Is it possible to temporarily disable all notifications on Android wear? I was looking into getting an android wear device but I will need to make it just a watch without the smart bit sometimes. Is there a quick and easy way of doing this?

I was looking at the Sony smartwatch 3 but I am not definite as to which one to get.

You can disable the notifications on your wearable device by following steps below:

Swipe down from the watchface
You should see something like this:

Select the option on the left will put your watch to silent mode.

Hope my answer helps.


Verizon Samsung Galaxy S3...trying to change notification sound Phone has an annoying notification sound that I cannot get rid of.  Want to completely delete off my system if possible.  I've gone into settings under Sound and it has a different sound than the one that plays.  I have also changed to Apex Launcher and have no idea if that creates a problem.  I have gone into the Contacts and also changed the message alert but that hasn't made any difference. Can you please help before I lose my mind any further?

Just go to Settings->Sound & Notifications->Notification Sound and select None or whatever you like.
Samsung's settings application may have renamed some things but in theory that should do it.
If you don't like any notification sound and ring tone then you might want to set your ring tone volume to 0.


How to open files copied to android file system using Adobe pdf reader I have copied two dozen pdf's to the DCIM on the Android. How do I access them?

The Adobe Reader offers the following options:

My Documents - which points to a directory underneath the Adobe Reader and does not offer any way to configure (no File Open dialog)
Local - which only has one file "Getting Started.pdf"
Document Cloud
DropBox

So .. where is the standard File Open dialog to allow navigation to the  directory containing the copied pdf's?   This is an 6.0.1 Android device.

Update  I also copied the files to the Android/data/com.adobe.reader/files/Downloads directory (where the "Getting Started.pdf" lives).  They still do not show up.

The files that I copied over did eventually show up: after several minutes.  The files are showing up now in both the DCIM, Downloads and the Android/data/com.adobe.reader/files/Downloads directories.

It is not clear why the delay .. Simply closing and re-opening the Acrobat Reader did not solve it.


How can I refresh an email in the native gmail app? I get many emails with pictures in them.  When I try viewing them in the native gmail app, it displays some of them, but not all.  The only way to view the undisplayed ones is to preview them one at a time.

Is there any way to tell the app to refresh the current email?

Go to Inbox, press MENU button and click on Refresh. Now, open the email again.

In the Gmail app, there is no way to refresh the current email, you can only refresh your Inbox.  When you refresh Inbox, emails are downloaded(in text format) to your inbox. Images from the email were downloaded on opening the email.


Hide Whatsapp profile picture from a certain user I want to hide the profile picture in WhatsApp and still be able to message this person.

As far as I've understood, to message someone on WhatsApp, you need to store his/her number in the phonebook. Once you do this, you can't stop this person from seeing your picture, because WhatsApp does not have this options under the privacy settings.

Changing the "Who can view my profile picture" to nobody is not an option.

Also, if I delete the person from my phonebook, I will not be able to message his/her anymore. Same problem when using the app WhatsNot.

Is there a workaround or an app hide your profile pic from individual users?

Thank you for your help!

The only way would be creating a group with just you & him, and then blocking him.. You'll not be able to message him directly, but only through that group (ofcourse he'll know you've blocked him)..

Another way would be starting a conversation between you & him and deleting his number (yes, it's mentioned in the question), but you'll still be able to chat with him (his number will be displayed instead of name) and make sure 'Who can see Profile Pic' is 'Contacts Only'..

Other than this, I don't think there's any other way..


Get Nexus 7 tablet out of reboot loop? Nexus 7 tablet running Android, everything up to date a few months ago.

I was trying to cut down on those annoying auto-updates and all those extraneous apps I never use, and apparently did something stupid.  I disabled (may not be the exact name for the button) a few apps that I have no interest in, never use, and didn't think the OS needed.

Apparently I was wrong about the OS needing at least one of them.  I shut down the machine completely, and did a reboot.  After a few minutes, the OS comes up, and says it's "optimizing" app xx out of yy.  After it gets thru that, the tablet immediately reboots and starts this process all over again.  There seems to be no opportunity for user intervention anywhere there, other than shutting it off completely.  YY can be different on successive reboots.

Is there some way to recover and make the tablet usable again?  Did I irreversibly brick it?  Help!

Added

Was usb debugging enabled in the device? Or, do you have a custom recovery installed or bootloader unlocked? You would have to factory reset the phone if the answer is "no" for all of my questions

Yes, USB debugging was enabled on this tablet (it's not a phone) a long time ago.  However, if I remember right, a factory reset was performed since then.

I don't know what a "custom recovery" nor a "unlocked bootloader" is, so I'll assume I have neither of those.  Yes, I would love to factory reset the tablet.  It won't come up to the point where there are menus and I can do that though, hence the question here.

Apparently, you can enable apps using adb: Enable and disable system apps via ADB

Maybe you can quickly do this while the phone is still booting. (I don't know how soon adb is loaded.) Maybe it works through the newest versions of twrp, which support adb!

Good luck!


Samsung Galaxy: Unlock gone haywire I applied the procedure to unlock a Samsung Galaxy S3 on a Samsung Galaxy Express I437.  It went through smoothly, and but the phone was not unlocked.  Instead, it gives me the error message "Phone not allowed MM#6" after I inserted a foreign SIM card.  The procedure is reproduced below:

[1] UMTS
[1] Debug Screen
[8] Phone Control
[6] Network Lock
Options [3]Perso SHA256 OFF
(after choosing this option, wait about 30 seconds, then go back one step by pressing the Menu button then select Back, now you are in
[6] Network Lock then choose
[4] NW Lock NV Data INITIALLIZ ..... wait for a minute then reboot your phone

Since this didn't work, I tried reverting NW LOCK back to the old setting.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work.  The unlock screen doesn't come up anymore.  And I have no other way to enter an unlock code.  Does anyone have any idea how to resolve this issue?

Million thanks!

Turns out the procedure worked.  The IMEI is blacklisted by the foreign network at the time of the test.


Google now cannot display cards because of low storage space My android phone has 5.5gb of internal storage and I have used around 3.9. I have the rest of the apps on a SD card set as adoptable storage . Google now says it cannot display cards because of low storage space. Why is that?

Just clearing the cache didn't fix the problem. But restarting the phone afterwards solved it.


Trouble installing custom rom on Samsung GT-P3110 Every time I try to install any custom ROM on my device I get the following error among others.

E:Error in /sdcard/aokp_p3110_kitkat_unofficial_2013-12-24.zip
(Status 7)
Installation aborted.
result was NULL, message is: assert failed: install_zip("/sdcard/aokp_p3110_kitkat_unofficial_2013-12-24.zip")

I have tried several different Rom packages with the same result.
The device is rooted and CWM installed. I have tried using several ROM installers as well as manual. I followed the procedure to unlock the bootloader. each time I get the same error with the relevant ROM package named.

Ok I have had this problem before. I have a gt-p3113 esspressowifi, your version is the gt-p3110 right? if it is the gt-p3100 w/SIM card the roms for the 3113 and 3110 will not work for it so make sure you have the right version for your tablet. Next dissable the md5 check in recovery, I found out that  the roms for the 3110 and 3113 are near identical except for the IR blaster on the gt-p3113 so both should work for the same tab, if all else fails open the rom on your computer as a zip and change the build prop to conform to your device also change the updater script but you shouldn't need to do that. To test this theory go to cyanogenmod and download the three roms for 3110, 3100, and 3113 and try all three of them after of course be sure your rooted, latest recovery {Philz touch, CWM, TWRP, etc} and SuperSu binary. I used ODIN 3.07 to flash the CF-autoroot file{search CFautoroot} on google search or whatever, install the correct usb drivers for samsung mobile devices on your computer, then reboot your tablet to download mode by turning the power off then turning it back on pressing the power button plus the volume down button at the same time{green android comes on screen with warning about software}. Flash the CF-autoroot targz or md5 file with ODIN 3.07 then use whatever rom you like, if you still have a problem you should start over with the stock rom from samsung kies then do this process over again because you maybe are missing a step here and may need to redo the whole process to bring the root back and open bootloader by the way to open the bootloader you should have android debug bridge on your computer, the process is as follows, boot to download mode open the adb terminal connect your tab to pc  then enter the command= fastboot devices it should show your device number in the terminal window then enter= fastboot oem unlock. might be different but you shouldn't need to do that anyway but if still need to unlock it try odin with the CF autoroot bootloader flasher zip file to flash new compatible bootloader. Here is instructions I found: Hope this helps if you still need to fix this problem.{copy or type this into browser}= [GUIDE] Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 OR 7.0 Rooting/CWM… | Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 | XDA Forums
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1722745


Lg ls840 phone says security error After rooting my lg LS840 I wanted to get rid of bloatware it was working fine till I restarted but now my phone wont boot it just says security error.

I already spent hours trying to fix using lg support tool but keeps hanging tried on two different computers I also goolgled how to return to factory but coudn't find anything that worked

Here are the instuctions I found

  Directions - Please read them carefully

  Please make sure you have your LG Drivers installed before you start this process
  you can go to Lg site to get current usb drivers
  Please download one of these zip files from this links below

  LS840ZVC https://www.dropbox.com/s/j63hoo0jsocid8y/LGVIPER.zip

  LS840ZVD https://www.dropbox.com/s/3timbamztkewkdh/LS840ZVD.zip
  Unzip and place the LG folder in C: root directory
  Please have at least 60 percent battery or more and put the phone in download mode.

  You can do that by Plugging the usb cord while hold vol up and power.  Keep holding it until you see a screen that says downloading in progress.

  Now go to your device manager and look for your com ports and find your LGE Android USB Serial Port.(not modems) Now double click it and look for advance and then click it. now we have too change the com port to 41. press ok and close it out.
  Unplug your usb connection from phone and leave phone in download mode.
  Now open your windows explorer go to C:\LG\LGFLASHTOOL\LGFlashTool.exe run as admin.
  Model config will open select manual mode assign LS840...dll for dll and .tot for s/w.
  Go to port settings and select port 1 only.
  Now plug your usb cable back into the phone.
  start the flash by pressing the arrow on the top left side and let it run

  --> !! Please don't let your desktop or laptop cutoff during the process. Please do not remove phone from usb cable until after the first reboot complete.

