difference is huge (almost double). Wildfire S has slower CPU (600 MHz vs. 1 GHz in Xperia) but what kind of computation is done in stand-by mode? Another oddity Xperia is more efficient in 2G, while Wildfire in 3G.

QUESTION: without any head to head tests, what information is more reliable -- capacity or times? I.e. those two phones would stay on one charge for the same amount time or indeed not?

I copied the data from GsmArena pages: Xperia Mini http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_xperia_mini-3947.php and Wildfire S http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_wildfire_s-3777.php

In my view, battery capacity i.e. the mAh value is best the way to compare.  The reason why I say this is that the battery drain includes so many factors that even a small software glitch can show a remarkable difference.  Hence the standby time is a combination of several factors which are not reliable for comparison, unless they are from from same manufacturer (with a hope that there will not be variations in test situation).  The guide from GSMArena explains this clearly as:

  Manufacturers measure talk time in controlled conditions and the quoted numbers are rarely reached in real-life scenarios. These numbers are best used as reference when comparing phones from the same manufacturer because battery life measurement methodology will probably vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

With battery rating at least you know your how much capacity the battery has and how it gets used or wasted is simply a temporary situation (i.e. by changing ROM, updates, platform upgrades etc).


Disable sound alerts for new emails I have a Samsung Duos GT-S7562, running Android 4.0.4.

I have set up two email accounts on my device: Gmail and YahooMail. I want to stop the alert sound it plays each time I get an email. How do I do that?

ty,
Rajeev

See below how to change your email notification sound, or how to disable it. My android is 2.3.5, gmail is 2.3.6.

You open the gmail app, menu > more > settings, tap in the account; in the very bottom there's an option "Labels to notify". In my case I have "Inbox", which I'm assuming is default; when you click on it, you have a few options:

"Email notifications" - notifies in the status bar
Ringtone - this is what you're looking for, you can set any ringtone or silent
Vibrate - well, it vibrates ;)


How to organize photos from Camera folder in to folders sorted by month names? For various reasons, I often end up pulling photos of my phones by connecting the USB connection to a computer and extracting what I need.

The problem I am facing is that my DCIM/100ANDRO folder is now huge, and simply loading the full list of files takes considerable time. Is there some way (ideally in basic Android 7.1.1, but additional apps are acceptable) to sort these in to separate folders possibly by month of taking or similar. Onus points if this happens dynamically as photos are taken.

I'd also be interested in alternatives to the USB -> browse device options, but I'd want something that does full resolution, doesn't upload to an internet location first, and doesn't require bluetooth.

There must be apps to facilitate what you want to achieve, but one of very straight forward method (for me at least) is to use a shell script as suggested by @alecxs in comment. We can read date of Photo Taken using exiv2 commandline tool. You can build from source or try this one. Or get Modified Time of photo using stat command, but the former is usually more accurate because some programs like file explorers badly change the modified date e.g. during copy/move operation.

Once the month of photo is known, create respective folder and move photo there:

#!/system/bin/sh
set -e

DIR='/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO'

find $DIR -maxdepth 1 -type f -iname '*.jp*g' -o -iname '*.png' |
while read -r photo
do
    month=$(exiv2 -q pr "$photo" | busybox awk -v c=1 -F '[: ]' '/timestamp.*[0-9]{4}:[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}/{print $5"_"$6; c=0} END{exit c}') ||
    month=$(busybox stat -c %y "$photo" | busybox awk -v c=1 -F '[- ]' '/[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}/{print $1"_"$2; c=0} END{exit c}') ||
    { echo "Couldn't find month for $photo" >&2; continue; }

    mkdir -p "$DIR/$month"
    mv -n "$photo" "$DIR/$month/"
done

echo Done.

Android's awk and stat are buggy or show non-standard behavior. Better use busybox.

Let's name the script sort.sh. This is how it works:

~$ find /sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/ -type f
/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/00100sPORTRAIT_00100_BURST20190222182032908_COVER.jpg
/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/IMG_20170312_013609.jpg
/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/IMG_20180818_180827_HDR.jpg
/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/IMG_20190222_164812.jpg
/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/PANO_20190421_132245.jpg

~$ sort.sh
Done.

~$ find /sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/ -type f
/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/2017_03/IMG_20170312_013609.jpg
/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/2018_08/IMG_20180818_180827_HDR.jpg
/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/2019_04/PANO_20190421_132245.jpg
/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/2019_02/00100sPORTRAIT_00100_BURST20190222182032908_COVER.jpg
/sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO/2019_02/IMG_20190222_164812.jpg

Additionally you may use file command (instead of relying on file extensions) to only move photos and not videos or other files. But again Android's /system/bin/file is very limited. Either use one from Termux, or build from source, or try this one.

