Chrome and Firefox cannot add specific URL to home screen I'm using Chrome and Firefox on Android 10. I need to add a link to my home screen and I can't find a way to add the specific link.
I know that I can do the following:

Go to the URL
Tap the overflow (3-dot) menu
Add to home screen

However, if I navigate to a specific URL within some sites, like Weather Underground (https://www.wunderground.com/) and follow the above process, it doesn't add the specific URL, it adds www.wunderground.com and doesn't seem to give me any way to edit that URL to reference the specific subpage (e.g. www.wunderground.com/my/specific/url).
Why, and how to solve this?

tl;dr
Using the browsers' "Add to Home Screen" (A2HS) feature may not open the expected link due to the browsers trying to comply with the standard of Progressive Web Application (PWA). Try other approaches instead, like using app widgets or 3rd-party apps altogether (examples below).
Progressive Web Application (PWA), Manifest file, and Add to Home Screen (A2HS)
To put it simply, PWA is an advanced web app that follows some rules. One of them is having a manifest file.

In order to call a Web App a PWA, technically speaking it should have the following features: Secure contexts (HTTPS), one or more Service Workers, and a manifest file.

A2HS is a browser feature to "install" a web app based on the configuration in the manifest file, which is linked on the header tag.
<head>
   ...
   <link rel="manifest" href="link_to_manifest_file">
   ...
</head>

One of the required fields in the manifest file is start_url that will be loaded when opening the "app".

The start_url member is a string that represents the start URL of the web application — the prefered URL that should be loaded when the user launches the web application (e.g., when the user taps on the web application's icon from a device's application menu or homescreen).

If start_url is invalid, it may return the document URL instead (i.e. the exact URL when the page is added to the home screen). However, since the manifest file is configured by the web developer, it might be difficult for end-users to modify/override this value.
In short, when a user adds a web page to the home screen, the browser will check if there is a manifest file, and if there is, it will try to use its value.
Some examples...

Wikimedia (including Wikipedia, Gamepedia, and possibly other wikis) has a mobile front-end extension that will only add the manifest file to the mobile view with start_url always pointing to the Main Page.
The manifest file:
<link rel="manifest" href="/w/api.php?action=webapp-manifest">
The content of the manifest file:
{"name":"Wikipedia","orientation":"portrait","dir":"ltr","lang":"en","display":"browser","theme_color":"#eaecf0","background_color":"#fff","start_url":"/wiki/Main_Page","icons":[{"src":"/static/apple-touch/wikipedia.png","sizes":"160x160","type":"image/png"}]}

This is why adding the desktop version works (and depending on the browser's configuration, it will redirect to the mobile view automatically), but adding the mobile view always returns to the Main Page instead.

Weather Underground always sets the manifest file regardless if it is viewed on desktop or mobile.
The manifest file:
<link rel="manifest" href="bundle-next/manifest.webmanifest">
Containing "start_url": "/", which is basically the domain itself.

Solutions and/or workarounds

Some sites only have a manifest file on mobile view, using desktop mode may mitigate this issue

Some automation apps may allow opening an exact URL. Tasker has "Browse URL" task and users can also add an app widget on the home screen as a shortcut to that task

Some 3rd-party apps can create a home screen shortcut to a URL

Changing user agent may work (e.g. by using XPrivacyLua as mentioned by user beeshyams in the chat room). According to the documentation,

Note: The start_url member is purely advisory, and a user agent may ignore it or allow the user to alter it at install time or afterwards.

(Idea, untested) strip the <link rel="manifest" href="link_to_manifest_file"> tag (e.g. using "ad" blockers) from the HTML when the page is loaded.


What are loop devices? How to Install Ubuntu on Android! states "your Android OS must support loop devices".  What is a loop device?

The Wikipedia page on loop devices explains this pretty well. It's basically a "pseudo-device" (i.e. a device which doesn't exist physically) that allows a file to be treated as a block device (for example, a hard drive).

You need support for it because the Ubuntu system is stored as a .img file, which is essentially created to be a file representation of a filesystem or disk partition. By mounting it on a loop device you can access the file as though it really was a whole filesystem, thus creating a sort of "virtual" partition (or disk) for Ubuntu to live on.


How to enable a PIN but allow quick access to camera? In Android 4.1, when you set the lock screen security to "slide", you can quickly access the camera by sliding left.

Is there a way to get a similar sliding mechanism, but at the same time require a PIN to access the rest of the phone?

This application lets you start the camera app even from a password locked screen. Full disclosure: I developed the app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aeropic.CameraUnlockFree


Why are some contacts shown several times? Some of my contacts are on SIM card and some are on phone. I want to keep all at one place.  If I transfer them from SIM card to phone, am I going to have duplicate contacts or it is smart enough to figure out?

If I select the option "all contacts" then one contact is shown several time in the list, like one for wiber, waze, whatapps etc. Please help me to manage my contacts.

if your contacts are shown from different accounts (google & non-google accounts), just disable one of the accounts to hide multiple contacts.
If you have duplicate contacts on your Google account, simply go to Google Contacts website via desktop, and choose option "merge (or delete, I can't remember) multiple contacts". Sync your phone contacts and you're done.


Music player seekBar doesn't begin from 0 I have a Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 pro with MIUI 8 7.5.11. In the default music player when I try to drag the seekbar to the beginning it automatically releases at 00:04-05, not at 00:00. Is it a bug?

Here is the screenshot:

your system has a bug, try to go on impostation(on the new dedicated section of the new miui version for system apps) and cancel all data of the application. If don't work go on PlaySotre and download another playmusic


How to remove leftover files after an application download? I don't have a lot of space on my phone (an HTC Aria).  When I download an app from the market, I usually move it to SD immediately, but I've noticed that the "Internal space" amount doesn't change for a little while.

I'm assuming that before installing the apk, it keeps a copy of it in a location on the internal drive, then garbage collects or cleans up the space sometime later.  My question is, is there any way to force this cleanup?

You are completely right with your assumption: Whenever an app is installed, it is first copied to /data/local. You can check that directory if either you've got a file manager permitting you to go there, or have the Android SDK installed. No root needed, as this directory is readable and writable for the shell user.

But to your last question: No, I'm not aware of any mechanism to control that delay (never saw a corresponding setting). If it can be configured (and is not hardcoded in some place), this will most likely involve root privileges.


I cannot connect my one plus two to my computer or laptop. debugging option is saying "Device is in charging mode, USB Debugging is disabled" I am using One plus two. But it is not connecting to my system. It used to connect previously. But once i set it on Charge only mode. since then there are no options in the notifications bar to transfer the matter from phone. I have tried all the steps explained, even the clicks on build number. But nothing helped me out USB debugging option is saying Device is in charging mode, USB Debugging is disabled. and i tried all the ways to enable it, but it is not letting me do it. and when i click on three dots in the storage, and click on USB connection settings it says connect your device to computer to access USB connections, even when the device is connected. Please help me out to solve the problem

I had the same issue, and, after the following steps, it seems to have worked itself out.

Disconnect the device from my PC
Go to Settings > More > Tethering & Portable Hotspot
Enable USB tethering
Disable USB tethering and Wait several minutes
Reconnect the device to my PC

After that, the USB Debugging option under Developer Settings was no longer greyed out.


Why is Marshmallow 6.0 and not 5.2? Jellybean to KitKat was 4.3 to 4.4.

KitKat to Lollipop was 4.4 to 5.0, which is understandable because there were huge changes in runtime as well as interface.

But why is Marshmallow not 5.2? It doesn't seem to have wholesale changes from Lollipop.

There's no official answer for this question from Google.

Here's an answer from the Android Authority Website:

  We finally have the gooey answer to the Android M conundrum and it’s Marshmallow. Not a major shock, it was always a front-runner, but some people have been surprised by the fact that Marshmallow will be version 6.0 of Android and not 5.2 or 5.5. Should a whole number leap imply some major overhaul? Why is Google jumping straight to 6.0? There are various possible reasons.

  It never made sense

  Did Google’s version system ever really make sense? Anyone who has worked with programmers will understand the often arbitrary nature of version numbers. Traditionally, the first number is supposed to mark a major version and the second number a minor version, but that’s just a general convention, it’s not an unbreakable rule. In practice, version numbers often just mark the point that something was pushed out the door. They’re useful because they make it possible to track down problems later, but they don’t really tell the end user anything, and they’re not really meant to.

  Let’s take a brief look at the historical line-up of Android versions:

  Android 1.0
  Android 1.1
  Android 1.5 Cupcake
  Android 1.6 Donut
  Android 2.0 Éclair
  Android 2.2 Froyo
  Android 2.3 Gingerbread
  Android 3.0 Honeycomb
  Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
  Android 4.1 (4.2, 4.3) Jelly Bean
  Android 4.4 Kitkat
  Android 5.0 (5.1) Lollipop

  Take a look through the versions and try to find a pattern that establishes consistently why some versions are whole number leaps and others aren’t. The closest you could argue is probably that whole numbers indicate an aesthetic leap, but Éclair didn’t really and Marshmallow won’t either. What does it matter when the system never really made sense anyway?

  The dessert names are for users, marking larger leaps of style and function, but even the incremental updates within names have sometimes delivered more than just bug fixes. There’s no real consistency there.

  Maybe it is a major version

  Perhaps you could argue that Marshmallow is a major update, even if there isn’t an aesthetic overhaul. We’re getting a much improved, granular app permission system, a revamped payment system in Android Pay, contextual data with Now on Tap, support for fingerprint sensors, seamless custom Chrome tabs for apps, deep linking directly into apps, better cut and paste, support for USB Type C, a battery life boost with Doze, and the list goes on.

  That sounds like a lot. But then Froyo, Gingerbread, and Jelly Bean all delivered long lists of improvements without getting a number bump. Push notifications, Wi-Fi hotspot functionality, NFC, Google Now, IR blaster support, Bluetooth LE, and many other things came without whole number updates. What makes Marshmallow different?

