How can I place a text file on my homescreen for editing? I would like to place a textfile from my SD-card todo.txt on my home screen so I can click on it to edit the content and when I close it only that file would be saved.

Ideally there would be a git repository behind this file so I can see and eventually rollback any changes I made to that file.

I use "ES File Explorer" as a file explorer on my device. This allows the creation of file shortcuts.

Once installed, just choose the homepage you want the shortcut, press and hold on the homescreen and you should be prompted to add a widget / app / shortcut.

In shortcuts, choose "Es File Explorer" and it then lets you choose the file you want a shortcut for.

Perhaps if used in conjunction with a Git app you can create the shortcut to a file within a repo saved on your device?

Never tried it but don't see why it wouldn't work


Disable Ability to Change Language with Spacebar I have a Pixel 4 with Android 10.  I am new to Android.

I use both English and Spanish.  I want to be able hold down the Spacebar to enter the mode where I can move the cursor around.

But when I do so, I get a pop-up asking me to switch languages.  Since I can accomplish the same thing with the globe button, how can I disable this? Thanks

yea I know how you feel I was an apple user but as Andrew.T states just touch where you want the cursor and drag and you will get to where you need to be. hold your finger down for longer you get copy paste etc etc :)


Low FPS after JellyBean Upgrade I bought a Sony Xperia P four months ago. It came with Gingerbread, but was upgradable to ICS. I upgraded it as soon as I got the chance. It was working excellent after the upgrade and didn't give me any chance to complain(except battery consumption).

Yesterday I updated the phone to JellyBean(4.1.2), which was just rolled out. And the phone became laggy like any 3 year old phone. I haven't changed any apps, just updated it. And now after more than 12 hours and 5-8 reboots, it's still laggy. I am getting FPS as low as 5 and it's sometimes crashing the apps too. I've read on some forum, that very few people faced the same problem.

How can I make it run fast again? Or if there's no other way than can I go back to ICS?

Well I think I panicked too soon. It was slow because it needs to sync and index all the media files and may be some other sync. I found it out from one of my friends and also experienced it after seeing my media files (video, music etc.) getting added to the list one by one. When I upgraded to ICS there was no media in my device, so it was ready with full performance. And since my phone is overflowing with media now, it was taking some time and running the media sync in the background.

So if you're facing the same problem, just give it a day or two to sync completely, before you try factory reset or downgrade.

PS: I've contacted Sony's customer care and they said that a downgrade can be done at any Sony service center without any charge. Just FYI.


Can I charge my phone with many different charger speed types? I have a nexus 6p, and various different chargers which I bought for the phone. One is a slow USB charger (comes with the box).

Another is a type c to type c cable connected to the AnkerCore 20100+ battery pack (this charges quick charge too but I charge that with a USB mini so the current is different).

I also have a charging dock and sometimes use my computer to charge it, along with a wall charger with the highest speed.

Does this effect the battery in any way and does it effect the time before I have to charge it again?

All the chargers should work, to a varying degree... if they are QC compatible, the phone may charge faster than "normal", if not, the phone will attempt to draw current up to the maximum capacity of the charger or the phones "normal" limit.

Does this effect the battery in any way and does it effect the time before I have to charge it again?

Yes, of course it does... Different sources will vary the recharge time, one charger may charge the device to near full in a significantly shorter time than another device, causing you to have to recharge sooner or more often. Charging very fast, such as Quick Charge, can have a negative impact on the long term life of the battery itself.


When using "voice typing", how can I capitalize a proper noun? When I press the speech-to-text button on my keyboard, I can dictate some text. Say I have a pub called the Red Lion that I want to mention. How can I get it to type "Red Lion" instead of "red lion"?

Letting it enter "red lion" and going back and editing it with a normal keyboard is very slow, because the popup menu of alternative transcriptions makes each edit take an extra click.

Picked up from this Ruben Roy answer in a more recent question:

You can use this comments to start and stop typing with capitals with the Google voice typing Android keyboard.

"Caps <word>"                           Type with an initial capital
"All Caps <word>"                       Type in all uppercase
"Caps On"                               Start typing words with initial capitals
"Caps Off"                              Stop typing words with initial capitals


How to find back my lost files I lost my photos which was  saved in gallery vault and I can't find it back.i have already tried to recover those in vault settings but  couldn't bargain back and it was found in help icon to contact with gallery vault @thinkyeah.com

Most likely they're encrypted by Gallery Vault so they're unrecoverable without decryption.

You could try to recover the photos from before being placed in Gallery Vault with DiskDigger on the PlayStore    This doesn't require root access if the device is running Android 5.0 or above, For some reason all the photos are stored in sort of hidden recycling bin.

  Tip for DiskDigger :
          If you can't find your photos, try to swap your default storage device in settings > storage to swap the default from internal storage over to SD Card, This sometimes gives DiskDigger the permissions needed to scan the SD Card also, It's because the device actually uses the SD Card as Internal Storage on some devices. The internal storage has read write permissions for DiskDigger to scan it correctly, However the SD Card hasn't got this permission, So it's a good little trick to make it scan the SD Card if you couldn't find the files on Internal Storage


Chrome Remote Desktop with external mouse? I've been googling for hours and all I can find are a few years old pages saying the only way to do a right click is double touch on the screen...

Has anyone found any better solution since? Maybe with External Keyboard Helper or some similar app??

Also, there seems to be no way to scroll. I've tried the browser version on Android tablet, and it works faster and you can scroll, but there is absolutely no way to press a right click.

It seems imposible that google would not adress this issue for years, since it's really frustrating.

I found an acceptable solution on my Huawei tablet... if I switch to "desktop mode", right mouse click starts working like on PC, so I then connect throug browser client. I don't know if that is possible on other tablets.

Hope this helps anyone.


CM 10.2 with Google Apps version 20130813 won't download from Play Store I have a Galaxy S3 I9300 from Telcel, Mexico running CyanogenMod 10.2.0, upgraded from 10.1.3 with the upgrade feature and using TWRP for this purpose. I am unable to download anything from the Play Store, the store loads but the apps won't download. I have flashed the gapps-20130813 package, cleared data and uninstalled updates from Play Store and Google Play Services, and it won't download yet. After googling around, I already cleared data on Google Play, Google Framework and Google Play Services, every single cache with Titanium Backup, cleaned up Dalvik cache, and removed and re-added my Google account. Still no luck.

I also noticed the download notification briefly appearing for a split second when I tap Download on Google Play.

Is there anything I can't do? I don't want to go through the hassle of backing everything up, deleting the entire data partition and restoring everything.

Sorry buddy. Factory reset does the trick... usually this is required when switching between ROM versions, and the Gapps XDA page mentions also that to flash a new Gapps you need to format the /system partition, data, and dalvik.


Escape key on bluetooth keyboard I have a bluetooth keyboard connected and working with my Android phone, but with one annoyance:  the escape key does not appear to do anything.  This is particularly problematic for a vi user like me.

Is there a way to fix it so the escape key works, at least in the terminal application?  Is /system/usr/keylayout/qwerty.kl a potential approach or is this something harder?

Hardware specifics:

SMK-LINK Bluetooth compact keyboard, Model VP6630
Android Dev Phone 1 with Cyanogenmod 6.1

The solution that has worked for me is:

Upgrade to a Nexus S running Cyanogenmod 10.


Facebook message notification Is there away to make my phone stop beeping when I get a Facebook message if I'm already on Facebook on a different computer?

In my experience, if you reply on a PC to the person who is sending you the messages, the notifications will be silent on your phone. Other than that, it doesn't seem to be currently possible.


Are there any performance issues after upgrade from Android 2.1 to 2.2? I have Samsung Galaxy S GT-i9000, now I want to upgrade its OS from 2.1 to 2.2. However, through Google i have found that many people are facing performance issues after the upgrade.  Does anyone have experience with this, and can you tell me how to get 2.2 to perform well?

Performance is generally a very subjective thing. There are apps that will measure specific aspects of performance, but that won't always correlate with what you feel from using the phone day to day.

Generally, one of the reasons for upgrading to Froyo is that it should give you performance benefits, see this previous question on Froyo's performance. In addition to that, Samsung have rolled in some fixes for previous performance problems (if you're using the official Samsung build): amongst other fixes, they've changed things so that the filesystem lag is less of a problem on Froyo; they've changed GPS and aGPS performance to get rid of a lot of those previous problems,;and they've fixed some of the serious problems in their customized apps like the music player.

One thing you may find after any upgrade is that your phone still has outdated data left in its caches and temporary areas that are only relevant to the previous version. These can cause performance problems straight after the upgrade. To get round this, you can either go through all your apps list after the upgrade and clear the caches, or reset your phone to factory settings after the upgrade and then reload all of your data. Be warned that both of these (especially the second option) can and will lose some of your settings and data, though anything saved on your SD card or saved on servers on the web will be safe, so make sure you back up anything on the phone that matters to you before doing this.

Personally, I found my Galaxy S performed much better after the Froyo upgrade. However I did do a factory reset on it (for a different reason related to changing Google accounts over) which will have helped in the short term.


Running applications from a terminal emulator I have a rooted Nexus 7 Jelly Bean tablet and whenever I attempt to run an application from a terminal emulator app after chmod 777ing it and using the syntax ("./applicationName") it insists that I do not have permission to execute even though I granted my self superUser privs using ("su"). After that I did a little research and I learnt that if you copy the file to the (/data/local/temp/) directory you should be able to execute the application. So when I tried that it said that the file does not exist even though it shows up when listing the directory contents using ("ls")

I have no idea what steps to take, if it helps I am tried to run (scp) as a test but I wish to be able to run a custom compiled version of dns2tcp. I know I could have used better applications such as a hello world compiled natively onthe device but i couldnt get my hands on a C compiler for android such as gcc.

Thanks for any advice

try putting sh in front of your command, eg.:

sh ./scp

or

sh -c ./scp


How to open youtube links on my facebook messenger app, in the youtube app? I am unable to play YouTube videos from the links I get on my Facebook Messenger app.