  It doesn't matter what percent your LG FlashTool is showing and you can close out LG FlashTool at that point. do a factory reset after you get too your home screen for the first time. now you device is ready too be used.

  don't forget to update profile on phone after it reloads

Source


How to delete synchronized pictures? I've chosen allow Google to synchronize information from my email to my phone, but the result is not as interesting as it sounds! I see some pictures in the Gallery that I wouldn't have in my phone, unfortunately the delete option doesn't appear for these pictures. How to delete them? Is it possible to delete all synchronized information from Gmail to phone?

Make sure your google acct doesn't sync picasa photos. ..
Then go to settings > application manager > all apps > gallery > clear data and cache. Deletes the synced album.

Similarly you can clear all synchronised data from Gmail also.
In settings->Accounts->Google->your account, you can uncheck all options.
 So your Google details will not get synchronised...


Bypass memory manager; keep app alive At my work we all have Android devices which are used to dispatch jobs to us. It uses a web-app accessible through any web browser. When a new job arrives we are notified with an audible alert. However, because of the way Android handles the memory, it often "sleeps" (don't know the proper terminology) the web browser so if we get a new job through, we aren't notified unless we manually re-open the web browser to "wake" it.

Is there any workarounds for this issue?

Cheers

Presumably, the device is using wifi to access the internet - it might be worth a shot to try this:

Settings > Wifi
Hit on Menu to bring up Advanced
Tap on that menu option
Keep Wifi on during sleep, check that, make sure its set to Never

In that way when the device goes to sleep, wifi is still active and running and the web app should still work and

When a new job arrives we are notified with an audible alert

Edit
The above answer is not the correct answer, rather from the comments below,  this is definitely the one, in which I quote,.

Maybe, the approach to managing the jobs is done the wrong way,
especially in context of Android - a custom app that has a service
using a partial wake-lock to "ping" checking on jobs, send an event to
the app and the app wakes up. IMHO, a browser is not the right tool
for the requirements in your case.

In short, there is nothing that can be done to keep the web-browser "alive" while the device is sleeping, as Android, behind the scenes, when the kernel is not in sleep state, is tracking what apps are running, and depending on power and memory constraints, especially in the case of a web-browser page, (if it has a lot of styles, the more elaborate the page, the more resources hogged up as a result, especially if it has a lot of Javascript behind the page) this could be the job for the kernel to shoot it down and eject it from memory hence not reliable route to take.
TL;DR: A proper application instead of just web-browser will resolve the OP's problem.
Off-topic: There was a piece covered by the technology section under the BBC news in respect to mobile web browsing and how it can affect the battery due to the way web pages are designed, rather, they were designed incorrectly for the mobile platform, too much styles, too much scripting, not to mention Flash as well, they all had adverse affect on how Android displays/renders the page which in turn meant a lot of CPU cycles consumed to do just that.


How to get more information about Android random restarts Android randomly restarts - where would I find an error log or some other way of enabling information gathering from this process? I want to attempt to troubleshoot this.

Most logs are stored in catlog, you can use ADB (Android Debugging Bridge) to read it; there are apps on the market can be used to read catlog.


Cannot log into the WiFi due to blocked website called hla2.safemovedm.com I just got a new LG G3 running android 5.0. On my schools WiFi, there are blocked websites. When I try to connect to the school WiFi, it comes up with a terms and conditions screen (like the ones you see at Starbucks or other free WiFis), but it says that I am trying to access a blocked website called hla2.safemovedm.com.

I can bypass this by getting one of the teachers to log me into their administrative accounts, but I don't want to have to do this every time. Is there a fix for this?

Do you have an app installed called 'Hotspot Login Assistant'? It appears as though it could be related to an app that attempts to log you into hotspots automatically.

I've found several sites on the safemovedm.com domain which imply that this is caused by 'Hotspot Login Assistant'.


Display GPX in Google Maps or other simple application? I need an application that supports the following features:

offline map (no Internet connection)
bookmarks (POIs added by me from either my PC -> KML or in the app itself)

Since (Google) Maps doesn't currently support bookmarks, I use MapsWithMe Pro which does (along with offline maps).

I now need to import a GPX trace before going on a bike trip.

MapsWithMe doesn't support GPX yet, and failed importing KML files as converted with either GPSVisualizer or Gpx2Kml.

I then tried Locus Map Free and OsmAnd, but found them way too complicated for my need.

So... is there a way to simply display a GPX file in Google Maps on top of an offline map (no Internet connection available), or some other app that's a no-brainer to use?

Thank you.

What you want to achieve is working perfectly fine e.g. with Locus Maps, as I can say from my own experience. You can even use KMZ files − and if they are self-contained (i.e. all pictures etc. are inside the file, no external resources linked), you can even create your own travel guides (I did that, works like a charm). The offline maps can be selected and downloaded for free from inside the app as well.


When should fstrim run? Based on this cyanogenmod forum thread, I tried to address the delay in running applications and switching between applications on my Galaxy Nexus running cyanogenmod with Android 4.4.4 by running fstrim manually.

root@maguro:/ # fstrim -v /data
/data: 11649122304 bytes trimmed
root@maguro:/ # fstrim -v /cache
/cache: 436121600 bytes trimmed
root@maguro:/ # fstrim -v /system
/system: 80490496 bytes trimmed
root@maguro:/ # exit

This has largely fixed the delay issues. The delay to return to the home screen, for example, has reduced from about 4 seconds to less than 1 second. Based on this performance boost, I expect the delay was caused by the filesystem running inefficiently.

Isn't the Android OS supposed to run fstrim on its own? When is this supposed to happen?

The article referenced in @mattm's answer is a bit outdated. IdleMaintenanceService was removed in Lollipop, things have changed. On Pie, scheduled fstrim is triggered from StorageManagerService (1) to MountService (2):

  if the device is alive at midnight + idle, fstrim gets run at the next available charging + idle time

* (3)
Mount service calls StorageManager which in turn calls Vold to do fstrim.

If the schedule is being missed because the conditions don't meet and fstrim has not run for last 3 days (4), it will be forced during device startup if the device is restarted. SystemServer (5), PackageManager (6), StorageManager (7) and Vold (8) are involved.

In each case, the file /data/system/last-fstrim (9) (since Lollipop) gets updated (10), so  you can check its timestamp (requires root) to find out when fstrim was last run.

If you want to do TRIM manually, use Android's commandline tool sm fstrim (requires root or adb shell). Previously this was vdc fstrim dotrim but added to Storage Manager in Oreo (11) and removed from vold in Pie (12).

In order to send FITRIM ioctl to selected filesystem(s) only, use fstrim tool (requires root); a busybox applet.

What if you don't have root?
And you suspect that the scheduled fstrim is being missed for 3+ days, restart device, fstrim will be forced (since Lollipop 5.1 (13)). Simple.

Apps can't TRIM without root; see this answer.

HOW OFTEN TRIM SHOULD BE RUN?

Flash memory (including SSDs, eMMCs, SD Cards, USB sticks etc.) has limited number of Program/Erase cycles before it dies. But unlike HDDs, data can't be just overwritten on flash memory, it has to be Erased first, which is achieved through Garbage Collection.

Now if we do too much fstrim, this will cause frequent GC in background consuming precious P/E cycles and hence reducing life. If we don't do fstrim at all, there could be unnecessary GC (of already deleted data), plus the write operations will get too slow with time because Erase will have to be performed before overwriting data, which has very higher latency as compared to Program operation.

So we need a balance between both.

Also there are other factors e.g. whether eMMC controller supports over provisioning, how effective it is in background GC scheduling, wear-leveling and managing write amplification etc.

So unless you have the data sheet of your phone's eMMC and you are sure what you are doing, better is to leave the fstrim to OS. On PCs' (14):

  Running fstrim frequently, or even using mount -o discard, might negatively affect the lifetime of poor-quality SSD devices.  For most desktop and server systems a sufficient trimming frequency is once a week.

But this may vary with situations.

RELATED:

Coding for SSDs
Why is TRIM not supported on encrypted “/data” partition?


What should I do if my (Exynos SM-N900)Note 3 has bootloop? I have experienced bootloop, it only shows SamSung Logo... And if I download ROM from SAMobile, how do I know if that Rom is not corrupted. Also, how do I know if Odin is stuck/hang or not? Because I thought it hanged so I pulled the cable and it showed crappyKies thing ( when I flashed CFAutoRoot ) then I bring that to Samsung and they fixed it (before root) now I am rooted.. What to do? I am scared

If your phone hangs at the Boot-Logo (Note 3), then you have not flashed the ROM the right way.

If it hangs at the Boot-Anination (Samsung), you probably forgot wiping caches and maybe the data partition.


Lollipop's Trusted Face can be bypassed by camera I have enabled Trusted face, also it comes with pattern lock if face is not recognized.

But it has a flaw, anyone can unlock the phone with camera/phone call shortcut on lock screen. As shown in attached screenshot, is it possible to prevent this?

I tried what you're saying a few times, and after you close the camera, you're back on the lock screen.

Unless you were actually looking at the phone, it recognized your face and it unlocked itself milliseconds before opening the camera.

You can notice that the "symbol" in the middle goes from that of a person to that of an unlocked lock when it recognizes you


Is there any technique for controling a smart phone over another smart phone ( both are android) As because one of the phones display is damaged throgh some part.
If there is any method please tell me....

You could try Teamviewer or Webkey. Teamviewer is only supported by selected Samsung phones, and Webkey requires root, though. If your phone is not supported by Teamviewer, you are most probably not going to achieve anything without rooting the phone you want to control. (Android only allows an app to inject screen taps and grab the screen in special circumstances: if the app is signed with the manufacturer's key (Teamviewer does this, so it doesn't need root) or the app is running as root.)