  Leaving Lollipop behind

  It could be just as much to do with distancing Android from version 5.0 Lollipop as it is with reaching version 6.0. It’s no secret that Lollipop has negative associations for some people. There have been serious battery life issues for a lot of devices, Wi-Fi problems, lagging, stuttering, and frequent crashes, not to mention a host of smaller bugs. Version 5.1 doesn’t seem to have solved everyone’s issues, either.

  It has also been far from a smooth roll out. Google’s latest figures suggest 5.0 adoption is at 15.5% with 5.1 accounting for another 2.6%. Bugs galore will ensure that Lollipop isn’t as fondly remembered as it might have been, but it’s not just the problems, it’s also the design changes. The Priority Mode has not been popular with people who want a simple silent option, widget support disappeared from the lock screen, and not everyone likes the new Material Design aesthetic.

  Microsoft was so keen to distance itself from the unpopular Windows 8 that it skipped a whole number to land on Windows 10. Maybe Google is trying to make a similar break and show clearly that Marshmallow has moved on from Lollipop. If you didn’t like 5.0 then try 6.0.

  Switching to the annual release cycle

  We were discussing how a yearly release cycle could improve the Android experience a while back. Predictability and stability makes it easier for everyone to plan. It will help tackle the fragmentation issue and introduce a bit more clarity. OEMs, carriers, and developers can work with an established schedule far more easily than a series of random updates. It also means one big exciting release with the attendant fanfare each year, instead of a steady dribble of smaller improvements. That’s something that the media and consumers are more likely to get excited about.

  It makes a lot of sense to assign a new name and number to the annual update and to save those .x releases for minor changes and bug fixes. It’s nice and neat. It’s a system that makes logical sense. Everyone can grasp what’s going on and that can only be a good thing.


How can I toggle email notification setting on/off? I use my phone for emergency notification of critical systems 24/7.  So when I sleep, I can't just put my phone on "Silent", I must mute only my eMail notification (which I do need on when I'm not sleeping).  In this way, SMS emergency messages always go through.

But to do this, I have to press: , , , ,  and then a silent ring tone.

Is there not a simple toggle?  I've tried to make use of apps "MyProfile" and "Notification Toggle", but they don't offer toggles into the eMail system settings.

I am using a new Samsung Galaxy Victory Model SPH-L300 with Android V4.1.2.

How do I get to toggle the notification of incoming email?

Toggling "Sync" on/off does what I need - blocks eMail update (even pushed updates) yet still allows in my SMS for emergencies to get through.


Flash USB drive on S9 How to read an USB flashdrive on a Samsung S9? I saw online that some OTG adapter is required. I want to know if there are other options requiring only an app or something.

An OTG adapter should be included with the Galaxy S9. If you insert the male connector into your device's USB port, and a flash drive into the adapter's female connector, the drive should be automatically mounted. You may not get any clear indication that this happened, however if you check storage settings, it should be there. It should also be visible and browsable in whatever filemanager you're using.

Don't forget to unmount the drive before physically disconnecting it. This is done in storage settings. Unmounting makes sure all cached transactions are flushed. Technically this should be done every time, but it's especially important if you've written anything to the drive. If you don't do this, you may lose data, as it's only written to cache, and never flushed to the drive.


Force browser to use only mobile data regardless of WiFi is connected? Is it possible to force any Android internet browser to use only mobile data regardless of whether WiFi is connected or not?

My situation: I have a tablet with Android 5.0.1 and mobile data enabled. I have also a little mobile printer - Canon Pixma IP110. I have to travel and print invoices for my customers anywhere. I am connecting to the printer's access point (the internet is not available of course) but I need to keep the web application open where I print the invoices from, that's why I need force my browser to use only mobile data and not use the printer's access point.

Simply NO

Because it is not a feature comes with the browser.

It is a general feature.

When the device is connected to Wi-Fi, the device automatically disconnect from mobile data even if the data is turned on


Cannot connect to internet within WhatsApp in Android emulator I want to use WhatsApp in PC within Android emulator. I am using the official emulator.exe within an Android Virtual Device of Android 2.3.

My PC is behind a proxy so I set the proxy in the setting of the Android emulator. I can access Google with the default browser.

I tried to use WhatsApp but after I had submit my mobile phone number, it said cannot connect.

Please dont't recommend other 3rd party Android emulator to me because I planned to use other app with this emulator.

It is problem about proxy...
because proxy set in "mobile networks" does not work
so you will need "Drony app" and configure it to work with proxy.
Download Drony!


Samsung Galaxy S2 Wifi Hotspot Toggle Widget I have upgraded to ICS on an i9100, from GB.  Both of these provide wifi tethering by default.  Under GB many of the widgets available could toggle the wifi tethering on and off - a simple switch.

These toggle widgets do not work under ICS on this device - either they do not work and error, or they open the settings / Tethering and Portable Hotpot page rather than directly switching the status.

If I look at the shortcuts available in Settings, this is as deep as it goes - even with AnyCut or llama intents.  Does this mean it simply isn't possible to get a wifi tethering toggle any more, or is it possible there is an unadvertised intent that will trigger it?

I believe this should work  -   Widgetsoid2.x on Google Play

(I have verified that this allows you to create a toggle widget on ICS which does not go into settings app and does it work directly. Although since Wi-Fi Hotspot is not working on my custom ROM of ICS yet, I can't verify the actual working.)


How can I turn off speaking of incoming caller? I can't figure out how to change the settings on my Samsung Galaxy S phone to actually have a ringtone when receiving a call.

When receiving a call a voice says "call from 123-456-7890" or "call from Fred". I know how to set the ringtone which has been set but I don't know how to take the voice off.

I tried accessibility and talk back, there are no option for driving mode but it is still speaking caller name.

What to do??

Well, what you can do us head over to the Settings>Accessibility>Vision>Tap over Talkback>Tap on Settings over the Talkback window>Uncheck speak caller ID, that should fix your problem out.


Telegram: hide online status Is there any way to hide the "Online" status on the Telegram application, and possible as well also the "Last seen" time stamp?

If this is not possible, is there a way to contact the developing team to ask them to include this feature? I haven't found like a forum or a place to put requests.

It seems weird that for an app that is supposed to be so privacy-centered, as opposed to Whatsapp, they have left in this really intrusive feature.

Yes, apart from the moment you send a message to someone.
You can set that from Settings --> Privacy and Security --> Last Seen --> Nobody

A more detailed explanation, from Telegram F.A.Q:

  Can I hide my 'last seen' time?

  You can choose who sees this info in Privacy and Security settings.

  Remember that you won‘t see Last Seen timestamps for people with whom you don’t share your own. You will, however, see an approximate last seen value. This keeps stalkers away but makes it possible to understand whether a person is reachable over Telegram. There are four possible approximate values:

  Last seen recently — covers anything between 1 second and 2-3 days
  Last seen within a week — between 2-3 and seven days
  Last seen within a month — between 6-7 days and a month
  Last seen a long time ago — more than a month (this is also always shown to blocked users)

  Who can see me 'online'?

  The last seen rules apply to your online status as well. People can only see you online if you're sharing your last seen status with them. There is one exception to this: people will be able to see you online for a brief period when you send them a message in a one-on-one chat or in a group where you both are members.

App screenshot:


Port a domain address to a LAN address In an Android device, is it possible to port a URL such as www.example.com to a local network address such as 192.168.0.2:8081?

Do I need to install an application on that device?

Not a app, but root access, it can be done editing the hosts file in android /system/etc/hosts, although you likely need a computer with adb and some routing skills. Perhaps a honeypot would get the job done with less hassle.


Is there a way to run adb as host on android without root? I have an android phone and an android tablet. Both not rooted. I want to use adb as host on the tablet and as client on the phone, using an USB-OTG adapter.

I downloaded connectbot as terminal emulator on the tablet. I also downloaded the ARM binary for adb onto the tablet. However I'm getting the following error when I try to execute the binary:

user@tablet:/storage/sdcard0/download $ ./adb-arm-binary.bin devices
/system/bin/sh: ./adb-arm-binary.bin: can't execute: Permission denied

Is there anyway to get ADB as a host to run on an android 4.4.2 tablet without root?

OR: Is there any way to root said tablet without a PC?

The whole reason I need this is because I need to access dumpsys logs from the phone but I do not have a PC or laptop. A way to get dumpsys logs directly on the phone without root would suffice too, but AFAIK dumpsys is impossible to access for non-system application.

Alright, I got it to work, here is what I did:
1. Rooted the tablet
I was able to use kingroot to root the tablet.
2. Install adb on the tablet
I basically followed these instructions, however the files in the OP there are outdated and not downloadable anymore. So I used a file someone posted much later in that thread, this file seems outdated though, but I'm unsure about that and will open a new question about that.

Downloaded the adb.bin file on the tablet (in /storage/sdcard0/Download)
Downloaded Connectbot from f-droid and setup a local shell connection to the tablet
Ran the following commands (everything after (including) the # is just a comment)

su # gain root priviledges
cd /storage/sdcard0/Download # change working directory to download folder
mount -o remount,rw /system # re-mount /system partition so we can write on it
cp adb.bin /system/bin/adb # copy it to bin folder so it's accessible as a command
chmod 755 /system/bin/adb # make it executable

Rebooted tablet

3. Enjoy adb as host on android!
This worked for me and got me an executable adb running. I still can't connect to my phone but since this is another issue I opened a new question.


How to clear/wipe an Android phone before selling it? I have two phones, the LG GT540 optimus and Samsung GT-i5800, both using Android 2.1, and I intend to sell them in the near future.

Before selling (just like before selling a HDD), I want to wipe all the personal DATA from the phones.

Question:
Does a "factory reset" (from the Android phones "menu") surely wipe all the personal data? Or will there be something left to use? (ex.: contact list, Gmail password, etc.?)

By doing a factory reset and formatting the SD cards, I would say that it is safe enough to sell. If you want to be perfectly sure, flashing the original ROM with option of wiping the cache will make the phone as good as you got it when you purchased. Of course, still you have to format the SD card in that case as well.

To know how to flash the original ROM for you LG Optimus GT540, you can visit this page, which has a step by step instructions about this process.  You should be able to find similar such page for your other Samsung device just with Google search.