Here's what happens:

A friend of mine posts a video link to me (YouTube link) as a message on Facebook.
I receive it on my Android mobile in the Facebook messenger app.
I click on it and it shows a Dialogue-Box (you can call that a pop-up) which asks me to choose an app to open the video with.

Now earlier, there used to be the video player apps in my mobile along with the internet browsers installed on my mobile that used to come up there. So I would select an internet browser, and it in turn would re-direct me to the "YouTube" app itself.

However, now, I am only getting video-players in that Dialogue Box as an option to open the YouTube video, but of course, if I select them, they are not able to stream the video.

Has anyone found a way around this problem? It is really bothersome.

Go to settings on Facebook messenger app on Android. Then photos and media. Activate/turn on open links in default browser.


Cannot locate recovery image I have Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo (GT-I9301I). I've installed ClockworkMod and made backup of all files in my device. I had no suitable external memory card for backup, so CWM saved it in phone's memory. I've planned to move that backup to my PC, but I cannot locate it neither looking through "My files" in my device, nor connecting device to PC using USB, although free memory was reduced by 5-6 GB after making backup. The only way I can actually locate the backup is in recovery mode selecting - restore from/sdcard. It says backup image is in /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup', but I cannot find this folder on my device.

How do I find my backup files? If that's of any relevance, my phone is rooted. And I've also enabled "Show hidden files" option inside my device.

Until Android version 4.4.2 the CWM backups are stored in /data/media/clockworkmod/backup  Reason for this as per the Reddit Post (see source below)

  In Android 4.2, backups are placed in a secure directory, inaccessible to other apps

Whether it is TWRP / CWM / Philz recovery, clearing "internal storage", does not wipe this folder, unless explicitly cleared, hence back ups remain safe

You should be able to view the backup by any root enabled file explorer

This backup can be transferred to

External SD card by using a file explorer (to save space on internal SD)
Laptop using  adb pull /data/media/clockworkmod/backup

Source

XDA Thread: CWM Recovery restoring nandroid backup

Reddit Post: Transferring CWM backups to my PC?

`


Nexus 4 random reboots I've got an unrooted, plain vanilla 4.2.1 Nexus 4. Sometimes it randomly reboots itself while using it (and for all I know when it's not using it). Less than once a day problably, but I can't find a cause. IT does a weird sort of half-reboot too; it goes immediately to the big glowing X screen without the white Google screen that comes up during a cold reboot (off, then on).

The reboots don't seem to be caused by anything in particular; I've had one while running Chrome and one while running Gameboid. both of those run fine 99% of the time too, nothing has triggered the reboot more than once so I don't think it's a specific app.

Is this a known bug or caused by something or what? I'm mostly only using apps that worked on my last phone (which wasn't android 4.2) and stock apps, so I don't think it's any fishy apps.

I've experienced random reboots on Android 4.2 on the Nexus 7. From my research it looks like there may be an issue with Google's location services, but that's not verified. I don't think it's unique to your device in any case.

Take a look at this article which goes a little more in depth.


How can I get my soft-bricked Note 3 to work back I was messing around with my Note 3's build.prop file to play a game which was created for tablets only.
After I was done with editing I just pasted back my backup build.prop file from sd card and restarted the device. Now all I see is a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 SM-N9005 Screen and then everyrthing is black.
I tried to install CWM via odin but CWM wont boot either.
I know I can flash a new ROM with Odin but i don't want to lose my files, any way that i can fix my build.prop back? Or recover my files?
Thanks

Flash your stock rom with odin, you will not loose the files on the internal storage


How do I disable the bootup sound on (TMO) Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge? I have a T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge that I would like to disable the bootup T-Mobile 'jingle'.  How do I disable this?

1. You can use Silent Boot - Google Play

2. also you can do this with Root access and Root Explorer :

Goto -> /system -> media -> audio -> ui

and rename this files :

PowerOn.ogg
PowerOff.ogg

to something like this :

PowerOn.ogg.disable
PowerOff.ogg.disable

but, there's not non-root method that guarantees silence the Startup sound.


USB driver for RCA 7 Voyager rct6773W22 I can't seem to get my RCA rct6773W22 (7 Voyager) tablet to be detected via USB and RCA does not offer any driver.

If anyone has any idea how to fix this, I would greatly appreciate it.

This question was answered on this website. I will briefly summarize the steps I took to allow my RCA Voyager (RCT6873W42) running Marshmallow 6.0 to sync up with my Windows 7 computer and ADB in Android Studio.
1. Install the Google USB drivers.
2. Find the device ID by navigating in Windows to (Control Panel)>(Device Manager)>(Other Devices)>(Android ADB Interface)>(right-click: Properties)>(tab: Details)>(‘Property’ drop-down: Hardware Ids) which yielded

USB\VID_8087&PID_0928&REV_FFFF&MI_01
USB\VID_8087&PID_0928&MI_01

3. Open up C:\Users\Stewart\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\extras\google\usb_driver\android_winusb.inf in Notepad++ and add the following lines after both [Google.NTx86] and [Google.NTamd64]
;RCA Tablet RCT6873W42
%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_8087&PID_0928&REV_FFFF&MI_01
%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_8087&PID_0928&MI_01
(Notice that you have appended the the device IDs you obtained in step 2 to the direction%SingleAdbInterface%=USB_Install,.)
4. After saving android_winusb.inf, navigate back to device manager, right-click on the unknown device (Android ADB Interface) and choose ‘Update Driver Software…’.
5. Choose Browse my computer for driver software: Locate and install driver software manually. Then choose (Browse), navigating to where the drivers are stored (C:\Users\Stewart\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\extras\google\usb_driver) and clicking (Ok).
6.  Make sure that the ‘Include subfolders’ option is checked and click (Next).
7. If you open up Android Studio with your device connected, it should now show up in the ADB after several seconds.
Note: Some of these details may vary. The location of your SDK will undoubtedly be different. What you write in the .inf file comment is arbitrary. I chose to write ;RCA Tablet RCT6873W42. I assume you have enabled developer options on your device, allowing USB. You should be able to easily follow Google's direction on installing their USB drivers. An additional step was listed on the website (see above) which I did not have to follow.


New Nexus 4 download issue I try to save a .mp3 attachment from an email in hotmail.com. it loops and drained my battery. It continues to loop even phone restarts. I forced it to stop via download manager. is it only my phone or is it some unfixed bugs in download manager?

Sometimes the download manager won't clear its cache, goto settings/apps/download manager and clear data (cache will be cleared as well). It won't erase any already downloaded items, but the items trying to download. If you can, run a logcat, to get an idea of what is going wrong. Good luck!!


LG P760, insufficient disk space, help please I have an LG P760 updated to the latest available by LG version.
The last couple of days I cannot update the installed apps with the known error of insufficient disk space, although it was supposed that more than 290MB where available. I removed some apps and increased the free space to 320MB. Then I managed to update some apps but that's it.

Now, I understand that this is complicated but I want to know the following:
a. Is is possible to partition my external SD and use it as internal storage?
b. I want to avoid to root the device. If it's not possible, is it possible to root the device and then un-root it?
c. I want to avoid apps like link2sd. I am fairly competent with Linux CLI, so, I would like to use the mount command and Android boot scripts in order to mount SD partition.

Can I do that?

New Info:

It is possible that I found a "bug"(?). I had 2 devices and both of them were under my account in the Play store. I gave the second one to my wife. For a reason that I don't understand, my device was "removed" from my devices list, but the device that I gave to my wife was not (and it was in my wife's account too!).
I wanted to install an application and since I could not do that from my phone, I decided to try to "push" the application. But Play store said that my device was not compatible (and it showed the device of my wife). Then, I hide it, hoping that my device will re-appear.
Instead of that, my upgraded the apps that until some minutes ago refused to do so with the "insufficient" storage message!

a) Yes, you can use your external as an internal storage. (Requires Root access. Using link2sd. I don't know any other app)

b) Yes, it is possible to unroot your device. (http://www.wikihow.com/Unroot-Android)

C) I haven't tried that. But, yes you can do it.

I think that you want to avoid using link2sd app because of the risk.So I suggest you move your apps from Internal memory to an External memory(if you have any).
By rooting your phone your warranty will be void, plus you take a huge risk.(But if anything goes wrong, you are not alone. So you'll always find a solution on net :p )
This is the biggest disadvantage. But on the bright side there are plenty of things you can enjoy.


Bought an app, uninstalled it and automatically got a refund - how to disable? Few hours ago I bought an app on Google Play Store that I don't need at a moment, but it looked handy and was on sale. I have installed it, fiddled with it for a few minutes and then uninstalled it. As soon as it finished uninstalling, I got an email that my order was cancelled and refunded. The app isn't in my library anymore and I can buy it again.

I don't remember it happening previously when I uninstalled apps just after buying, so it looks like this automatic cancellation was introduced recently. (Or perhaps it's configured per app by developer?)

Can I opt out of this feature and not get refunds automatically?
Is there any official statement from Google that such feature was enabled?

It's an old question but here is what I could find

Google Play Refund Policies (click on "refund policies" on first line). says

  You may get an automatic refund if you uninstall a paid app shortly after first buying it. If you want to reinstall the app, you'll have to buy it again and you will not be eligible for a refund on that purchase.

(Emphasis added)

That explains why you got a refund and IMO, it has nothing to do with an app being on sale. It's applicable to paid apps.
Google doesn't define shortly (I couldn't find)
I couldn't find anything that one can opt out to prevent this happening, so don't be in a tearing hurry to uninstall paid apps (you have 48 hours to claim a refund - see this answer)
As per this blog, if you purchase but don't download the app, you can circumvent the immediate - uninstall - refund


Stopping Dolphin Browser Mini from reloading (Question about memory and cache) After opening certain amount of pages in Dolphin Browser Mini  (and I think Dolphin HD), the browser dismesses pages from memory as described here: Can I make the browser stop autmatically refreshing pages that haven't been displayed for a while?

The page includes a solution, which is using Swapper 2. Can anyone please explain how it works (not technically but the general idea) / what is it's limitations?

I was thinking of getting a 2GB tablet, since I thought it would be necessary for "multitasking", but this solution seems to work flawlessly for this problem and 2GB of RAM could be totally unnecessary, and hence the question.