You can run this script manually or on a regular basis using some automation app. crond is also an option if you have root.

  I'd also be interested in alternatives to the USB -> browse device options

This part is itself a separate question. If you want to browse files from PC you can go for adbfs, SSHFS/SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, SMB etc. Or to simply transfer files adb pull will suffice and is reasonably faster. If you have root and the volume of data to be transferred is high, consider using USB Mass Storage (UMS) from custom recovery. It's very high speed and reliable method.


Locked out of my phone. How can I backup my sms? I am locked out of my Samsung Galaxy y Duos Lite and I have forgotten my password. USB debugging is not turned on. Is there any way to backup my sms onto my pc??

Reset your google account password on a computer and login with the new password.


Can I change the menus on the default browser? I have an Evo running Froyo and love it.

But...

In the default browser (which I am happy with)  the menu options are Back, Forward, Add Bookmarks, Bookmarks, Windows and More. Thing is, I share links with the cloud (Twitter, Facebook, Reader, Dropbox, etc.) much more than adding bookmarks. I use Chrome so that all my bookmarks are shared between all my computers, so on, phone bookmarks are where ideas go to die. How can I move Add Bookmarks to More and bring Share forward?

No - as far as I can tell you can't change the menu in an application (unless that application specifically has that feature).  You could try downloading another browser like Opera, Firefox 4, or Dolphin (just to name a few).

That being said, if you still want to use the default browser, you can "long-press" on the address bar and a context menu will pop up with the option to "Share page". You can use that instead.

Hope this helps.


Android Q Desktop Mode - control secondary display I tried new Desktop Mode on Android Q Beta 3. The problem is that I'm not able to move mouse pointer to second display, so I don't have any way to use Desktop Mode.

Google Pixel XL, display is ASUS ZenScreen MB16AC, connected throught HUB via DisplayLink presenter (with USB-A)

Question: How to move mouse pointer to secondary display?

You should keep in mind that Android Q with it's Desktop Mode is still very much in beta and not a finished product at all.

There's still lots of bugs and problems with it.

The best you can do is wait for the official release later this year.


“Screen overlay detected” dialog? Turned off everything, doesn't work I started receiving the “Screen overlay detected” dialog when trying to change apps settings.

Tried to turn off all "draw over other apps" as it says here - "Screen overlay detected" dialog?, first without system and then with, but it still doesn't work.

Then, I restored apps to original settings and it just made a bigger mess, dialog continue appearing.
Any way to go back to previous settings???

Thanks!

There are three places to check. Mine was caused by the Forest app under Acessibilty.

Non-system Apps

Settings -> Application Manager -> Apps with Overlay Permissions -> Apps with Permissions

System Apps

Same as above, but with Show System Apps turned on

Accessibility Apps

Settings -> Acessibility -> Scroll to the bottom. It lists app names. Just turn them all off for now.


What is a "Download Agent" and what is it for? I've seen this phrase referenced in the context of MediaTek devices. I don't know what it is. It's been brought up in conversations about flashing the preloader when the preloader is wiped or corrupt, usually with some file called MTK_AllInOne_DA.bin. it also appears that is signed, too, from what I can gather from online discussions involving it. Is it signature-checked by the boot ROM?

Its a file used in flashing roms (or parts of the rom) for example for the SP Flash Tools. This file has info in it that tells the tool how to flash to the device.

You don't flash the DA file so it wouldn't be checked by the boot ROM. But what you are flashing would be checked.

Check out SP Flash Tool


Google music player queue I have read numerous posts about adding songs to the queue. My issue is I select a song and start it playing, I then select the next song and click the 3 dots next to the title and select "add to queue". I do this for several songs. I then click on the title bar and select the icon to view the queue and instead of showing the songs I added to the queue the queue now lists every song in my library not just the songs I added. What am I doing wrong?

If you want to play selectef songs back to back it is recommended to create a playlist of the songs you tend to listen more often. It is quite easy way and reliable as well.

Add to queue is nothing but to add the songs it is showing right in the list.

If you want to play few songs at once back to back please choose 'play next' option, as your concern is by choosing 'play next' option let's say for 5 songs, your 5 songs will listed just below your currently played songs and after 5 songs you will see list of all the songs from library.