Android DHCP Port Redirection I am working on a MirrorLink implementation for the Google Pixel (Android 8.1.0). I must implement a DHCP server; however, Android applications cannot listen on reserved ports.

The Android application is listening for DHCP DISCOVERY broadcasts on UDP port 6700. My intent is to port forward the DHCP traffic to 6700 so my application can handle the DHCP request.

I cannot find a combination of iptables rules that result in DHCP traffic reaching my application. If I send a DHCP DISCOVERY directly to port 6700 I receive the traffic.

# iptables -S

-P INPUT ACCEPT
-P FORWARD ACCEPT
-P OUTPUT ACCEPT
-N bw_FORWARD
-N bw_INPUT
-N bw_OUTPUT
-N bw_costly_rmnet_data0
-N bw_costly_shared
-N bw_costly_tun0
-N bw_data_saver
-N bw_happy_box
-N bw_penalty_box
-N fw_FORWARD
-N fw_INPUT
-N fw_OUTPUT
-N fw_dozable
-N fw_powersave
-N fw_standby
-N natctrl_FORWARD
-N natctrl_tether_counters
-N nm_mdmprxy_doze_mode_skip
-N nm_mdmprxy_iface_pkt_fwder
-N oem_fwd
-N oem_out
-N st_OUTPUT
-N st_clear_caught
-N st_clear_detect
-N st_penalty_log
-N st_penalty_reject

# iptables -t nat -S

-P PREROUTING ACCEPT
-P INPUT ACCEPT
-P OUTPUT ACCEPT
-P POSTROUTING ACCEPT
-N natctrl_nat_POSTROUTING
-N oem_nat_pre

I have tried various combinations of the following rules:

iptables -A INPUT -i ncm0 -p udp --dport 67 -J REDIRECT --to-port 6700
iptables -A FORWARD -i ncm0 -p udp --dport 6700 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -i ncm0 -p udp --dport 6700 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A PREROUTING -t nat -i ncm0 -p udp --dport 67 -j REDIRECT --to-port 6700

I suspect either a dire misunderstanding of iptables configuration (likely), special considerations for DHCP traffic, or Android/device specific conflicts.

I would appreciate any help getting this to work. It's the last barrier to achieving the MirrorLink implementation.

I have root access to the device if that wasn't clear already.

For absolute clarity - the MirrorLink device sends a DHCP DISCOVERY request (UDP port 67) to the Android device over a USB ethernet connection (CDC-NCM). The Google Pixel and probably most AOSP devices expose this interface as ncm0. Android applications can't listen on IANA well-known reserved ports, hence the need for internal port redirection to the 1024 - 49151 range. The Android device is reponsible for operating a DHCP server and returning a DHCP offer to the MirrorLink device.

I solved this problem using DNAT redirection instead of port redirection, due to some limitations of REDIRECT involving broadcast traffic.

iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 67 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I INPUT -p udp --dport 6700 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I PREROUTING -t nat -i ncm0 -p udp -src 0.0.0.0 --dport 67 -j DNAT --to 0.0.0.0:6700


Intents in a grid instead of a list on Android 4.4 KitKat I have just received the Nexus 4's Android 4.4 KitKat OTA. One of the first things I remarked was that the intents layout for choosing an application is now a list instead of a grid just like in Jelly Bean:

(click for larger image)

I find this list layout ugly (I don't want to go back to the good ol' ICS days) and I would like to get my intents in a grid again. How can I retrieve the grid layout for intents on Android 4.4 KitKat?

So you want something like this:

AppChooser (source: Google Play; click for larger variant)

Freely configurable, including the possibility to...

switch between list and grid
hide apps you never use, but still having them available quickly with a single tap
sort alphabetically or by last-used

Then take a look at AppChooser Pro, available for a single buck. There's also a free version on Play if you want to test it first. I went immediately for the payed version a couple of months ago, and never regretted the decision. Still you might wish to pick the free version first, as I didn't test it on 4.4 (I'm still on 4.0 on my phone).


Do I need to flash a rooted kernel to root, or is it enough to flash a custom recovery? I want to root my Nexus 6 which is on Android M, would it be enough to flash TWRP and then SuperSU, or would I have to flash a specific kernel to root it?
Also is TWRP 2.8.6.0 compatible with Android M?

For rooting your phone I found this nice guide (5/29/2015) with links to all necessary files. In the guide they are using TWRP 2.8.5, but since 2.8.6 is out it should work as well. If it doesn't work, just flash the version in the guide. SuperSU 2.46 is being used in the guide. Also remember that Android M (MPZ44Q) is only a developer preview, so it isn't a fully implemented release.

As far your kernel, NO you don't need a custom kernel. Only with a custom ROM, would that be necessary.

Make sure your bootloader is unlocked

fastboot oem unlock

glossary (urban-ish)

Root/rooting - gaining administrative control
Recovery - aids in administration, plus backups, sideloads , and etc.
Kernel - tells the hardware what to do, custom kernels allow changing variables
Boot image - preps the system for the ROM
ROM - the devices operating system

remember

1. Perform a backup

2. Unlocking boot loader will ERASE/WIPE/DELETE everything

3. YOU assume all responsibility in rooting your Nexus


Write to SD card to android in Windows 10 Im trying to put some music on my SD card but i've left my micro sdcard reader at home. I do have my charger cable. I can see the files of the sd card on my laptop. But I can't write my music from my laptop to the SD card. Is there a way to enable write permissions of the SD card?
Thanks for thinking with me!

My phone is the Samsung Galaxy J5 2016 (Android 7.1.1)

It should just work. The SD card should be writeable by the MTP drivers installed on your PC.
Can you please upload a screenshot of the error that appears when you try to paste your music files? Do try creating a new folder and pasting inside it.


Why does phone keep saying "sending"? What does one do after typing a message but it just gets stuck on "sending"? Also, it asked something about SMS.

Reboot
Message may have been converted to MMS, requiring a Data connection. Turn off Wifi, make sure Data connection is on, and retry.

Could memory or storage be an issue?
Close unneeded apps, run something like Norton Clean and retry sending message.


decrypt data-partition in twrp I messed up my phone trying to get open-gapps working on CM 13.
I can't even get into my OS only into recovery mode. I tried flashing several CM-Versions, but that doesn't change much.
I think the problem is, that my dalvik is corrupted. My data-partition is encrypted with a 3x3 pattern and TWRP can't decrypt it, so I can't wipe dalvik. I tried several variations of twrp decrypt, but they don't work. Now I am trying to flash cryptfs since I found a HowTo, which told me to use this commands:

setprop ro.crypto.state encrypted
vdc cryptfs checkpw 'pattern'
mount /dev/block/dm-0 /data

The problem is, that cryptfs is not installed. I tried to flash cryptfs, with a custom made zip-file, but it seems, the cryptfs-installation is also trying to write into /data and just aborts, since it can't mount it.

I really like to avoid making a factory-reset before getting my data out.
Any suggestions?
(I have a Sony Xperia M using nicky-cm)

My data-partition is encrypted with a 3x3 pattern and TWRP can't
  decrypt it

This can be solved by considering the 3x3 grid as the numbers on the keypad. For Example, consider a pattern that looks like the uppercase L character.

↓ o o  |  1 2 3
↓ o o  |  4 5 6
↓ → →  |  7 8 9

here, your password would be 14789


Why is SMS to contact group not using contact's default number? Sends to wrong number Scenario: contact group ABC contains 3 contacts, A, B and C. I regularly text the group, and it works fine. One day, contact A gets a new phone and a new SIM. As is my habit, I retain A's old number for a while, just in case, and add the new number to A's contact record and mark it as the default number.

From this point, if I phone contact A, it uses the new number. Fine.

But now, whenever I text contact group ABC, it still sends to A's old number. Not fine.

I have searched for any information or fixes but drew a blank.

This is a Samsung Galaxy Ace 4 btw.

The reason is that the existing conversation thread for contact group ABC has hard-coded knowledge of the phone numbers used, rather than a reference to the contacts. Therefore after setting a new default number for contact A, texting group ABC using the existing conversation thread will send to A's old number. However, texting group ABC by creating a new message and selecting the group from contacts will send to A's new number as expected.


Remove the "silenced", "4G", "Battery symbol" and "AM/PM" from notification bar I want to modify my notification bar so it's more something like this:

Is this possible?

I'm using a rooted 4.4.2 M8 on Verizon.

Since rooted,  download the Xposed Framework installer from the XDA forums:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/xposed-installer-versions-changelog-t2714053

Download link is in the first post in the thread:

http://dl.xposed.info/latest.apk

After Xposed is installed, open the app and install the framework, then soft reboot.

Open the app again, go to downloads section and scroll through the available modules.  There are a few that will do the things that you want.

UPDATE: Researching further, I found out that the Sense Toolbox module will hide status (some people call it the notification) bar icons.

Sense Toolbox homepage
Sense Toolbox download page

Install the modules you want, enable them on the modules tab in the Xposed app, then reboot.

Read the thread and links thoroughly. Understand what this will do to your phone. Always do a backup first.


Taking screen captures on Galaxy SII with ICS After upgrading my Rogers Galaxy SII (I727R MODEL) to ICS. I cannot take screen captures of activities.

I've tried using home and power as with gingerbread as well as power and down volume together. Neither works.

Is there another way or has this feature been disabled by rogers?

Any help is appreciated.

Press and hold the volume down and the power button at the same time.
(Pressing the volume down slightly before the power and holding both..will not work)

Pressing them exactly at the same time and holding will work.


Hands-free/Driving Mode: How to change the reading voice's language (and voice: male/female etc...)? Is there a way to change the language and voice for reading out the information on hands-free mode. Even better, it would be nice if the language and voice for the alarm could be set on a per-alarm feature. Anyone knowing if and how this can be done, please don't hesitate to reply.

Thanks.

Go to settings > language and input > text to speech output.

