Which Android emulators can co-exists on single machine? Which emulators can co-exists on single Windows machine and be used simultaneously for app development (adb support)? I'm using Genymotion which seems to work on bare system; AVD x86_64 requires Intel HAXM driver; how about Microsoft emulator from Visual Studio 2015? Did anyone tried it already?

EDIT: question was clarified to emphase the simultaneous work on one machine - virtualization issues are main topic, not CPU/RAM usage

You can use as many emulators on the same machine as you want, simultaneously, at the same time, there's no actual limit, as long as you have sufficient RAM in your computer to handle that many emulators. When you want to debug an app you just choose whichever emulator you need.


Is a Class 10 MicroSD overkill or is a Class 6 adequate? Possible Duplicate:
  Is the class rating of my MicroSD card relevant?

I don't see any speed class or × rating markings on the 2GB card that came with my phone. Is a Class 10 card going to be noticeably faster (in apps that use the SD storage) than a Class 6? I know that it's theoretically 40% faster but I'm not sure that my Flipside would even be able to take advantage of the higher speeds.

It is most likely overkill unless you are doing a lot of write/reads to your SD card for some particular reason.  The only reason I've known to buy a faster SD card is for photography, when you want to be able to reduce the time it takes to write photos from the memory buffer to the SD card so you can take more pictures at a higher FPS.


How to watch Facebook video without stopping music playback from Spotify Here is a very common use case I have: I listen to music on Spotify while going through my Facebook feed. Sometimes there's a video that I want to see in full screen. When I tap the video, music playback stops. What I want is to watch the video without any sound and keep my music playing. Is that possible?
Phone: Galaxy S8

You can't do this exactly, But there's a workaround.
Go to settings > sounds & vibration > sperate app sound.
Note: that this will only work if a Bluetooth device is connected.


google play uses wrong account for in-app purchases Problem:
When trying to purchase in-app items, google play selects the wrong google account and do not allow the user to correct it.

Scenario:
I have two google accounts, one private and one business. The private account is the default in google play when buying and installing apps. Though when trying an in-app purchase, the business account is choosen and cannot be changed. In my case, this prohibits me in-app purchases.

Further notes:
Uninstalling/reinstalling app to be sure the correct account is used in google play has no affect.

Haven't tried removing the business account and see how it affects the in-app purchases as I'm reluctant to do so. (Other way around would have been better:)

Question:
Have you encountered this problem and found a way to resolve/work-around it?

I found that I had a similar problem. What I did was completely reset my device, and then only associate my business account with it. That way my Gmail App is only displaying business conversations only. This also has the benefit of not confusing Play Store. This isn't the best way to do this probably, but it works. If you need to check your personal account, just sign in through your browser. This also prevents prying eyes from looking through your gmail app and seeing something personal.


Disabling Google Voice Dialer I have a Motorola Electrify M, recently factory-OTA-updated to Android 4.1.2.  With the update came Google Now and the Google Voice Dialer.

Google's Voice Dialer sucks!  It always get the name wrong, and then immediately places a call to the wrong person!  It doesn't even ask for confirmation of the name, and to top it off the voice it uses is so irritating and LOUD it makes me want to jump out the window while driving down the freeway!

The Voice Commands app that originally came with the phone worked reasonably well, and I'd like to get it back (or even a third party app, like Dragon Assist, would be better than the current POS that's taken over the voice capabilities of my phone).

How can the Google Voice Dialer be disabled or uninstalled?

Okay, I figured out how to set the good ol' Voice Commands app as the default voice commands interface.  It has to be done while not connected to a hands free device via Bluetooth.

Tap into the Phone app
Tap the Phone app's microphone icon

In my case a prompt appeared asking me to select the default app to handle voice commands.  Thereafter, it's used the correct Voice Commands app when connected via Bluetooth.

For those who wanted to know how to disable Google Now, here's how it's done:

Swipe up from the Home icon to activate Google Now
Scroll all the way to the bottom
Tap the Overflow menu (three vertical dot icon)
Tap Settings
Tap Google Now
Tap the OFF/ON switch in the upper-right to disable Google Now


Can my Samsung Galaxy Nexus and iPhone 5 share same micro USB charger? Does the micro USB charger cable that comes with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus be used with the iPhone 5 and vice versa?

Technically yes, but you need a Lightning to micro USB adapter, like this one.


My phone is rebooting on its own My phone ( Xperia Z ) is restarting on its own every second its not coming up to the homescreen when its restarting it hangsup and restarts again i have no option of connecting it to my pc as well, as it doesnt get detected. i want to reinstall OS in it is there a way, can someone help me on this..??

It doesnt matter if i have to root my phone or pay and get a OS i want my phone to work ??

In my case, I did a factory reset.

To do this: Open your phone in recovery phone. Hold down the home button, the volume down button and simultaneously press the power button. Your recovery mode menu should have an option about factory reset. Unfortunately, you will lose your apps and maybe your contacts/sms(unless you have back them up).


Configuring DHCP client on my Android board I am running Android on my development board and want to configure DHCP client on it. Can anyone tell the details of what steps to be followed to configure DHCP client on Android?

enable the ethernet port and then use setprop command to enable dhcp. Then start dhcp client.