Off in the world of real computers, with very fast memory and orders of magnitude slower storage--hard disks--there is the concept of virtual memory.  Basically, each application gets what seems like a very large amount of memory, an address space.  Behind the scenes, this address space is broken up into pages that are transfered between real, fast, memory and a part of the hard disk called swap space (i.e. slow memory) by the operating system and as needed.  In Linux, this swap space can be one or more specially formatted partitions and/or one or more files, or swap files.  The operating system is smart enough to keep track of where it's storing what.  It also ensures that before a program tries to read/write from a place in memory, that the page being accessed is first moved to real memory.

For example, if you're using your word processor and open 10,000 documents, exhausting main memory, some of the less recently accessed documents may be transfered the swap space to give way for the ones you just opened.  If you switch over to your browser, perhaps all of the memory used by the word processor will be shunted to the swap, replaced by the working-state of the browser.

Again, this is done automatically by the operating system, with no real involvement from programs.  According to your programs, they're running on a machine with a very large amount of memory.  According to the user, when this swapping occurs, there will be brief delays as the operating system moves data between the two types of memory.  Back in the Windows 95 days, it was pretty clear when the swapping was occurring as the hard disk light would be pretty much solid for a few seconds.

So, fast forward to phones.  On a phone running Android, there is usually no hard disk.  Instead, you have main memory--RAM, or that fast memory mentioned above--and some form of non-volatile storage.  It turns out that type of memory is slower than RAM, but not nearly as slow as a hard disk.  Although it would be tempting to use some or all of this non-volatile storage as swap space, I suspect manufacturers and Google, observed that one property of this non-volatile storage is that it degrades with repeated writes, and so opted not to use it.  This means that instead of having seemingly limitless memory, activities on Android only have access to RAM.  When the Android framework tries to start an activity and the operating system says sorry, out of memory, Android responds by killing activities until it has reclaimed enough memory.  This is why you notice Dolphin Browser actually reloading pages when you switch from and then back to it:  Whatever you switched to tried to use so much memory that Android had to start killing activities.

So, Swapper.  What swapper does is dig into the operating system and re-enable virtual memory by creating a swap file on your SD card and telling the OS about it.  The OS then makes all programs (including the Android framework) feel that they each have a lot of memory, and handles moving data between real memory and the swap file.  This is why Dolphin doesn't get killed as frequently with Swapper enabled.

As the Swapper page on Google Play explains, this could have a detrimental effect on whatever non-volatile memory the swap file is placed on.  If you're using an SD card, when you start getting write/read errors, you can just swap it out.  If you're using a phone with built-in non-volatile memory, it's a different story.  I'm not 100% sure what sort of impact repeated writes has to this sort of memory, but it's a risk you should be aware of.


Difference between Google Photos Sync and Google Photos Backup Sync? In the Accounts section of setup, what is the difference between
Google Photos Sync and
Google Photos Backup Sync?

When would I want to enable one over the other, and when would I want to enable both?

Specs:
Moto G 4G, 3rd generation, UK edition
Android 5.1 Lollipop

Google Photos in sync is what synchronizes your photos saved in Google Photos with the device. So if you add a photo on one device, it automatically appears on your other devices. This is only going to use data when photos are added/removed from Google Photos, so it shouldn't really be a concern for the battery unless you're constantly uploading photos to Google Photos from other devices or the computer.

Google Photos Backup is the automatic photo backup feature that uploads your pictures/videos to Google photos automatically. You can disable this, but you have to go into the Google Settings app. In there go to Google Photo Backup and you can turn it off or set it to upload only on wifi or mobile as well, and you can even set it to run the backup only when charging. And this will only be contributing to battery usage while photos are being uploaded, so unless you are taking tons of photos and have them set to upload over mobile or wifi.

Now the decision is yours!


Why does Android 3.x have no market share? According to the Android Developer Dashboard, the market share of Android 3.2 is only 0.1%, and no other 3.x version has even as much as that.  Versions 2.x and 4.x have all the market share.

Can someone please explain why there's a whole major version of Android that is apparently unused, while the previous and the next major versions are in wide use?  Was 3.x quickly replaced by 4 and all devices forced to upgrade?  What would have made 3.x so bad that no one uses it?

Honeycomb was a tablet-only version of the OS
It was only ever released for a few devices
The source code was never released not released until the source for Ice Cream Sandwich was available, and even then the Android devs noted that 3.x source was not complete
It never had much in the way of market share

See also:

What percentage of devices have each of the Android versions?
Is Android 3.0 Honeycomb only for tablets?


How can I configure a WiFi proxy that requires a username and password? I have an Android 4.1.2 phone, and I need to set a WiFi proxy that requires me to authenticate with a username and password. Where can I setup the user and password for the proxy?

For some one Google may bring you to this post
On Android 9, Just do as Harshil mentioned (just provide proxy host name and port, then save), when you using Chrome to access internet, there will be a popup to ask for proxy credential, now you can provide your proxy credential


Is there a micro usb OTG otg to HDMI adapter available? can a tablet with a micro usb OTG port connect directly to HDTV hdmi? how about HDTV USB port?

I believe slim-port and MHL are your only options for USB > HDMI.

The better options IMO are Chomecast/Miracast screen mirroring.


Titanium Backup: How to restore user apps and data without system apps and data? Is there a way to restore user and system data separately with Titanium Backup?

I would like to restore only my user apps and data (excluding system apps and data). The only way to achieve this seems to be to select "Restore all apps with data" in the Restore section and manually uncheck all system apps.

This is certainly doable but becomes tedious if you restore your device often. Is there a more convenient option?

If you click on Click to Edit Filters in the Backup \ Restore tab in Titanium Backup you can select:

Filter by type:

  System

  User

  Uninstalled

Then you can restore all apps that are only filtered by these (or a combination of them).


Galaxy SII not reporting Signal Strength I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy SII which in general has worked perfectly for me. My only issue is that the phone won't report the signal strength. If I get to the phone information (using the * # * # 4636 # * # code) the system reports the signal strength as zero which is impossible (since I have loads of reception issues in my home). My guess is that the information is being blocked, but I don't know why or how to unblock it.

The phone is running in GSM/WCDMA (Auto Mode) with the stock ROM

I believe it is related to this issue: onSignalStrengthsChanged returns unknown signal strength where android return wrong strength on Galaxy S2.


For an android virtual device emulator which target should i target it to? (Image included) It says that the CPU,ABI system image isn't available for this target, but there is only one target and thats the one that is already selected. What do i do? Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Run the android sdk manager and download the image because you only have the device definitions and the SDK and  not the system images  so download them from there


how to sync my university email to my Android? I bought a new galaxy s4 and I can't sync my university account to the cell phone. I tried going to settings>>accounts>>add account>>email but I still can't connect it.

my email is something like this *@mail.university.ac.il

This question is impossible to answer without knowing the configuration your university uses. You should ask for the details of the mail server from the university's helpdesk. You'll need to know at least the server address, username and password for your mail account, and possibly even more details such as custom port numbers, access restrictions, protocols to use, encryption etc.

I'm certain that the helpdesk can assist you in getting the email settings correctly into your phone.


Power problems with Droid Incredible 2 My daughter's Droid Incredible 2 is mostly dead.

Symptoms:

If we can manage to turn it on, it only stays on for a minute or so after it completes all of its start-up tasks. Then turns off and acts like the battery is dead.
When I plug it in, I usually get a rapidly flashing amber light, rather than the steady amber light (for charging) that I would expect. Usually the flashing seems to slow down and then stop (with the light off). There's no indication that it's charging.

There's no water damage, nor is there any physical damage to speak of. (Just some less-than-normal wear-and-tear.)

I've removed the battery and checked the contacts. They're nice, shiny metal. The battery is seated properly.

Have I got a battery that needs replacing? Does it just need to charge longer before turning on? (I am seeing the same issue with two different phone chargers, including one for my Galaxy Nexus that has no issues.)

Any insights?

The Incredible 2 has a defective charging port that does not typically last a long time. It is an extremely common issue with this phone. Chances are, this is what you are seeing.

Disclaimer: I have been using my current dinc2 for ~18 months and haven't had this issue yet, but I did see it on a used phone I attempted to buy. Anyway, my plan for if/when this does happen is:

Repair HTC Incredible 2 USB Charge Port

The part is supposed to be $12 and takes an hour to do. If you're not comfortable doing it yourself, I'd take it to a cell phone repair shop.


Strange problem with proximity sensor on Nexus 5X A few days ago I started experiencing a strange problem with my proximity sensor. When I answer a call and put the phone to my ear, the screen goes blank.  When the call ends, the screen stays black.  This (as I've discovered) happens to quite a few people.

I started checking with aida64 app. When the app starts, it reports proximity sensor value of 5cm.  When I cover the sensor, the value goes to 0.  Then I uncover the sensor - and the value stays at 0.  I switch from aida64 to any other app and back to aida64 - and the value goes back to 5cm.  Alternatively, I can
switch the screen off, then on again - and the value will go back to 5cm. Basically, it looks like once the value is down to 0, it won't reset for the currently running activity/app - yet it does reset when the activity is deactivated and then reactivated.

I tried booting in safe mode - same results.

Any ideas about trying to solve this?

The phone is Nexus 5X with PureNexus 7.1.2 ROM and Magisk.  Come to think of it, it may have started when I updated magisk a few days ago, but maybe not.  Any suggestions on rolling magisk back a couple of versions would also be useful.

EDIT: I uninstalled magisk altogether and the problem persists, so it can't be magisk related.

Answering my own question. As I didn't have much to loose, I opened the phone up and found HUGE amounts of dust inside, including around the proximity sensor.  The whole sensor was just clogged with dust. I took out all the tiny parts, gaskets, etc., carefully cleaned everything with a soft brush and re-assembled the phone. Voila! Everything works correctly now.

I suspect the dust was getting in the way of the light in the proximity sensor - but it wasn't fully closed due to the dust moving around there.


Shell utterly borked, toolbox claims "no such tool" HTC Magic, rooted with CyanogenMod 5. Tried to install busybox using "Busybox Installer" from the Market, ended up with a strangely borked system. Android does not boot, freezes on the splash screen. ADB shell, however, works. On the other hand, almost none of the commands work.