Update: I found this web page, which explains about to how to downgrade i5800 to 2.1. By that process you can get the original ROM (watch out for the region) and safely sell.


Disable the Google OTA updates completely My android device is rooted and I would like to disable the Google OTA updates completely.

I did following steps:

Installed Disable Services and allowed it for root access.
Opened Disable Services
Under System Apps, selected Google Services Framework
I found SystemUpdateService is already unchecked.
I checked it and again unchecked it, then I restarted the android device.

However I see the notification for System Update. For its temporary resolution, I unchecked the notification of Google Play Services.

Please help me to disable the Google OTA updates completely

Regards
GNS

Sometimes it's put in

settings > about phone > software updates > turn to manual updates only


Google Maps does not support "geo:" intents, any alternative that does? In Android Firefox (or HTML viewer), when you click on such a Geo URI link:

Wikimedia Headquarters

... you are asked what Map app to use.

Select Google Earth and it correctly zooms to the right place
Select Google Maps (or Maverick) and it only opens the app, not taking you to the right place :-(

My goal is to walk to the said place (so the map app should show both the said place, and my current location/direction using GPS/compass).

Unfortunately, Google Earth is not made for this kind of use. It does not "pin" the said place, so you can't be sure where it was exactly. Also, it does not show my own direction.

Any app that does it?

When opened from a Geo Intent, pins said place.
Also shows my own location and direction.
Bonus for offline maps.

OsmAnd is an offline navigation app and should support geo intents since 2011. It has a fully functional free version and a reasonably priced paid version in the Play store. It's FOSS also, so you could ask for the functionality to be improved or you could send a patch yourself if needed. There's also nightly builds available on the project's site.


CyanogenMod on Xperia Z1 compact: Amami or Yuga I have in stalled CyanogenMod (CM) 12.1 on my Sony Xperia Z1 compact -- according to the CM website the name for that device is amami. The OS (Cyanogenmod version) that it runs, very much to my satisfaction, is 12.1-20150424-UNOFFICIAL-amami.

However, updates for amami that are downloaded, for installation in recovery mode, are refused because the ZIP installer (in recovery mode) says that my device needs a yuga update not an amami.

While the name yuga is reserved for Sony Xperia Z phones, which may be a generic class into which the Z1 compact also falls, I had expected that the amami updates, which are specifically for my device, would be a better fit.

Does anyone know how I can make the amami updates work on my amami phone with an amami ROM on it, instead of asking for yuga?

You are running an unofficial build/port of the rom. If You must use official N build of the CM rom you should first change to official CM rom.
 You can't simply jump from some xyz rom( that's what UNOFFICIAL rom is) to official CM Nightly(N) or stable (Milestone, M) rom.
 Also if you are happy with your current non-CM rom, you may continue using them. You have to get updates for it from the developer whose rom you are using. Check for updates at XDA-Dev or whatever other development site from where you got your rom.
 If you wipe and load official CM nightly for your 'amami' you will be able to receive and install updates from CM.


Some questions about Thinkpad Tablet I need to purchase a tablet for on the move access to web, video, book reading etc. I am a Thinkpad fan so I would like to go for Lenovo Thinkpad. However I have some questions regarding it, which seems to be related more with Android itself than the hardware.

Thinkpad tablet has USB port, so can we use external USB modem (e.g. MTS MBlaze, Tata Photon in India) with it to connect to internet. On some forums it is said that Android does not have drivers of USB modem, so we can use USB modems with any Android tablet in the market even if they contain full USB port. What is the current state of Android on this?
A bit on hardware side, Thinkpad contains SIM slot and it is only yesterday when Lenovo has added Gobi chip for 3G capability. So, what was the use of that SIM card slot before that chip?

AFAIK Android has no support for UMTS/LTE/mobile-connectivity USB-Sticks.
The SIM slot was always used for mobile connectivity. The Gobi chip supports more technology for mobile connectivity, allowing the Thinkpad to establish mobile connectivity in various countries. With a normal chip you are restricted to your region.


Nexus 7 2013: Bricked in recovery and no way of transfering data to it Ok so i kinda messed up while flasing a new rom and now i have a Nexus 7 2013 in recovery without a OS installed. I have tried for mabye 4 hours to fix it.

ADB fails to push files to it and ADB sideload get stuck at 0%. Fastboot stock image fails to and i have no idea how to fix it.

So if anyone knows how to transfer data or fix sideload Please help

A bit nerdy maybe but we don't know how nerdy you are, so ...

If you have access to recovery boot menu and the tablet is rooted then you should either use your current SD card or prepare a new one in eg Windows 7.

I would do this: Find your Multi Card Reader and plugin the SD. Backup files on the SD that you want to keep! Use PC software like MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition and use all space to create a fat32 partition. The card is now clean and ready to be written on.

Make sure you get the right ROM this time eg needrom.com then copy the zip-file to the SD card.

Make sure your Nexus is completely turned off. Then insert the SD into it.

Look at this thread #4 if you don't know the key combo to recovery: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2394113

Usually the SD will mount automatically if nothing else is wrong. Then try out the menu: "install zip from sd card" browse to find the file and then execute.

After this process I would select "clear/wipe cache partition" and even "wipe data /factory reset" just to be sure all is cleaned up.

Finally, select the menu "power off" if it's there.

Then you should be good to go. Be patient. The first startup is always slow. If everything looks fine I would then power off once again to be completely sure.

PS: If you only use Mac I cannot help you there but the procedure is very similar ;)


WiFi doesn't work when SuperSU 2.72 binaries are installed on Android 7 Since a few days I have Cyanogenmod 14 for my Samsung SM-G900f. I want to use some apps by Chainfire but they all require his su binaries so I tried to install it via the SuperSU app, which always fails, and via TWRP, which then worked.
After flashing it I noticed that I when I turn on WiFi that it just scans but nothing appears; even the already saved networks won't show up. I also tried connecting via WPS pin and WPS push, but it just gives me an error message.

Does somebody have any idea what the cause might be?

Today, SuperSu released a new version with a wifi fix https://download.chainfire.eu/1014/SuperSU/SR5-SuperSU-v2.78-SR5-20161130091551.zip


Lollipop screen not locking, even after removing smart lock etc Since I played around with smart lock, my device just does not lock anymore.
I disabled smart lock, I cleared all credentials, I removed device administrators, accessibility accesses (Lastpass). Nothing helped.

Can anyone give me a procedure to reset this setting?

Thanks.

Actually the thing I missed is that I was so annoyed by the double lock screen that I used the system profiles feature to create a profile which disabled the lock screen completely. Once I re-enabled the lock screen everything returned to normal.


Tapping on a contact makes call, how can I see a contact's phone number on Android 8? If I search for and tap a contact, it calls them, but I can't see their number. If I scroll up and down endlessly looking for a specific contact and I tap them, it still won't show me the phone number. Sometimes I would like to get a contact's number to share with someone else without having to call the contact first. Is this possible on Android 8?

I'm just using the stock dialer.

In stock Phone app (com.android.dialer), you can tap on the picture (extreme left) of the contact. It'll show the details of the contact, won't make a call.


WiFi on my Nexus S no longer works after update to ICS - How can I troubleshoot or fix this? I just updated My Nexus S to ICS today and everything is working properly except for WiFi. It shows the network's SSID but says it is "Out of range". How can I fix this?

That's right, this is known issue and you are not alone. Unfortunately there is no official way to fix this. The only way to get your WiFi working properly is to remove your SIM card or use American (USA) sim card.

BTW it doesn't depend on whether you updated manually or via official OTA.

I suppose, the problem is with latest kernel which doesn't support other country codes despite US and EU. The new kernel is getting the country code from SIM card and after finding that it's neither EU nor US it's dropping wifi support. Unfortunately I don't know exactly why.

There are some workarounds however, they require Rooted device. You can install custom ROM's (unsigned!) or use some scripts (from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1372074&page=7)

You can "star" the issue here: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=23262 so as many people would "star" it as more attention it could get.

People also saying that there are some missing features after upgrading
like:

No Face Unlock.
No Camera Zoom.
No Zero Shutter lag
No Android Beam for Images.

P.S: As far as I know Google stopped providing ICS OTA for Nexus S. I hope they are aware of that issue and working on it.


Cannot boot into fastbootd OnePlus 8T I'm trying to manually flash the factory image on my OnePlus 8T (using this TCD guide).
I was able to boot my phone into Fastboot mode using the volume + power keys. I'm able to execute fastboot devices and successfully flashed all images in Section 8 of the above mentioned tutorial before it gets to the fastboot reboot fastboot command (i.e. boot.img, dtbo.img, etc.)
When I try to execute fastboot reboot fastboot, I get the following error: fastboot: usage: unknown reboot target fastboot.
It seems other people have this problem as well and it's due to some changes that happened in Android 10 (my OnePlus 8T is on Android 11). Reading this XDA thread, comments #14 - #18 (inclusive) I think describe the underlying problem, but I don't understand the solution.
Do I need to execute a different command, is there a process I need to complete first?
For broader context, I was rooting my phone and got into a bootloop. Fastboot can recognize my phone but not adb. I'm trying to get a clean start by restoring it to the factory image and have successfully completed all the steps in the TCD guide except for the final step of flashing the images.
Here's a screenshot of my terminal -

My adb version is:
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.39
Version 0.0.1-4500957
Installed as /usr/local/bin/adb

Updates:

I tried fastboot reboot bootloader which does successfully reboot into bootloader, but then I cannot flash the other images. When I try, I get the error: FAILED (remote: Flashing is not allowed for Critical Partitions) which I think is because I'm not in "fastbootd" which seems to be important based on the XDA thread
When I try fastboot reboot recovery, I am not booted into recovery but get the same error: fastboot: usage: unknown reboot target recovery
I ran fastboot boot imagefv.img and got the following. My phone is now showing a screen with the OnePlus logo and the words "Fastboot Mode", but no other options.

I was able to enter recovery mode from the fastboot screen and from recovery reboot to fastboot, but still unable to enter fastbootd. This guide suggested I could enter fastbootd from recovery, but was unable.