Moto G doesn't boot anymore, not even into recovery My Moto G 2013 (XT1033) was working (except for the issue I described here, but the other features all working), I restarted it but it didn't come back.

I was dropped into the 'AP Fastboot Flash Mode' and selected 'Normal Powerup' from the menu, but I get the error message failed to validate boot image.

Choosing 'Recovery' doesn't works, either, I get failed to validate recovery image.

Does that mean my phone is dead for good? What can I attempt?

This may be a bit late however I think I have found the solution for my Moto e 2nd gen (XT1524).

If you found that you can't boot because 'failed to validate recovery image' read on.

Download drivers + adb + fastboot (Download standalone version to PC)
Ensure fastboot can find device fastboot devices
Download TWRP (https://twrp.me/) place in folder
Use command fastboot boot [path to recovery].img
You should now boot into TWRP (yay!)
Download a rom and move it to the device (with GApps and any other additions) using command adb push [filename].zip /sdcard/ (or to anywhere you want to flash from)
Wait for the files to move over (this will take a while)
Backup files (as your system is pretty much kaput not much need to backup the system)
Select wipe, advanced wipe, and wipe cache, system and data partitions then swipe to wipe
Select install, navigate to /sdcard/ (or wherever else you put the files)
Follow the onscreen prompts to install (INSTALL ROM FIRST THEN GAPPS AND ROOT)
Finally reboot into the system (THIS WILL TAKE 20 MINS + LEAVE YOUR PHONE DON'T TURN IT OFF KEEP IT PLUGGED IN)

You should now have unbricked your device.


Android 6.0.1 Mysterious "Videos" Taking Up Space I have been made confused by the Storage Info of my phone since it shows 3.16 GB of videos took up my internal space. But then I checked, the videos not even passed 250 MB in total size.

Can't seem to find the solution in the Internet yet, I've been searching tho. I am using Venus phone by Vestel (a Turkey's made)

Preview:

Update 1: The result I got after using Disk Usage app:

Update 2: The result I got after using SD Maid app:

Update 3: The result I got after using Termux app with first given command:

Update 4: The result I got after using Termux app with second given command:

Update 5: The result I got after using 'dumpsys' command on my PC connected to my phone by means of USB Debugging:

Update 6: after redo commands of 1st and 2nd but with adding 'grep'

Update 7: result of commands 'dumpsys -l' and 'dumpsys diskstats'

HOW FILES ARE CATEGORIZED ON ANDROID?

Let's simplify things. You tap a text document, it opens with text editor. You click on a picture, it opens with image viewer. Whether to open a file with a document viewer, or a photo editor, or a media player, or something else, is determined by MIME type, or Media Type, or in simple words File Type.

The simple and easy way to determine file type is the file extension; we know a file ending with .mp4 is a video file. That's how Windows set preferred program to open a file. *NIX operating systems usually rely on file's magic to determine mime type. That's what file command does. Android's toybox file doesn't seem to have a large collection of magics, so the primary source to guess file types on Android is file extensions.

That said, the size of Videos that appear under Internal Storage usage details, is the total size of files which have mime type video/*, based on extensions vs file category mapping used by Settings app (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). If you think the size shown is inaccurate, you can cross check yourself. Use some app or simply a terminal emulator like Termux to find all video files:

~$ find /sdcard/ -type f | grep -iE '\.wrf$|\.movie$|\.wvx$|\.wmx$|\.wm$|\.asx$|\.mng$|\.lsx$|\.lsf$|\.mxu$|\.qt$|\.vob$|\.mpe$|\.fli$|\.dv$|\.dif$|\.dl$|\.mpeg$|\.mpg$|\.mp4$|\.m4v$|\.mov$|\.3gp$|\.3gpp$|\.3g2$|\.3gpp2$|\.mkv$|\.webm$|\.ts$|\.avi$|\.wmv$|\.asf$'

* If using Termux, grant Storage permission to allow /sdcard access.

This will find every file on you storage which is considered video by OS, though one might not be a video in actual and just disguising itself with a video file extension.
To find out individual file sizes and total size, extend the command a bit:

~$ find /sdcard/ -type f | grep -iE '\.wrf$|\.movie$|\.wvx$|\.wmx$|\.wm$|\.asx$|\.mng$|\.lsx$|\.lsf$|\.mxu$|\.qt$|\.vob$|\.mpe$|\.fli$|\.dv$|\.dif$|\.dl$|\.mpeg$|\.mpg$|\.mp4$|\.m4v$|\.mov$|\.3gp$|\.3gpp$|\.3g2$|\.3gpp2$|\.mkv$|\.webm$|\.ts$|\.avi$|\.wmv$|\.asf$' | xargs -I {} du -b '{}' | sort -n | awk '{sum += $1} {print} END {print sum}'

* All commands are very basic, usually part of busybox distributions.

This will show the individual and total file size in bytes. Convert that to MBs or GBs, and that should match the size appearing in Settings. In the same way, you can calculate size of other file types like audio and images.