There you can select one of your installed voices.
You can install voices from the Play Store.
My personal best and free is IVONA (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ivona.tts&hl=de)


Why are there so many different Android kernels? Isn't Android a common kernel that is used across all devices? For example, CentOS will install on Dell, HP, and a variety of other hardware. Sure there are different modules, but it's still CentOS nonetheless.
What is the reason why CyanogenMod is always "broken"? I always hear in forums they are working on porting this driver or that driver. If they used the same kernel, wouldn't the drivers just work with it? I also see a million different types of kernels for different devices.

Kernels vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. A lot of those kernels come from the pure stock kernel line of sources found on CAF, what these manufacturers do is take those stock sources, modify them to suit based on the board/chipset used, also, implement their own drivers.

Take a good look around you, there's variations of touchscreens, variations of wifi chipsets, not to mention, accelerometer, sensors, batteries, compass, sound, graphics.

Taking one kernel source from for example HTC will not work on a Samsung, and vice versa.

The manufacturers are free to cherry-pick or out-source various bits that get incorporated into the circuit board. There is no hard or fast rules involved. Hence the lot of hacking/modifications to get the kernel to work properly.

You must not ever, compare to desktop Linux distribution kernels in which it has PCI, PCI-Express, SATA, VGA, SVGA, USB, Ethernet as they are a totally different ball-park game. The major differences with CentOS and with Android's Linux Kernel is this - ALL drivers are compiled either as modules or built-in, hence any Linux distribution will simply "work out of the box". Again, with desktop Linux distributions - you have one architecture - x86 hence one Linux kernel from say a Dell PC, can work out of the box on a Lenovo provided that the bog-standard drivers are compiled.

Don't forget, in the Android world, there's variations of the kernel built for specific ARM chipsets, such as ARMv6, ARMv7, there's TEGRA, there's EXYNOS, and they are binary incompatible with one another. Hence if a kernel is compiled for TEGRA, forget it, it will not work on ARMv7!

The reason some kernels on Android appear to be "broken" is down to the manufacturer. Some (Zte is one very good example) release a butchered source that may compile from source but fails to boot due to a missing driver that is not covered by the GPLv2 or GPLv3 licence. That's the problem, hence some hackers have to go scouring around github looking for some clues; some manufacturers, if not all, do comply. The current incarnation of Zte's source is purportedly to be 2.6.35.7, but in reality its actually 2.6.32.9 source base with a lot of modifications thus does not represent the true kernel source for 2.6.35.7!

This is where the manufacturers have to release their respective sources, not just out of being compliant with GPLv2 or later, but rather, for the community to be able to mod it, such as adding overclocking capabilities.

Hence there's hacking involved behind the scenes and a lot of messing about with drivers trying to get it to work, and its not easy to debug either.. Some drivers may be cross-licensed, BUT cannot be distributed depending on the clause and conditions as negotiated.

Thankfully, that's all changed now with kernel 3.x.x. line of sources, as Android drivers are now integrated into the mainstream sources. But there's a gotcha!

Try porting a 3.x.x. kernel to an existing handset that is about 12-18 months old; Not a snowball's chance in hell would it work, that's because, of the differing factors, the 3.x.x sources is vastly different to the 2.6.x source and would take a lot of hacking to get it working - I should know, have tried porting 2.6.38.6 source for the Zte Blade and failed.

Likewise, the latest kernel release 3.0.1 - when working on the ics4blade project over on Modaco, have made numerous attempts to port it but that's down to the simple fact that Zte made a very bad mess of the source which rendered porting nigh on impossible.


Galaxy Note II USB connection not working On my Galaxy Note II (android 4.1.1), any time I try to connect to something over USB, it doesn't seem to want to connect. Specifically:

-iSyncr gives me errors connecting; so does Android File Transfer

-DoubleTwist and EasyPhoneSync can't connect at all

-Odin gets stuck at "Making Connection" (or something, I can't remember the exact wording)

These problems occur whether I have USB debugging on or not, and still persist when I mess around with the MTP/PTP settings. Does anyone have any idea what might be wrong? iSyncr used to work fine, but the others have always been broken.

Note: this is on a mac, and Odin is run through a virtual machine

What version of Android?

As of JellyBean 4.2.2, you'd need a newer version of ADB, as there's a security implementation built into JB 4.2.2, in that, any "unauthorised" computer with USB cable plugged in, will show the device as offline, rendering any file transfer/copying etc useless.

With the new version of ADB as downloaded from Google or for your device, you will be prompted to request authorisation and to allow it, based on a cryptographic key generated by ADB so that the computer is "trusted", then the contents can be copied/transferred.


How to keep Apps, that are banned from the offical market, up to date? Sadly, a few fine Apps are banned from the official Market by Google (e.g. Transdroid): How can I keep those Apps up to date, without visiting the project sites regularly?

Try using aTrackdog, pretty sure that'll be what you're looking for!


Where should I put Music files? I've used BitTorrent Sync to copy my music library to /storage/emulated/0/Music/ preserving the structure I use everywhere else, but no playback application seems to be finding the music.

Where should I be placing these files so that music playback can find it?

I've tried Shuttle & DoubleTwist, but neither finds my music. I did not try Google Play Music because I understand it's more focused on streaming.

Normally, the MediaScanner should pick them up from any place, add them to the library, and your player should find them. That works smoothly and immediately if you use the means the designers had in mind (connect your device via MTP, transfer the files, disconnect – the MediaScanner will start immediately).

But as you use a different way (we are bad doing so – I'm doing it as well ;), MediaScanner is not triggered immediately. So you either have to wait until it decides to run – or trigger it manually:

it runs on every device boot, so a reboot triggers it
it runs whenever the SDCard is mounted. So if your device has an external SDCard, going to Settings → Storage, and un-mounting plus re-mounting the card will trigger it
as both above solutions are not really satisfying: there are several apps on Play which let you trigger it manually, by just tapping their shortcut. One candidate still working with Kitkat is SD Scanner.

See also my answers here and here.

Alternatively, you could try a music player that doesn't rely on the MediaScanner. One example for those would be the GoneMad Music Player: Here you can define yourself which directories you want scanned, and can trigger a scan yourself from inside the app whenever needed. Those rescans are blazingly fast, as they only scan directories you've defined – instead of checking everywhere on the device.


How can I prevent apps from running in the background? Possible Duplicate:
How can I stop applications and services from running?

There is already a similar question to this one, but mine is narrower in scope and not addressed in the other question:
Consider the case of an app that meets the following criteria:

Let's take a file manager as an example, but it could be a different app just as easily. The specific app isn't important to this question.
This app has no legitimate need to run in the background. I only need file management when I'm actively using the app. (In case my specific example does turn out to have a need, suppose for the sake of the discussion that it actually doesn't.)
The fact that it runs in the background is confirmed by a system monitor.
Even though I believe that it has no legitimate need to run in the background and don't want it to do so, I don't want to uninstall it.

Can I prevent such an app from running in the background?
Practical application
To illustrate the need for this specific question, and why I'm not naming specific apps, consider what I had in mind when I wrote this question:
I would like to go through my apps and decide which ones I want to run as services. Some should run without restrictions. Some should never run. Some should only run when some set of conditions is met. Using the information from an answer to this question, I could implement this--possibly by some custom scripting, possibly using Tasker, or possibly using another approach. Trying to handle this via each individual app's settings would be well-nigh impossible.
Of course, if what I'm asking in this question isn't possible, then this application of it isn't viable.
Notes based on the comments and answers

The reason why I want to do this is irrelevant. Perhaps it's to save battery. Perhaps it's another reason. This question is about how, not why. A warning that a particular solution could have negative side-effects is useful if presented along with that solution. Saying, "It's impossible" is legitimate if true. Saying "Don't do it" isn't useful.
This is not a duplicate of the question I linked to in my first paragraph. That question was about saving memory. This one isn't. That one said, basically, "Don't try." That's not a valid answer to this question.
The specific apps are unimportant, which is why I was vague. I did give a hint as to a specific example I had in mind, but I'm looking for a general answer here.
A solution must also prevent an app from automatically restarting; otherwise, it isn't much of a solution.
A number of people have stated that this is a duplicate. Let me try to explain more clearly why it isn't:

This question is about how to prevent an app from running in the background, which includes stopping it from restarting if killed.
The answers so far have fallen into a few general categories:

You shouldn't try, because doing so is unnecessary. I'm not disputing this point at this time, but "You shouldn't try" is very different from "You can't." Logically, it's addressing a different question, namely "Should I try to kill apps that I don't want to run?"
Use method X to kill the app. Unfortunately, when I tried said method, it didn't prevent the app from restarting, just like others predicted. So, it isn't really an answer.
Ping the developer/it's a bug. This is the most useful of the suggested solutions, but my question was looking for a generic solution.

The other questions that this question has been said to be a duplicate of cover the same ground as in my previous point. Thus, my specific question has not been addressed, despite many claims to the contrary. It's appearing, however, that the answer is a simple "You can't".
There's a related question on meta. In Jeff Atwood's answer, he says in part, "It's generally sufficient to link to the other question and explain why it doesn't meet your needs." The whole thread is apropos to this question. I've done this since the beginning, and provided further details in subsequent edits.

tl;dr
It's ok if the app in background is just an activity. Activities just consume some memory are usually  not able to run computations in the background. Therefore no CPU or battery is used for them. But if the app in background is running a service:
Ping the developer
Ping the developer! One of the greatest daemons that come with Android are Services that run in background for no reason or when a simply interval check with Android's AlarmManager would be sufficient. We need to kill them all with fire and not by ignoring them. Everything that does not involve a fix by the developer is just a dirty hack that by experience will result in other negative side-effects.
Activities that run in Background
Pure Android apps and their activities usually stay around in memory for a while after they were put out of view. But at some point they may get deleted by Android's ActivityManager if there is an ongoing memory pressure. This is intended behavior, we (the users) want it that way and it works good in recent Android versions. Therefore there is nothing wrong if you see your file manager hanging around in memory.
Services that run in background
But, if it's a service that you see running forever without apparent reason (and without the possibility to disable the service somewhere in the Apps settings), you should contact the developer. In 99% of all cases, there is no reason to waste your precious memory by doing so. Android provides with intents and the already mentioned AlarmManager enough facilities to avoid long running services. Sometimes developers will response with "but Google Maps does that too". I argue that this is never an excuse to point at others, plus it doesn't provide a valid reason to run a background service.