I downloaded Android's SDK Platform-Tools, extracted the platform-tools folder and ran a terminal in side that directory. When I executed ./fastboot reboot fastboot it did boot into fastbootd successfully. What's weird is that I installed platform-tools, put it in my /etc/ folder, and added it to my PATHS only 2 days ago. I'm not sure why exactly this worked...


Preventing booting from unwanted/upgraded partition in Android As I understand in Nougat and greater the system has two full partitions, one currently used and the second one that is used for upgrading. So during an upgrade the new bits are laid down on the secondary partition which will be made the primary to boot from the upgraded partition. My question is how does it prevent from booting from the original partition? Where is the information that determines which partition to boot from written/stored? How does it prevent an attacker from modifying it?

From AOSP A/B (Seamless) System Updates

Call update_engine with the HTTPS URL for your update package....
... If the update is applied successfully, update_engine will tell the bootloader to boot into the new OS on the next reboot....

(Emphasis Supplied)
So, you are looking at action being taken at boot loader level. And if you mess at that level dm-verity will kick in which is a kernel level protection that can't be tampered with once device leaves factory

If verification fails, the device generates an I/O error indicating the block cannot be read. It will appear as if the filesystem has been corrupted, as is expected.

With a custom recovery dm.verity can be disabled but then OTA will fail because it detects recovery change and frankly, if an attacker  can gain root access, the device is pretty much their's
Edit: See this for more details
A/B (Seamless) update device questions


How can I make a controller work on my android tablet using an OTG cable? I am trying to make my Thurstmaster GP XID controller (http://www.thrustmaster.com/products/gp-xid-pc) work on my android 4.2 device (Onda v975s) by plugging it into the microusb port using an OTG cable.

Many articles say you just need to plug it and play, but my controller is unresponsive. The light of the center button (the home? button) does not light up. I have tried USB diagnostics and controller "tester" apps which do not detect my controller.

My tablet can use a peripheral keyboard plugged by OTG, but a regular USB mouse will not work (won't light up, response etc).

Do not hesitate to ask for more information, thanks in advance.

The most likely explanation is that your tablet is missing the drivers needed to use USB mice and game controllers. If that's the case, then the only way to make the device work is to find another ROM for your tablet that does have the drivers. You might ask the manufacturer for an updated ROM that has the support, or look for a third-party ROM that supports your tablet (which is unlikely for unpopular devices). Installing a third-party ROM is not easy, though, and if you do it wrong you may break the tablet completely.

It's a bit odd that the manufacturer would choose to remove support for USB mice and game controllers, given that the support is in stock Android. Possibly they had to cut corners to make the kernel fit into the boot image, or something like that.


Will a US tablet imported into the UK get OTA updates? I would very much like a Samsung PM-580 (Tab A 10.1, with S Pen) but Samsung are either being slow to release it in the UK, or potentially might not at all.  Via Amazon.com I can import one to the UK at what I consider to be a reasonable price, and I can see no technological problems with using it here.

However this tablet is getting an OTA update to Nougat very soon (if not already), and obviously I'd want this for mine.  So:

  Will a US-serial number tablet still get its OTA updates in the UK?

It would seem odd to me for the answer to be "no", since this would involve Samsung insisting that you connected to a network in a particular location before giving you the OTA update.  But it would be reassuring to know for definite before investing my cash, and perhaps others have had similar experience?

Yes, if you bought it in the US it will get otas.


How to enable Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 Back Button Gesture Summary

I do not want to have to move my eyes away from the tablet screen in order to execute whatever the Back button executes on my tablet. This should be as about as quick as using a desktop browser's ALT-BACK-ARROW, but on the tablet, and should do exactly what that back button does.

Details

I just upgraded from a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (not the 2014 version, this is the old original version) to a Samsung Galaxy Tab S3
 (not the same as the Samsung Galaxy S III (GT-i9300)).  On the old Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, I could hold the S-pen side button, and use a "less than sign" gesture as shown in the screenshot below as a "Back Button":

I want to know if there is some way to re-enable that very useful (to me) feature as it saves a lot of time when doing research since the Back button is a high-frequency operation.

Installing additional free (or less than 10 USD) apps is an option.

The solution does not have to use the S-pen, but it has to be demonstrably faster than moving the S-pen over to the side of the tablet to click the Back button.  Yes, I've tried various things that actually don't work (various combinations of holding side buttons down which in and of itself is even worse than the button on the tablet).

I found what is almost what I want at:

Read https://beebom.com/how-get-iphone-like-swipe-back-gesture-android/ and follow the instructions.

But I would like to hear a better answer which is for Samsung, or someone, to simply re-enable the S-pen gesture support in the newer tablets as the old tablets had.


TWRP USB-OTG won't work? I have a nexus 7 (2012). I have installed the most ercent version of TWRP for it, and TWRP seems to work. Im trying to do this, and have reached the part where it says

  Once Team Win boots, go into Wipe and select Advanced Wipe. Select all
  checkboxes except for USB-OTG, and slide to wipe.

Only USB-OTG didn't even show up in the advanced wipe partitions menu. The menu inlcuded:
- Dalvik Cache
- System
- Cache
- Data
- Internal Storage

I then trawled the internet and found (alas, can't seem to find it again) a thread on the xda-forums with with a similar question. It told me that a fix was to make sure that:

"Use rm-rf instead of formatting" was ticked on in settings
That USB-OTG was mounted in the mount menu

So i ticked "Use rm-rf instead of formatting" in settings then I went into the mount menu and I tried to tick USB-OTG. The option to select USB-OTG was there, but when I pressed it the box on the left didn't cross. I tested mounting and unmounting all of the other options to see if it was aproblem in that area. Nope, all the other mounted and unmounted fine! Selecting USB-OTG in storage didn't do anyhing either (as in I could press the icon to select it, but it wouldn't actually select, also the readout on this screen said USB-OTG had 0 data...)

Other than explaing or helping with all that, my question is also 'does it matter?'. Common sense tells me that if I don't have any USB-OTG connected and I just wipe everything in the advanced wipe, it will have the same effect as what the Guardian Project guide says? IDK but please help a noob out.

I'm fairly new to this (could you tell?) so all help is good, and I'm happy with command line 'deep' stuff (my main laptop which i'm using for this runs linux) including the TWRP command line.

Sorry for long post, didnt want to leave stuff out

Thanks

I formatted my pen drive in FAT file system and restarted the recovery. Then it allowed me to tick the USB OTG. And I could access all the files in pen drive inside TWRP. I used it to load the CM mod. FAT32 may also work though I haven't tested it.

Edit: FAT32 also works.


Why is one folder on my Samsung Galaxy SII not being properly showed on PC? There is one folder on my device (not in the microSD card) with mp3 files that used to work perfectly but suddenly started to cause a malfunction when I try to open it on a PC. It is said to have no files in it and all of the other folders stop being recognized after this until I reconnect the device. However I can always get access to the folder content through the cellphone file manager system: the problem is only happening when connected to a PC via USB cable.

Does anybody know why is this happening and how can I fix it?

Device: Samsung Galaxy SII.

I finally found the solution (actually I even had left it behind...). Sometime after I posted this question I create another folder and after a while it began to have the same problem. Today I realized that both folder had one common caracteristic: they contained characters beyond the basic ASCII Table (one was called "Músicas" and the other, "Vídeos". When I renamed them ("Musicas" and "Videos", respectively), the issue was solved.


Flashing TWRP.img on Xiaomi Mi A3 to root the device does not work H1@all
Working on Ubuntu 20.04

I want to root my device to uninstall some apps (.apk) and possibly also install Ubuntu-Touch.
I want to uninstall almost all Google apps because I don't have a Google account and I don't want to. Without a Google account you cannot use most Google applications (Gmail, YouTube, Drive...).
A few months ago when I bought the device, I unlocked the bootloader, but I didn't have time to root it. Now I want to root it.

I followed these TWRP for Xiaomi Mi A3 instructions and cannot flash or boot the TWRP.img.

I downloadet: twrp-installer-3.4.0-0-laurel_sprout.zip and twrp-3.4.0-0-laurel_sprout.img renamed it to twrp.img and twrp-installer.zip.
I copied the files to the device in /sdcard

adb devices
adb push ~/Downloads/twrp.img /sdcard
adb push ~/Downloads/twrp-installer.zip /sdcard
adb reboot-bootloader

fastboot devices

fastboot flashing unlock
...
FAILED (remote:         Device already : unlocked!)
finished. total time: 0.000s

fastboot flashing unlock_critical
...
OKAY [  0.026s]
finished. total time: 0.026s

fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability
...
(bootloader) get_unlock_ability: 1
OKAY [  0.000s]
finished. total time: 0.000s

fastboot boot twrp.img
downloading 'boot.img'...
OKAY [  1.174s]
booting...
FAILED (remote: unknown command)
finished. total time: 1.175s

fastboot flash recovery twrp.img
target reported max download size of 804261888 bytes
sending 'recovery' (39892 KB)...
OKAY [  1.172s]
writing 'recovery'...
FAILED (remote: (recovery_a) No such partition)
finished. total time: 1.174s

Did I do something wrong?
How can I root the device?

To recover the device follow this instructions: https://c.mi.com/oc/miuidownload/detail?guide=2

--EDIT--

fastboot getvar current-slot
current-slot: a
finished. total time: 0.002s

fastboot --set-active=b
Setting current slot to 'b'...
OKAY [  0.039s]
finished. total time: 0.039s

fastboot flash boot twrp.img
target reported max download size of 804261888 bytes
sending 'boot_b' (39892 KB)...
OKAY [  1.181s]
writing 'boot_b'...
OKAY [  0.207s]
finished. total time: 1.388s

Press and hold volume up button on device and enter the command fastboot reboot
Back in Fastboot

fastboot --set-active=a
Setting current slot to 'a'...
OKAY [  0.039s]
finished. total time: 0.039s

Press and hold volume up button on device and enter the command fastboot reboot

Do not press any key boots in Android-OS

if you active slot is "a", change it to active slot b. than flash twrp.img and reboot the phone while press volume key "+". now you are in the recovery and you have to reinstall it in the slot a, for do this change active slot to a and press install and select again twrp.img


On Android can I write scripts (similar to Win .bat files) to combine several command line commands? On Windows, I can run two commands using a .bat file.
How can I achieve the same thing on Android

For example:

update my podcasts by calling pcastclient /updateALL
force sync of my pictures sugarsync /forceupdate

Android's shell will support a limited amount of Unix-style shell scripting. It specifically should have a shell at /system/bin/sh that you can use, however:

The shell provided with Android has a severely restricted set of commands available to it. If you want to do anything even remotely complex you'll need a busybox install (or another shell).
It's generally pretty rare for Android apps to provide any kind of command line interface or binaries. I very much doubt that Sugarsync, for example, allows you to perform a sync from the command line.