The same categorized files can be viewed in the left menu of Android's default Files app (at least on Pie). However there could be possible differences. For instance, a file with .mpe extension will reflect in videos size shown in Settings, but won't appear under videos of Files app or other gallery apps. It's because the file extension vs mime type mapping which media scanner uses doesn't include .mpe extension in video category. In addition to file extension, media scanner takes further steps to segregate files for default apps and preferred activities.

Another way to get total size of video files is dumpsys diskstats service which reads from file /data/system/diskstats_cache.json. DiskStatsLogService runs once every 24 hours when device is idle and charging, and the extensions vs file category mapping it relies on is similar to the one used by Settings. So the sizes should be same when diskstats_cache file is updated:

~$ dumpsys diskstats | grep Videos

RELATED: How disk space is used on Android device?


Access Company Directory on Samsung S3 Does anyone know how to access Microsoft Exchange company directory on Samsung S3?  This used to be available on my previous phone (HTC Desire) but I can't seem to find it on the Samsung S3.

Assuming you already have the Exchange account added on your phone, if you go to Contacts, and search for a name, it should bring up directory results. Make sure you hit the search or enter button on the keyboard.


Does updating to 2.3 fix Galaxy S' lag issue? As title. The lag issue I am talking about is the notorious "RFS lag" as explained here, and is also refered to here and here

Although they didn't change the file system, they did make improvements and I'm personally noticing significantly less lag on 2.3.3 coming from 2.2.


How can I deal with mass texts from an Apple phone when using an Android phone? Occasionally one of my friends using an iPhone will send out a mass text, and for the next few days I get spammed with texts from all the other numbers they sent it to, most of them unidentified on my phone, and since some of them are responding to each other, none of them make any sense. It's incredibly annoying. Presumably iPhones have something that can detect and properly order mass texts, as Apple wouldn't want to annoy their own users, only Android users. Is there something I can do to make the mass text make more sense on my end?

Jelly Bean upgrade (4.2) add support for group messaging.
So, two solutions :

upgrade your phone to Jelly Bean 4.2.
install a third party application that handles it : this one seems to have a fair number of good reviews.


How do I change the Device Name of my Nexus 7 2013 when connecting to a hotspot? How do I change the Device Name of my Nexus 7 2013 (not rooted)?

On my Samsung Galaxy S4 hotspot, the Nexus 7 shows up as android-xxx, where xxx is some random sequence of characters. How do I change the name to something like geffchang-nexus7?

Unless the OEM has built in the option (Samsung have for example) you cannot change the device name without root. The nexus-7 does not have this option.

On the Samsung Galaxy S4 (for example) you can go to Settings > More > About Device > Device Name and you can change it directly from there.

For those with root:

 su
 getprop net.hostname
 setprop net.hostname <new_hostname>

Or simply download a build.prop editor app from the play store.  This requires Root also. WARNING: Any changes to this file can stop your device from working or cause unexpected behaviour, do so at YOUR OWN RISK.

To change Hotspot name:

Go to

  Wireless & Networks > Tethering & Portable hotspot.

Then

    Tick the box next to Portable Wi-Fi hotspot
    Tap Portable Wi-Fihotspot settings and you can edit the Wi-Fi network
    name, and choose a password.

Enter your name there!


How to check Bluetooth audio codecs on Android 5.0 I have an old Note 3 phone that I use as a music player. I am trying to find out if it supports the aptX Bluetooth codec. I turned on developer mode and all the instructions I can find online say to go to “Audio codec” under the “Developer Options” menu. I go to the “Developer Options” menu but there is no entry for “Audio codec.” On Android 5.0 are the codecs listed in a different place?
If it does not have aptX is that something that can be added?

The only way to check I found so far is in the Android Developer Options.
On some devices there is an entry named "Bluetooth-Audio-Codec". If this list contains an entry with "aptX" as shown in the following screen shot it should be sure that the device supports aptX:

The screen shot is from an Android 9 tablet. Not sure about older Android versions. It may happen that you don't have no "Bluetooth-Audio-Codec" entry in the Developer Options menu, in that case this method does not work for you.


Tricking the file system to mount a LINK2SD drive as mnt/extsd I've got a device that is using the brilliant LINK2SD to expand the system memory onto the SD......all good.

As part of the implementation, the app mounts the two SD card partitions as:

FAT32 /mnt/extsd/179_49

and

EXT4 /mnt/extsd/179_50

Of course a regular FAT32 SD card mounts as /mnt/extsd so the problem then presents itself with some apps that are hard coded to look for /mnt/extsd for SD storage.....apps like Camera fail with errors similar to can't find SD card etc.

My question is how can I mount/trick the system to mount the FAT32 partition /mnt/extsd/179_49 as /mnt/extsd ???

I've got root access, terminal etc.

Any ideas folk ?

Cheers

David

/mnt/extsd/179_49
/mnt/extsd/179_50
/mnt/extsd

some type of round-robin.

Your going to have to move your data in '49 & '50 to someother directories. mkdir /sdcard/externalData

rmdir '49
rmdir '50
rmdir extsd

cd mnt
ln -s /sdcard/externalData extsd

cd extsd
ln -s /sdcard/new49 179_49

ln -s /sdcard/new50 179_50

Whether this will work will depends on the capabilities of ln.  This would work in normal unix  / linux boxes.