The busybox file is in /system/xbin, it seems. However, whenever I call it, I get "Permission denied". Even after sudo.

Running common commands like ls, cp, ln gives the same error message: "permission denied". Seems like those are symlinks to busybox, which is borked, see above.

/system/bin/toolbox is there, but it refuses to do most useful commands with a uniform message "No such tool". Ls, cp, mount, chmod, chown - "No such tool". Experimentally I found that set, ps, kill, reboot work. Is there a list of toolbox commands out there?

The only message of relevance in logcat is "02-02 01:36:38.280: E/logwrapper(61): executing /system/xbin/busybox failed: Permission denied". I kinda knew that.

I can write to the SD card. Is there a way to reflash the busybox while making it executable?

Is there an executable file anywhere on /data, so that I could push a copy of busybox there?

I can reboot into recovery mode, which is Android's own recovery mode.

Any ideas how to bring the system back to usable state? The phone is a scratch phone, so data loss is not an issue - there's no good data there.

It seems like making busybox executable somehow would bring everything back. I'm utterly lost, however, how to do that. And I'm rather surprised toolbox won't support chmod.

EDIT: funny data point. When I boot into recovery, I still can do ADB shell. And I get a completely different environment - there's command line with ls, busybox (!) and stuff. /system is almost empty. From that environment, can I somehow go back to the regular /system? The mount command is available.

Yay, the phone boots again.

Here's the magic recipe.

Boot into recovery.
adb shell
mkdir /data/s
mount -o rw -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /data/s
chmod 755 /data/s/xbin/busybox
Reboot the phone.

My shell is back. There's a weird quirk now - ls (from the busybox, one assumes) thinks ADB is an ANSI terminal and tries to emit ANSI escape sequences. Still, yay.


Handle private/company wiki from an Android phone I'm currently using the Oddmuse wiki to document things, both personal and work related. What I'd like to do is to find an Android app along with a wiki engine which enables me to read and make changes to the wiki with my phone. Using only the browser is unintuitive and hard to use.

How can I do this? I'd rather use MediaWiki or DokuWiki, but I don't know of any apps which can both display and let me log in to edit the wiki.

I am falling in love with ikiwiki. ikiwiki uses MarkDown which means you can use any text editor to edit your pages.  You can push changes to your server using SVN or git (many other options are also available).

Check out ikiwiki and see if it may be able to provide you with the solution for which you are looking.


Reinstalling purchased apps on a new phone? Possible Duplicate:
  Move paid apps between devices?

My contract is getting close to finishing so I'll be upgrading to a new Android phone and giving my old phone to a family member.

When I move my Google account across to my new phone will I have to repurchase or just re-download my paid for apps?

Also will I'll have to remove the paid for apps from my old phone before it is associated with a new Google account?

You will not have to repurchase them if you associate the same Google account with the new device. They will be available in your market to re-download.

I don't know if you can have more then one phone associated with the same account, but I did not do anything when I got a new phone, except associate my google account to the new phone.


Why are bluetooth devices shown as paired, even though they are not even available? When you pair a two bluetooth devices (e.g., a sound system with your mobile phone), the mobile phone will forever list the sound system as a paired device, even if you're physically so far away (>10km), that it is obviously impossible that there is a connection betwen the two devices.

What is going on? Why is the device shown as paired? Is this just poor naming?

The Paired devices section list out the devices which are already paired with your device. i.e., just an entry. However, it doesnt matter paired device are actively in connected state. Even when the paired device is not connected currently, the paired device section will list out since it has been paired already. if it bothering, you may long press the paired device and delete it but you need to paired it again to transfer the files.

hope this helps!


Can I install apps to different devices from one device? I am wondering if there is a way to install and open apps on different devices I am signed onto from one device.

I think what you are looking for is Apps Syncing across multiple devices. AFAIK, there is no native way to directly do this. You would need to have something like what this App Sync app is promoting.

 Disclaimer: I am not associated with the app's company or developers in any way. I just did a quick search and their app was the first one to show up.

IMHO, I think apps syncing would is convenient, but may result to some crashes, since there is a chance where your devices each are using a different Android OS version, different specs, and last but not the least is app device specific compatibility (e.g. Tablet-only apps).


How to transfer photos wirelessly without losing file date and time I want to quickly wirelessly transfer photos off an Android (Kit Kat) device.  The catch: I don't want to lose the file dates/times during the transfer.  Specifically, I am not talking about the EXIF date/time; I am talking about the actual file date/time.  I organize my images by file timestamp (aka datestamp) and having the file timestamp change during the transfer prevents this simply and effective technique.  This task is trivial to accomplish with a wire, but I have been unable to find a wireless solution.

I prefer a solution that can be performed without any internet access, but am open to all solutions.

What I've Tried

I tried using ShareIt.  Datestamps are changed.  FAIL.
I tried using SuperBeam with the experimental option to maintain timestamps enabled.  Datestamps are changed.  FAIL.
I tried using Google Drive.  Datestamps are changed.  Internet access required.  DOUBLE FAIL.

Does anyone know what will work?

If you mean by "transfer photos off an Android" to "transfer from android to pc" i use a pc software to reconstruct the file-date from the exifdate (exiftools)

for the other direction "from pc to android" i insert the android-s sd-card into the pc so the pc can set the file-modification date.

On my android-4.2 and android-4.4 devices the android-os prevents the manual seting of a file-timestamp so transfering to android device via wifi will not work (at least not with my android devices).

[update 2017-02-21]

i have programmed a batch with exiftools :

 exiftool "-DateTimeOriginal>FileModifyDate" -ignoreMinorErrors -overwrite_original -r -ext .jpg .

meaning: copy for all *.jpg in current dir and their subdirs: exif-DateTimeOriginal to FileModifyDate


Where can I find out when I installed an app? Is there a Play Store log file?

Or should I be looking where apps are installed on the phone for time/date stamps?

Many apps available from Play Store show the install and update time of the installed apps. I've tested three of them and have given instructions to use them appropriately.
AM (Pre-release)
Install it → tap on three dots line in upper-right area → Sort → Last update.
If you click on an app entry there you can also see its Installer name in the App Info (scroll down to the bottom) section.
Applications Info
Install and launch the app → tap your app's entry.
Solid Explorer
Install and launch the app → from the left sidebar select Applications → User apps → tap on your app's entry.
(Click an image to enlarge it; order of images: Elixir 2, Applications Info, and Solid Explorer)

Command-line
If you want a command-line way, follow these instructions:
Setup adb in PC and execute the command:
adb shell dumpsys package

You might end up with overwhelming information about all the installed packages including the  date/time stamp you're seeking. If you want the said stamps for a specific package whose package name you're aware of, then enter:
adb shell 'dumpsys package PKG_NAME | grep -e "firstInstallTime" -e "lastUpdateTime"'     # replace PKG_NAME with the package name of your app

Its output possibly would be like,
firstInstallTime=2015-07-04 15:49:50
lastUpdateTime=2015-07-04 15:49:50
Note that the info is originally available in the file /data/system/packages.xml.
Alternatively, if you've Google Play Store installed, then take its backup using ADB, extract the backup to locate the database localappstate.db. Open that file in PC using an SQLite database viewer like DB Browser for SQLite or on Android using apps like SQLite Editor / aSQLiteManager. The said apps may need root access so I recommend to stick with the SQLite viewer for PC.
The table appstate in that file has the columns first_download_ms delivery_data_timestamp_ms. The latter shows when the app was installed and the former shows when the download was initiated by Play Store.
Limitation: Play Store wouldn't show date/time stamp for side loaded apps.


How can I transfer a playlist straight to my PC? The key is that my music files are all over the place in separate folder in my phone. It would be too time consuming to sift through every folder and pull out the individual song files that are in my playlist, not to mention some of the files are weirdly named so I'd end up missing some.

I'm trying to move just the songs that are in said playlist so I can burn them to a CD. The music app on my LGG4 let me export the playlist into an ".m4u" file but I'm not sure what this does or if it even helps. Any guidance? Thanks in advance.

There is no straightfoward solution as far as I know, but I solved this with the help of 2 free apps (with Android 4.1.2 on a Samsung S3 mini):

Total Commander
Playlist Backup

Install them from the Google Playstore, then continue as follows:

With Playlist Backup, export the Playlist as text file. Store it in a temp folder on your mobile.
To copy the MP3 files contained in the playlist, open the playlist in Android's built in player, then select "Send via" in the context menu. Select all files. Then, a list of apps is shown. Select Total Commander. In Total Commander, pick the local temporary folder (on your mobile) to copy the files into.
After Total Commander has copied the files, connect the mobile with your PC and copy the temporary folder to the PCs harddisk (containing the playlist text file and the MP3 files)

Finally edit the playlist file to adapt the paths in it so the MP3files are found by the PC player software (e.g. WinAmp or any other MP3 player which supports playlists).


Guide to editing /etc/hosts It was noted in another thread that it should be possible to build up a white list for an android device using the /etc/hosts file.  I would like to experiment with this idea.  Does anyone have any guidance to offer as to how to go about it?

It has been many years since I played with that area of networking, but from what I remember the host file allows you to specify an IP for an URL which overrides the published DNS settings.  With that it is fairly easy to build a list of content that I want to have accessible, or explicitly blocked, but I am not sure how that helps prevent access to other content.  I am not aware of, and so far google has not showed me, any way to tell the host file to intercept all other requests.  Does android support some form of wild card in the hosts file?  Or is there some way to disable DNS regardless of the active network connection?

Should note that the devices I am worried about at the moment are wi-fi only tables running android 2.3.3.  I am willing to root them if necessary.

/etc/hosts doesn't allow wildcards (see here: https://serverfault.com/questions/118378/in-my-etc-hosts-file-on-linux-osx-how-do-i-do-a-wildcard-subdomain).