Disable touch screen while using scrcpy I have a broken-screen, non-rooted Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro that looks like this

and I'm experiencing a LOT of ghost touches (and the digitizer's gone).
I am using scrcpy to control it from my PC, so I want to disable the touchscreen because otherwise it interferes with my commands and does what it wants.
I don't want to detach the digitizer physically since I have no tools for opening my mobile and this one has to be opened from the screen, so I could damage it more.
How can I do it (possibly with ADB)?

So I fixed it the way it was suggested me by @rom1v scrcpy --turn-screen-off and works better than what I was expecting!


Why does my Milestone Droid erroneously report a drained battery once every few weeks? Every so often, my phone (Motorola Milestone, firmware 2.1-update1) decides that the battery is almost drained and that I have to turn the phone off.  This may happen just a few hours after charging it, and a subsequent restart confirms that yes, the battery does still have a charge, still at 70-80% capacity.

This tends to happen every few weeks, and it's been happening basically ever since I bought the phone a few months ago, so I'm pretty sure it's not a charge memory issue, especially when combined with the fact that the problem is intermittent and very infrequent.

Does anyone know why this might happen, and what I could do to fix it?

Some custom recovery images have a command to clear the battery cache, this has fixed similar problems on different phones for me.


How to root ZTE prestige I've looked at XDA and couldn't find anything and nobody will answer my question there. Please let me know if it is possible and if it is, how to do it?

Methods I already tried:

Framaroot
Kingoroot
Towelroot
Rootmaster
One Click Root
 root

Download Cydia Impactor to your desktop – Windows | Mac | Linux
      32-bit | Linux 64-bit   Extract the package to your desktop

  Run the Cydia Impactor tool

  On your Android device, enable USB Debugging from Settings > Developer
  Options

  Connect the device to a USB port on your computer

  On Windows, you would need to have the USB  drivers for your device
  installed. If not, you can also use the inbuilt Driver Scan function
  in the tool to automatically construct and install a driver for your
  device

  Click the Start buton, after making sure that # drop SuperSU su to
  /system/xbin/su is selected in the dropdown menu

  Once done, download and install SuperSU from the Play Store

  Enjoy Root access on your Android device


Wondershare MobileGo connect from PC behind NAT I have noticed that that both PC and Android phone need to be in the same network to connect  using Wondershare MobileGo by wifi.

Which ports are using by Wondershare MobileGo to connect and data transfer? Maybe simple port forwarding can be set in Router configuration and fix the problem.

In Windows go to Start -> Run -> cmd (right click Run as Administrator)

netstat -b -a >> c:\PortLists.txt

A few minutes later the command would be finished.

Open the file and search "Mobile" word.

[svchost.exe]
  UDP    0.0.0.0:5353           *:*
  Dnscache
 [svchost.exe]
  UDP    0.0.0.0:5355           *:*
  Dnscache
 [svchost.exe]
  UDP    0.0.0.0:7765           *:*
 [MobileGoService.exe]
  UDP    0.0.0.0:41481          *:*
 [BitTorrent.exe]
  UDP    0.0.0.0:60337          *:*
  FDResPub
 [svchost.exe]
  UDP    127.0.0.1:1900         *:*

Here is my result:

[MobileGoService.exe] UDP    0.0.0.0:41481


What happens when I connect a 2 amp charger instead of the 0.7 amp charger provided? Possible Duplicate:
  Is my phone liable to explode if I charge it with a charger that came with a different phone?
  What's the safe limit on charger output for a Galaxy Nexus

I have a phone with 0.7 amp charger. I also have a Galaxy Nexus with a 2 amp charger.  If I connect the 2 amp charger into my phone, will my phone blow up?

Electric current is measured in Amperes, shortened to Amps or simply the letter A.

One well spread example is to think of electricity in terms of water, pressure being equivalent to voltage, and flow rate equivalent to amps. As long as you have the correct pressure, the flow rate isn't a problem, provided the necessary minimum is present.

Typically electronics will only draw the current they need, so extra amps is OK.

The important thing is having the correct voltage with sufficient amperage available. Extra amperage will be ignored by your device.


Questions about phone migration using rsync I'm planning to get a new android phone and I'm wondering what's considered best practice to move all data and settings. I know that lots of stuff goes to google, but I'd like to migrate app data as well. I know that I can do an rsync of the SD card and move things like pictures, but which directories should I move? Could anything bad happen from me just doing an rsync of the entire old card to the new one?

My old phone isn't rooted (yet) so I can't access /data, but if I did root it to grab that stuff, I'm not sure how I would feel about rooting the new phone - is there somewhere I could drop the files grabbed from /data on the  old phone to somewhere on the new one to get things to "just work"?

I'm migrating from Moto Droid 1 to 4

Using rsync to migrate your SD data would be fine...there shouldn't be any harm to copying the entire contents of /sdcard, but now would be a good time to clean it up. You can use rsync or just plain copy/paste, and migrate everything piecemeal either to your computer or directly to the new phone (just plug both in via USB to your computer at the same time).

The main concern is any pictures, music, etc. that you have on there. Beyond that, check for any app data you'd want. Some apps store their data in /sdcard/appname/, but most use /sdcard/Android/data/full.app.name instead (this is a little harder to decipher, as the names don't always match what the app displays as...Amazon's App Store is com.amazon.venezia, for example). Games may have saved games or high scores, games or other apps may have large data packs saved, and most apps back up their settings somewhere on /sdcard when you hit "back up settings" or "export settings" in a menu.

If you're wanting anything else, check out a similar question. The short answer is you probably need root to back up actual app data that isn't on the SD card, and an app that will do it for you (Titanium Backup is pretty much the de facto standard).


Technical questions about the Nook Color rooting process I've been considering getting a Nook Color with the intention of rooting it for use as an inexpensive general purpose Android tablet. Before I decide either way or dive into one I went and read a bunch of the development forums and guides, but I still have some questions/concerns about some of the specifics. For starters, I have a few questions about the rooting process:

Should I be concerned about the root process failing? I don't want to get a NC if I can't get root on it. Everything seems to indicate this isn't an issue (at least at this moment)
If something goes awry, is there any way to recover/restore to stock software? Most phones seem to have desktop upgrade utilities, but I haven't found one for the NC yet. At the least, can I get to HBoot/fastboot?
Does the rooting process just require a microSD card to complete, or does the custom ROM actually run from the card? I've seen some unclear info on this, but it appears that the former is generally the case but dual-booting (or booting directly from microSD) is an option as well. Is that correct?

I recommend reading up the NookDevs wiki, and specifically the section about rooting.  It's a very straight-forward process that is completely reversible.

To answer your questions:

If the rooting process fails, you can always boot from the SD Card and start over.
There is an official B&N 1.1 stock image floating around that can be used to bring your Nook Color back to its original state at any time.
You can run a custom ROM entirely off the SD Card.  The NC will run a bit slower (depends on the speed of the SD Card), but you will be able to retain the original firmware.  Just remove the card and it will boot normally.  You can install a custom ROM onto the internal memory, overwriting the stock image.  The Nook will run faster this way.  There are also ways to re-map the internal partitions and set up dual-boot, so that you could run both original firmware and a custom ROM from internal memory.  A prompt during power-up will allow you to select which ROM to boot into.


Why allow permission button is disabled? Problem

Today I noticed strange behavior on my test phone, which is Nexus 5 with Android  6.0.1.

After opening test app that asks for permission to read contacts allow button is not working - after tapping on allow nothing happens, but deny works perfectly:

Also when I check Never Ask Again, it completely disables allow button:

Not sure what is happening here, but same app works perfectly on my OnePlus2 which uses Android 6.0.1 too.

The only strange thing about my test phone is that it does not have sim card currently.

Note that both phones have Google Account attached with same synchronized contacts.

Question

I am wondering what causes this?

It is the stupid FileManager app. Once you stop it or remove it you can allow other apps to access the phone


Nexus One crashes with 32GB SD card I just got a Nexus One (Gingerbread), and when I put in my 32GB Micro SDHC it will crash when it tries to read it (copying apps, opening storage settings, etc) and after you have locked the screen it will not come back on (the menu buttons light up, but not the screen)

I re-formatted it on my computer, but when I used it in my phone it would fail again.

The card however works on my old Huawei Ideos u8150 (Froyo) with no problems.

The Nexus one reads the 8GB card that came with it fine.

I would like to know why the Nexus would do this, given that they are spec'd to read a 32GB card. And how to fix it, obviously.

I have now tried formatting it with another phone (along with formatting it with GParted) and it works until you plug it into the computer and copy files onto it. It will then either not mount it or act the same as above.

32 Gb cards work just perfectly on my Nexus One. I have original ROM which was updated once OTA. The phone reports OS version as 2.3.6. I use SD card preformatted as FAT 32. You can try to format your card using phone itself, go in storage settings and erase the card. It should work after.


Cyanogenmod 12: How to display calendar events on lock screen? Seems fairly basic, and this has been working well with CM11, but however,
with CM12 I have not managed to configure the lock screen to show the next couple of events, without having to unlock.

I have

A Samsung Galaxy S II (Yeah, still my preferred device)
Cyanogenmod cm-12.1-20151116
The pico OpenGapps package
a PIN to unlock

I really loved the highly customizable lock screen of CM11 and it seems to be gone... Do I really need to install a lock screen app, like chronus (Is it no more packaged by default?)

Note: my question regards a different OS version than this one.

The app you are looking for is cLock. Its a widget and its still present in CyanogenMod.

Unfortunatelly, from Lollipop onwards, you can't put any widgets on your lock screen, and by that you are unable to use the described widget as you used it before.

Hovever, you can still place it on your home screen.


how to Install an app and afterwards have the initial configuration screen (as a new phone)? How may i install an app, and have the "startup configuration screen" (where the user selects his language, google accounts, etc) without doing a factory reset?

You can make that app an system app that will prevent your end user from uninstalling this app and even after an hard reset the app is still active, plus the app is installed before the device is given the end user.

ps you must modify the system for that which will mostly cause a loss of warranty.


How do I disable/change the NFC sounds? I love the NFC functionality of my LG L5, but the sounds are too annoying.

Is there a way to customize or disable the sounds that are played whenever a tag was read?

Most Android sounds are in .apk files and are a pain to edit. You have to find a way to open them, then you can remove or edit the sound, finally you have to package them up and sign them.