Wildcards in proxy bypass list My LG LS840 Viper 4G LTE (Sprint) recently upgraded to 4.0/ICS. Under 2.3/GB the proxy settings had been disabled entirely, but I am now able to set up per-network proxy settings for the various WiFi networks I attach to. Except—

Is there a way to add wildcards to the proxy bypass list? On (say) “Work WiFi” I can add example.com to the proxy bypass list, but not *.example.com. If any of the entries in the list have an asterisk, the Save button is disabled.

Is this a limitation in Android, or one which Sprint & LG have imposed on me? Is there a work-around?

ETA: A coworker running into a similar issue wit Cyanogenmod suggested .example.com (leading dot, no asterisk); this work-around works for him, but my phone rejects this form as well.

Looking at this CyanogenMod source code (which, according to the file history, does not actually have any CyanogenMod-specific changes), I see that the initial dot in proxy bypass list elements is just ignored, and an initial wildcard is implied — that is, you can write either example.com or .example.com in the list, and this entry will match example.com, a.example.com, a.b.example.com, … (note that any number of subdomain levels can be matched, unlike, e.g., with *.example.com in an SSL certificate).

If your phone does not actually work this way (e.g., you add example.com to the proxy bypass list, but www.example.com still goes through the proxy), either this code was modified by the phone vendor, or a particular app is using its own implementation of bypass list matching instead of the system-provided code.


Device recognized as ????? in ubuntu Hello good people of stack exchange, I am having trouble setting up my Ubuntu 11.04 boot to use for app development on a hardware device. I have followed the instructions here to try and recongnize the phone. However, when I run ADB devices or in eclipse, the device is listed as ?????? and can not be used to install an app to. Any advice?

The problem is that you ran adb as an underprivileged user. So when adb server starts, it does not have the permissions to run read/write to the device. First you have to kill the server, and then restart it as root:

sudo adb kill-server
sudo adb start-server

Then you can run this as any user:
adb devices


Whatsapp messages restore My phone had a problem so the mobile repairing center did factory reset. Then I reinstalled whatsapp and tried to restore backup from Google Drive.  It took about 1:30 hours for 400 Mb and didn't show any indicator for what percentage it has completed.  So I just tapped home screen and then tapped whatsapp.  It showed me a new window of entering my username and took me to chat window. There I saw no previous chats were present, just 2 old groups and also no messages in them. I again Uninstall and reinstall whatsapp it didn't show me 420 Mb data size,  it asked me if I want to recover today's messages. Can you please tell me can I get my backup from Google Drive again?

It happened to me also, I guess it's a Whatsapp backup and restore bug, I tried to upload my backup to Google drive which is 600 MB in size and it took more than 12 hours on 1 MB/s network. I can confirm this bug was not present in previous versions, so only thing we can do is wait for Whatsapp developers to fix this annoying bug or going back to previous builds where the bug was not present.
Hope you find this useful.


Samsung Galaxy 3 Questions I plan to buy a Samsung Galaxy 3. Here are my questions:

Does the Galaxy 3 have a front-facing camera?
How is the main camera (in terms of clarity)?
Can the browser support multiple windows?

No - one 3.15MP camera on the rear 3.15 MP, 2048x1536 pixels, autofocus, Geo-tagging, face and smile detection, Video- QVGA@15fps.
Here's a comparison of the Galaxy 3 alongside images from its peers.
Yes, the default browser does indeed support multiple windows.


Why does any app having an active overlay is causing low frame rates? Any app that I try on my device that is some kind of on-screen tool, such as monitoring apps, pie apps, screen filters, corner sliding apps, etc., makes the device have consistent low frame rates.

If I disable HW overlays though, the problem disappears. Why is that?

I've a Ulefone U7 running Android 4.4.2 with Linux kernel 3.4.67.

Deafult options, no osd, max smoothness
Deafult options, osd, max choppiness
With disable HW overlays I get average smoothness w/ and w/o osd apps.

I think that only the last app requesting an hw overlay gets GPU access, the rest get offloaded to CPU, resulting in crappy rendering.

But a 3dmark benchmark shows this:

Default options, osd disabled 30fps
Default options, osd enabled but not visible 30fps
Default options, osd enabled and visible 25fps
no hw overlays, osd enabled but not visible 27fps
no hw overalys, osd enabled and visible 22fps

So I suppose that with hw overlays, there is an option to "put them to sleep" while benchmarking (hence the same fps)
but disabling hw overlays keeps the (GPU) memory of all the apps no matter what, hence the lower framerate in general.

This is all very confusing and a possible answers can be:

It's hard to understand what gets offloaded to what, mtk cpu rendering may as well be on par with GPU rendering considering the chipset is balanced with a beefy cpu and crappy gpu...therefore HW overlays don't work as they should because cpu/gpu balance was thought with other specifications in mind.
MTK crap hacked backported kernel causes trouble with HW overlays at least for 2D apps, being unable to discern the correct usage of those.

I wish someone would give me a more insightful answer but I guess nobody cares about 4.4 android anymore, and nobody cares about mtk chipsets in general (and this chipset is even 2 years old which means no one among the nobodies would care :p)


recover a number from call history I called a number about a month ago but never saved it, now when I tried to look it up I couldn't find it

My phone is showing the calls of the past 2 weeks only

Is there anyway to recover that number on my 5.1 android phone ( I never deleted the number from the call history ) preferably without having to root the phone

i think your problem could be solved very easily if your phone is rooted. Try GT Call Recovery app

if your phone isn't, try this apps (try some luck, it worked on my HTC phone but kept crashing on my Sony Phone but i think still worth a try)

call history manager

or

Call history

play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.main.itinfo.tan.callhistory&hl=en
apk file if you can't access Play Store: http://choilieng.com/apk-on-pc/jp.main.itinfo.tan.callhistory.apk

hope it help.


How to record screen on andriod I want record screen on my andriod phone. Without root permission. How can i do that. ( Galaxy s3 mini. Jelly bean. )


Wipe HTC One M8 for sale without losing root I have a rooted VZW HTC One M8 that I'm about to replace. I want to sell it, but I don't want to lose root or S-Off because I think that might be a selling point. I've never actually rooted or wiped a phone, only thing I've done is flash ROMs. I'd like to know, how do I wipe my stuff off this phone to sell it without losing root and S-Off, or is that even possible. I'm still running a 5.0.1 ROM, FluentRom V 6.0, just never have bothered to update to Marshmallow or Nougat with it. Thanks!

What I think you are looking for is this: http://www.htc.com/us/support/htc-one-m8/howto/696022.html

However I am not sure if this removes the root. If it does, there is also another possibility, depending if you have this option. If you already flashed rom's, you may have done it trough fastboot. In the fastboot menu, there should also be an option to delete data (or wipe data) and delete cache. That will delete or your stored files on the phone, without loosing root.


How to get more screen lock options? In my Nexus 4, I have the following screen lock options.

None
Slide
Face Unlock
Pattern
PIN
Password

How can I get options other than these for my lock screen? I prefer non-rooted ways to get this done.

(The option I prefer is what I have in my Jailbroken iPod Touch - AndroidLock XT that allows me to use an unlock pattern with the nine points to create the pattern, invisible. But I don't mind any other interesting options available for a screen lock on android)

To get a lock screen similar to the one available for Windows Phone,
try Lock Screen 7.
WidgetLocker Lockscreen is a paid app which promises to give more lock screen options.
Quick Launch Social Lockscreen is another option.
Then there's Active lockscreen.
Holo Locker Plus and its free version.


Is it possible to force a link to actually become a hyperlink in SMS? Is there a way to easily send a link to someone that uses a non-standard domain extension .me. When I send it, my phone and their phone doesn't auto-linkify it because it doesn't use a common extension. Whenever I've sent links with .com before they automatically become links, but using my .me domain it appears it gets ignored, even when it has the full http:// in front of it. Is it possible to identify that part of a message as a hyperlink/URL when sending the message, so it gets shown as a link to the person on the receiving end?

The "linkification" is actually handled by the SMS application on the device, not by anything within the message. If their device is not changing it to a link, then the device is not parsing the links correctly for all top level domains. There is nothing you can do about it really. The only thing that I could think of around this is to use some link shorter that will show as a clickable link and send those, but that is a lot more work because now you need to generate the shortened link first.


Google Play Store - "An unexpected error has occurred. Please try again later" Since Yesterday I have been getting this message from the google play store when ever I try to save something to my wishlist. This has occurred both on the app and the web version of the play store. This is a problem I would like to resolve as fast as I can.

My questions are:

Is there a workaround for the google play store app (Important)
Has this happened to anyone else or is just on my google account (Off topic as it is Android Independent, feel free to remove this part of the question)

Well this happened to me when I used to install apps from playstore using a slow internet connection. For this I used to get the error notification in the notification bar. I used to long press the notification, goto app info, and 'Clear data' there. This used to work for me as playstore again syncs once opened. U can try if it works but recommend you not to clear data on other 3rd party apps as you may lose you data.


How to disable Hangouts? I have an HTC One, and I went to Settings -> Apps -> All to disable a few apps I didn't want on my phone (7digital, Facebook, Google Play Music, Google+). The apps are now gone and the update notifications disapeared for these apps in Google Play.

But for some reason Hangouts is not there. How can I disable it?

The phone came with Google Talk, then Google forced the update to Google Hangouts.

You need to remove all Hangouts updates in Google Play, then reboot and Hangouts will disappear from the application list and Talk be back. Talk can then be disabled in Settings -> Apps -> All.


How can I easily share links or text between my Android phone and my laptop? For example, if I have a URL for an image from my laptop's browser that I want to share with a WhatsApp contact, what is the easiest way of doing this? The only way I can think of is to copy the URL, paste it into an email to myself, open the email, copy the URL and then paste it into WhatsApp.

Forget the pain of emailing stuff just to share some text. If you are running Android version 4.0 & above, check Keep from Google.