Two more links about /etc/hosts:

HOWTO Configure your hosts file: http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:Ch03:_Linux_Networking#Configuring_Your_.2Fetc.2Fhosts_File
Large example file with nice intro header: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
Small Android app that allows you to add an entry to the hosts file (requires root): https://market.android.com/details?id=com.pof.Add2Hosts


Adoptable storage and nandroid backup - All apps included? I have an SD card in internal storage mode (adoptable storage) and want to do a full backup of my device. In this mode the SD card has folders equivalent to /data/app, /data/data and /data/media. If I do a nandroid backup with TWRP, are any of these folders included in the backup?

In case they are not included: What would be the best way to do a full backup of my phone with all apps?

I can confirm that TWRP -- the latest version as of writing, at least -- recognizes, decrypts, backs up, and restores the contents of adoptable storage correctly. Note, though, that just as it ignores /data/media/, it also ignores /external_sd/media/, so be sure to backup that folder manually.


How can I free some disk space without deleting my apps? I dont have that many apps. But I had to delete old ones to get new ones because my phone keeps saying I have low storage.

How can I free some disk space without deleting my apps?

The only way that I am aware of is if you don't want to remove apps from your device, you could remove the app data associated with them. Certain apps take up quite a large amount of space, Google Maps is an example of this if you use it regularly.

To delete the app data go to settings > Applications > Manage Applications and click on a app name and then click on the All Tab. You may want to click on Menu > Sort by size so it will show you what apps are using the most space from the top of the screen.

To clear the app data click on the app name and then click on the clear data button.

Do this for a couple of apps and the low storage space warning should eventually disappear, you may have to go through quite a few apps though. This is what I have to do on quite a regular basis unfortunately.

Another tip, the browser tends to store a lot of data, but if you click on clear data for the browser you will lose everything including bookmarks. Instead from the browser press menu > more > settings  and then clear things like history and cookies etc.

Hope this helps


Can mobile websites (not apps) access androids GPS Radio We're creating a brief for a mobile website (not web app) and would like to know if a mobile website can access a handset's built in GPS radio to display the handset's location on a map.

In short is GPS functionality limited to apps alone?

While Websites can not directly access the GPS, then can get the current location from the device (But of course only if the user has granted the permission). I think that this is done via HTML5's gelocation API, but I am not sure.


How to remove corporate settings? My DroidX just got upgraded to 2.3.15 (android version shows 2.2) over the air.  After the upgrade the phone forced me to set a pin number.  The phone is not currently connected to an Exchange server, but it used to be.  A couple of weeks ago I removed then Exchange settings for contact list sync and I uninstalled TouchDown.

The strange thing is that the Exchange server that I was connected to didn't have a requirement for a password, so I'm not sure where this setting is coming from.  When I look in Location & Security > Select Device Administrators I see "Corporate Sync" listed in there, but there doesn't appear to be any way to remove the settings.

I no longer work for the company with the exchange server, so I can't connect back to it.  I'd rather not wipe the phone and reset it if I don't have to.  I would also prefer not to root the phone as well.

FOR ROOTED PHONES ONLY

Well I've had the same problem as the original poster ever since I updated it to Froyo. My exchange account I previously had on the phone was using a remote administrator certificate that I could not remove. Yesterday I worked out a simple solution using R/W access to the /system/app folder.

Using a free root file explorer named Super Manager. I navigated to /system/app and renamed the file PolicyMgrProvider.apk to PolicyMgrPrivider.bak. This removed the remote administrator policy and allowed me full control over the lock screen. After I switched it to No Lock I went back and renamed the file to PolicyMgrProvider.apk.

No problems what so ever.

I did rename the file BlurEmailEngine.apk to a .bak at the same time, so if its not working disable that app as well long enough to change your lock screen settings.

I know you don't want to root your phone, but unfortunately its probably the only way you'll get that stupid PIN lock gone.


How to grant permissions to ADB? I can use ADB while in recovery mode (TWRP) so to use it normally, I followed Android - Enable ADB from recovery to enable USB debugging. There is always an error while switching users, granting permissions, unhiding apps, using am and pm commands.

This is the error that always comes:

  Error: java.lang.SecurityException: Neither user 2000 nor current process has android.permission.INSTALL_PACKAGES.

How to grant permissions to ADB?

Call "adb root" before calling "pm install -r xxx.apk"


How to install bundles of additional terminal commands for rooted devices? I rooted a HTC Wildfire S device recently and flashed an Android 4.1.2 AOKP Jelly Bean Custom ROM. One benefit is that I can use the terminal now.

I'm a little used to using terminal emulators on desktop machines but never did that on an Android device before. I noticed some commands are not found, for example:

$ tree
/system/bin/sh: tree: not found

Is there a way to add more commands to my device, maybe a bundle of GNU packages for Android available somewhere?

Yes that's possible with the termux terminal.

  Homepage | Google Play

You can install additional shell commands using apt.

$ apt update
$ apt upgrade
$ apt install tree

Screenshot:

Bonus: Also works on non-rooted devices!


Why can my tablet not use my phone's internet over bluetooth? I have an old Nokia 6300 (2008-era) phone and an Amazon Kindle Fire HD (2012 model) rooted with CyanogenMod on Android KitKat.

The Kindle does everything I want it to do and I see no reason to carry around a smartphone as I have no need for one (yes, this is coming from someone who owned a Samsung Galaxy S3 for two years!).

I have connected the Nokia to my Kindle via bluetooth and have noticed the 'connect to this device for internet-access' option:

Over on the Nokia the E symbol is displayed within a box meaning that the device is connected to the internet; when I toggle the 'Internet Access' option on my Kindle off, the Nokia phone is no longer connected to the internet (the box around the E disappears).

The Kindle is certainly telling the phone that it wants to use it for internet access, but however Chrome on the Kindle is telling me that it doesn't have an internet connection.

I've read on various websites that Bluetooth DUN and PAN is disabled on KitKat because it's buggy and Google haven't fixed it yet. Is this true?

I've also tried various bluetooth DUN apps to try and get this to work and bluetooth DUN simply tells me 'this device is not supported' and the other doesn't do anything.

Is it possible at all to access the internet vi

According to xerox89 at XDA-Developers:

  I wont say 100% imposible .
  But its 90% NO . Try to get a smartphone to tether . A galaxy Y or xperia mini would be cheap option .


How can I find out how much current/power my phone can supply via USB-OTG? Is there a way to find out how much current or power a USB-OTG device can draw while connected to my phone? I'd be happy with something like:-

an online database like GSMArena with details for lots of phones
an app I can run on the phone to find it out e.g. from the USB host driver in the kernel
a file in /proc or /dev I can read (as root, if necessary)

I'd rather not have to test it with hardware by connecting a USB peripheral to it and increasing its current draw until it stops working.

The particular phone I'm interested in is a Nexus 5, but I'm really looking for an answer that's applicable to any phone (that supports USB-on-the-go).

I'm not sure this is entirely correct on Android, but on Linux, lsusb -v tells a lot about USB devices, including their maximum current output. If you can get usbutils on Android, that might tell you.


How to change my device's country? Possible Duplicate:
  How can I circumvent regional restrictions in the Android Market?

Google just released Chrome for Android and I want to use it. But, for some (pretty irrational) reason, it is only available to certain countries. I therefore need to change mine. How do I do that?

Thanks

You can try this:
-Use an android cook rom (Cyanogen), try Rom Manager to simplify the process.

-Use Market enabler to fake some other providers (Verizon/ AT&T etc, but change to those two makes Google Market thinks your phone is in US).

Or you can try installing the beta version of Chrome that is already leaked on xda

Remember ICS only, lower version of Android OS will lead to apk parse error.


HTC Desire Phone Storage != Physical size On my Android HTC Desire, it says that I have 5.30 GB of phone storage, whilst my physical size is 8 GB. The 5.30 GB of phone storage seems to be composed of 4.52 GB available, 776 MB of apps, and a few other bits.

Why does the phone storage not equal the physical size? Is this because the remaining memory is taken up by operating system files which I am not allowed to access, or something else? If anyone can confirm the composition of this seemingly extra memory and post links to resources on this, that would be highly appreciated.

Note Android version 4.4.2. Model number = HTC_Desire_320

That is because your phone has several partitions, and some of those are not user-accessible, but they are required by the OS for the proper functioning of the device. This storage is "partitioned" from your physical storage. These partitions are as follows:

1) bootloader or variants thereof: About a few MB. Responsible for booting up your device. You can't normally mess with it, even with root on-device, but even if you can, you shouldn't.

2) /boot: Contains the OS core, the Linux kernel. About 10-25 MB, varies with device.

3) /recovery: The name is pretty self-explanatory. About 10-25 MB. Responsible for doing OTA updates, factory resets and saving your device when it gets into a bootloop. Most rooted users usually flash a custom recovery like CWM or TWRP before going forward with customization.

4) /system: About 1-1.5GB, varies with device. Stores system data and apps. Read-only to normal users, write-capable for root. Most root users mess with this partition on a regular basis.

5) /data: About 1GB- depending on device. On devices with unified storage, this partition holds the internal SD card too as an emulated device. It is not even read-only to normal users, but it can be written to and read with root. It holds user-installed apps, their data, and user-specific data.

6) /cache: App and data cache. From 16-256 MB. A kind of temporary storage provided to apps.

Note: A factory data reset wipes /data and /cache only.

7) radio or variants thereof: A few MB. Again, responsible for handling telephony. Don't mess with this.

8) /storage/sdcard0: On non-unified storage devices, this is the user-available storage as a separate partition. On unified storage devices, this is still there, but is a folder under /data actually, with write permissions for normal users, unlike the rest of /data.

For any more info, a Google search will help. Or you can check this out.

Also, the partition names are the ones I got from fastboot while flashing my HTC Nexus 9 (16GB,WiFi, flounder/volantis) when upgrading Android via factory images.


Where are my Apps gone? Not shown under all apps, in my phone I have a nuumber of Android apps installed.

When I use them from desktop shortcuts of phone, they work normally but in "All apps" (having up arrow symbol) section, it only shows 4 apps: Latitude, Local, Maps and Navigation. While all other apps are not there but still installed.

So I am wondering that why and how that happened? I saw some other similar titled questions but they are different. I didn't hide any thing intentionally but not sure if I set some thing.

Please note that I am not a layman, I am a developer so when I am doing some thing then I understand what I am doing, so I think it is some thing that did automatically, may be after and because of updates of apps.  I also have app2sd card so not sure if it's related.