It's much easier to use NFC Task Launcher.


locked out with system lock screen on swipe I have an lg rebel lte from tracfone with android  5.1. I install a custom locker and then somehow set the system lock to swipe. Now when i try to unlock the phone it says systemUI has stopped and touch input fails. Tried reboot and and cant boot recovery mode. Please help!

You will need to do a factory reset to gain access to your phone. If factory reset don't solve the issue, you'll need to flash a stock firmware.

First,  turn the phone off.
Press and hold the following keys at the same time: Volume Down Key  + Power/Lock Key.
Release the Power/Lock Key  only when the LG logo is displayed, then immediately press and hold the Power/Lock Key again.
Release all keys when the Factory hard reset screen is displayed.
Press the Power/Lock Key to continue or either of the Volume Keys  to cancel.
Press the Power/Lock Key once more to confirm or either of the Volume Keys to cancel.

WARNING!

Performing a hard reset deletes all of your user data, which includes pictures, videos, and music saved to your internal memory.


Android locked MicroSD card (all files read-only) I own a Wiko Rainbow with Android 4.2.2. Out of the blue my MicroSD card got locked and I can neither create nor delete any files on my phone (such as photos). At first, I did not even understand why, until I checked the file permissions in the AndroZip file manager. All files and folders have been set to read-only.

I tried restarting my phone, but nothing changed. I also unmounted and reattached the MicroSD card in the Android settings. I opened my phone, removed and checked the card, but it did not help. The card has no mechanical write lock.

How come that Android locks my MicroSD card? I did not install any new software, my phone is unrooted and all I do is update my apps occasionally. I read that Android 4.4 had some issues with memory cards. Did Google maybe lock the MicroSD card with an update?

How can I fix the problem and make the card writable again (and prevent future locks). I do not own any MicroSD card reader, so the only solution is creating a backup of the card's content and reformatting it in Android, right?

Do Android or my apps store any data on the SD card (such as user settings or contacts)?

Did you try to write files on your external SD card? Google has blocked the write access to External SD card for third party apps on Android 4.4. Lots of apps became useless on KitKat. You can try upgrading your Android system to 5.0+. Also please try using your mobile default file manager to read or write files to see what will happen.


stop google now mid-rant? I use Google Now on an Android tablet, and I wanted to know if there is a way that I can stop it speaking in middle. Usually when I search for something it will read off the top result, and I often don't need it to read off the entire thing. Is there a way I can stop it after I've heard enough?

See this reddit post, where the OP has created this web site dedicated to known Google Now commands and their variations. There is no direct way of silencing, so here is a workaround

When Google is reading the results and you heard enough, say OK Google mute the volume

This silences Google by setting volume to zero. To revert to normal volume, say OK Google set the volume to x , x being a number from 1 to 15 (you will need to experiment to get to comfort level) or OK Google set the volume to full

Tested this on searches like OK Google define aerodynamics, where the rant (as you say ) was long enough . I haven't been able to configure to read out search results, say on Donald Trump :)


Why does calling my wife's phone go straight to VoiceMail? When using my Verizon HTC Thunderbolt running CyanogenMod to call my wife's Verizon HTC Incredible, also running CyanogenMod, it always goes straight to Voice Mail.  I can call other Verizon phones with no issue and my wife can call me with no issue and my wife can receive calls from other Verizon lines with no issue and she can call me with no issue.  Issue is only from my phone to hers.  I called Verizon and they said it is not a network issue and suggested an installed application might be causing the issue.  They suggested to put both phones into Safe Mode boot.  I was able to do this for Incredible, but failed using the directions they provided for the Thunderbolt. They said after boot starts, hold down volume down key for boot process on Thunderbolt.

How can I debug this issue of my phone going straight to Voice Mail?  What would cause just my phone to experience this issue?  Any advise and suggestions would be appreciated.

It could be your number being "blacklisted" on your wife's phone. There are a lot of apps on the playstore offering this feature, and some Android versions can do so on their own (just configure the contact in your contacts list correspondingly).

So here's what you could do:

check with your SIM card placed in some other phone (if that option exists; at least here in Europe we can move the SIM card around). Your call should be still blocked/routed to voicemail then, so you know the issue is not with your phone (e.g. dialing some prefix/postfix)
check your wife's phone for installed apps like Advanced Call Blocker etc.
check your wife's phonebook (errm, or let her check ;) for your record there and see whether it is blacklisted. If unsure, just delete it temporarily, then call her again.
At least CyanogenMod lets you manage a separate blacklist. With CM, it is found in the call settings. Check whether your number made it into this place.
if the problem still exists, repeat step 1. with your wife's phone (again, if possible)

My guess is either 2., 3., or 4. will reveal the cause.


Changing WhatsApp number without losing chat histories The SIM of my currently used WhatsApp number is not with me now. I want to change my WhatsApp number without losing some important chat histories. Is it possible to change the old WhatsApp number to a new one with some old specific chat histories intact, by verification only through the email ID associated with the previous WhatsApp number?

WhatsApp makes it very simple to change your number. After changing your number, everything will stay the same. All your groups and chats will stay intact.

To change your number, open WhatsApp settings and press on account and then press in change number. Follow the simple steps to verify your new number.

That's all! All your groups and conversations will still be there.

Just make sure to let your contacts know that you changed your number. Otherwise they will not be able to reach you...


Wifi error after Motorola XOOM tablet Android 4.0.4 update I have a Motorola XOOM type tablet.
Three days ago I updated my tablet to Android 4.0.4.
But after that I can't connect to my wi-fi modem.

I was successfully connecting before this update. I also tried with my desktop computer and ipad, they can connect.

I resetted modem. Checked for firware update- no update. Changed password. Restarted several types but they didn't help.
How can I fix this WI-FI issue?

It is affecting every Xoom.  It appears there is an error with the update, it basically bricks your xoom.  My has the same issue and now the Xoom is useless.


Tethering an Toshiba AT100 to a Nokia E71 I want to tether an Toshiba AT100 tablet to my Nokia E71. Have installed JuikoSpot on the Nokia which creates an ad-hoc hotspot. It appears the AT100 only looks for infrastructure hotspots. Is there an app or other method of getting the AT100 to look for and connect to an ad-hoc hotspot?

Alternatively, is there a cheap Android phone I could get that supports being an infrastructure wi-fi hotspot?

Try bluetooth tethering instead.

Benefits: Consumes less power, you can leave bluetooth enabled 24/7. Works out of the box.
Drawback: BT 2.1 may cap your maximum UMTS speed (usually not an issue on the go).

There are two profiles for this to tether via bluetooth:

Bluetooth PAN:
Supported by Android 3.0+ out of the box. See Wikipedia entry for more info on PAN profile.
Bluetooth DUN:
Needs 3rd party app like BlueVPN (ICS version here). See Wikipedia entry for more info on DUN profile.

Stock Android 3.0+ and custom roms like CM should support Bluetooth PAN. Your Nokia E71 supports only DUN profile (Archos users can enjoy added DUN support out of the box however) .


Do Android 3.0 tablets have standby/hibernate mode? I am considering an Acer Iconia A500 device as a book reader. Having years of experience with using (and programming) different devices (PDAs, smartphones, tablet PC, book readers), I am used to charge the reading device (whichever I use) only once in a week or so. When I don't read, I hope to have it in sleeping mode consuming only minimal energy (as it's a bookreader, I don't need it running any background apps or hanging on the net).

So the question is - do Honeycomb devices have a true standby mode which can keep the battery for a week or so (and let the device power on in less than 10 seconds), and not just "sleep" mode we see in Android 2.2 smartphones?

Update: got myself the above mentioned device. It holds power for about a week when not used, so I guess this is close to what I would like to have with sleep mode.

As far as I'm aware, Android basically just doesn't work this way. You can turn off the screen ("sleep" mode) and put it into airplane mode for some extra battery saving, but there's no "standby" equivalent like on a laptop. The processor should underclock itself when you do this, too (how much probably depends on the device). And, as Lie Ryan points out in the comments, for phones this is largely due to the fact that a call could come at any time. I'd guess Honeycomb's behavior is essentially a hold-over from that since it's easier than rewriting it.

That being said, if you just want a book reader, you might consider something like a Nook Color. The Iconia is really a full-fledged tablet PC (though running Android), but something designed specifically for e-reading will probably offer better battery life.


upgarde to 2.2 android OS- X8 mobile can anyone provide me the simple steps to upgrade to 2.2 from 2.1 android OS for X8 Xperia mobile. If so, is that fine to do myself without the help of sony erricson departmental store ?

There's no official upgrade to 2.2 for X8 Xperia, Wikipedia says. You can install a third-party ROM, though -- it seems the latest Cyanogenmod 7.1 is available for this device. Which is even better, considering that ROM is based on Gingerbread 2.3 instead of Froyo.


How to search within the app that I bought in Google Play? I bought an app (.99 cents) a few years ago. I try to use a keyword to find the app in my Google Play, but it is not easy. In the last couple years I downloaded/installed 200+ free and paid. If I go to that 200+ app list to find search one by one, it is very time consuming. If I search the keyword within Google play directly, Google Play will give me ALL apps with the keywords no matter I downloaded or not. How to search within the app that I bought in Google Play? Thaks

This might help:

Login to your Google account from your PC
Go to https://play.google.com/apps
Hit Ctrl+f (or command + f on Mac) and type the name of your app, and look for it.
Click the app name when you find it.

Now, you can either note down the exact name of the app and the publisher and install manually from the Play Store on phone, or, just click the Install button (make sure your phone is on and has a data plan/wifi), select your device, click Install.


Does data have priority over voice when making calls on 3G? I'm not quite sure if this is the correct place to ask this, recently my phone service provider sent me a message saying that they had now begun compensating subscribers whose calls were dropped mid-call. They said their systems would decide if a call was dropped prematurely and if it was then we would be given bonus airtime. Prior to this, my calls never dropped and I didn't have much of a problem when calling. A few days after this I notice a lot of my calls keep dropping when I try and make them and after I make them. My signal is strong -full bars actually-but I assume 4G might be unstable so I switch my preferred network type to 3G only to prevent the phone from switching networks. This doesn't make much difference as my calls still keep dropping.