Keep works on your phone, tablet and computer. Everything you add syncs across all of your devices.

Visit https://keep.google.com/ to open Keep on PC.

Add your notes/text/link/audio note/photo. Immediately this would be synced across your devices. You can access the same stuff in your android app.

Works vice versa as well.

Get Google Keep Android app from here.

Click here to watch Google Keep video tutorial.


Is there a complete conversation convergence app? I was very impressed when I saw the first demo of WebOS quite a while back. I loved the way they integrated SMS, email, and social media all into one stream. Their point was that the most useful view was one oriented around the people, not the media. I think that's a very good point.

I've heard that FriendStream on HTC is pretty good but I have a samsung device.

I'm a big fan of Tweetdeck which brings together four (currently) social networks. You can post to all four at the same time, for those soap box moments :-)

I'd like to see an app that brings together EVERYTHING! even the voicemail and call log!

Am I asking the impossible?

Many have tried.  It's arguable whether anyone succeeded yet or not.

The big ones are Motorola's MotoBLUR, HTC's SenseUI, Samsung's TouchWiz - they all try to bring together the disconnected social aspects of different applications such as e-mail, text messages, and various social networks.  Each does it differently, with varying degrees of success.  Unfortunately these aren't stand-alone products.  They usually come pre-installed with their respective manufacturers' devices, and overhaul more than just social aspects.

There are also 3rd-party apps and widgets that attempt to do this merge.  One of the best that I've used is SlideScreen. I didn't like the fact that it replaces your launcher, but it sounds like exactly what you're looking for.


Show boot log at boot instead of boot animation? I have a Nexus 5 running CyanogenMod 11. Normally, my boot animation looks like this:

Instead of this, I'd like to have something that simply shows me the contents of dmesg, or something else that usefully updates me on the status of what's being loaded and how far along things are.

I'm wondering if there isn't something simpler available. Is there a "developer" boot animation that might report this info? Failing that, what's the best way to get a standard dmesg output or something similar as my boot "animation"?

Note: I've already looked at Chainfire's live logcat, but it's over two years old. Setting it as my boot animation just glitches my screen and soft-bricks my device, necessitating a reflash. So while that would have been an ideal solution if it worked, it looks like that might be the wrong avenue to pursue.

There's new version of [root] LiveBoot for devices 4.3 and up on the Google Play Store. There is also a thread for it on XDA


Voice notification management I got a new Galaxy S 2 and played with it a little. Somehow I activated voice notification, so each SMS message I get someone talking and telling me who sent the message. Each phone call, the same.

How to control the activity of this feature?

On my Samsung device it is:

  Home >> Menu >> Settings >> Voice input and output >> Text-to-speech settings >> Driving mode


Issues after Updating to Marshmallow I have a 3rd generation Motorola Moto G. I recently updated it to Marshmallow. After doing this, at first I did not encounter any issues but soon afterwards, I started to experience many issues with Android, including:

The pattern lock is absent
I am unable to connect my phone to my computer
The button to factory reset the device is greyed-out
The drop-down notification panel is absent

How can I correct these issues?

I had the same problems. I followed the reset device in Recovery Mode instructions here, and it solved them for me -

https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4596836?hl=en


Clearing Saved Logins I have a Nexus 5x that is proving quite troublesome (overheating/rebooting) and needs to be sent back to supplier/manufacturer. Before I send it I would like to removed saved logins and passwords. These are for the Gmail account linked to the phone and a number of professional websites - there are confidentiality issues. Can this be done or would I be best just changing the passwords from another system?

You can do a simple factory data reset. That's a good enough bet.

Additionally, even if you don't reset it manually, it'll likely be reset by the repair shop.


"Insufficient Storage Space" problem with Titanium Root, preventing backup I'm in a pickle I have no idea how to fix. I turned off the often suggested "Mount Namespace Separation" option in SU, and it doesn't work with this issue. I uninstalled/ reinstalled Titanium Root, no luck. Restarted the device after toggling off the namespace option, no dice. I have no idea what to do. It's not entirely a loss, as some games will backup just fine, just one brand is being stubborn. The Flutter series, where you collect butterflies and such. They're huge files, and it backs them up for a long while before hitting the memory space issue. It is confirmed and set to the Titanium Backup file on my SD card, where I backed up other games. Any suggestions?

I have no idea what happened, or how, but I had to use a different browsing method for Titatium Backup. Even though I had selected sdcard/titaniumbackup (example), it wouldn't work even though it was listed as an option. I believe I had to use a different backup storage option, in which it showed me a list. After I selected "SD" from this new interface, it fixed everything and now the weird games will backup.
I apologize for this idiocy of mine. Since only one group of games were acting up, I thought it was something of specific conflicting data.


How to install android 2.2 (froyo) on Nexus One I have a rooted nexus one with the android 2.1 update1. I have received the OTA notifications for a system update for the 2.2, but it didn't succeed. I must have the phone rooted (for now) so I can have Hebrew on it.

Where can I download the latest android 2.2 (FRF 91) and how should I install it? Dows the upgrade also wipes the contents of the SD card?

The easiest way would be to install ROM Manager from the Market.

It is a fantastic application written by the guys that created CyanogenMod. From this app, you can download and install vanilla ROMs and custom ROMs with a few clicks. Highly recommended.


Broken screen/glass, turned off, pc-controll? HELP? I was wondering if there is any ways for me to controll my phone (Sony Xperia V) with my computer?
Half of the glass/screen is broken, so i cant write anything on the lower part of the screen! The phone is not rooted, and has also been turned off, so im kinda stuck.

So, my question is:
Is there any ways for me to controll my non-rooted, turned off, screenbroken phone with my computer?

Cheers!

If I were you I would try to get control over the device using ADB. From there you can get your files back and root the device if you want. Also as Izzy suggested in the comments, there are several applications for a device with a cracked or unusable screen. Android is Linux based, so Android can do almost anything a Linux based server can do. You can find a lot of great server based applications for android by searching on Google.

Remember, Android is a Linux based operating system, so Android can do almost anything a Linux based server can do. A lot of server applications are going to require root.

It also seems your question can best be answered by: Control android with broken screen from pc


Use different lock-screens on htc sensation Is there a way to use other lock-screens on the htc sensation then the one that is provided by htc sense without installing a custom rom? (rooting is fine) I would love to use the standard android lock-screens, is that possible? (I don't care if it is achieved with an app or by modifying the settings)

There are some "lock screens" like Go Locker, but they are not "real" lock screens. Lock screens are just about the only part of the android OS that cannot be replaced by 3rd party applications. These other lock screens attempt to override the real lock screen. Some of them work fairly well, but I always notice some type of lag when turning on the device or unlocking the device.


Moving contacts and messages from Windows Phone 8.1 to Android I currently have a Nokia Lumia 520 running Windows Phone 8.1. I am migrating to an LG G3. How would I move my contacts and messages (texts) from one phone to another?

a. You (should be able to) export your contacts from your Windows Phone to a .csv file and import that into your Google account Contacts which can be accessed here: https://contacts.google.com
b. Another way of doing the above is presented here: https://windowsphone.stackexchange.com/questions/1660/i-have-saved-a-csv-file-from-my-old-phone-now-i-want-to-import-those-contacts-i

a. Once you import them into your Google account, then register your new Android device with your Google account and all your contacts should sync as well.
b. If however, you wish to avoid registering the Android phone with your Google account, then move the .csv file you saved earlier (from your Windows Phone) on to the storage of the Android phone and select the import option from the default Contacts application.

I'm sorry I could not be more precise as I don't own a Windows Phone and the options for Contacts applications on Android changes according to manufacturers.

Options for exporting and importing contacts files (.csv) should be present in the menus of the respective Contacts/People applications.


Need help with choosing the Rom for ZebPad 7t100 Without my knowledge my father bought a ZebPad 7t100 which is a Chinese sorta tablet imported re-branded and sold in India. The tablet one day stopped from booting and the repair man put some generic rom onto it. But now the problem is the Wifi is not working, so i am thinking about flashing my own Rom. But it seems that i need to know the chip set which i am unable to find.  so can some one provide me some insight. I am very much looking forward to flash cyanogen mod onto it.

Use

To locate firmware for Zebpad. Post #4
Manual from Zebronics, steps needed for upgrade. Viewable or downloadable .PDF

source:

https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&source=android-browser&q=zebpad+7t100#q=zebpad+7t100+firmware+download

Here is an extra link for Zebpad 7t100 - http://zebronics.com/download-drivers/

As of this moment, I haven't found out the WiFi chipset. Will edit when I do.


Does disabling mobile data when I'm connected to wi-fi conserve battery? I always do this out of habit, but it recently occurred to me that Android might be clever enough to automatically turn it off when I've got wi-fi access. Is it?

Connecting to WiFi automatically disables mobile data on most phones, so turning it off manually does not save your battery. There are some phones which have a "turbo download" mode, that uses both WiFi and data to download files faster, however most phones don't have it.


Can I change the *maximum* brightness from a system file/apk? My old Asus TF101 has a faulty backlight and cuts out if it goes above (roughly) 60%. Therefore, I am hunting for a way to change (lower) the maximum brightness that the tablet will reach - both in auto brightness and by using the brightness slider.

Following this XDA thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s2/themes-apps/mod-lower-auto-brightness-levels-to-t1235212 I've discovered where to change the auto brightness (the framework-res.apk) but wondered if anyone knew where the other brightness settings were stored?

Obviously I'm rooted and fully prepared to decompile system apks!

Cheers.

Found the answer myself and it's a 'yes'. I'll share it here in case it's useful to someone else.