So please some one tell if you know that how can I have my apps again under that apps section and can use it normally. My Android version is, Froyo and I'm using an HTC Wildfire.

I solved the problem myself. I had a game installed on SD card named, Hambo, I shifted it to phone and all apps, came back to their place, what else change I did earlier was to remove updates of Android market app. So google play was removed and then I did the only change of moving one app. from SD card to phone and my problem was solved. I don't know actual reason of problem but based on what I read some where I think it was may be waiting for some update or change in some installation after the uninstallation of play update. So when I shifted an app to phone, all old things restored at their place.


How do I flash and prepare an ASUS Zenfone 2 Laser for custom ROM installation? I am tired of the original ROM on my phone and I'll install the resurrection ROM.

I have the zip, but if I am not wrong I need to first do 3 things:

-get root access

-install TWRP

-and adb

Am I right?

I am still in the process of understanding how it works.

Where do I get these files and instructions?
I have found some links, but none of them seems to be easy and well-explained.

Thanks!

You don't need root access on your stock ROM. The step is:
     1. Unlock your phone ROM using official APK or other means (ASUS unlock APK was known to be buggy)
     2. Install TWRP using ADB
     3. Flash custom ROM using TWRP

Your warranty will be void and you might get your phone bricked.

Detailed guide:

Install ADB on your PC c:\adb
Copy TWRP recovery and ROM zip file to adb folder
In your Phone set development option on, enable USB debugging
Unlock your phone using official ASUS APK
Connect your phone to PC, run cmd on c:\adb ".\adb devices" confirm device connected
Run cmd: .\adb reboot-bootloader
Run cmd: .\fastboot devices, confirm device connected in fastboot mode
Flash TWRP: .\fastboot flash recovery twrprecoveryfile
Enter recovery mode
Flash custom ROM using TWRP


How can I know if my Asus Nexus 7 is 1st or 2nd gen? I was given an Asus Nexus 7. How can I tell if it is the 1st or the 2nd gen?

The easiest way to tell is by checking the front and rear camera.

The first gen has front camera only and there is no rear camera. The second generation has both front and rear camera.


Recover data from SM-N900 - Heimdall/Odin help I have a SM-N900 (Note 3 Exynos), the password for which is forgotten![1], but there is data that need to be recovered.

I am trying to flash TWRP, or CWM recovery image so that I can at least get
to ADB. So far I have tried using Heimdall(built from HEAD with libusb-1.0.0-dev on Ubuntu 14.04), Odin(3.9, 3.10 on Windows 10), and none of them seem to be working.

With Heimdall, I get:

ERROR: Failed to confirm end of file transfer sequence!
RECOVERY upload failed!

(for which there are a lot of hits on google, but no clear solutions)

And, with Odin, I get:

Complete(Write) operation failed.

Which also seems to be a fairly common error!

I have tried both USB2.0 and USB3.0 ports (on Windows Odin seems to only recognize 2.0).
I am using the original USB cable which came with the phone.
On Windows, I have Samsung USB drivers installed and Kies/Switch is not installed.

[1]:

ADM didn't work, somehow, and there seems to be option to use google login (after the last update that happened [must be Lollipop])
Had not registered with Samsung recovery :(
USB debugging was not enabled!
Had not installed CWM/TWRP :(

After burning midnight oil (5 hours straight!), finally I could get Odin to flash TWRP! I had to do 2 things:

Not use the .tar directly, but extract the .img and then use a .bat script (found on XDA forums) to convert it to .tar.md5
Get the latest version of the TWRP recovery: twrp-2.8.6.0-ha3g

(But I'm not very sure why the original .tar didnt work, though!)

Odin version used: 3.10.7


Why doesn't su have its setuid bit set? I checked the permission of su with ls -l, and found it doesn't have the setuid bit set. This is different from common desktop Linux. Is there any reason behind this difference?

The su binary was installed using supersu on an experimental Nexus device with factory ROM.

See this answer at Unix.SE. Instead of the setuid bit, the binary has some capabilities set via file's extended attributes. The particular caps are of interest are CAP_SETUID and CAP_SETGID.


Forwarding text messages from an android phone to a TCP port of a PC We are going to have an online poll using SMS in an upcoming ceremony. We also want to show the result of the poll on a large screen using a video projector. The idea that I have is to use an android phone to receive text messages and forward them to a PC using a TCP/IP connection. If the message is forwarded to the PC, I can handle the rest of the things easily. Now, I have two questions regarding the above idea:

Do you know any application of piece of code that forwards any incoming text message to a given ip address/port number?
Is an android phone capable of handling a large number of text messages? That would be 100-200 messages per minute. The latter issue is a more important one since I have no clue about the number and I cannot test the scalability of the system since the day of the ceremony.

It isn't difficult to create the necessary code to listen to incoming messages, handle their data and send them to a TCP socket. I've done such an app but can't release it's code, unfortunately. All I can say is it's pretty simple, just research incoming SMS handling (for example here) and sockets (for example here).

As to your other question, there is some latency when receiving SMS, but this depends on your carrier. They store the messages in a queue and send them to your phone as fast as they can. So, depending on your carrier they may have some limits on how many messages they accept into the queue.

You can estimate the delay in the messages by sending a SMS to your phone from 2 other phones simultaneously, and check the difference in receiving the messages. You can then estimate the handling speed per minute. For example, if there's a two second delay, it would take (200*2)/60=6m40s to process 200 messages.


I have lost my MOTO E My device has stolen by someone,,, i need to block the Device as completely useless
Find the following IMEI Details,

IMEI No.: 359299053253550
          359899053253568

You can use Android Device Manager from the web to try finding your device. It can "call" and maybe lock & wipe your device, too.

Android Device Manager: https://www.google.de/android/devicemanager


Secret code not working on my phone when it is working on others? There is an app that allows you to enter a secret code in the format *#*#(code)#*#*, however it is not working on my phone (Samsung Galaxy SII GT-I9100) running CyanogenMod 10 (Android 4.1.1).

I have managed to confirm that it is working on other devices, so why isn't it working on mine? Logcat reveals nothing.

A lot of the secret codes are either carrier specific or ROM specific. An example, I bought my son an HTC EVO 4G (from swappa) and called sprint to activate it. They had me enter one of the secret codes and it should have launched a window that would ask for a PIN. But it did not.

The reason was because the phone that I bought was running CM7. In order to activate I had to enter this code. But in order to enter the code, I had to have the Stock HTC Sense ROM installed on the device.

I found a flashable version of the Sense ROM, flashed it, called back Sprint and entered the Secret Code. Everything worked as expected. Then after the device was registered with Sprint I flashed CM7 back on the device.


Default Music Player randomly playing while headphones are plugged in This is INCREDIBLY annoying. While listening to music, the headphone will somehow trigger an unplug event (the connection is loose and very bad apparently). The default player will start to play, and sometimes it will just keep playing and pausing rapidly. Sometimes, Pandora will also constantly play and pause music. This is so frustrating it makes me just want to smash my phone to pieces for the junk it is. What can be done? I have used this answer here, but it doesn't fix the problem while playing music.

The only way I can hope to currently listen to music on my phone is to make sure the connection from the headphone (any headphone) isn't disturbed. My phone basically doesn't play music well at all any more which means no more Pandora/internet radio.

What can/should I do? I am using a Droid X with the latest update 2.3.3. I believe this problem has been happening for a while. I bought the phone in October and it worked without this kind of problem for about 2-4 months.

Am I the only one with this bug?

How long have you had your phone? One common cause of intermittent headphone connections like this can just be that after carrying your phone around in your pocket for months, it has picked up "pocket fluff" in the headphone socket. At first this just squashes down out of the way when your headphones are plugged in, but after a while so much builds up that it stops the headphones plugging in fully and making a secure connection.

Removing this fluff can be as simple as just pulling it out with a straightened paper clip (be careful when you stick it in there). This is what I found by in my headphone socket a little while ago with a paper clip.

There are also some slightly more complicated ways to give the socket a good clean.

This fluff problem is far more common with smart phones, than with stand-alone MP3 players or old-fashioned walkman-type devices, as you'd commonly leave the headphones permanently plugged into those older single-purpose devices, whereas people usually leave the headphone socket empty on general purpose smart phones most of the time, and slip them in and out of fluff and lint filled (and generating) trouser pockets.


google play store no connection retry I recently got a new android device and my gmail account is logged in I have cleared cache and data on google play store but when trying to access the play store it says no connection. I am able to access the internet. when trying to download things from the google play website it does not list my phone as a device just my last two devices. please help!!

Although the exact cause can not be said, and since you already tried Clear cache but below are few things that you may want to try:

1.Check the date and time of your device. This was the problem with majority of users complaining about this error message in their Google Play Store app.
If your date and time are not correctly set, you will again the “No connection – Retry” error message.
2.Uninstall Updates: Sometimes Google Play Store updates automatically, and If the above mentioned steps don’t help you, use the “uninstall updates” option of Play Store app, it will revert to previous version and may also fix the problem. 3.Make Sure to Enter the Correct Google / Gmail Password

Another solution is to check your Google / Gmail account password. Did you change it and forget to re-enter in on your Android device?  As soon as you correctly enter your new password, your Android phone or tablet would be able to get all the Google services back on the device.


pin request at the startup lock screen I was trying to set up a VPN connection and it asked me about medium and high level security and a password which I didn't understand well! I failed to use VPN but now each time I try to unlock the phone, it asks for that password/pin. I removed the created VPN connection to get rid of it but to no avail. How can I remove this pin request?

Go to Settings -> Security -> Screen lock, enter the PIN once more and select Slide (or what ever you had before).


Why does my Samsung Galaxy S3 with 4.3 run so slow? I live in South Africa and we recently received the 4.3 update for the Galaxy S3. When I  perform general functions on the phone (open apps, browse web, run multiple apps), everything goes very slow. As an example, if I push the home button, the apps on my home screen are gone and then return again after a while.

Why would this update do this to my phone? How can I increase the performance of my device which now runs on 4.3?