If you want a bit of a GUI you may want to look at something like GScript.


Use android device to host a website I have an Xperia Mini which I want to make a web server, to host a website on it so me and other people can visit the website (it won't be something like 1000 visitors per minute). So, if this is possible, can you please:

Point me at what to read about this, so I can set it myself
Tell me if the phone can run only on a charger, without a battery (because I expect it won't live long if the battery is constantly charging)

You can run Webserver on Android for example :
KSWEB

but, there is 2 Case for use with Android Device :

First :

  your phone Broadband is how much ?

  this Broadband can support users
  and online at 24 hours of day ?

second :

this is not good idea for start webhosting or other something with a Android device.your hardware need backup and set other Options...

and about Questions :

1.

  Point me at what to read about this, so I can set it myself

yes you can.use below link :

http://www.androidguys.com/2014/04/22/host-website-android-device/

2.

  Tell me if the phone can run only on a charger, without a battery
  (because I expect it won't live long if the battery is constantly
  charging)

i have no idea, But this links maybe can help you :

http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/can-i-directly-power-an-android-device-by-circumventing-its-battery/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp_sJYQR1Bg


disable volume buttons Problem at hand: I keep pressing volume button on my Nexus S when it is in my pocket. Most notably when playing music. More often than not it results in increasing volume, which is incredibly irritating.
Had exactly the same issue with Nexus One.

Desired solution: A tweak/app that simply disables volume button when the screen is off (or locked?)

I looked through the android market and found a few half baked solutions... I don't really need a widget or a prompt to revert volume change or a being have to run an extra app when I actually want to change volume.

I had this problem a LOT with my Thunderbolt. The solution I went with was to buy a low-profile TPU case for it and I've LOVED this solution. Not exactly what you're asking for but it might be something to consider. I chose a $5 "S-Line" case from eBay that lots of people sell. It's great and adds a lot of protection at little cost and is as low-profile as you can get a case to be imho.


Downgrade to KitKat from CyanogenMod (Lollipop 5.0) on Samsung S5 I installed CyanogenMod (Lollipop 5.0) on my Samsung Galaxy S5, but I want to go back to my original software on KitKat. Can anybody help me please?

Backup. Always do a nandroid backup (assuming you have CWM or TWRP since you have CM12.)
Download the appropiate firmware for your device which can be found here
Download Samsung Kies (during installation you will be prompted to install "developer" driver. Accept that.
Download odin here and then extract it to a folder of choice
Navigate to where you extracted odin and run it as administrator.
Now reboot your phone into download mode by first turning off your device completely and then turn it on again using three-button-combo: Volume Down + Home + Power at the same time.
If done correctly you should see a screen on your device that looks like this  Now connect it using a usb cable to your computer.

After you've done that Odin should look somewhat like this:

Make sure you can see anything on the highlated area. If you cannot see it after 5 minutes you need to go back to step 3.
Now click the PDA/AP button and select the downloaded firmware using the window that pops out.
Make sure repartition is not checked and click start. Do not touch your device until an indicator says "PASS" or "RESET".
If your device is in a bootloop then boot into recovery and do a factory reset.
If your device is still in bootloop try again. If it still doesn't work then apply the nandroid backup you made.

NOTE: While Odin is doing stuff DO NOT UNPLUG THE USB CABLE!


all my headphones work on one side on htc desire but they used to work fine i have a HTC desire and i had 5 pairs of earphones that used to work fine...basically each time i bought new earphones for my htc they would work fine and then after about 4 months one side would stop working and it works a little if i move the cable at the input jack. i only used my earphones on my HTC.....is something wrong with my phone jack?? im tired of buying new earphones...i also take really good care of them because at first i thought i was breaking them..please help me!

Your phone's headphone jack is failing.  When you buy new phones, the plug is a nominal dimension (3.5 mm is the standard, but the specification is surely much more precise than that).  After inserting and removing the plug a few hundred times, the tip and rings wear, reducing their size a tiny bit.  The same wear occurs on the spring-loaded contacts inside the jack.  After some number of cycles, it reaches the point where one of the contacts doesn't connect when the plug is fully inserted, but something connects on that conductor during insertion and removal.

In a new jack, there's plenty of overtravel in the contacts to cover this amount of wear, but if one of the spring tabs has gotten bent a bit (possibly by off-axis insertion of the plug at some point, or the headphone wire getting jerked out of the socket at an angle) it may make contact but have lost the overtravel that serves to take up wear.  The only real solution is to replace the jack -- which probably requires major work on the phone.  It might be possible, depending how the jack is made, to rebend the contact springs -- but that would require full disassembly of the phone and might not work, so it likely isn't worth paying someone to do.  Replacing the phone's motherboard may be the only solution, unless the phone jack is on a daughterboard.


Android Smart Lock: Why is there no option to use WiFi? My Android device (v. 7.1.2) offers several options to use the "Smart Lock" feature.

This feature uses some rules to automatically disable the lockscreen.

Available rules are:

Trusted place
Trusted Bluetooth device
Trusted face
Trusted voice
On-body detection

I am surprised that there is no option to use a trusted WiFi network.

Some forums state the risk for the WiFi network to be spoofed. I don't understand how the risk is different: an attacker could spoof a Bluetooth device as well.

What could be reasons for not allowing a WiFi-based unlocking while allowing Bluetooth-based unlocking?

Some forums state the risk for the WiFi network to be spoofed. I don't understand how the risk is different: an attacker could spoof a Bluetooth device as well.

The risk is different. It's not possible to spoof a paired Bluetooth device. The Bluetooth peripheral and the phone exchange keys as part of the pairing process, so both of them can securely identify the other. When the devices connect, they each challenge the other to prove they have the secret keys. If it didn't work this way, it would be trivial to "man-in-the-middle" attack the connection by pretending to be the peripheral. Then the attacker could eavesdrop your phone calls or music, or whatever it is you're sending over Bluetooth.

Authentication works a bit differently in Wi-Fi. See this question on our sister site Super User for more discussion on that. In open networks, and networks authenticated using WEP, WPA, or WPA2-PSK, the network doesn't authenticate to the phone at all. The phone has to prove that it has the secret key (the network password), but the network doesn't have to prove anything. There are no "trusted Wi-Fi networks" in this sense. Only networks authenticated with WPA2-Enterprise, which use a certificate pair, prove their identity to the phone, by showing a certificate signed by a certificate authority (just like HTTPS websites). Presumably, Google didn't think it was worth adding an option that would only work with the least common type of Wi-Fi network, and the confusion it would cause their users.

Interestingly, Wi-Fi spoofing is already a security issue for the "trusted place" option. The location system uses visible Wi-Fi networks as one input to determine where you are, and as we've seen, that can cause huge inaccuracies. Spoofing this deliberately means looking at the networks that are visible in your "trusted place" and spoofing several at once. Your neighbourhood phone-snatcher won't be able to unlock your phone this way, but government agencies and organised industrial spies probably can: especially if they also use a screened room to block GPS and cellular signals.


Screen uses 99% of battery I have a Galaxy Ace S5830. I tried using many different Jelly Bean and KitKat ROMs, and with each one (clean installs, without additional apps) my battery behaves weird. When the screen is turned on, even on the lowest brightness, it drains the battery very, very fast. I think with the screen turned on I can't get more than hour of battery life.

But when the screen is off, I can, for example, listen to the music for hours and hours and battery behaves normal.

And what is also interesting, whenever I go to Battery Stats, it shows Screen as 99% user, and sometimes it shows WiFi as 1%.

EDIT: Important addition: When my battery gets drained and I put it to the charger, it gets fully charged for few minutes! I tried wiping battery stats before and after every ROM installation, tried using Battery Calibration app, but nothing helps!

So what should I do to get my battery to behave normally?

From your answer (phone charged again in a few minutes) I'd say there is a  problem with either your battery capacity or your battery stats (either the phone thinks the battery is empty while it isn't, or it thinks it's fully charged when it's not (and so it's emptied again very quickly).

The screen is always a big battery consumer (I never seen it under 40% on my phone) so if your battery life is reduced, it can drain it completely in a couple of hours.

What I'd recommend is to try to charge the battery for a long time after the phone has drained it, like overnight. You may want to try another charger also since there is always the possibility that something had gone wrong with yours.

If it doesn't help and you know someone with the same phone, try swapping the batteries (after both are fully charged):

If your phone still die in one hour, then you definitely have something consuming too much battery. Try looking into the number of wakelocks as recommended in the comments (also you may try to revert to stock ROM. If the issue is still there, there may be a hardware failure causing this issue)
If the other phone die in one hour and your is still good, it means you're battery wasn't fully charged. If this is the case, try to charge it again on the other phone and do the test again:

if the battery works fine the second time, there is an issue with your phone which doesn't charge batteries the right way. In this case I'm not sure what you can do (that may also be caused by a hardware issue)
if it still doesn't work for more than one hour, then you just need a new battery


Share (through share menu) directly to own email address I often send over images etc to my own email for forwarding or printing or what ever.

Problem is I have many contacts, and I have to type quite a bit to find my own email address.

I would really like to have a share-menu option that says "Share to [specific email address]".

Is there any application that provides such option??

The following is a solution that will work if you are sharing images from the browser.  This won't work in the gallery though.  Unfortunately I'm not aware of any custom share apps that add to the Gallery's share menu.