This XDA thread was the basis of the fix http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s2/themes-apps/mod-lower-auto-brightness-levels-to-t1235212 main points extracted here:

  Here is a guide on how to perform this mod on any framework-res.apk using apk manager (thanks for the guide goes to desean):

  Download APK manager and unpack somewhere
  Grab framework-res.apk from your phone under \system\framework\ (e.g. adb pull) and place it in the "place-apk-here-for-modding" folder
  Run Script.bat and select option 9
  Once done, go to projects\framework-res.apk\res\values\arrays.xml and edit your values as per first post.
  Once edited, compile the apk using option 11
  Qn: Is this a system apk. Ans: y
  Qn: Aside from the signatures, would .... least. Ans: y
  Prompt: In the apk manager folder u'll find a keep folder..... done then press enter on this script. Press any key to continue . . . You have to go to "keep" folder and delete resources.arsc because arrays.xml have been changed. After this You can press any key in apk manager window.
  Once done, input 22 in apk manager and select "unsignedframework-res.apk" by entering the number that stands for it. After selecting it You should see in apk main window in the top right corner "Current-App: unsignedframework-res.apk". Now press 5 to zipalign apk. You will find your completed, zipaligned apk under place-apk-here-for-modding\unsignedframework-res.apk. Rename it back to framework-res.apk and adb push the file back to your phone

Some of those points are inaccurate (particularly points 6 and 9), depending on the version of APK Manager you use, (if you use it at all, APK Multitool has replaced it in development and I used GanGs_KiD Kitchen) but are corrected later in the thread.

Anyway, instead of editing arrays.xml (which is where auto-brightness is controlled, though I edited that too) head to integers.xml and edit the values of "config_screenBrightnessSettingMaximum" down to whatever you need. 255 is the brightest (and what it's likely already set to), I needed to go down to 150.

Then follow the instructions to re-compile and zip-align your framework-res and adb push it back to the device. Hey presto! No more screen cutting out!


Copy files and images from samsung s3 even when its almost turned off First of all my samsung s3 is stuck on the samsung logo splash screen so i'm thinking of doing a factory restore , that's not an issue for me but i want to copy images and videos at least from the inner memory not the sd card to my laptop or pc is there any way to do that ? i seriously do not wanna lose those pictures .

A factory reset will not wipe the sdcard partition. In most cases, you can restore some application data like that (ex: WhatsApp). This might differ for an S3 but I know this is the behavior on Nexus devices.

Another option if you have a custom bootloader is that you might be able to access the internal memory using adb shell.


Will "deleting" an icon from the home-screen only delete the icon, or also uninstall the app? I want to remove the icon for McAfee Security, without uninstalling the application.

I long-press and drag the McAfee icon, but there's only "delete" option at the top of the screen:

Then, there's a prompt:

I am not getting separate options:

remove icon
uninstall app

I can't tell if its going to delete the icon/shortcut only, or also uninstall the application.

Will "deleting" an icon from the home-screen uninstall the associated app?

Deleting an icon usually only removes the icon, not the app itself. However, if your launcher's home screen is merged with app drawer of the launcher, then it is likely it would delete the app. In the former case, launchers know that it is just the icon that is to be removed, so no user approval in the form of dialog is required.

I suggest you try to find it out on your own what actually would happen. Install a fairly harmless app, such as this one, and try to remove its icon. You would have your answer right away.


How to fix a sudden increase in battery drain? My Moto G phone (3rd gen; Android 6.0) used to charge rapidly and last over a day. I upgraded it from Lollipop to Marshmallow in mid-February and it still performed well. However, for the past 3 weeks or so, its battery life has suddenly pretty much halved. It also gets warm to the touch even when left alone!

I'm familiar with general tips for increasing battery life, such as those provided by Motorola or on this site. From looking in GSAM Battery Monitor and Settings → Battery the most likely culprits seem to be Google Play Services and/or Google Calendar. But battery drain is still high even after denying all but the Calendar permission to Google Calendar; and it's not obvious how to configure Google Play Services.

If anyone knows of a solution that doesn't involve rooting the device I'd be very grateful. Or do I just have to wait for Google to release a bug fix?

I tried lots of things but in the end only a factory data reset of the phone worked.

Before I did the reset the battery drain looked like this in Settings > Battery:

The shallow gradient was when I booted the phone in safe mode. This at least suggested the issue was likely to to with one or more apps rather than something inherently wrong with the phone.

GSam Battery Monitor wasn't much use. All it told me was that Google Services or Google Play Services was draining the battery but it didn't tell me which app(s) were causing that.

So I opted for a factory reset of the phone data and installed apps manually, just one or two at a time, watching the battery drain in Settings > Battery to make sure the newly installed app wasn't suddenly increasing battery drain. I'd wait at least 12 hours before installing another one or two apps. So this approach takes a lot of patience and isn't very practical if you use your phone for many things in the mean time. But now my battery life has increased from just half a day to 4 to 5 days...

I don't know whether this could've been fixed without a factory reset, or what app or setting caused the battery drain to increase suddenly in the first place. Ideally there would be some way of getting a breakdown of battery drain within Google (Play) Services due to different apps invoking it.


Samsung s7 edge message "previous setting restored" I keep getting a little notification pop up (a grey oval) that lasts about a second and says "previous settings restored" . It makes the phone vibrate and beep. It is causing annoyance and I would like to know what app/setting is causing it. I am running Android 6.0.1.

This message was caused by the 'locations' edge panel. Disabling said panel stopped the message appearances.


How do I make an expandable skype popup? I was switching between skype, as a person replied, and twitch on my phone and wasn't paying particularly close attention to the switch at one point and magically there was a little skype icon on my twitch app I could move around and expand into the skype convo I was going to and then collapse again without ever causing the stream I was watching to go away.

Problem is I'm not entirely sure what I did to do that and I would really like to be able to have that open anytime I'm doing something in particular on my phone and chatting in skype at the same time.

Found out that with some apps, Skype included, if you swipe down and to the left in the app from the corner it'll make the app into a little popup that just sits on your phone till you do something with it.


Bluetooth: A2DP stopped working From one day to another it seems that A2DP stopped working for me. I used it to stream music from my phone to my car's stereo. Everything worked fine until yesterday. I didn't install or upgrade any software as far as I remember. What happens now is that everything seem to work but I don't hear anything. The media player on the phone is running. When I adjust the volume on the phone I see the popping out slider showing 'bluetooth media volume'. Also I can skip tracks using my car's buttons (AVRCP profile) and display track information in my car's display (ACRCP 1.3 supported by Samsung media player on Galaxy SII). I can use the phone, too (handsfree profile), here I can hear everything.

I think its a matter with the phone and not with the car since I tried another phone, that works as expected. Unfortunately I don't have another A2DP headset or similar to try with my phone.

A already tried to delete the pairing and pair new but it didn't help. Ideas anybody? I use a Galaxy SII running 2.3.4.

One more thing I should mention: I don't think that this is the reason but I had an issue with my phone's micro USB port the same day. It was always saying it's getting charged via USB but it wasn't. Also car mode switched on and off sometimes without user interaction. So I removed the battery, tried to clean the micro USB port by blowing in it, waited some hours and after that everything's fine again. But as I said, I don't think that this is related since there's no reason why a defect micro USB port (and it doesn't seem to be defect though) should stop A2DP working.

Update: Found this similar problem and will try unpair, remove battery and pair again as suggested tomorrow. Will give an update here.

Finally I found the solution: When in car mode (automatically toggled using Llama when my car connects via Bluetooth), I use Car Dock Home v3 as home replacement. Inside it's preferences in the "Car Mode System Settings" there's an option called "Samsung USB Mount Au..." (can't read the complete entry). I had already forgotten that I checked this option since I wanted to know what it does. Now I know that it mutes A2DP ;) No Idea what it should do but fortunately now I have sound again.


My android earphone socket doesn't work When i plug my apple earphones into my phone it only plays on speaker. But when i put them into other devices sound comes out. I checked my phones socket to see if anything was maybe stuck in there, looked in my settings, but there was nothing connected to either. I know my ear phones work, but i don't know what else could be wrong. Please help?

From the sound of your question, it sounds like your earphone jack is faulty and isn't recognising that earphones are connected.

You would have to send your device for repair.


My phone's 3g/4g randomly stopped working I have a Galaxy S3 and my 3g/4g suddenly stopped working. WiFi works fine, but how can I get my 3g to work again? I have already uninstalled apps and deleted unnecessary photos and videos.

Check that flight mode is not swithed on. This mode will disable any network (Wi-Fi, cellular network, etc).

Else, go to Menu | Settings | More Settings | Mobile Networks | Network Operators (Note: your menu options might be different due to the Android version installed on your S3) and reconnect to your telecommunication provider's cellular network. Note: You may need to select your telco provider's name when your S3 displayed a list of cellular providers.

Also, shutdown your S3. Then, take the battery out for 30 minutes. Reinsert the battery. Boot up your S3 and turn on Mobile Network option and see if 3G/4G has been restored.

Worst case, it could be an Android firmware's update that is causing the S3 to fail to connect to any cellular network.


How to place an link of "application manager" on the home screen? I'm going many times daily to Application manager in Settings.

(Android 4.2.2:)
Settings --> More --> Application manager

Is it possible to put a link of "Application Manager" on the Home screen in order to avoid passing by Settings?
(I don't want to install external application managers apps)

That should be possible using a shortcut to the corresponding activity. Launchers like Apex have that feature built-in, for others you can use helpers like Activity Launcher. Both allow you to browse your apps, dive into their activities, and chose one to create a shortcut for. In your case, you would need to investigate the Settings app – and I'm pretty sure you'll find the matching activity.

Edit: Just in case you might miss that as well, you'll have to tap the entry of the app in question (here: Settings) to open the list of its activities.


Is there a way to save pop up alerts? After every call/message, my service provider (airtel) displays a popup which has the last call cost and current balance. Is there a way I could log them automatically and have the latest balance displayed as a widget in home screen? Is it possible to capture that using code? I am using a Galaxy S phone.

One way is to take a screenshot after the fact. This works natively on ICS by pressing volume down and power key together, otherwise root the phone and install a screen capture app.


How can I zoom without multitouch in Adobe PDF Reader? How can zoom in Adobe PDF Reader without using multitouch? I can double-tap to zoom but it is just one level of zoom. How can I zoom more?