This is because of the update not being done on a clean install. Also Samsung phones have TouchWiz overlay on android which is a bit heavy.

To make your phone fast do a full factory reset after taking a full data backup so that you can restore everything! Doing this would clean up any mess left behind by the update process.
Always try and do a clean install for a major update.


How can I access my Android Internal Storage (data/data) from the pc? Not the SD Card that downloads, folders, gallery, etc. goes to. I mean the data/data internal memory of the Android device, where game saves, factory apps, etc. goes to.

As much as I'd love to root my device to access storage, I am afraid of the risks associated with it, like bricking. It's a Lenovo Ideatab S2109A-F and have found no simple low risk ways of rooting it and no one click root apps support it. It runs ICS 4.0.4.

But anyways now I'm turning to a pc method. We have a Windows Vista Compaq Presario computer, though its internet network card is dead and can't read our wireless router so I must tether to connect it to download whatever drivers I need for the pc to access internal memory. I don't plan to do anything with the storage itself for risk of damaging my device, I only intend to back up a few save game files to a pc folder so I don't lose them, just in case the tablet needs reset for any reason. Don't wanna lose my files and I cannot back them up if I can't access internal storage.

So step by step, what do I have to do and what files to download in order for the pc to read files from my Android internal data? Any alternative solutions would help too and if you know an easy low risk way to root this particular tablet, I'll give it a go. I tried looking up ways and tried, but nothing helped me.

Directly accessing /data/data/* is not possible without root – neither on device, nor remotely from your PC.

But your question rather is a XY problem: what you really want to do is "to back up a few save game files to a pc folder so I don't lose them, just in case the tablet needs reset for any reason". And for that, you've even put a tag that already answers your question: adb. Follow up to its tag-wiki for some general hints (e.g. how to install a minimal version of it). Then see the backup tag-wiki and scan it for "ADB" (also check the linked questions there).

Basically, what you want to do is to adb backup the relevant apps. Such an ADB-Backup always includes the app's data, and optionally the .apk of the app as well:

# adb backup -f <file_name> [-[no]apk] <package_name>
adb backup -f myApp.ab -apk com.foobar.app

The only thing you need to figure first for this is the package name of the app you want to backup. Easiest way of doing that is checking its page on PlayStore, where the package name is part of the URL (id=<package_name). Alternatively, e.g. the app AppInspector can help you find the package name.

If you later need to restore that, adb restore <file name> is all you need to call.


Can I open a photo in a text message without using my data? I got a Motorola Razr-V phone and received a text with an attached photo. Is it possible to open using Wi-Fi,not my phone data?

Normally when you are recieving images in a text message it only uses your data to download it or to show up in your text messages. Opening the image after it has showed up in the message doesn't require internet connection of any type. So far the only phones I am aware of that allow you to use WiFi to download images in a text are the iPhones, so I am not certain if Android based phones are capable of that.


Missing 20 Gigabyte of Free Space I've recently noticed that my Galaxy Note 3 32GB model ran out of storage. My Samsung File Explorer App says that I've got about 3GB of storage left of 32GB.
My problem now is that I can't figure out where the remaining ~30GB (I know that there aren't really 32GB of free space) are? My SDCard directory has a size of approximately 10GB, plus I've got about 6GB worth of apps. That means, I should have 16GB left (or less) instead of 3GB?

Here's a table:

Files:         10 GB
Apps:           6 GB

Free Space:     3 GB
Total Space:   32 GB

Either is the total space more like 19GB instead of 32GB (That would be kinda much, right?) or there are hiding some files somewhere worth about 10GB.

Any suggestions?

Best regards

Thats a big diff but maybe you use spotify with offline files or something?
Also its worth checking Settings->Storage. Click on "Cached data" for instance and clear, here you see what it taking space more in detail.


Galaxy Nexus bluetooth keyboard connectbot I have recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Nexus on which I use ConnectBot to connect to servers over ssh.

I have also bought a Apple bluetooth keyboard that I am currently using with the phone - and everything seems to be working properly.

However I encounter some problems when it comes to some of the 'special' keys on the keyboard like Tab and Esc.
Esc seems to be mapped to the 'back' key in Android. And Tab just doesn't seem to do what I want.

It's especially a problem when I'm editing files in vim and I try to exit insert mode... Then I am actually telling android to leave ConnectBot...

Any help is very much appreciated!

If you're willing to use an onscreen keyboard, I've had a lot of luck with the Hacker's Keyboard. It has the layout of a computer keyboard, including Esc, Tab, Alt, Ctrl, and various other keys which are usually missing from mobile keyboards.


Speech recognition not working in Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G Has anyone experienced it before? The speech recognition (Google Now and speech input) is not working in Redmi Note 4G at all. I've tried cleaning cache, re-training, re-authentication, etc. but every time it says- "Didn't catch it. Please try again."
Can anyone please tell me what's wrong? Thanks for your help!

P.S: I'm having excellent WiFi connection with mic turned on. I've also checked all permission settings.

Apparently, this is a known hardware issue on the RedMi Note 4G. The top microphone doesn't work, only the bottom one. Talk directly into the bottom of the phone and Google Now should work just fine. BTW, the 3G version of the RedMi Note (w/ MTK chip) works just fine.
Chinese QA sucks.


Touchscreen Protector and Sensitivity I have Samsung Spica I5700 that have capacitive touchscreen, and I used a touchscreen protector.

Recently, I've noticed that the touchscreen often produces erratic movements, for example, if I put my still finger on the screen, the "cursor" will shake vigorously (sometimes very far off).

This makes the touchscreen very unusable; countless of times I've accidentally flinged the page when scrolling, while touching the screen for small scrolling; countless of times, the screen registered scrolling as a zooming or unzooming; and worse, it often flings to the wrong direction from my swiping direction (indicating a random erratic sensing). Sometimes, when I tried to touch a button/link on the top-left, the screen will detect a click in some other far away button (i.e. one not under my finger). Any games that uses touch intensively also becomes unplayable.

Could this be caused by the screen protector? Since capacitive touchscreen is operated by soft surface of a finger (instead of a pointy stylus), is there any noticeable benefit of using screen protector? or are they just a waste of time and money? do you think peeling off the protector will have a chance of fixing those problems?

To answer you questions:

Could this be caused by the screen protector?
Possibly.  Take the screen protector off and see if the problem persists.  My screen protector doesn't affect the functioning of my screen at all.  This is going to depend on the particular screen protector (I'm sure there are cheap, bad ones) and the particular phone (they all have different screens and some have calibrations, some dont, some have screen sensitivity adjustment options, some don't).

Is there any noticeable benefit of using screen protector? or are they just a waste of time and money?
Yes there is a benefit, they protect the screen, and no they are not a waste of money. I have scratched/scuffed the hell out of my screen protector and all I had to do was remove it, and put a new one on and my phone was as good as new. Had I not had a screen protector my phone would be unusable now, so for just a few dollars and no performance cost my phones screen is as pristine as the day I got the phone.  That being said, my job and my lifestyle tend to put the phone through a lot of abuse  ;o)

My recommendation: Take the screen protector off and go from there.  If that doesn't work and it's under warranty, bring it back.

There are so many factors that can affect the touchscreen because it is the basis for all inputs and outputs of the device and troubleshooting can take a while.  I would be surprised if it was the humidity or heat difference between indoor and out, but there are a number of different things that can change from indoor to out and if theres a bug, they may be affecting how your phone operates: GPS, Wifi, reception, Auto-brightness sensor.

This correlation could also be a coincidence.  It could be a particular app that isn't playing nice with Android and your phones firmware.

You will need to to systematically isolate the conditions that affect the problems with your screen and the ones that don't, but ultimately it could just turn out to be a bad unit.


Why can't all rooted phones be unlocked? I enjoy modding my phone with custom roms, kernel patches, and custom bootloaders.

I know that the bootloader/recovery can be overwritten, as can pretty much any partition that exists on the phone. Even the radio can be flashed, though this is not generally an option available since you could permanently brick a phone that way.

My question is how phone companies can lock down a phone (ie tie it to their carrier) if a rooted phone gets access to basically everything? I lack the knowledge in the architecture of how a locked phone works, so I'm guessing there has to be some chip that is not accessible.

Can someone shed some light as to how exactly a phone gets locked?

Most phones have separate AP (application processor) and BP (baseband processor AKA modem AKA radio). "Rooting" results in gaining control over the AP. The carrier "subsidy" lock is residing in BP. Most custom ROMs just include stock (i.e. still locked) BP image as a binary BLOB. Since the BP code is proprietary and never gets released to public.


Load MP3 files on my Nexus I want to listen to mp3 files of a lecture while viewing pdf files (containing the lecture notes).

How do I load the MP3 files onto the Nexus?

(The MP3 files currently reside on my hard drive.)

You can connect your device via the USB cable and then drag and drop the files from your PC to your device. You can also transfer the files via a syncing app like Google Drive or Dropbox etc. Use the music player of choice to keep playing the audio files while you use your office viewer / to read the PDF file.


Web Browser roadmap for HTML5 features? I've been watching the caniuse.com site for a while now, and at one extreme we have Firefox releasing a new browser once/week (okay, slight exaggeration), and at the other extreme the Android list of 2.1/2.2/2.3/3.0/4.0/4.1/4.2 never changes. There is still nothing in the "Near future" or "Farther future" rows.

There are a number of HTML5 technologies not implemented even in 4.2, and I'm wondering when there is a new version coming, and what we can expect it to support. (EDIT: I'm looking for links to official announcements, developer blogs, etc. or a confident "nobody knows"; not speculation.)

(E.g. http://caniuse.com/eventsource )

(BTW, the StackOverflow Android tag seemed to suggest this was the best place to ask this kind of question. But if another site is better please let me know.)

The default browser is being replaced by Chrome as of Android 4.1 for stock Android, so I doubt it will see any updates in the future.  If you want to use sites that have HTML5 features, you should install Chrome and use that (and by extension if you're targeting Android devices with a web app, you should be targeting Chrome).


Removing second SIM signal sign from notification I have karbonn a9 plus smart phone. It is a dual sim phone, but I only use 1 SIM.

The second SIM signal icon with no network always shows in the notification area. I want to remove it from my notification area.