Install Bookmarklet Free (it allows you to add services to the "Share" menu, including custom ones).

To make a custom "Mail to yourself" bookmarklet just open the app and create a custom bookmarklet that has the following for the Starting URL:

https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=YOUR@EMAIL.COM&su=SUBJECT

Replace YOUR@EMAIL.COM with the email you want to default send to and replace SUBJECT with the subject.  Leave the rest of the fields alone.

Now in the browser if you are looking at an image you can long click it and choose share and choose your custom bookmarklet.


Is there a way to calibrate screen - Huawei Ascend Y550 so I had a quick look on Google for a solution to this, to no avail. So I thought the next best place to ask would be here.

I find that I have to press about 0.5cm above whatever I want to press in order to actually press it, so I was wondering if there was a way to calibrate the screen. And there was nothing in the options, that I could see.

Although this isn't the biggest issue in the world, it is a little annoying.

Most phones do not have screen calibration routines. If it's always been off it likely is defective or poorly made. If it has gotten worse you might try a factory reset (but you'll lose all your data, apps, config, etc.). If the phone is still under warranty you might try getting it replaced.


Can I replace the system font just for Japanese text? I discovered today that the system font on my rooted Galaxy S2 phone has some errors in the way it renders some Japanese characters.

I want to change the font to something I'm sure is more reliable, but I'm unsure that I can change just the Japanese, and impact all fonts.

I have looked into font changing apps, but I'm a little nervous as there are a lot of comments suggesting the potential to brick the phone. So I want to proceed carefully.

I don't really know how font handling works, especially with an Android device, so is it possible for me to change the font for just the Japanese text?

The way font handling works is your android device has files in the system/fonts folder that control the font for certain aspects of the android system. One of them is the clock, the text, etc.

In order to change these you need to rename your font file (let's say its helvetica.ttf) to android-clock.ttf to change the font of the clock. Do this for all the files in the system/font folder to change all the font on your phone.

Now, the Japanese characters... I'm not sure if the characters are handled differently than the english characters. I assume they're not, and this is why when you change the font they look strange. It's probably because the font file doesn't have the ability to change how these characters work, and is not sure how to deal with them. You may have to find a font that is compatible with both english/japanese characters.


I want to advertise, but I don't want to publicize my personal#...unsure what options are available? (android handset Tracfone service) My understanding is there are options to advertise with a # that is-not my personal#, without getting a new cell-plan or new device.  What I don't know is whether I should be looking carrier-side, or android/handset side (I just swapped from a nearly-decade-long flip phone stubbornness just a couple weeks ago ;P )
Thank you for options to use "781 - 784 - 7707", or some randomly-generated #, to ring my personal handset as if the person really dialed my real number "123 456 7890" -- I know there are probably myriad options so any answer is appreciated, looking less for companies and more for what the landscape is for this (does VOIP come into play? Does it matter if I'm part of the futile crowd trying to 'limit google use on their android'? Have heard you can "play" google-voice to do call-forwarding for free, but imagine all calls are indefinitely stored...wouldn't really care, so long as it were reliable that I never miss a call to the business number, cannot afford it!!

Google Voice was the only free service for getting a "new phone #", that - when someone calls it - would ring my cellphone.  I control it from my google-account, it works quite well but not well enough for me for primary business # (will still keep & use it as backup/for certain use)
Also there's plenty of app-based ways of getting a 2nd number, but google voice is the only free one.


Import Photos from Iphone to Android I've been trying to access the wedding pictures I stored 5 years ago. I was an iPhone user, but now I'm using an LG K10 Android.

I know the photos were store on either iCloud Photos OR Photostream in my old iPhone. I don't know if I can import them to my Android phone. I do not have access to a PC with internet access. Can anyone help me?

The easiest way to get all your pictures from you iPhone to your LG is to use Google Photos. This does requires a gmail account. If you don't have one, its free to set up.

On your iPhone:

Download Google photos (if not installed already)
In the Google photos app, tap Menu (3 horizontal lines)
Select Settings then Backup and Sync
Switch it on
Allow permissions, if required

On your LG:

Download Google photos (if not installed already)
Repeat steps 2, 3 and 4 for iPhone
Your pictures should be on your LG

Hope this helps!


Backup files from an application for which I forgot unlock pattern I have forgot unlock pattern for an app on my Galaxy S II. I have emailed the developer but he said he cannot help me.

I am wondering if there is a way I can take backup of the files in the app's folder [ if I can see it :( ] without rooting my phone. There might be some hope of using the data again.

Kindly guide me how can I take the files if this is possible in the first place.

Accessing the files in the app's protected storage directory will not be possible without root because you will not have proper permissions to access the directories. If the app saved any data to external storage (SD card, for example) then you can get it, but not knowing the app in question it's hard to say where it would be. Generally speaking it would likely live in /sdcard/Android/data somewhere assuming the standard APIs are used, but it doesn't have to use that directory.


Smart Phone flash tool - Readback - EMMC_USER backup I trying to take backup of my phone. and i use Smart Phone Flash Tool

  How can i take (EMMC_USER)(64GB Rom) in HEX ?

Can someone tell me what HEX i need in length in Smart Phone Flash Tool, in tab (Readback, EMMC_USER)

Or are there a better way to take backup of the phone without root access.

I have answered this very question probably a hundred times in 4 Years.

So instead of wasting time rewriting it all, i made video on how to do it on YouTube.

Instead of just Self Promoting that video as some would see it, Here goes 101.

Remove Battery or Turn Off the Device
Go into Memory Test Tab - SPFT
Tick Whatever Options are Available - Just make sure something is ticked.
Start the Test and Place your Battery back IN
Plug your Phone In
Once the Test Starts, Immediately Stop the Test
Now Focus on a small Panel in the Bottom Left,
( This info is read from the device when connecting )
OK, Now sellect EMMC section in the Panel
Look at EMMC_USER Size in the info

With this info, you can DUMP the Entire device - Or, Split the Dump into Partitions.

DUMPING IS USELESS ON ANDROID 9.0+

ANDROID 9.0+ MANDATES FACTORY SIGNED FIRMWARE ... BACKUPS WONT RESTORE 100%

I CAN RESTORE ONLY - PROJECT TREBLE RELATED PARTITIONS.

OLDER THAN ANDROID 9.0+ DUMPING AND RESTORING IS STILL OK.

DUMPING PRE 9.0+ ( AVB 2.0 )

Open Read Back Tab
Creat a new ReadBack file called EMMC_USER
Set the REGION to EMMC_USER
Set The Start to 0x0
Set the Length to the Size of EMMC_USER in the small panel ( bottom left )
Make Sure Device is Unplugged Prior to Doing any New Action - This is because a Handshake is made on each connection to the preloader, the preloader handshake is only good for One action each connection ( read, write , etc )
Press Start ReadBack
Plug - In device
Wait for 16 GB to download at around 21 MB per second.
Now Dump Preloader
Go ReadBack and Make a new ReadBack of Both EMMC_BOOT0 and EMMC_BOOT1

Sometimes both Partitions are required.

The usual dump length for both is  0x40000

and start is always 0x0 because your dumping the whole thing from 0


Want my Bluetooth keyboard on Galaxy Tab10.1 to default to English Android Keyboard (Not to Samsung Japanese Keypad) I am using a Galaxy Tab 10.1 and when I connect my iBuffalo Bluetooth Keyboard BSKBB06 it always defaults to the Samsung Japanese Keypad and I have to keep manually changing it to the English Android Keyboard and then to the Null Keyboard.

Is there a way I can get it to default to the English Keyboard and then straight to the Null?  I disconnect and connect multiple times in a day and so always having to change the default keyboard is getting quite inconvenient.

Check your system settings under Language and input methods and check what keyboard is currently selected. It might be the reason why you're getting a different input method by default.


Convert + to 00 for international calling I am currently overseas, using a foreign SIM card in my phone. Since I travel often, all of my contacts are stored in international format (e.g. +12125551212 or +4474567899). However, my foreign carrier does not allow international dialing via +countrycode (i.e. +1), only via 00countrycode (i.e. 001).

Additionally, I had thought I would be able to use Google Voice for my calls back to the U.S. and therefore have my Google Voice caller ID show on outbound calls, but Google Voice also dials the access number via +countrycode so the call fails as well.

Is there any way to set my phone to automatically dial 00 instead of the + without having to modify all of my contacts?

Edit: I just noticed there are several apps that do this. If anyone knows of a native solution, please reply.

Edit 2: I just tried a couple of these apps. While they do work, when I try to use them with Google Voice, they replace the + prefix for the destination number, not the Google Voice access number. I need a way to have Google Voice dial its access number with 001 instead of +1.

Log into your Google account and click on contacts. Then select all your contacts.

Now click on more => export => select all contacts => export format Google CSV.

Use the "find and replace" option in for instance Excel to edit from +385 to 00385.


How do I disable the backlighting for the menu and back buttons on a Galaxy SIII? Does anyone know how to disable the lights of the buttons at the bottom of my phone?
They are really annoying and I can reach them without the lights on.
I've tried several apps but none of them worked.

I have a custom ROM and I'm rooted. This ROM doesn't show any option for my issue. I don't want to change my ROM because I really fell in love with it.

GravityBox module for Xposed Framework can do it. Xposed requires root, but from reading your question, it looks like you have root.

Download KitKat
Download Jellybean

From the XDA Thread:

  Button backlight modes (default, disabled, always on while screen is on)


PC can't transfer files to android I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 and Windows 7 operating system.
I'm trying to transfer files, specifically music, through USB to my phone but it's giving me an error. It's saying I do not have permission to create this item.

I'm not sure what exactly is going on. I have actually transferred music files from my computer to my phone before using the exact same method, but now it doesn't work anymore. I highly doubt it is the issue with the USB cable and computer not recognizing my phone, because it recognizes it fine. And I'm not going to download any software just so I can transfer music; because I've done this before and it worked so ....

If this involves UAC, then mine is on the lowest setting which means I don't need administrator permission, even though I am administrator.

I had a similar problem a few weeks ago (same phone, same OS).