So I pass by their shop and one of their attendants informs me that the problem would most likely be attributed to the fact that when I make my calls, apparently data has preference over voice despite the fact that I'm not even using an app that requires heavy data/data at all when I'm making my voice calls. Before my service provider sent that message, I really didn't have much of a problem making calls but now it's become too much with literally 2 out of 3 calls getting dropped. So my question would be, when making voice calls, is data given preference over voice or did that attendant really not know what he was talking about.

For technical terms I have a galaxy s5(SM G900F) running android marshmallow. Never tampered with any of my settings.
Typical  4 bars on 3G has a signal strength of -81dBm 16asu

Voice and data are handled independently in 3G- voice uses circuit switching and data on packet switching. Hence, priority of one over another is not correct as claimed. For additional details see this

Frequent call drops could be due to other reasons like tower density, frequency used, congestion, Overloading etc, which can be addressed by your carrier. Your signal can be strong, yet you may face call drops or not being able to connect because of these issues


How to find the root of android slow down I have samsung galaxy nexus with CM-11 nightly 07-04-2014.

About twice a month I update my version to the latest nightly build and it was pretty good for a while. Unfortunately last time ( for a couple of weeks ) there were two updates which really slowed down my device. Every app starts now up to 10 seconds. Even when I get a phone call sometimes the phone is not fast enough to display me an answer call button. And the network became slow as hell. CM update download over wifi will take up to several hours, while before it was about 5 minutes. However wifi in local network works a bit faster. gprs inet also works very slow. 100K pdf download takes up to 5 minutes, while it was up to 10 seconds before.

I tried to downgrade to the last stable version I had ( it looks like any before 03-25 ), but without success.
Important note: I did not perform the whole wipe during downgrade. I only formatted /system and /cache. I also tried to install other nightly builds with the same result.

There is nothing suspicious in dmesg or logcat. Sometimes in dmesg I can see messages about killing some users apps but it seems normal to me.

How to find the root of such slowdown?

And I'm not sure if the whole wipe will help me, as I'd like to save app data and restore it after wipe.

As far as I now Android device slowdown can occur for several reasons:

Very low amount of free RAM.
Check under Settings>Apps>Running how much free RAM you have
If your free RAM is too low (70-150MB or less) it's probably the cause so check which app/apps, if it's not an app maybe it's a bug in the ROM. (see 3)
Low free space on internal storage. (check under Setting>Storage)
If the free space is too low (~2GB or less), try free up some space and check if that helps
Kernel bug/misconfiguration.
Try to check your CPU usage stats, clock speed, governor, number of active cores etc...
(If you havn't flashed a custom kernel and never changed the governor/clock speed or other performance settings it's probably not the problem)
ROM bug
You can try perform a nandroid backup, then reinstall the rom after full wipe and see how it performs, if it's still slow, try clean install of the version that previously worked fine (only if you know what you doing!)
Bug in one of the user apps.
If your CPU/RAM usage is too high for no reason maybe one of your apps eating it.
I recommend you to try OSMonitor or any similar app to find which app eating your CPU/RAM.
(Lack of TRIM, TRIM does exist in Android 4.3 and up so it's not the problem)
(In some rare cases bad sdcard can cause such problem but it's not the problem too since Galaxy Nexus doesn't have card slot)


WhatsApp: deleting a member of a group and adding them back after data deletion I was wondering. Suppose you are a member of a WhatsApp group. You may or may not have created that group. What happens if someone grabs your phone and maliciously deletes the messages or the group and you want the whole chat back?

If you are the group creator, can you simply request someone else that was part of the group to add you back by sending them a message to delete your name from the group and add you back?

Thanks.

P.S.: I only have one phone and one SIM card so I cannot try this out for myself as also I don't think my contacts would be bothered to go along and try this with me. Thank you for helping me figure this out. I hope that if someone answers this question it will be of help to others.

Thanks.

You will still be part of the group unless the one that deleted your messages also pressed "exit group". In that case all you have to do is ask the group admin to add you back, or use the group link to get back in.

The method you're suggesting to retrieve the messages is not going to work. Because when you join a WhatsApp group, wether you're new, or returning member, you do not get any messages that were previously posted in that group.

This is because WhatsApp doesn't store your messages in a cloud. It stores them on your phone, and it makes a backup to Google drive and into your phone, but those will not show up if you rejoin a group.

There are a few options to get your group message history back.

Option 1. The easiest would probably be to ask one of the members to email you the chat history.

The member would have to open the group chat, press on the three dots menu on the top right then press "more" -> "email chat" enter your email address and send.

This will send you a PDF file of all the message, and you will not be able to see those messages in WhatsApp. (To have the message show up in your WhatsApp chat, go to option 2 or 3)

Option 2. Restore your Google drive backup.

First, check to make sure that no backup was made after you deleted the messages. To do that go to WhatsApp settings>chats>chat backup, now on the top left of your page, it will tell you the last time a Google drive backup was made. If the date is after you have lost the chats, then move to option 3.

(Using this option, you will lose the message you have written since the last backup)

Go to settings->apps -> WhatsApp -> storage -> clear data.

Then, open WhatsApp and follow the regular registration process. When it asks if you want to retrieve your backups, press yes.

You will now have the messages that you have lost.

Option 3 follow the instructions on the WhatsApp FAQ page, to restore messages from local storage.


How to let phone calls from a specific number bypass 'Do Not Disturb'? I often turn on 'Do Not Disturb' mode, especially at night. I would like a few specific phone numbers to be able to bypass the Do Not Disturb if they call me, so that I can be altered in case of emergency. Is there any way to do it?

You should be able to set an exception rule to allow calls and texts from certain people (All/Contacts/Favorites).
Different manufacturers will have different set ups but you should be able to get to this setting by going

Settings > Sound & notification > Do Not Disturb > Exceptions

You may need to turn on Do Not Disturb to alter these settings.


Folder inaccessible, labeled as "file", tried rescanning sd card I downloaded MAME4droid and I wanted to put a Galaga ROM on it, but when I tried to find the MAME4all folder it didn't show up in windows. As prescribed, I rescanned the sd card, but all that did was this:

If it matters, my device is a Droid MAXX (not the Razr).

I've found that the best way to fix the problem was to use a file manager app (because there isn't one on the device by default) to move the ROM into the right folder.


Please explain the android partition structure to me? I've tried finding the answer myself, but everything that I am able to see seems to miss out the really basic first steps.

Here's my logic:
FIRST
Look at the phone's specification. Lets say Samsung galaxy S series.
There are three elements: Memory (e.g. 1Gb); Storage (e.g. 16Gb); and removable storage which may or may not be present (e.g. upto 32Gb - I have 8Gb.)

SECOND
Now the systems settings of Android 4+, there is an "Apps" item which shows at the bottom of the screen a label "Internal Storage". In my case it will say 1.4Gb used and 627Mb free. That's 2Gb.

If I swipe right, will will say "SD Card storage" 4.6Gb Used and 6.9Gb free. That's 13Gb or so.

THIRD
If I use an app like "Hardware info" it says:
System RAM 790Mb
Internal Storage 2Gb
External Storage: 11.7Gb

So, my question is how do I correlate these?
1. On which physical storage does "Memory" sit.
2. On which physical storage does "Internal storage" sit
3. External storage is easy - that's the removable card.

1) On which physical storage does "Memory" sit

When the specs say "Memory", it's referring to the RAM that the device has. This is not persistent storage, it is "volatile" storage, which loses its information when unpowered (after a brief discharge time). RAM is memory the system and apps use to function, for things like storing the state of an application (variables, functions, etc), graphics buffers, and the like. Most mobile systems on a chip will have the RAM attached directly to the CPU die to make it as fast as possible.

As per the specs: the device has 1 GB of RAM available to the system and running apps. It reports less than this because the system reserves some for things like the cellular radio and the graphics chip, which it will not give to user processes. The hardware info app is reporting the amount of RAM available to user processes.

  2) On which physical storage does "Internal storage" sit

In this case, "internal storage" and "SD storage" refer to the same physical storage area. This is persistent storage, generally flash or eMMC based, that is soldered onto the motherboard. The storage chip is partitioned into two pieces, which you can visualize roughly like so:

                         Total Storage
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Internal Storage |                 SD Storage                   |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+

Internal storage is where apps and their private data are stored; e.g. it is the /data partition. SD storage is accessible via USB when attached to a computer, and is where media (music, photos, videos, etc), downloads, and any non-private app data will be stored. Again, looking at your specs, you can see that:

The device has 16 GB of storage. That is, it has a 16 GB storage chip embedded in it.
Of that, 2 GB is partitioned as "internal memory" for apps
The remaining is partitioned for "SD storage" (13 GB, in your case, probably due to filesystem overhead and such; this is very common).

This partitioning scheme as become somewhat less common since Android migrated to Media Transfer Protocol for providing access to the storage from a PC. The reason the separate partitions were originally necessary is because Android used UMS in the earlier versions (anything <3.0), which requires block-level access to the storage space, meaning Android had to unmount the storage space that it provided to the PC. A consequence of this was that the entire partition could not be given to the PC because Android would basically cease to function until you unplugged your phone if it did.

The storage space and the RAM are unrelated to one another, and are not on the same physical chip. They serve entirely different purposes.


How can an app access Android Pay data on a rooted phone? According to an Android Pay engineer on the XDA forums, Android Pay is not compatible with rooted devices because of security concerns: on unrooted devices apps run in a sandbox and can only obtain limited information.

How is this different on an unrooted device as apps must request permission from SU?

Could an app trick SU into giving it more permissions than possible?

I am interesting in getting Android Pay working on my phone but have concerns about the security of my data as my device is rooted.

By default, only the application itself (and, under some circumstances, the applications written by the same company) can access to its (private) data. So Google Pay can store securely banking-related information.

If you root your phone, however, any application with root access can access to any folder on your file system. Including applications private data. And Google Pay's banking-related information.