You can only zoom without multitouch in Reflow Text mode, sadly.  Menu -> View Mode -> Reflow Text and then hit the T+ button that pops up when you tap the screen.


is it impossible to know a Wifi mac address of an android phone via a link? There is someone that I doubt that he uses my stolen phone so I want to make sure that the phone that he uses is mine or not by knowing the Wifi mac address of phone – to see if it's mine or not.

I have used iplogger before but all what it shows is ip address- Android  version - browser - phone model-etc. I just wanna make sure before telling telling the police about this person.

I have already done tracking report, but they did nothing.

What can I do ?? The phone uses Android 5.

An IP logger captures the IP address and the browser user agent string, the browser user agent only contains information like phone model and browser, no uniquely identifying information like MAC addresses.

So no, this iplogger (or any other that uses similar techniques) cannot determine if the phone is actually your's, only if it is the same model, but thousands of that model are sold so that is not considered evidence.


Does Android's Full Filesystem Encryption also Encrypt the SDcard? In Android's filesystem encryption do they also encrypt the SDcard? If so Is encrypting the SDcard optional or is it encrypted by default when you choose to encrypt your device?

Here's some info about Android's file system encryption and its crypto implemenation on android.com

Android provides the capability to do filesystem encryption, but it's up to the vendor who builds the firmware for your device to enable it for the SD card. I have only seen a few devices with this capability enabled for the SD card, though most seem to have it for the internal storage (/data). Typically if it's enabled, there will be a menu item in the settings referring to SD card encryption.

Here's the option for the Galaxy Tab 2 for example:


My SGH-i777 running 2.3.4 is saying my firmware is current, but I don't believe it is I have a Galaxy S2 SGH-I777 through AT&T. It runs on 2.3.4 Gingerbread and when I try to update my phone says that there are no updates available.

When I try to update through Kies, it says my phone doesn't support initialising. How can I fix this? I want to root my phone but I wanted to update first. Is that smart or should I update after root?

Your phone has the latest update for its generation. It will receive no more updates for the rest of the time you use it.

In order to "update" your phone, you would have to root it, and then flash a custom rom with an update available for it.


How can I find the saved password in Android browser? I have Prestigio Tablet with ICS. I forgot a password from important site. It's remembered in the tablet's browser. How can I see it without rooting the tablet?

There is no functionality to view saved passwords included in the stock browser.

The only method for retrieving passwords saved in the stock browser is to open the webview.db file (it's an sqlite database) in /data/data/com.android.browser and look at the password table (it's stored in the clear, no encryption or anything), but that requires root.


Problem copying files with unusual characters in their names to the Galaxy S4 SD card but not to the phone I run Gentoo Linux on my laptop. MTP connection to my phone works well, and I can see both the phone memory and my SD card. I can copy files to and from both to my laptop with no difficulty. The laptop is exclusively UTF-8 filenames.

I was copying some music files from my laptop to the phone, when I noticed a series of errors with files whose names contained punctuation.

Specifically files called '08 - ¿Por Qué?.flac' and '01 - Visión: Bautismo En La Cruz.flac' would not copy over to any directory on the SD card.

They would copy with no problems to the Phone memory itself, and can be played from there. Files with names containing accented characters copied fine, for example '07 - Unción En Betania.flac'. Files named '0?8 - Por Qué.txt' and '?08 - Por Qué.txt' also caused errors, but a file called '08 - Por Qué.txt' copied normally

I assume this is problem with the SD card file system, and its support for Unicode. any suggestions for managing it. I can (and have) renamed the files, but that is only a partial solution. Anyone got any better ideas?

Yeah you´re right. The problem is caused by the file system of the SD card. Probably you use FAT32 as file system of your SD card which is using the OEM character set (Read more). And the OEM set seems to not contain some characters you need as you found out.

So you need a different file system on your SD card which is using UTF-8 character set (NTFS on your lapto does, and also the internal memory of your phone supports it (which could be an ext like ext4).

But the best cross OS supported file system should be exFat. As you can see in the Wikipedia entry it supports UTF-16 character file names (just a variation of UTF-8). Also with this file system you have the ability of storing files bigger than 4GiB, which is not possible on FAT32.

So backup your files and format your SD card with the program of your choice (you can use even the basic windows integrated formatting tool). Then the problem should be gone.


How to measure battery capacity (mAh)? I've bought an Android device (Motorola Droid 4) online yesterday, the seller claims that it's 3300 mAh (and that's one of two reason why I bought it), but when I receive the device and check it, there are no printing that show it is 3300 mAh.

I tried to compare with pictures of Droid 4 battery EB41 on the the internet with mine, it looks like that mine is 1735 mAh, but I could not be sure that it's so.

I've tried to use apps to get the capacity information, but got no luck, I've tried:

CPU-Z by CPUID
GSam Battery Monitor by GSam Labs
Phone Tester (hardware info) by Miguel Torres
Battery Info by Kadett2
Battery Monitor Widget by 3c Tools
Ampere by Braintrapp
battery indicator free by Adcoms
CurrentWidget: Battery Monitor by RmDroider

but it always show 0 mAh, Unknown or the Capacity label not shown at all.

Here's the photo of my device:

(Click image to enlarge)

The question is, is there any way to make sure that my device is really 3300 mAh? or am I being fooled by the seller?

EDIT: thank you for the answers, now I have the proof that the seller lied, or maybe he didn't know that he give me incorrect product. This is the side view, because I don't have correct tool to remove the battery completely:

Motorola Droid 4 XT894
has 1785mAh battery with 2% tolerance i.e 1735mAh actual battery capacity.
Your seller seems to have fooled you.
Also it doesn't seem like the seller put up the battery description as 3300mAh by mistake as he has put this in Title name itself

You could have taken out the battery from phone and flipped it to see the battery capacity printed on the other side.

Side 1

Side 2


Nougat downloaded but now not in notifications I got an over the air nougat update on my Nexus 5x phone. I downloaded it but hadn't installed it yet. Now I don't see the notification on the phone. How can I get it back so I can click to install it?  Note I already tried check for updates but no luck there.

If you don't want to sideload it I believe you will get it with the next OTA wave. Also, I remember people were forcing OTA with Google Service Framework disabled back when 5.0 came out, but I havent tried it so I really don't know if that works or not. Here are the steps if you want to give it a try:

Find Google Service Framework in the Apps section of your Settings menu
Force stop it.
Try the System Update option now.


Is there a reason Google Reader drains this much battery? It doesn't strike me as normal that Google Reader should drain more battery than even my screen. Is this a known bug, or is it a settings issue? I'm using 4.1.1

Try installing BetterBatteryStats or GSam Battery Monitor Pro.  Both apps can provide you granular data about how your phone's battery is being drained.  You know the power hog is Google Reader but these apps can help you determine if the app is killing the battery because it's using a ton of data or if it's initiating long or frequent wake-locks...

If I had to guess without any more info, I'd guess that Reader is updating in the background frequently and consuming a lot of data.


Annoying "No data service" alert I'm receiving this stupid message every 5 minutes.

How to disable it without disabling other important messages of similar category ?

I've also had the problem of a notification alert every 5 seconds. I think I solved the problem by doing the following.

Make a recording in a quiet place and make sure there is no sound recorded. (only 1 sec needed.
Save the recording as "No Sound" or what you want.
Locate the recording in "File", "Audio"
On the 3 dots select to set it as "Notification"
On the main menu settings select this as your "Notification sound"
Go to your other application ("What's app", "SMS", "eMail", etc.) and change the notification sound from "Default sound" to your required tune.

You will still receive the message but it won't make a sound.
Hope this makes sense and will help solve the annoying notification.


Blackberry PRIV gets reset suddenly I am mad and sad at the same moment when I saw that my whole phone got reset (blackberry PRIV). I lost all my personal data. It happened while as usual I was trying to play songs with out picking up my phone from my pocket using 'OK Google' feature. It played a song first but when I try again it didn't. I kept on trying for like 10 or more times. And just after like 5 mins when I checked the phone, it showed me a prompt asking whether I want to use Google launcher or blackberry launcher. When I selected blackberry launcher, it loaded the default apps. I was shocked and realised that my whole data is lost including installed apps.

Can someone please tell me what might have happened? And also I don't think there is any way but could I restore the data somehow?

Note: For each "OK Google" try, I need to press power button to wake up the phone.

Somehow (maybe because of mis-hearing of "OK Google" feature), I went under guest user account :/. Just switched to my account now and found all my data. TIL, we can have multiple user accounts on phone.

When I was in guest account there was no notification or anything explaining the same and hence my havoc of losing all data started. After asking the question here and when the device was asleep, I got a notification stating something related to accounts and that I am in guest account. That gave me hope and when I just swiped from top, I could see on top right, just adjacent to battery percentage, the guest's profile picture. When I just tapped on it, it showed me available user accounts. I switched to my user account and found my data.

Not related:

When I was in the sad state of belief that I lost my data, I first tried to ask on official site of Blackberry and even after finding the forum site, I couldn't able to find a simple "ask question" like similar button. I can't believe that a million dollar company like BlackBerry can't afford to have a intuitive / user friendly site which is the only primary touch by which people can contact with them. It is a shameful fact for such an esteemed organisation. Hope they read this at some point and feel ashamed. I have many complaints with Blackberry's site, as I visit it frequently being a Blackberry fan, but I do understand that this is not the place to talk about it.

I don't know where exactly else I could have taken out my frustration. Since, I only find this site as intuitive. Thanks!


Xperia U automatically booted into safe mode? I shut my phone off and turned my phone back on in my pocket and it automatically was in safe mode. I couldn't find apps I had installed and some of  my widgets aren't working. What happened to my phone and how could I get it to be "normal" again?

In Xperia U you will get in to safe mode when you keep taping on menu button while the phone is booting.

Safe mode prevents any third-party apps from running. So if you have installed an app that might cause some serious problems with your device, boot it in safe mode to uninstall it.

You can boot into normal mode by a simple restart.


How can I go back after flashing an unsuccessful file with no backups in HTC EVO 3D GSM? I have accidentally flashed a file (http://www.box.com/s/k8ch8jjne6y2aa5g4lg9) that allows full arabic in HTC EVO 3D CDMA. When I reboot, the phone stops on the HTC white screen.