I turned off the phone and took the battery out for about 1-minute.
Then put the battery back in and restarted the phone.

Not sure if it will work for you, but I figured I'd try to help.


How to check, if my ASUS Nexus 7 LTE really is LTE version? Following this question and my many further tests, I begin to fear, that my ASUS Nexus 7 II (2013) LTE isn't actually a LTE version and I simply has been cheated, paying for LTE version and getting 3G one.

What is the best way to check / prove, that this device really is LTE version?

Does the facts:

phone detects network as LTE (though is unable to connect to it),
after upgrading system to 4.4.2 KitKat I have access to new option Settings > Wireless & networks > More > Mobile Networks > Preferred network and I can select 4G there.

are enough to be sure, that this is really an LTE-based version of ASUS Nexus 7 tablet?

My doubts come from three facts:

When I insert a LTE-compatible SIM card, tablet is able to detect, that it is in LTE signal range, but is unable to login to LTE network and obtain an IP address. The very same card inserted into another LTE device (some Samsung phablet) logins to LTE network at once and works like a charm.
Working Samsung was checked at provider's office and provider's representative did check APN. Beside, SIM cards used by this provider are somehow self-configurable. Once inserted, they set APNs by themselves and select the proper one.
I've checked and verified, that my network carrier (Polish Plus GSM) is using LTE on the 1800 MHz band, which is confirmed to be all fine with ASUS Nexus 7 II (2013) LTE tablet.

Are there any other things, that I can check to make myself sure, that I really have LTE model?

The issue is most likely caused by a wrong APN configuration. Though customer care told you their card is "self configurable", this may well be relative: many ROMs (especially custom ROMs like cyanogenmod) come with a built-in list of APNs, which are matched against the provider as specified by the SIM card, and used correspondingly.

While those matches usually are fine, there might be exceptions – e.g. when the provider made changes to his configuration after the ROM was released. Or did not provide all details: APNs might need different parameters for e.g. 3G than for LTE. As you've got a second Android device where the card is working fine,

put the SIM into that device
go to Settings (usually network → telephony or similarly; different ROMs might place it slightly different)
tap the APN and select to adjust it
do not adjust anything, just write down its parameters

In a second step,

put the same SIM to your N7
go to the same Settings page
compare your values and, if something differs, adjust it

I bet your device then will connect fine. If not (or if there are no differences), it's probably a hardware issue, and you need to send your N7 for service.


When app is moved to SD card, where is the app data stored on SD card? My phone (Sony E4g, running Android 4.4.4) offers the possibility of moving some of the installed apps partially onto the (removable) SD-card. I use this feature regularly, and -in theory- quite a big part of the apps are already moved on it. My problem is however that I can't find these anywhere on the SD-card, and there are no separate partitions on the card either. So my question is: where exactly are this moved apps stored on the external storage in KitKat ? Thanks.

OK, after some research it seems that all the apps moved to external SD-card are in the virtual file system /mnt/asec, which is, in turn, an abstraction layer over the encrypted files stored in the hidden .android_secure folder, on the ext. SD-card.


How to install ROM when bootloader is not unlocked? Accidentally, on stock recovery, I selected wipe data/factory reset which could have uninstalled the ROM on it. So, now my mobile is showing company logo only.

My mobile HTC Inspire A9192's bootloader has not been unlocked yet.

How to boot the mobile again ?

Every time I restart my phone, the data/ cache and system gets unmounted.

A factory reset doesn't wipe the ROM files, only the user data, so you can't have "uninstalled the ROM" that way.

Having a locked bootloader doesn't stop you flashing a ROM: it just limits you to official ROMs signed by the manufacturer (or possibly by the carrier). So even if you can't or don't want to unlock the bootloader, you can still flash the stock ROM in the usual way from the recovery, if you can obtain a backup of it.


Youtube Preload limit? I have enabled Preloading for my Watch Later playlist.  This currently contains 23 hour-long Google IO videos but YouTube seems to only ever preload up to 2 of them, never any more.

I have an HTC One X with over 24GB of space - I have to remove a video from the playlist that has been downloaded to allow another to begin.

Everywhere I search gives no details about limits on how much you can preload so I was wondering if anyone else knows anything about this or has seen anything similar?

The queue limitation, AFAIK is 200 videos:

You can queue up a maximum of 200 videos in a Watch Later list. The same limitation applies for any created playlist.

Note:
Make sure that you're preloading videos having the device charging and with an active Wi-Fi connection, in order to have them correctly preloaded to your phone.

YouTube Instructions for a successul preload
According to the YouTube Blog, it's mentioned that the preload process works if the phone is charging and a Wi-Fi connection exists:

you can now preload and temporarily cache videos from your subscribed channels on your phone anytime it’s charging and your WiFi is connected. Just enable “Preloading” in the Settings menu. You’ll still need a connection to play the video, but once you do it’s smooth sailing through the latest from your subscribed channels and Watch Later queue.

Additionally, you need to have an active connection when pressing the play button.


How to read out the data in HTC Desire SMS backup file? Unfortunately my HTC Desire SMS app crashed (HTC official android 2.2), all SMS and MMS were lost. When I tried to recover from a previously backed up SMS file (generated by Desire SMS app), but it didn't work, prompting failed to recover. But I found actually most of SMS and MMS had been recovered, with some important ones still missing. I want to open the backup file directly to read out the missed SMS, how to do it? Someone said the backup file is SQLite file, right?

All the messages in Android are stored in an SQlite database on the mobile. So, I guess this Desire backup application simply copies this database to an accessible folder (presumably sdcard).
Since it's an SQLite file, you can simply download and use an SQLite Browser and view the SMS in there.


What exactly gets deleted when removing Google account When I try to remove my Google account I get the message that messages, contacts and other data from the phone will be deleted.

What does messages include?
Mail messages, SMS, Whatsapp,...?

And what is meant by other data?
All apps, pictures,...?

I'd like to know this for Android 4.4.2 and 4.1.1.

Thank you

I've recently removed the Google account on phones with Android 4.4.2 and 4.1.1.

As far as I can judge nothing got deleted.


Why does my phone charges fast when WiFi is on? My phone is Lenovo A6000+
Original charger and Stock OS.
Edit: it is a two months old phone with no other complaints.

The only reason I can think of why your charges faster on WIFI, with the information given, is you have data enabled. If data is enabled and WIFI is enabled your phone uses WIFI. However if data is enabled and WIFI disabled, your phone will use data, which on my phone uses 1.5 times more power than WIFI with a good connection. You can disable data by going to Settings>mobile data>off (on some phones it is under the "More..." settings).


Where does Google Play Music v5 store music locally? I know this question has been answered for older versions of the app, but where does the most recent app store offline music?

Clearly the mp3's I've selected are downloaded - because they play without an internet connection. But the default location for offline music is empty.

Any ideas guys?

My Google Music 5.3.1317M.940995 running on a Nexus 4 with CM11 stores the mp3 files under

  /data/data/com.google.android.music/files/music

You need root to access that directory.

A older version of Google Music on a Galaxy S stored it on the SD card. And, as I read in the official changelog, Google Music 5.x seems to be able to use the SD card as storage too. Which makes sense for devices with low internal storage space (/data/data).


Why can't my samsung galaxy R connect to my laptop Wi-Fi, but is able to connect to others? Why can't my samsung galaxy R connect to my laptop Wi-Fi, but is able to connect to others? I'm using connectify program in my laptop and windows xp.
Thank you.

On Windows XP, Connectify is limited to ad-hoc networking:

  Support for Windows 8, 7, XP, and Vista – XP and Vista Ad-Hoc Mode only

Android doesn't support ad-hoc networks without modification or manual configuration (which will require rooting the device).


How to play speakers sound in microphone My question is simple but i haven't really found answers via google : How to use the sound played via speakers as microphone input ? (like Stereo Mix in Windows : for example, when you decide to put "Stereo Mix" for Microphone Device on Skype)

Use a 3.5mm male to male between your computer audio output and your phones headphone jack and then download an app that turns your headphone jack into a mic input. Can definitely be done on Android not sure about IOS


Any security difference between root based firewall (AFWall+) and non-root based ones (NetGuard)? What are the technical differences between root based firewalls (like AFWall+) and non-root based firewalls (like NetGuard)?

Is there any impact on the security effectively provided by such software?

I've already checked a bit in NetGuard's source code to make myself an idea, but I think this may still be a good question and I'm interested to get other people's analysis on the subject.

I would like to restrict such question to the core technical feature provided by such software (like the kind of firewalling: stateless or stateful, are there any hardcoded exceptions, the robustness of the code handling untrusted packets, etc.) and not on secondary features or anti-features they may have (ads, tracking, cosmetic, ...) unless they concretely affect the core objective of the software.

In other words: no rants please ;) !

In case there are limitations, it might be worth mentioning if they are implementation specific (the consequence of some choice made by the development team) or a consequence of the technology used (relying on very different systems, it is possible that one has to cope with limitations that the other does not have).

As the author of NetGuard I have first hand experience in this field.

A disadvantage of a firewall based on a local VPN is that not all traffic types can be handled, because the (Android) Linux kernel does not allow forwarding all traffic types over a socket based connection. An example is IPsec, which is being used for IP calling by some manufacturers. A partial (not for IPsec) solution to this would be to use a remote VPN server to forward traffic, but this is privacy wise not acceptable for a lot of people and would come with additional complexity and probably also with extra battery usage. In practice handling TCP and UDP traffic appears to be sufficient for 99,9% of the NetGuard users. Since Android 5 it is possible to exclude applications from being routed into the VPN (the VPN implementing application decides if this is mandatory or optional), which can be used to address problems arising from not being able to forward all traffic. Another option is to exclude address (ranges), which NetGuard uses to 'fix' IP calling for some manufacturers.

Another disadvantage is that forwarding traffic will increase battery usage on mobile devices, because it involves some processing, because packets needs to be inspected and to be forwarded. Using iptables, which is integrated in the Linux kernel, is more efficient as thus more battery friendly.