I have no idea what Google Pay stores. But there is at least a way to authenticate as yourself. From there, an application with root access could probably do nasty things. Not nasty for Google, but for you: make payments on your behalf.

If you find a way to hide the root from Google Pay (I don't know if it's achievable, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was), and are entirely trusting the applications you give root access to, sure, go ahead. Personally, I would not.


Disable mobile data during standby I keep my mobile data (2G/3G) always on, but when the screen turns off (standby), I want it to automatically get disabled. Turn the screen back on, and it should automatically enable itself. Is there a way to tell android to keep mobile data off while the device is in standby?

Yes. There are many applications available in Google Play Store.

The most powerful automation app is Tasker, which I use and recommend to others. You can also try battery saver applications like Juice defender, and Deep Sleep Battery Saver.

In Tasker, define the context as Display off with task Disable net. Then you are done!

If you are in need of more tasker profiles, go here.


Stock ROM won't flash Question HOW DO I FLASH THE STOCK ROM ON HOMTOM HT7 WHEN SP FLASH TOOL SAYS BROM ERROR : S_FT_ENABLE_DRAM_FAIL (0xFC0)

Info
OK I ultra hard bricked my Doogee HOMTOM HT7 (base model) 5.1 lollipop  1gb ram 8gb rom mtk6580a
I say ultra hard bricked because when I tried  OEM unlock in adb it bricked it to the point that 4 different  PCs wouldn't detect it at a with installed drivers I resently read a way to fix it to where a PC wood detect it so I did what the guide said witch was disassemble phone down to the  circuit board and sold a wire from one point to another and it did work so now PC detects it so does SP flash tool scatter file from ROM is accepted but when I try to flash ROM I get  error message stating BROM ERROR : S_FT_ENABLE_DRAM_FAIL (0xFC0) so what do I do

If you want more info ask I tried to give all that i thought was needed
Sorry for bad spelling and punctuation

First time, The problem of your phone was a wrong preloader used on your MT6580A.

While you are using test points to force preloader port then you have to try different preloaders from different similar Firmwares based on MT6580A.

P.S: THIS OPERATION IS RISKY but it should resolve your problem.


How to change the language of Google Chrome? I traveled to Japan and bought a phone there. I changed the system language but websites keep showing in Japanese in Google Chrome, twitter.com for example.

Firefox is fine though so it seems like the issue is solely with Chrome. I tried completely removing and reinstalling Chrome but that did not fix the issue.

Usually websites that you visit will be in the language that they were made in.

My guess is that Google results in your browser are showing in Japanese and you're looking to change that.

To do so, go to Google.com then scroll down to the bottom of the page. There, press on "settings" -> "search settings" -> "language in Google products" -> English (or any desired language)

Also change "region for search results, to "current region" as shown in the screenshots below.


Need to change the application download option I have updated my mobile software from kitkat to lollipop. While updating, I was prompted to download the software over three option. I chose wi-fi. But when the software is updated, I am getting an error in notification area that "download size requires wi-fi". This is happening for all the application that needs update.
I tried to change the option for download in playstore setting to "Auto update at any time. Data charges may apply" but no luck. I have Moto E (2nd Gen).

Can anybody help me with this?

Thanks in advance.

--Nitin

Try going into the app manager in the android settings and clearing the cache and data on google play.  If that doesn't work try uninstalling updates. If that doesn't work try to clear the default settings if there are any.

I'm pretty confident that one of those should fix it. If not you might want to look in XDA developers for your phone to see if there are any known bugs.

-Asloss


Update Droid to 2.2 over wifi possible? I have a Motorola Droid running 2.1 that does not have Verizon service.  Therefore it does not seem to be getting the over-the-air (OTA) update.  Is there anyway to update this via wifi?

You can manually update your phone by downloading the update.zip file for 2.2, putting it in the root of your SD card and applying the update in the recovery during boot up.

See detailed instructions here.


Why is the play store displaying same app twice under the My apps section 4
Under the All apps the true caller is shown twice by the play store / Under the settings there is only one app not two. (click images for larger variants)

Android Version:4.1.2 Jellybean

Device: Samsung Trend Duos.

In the above image the True Caller application is shown twice and both are of the same  no extra app on(or plugin for that particular app). I have force closed the application ,later switched the device waited for some time and restarted the device and still the application duplicate is displayed under My apps.

There are not two apps as you can see in the downloads section.(The applications list is sorted name wise so there's no chance of missing a second true caller app)

The publisher of this app may have changed their package name when updating the app. Usually, apps have the same package name for its entire lifetime, which is how the phone knows to update a current app instead of installing a new one. If this is the case, you should uninstall the old app. The quickest (and easiest) fix is to uninstall both and reinstall the latest version. Provided the app's package name doesn't change again during the next update, this should solve your issue.


Firmware upgrade encountered error when going into Recovery Mode My Galaxy GT-N8000 is showing this message Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies and try again. I cannot enter into recovery mode. It keeps showing the same message. What can I fix this?

It's a known issue on Samsung phones. When an update is interrupted or fails for whatever reason, the phone will not boot in either normal or recovery mode, and will present the "Firmware upgrade encountered an issue..." error.

The solution is to start the phone in Download mode (usually by holding the Volume Down button while powering it on from turned off state,) and then try re-flashing the update.  If you are having trouble with Samsung's Kies software, you may want to try Odin or Heimdall utilities.

It's not necessary to flash the full ROM to get rid of the error, you can flash a modem firmware of a custom/stock Recovery instead. Just make sure whatever you are planning to flash is designed for your specific device model.  As long as the last flashing attempt completes successfully, your phone should no longer show the above error, and allow you to proceed with voiding your warranty ;)


How do people at service center check if the phone is rooted or not? How do they check it, in order to decide whether the phone is in warranty or not?
I am referring to the majority of the phone manufacturers who void the warranty of their phones 'as soon as they are rooted'.

Varies as per OEM

Most devices need bootloader to be unlocked before rooting. OEMs like Motorola insist on a formal request to be made on their website for obtaining boot loader unlock code. The moment you make the request, your warranty is void whether you unlocked the bootloader /  rooted or not

Edit: Since you own a Motorola device, more details

When you request for bootloader unlock code, you have to identify your device serial number, which means database is available with service center to check against your serial number. Motorola clearly warns you that requesting for unlock code  = rooting, whether you root or not and void warranty

If you do unlock bootloader and do not take steps to prevent this warning from showing up (involves flashing a custom boot logo file) , this image will show up everytime you boot.

Even if you lock bootloader again by applying a bootloader lock code, in bootloader mode it will show

`DEVICE IS LOCKED. STATUS CODE : 2'

whereas the status code for unlocked devices is 1

So be very sure about unlocking bootloader, the service center guys can easily find out !!

For Samsung devices it is very easy to read the Knox status. If that is tripped, your warranty is void ( exceptions apply in some geographies)
Some devices display Modified / Custom status in the device properties or in diagnostics ( this to Andy for pointing that out)
It is reasonable to expect that OEMs who void warranty on rooting would have a root status shown in the device diagnostics. Just in case there isn't, they can  use Root Checker apps, or check using Terminal Emulator. Use of third party apps I guess would be more of an exception, since inbuilt tools would do the job


Playing audio file latency issue i have an issue , i hire someone to make music app , but when we try to play audio file located in server  , it gave some latency 6-8 seconds , in other music app it takes milliseconds only , how can we make suck like that speed of playing

It sounds like the answer will turn out to be related to the power-saving settings on your server.  Specifically, the timeouts on the hard drives.

If it takes milliseconds it is probably because the drive is already spinning, and when it takes 6-8 seconds it is probably because the drive has powered down and needs to spin up before looking for the file.

Having more than one drive exacerbates this problem.  If a music file is playing for some time on one drive, another might spin down.  Picking another song from the first drive will play very soon, but picking something from the other drive will involve some time lag before the drive is ready.

But it can also happen on a single drive if the music file is first loaded into RAM before playing.  In that case, short songs will finish before the drive spins down, but longer ones might give it time enough to see no activity and think it isn't needed.

My recommendation is always to disable power-saving mode on hard drives.  They tend to last longer if they are not constantly being turned off and on all the time.


What file system for sdcard for KitKat I have been searching the web and this website for information about the file systems supported by Android. I have not found anything though.

Since KitKat (Android 4.4), some changes have been applied regarding the access of the applications to the external SD cards. Many websites explain, pretty well, that this is due to Android offering read/write access control over the folders and FAT file system not offering this feature.

This is nice to know the cause but now I am interested in finding a solution. Not a workaround that involves an app or whatever, but I would like to know which file system I can format my sd card with and Android recognizes it. I vaguely read about EXT, but which version? Does Android work with EXT 3, 4?

By the way, I apologize if this has been asked, let me know the duplicate in that case.

This limitation is not due to the FAT filesystem : Since 4.4, Android only lets a special user group write on the card.

Your card could be in NTFS, or EXT or whatever more, you'll have the same problem.

The only way to bypass this limitation is to root your device, and install some 3rd party apps/patchs, or manuallay edit some files.


Block all connections except a single host server ? (block by server not by app) My mobile company offers a free package for facebook with unlimited bandwidth , however when I open my 3G connection the mobile automatically connects to unknown servers (maybe google) and the mobile company charges me for that connection.

The question in simple words:
How can I make all connections blocked (even google) except facebook.com?

If you're rooted, you can configure Firewall rules to block all except Facebook, but I don't think your problem is that complex:

  when I open my 3G connection the mobile automatically connects to unknown servers.

Unable to understand what that mean as I can't OPEN my 3G connection. Seems to me, either you are talking about opening web browser or Background Data is screwing you. In the first case, make your homepage Facebook. In the second case, turn off Background Data from Settings ~> Accounts and Sync. Done!

If you want to do it with Firewall way, open Terminal Emulator. Switch to root by su command (your device must be rooted for that). Now, execute following commands in sequence:

iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -d facebook.com -j ALLOW

iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -d * -j DROP

(Do it on your own risk after proper backups. Some devices become unstable after it.)