The problem is that I haven't made a backup in recovery before. I don't know how to go back. I have wiped all dalvick, data and cache but the problem persists.

My device is on Bootloader Unlocked + CWM recovery + S-ON

Simply flash any compatible GSM ROM to your phone (look for one on xda-developers forums) via recovery console after performing another round of wipe. Whatever incompatible drivers and radios were introduced by the CDMA version will be overwritten, and the phone should boot successfully. After that you can continue searching for the ROM with full Arabic support.


Will bootloader unlocking provide access to all the apps in the Play Store? My flyer doesn't allow few apps to be installed from the Play Store as it shows "This app is not compatible with your device" and this incompatibility is not due to OS. If I get the apk of this app from a forum, I can install it but few apps don't have apks outside Play Store.

I don't want to root my device, but simply unlock the bootloader so that I can access all of the apps on the Play Store without country/device restrictions. I read somewhere that it is mandatory to flash the device while unlocking the bootloader.

If I unlock the bootloader of my Flyer will I be able to install all OS compatible apps from the Play Store?

No. Unlocking the bootloader will do nothing for Google Play. Even rooting won't do anything by itself as far as phone compatibility goes.

To get access to the apps without device restrictions, you must have a rooted phone. You then must edit the build.prop file to change your phone model to one that can install the app in question. See this android.se question.

To get access to the apps without country restrictions, no root is needed. You must instead have a proxy whos IP address is inside the particular country desired (generally the U.S.). Or you could create an account via a U.S. proxy on your desktop, then push the apps to your linked device despite it's out-of-country location (see this explanation). Alternatively, you could have a rooted phone and download Market Enabler.


Reset DHCP cache for Asus Memo Pad HD7 'Avoided due to poor connection' Only the other day, my tablet now refuses to connect to any Wi-Fi spot.

I've tried resetting both the tablet and the router to no avail. After looking around, it seems to be some form of issue with the DHCP, as I can connect via a static IP address, but obviously this only helps on my home connection.

I'm just wondering if anyone knows how to clear the DHCP cache if that's even possible? Any help is appreciated.

I faced the same problem when using my Asus MemoPad HD7. For home connection a static IP worked fine, however this was not acceptable.
I did a bit of research and found out it should be possible after gaining root access to the device to delete the corresponding cache file.

As I needed a fast solution I just did a factory reset of the Pad, which resolved the issue for me.


USB internet option for tethering greyed out. How to fix it? Under Settings → Wireless and networks, USB internet will not highlight nor will it let me activate it. Therefore, I can't connect my smartphone to the PC.
Is there an alternate way to check why this is occurring and fix it?

I wrestled with greyed-out USB tethering for 3 days.
I factory reset, changed VPN settings (when for an unknown reason I lost data capacity), read all the forums, etc.
It's embarrassing. Despite having a $40 metal-braided, multi-tipped cord with amazing mall-metal jacks that works for charging, for tethering it wouldn't. Trying the $3 cord I had the same effect, I discovered it was the cord. That's all.
The expensive cord obviously isn't made to do anything but charge, and the cheap factory cord was simply defective. (When I wiggled the wire where it goes into the hack, my phone beeped and all the charging/tethering options appeared.)
That whole time it was the cord, poorly manufactured or damaged.
Try a brand new cord. It's likely just that. (My defective cord was only 1 day old!)


Android and .mov files How can I play .mov files on Android 2.2+ without converting them?

EDIT:
I am looking for a way to install Codecs rather than find a video player on the market if possible.

Thank you.

Rockplayer supports .mov files (at least the ones that I've attempted to view). The GUI isn't fantastic, it's basically just a file manager look, but I don't find myself watching video on my phone much. There could be additional options as well.


Issues with automatic update on a rooted Epic 4g touch So my phone originally had (before the root) Android 2.3.6. After the root process, it ended with 2.3.4 and it keeps telling me to update. A few things aren't working for me anymore, and I'm not sure if that's because of the root process or because of a bad 2.3.4 version.

Anyway, every couple of days my phone will notify me that there is an update available (likely the 2.3.6 I had before) and it asks if I'd like to restart and install. Upon clicking restart, it goes black, starts an update screen (with a progress bar) and goes about 1/4 the way before it stops updating and shows me a warning sign.

My question(s): Am I able to apply an update via a rooted phone? If so, what might be going wrong? If not, is there a way to either turn off that update (or get it via a different method or something)?

My answer(s): (these are limited to my experiences)

No, you most likely will not be able to apply a standard update to a rooted phone.

As far as turning off the update, this is most likely specific to the phone, and if it's being pushed by your carrier, my guess is you can't just turn it off. I would choose (now that you're rooted) to just flash a new ROM. If you like your stock stuff, you can probably find a ROM that is the same thing you're using now, with the 2.3.6 update.

This ROM may be what you're looking for in the case I described. It doesn't require you to do a wipe either, basically the update for your phone!


Whatsapp update not getting deleted I noticed my contacts list have been jumbled up meaning,
many contacts name are displayed with a common name.

So I erased all the phone data and factory reset.

Still the WhatsApp update icon is present and I am not able to delete it.

Why is this happening?

Whatsapp is installed on the /system partition on your device. Which means, your device manufacturer decided to include the app in the device firmware. A factory reset can only remove the apps which you installed yourself which are present on the /data partition. To remove system apps you need to need to root your device and delete the app from the /system/app/ directory.


push entire folder with ADB By mistake I deleted the .EXT folder (which contains a file "su") from the system/bin folder of my Android device.
Is it possible to use ADB to replace this folder?
I have a copy of the Bin folder and would like to Push this to my Android device with ADB push or ADB sideloader.

let's say you want to push entire C:\framework dir into /system/framework

put yourself in parent dir C:

adb push framework /system/

done

framework dir will be created automatically, so don't enter i.e. "adb push framework /system/framework/" or it will create a framework subdir

also assume adb is in path

of course you need read write permission, so in case of read only /system precede

adb remount


How to use NFC tags to trigger profiles and tasks in Tasker? I am planning to get some NFC tags which I want to use to control some profiles in Tasker. Where in Tasked can I choose NFC tag as my trigger? If that does not exist, how can I turn tasks on and off for free using NFC tags? Any plugins?

Thanks.

I don't know whether Tasker can meanwhile handle that itself, but it's at least doable with the right plugin. There's e.g. Locale NFC Plugin which could fill this gap. Alternatives exist as well, like a modified version of AnyTag, which is used e.g. in this tutorial.

For more examples, tutorials, and possibilities, I recommend a GoogleFu, ahem, search for "tasker nfc", which brings up a lot of tuts and even Youtube videos explaining different magical things to achieve this way.


Cannot get Android 4.0 NFS client to connect to my NFSv4 Ubuntu server: "no such device" I'm using GLaDOS kernel which includes the NFS modules (and I'm using the Codename Android ICS 4.0.3 ROM) on a GSM Galaxy Nexus. I'm trying to connect to my NFSv4 server (Ubuntu 11.10). My other clients (e.g., Ubuntu 11.04 laptop) can connect over the same LAN network, but my Galaxy Nexus will not connect.

In the Android terminal (BTEP), in su mode, I'm entering these commands:

insmod sunrpc.ko
insmod lockd.ko
insmod nfs.ko

lsmod shows the modules loaded:

nfs 104232 0 - Live 0xbf036000
lockd 42336 1 nfs, Live 0xbf028000
sunrpc 150792 3 nfs,lockd, Live 0xbf000000

My mount command (In the terminal, in su mode) is:

mount -t nfs4 nfserver:/shared1 /sdcard/nfs/shared1

The error is "no such device". (See edit below - I have a new error now.) It returns immediately, so I'm fairly certain this is entirely a client side error. It is probably not even trying to contact the server.

Usually the "no such device" error means that the nfs kernel module is not loaded. However, in my case, it is indeed loaded, as shown above. Can anyone help?

EDIT: so now I believe that the BusyBox mount command does not support NFSv4. Unfortunately, my server only supports NFSv4. So I borrowed a NAS device which supports NFS v3 and set that up.

Now the error is "invalid argument". In fact, the BusyBox mount command gives the same "invalid argument" error on all mounts using either "-t nfs" or "-t cifs". That leads me to conclude (based on quote below) that there is a version mismatch between BusyBox and my Linux kernel.

busybox: 1.19.3-Stericson
linux: 3.0.8-GLaDOS-V1-15

My conclusion is supported by this link where he says:

This is how I interpret it.
kernel is newer - recompile mount command (i.e. busybox etc)
Make sure that it uses the headers from the kernel it will run with.

Finally, trying a regular NFS v3 server (the NAS device) with Mount Manager does not succeed with either NFS or CIFS. But AndSMB will connect to the NAS using CIFS.

I can tell you that is is Not the mount command, it is the nfs.ko module that probably doesn't support NFS4.

When you call mount -t nfs ... the mount command is going to look for the filesystem type of nfs. If it doesn't find it, then you get the no such device error. If it does find it, it basically hands off the "mount" to the module.

For the mount manager issue, if you do not have a cifs module, cifs will not work with mount manager. AndSMB uses its own cifs/samaba implementation, and that is fine, but in order to accomplish something that allows any application to access the mounted share, it has to be cifs.ko module. I have to do some more looking in to the nfs issue you are still having.


How do I backup Titanium Backup? I want to install Titanium Backup on a new phone and would like to carry over the settings from my old phone, which include current backup schedules. How can I go about this in order to avoid having to recreate them manually?

I've checked the current backups and it looks like TB does not do backups of itself. I also have "My Backup Pro" installed, but it doesn't list TB as a selectable item for backup.

Go to the Titanium Backup settings page and enable (it it isn't already enabled) the Auto Sync TB Settings option. Then you should be able restore the file created on your SD Card to your new phone.


Update APK Installed App I recently installed an app to my phone using an APK, because this app is not available in my country. When I looked it up in my Google Play Store (I only get to view this app in my wishlist, because it doesn't show up when I just search for it), there is a mark on my wishlist that this app is now installed on my phone, but when I view the app, there is still the notice message of "This item isn't available in your country."