R


HTC Desire HD Crash on Photo click Not sure if this is the right forum to ask this question.

My phone crashes every time I try to take a picture with 20-30% battery.

I have tried with Low and Mid quality picture (1-3 MB) but this didn't help.

Phone Details:

HTC Desire HD
Android Version: 2.3.5
HTC Sense version: 3.0
Software Number: 3.13.110.4
Kernal: 2.6.35.10
Browser Version: Webkit/533.1
SD Card: 8 GB (Available: 5GB)

Hope this info helps. Let me know if any one need any more details.

My desire HD too.

I just presumed that if the battery was too low and it tried to use flash, then it used too much power from the battery and turned off.


root device install again I want to root my s4 phone I have some apps on it which are no longer are availeble for download, do I have to reinstall them (in other words some programs are lost)

Hans

If you just root your phone and do not flash a custom rom you won't need to reinstall all those apps.

If you are planning to flash a custom rom you will need to backup all those apps. For backing up system app i use es file explorer to go to root> system folder then to apps you will see all the system apps installed in your device copy those apps in your sd card and after you flash your rom you can reinstall those apps . No need to download those apps


Network App Restriction I recently bought a japanese cellphone (Fujitsu F-06e NX). It came with some really cool apps but most of them have limited functionality due to network work restrictions (Phone must be on docomo ntt network). I was wonder if there was a way to bypass this restriction. Thanks :)

Install Orbot Proxy by Tor. You will have to root the phone if your apps don't have their own proxy settings. Tor is a very good anonymizing network; in fact, Stack Exchange has their own website for it: StackExchange

You can also configure a VPN and connect your phone to that, via Settings or by downloading a VPN app. You can subscribe to a private VPN server (small monthly fee), you can create your own VPN server, either with OpenVPN software or Windows 7 VPN wizard, or, if privacy doesn't matter, you can connect to a free, public VPN server.

Other than those two methods, options get very difficult from here. There's no reason the above VPN method shouldn't work, unless your device doesn't support it. Still, try a VPN app (This one seems to be legit and has pretty good reviews).

Sometimes VPN's are blocked as well (think massive corporations), although it is almost impossible to completely block one. Try hosting your own VPN server, in the situation where they have a targeted block-list.

Also, in the event that if your device rejects everything you install on it, one would have to modify the .APK's of the apps themselves to target a custom VPN or proxy server. Programming knowledge is a requirement. This would all be to avoid rooting.

I think that is the entire list. Good luck


Why can't I get s=ON on my MyTouch 4g? I have followed the following 2 tutorials on how to unroot and get S=ON on the MyTouch 4g:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=834225

I have successfully reverted to the stock ROM and unrooted the phone, but I still have S=OFF.  When I run the first one in the emulator, it gets all the way through execution and tells me to reboot into hboot to get s=ON, but when I do that, it still shows S=OFF:

Duplicating hboot
2048+0 records in
2048+0 records out
1048576 bytes transferred in 0.563 secs (1862479 bytes/sec)
Synchronizing
Powerdown and reboot into hboot to check s=on

I really would like to get S=ON so that I can ask my provider for service if I need it.

This link should help. It contains a link to a thread detailing a special zip file created by one of the developers. It will help you possibly get S-ON. The step by step instructions are in the thread:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=863899

By the way, S-OFF isn't something service technicians actively look for. Many people have sent in phones for servicing with S-Off and technicians still fix it. With my Nexus One, once you get S-Off, it shows an unlock symbol that doesn't go away and is shown every time with the splash image during boot. However, many of my friends with this phone have gotten it fixed without problems.

EDIT: If the S-OFF doesnt work, you should private message or PM the developer who created the zip file on xda. He will be better able to help you as he has repeatedly got S-ON and S-OFF. I dont have the same device. Unfortunately, the bootloaders are device specific and vary on the manufacturer. My experience with S-OFF will be different from yours.


How do I change incorrect album art on the default Music Player of the Samsung Galaxy S III? One of my albums has a completely unrelated album art associated with it. I cannot find the album details and hope to get the album art that way because it's an independent album. The album art I'm trying to use is actually a scan of the album itself. I have tried:

Renaming the album and album folder, deleting the previous folder from my phone, and ending my music player's process.
Deleting the album's folder from the phone, and moving the folder somewhere else.
Changed the album art to different images that are slightly different images with Windows Media Player, then uploading AlbumArt.jpg, Folder.jpg, etc. into the album's directory.

I've probably tried a few more, but I can't remember at the moment. It's very annoying having to look at this low-quality, unrelated album art whenever I start playing my music.

What worked for me, as adx suggested, was to go into the /Android/data/com.android.providers.media/albumthumbs folder on the phone and delete all of the files it contains. They are extension-less files, so it is impossible to tell which one is the offending one, so I just deleted them all. The next time I opened the default Samsung music player, all of the album thumbnail images at first appeared empty, then after two or three seconds, the music player re-generated all of them, and my new album art appeared on the offending album.