Unable to resolve host "get.cm" I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (GT-P3113). When connecting to a particular Wi-Fi network, I get a message that states: unable to resolve host "get.cm".

I am able to connect to the network and can see other devices on the net, but I cannot connect to websites. All my other PCs on the network function just fine, but this Android tablet cannot get internet access. It works fine on every other network I've accessed.

I have modified the network to use no authentication, WEP, and WPA, but still nothing.

Ideas?

I figured it out. My network was configured to use the network address as the router address. Windows is able to handle this just fine, I guess, but Android systems can not. So I changed the Addressing settings to set the router to end in .161 instead of .160 (the network address) and it's all good :D


Toggle between 2 gmail calendars? I would like to have 2 separate gmail calendars, one for work and one for personal.  I have 2 different gmail accounts but I can only find how to sync them together instead of going back and forth between.  Is it possible to keep them separate but both still visible on my phone?

There isn't a way on the stock Calendar app. However you can do this by using two different Calendar apps.


How to re-enable the "Clear Defaults" option for applications? I'm not able to change the default application for voice recording on my Samsung Galaxy S (running the factory installed Android 2.2).

The current settings define the one that was provide with the device (called Voice Recorder) but the "Clear Defaults" button on the Applications Management list is disabled.

Is there a way to re-enable the button? I'd try uninstalling the Voice Recorder application but the corresponding button is also disabled. Could this kind of locking be set by the operator or is this the Galaxy S default behavior?

This button is normally greyed out when there aren't any defaults set (and possibly when there are no other applications to change the defaults to).  If you install another voice recording app, you should be asked which you want to use the next time a voice recording event is triggered.  This normally doesn't get triggered when you start up the voice recorder manually, it has to be triggered.


Where does swype store the user dictionary? Does anyone know where Swype stores the user dictionary? I wasn't careful enough at the outset and now it prefers "Amanfa" to "Amanda" which is hugely annoying. I haven't been able to delete it. I'd really like to at least see if I can't bushwhack my way to a back door and look through the dictionary myself.

So far, it seems like this dictionary has eluded people all over. There are a few things that have worked for most people as far as getting swype under control.

To delete a single word, type it using Swype, highlight it (by clicking or double clicking the word), and press the Swype key (button with "info" icon)
To add a word, type it very carefully letter by letter and press the Swype key to save it to the dictionary
To batch add multiple words to the dictionary (this has been tested and worked), type the words you wish to add in a text document (either on your phone or on your computer and then view it on your phone). Highlight the block of text and push the Swype key. This should add every word in the block to the dictionary.


On many applications, text is wrapped to half the screen width In Gmail, Reader etc., text is wrapped to about half the screen width. This is extremely annoying! Text-size is normal, and I can't find any global settings that would govern such a thing. Can anyone help me out? I'm using a Nexus S, CM7.

This was an issue with CM7 builds up until 7.0.2 after which it was fixed.


How does Titanium Backup work? When will it not work? How does it know what to back up? Can an app have data that TB won't know about or that TB won't back up?

Other than restoring a Jellybean backup to a Gingerbread phone, how else will Titanium Backup fail to restore apps or will destabilize my phone?

I need to be sure I don't lose data as I reset ROMs or phones or switch between two ROMs or phones.

I advise you to read thoroughly the following resources before taking any step to make changes to your OS, so you can be sure if you're doing things right with Titanium Backup:

Titanium Backup User’s Guide: The Titanium Backup manual.
Titanium Backup Technical FAQ: The most frequently asked questions.
Titanium Backup Troubleshooting: In case you have problems…
Titanium Backup Cryptography: All about encrypting and decrypting your backups.
Titanium Backup Tips & Suggestions: Some useful tips.
Titanium Backup HOWTOs: This can help you get some specific jobs done.
Titanium Backup Licensing: If you have questions or problems with license keys for the Donate version or the PRO version on the Market.


How to authorize device for adb when the touch control is completely broken? My Nexus 7 2012 has fallen from a table and though the display as well as the device itself is fine, the touch control is completely broken.  You cannot tap or touch anything.

I believe I can manage a restricted access to it (thanks to great tutorial: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1r2zha/how_i_managed_to_use_my_android_device_with_a) if only I can execute adb commands.

Unfortunately any attempts end with simple:

$ adb shell
error: device unauthorized. Please check the confirmation dialog on your device.

Which is no option for me as my touch control is gone :-(.

I am looking for any option how to bypass/authorize the confirmation without using the device's touchscreen.

It depends on what version of Android you have, but you should be able to connect a microUSB OTG cable with any old USB mouse to the Nexus and get control of the cursor. You can then click with the mouse in place of touch controls.


Google photo backup failure Iam using a Motorola G 2nd revision and the google photo app.  I notice 2 days ago that my photos were not backup on Google+.  Inspecting the photo app on the phone it says "Backing up 1 of 119".  I had about 20 photos on the camera.  I have no idea what photos it's looking at.  At any rate I deleted all the photos, shut the phone down waited 5 min and then rebooted.  After 3 hours it still says "Backing up 1 of 119".  Before and after I can see that it is connected to my Wifi.

Any ideas.

Please try the steps found on the official help page for Google Photos: My Photos aren't backing up

If it still says "backing up 1 of 119", please try to go to Settings → Apps → Photos (Google) → Storage → Clear Data. If that still doesn't work, try (from that same location) to uninstall updates by tapping on Menu (3 dots on top right) then select Uninstall app updates. If that still doesn't work, try to update the app by going to Play Store → Menu (3 lines on top right) → My apps and games → then update Google Photos App.


Why can't I delete pictures I've sent in Google Hangouts in my gallery? I have a Samsung Galaxy Note III(3) and when I open my gallery there is a folder for each hangout conversation that contains images I have sent.

Is there a way to delete the pictures or folders from the gallery or at least have the gallery not synced with the Hangouts application?

You can delete the photos via the Google+ app or web interface. From the left-hand menu, click Photos. If you haven't turned on auto-upload and don't want to, click Not now to get rid of the prompts. Then, if you're in the app, open the menu that slides in from the left again, and choose Albums from the menu; or in the web interface, click More on the top, then Albums on that menu.

From there you can see the Hangout photos, listed separately from the 'real' photo albums. You can select and delete them to your heart's content. Note that "deleting" a photo from this view doesn't delete it right away: it moves it to the "Trash" or "Bin". To finish them off, you can find that on the same menu you were just on, or just wait for 60 days.


How to correctly quote `adb shell su -c` adb shell su -c is a commonly used adb command. Normally you just need to append arguments to the command line like this:

adb shell su -c echo ab

However, things can be tricky if you want to add quotes. For example, to print a  b (there are 2 spaces), these won't work:

adb shell su -c echo "a  b"
adb shell su -c "echo \"a  b\""
adb shell su -c "echo 'a  b'"

You have to use these:

adb shell su -c "\"echo \\\"a  b\\\"\""
adb shell "su -c \"echo \\\"a  b\\\"\""
adb shell su -c "\"echo 'a  b'\""
adb shell "su -c \"echo 'a  b'\""

I'd like to know which is the standard way of writing such a command. Standard means it handles quotes correctly and in the most straightforward way.

My current research:

adb handles command arguments the same way as ssh: Arguments are connected (with space) into a string, and that string is executed.
su -c expects a single string as the command line, and it doesn't do the concatenation for you.

So I think the most standard way of writing adb shell su -c should be like:

adb shell "su -c \"echo \\\"a  b\\\"\""

However, I'm not very confident about this. Does anyone have concrete reference confirming what I'm doing or showing I'm doing it wrong?

The best solution would be to use single-quotes (') around the subcommand:

adb shell 'su -c echo "a  b"'

But please note that usually within single-quotes everything is taken literally and variables are not expanded. This doesn't apply when you nest quotes like this. As an example:

myvar='123'
echo "$myvar"   # prints 123
echo '$myvar'   # prints $myvar

But: (assuming $myvar is set to '123' within the adb shell (e.g. on phone))

adb shell 'su -c echo "$myvar"'    # prints 123

In case you want to use your own shell variables to be included within the adb subcommand, you can simply flip around the quotes:

myvar='test'
adb shell "su -c echo '$myvar'"    # prints test


How do I get a notification when a Whatsapp friend comes online? I want to know how I can get notifications whenever a certain contact comes online in Whatsapp? Is there any settings or hack I can do?

You can use Whatsapp+. It doesn't require root. Besides giving the option of showing a toast notification when someone comes online, it has loads of other features, too. For example, it will show a contact's last seen time on the main screen right next to their name.


Run a Tasker task via ADB I'm looking for a way to run a Tasker task named test via ADB command. I found this thread Running a tasker task via SSHDroid (or adb shell) and tried but did not succeed. All I got was

adb shell am broadcast -a net.dinglisch.android.tasker.ACTION_TASK -es task_name test
Broadcasting: Intent { act=net.dinglisch.android.tasker.ACTION_TASK pkg=test (has extras) }
Broadcast completed: result=0

So how can I run a Tasker task via ADB command?

I use MQTT to handle firing tasks from the command line.
This doesn't require root, or to be connected by USB for ADB.
Place this batch file in your path:
cat post.cmd
@echo off
set _tail=%*
call set _tail=%%_tail:*%1 =%%
mosquitto_pub -h %ip% -p %port% -i "My_pc" -t '%1' -m '%_tail%'
echo Topic: %1
echo Msg: %_tail%

Then make a profile using the "Mqtt client" app, listening to S10/#
(my phone is an S10, set any topic name you'd prefer)
Profile: S10/# (431)
Cooldown: 1
Restore: no
Event: Message Arrived [ Configuration:Main - (Your mqtt broker IP here) : # : msg : topic : : ]

Have it target this task.
(I couldn't share mine without giving you my MQtt IP address)
https://taskernet.com/shares/?user=AS35m8mBhJAezDTr0Lio7dopdLiBaKgozAOxoCXM7Mh8sS5hSvSst1kEMf5%2FJeJveB%2BsvU8%3D&id=Task%3AMqtt+Listener
Now from the command line,
post s10 taskname1=:=par1 etc
topic : s10
msg: taskname1=:=par1 etc


How can I create a key par for sgit? I'm trying to use sgit to connect to a remote repository. It has a screen to "Manage Private Keys," but it doesn't seem to include a key generator. Instead, it lets you browse the file system, so presumably it's letting you pick a key generated by an external tool. I used JuiceSSH to generate a key pair, but can't find where it drops the key pair files.