In general it has appeared that Android routes all traffic into the VPN, even traffic of system applications and components, but a manufacturer could decide to exclude certain traffic types, reducing the security that can be achieved by a VPN based firewall.

NetGuard does not analyze the data itself, except for DNS requests to provide ad blocking, but if it would it could raise a privacy concern. Nevertheless, technically seen this is an advantage of a VPN based firewall (if you still want to call it that way), because it would allow state-full inspection of data streams beyond what is possible with iptables. This would likely be at the costs of battery usage, because of the processing involved. Note that it would require a local MiT attack to inspect SSL streams.

Yet another disadvantage is that Android doesn't allow chaining of VPN's, so using a local VPN to implement a firewall will prevent using of a real VPN service, unless the firewall provides such a service itself or alternatively a forwarding or proxy mechanism to another VPN application.

Lastly, a VPN based firewall depends on the application providing the firewall VPN service to be running. This seems to be trivial, but it is not, because some manufacturer Android versions/variants are too aggressively killing processes in low memory conditions (IMHO it is a bug if Android kills applications providing a VPN service).

Finally, rooting of Android devices is becoming increasingly difficult, leaving a VPN based firewall as the only choice for many people. I don't expect Google to add a system based firewall anytime soon, because it could affect their ad revenue significantly. iOS does have a system based firewall.

Let me know if there are any questions and I will try to answer them.


how to restore keyboard on android - to enter locked screen password My android phone as a screen lock password. Somehow, I've ended up in a situation where the phone no longer shows a keyboard when it boots up but shows "tap to speak" and that too does not work. I click on the "microphone" icon and nothing happens.

How do I go about restoring the keyboard.

The phone is on wifi as I can hear the beeps when I get messages etc...but can't get past the locked screen.

The device used to be on my google play (GP) device list but now it does not. How can I get the phone back on the GP recognized devices.

Would appreciate any help.

my apologies if this has already been answered.

The solution suggested by @Firelord worked perfectly.
I had to purchase a micro-USB to Female USB OTG cable to resolve my issue. The micro-USB end connects to the phone (where the power cable connects) and connect a keyboard into the female usb end.

Power cycle the phone (for the phone to recognize the keyboard ) and just enter the password using the keyboard.

I had struggled with this - installing adb and figuring out how to sideload (manually install) keyboard apps and all kinds of other suggestions from various sites.

I was just moments away from wiping my phone when I remembered Stackexchange.

Thanks everyone for helping out.
Greatly appreciated.


How to install Xposed on S6 I rooted my EE Samsung S6 (SM-G920F) (UK) (Marshmallow 6.0.1) yesterday evening using Odin (I followed the tutorial on Tom's Guide). I seemed to root fine. There was no bricking, boot looping or any other errors, and SuperSU installed as well.

It came to this morning when I decided to install Xposed (I don't want a custom ROM because Marshmallow is beautiful enough). I downloaded TWRP first from the Play Store, and installed the boot thingy from the app using 'Samsung Galaxy S6' as the device name, and 'twrp-3.0.2-1-zeroflte.img' as the recovery version. This installed fine, and if I booted in recovery, it went onto the TWRP interface.

I then downloaded the Xposed Framework .zip (from the XDA Forums) and the Xposed Installer (It had to be from a mirror because the link from the forums had been deleted). I DID NOT INSTALL OR UNZIP THE FILES!!!

I then flashed the .zip by booting into TWRP recovery. My device now does not turn on. It just stays on the breathing Samsung logo, with the blue notification LED on.

I can uninstall the framework by running the device in recovery again and flashing the uninstall .zip, which does fix the device.

So, how do I install Xposed Framework and Installer? Please provide links if needed.

Thanks :))

It's exactly the same for me. Except my device do not want to boot in recovery mode. How did you do this? Because I'm stuck on the black screen and blue LED.

Edit: There was an issue and I needed to flash again TWRP with Odin and sideload  Xposed uninstaller.

Edit 2: Solution
As it say on xda forum "Bootloops on Samsung stock ROMs. That's due to Samsung's changes to ART. There are unofficial builds that work around this by deodexing and adjusting the ROM." So we need a deodexed rom: XtreStoLite 3.3.1 FINAL Marshmallow Android 6.0.1 for example. Still, Xposed will no work because the official version do not support Samsung S6. There is an unoficial version for S6 here. It worked for me.


How to get missed/undelivered messages on whatsapp? For some reason I uninstalled WhatsApp. If I reinstall it after a day or two , will I receive those messages which might have been sent to me during this period? If not ,Is it possible to get those messages somehow?

Unless you delete you WhatsApp account, you should get at least 2day old messages delivered after you install WhatsApp next time. Congo.


How can I add a video camera shortcut to the home screen? My Pixel 3 (standard size--why no tag?) had both camera and video shortcuts on the home screen. I must've pocked-edited it, because the video camera one is gone. I can't figure out how to add it back. There's no dedicated video camera app.
Thanks much.

Long press on the default camera icon from the home screen and there should be popup menu with "Take a video"

Press and hold on "Take a video" from the popup menu to create a "Take a Video" shortcut which you can drag and place on your home screen.


Hide photos in the Google+ photos app I want to back up my photos using the photos app, but I don't want some of them to show up when I open the app on my phone. Is this possible?

Install file manager

Locate folder where backed up photos are

Put a .nomedia file in that folder

(A .nomedia file is an empty file with no code, which hides media in that folder. To get it you can copy paste it from elsewhere, like if you have WhatsApp, you can browse to it's media in file manager, go to pictures or videos, then to sent, and it should be there, or just do a search in your file manager for .nomedia, or you can make the file yourself)

Go to settings, apps, media storage, and clear it's data.

Restart your phone, go to gallery.

You might need to wait a bit for photos and videos to show up, because you cleared media storage, but the photos in the folder with the .nomedia file won't show up.


Play Store icons are no longer transparent The past few days I have noticed that the Play Store icons have a black background. I've even done a Factory Reset. I am facing the problem with every icon in the play store. Is there any way to get rid of it?

This seems to be a known bug in the Play store app from v4.8.20. Try uninstalling the updates to the play store app. This could be a temporary fix until the bug if fixed in a future version of the app.


Visiting site using Chrome restarts device I came across an unusual behaviour in Chrome (50.0.2661.89), running on a Galaxy S7 (SM-G930F)/Android 6.0.1 . The behaviour seems to be repeatable, causing my device to restart every time I scroll through a particular page.

Start from a standard boot, no other apps run since startup.
Open Chrome.
Navigate to
http://www.fieryflavors.com/spicy-food-hiccups/
Swipe down the page
(haven't managed to pin down a specific point of trouble yet).
Device
restarts.

The page in question doesn't seem to have anything tremendously nefarious happening in its source code (still poking it a bit, will update if anything turns up). I haven't come across this particular issue with Chrome on Android in the past.

Is this common? Is there a particular HTML/CSS/javascript/etc. string that's known to cause device restarts?

UPDATE

I'm not sure that it's an 'official' Chromium bug yet, but it certainly looks like I'm not alone:

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=614422#c28

The problem appears to be specific to the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge and is likely triggered by video embedded within adverts (the issue is intermittent, disappearing when new ads rotate into each problematic page). As such it's perhaps less likely that the issue lies within Android, and more that it's a Samsung problem or a very specific incompatibility between Android/Chrome/Samsung hardware.

Do you have antivirus installed on your phone? If so go to settings and lower the security setting from high to medium i sems as though its a security feature you may have on i just visted the page from crome on 2 different. Devices and had no problems or bo restart. I did however visit the page from my home pc that does have firewall antivirus set to high and i got Warning not secure page.
Hope this helps.


How to retrieve contacts from not rooted phone? Unfortunately I dropped my phone (galaxy S3) and the screen is black, so I cannot do anything on the phone. But other than that, it is fully functioning, and I can see the files when connected to a pc.
There is this question which states that the phone needs to be rooted in order to access the database where the contacts are stored. Is there an other way to retrieve contacts when the phone is not rooted?
The gmail sync was unfortunately not enabled. Is it possible to turn this on remotely?

If the contacts were in SIM memory then you can insert the SIM card in another phone and get them back.
If you say the phone is functional then you should consider replacing the Display Hardware and get your whole phone back.


How to monitor API calls made by an Android App? I am using an Android Virtual Device and I am running the Monkey Runner script to generate user input. Now, I have to see the API calls made by that app. Is there any tool or script that will help me? I've tried Strace, but it does not keep a track of API instead it keeps trace of System calls.

The XPosed framework allows to hook and therefore monitor every App and Android method. Therefore it can be used for creating a log of certain API methods.

However this require to hook every API method you are interested in.

I found two open source projects aiming in what you want. Both are implemented as an XPosed module:

Droidmon (last change in 2016)
Sensitive_API_Monitor

You may have to expend those projects if APIs you are interested in are not hooked by those projects.


Unlock when sliding out physical keyboard I got a Xperia Mini Pro with a physical keyboard. When I slide out the keyboard, it still have to slide on the screen to unlock it. Can I get to the password prompt with the keyboard movement alone?

Yes it's possible with tasker + secure settings plugin.

I dit it in a harder scenario (altough I'm an sk17i owner too) I used the above combination to unlock, force landscape, and wake up an alcatel dual sim phone paired with a Nuu minikey sliding bluetooth keyboard.


Why doesn't my screen turn off after 30 seconds? Two days back I had to do a factory reset on my android (v2.3.6). After that, I noticed that my phone display won't turn off after 30 secs idle time, even though the settings has been done appropriately. After 30 secs, the brightness decreases, but the screen won't turn off. Is there any other setting which needs to be changed here?

You can try the wakelock detector app which will tell you the application which is restricting the phone from going to sleep and lock mode.

Unfortunately it did not work for me since my kitkat version required the ROOT permission.

I fixed it by going to "Settings > Apps > Running tab". I closed all suspicious application in "Cached" and "running' mode.

It was one of my recent ip-camera phone app or the Alexa app which was restricting the phone going to auto sleep after 15 seconds and then to lock state.

The phone is working fine now after closing those 2 apps, I can run them when required.

Hope it helps.