(This was after I "showed hidden files and folders" via the control panel in Windows and deleted the AlbumArt.jpg and Folder.jpg files that were there)


I can't re add google account after factory reset , edited host & after clear cache and data. Pls help i changed my simcard last month and since then i have noticed that i can't log in to my google account, gmail and also instagram. Play store always stopped as well.

I tried some of the solutions provided on youtube like editing host (my host is already 127.0.0.1 local host), i dont know whether i should change it or just remain it like that coz some said delete everything and type host (127.0.0.1 local host) and some need to add the # (but i don't have the other line).
I've already clear cache & data, force stop Play store, Google play services, Google Framework, Google account manager &  remove google acc (my account already unable 2 steps verification) then tried to re add again but failed.
I've already factory reset my phone as well and try to re add google account but still failed. Now im using application which I downloaded thru apkmirror.com.(play store didnt work). I really appreciate anyone experts could help.

Thanks in advance.

I had the same problem but I tried doing the same on a high speed WiFi and it worked out for me.. meanwhile if this doesn't fix you can take important backups and try:

flashing your phone with its stock ROM
switching to a WiFi network or try the same with another SIM card
make it localhost rather than local host in the host file (as described by you)


Can't update or download apps without wifi I have a one plus 3T Oxygen 4.1.7.

I can no longer download/update apps on the Playstore without wifi, I used to be able to until I accidentally checked to always download over wifi only.

Here are the things I tried to fix it.

I've already changed : Play Store > Settings > Auto-update apps to Auto-update apps at any time. Data charges may apply.

I've also changed Settings > Google > Data Management > Update Drive-enabled app files - Over wifi or cellular.

I've uninstalled play store then reinstall as well as . I've restarted multiple times after each of the above steps.
So far nothing works.

Thanks

Clear Data this apps:

Google Play Store
Google Play Services
Settings

one of this apps may contain the data that prevents your device to have additional charges. But I'm not really sure if this will work..
The Very Best solution I know is to reformat your device to clear all the settings you entered therein.


How has USB File Transfer changed in Android changed over the years? In Windows

I remember many years ago when I got my first android that USB connection seemed to work more like a flash drive. You could do multiple things at once without it saying the device was busy.

In all newer android versions I've seen I get an error saying the device is busy if I'm copying something and trying to browse files at the same time. Also I've noticed newer android devices seem to be slower with file transfers or even generating all the files in a folder.

So my question is what changed exactly and why was it implemented?

Bonus question: Can you give a detailed history on what happened with android USB and with what versions of android did it change with?

You might be referring to the USB Mass Storage Mode.

  USB mass storage is the standard protocol used by flash drives,
  external hard drives, SD cards, and other USB storage devices. It also
  was used by Android devices and even many basic phones.

At some point most  Android developers decided to discontinue with this handy feature. They have legitimate arguments or at least justifiable reasons against the feature. It was discontinued sometime since Android 4.3 and later versions don't have this feature.

As one reddit user explained the reasons behind such discontinuation:

  Earlier Android used to have /data partition for app data and
  /sdcard for movies, music and rest. Say you are an app freak and
  have installed lots of apps, what happens in /data fills up but still
  you can't use space from your /sdcard as it's a separate partition.

  Now what Google has done is used unified file system. So that you can
  share space between /sdcard and /data. USB mounts storage on host
  and gives entire block level access to the host. If this is done the
  partition is unmounted from your phone. It was fine when /sdcard was
  separate now since both /data and /sdcard reside on same partition
  Android can't afford to allow full block access to another host. This
  is solved with MTP.
  Another reason, Microsoft holds patents for long file name support on FAT filesystem. That's one patent for which they demand royalties
  from OEM's. If you use USB mount, you need to format your /sdcard as
  FAT because most users use windows. If you use FAT, you need to pay
  MS or risk a lawsuit. With MTP, Google can use ext3/4 btrfs whatever
  they please and there is no risk of lawsuit.
  Finally, formatting filesystem with ext3/4 instead of FAT gives lots of read/write improvements since Android uses linux kernel.

The new options, Media device (MTP) or Camera (PTP) mode, are either unavailable to earlier editions of Windows and particularly difficult to use on other OSes e.g. Linux , or too limited in terms of functionality as well UI feel.

Credits

USB Mass Storage on Android Devices


Are there any downsides or risks to limiting background processes? I enabled developer options on my Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos and then changed "Limit background process" option from Standard limit to No background process.

After that my phone is working fine, with no hanging problems or no slowness as before.

But my doubt is, will this change affect any process, updates, applications or anything which might cause an error or failure?

Setting this option forces Android to stop each process as soon as it is empty (that is, when no services are started and no activities are on screen for that app).

To be clear: this option won't stop apps that would normally run in the background from doing so. Your mail client will still run periodically to check mail, if it's configured to do that. Apps that use Google Cloud Messaging to receive push messages from Internet servers (such as Gmail and Facebook) will still be able to do so. The option would be better named "Cached background process limit", since it limits apps that would otherwise show up with that label in the apps manager.

Next time each app needs to start, Android has to load the app from storage, from scratch. This uses more power and takes longer than running it again when the process was in memory. This doesn't just mean when you start an activity from that app deliberately; it also means the email client has to be loaded afresh each time it wants to check email. Over time this can build up to a huge battery drain.