Will I be able to receive the update? If not, is there a way to update this app?

No. The only way to update the app is download the new version apk and install it.

I had similar experience with a game they released only for certain parts of the world. Then they released an update that I had to install in order to play the game, but since it wasn't available in my country I had to look for the updated apk and install it outside Google Play Store.


How can I install apps again after forgetting my "content filtering" PIN in Google Play? I am unable to download certain applications. I can't remember my content filtering pin number. I would like to get help with  resetting my pin number.

You might be able to remove the PIN by going into Settings > Apps > All > Google Play Store, and press on Clear Data.

Not that this will not have any effect if you chose to confirm every purchases with your Google account password.


Can an app be customized to always appear in fullscreen? I have an app that has buttons positioned in the top left and top right corners of the app interface. Because the buttons are there, it is easy to accidentally bring up some items in the notification area. If the app could be set to full screen always, or if the notification area could be hidden when the app was shown, this would improve usability.

Assuming the app itself has no such settings, is there some way in Android to set a particular app to always appear in full screen?

There is a setting called as the Expanded Desktop Setting in the Settings -> Display.

There you can select the Hide Both Option to enable full screen mode.

PS : I am using a custom ROM (Mokee) so I have that setting by default. I don't know about the normal Android OSs


Options after opening a phishing website on my android Someone sent me a link in WhatsApp claiming I can get a chance to get two free Emirates plane tickets, at first I just thought of it as a hoax but I was curious at the same time so I opened the link and followed its instructions to share the page with 20 people and answered a few questions. Yes I was stupid. My question is what can one do after visiting a phishing website on Android?  Like scan the phone for virus? I didnt find anything strange installed on my phone...

Clear your browser cache, as first step and if you want to be doubly sure run a malware detection app from Play store. Malware bytes is a good idea since it gives you pro features free for one month

It may or may not be a phishing site but since you are rightly concerned, this should be enough.


How to filter 3G traffic Are there a way to block all 3G traffic for specified apps?

If you have a rooted device you can filter which specific apps can access the 3G connection with DroidWall.


LG Optimus Logic Transferring apps to Micro SD instead of internal memory I recently purchased an LG Optimus Logic Net10 phone which runs Android 2.3.6. The phone was advertised as having 1GB internal Memory and also came with a 4GB Micro SD.

When I download apps, they seem to not be using the memory properly. I tried to move apps to the SD Card, but the only option to move is "move to internal memory". "Move to SD" is not an option. When I select "move to internal memory" the apps go to the 1GB Internal Memory as I would expect. The option for memory management then changes to "Move to Phone".

I mounted a 32GB micro SD, so what I really want to do is move the apps from the 1 GB internal memory to the micro SD, but there is no option to do so. Is there a way to get the apps onto the SD card?

Thanks much!

Go to app settings and click the apps that you want. When you click it, it should show its information and move to internal memory (aka MicroSD card).


problem installing over an app installed from google play I encountered The following issue on two samsung galaxy s4 devices:

When trying to install a newer version of an by clicking an APK file in an email message it works o.k..
If trying to install another new copy from a new APK over the previously installed one it also work.

But if the original version from google play is installed and we try to install the APK from the email we get a message App not installed and obviously the app does not get installed...

just to clarify - both the versions are written by me, both signed and use the same ID.
and there is a major version number change between them.

How can I know if things will go o.k. if I submit the new version to Google play?
Is there an official limit that refers the the source of installation having to be the same for an update?
Is there any way to override this limit?

UPDATE:

I followed the advice given by @GiantTree in this conmment

I installed a terminal emulator and executed pm install -r mypackage.apk which gave something like 60 lines saying try again in 1second (missing space in original message) then it said twice failed to connect to dumpstate service and finally killed.

Executing logcat >log.txt I found the line:
`java.lang.SecurityException:

  Neither user 10210 nor current process has android.permission.INSTALL_PACKAGES.

UPDATE 2:

upon better examining of the log file I found this line:

  D/InstallAppProgress( 8973): Installation error code: -25

but I can't find what does this error code means...

Still Looking for further suggestions...

This error often occurs when you try to install an older version over an already-installed newer version of the same app. If that's really what you intend to do, you might first have to uninstall and then re-install the app in question. To not lose its data, you can try uninstalling via adb uninstall -k <package>: this would uninstall the app, but keep (-k) its data.

For further details, you might also wish to see:

Unknown error code during application install: “-25”


Different sounds play at different volumes in the same app This just started happening, and it's affecting multiple apps.  On my Axon 7, certain sounds in certain apps are consistently playing at a louder volume than other sounds in the same app.  If I turn up the volume enough to hear those other sounds, the loud ones are deafening.  And all this is happening at the lowest volume settings.

Example: a Spider Solitaire app makes a shuffling sound when it deal the initial hand.  That's very loud.  But each time you deal a new round within a hand, it makes a similar sound, and that plays normally.  It's as if there are multiple sound players, and the app doles out sounds to different ones.  And one of them is set louder than the others.  Does that make sense?  Is that how sound playing in apps works?

It seems like a reboot fixed this one time, but it came back, and rebooting doesn't help now.  I've tried wiping cache.  Don't want to factory reset unless I have too (does factory reset wipe data too?).

False alarm.  Turns out the Dolby Atmos module has a 'volume leveler' feature that I must have turned on.  It's hidden behind the equalizer screen.  Anyway, turning that off returned things to normal.


Contacts doesn't show up under account sync I can't get my contacts to sync. In the contacts app (both google and default phone app) it shows "1 account" (won't tell me what, presumably the 'on device' since it still shows that if I remove my Gmail). If I try to add my Gmail account it tells me the account is "already on the device".  If I go to settings>accounts>my Gmail>sync there's a few switches, but contacts is not one of them. I can click my account instead of the sync menu and scroll over to People and Sharing and it tells me I have 480 contacts, and will open contacts.google.com and show them, but I can't get them on my phone.
I've tried deleting and re-adding my Gmail, clearing contacts app data, looked for a google contacts sync app (didn't have one). Contacts apps have all permissions granted.

I went under settings>apps ticked show system apps, and searched for 'google'. Found my google contacts sync there. Went through a bunch of relevant sounding system apps that didn't all have the contacts permission, and granted contact permissions. It was to several apps, so no telling which one actually made it work.


How to use clipboard in Galaxy A30s everywhere? When going through the options available on my keyboard, found a section which references "Clipboard".

In specific places, like in Stack Overflow's question box we can se from the opacity that's not active.
I would like the opportunity to use it anytime I wanted, not just when in particular locations like Google Keep.

The way I've fixed it was to change the keyboard from Samsung Keyboard to Gboard and now got a Clipboard icon always active

And can use anywhere just fine


How do I mount an external disk drive formatted in ext4 via USB Host? I plugged a 2.5 inch 1Tb drive into a Nexus 10 and I cannot see it anywhere really. Something pops up in ES File Explorer, but I cannot access the drive.

Do I have to root my device, or is there some other way?  Would formatting it to a different filesystem help in any way (to access it for r/w)?

You have a couple of options. The easiest way is to buy nexus media importer - it was $4 last I checked. You can use the nexus photo viewer app to make sure it will work. I used it with a flash drive on my nexus 10 and it worked great.

The alternative is to root and use stickmount. I prefer to root my devices, so I would recommend that way, but is does come with some security issues. It is pretty straightforward on the nexus 10, but if you are uncomfortable with the idea, nexus media importer is worth the $4.

Note that that drives like that need to be externally powered or they will not work - I don't think tablets can put out enough juice by themselves.

If you would like to root I'd be happy to walk you through it, but it'll probably take enough time that it is worth just buying the app, unless you are interested in learning more about this kind of stuff.


Is it possible to disable HAXM feature for an AVD based on Intel x86 CPU? In Android Studio V3.5, I created some AVDs which are based on Intel x86 CPU.
But I failed to start any of them because any HAXM devices couldn't be found.

I have enabled VT-x in my BIOS setting. When I tried to install 'Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager V7.0.5', it reported "failed to configure driver unknown error. failed to open driver.".

My PC is Windows 7 64-bit. I couldn't find any solutions.

So, is it possible to disable HAXM feature for an AVD based on Intel x86 CPU?

The Android emulator.exe has a lot of command-line options.

The one you need is -accel:

-accel <mode>

Valid values for mode are:
  auto - Determine automatically if acceleration is supported and use it when possible (default).
  off  - Disables acceleration entirely, which is primarily useful for debugging.
  on   - Force acceleration. If KVM or HAXM isn't installed or usable, the emulator won't > start and prints an error message.

Therefore you should use -accel off

For more details: https://developer.android.com/studio/run/emulator-acceleration.html


Sync birthdays between iCal and Android I have an HTC Desire and a Mac (10.6, if that matters) and I sync them via Google Contacts.

Many of my contacts in Apple's Address Book.app have a birthday set, but it does not transfer to Google Contacts and thus not to my Android Contacts.

If I create a new contact on Google Mail/Contacts and set a birthday, it is immediately synced to my Android phone, complete with birthday, but in Address Book.app the birthday is missing.

How can I get my birthdays in sync?

If a proper sync is not possible, it would be nice to have at least a calendar that is synced, but I don't know how to add the calendar that Address Book.app can generate automatically to my Google account to sync.

I have seen icalbirthdays but I don't think it can help me. I would like to avoid kludges like creating a calender from Address Book in iCal, publishing that to a third server and subscribing in Google Calendar...)

Okay, I am admittedly not an Apple guy, but it looks like you might need a third-party solution.

According to some comments I found here, non-support of birthdays is a known thorn. To get around it, the commenter used Spanning Sync but also mentioned SyncMan.

Spanning Sync offers a 15-day trial, after which it costs $25 for a one-year subscription or a $65 one-time purchase. The commenter referenced above did mention that he chose this because birthdays were not being sync'd.

SyncMan offers a 30-day trial, after which you can purchase it for $14.99. On the support page it specifically mentions birthdays as one of the things it syncs that the native Google sync in Address Book doesn't.