So, how can I get sgit working? Should I be using a different tool to generate key pairs for sgit? Or is there a way to do it in sgit and I'm just missing it?

To export keys from JuiceSSH (either private or public):

Load up JuiceSSH and go to Connections
Swipe right to the identities list
Long press the identity you want to export the key for
Select either "Export public key" or "Export private key"

This will bring up a "Share" dialog that will let you save the key to clipboard/gmail/dropbox etc.

Thanks

Paul (JuiceSSH developer)


Can't surf from PC when using Android as hotspot I turned on mobile data and hotspot in my Samsung Galaxy Ace (On a Philippine carrier called "Globe"). I can surf websites just fine directly on Android.

Now, I connect my PC to Android's hotspot, it connects but it can't surf or ping websites.

It used to work before (used it some months ago) but now it doesn't. What could the problem?

Edit:

ipconfig screenshot:

If you are using the built in Wifi Tethering in Settings, then Android might have automatically misconfigured the iproutes.

You can try clearing the data on the tethering app and settings to refresh the configuration. Open Settings -> Applications -> click Settings -> Clear Data.

Same procedure for the tethering app, Open Settings -> Applications -> click ">your tethering app here< -> Clear Data

and to add, I'm also a Globe/Sun subscriber :D


Text communication with iphone users What are the non-voice options for communicating with iphone users to and from an android phone? Strengths and limitations of said options?

I don't have a smart phone but am thinking of finally taking the plunge. At least half of my family and friends are iphone users, and have been extolling the virtues of apple messaging. Watching them use it, especially involving multiple people at once, I see the attraction. However I don't want go the iWhatever route as I don't like the lock-in, but if by using a non-apple device I'm exiled from their conversations I may not have much of a choice.

So how about it, are there usable gates in the walled garden?

SMS works on any phone. On Android, your phone will have an SMS client built-in (probably called "Messaging", but it varies between manufacturers), and you can also choose from many third-party SMS clients.

As well as plain old SMS, there are many instant-messaging systems that work on Android and iPhone, and other platforms too. Your iPhone-using friends may well have one or more of these installed already. Some examples are Skype, Jabber, Whatsapp, Google Hangouts, and Facebook Chat.

What you describe as "apple messaging" is probably what Apple calls iText: it's the SMS app on iPhone. It also has its own closed chat system built-in, so that if it knows the recipient of an SMS is an iPhone, it'll silently send the message through Apple's servers instead of through the SMS system. It still uses SMS for people on other phones, so you don't need to worry about being exiled.


"invalid download uri" from Play Store on a Huawei phone I have a g350-u00 device that was shipped with JB 4.1.2 but without Gapps. To add Google account, I rooted the device and copied .apk files to /system/apk from gapps package http://goo.im/gapps/gapps-jb-20121011-signed.zip. After a couple of hard resets I have a working system with Gmail and Play Store. The latter fails to install any app with toast "invalid download uri". How can I cure the system?


Upgrading LG P500 (Optimus/Maximo One) Possible Duplicate:
  Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device?

I've thinking about rooting my LG Android for a long time but I've been hesitant because I use it on a daily basis and I'm afraid I might mess it up and not be able to restore it to the previous condition.

The main reason reasons I want to root it are:

Get rid of my providers' bloatware.
Upgrade to Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
Possibly overclock it (how safe/risky is this [on this phone/model]?).

I've never rooted an Android phone before and I would like to get some answers on these questions:

How do I root it?

Sorry if this question seems lame, but I honestly have no idea. I read some threads on the XDA forums and from what I gathered the SuperOneClick application seems to be the way to go, right..? Is there any precautions I should take? Also, I think I also need a to get a new Girgerbread / Froyo ROM compatible with my phone model. What is the "place to go" to get this?

Can I backup the current ROM / state of my phone?

So that if anything goes wrong I can restore it?

Exporting / Importing Contacts and SMSs

I'm not very worried about contacts since most of them are also stored my Google Account, but what about SMSs - is there any way / tool I can use to avoid losing them?

EDIT: Thanks to the links @Matthew posted I've managed to root and save all my phone data, however I'm still stuck regarding the ROM upgrade, I've found a forum thread on XDA that has a 2.3 ROM compatible with my phone model, but it still has some annoying bugs I would rather avoid. I see a lot of hype around CyanogenMod but it doesn't seem to be compatible with my phone (is it?).

So, can I get a 2.3 (or even 2.2) ROM that works on my phone without any major problems? Thanks!

OK, to answer the part of your question that wasn't answered by the questions I linked in the comments: Yes, you can unofficially upgrade to 2.2 or 2.3.  This XDA thread has a relatively comprehensive list of ROMs.  It looks like all the 2.3 ROMs are pretty buggy, so you should probably go with a 2.2 ROM that looks good to you; after a brief look, the one I would probably try is called "AmberHome".  The thread for each particular ROM should have installation instructions.


Power on S3 Mini without working power button A friend of mine has got an Samsung S3 Mini. Recently the power button broke (could not turn off screen by pressing the button). Now the mobile got accidentally turned off and wont turn back on, because the power button is broken. Is there any way to turn it on again? Like boot into recovery/download mode somehow? Or using some ODIN magic? I already searched a bit, but everything I found did not work.

I tried charging it, removing battery and inserting it again.

I read about a "Samsung JIG" which is used to boot the device into download mode. Could I turn it on from there?

Any ideas?

Okay my solution was to buy a cheap Samsung JIG from eBay (~2.5€). You can also build one yourself, but I did not have any resistors laying around at the time, so I just chose to buy on already made.

I plugged it into the mobile and after just a few seconds it turned on into download mode.

I then removed the jig, and connected my samsung s3 mini to my computer. I had to install the correct drivers and started odin. I did not find a way to simply boot my device, but I was able to create an emptpy .tar file to flash. I chose this file via the "BL" button in Odin. I made sure "Auto Reboot" was enabled and hit Start. It worked like a charm. Because the tar file I provided was empty it did not actually flash anything, but the device turned on.

I can now turn on the device whenever I need, using the jig and  my pc.

One other problem I ran into is: How do I turn the screen off, having no working power button. The Solution: Apps. There are a number of apps out there which enable you to turn off the screen via many different methods. Choose one that fits you best :)


Unknown not removable apps I have two apps: informacje and Czasoumilacz which I cant remove through Settings > Applications > Manage Applications. What's that and how do I handle the problem?

If you're sure you can remove the apps, you need to be rooted (see How do I root my Android device?) to do so.  I recommend using Titanium backup to uninstall them, you just load Titanium and then click on the app name to bring up a menu where you can uninstall it.


How to view the android service menu (secret menu)? Most of the mobile manufacturers include a hidden service menu in their mobile handsets. These menus allow users (or developers) to access some technical information and service personnel to access service details etc.

Is there a similar service menu for android devices and What can I do with that menu?

As the How has already been explained, you might want to have the What as well:

There are several lists on the internet (just google for "secret codes") with many of those codes. Not all of them work on all phones (some are device or manufacturer specific), but many are common to all Android devices (and some times even to all smartphones). I won't list all of them here, but a few more important to be known include...

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────┐
| Code                                             | Description           |
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────┤
| *#0011#                                          | GSM Infos             |
| *#0228#                                          | Battery Infos         |
| **05*<PUK>*<new PIN>*<new PIN for confirmation># | Unlock PIN            |
| *#*#0588#*#*                                     | Test Proximity sensor |
| *#06#                                            | Show IMEI             |
| *#*#1234#*#*                                     | Firmware Info         |
| *135#                                            | Show your phone number|
| *#*#197328640#*#*                                | Service Menu          |
| *#*#7378423#*#* (*#*#SERVICE#*#*)                | Service Menu          |
| *#*#2432546#*#* (*#*#CHECKIN#*#*)                | Check for OTA Updates |
| *2767*3855#                                      | Factory Format        |
| #31#<phoneNumber>                                | anonymous call        |
| *#*#3264#*#*                                     | RAM Test              |
| *#*#4636#*#* (*#*#INFO#*#*)                      | System Infos          |
| *#*#7594#*#*                                     | Customize PowerButton |
| *#*#7780#*#*                                     | Factory Reset         |
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────┘

Use at your own risk -- some options might prove dangerous (e.g. the factory format) -- especially if you don't know what they are supposed to mean, think twice or better avoid the option.


Is there a way to disable touch temporarily? Imagine that you want to do something, while the display in is action (not in sleep mode) and at the same time, you don't want to do anything else. This situation is like children lock, in which, all buttons fail to react, temporarily, to disable any kind of interaction by a child.

Is there a way to achieve this in Android? Do we have something like lock screen?

There are several apps on Google Play that can do that, such as, TouchBlocker.


applying updates to no name Androids (Homtom HT20 in this case) I have barely managed to get into the recovery environment. The phone has everything stock.

The attempt to adb sideload [update_file].zip has failed with a timeout exception. The device has developer options enabled I a am able to freely use adb on it (in normal mode, not recovery)

The attmept to apply the update file from SD card also fails like this: I first click to apply update from SD card, select the file, then I get the resting robot with "No command." text. If I leave it like this, it will stay here for afew minutes then reboot all by itself - checked the ROM version and it looks like still the old one. If I try to get exit this screen with "power" + "vol up" it goes into a menu screen made out of "reboot now" or "continue with the update" - none of which are of any help.

Any chance for this pretty broken phone to get its update ?

Based on @beeshyams comment i have dug deeper only to find out that the Chinese phones have their own way of updating the ROM. Namely through the "Sp Flash Tool". More on the process at http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=469340 (in English - https://translate.google.ro/translate?hl=ro&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2F4pda.ru%2Fforum%2Findex.php%3Fshowtopic%3D469340)
I might try to root it as well depending on how much of a fix this update made for my flaky internet connection problem.