Because this is a development option, it can also trigger rare bugs in certain apps, and those apps' developers may not be keen to fix them. One example is that, on Nexus devices running 4.2.2, when this option is on, the in-built Calendar app will keep restarting itself with this option set, because stopping the cached background process causes the calendar's content provider to be removed, which causes a loop of services restarting each other to check for calendar updates. If this happens, the loop will run down your battery very quickly.


Can I mute sound notifications, but allow chat heads on Facebook Messenger? On Facebook Messenger, on my Android phone, I want to permanently mute audio notifications for new text messages, but I would still like to receive a chat bubble.

Is this possible?

The trick is to look in the Android settings for this, rather than in the Facebook messenger.

In Settings -> Notifications it will list all of your applications, and the notifications settings they have.

Some applications will have several notifications tfor the given app.

In the 'chat and calls' notifications - you can disallow sound. The downside here is that this will also prevent Messenger calls from making a sound.


Can I tether my Macbook (Lion) to my Verizon Droid Bionic using either USB or WiFi? I'm trying to use the Verizon tethering app (and have tethering enabled on my Verizon account).   My MacBook sees the hotspot, but does not connect successfully.   I'm using WPA mode.    The phone sees the Mac, but apparently never issues an IP address.

I resolved this on the Mac by turning wifi off and then back on.   On the Win7 PC, running the network troubleshooter (which I believe turned the adapter off and on) also solved the problem.    I believe it may be related to some state left over from a previous connection in both cases.

Off-topic: with a 4G (LTE) signal, internet access was comparable (maybe better) to my 6Mb DSL access at home.


What exactly can Outlook remote-wipe when using multiple accounts and how I can I prevent havoc via root? On my Huawei P20lite I can add multiple users or use the "Private Space" feature (which to my understanding boils down to just another user account as well). Now, from the screenshots in another SE question:

What gets me worried is the "Erase all data" permission. So assuming I'd set up a secondary account and my employers IT decides to trigger this remote wipe, will only that account's data be affected or would this concern the entire phone? What will happen to my SD card data?

My phone is rooted, is there any way I can ensure that this can only wipe Outlook data (if anything at all)?

What data can be wiped? All data on the device can be wiped, it can allow Outlook (actually Exchange server, hosted Exchange server in the case of Office 365) to perform a full factory reset without your intervention, meaning no PIN, no password, or other intervention from the user. If someone issued an erase all data command from the Exchange console to your device, it would be completely factory defaulted and you could not stop it. - Source is personal experience as a system administrator, and Perform a remote wipe on a mobile phone. This has been a feature in Exchange for well over 10 years so it is nothing new.

That sounds super scary, but in reality this is extremely common with connecting to any Exchange server, and although I personally think the other restrictions on this particular account are extreme, they are not uncommon, and maybe appropriate for your organization. The intent of these permissions is to secure your organization's data, plain and simple.

In my 25+ years of experience working in IT, I have only ever heard of this feature being used maliciously once but the company involved got sued for a hefty amount (again, this is hearsay, I cannot prove or document it to be true or false). My point in saying that is that illicit use of this feature is extremely rare and should not generally be considered a problem or issue worth worrying about. That said, I have heard more than one story of an employee being terminated and a wipe command issued and they lost all of their own personal data, that is considered acceptable and legal in most cases. I have been in situations where this had to be done, and if at all feasible we warn the employee that they must immediately delete their corporate account from their device, and have 24 hours, or until the end of the day, then we will issue a device wipe. If the account has been removed from the device, nothing will happen, if the account still exists the device will be wiped. This is really only an issue where organizations allow BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), organizations where data security is of the utmost importance generally do not allow this and will issue devices with this and various other security measures implemented.

Remember that if someone did issue a wipe command to your device, it would be logged, and if it was done maliciously then the most likely result is that person would be terminated immediately, if they were not I would strongly reconsider whether your employer is correct for you.

And you do not need root to "bypass" this restriction, just install an isolated Exchange client like Nine (as an example) which will allow full access to all Exchange services (email, calendar, contacts, etc) and give permission to Exchange to wipe the account information, NOT the entire device, if Exchange sends a wipe all data command, Nine will wipe all data related to that Exchange account. Be aware that using such a client, or a feature of your device that prevents this feature, may be in violation of your corporate security policy and you should verify that with your organization's IT staff. In many organizations, violation of IT security policy can be grounds for termination.


SMS Problem - Moto G update 4.4.4 A problem appeared in my Moto G after the update to 4.4.4. Hangout app stop work with SMS. Beside that I can't activate the factory SMS app.
I tried to install some alternative SMS apps and all of them crash when I try to send some message.

If I send a normal Hangout everything works flawlessly, but if I select the SMS functionality the app crashes.