How do I do this? I have rooted my phone.

The Xposed Framework can help you with this.

Read about the Xposed Framework and how to install it from here.
Verify if your handset is supported.
Here are some modules for the framework that you can look into:

Xposed StatusBar Mods (still in beta, confirm phone support)
Status Bar Icon Hider


Can not read MMS on dual SIM phone A have two SIM card phone: LG E455 (Optimus L5 II Dual). Primary SIM card is full operation, secondary is receiving calls and SMS only. SIM cards are from different providers.

I received MMS message notification to the SIM2. Trying to open it I get the message "Switch default data network SIM card to retrieve MMS: Cancel, Settings". If I'd choose "Settings" I'd see that my default data network is SIM1 (SIM2 is not able to transfer data at all). So the message can not be loaded.

What can I do to go through this dump bug?

If you don't have data service at all on your secondary SIM, you can't download the SMS. Since the SIMs are from different carriers, the primary SIM can't connect to the other carrier's MMS service, and therefore the message can't be downloaded.

The only solution would be to replace your primary SIM with the secondary one, establish a data connection and download the MMS. Otherwise you can't download it.


How to prevent an app's notification from updating while the screen is off? I have a bootleggers ROM (Android 9 pie) installed on a Motorola Moto E 2015 phone. I have a setting, enabled in adaptive display settings, which makes the screen to turn on, when a new notification is received. It is a good feature, but my music player (AIMP) updates it's notification each time a new song starts playing, which makes the display to turn on (pulse) often and use additional battery. I could avoid that by turning off the notifications for AIMP completely, but I want to see the notification when the screen is on.

Is it possible to prevent the notification from updating while the screen is off?

Another way to solve this would be to turn off the notifications for AIMP, when the screen is turned off, and then turn them on again when the screen turns on (using tasker, for example). But the drawback of this approach is that once turned on, the notification does not appear until the next song, so it is not possible to see the current song in the notification this way.

The preferred way would be if your media player has an option in it's settings to disable notifications, do it that way.

The other method would be to use the embedded features of Android to disable the notifications, when a notification from your media player pops up, pull down the notification shade and long-press the notification tile, and select "Stop Notifications". This will disable the notifications by taking away the apps permissions to do so. To re-enable notifications, go to Settings - Apps and find the apps, and turn the notifications back on there.

Otherwise the device is working exactly as designed with the settings you have.


How to use adb over Mobile AP (Portable wifi hotspot) First : I know about abdWireless app. But my problem is different.

I am using my Android mobile as Mobile AP (Portable WiFi hotspot) for using internet on my computer. I want to use adb in wireless mode but the problem is - when i enable Mobile AP on my android mobile WiFi gets turned off and i am unable to use abdWireless app.

I want to use both wireless ADB and Portable WiFi hotspot at the same time. Is there any way to do it ???

On Android Device:

Make sure USB Debugging is enabled in Developer Options.
Set adb port prop:

If rooted: Open a terminal emulator (like termux) and run the following commands:

su
setprop service.adb.tcp.port 5555

If not rooted: Connect your device to PC using usb and run on PC terminal/cmd:

adb tcpip 5555

You can disconnect after this and continue on WiFi.

  Note: This step needs to be performed only once, but the prop is reset on boot, so you need to repeat this step after a reboot.

Get IP address:

If using mobile hotspot, the IP address of the device would be 192.168.43.1 by default.
If using an external WiFi, you can get the device's IP address by running in terminal emulator:

ifconfig

This will print a list, one of those would start with something like wlan0, with IP in the second line (mentioned as inet addr):

wlan0     Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr ...
          inet addr:192.168.43.1  Bcast:192.168.43.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          ....

On PC:

Make sure you're connected to the mobile hotspot or the same WiFi as the Android Device. (You might wanna ensure that you aren't simultaneously connected to another network, like ethernet.)
In the terminal/cmd, run:

adb connect 192.168.43.1:5555 # The IP address of android device
adb devices


Is it possible to gain complete remote access of another Android phone from my phone? In my phone (Samsung Galaxy On7, Android 6.0.1-Marshmallow), the internal memory is very insufficient, and moreover, important apps like MS word and Excel come inbuilt, due to which I cannot move them to the sd card.

I saw on the net that there are methods by which I can gain access over my desktop from my mobile through the Google Chrome Remote Desktop app. There are apps to do the reverse as well. But how can I gain access over another Android phone from my phone?

Actually, I want to use my father's phone, because in his one (Samsung Galaxy On5, Android 6.0.1-Marshmallow), the above stated apps can be moved to sd card. So, it would have been great if I could create documents or spreadsheets from my phone on his phone, and then bring them over to my phone by saving them in the Cloud. In this way, my phone can be saved from unnecessary space loss. I've spoken to him, and he has agreed, but now I need to know how I can do this.

How can I get complete remote access of another device from my device?

It would be best if I don't have to root my phone or that of my father's.

As far as I can tell, this seems to be achievable at least with the aid of applications such as TeamViewer

Requirements

  To be able to use this feature, you must meet the following
  requirements:

  You are using TeamViewer 12
  You are a private user or own a TeamViewer 12 Premium license (or higher)

  For the supporting device

  You have installed the latest version of TeamViewer for Remote Control on your Android  device.

  For the supported device

  You have installed the latest version of TeamViewer QuickSupport on  Android device.

  Setup

  On the supported Android device:

  Download and install TeamViewer QuickSupport or TeamViewer Host on the device.

  You may be prompted to install an AddOn according to your device manufacturer. Please follow the on-screen instructions and install the
  necessary AddOn for Remote Control capabilities.

  As for every TeamViewer connection, you will need the target device’s TeamViewer ID to connect.

  For QuickSupport : You can find the TeamViewer ID of the device on the start screen of the app.

  On the supporting device

  Download and install TeamViewer for Remote Control on your Android device. If you already have installed the App on your device,
  make sure to update to the latest version.
  Open the App on the respective device.
  Connect to the supported device using the ID mentioned above or via the Computers & Contacts list.

  Enter the TeamViewer ID of the supported device in the TeamViewer ID
  field under Connect. To access, click Remote Control.

  After the connections was accepted on the supported device, you are connected to the mobile device and can remotely control the entire
  device like if would have it holding in your hands.

Credits

Connections From Mobile to Mobile Devices


Hiding WhatsApp display picture of a certain user I have Android 9 in my phone and have WhatsApp version 2.19.258 installed on it.
Now, I wish to hide/change the display picture of a certain contact, say Mr. Alex on my phone. How do I go about doing it?

Thanks!

You can't change someone else's profile picture on WhatsApp. You can only change your own. There was a bug in WhatsApp that used to show whatever photo you add to the contact in your phone's contacts app instead of their actual profile picture on WhatsApp but now it's fixed I guess.


Why is there no option for USB INTERNET in WIRELESS & NETWORK SETTINGS on my Nexus 5? I own a Nexus 5 with Android KitKat 4.4.2. I have been trying to do reverse tethering without root as is supposedly possible from Settings → Wireless & Networks → More → USB Internet. But I can't see any USB Internet option in Wireless & Networks. Why not ??

Can someone assist me with this ? I am having a PC with Windows XP.

In Android 4.4.x you should be able to find the USB Internet option under:

Settings --> More... --> Tethering & Portable Hotsport --> USB Tethering

If you want to later on configure your network sharing settings so that your device can benefit from the shared internet connection, please read this stack answer.


Alternative ways to factory reset? My Android 2.3 system  my PMP3384 tablet somehow crashed so seriously that I cannot even do a factory hard reset, because I cannot get to settings, only the following message appears again and again:

"Prestigio Home (process com.prestigio.android.launcher) stopped unexpectedly."
Actually this comes first and then a lot of other things, like calendar I have to force closed.

When I finally get to my Home screen this repeats itself.

I cannot get to bootloader because I dont have got hardware volume buttons...

Edit1: Oh yeah, I used it as a mass storage device before this happened. And a few power cycles before also used app2sd.

According to the instructions in the device's manual there should be a "reset" button on the back.  The manual does't have any information on how to use it, but I'd try pushing the button while the device is on, or turning it on while having this button pressed.


How to prevent a Tasker profile from toggling back-and-forth? I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 with Tasker 4.0u1 installed. I have a "Low Light" profile which activates ScreenFilter when %LIGHT == 0 (and I'm not in certain apps which don't react well to the filter being turned on).

In dark situations, this works quite well and prevents the S3's bright (even on minimum brightness setting) screen from hurting my eyes.

The problem I have is that in dim-light situations, the filter keeps turning on and turning off, which gets so annoying I have to pop into Tasker and shut the profile off.

How to prevent the profile from toggling back-and-forth?

Based on Izzy's suggestion, this is what I've come up with:

Profile: Toggle Screen Filter
Primary Context: Variable Set %LIGHT
Secondary Context: Not in Netflix, Safe in Cloud, etc.
Task:

1. Perform Task `Distance` Priority 8 Parameter 1 %LIGHT Parameter 2 %OLDLIGHT Return Value Variable %lightchange
2. If %lightchange > %LightThreshold
3.   If %ScreenFilterOn = 1
4.     Perform Task `Screen Filter Off` Priority 8
5.   Else
6.     Perform Task `Screen Filter On` Priority 8 If %LIGHT = 0
7.   End If
8. End If
9. Variable Set %OLDLIGHT To %LIGHT

Task Distance:

1. Variable Set Name %rval To %par1 - %par2 Do Maths True If %par1 > %par2
2. Variable Set Name %rval To %par2 - %par1 Do Maths True If %par2 > %par1
3. Variable Set Name %rval To 0 If %par1 = %par2
4. Return Value %rval

Task Screen Filter On:

1. Screen Filter 48.6% Soft-keys On
2. Variable Set Name %ScreenFilterOn To 1

Task Screen Filter Off:

1. Screen Filter 100% Soft-keys On
2. Variable Set Name %ScreenFilterOn To 0

I had to fiddle with the value of %LightThreshold a bit. I started out with it set to 30, but that turned out to be so high that Screen Filter never activated. With it set to 10, things seem to be working well for now. I'll report back in a couple of days.