I check the Logcat and this exception is raised:

07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): android.telephony.CallISmsApp$NeedRetryException: getService ISmsApp is null!
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at android.telephony.CallISmsApp.getISmsApp(CallISmsApp.java:63)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at android.telephony.CallISmsApp.calculateLength(CallISmsApp.java:133)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at android.telephony.SmsMessage.calculateLength(SmsMessage.java:302)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at com.google.android.apps.babel.views.ComposeMessageView.a(SourceFile:82)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at com.google.android.apps.babel.views.ag.run(SourceFile:190)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:733)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:136)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5086)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:785)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:601)
07-14 14:09:29.970: E/CallISmsApp(11124): at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

I never developed something using SMS but it seems the service is inactive. That means the problem is with my SMS functionality of the device, not the Hangout. And before 4.4.4 all was well!

How to resolve this issue?

I see this issue quite frequently.  Hangouts will crash if you disable stock Messaging app, but you can't re-enable the Messaging app if you've disabled it before upgrading the OS.

In order to resolve you need to go into Settings -> Apps, tap the three-dot menu button, and select the "Reset app preferences" option:

This re-enables all previously disabled apps, including the ones you couldn't re-enable before.  Hangouts should also stop crashing now.


How to get the Stoock ROM from Huawei P30 lite New Edition (MAR-LX1B)? I am trying to root my new Huawei P30 lite New Edition(MAR-LX1B). I found out that there is no official version of TWRP for Huawei P30 lite New Edition(MAR-LX1B). After a long research I found out that there is a way to root without TWRP. But, you would need the stock ROM of Huawei P30 lite New Edition(MAR-LX1B).
I have long searched how to get the stock ROM, but could not find anything. So I wanted to ask if anyone knows how to get the stock ROM of Huawei P30 lite New Edition (MAR-LX1B)?

This site seems to have a link to the stock ROM. As with everything related to flashing and getting root access, do proper research as if things go wrong you might brick your phone. Also, note that I don't own your model, so can't ascertain if the file is legit or not.


Official Facebook Hello contacts/dialer app login only says "104" The Facebook Hello app https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/04/introducing-hello (released April 22, 2015 according to their post) is giving an error only saying "incorrect signature" and "104".

I am a good/loyal Facebook user so I installed the apps they suggested, grew to love using Facebook Hello the officially advocated contacts program, and now after searching several times over a year for news and not finding any clear Help article (I found a lot of still-posted promotional pieces about how great "Hello" is as the first, second, and third, result!) I am wondering what do you do?

Customer reviews at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.phone&rdid=com.facebook.phone&reviewId=gp%3AAOqpTOHZWFKjSnnjN5CrK5pmMl558_uC7NiCPu9pWIWcATy8WwuYkGe9IRmfOisfZN2fS3dlIh2cGaGO-2I&showAllReviews=true show many people also just reported a "104".

"We're moving on" is all Facebook has said since then, adding "We will be deprecating Hello in a few weeks." minus a reason, from an unknown anonymous Facebook employee author.

For some reason Facebook did not tell users who installed the HEAVILY advertised "Hello Dialer" application about (maybe with another ad equally) that they're forgetting the idea now: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/07/hello-tbh-moving-on/.

The reason you did not find information, is that recent news suggests the application in question has been deprecated officially in a quiet press release, in their news article I archived to report at http://web.archive.org/web/20190522194837/https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/07/hello-tbh-moving-on because of the secrecy, as that is fairly well hidden for a large organization, and had not been given good meta-data information, to be indexed in searches with priority.


Mobile data and Wi-Fi turning on automatically in Samsung Galaxy S3 My phone turned on Mobile data and Wi-Fi automatically. Battery also drains very fast. I checked "Mobile network usage", and turned it off for some  apps, but suddenly, I started to receive messages  "Unfortunately,  Google apps have been stopped".

I don't know what happen. What should I do resolve the issue?

As per this Thread problem was solved by below steps:

Go to Menu
Settings
More Settings
Mobile Networks
Connection Optimizer and uncheck Sprint Connection Optimizer


Atrix will boot up but unlock screen is unresponsive I'm having my first major issue with my phone, the Atrix (not Atrix 2).  The phone is stock Gingerbread, not rooted, and I don't download any dubious or non-Market apps.  While using my phone today it suddenly rebooted.  Upon reaching the unlock screen, neither the screen nor the buttons would respond to any kind of input, nor have they since.  I can't even turn on the screen by pressing the power button; I have to plug it in to the charger.  The only way to try to restart is to pull the battery.  It seems to me that the problem is with the unlock screen, which I think belongs to the launcher app.  The menu bar at the top of the screen seems to indicate that other systems are functioning properly -- the clock in the corner stays up to date, while the lock screen's clock doesn't change after booting.  The icons at the top indicate that bluetooth and wifi are active and the strength of the wifi signal varies when I move around.

Let's see, what else -- I wasn't doing anything unusual with the phone when it rebooted.  It has suddenly rebooted a couple times in the past couple days before this, but had no noticeable problems once it started back up.

Can anybody suggest what I should try next?  I'd like to avoid having to wipe it clean if possible.  I have managed to get into the boot options by holding the volume key and pressing the power button, and try to boot into recovery mode from there, but that just hung.  I have the android sdk with adb installed on my linux laptop, so i can try connecting the debugger in the morning, but i'm not sure what to try when I do.

Sorry if this is an incoherent jumble -- I'm tired and I'm going to bed.

UPDATE:

I connected the phone to my computer and looked at the logs in LogCat (I've done a little bit of Android development).  I'm not seeing any obvious signs of what the problem is.  Admittedly, I have no idea what to look for.  The closest I can get is this INFO message when I try to unclock the screen when it's active:

04-15 16:34:39.719: INFO/InputDispatcher(1652): Application is not responding: Window{40a2fb20 Keyguard paused=false}.  11148.9ms since event, 5009.5ms since wait started

and this is all that happens when I press the power but to try to turn the screen on:

04-15 16:38:00.369: DEBUG/KeyguardViewMediator(1652): wakeWhenReadyLocked(26)

There are no error stack traces being logged for either event.  Ideas???

UPDATE 2:

It appears to be the Home app. See details in the comment below.  Can I use ADB or another tool to remove and reinstall the Home app?  I know that with my own apps, I can just use adb install and adb uninstall, but I don't know if it's that simple with other apps, or where I would get a clean copy of it from.

FINAL UPDATE:

I tried everything there was to try, including writing an app to programmatically wake up and attempt to unlock the screen, which worked on my tablet but not the phone, so I could try to salvage some data.  I finally had to just do a hard reset on the phone, and that worked, so for now the phone is working again.

i had the same issue with screen not coming to live after proximity sensor has turned it off once. I tried to boot in safe-mode and the phone is working perfectly  and there is no such issue in safemode. I know this is not permanent solution (there must be some limitations of safemode, though i have no idea about them), but it atleast points us that this is not hardware problem and some application is messing up with the proximity sensor.


Any way to auto-update cyanogenmod with encryption enabled? I've been enjoying cyanogenmod a lot, but the auto-updates don't work, since I encrypted the phone.  I'd like to have both, if possible, even if there's a bit of work involved.

Is there any fix / third-party tool that can auto-update an encrypted cyanogenmod installation?

Auto updates are not available yet, but you can update your phone with this recipe:  https://www.bfccomputing.com/updating-cyanogenmod-11-kitkat-milestones-on-encrypted-devices/

Worked smoothly for me between CM 11 versions on a Galaxy Note 2 (t0lte).


How do I switch off the internet after use on the Samsung Spica? Using the Spica for the first time. How do I know if I am off the internet after using the phone to browse?

How do I know if I am off the internet after using the phone to browse?

You can look at the signal bar, the signal bar would be grayscale when it's not connected to the internet, green if it's connected, and have arrows when actively transmitting data.

  How do I switch off the internet after use on the Samsung Spica?

The phone will only connect when it needs to, such as when you're browsing or when an app needs to check for update. Unless you're charged by connection time (I don't know any carrier that does that, most critters charge by amount of transmitted data), there's no need to disable them manually when you're not using it. If you need to disable Mobile Data though, you can do that in the Settings > Wireless & Network.


How do I remove text from my lock screen on my nextbook? I downloaded the Lookout security app. The first time I installed it it asked for something to write when I report my device was stolen. After deleting the app numerous times it still will not remove the text. How do I remove it?

Assuming Lookout just used the standard "owner info" and your device uses the same...

Settings > Security > Owner info

Then uncheck "Show owner info on lock screen" or edit the text to be what you want.


When no sound comes out of wired headphones connected to "USB to headphone adapter", how do you get the sound to work? background:

I have a new phone, Google Pixel 2, that does not have a 3.5 mm headphone jack
about 4 times out of 5 times when I try to use wired headphones --> the sound does not come out of the headphones but instead is emitted from the phone's speakers

things i've tried:

I have tried unplugging and plugging in the "USB-C to 3.5 mm headphone adapter" (or just "USB to headphone adapter" for short) and sometimes this gets the audio to come out of the headphones.
But many times no matter how many times (10+ times) I try unplugging/plugging the "USB to headphone adapter" into the phone... the audio does not come out of the headphones.

When no sound comes out of wired headphones connected to "USB to headphone adapter", how do you get the sound to work?

The only workaround I have found to work reliably is:

restart the phone right before you need to use the wired headphones with the "USB to headphone adapter"
after the restart, the sound always works on my wired headphones connected to the "USB to headphone adapter"

(

Side note:

The fact that I have to restart the phone and this causes the sound to always work... IMO indicates a software issue.
Some sort of Android service that detects the adapter being plugged in is not working properly and the restart ensures that the service is working properly.
Most likely if someone with better expert knowledge knew exactly what service needed to be restarted... restarting that service would be a better solution (probably faster to restart one service instead of the whole phone... and doesn't interrupt what you are doing on the phone like a restart).

)


Will my rooted Samsung Galaxy Notes 3 get Android update automatically? I have a Samsung Galaxy Notes 3 with Android 4.x. I now know there is Android 5.x.

Will it be upgraded automatically at the right time. If not, should I consider doing it myself?

(Phone is not tied to a carrier, rooted)

Missing in above edit question:

I would like to know to what extent phones do get automatic upgrades?
(Like is it only very resent ones)

About looking for manual upgrades - it seems to me that if an upgrade is pushed, it is a reason for it?  So you should probably only do it if you have a good reason, and know what you are doing?

I always upgrade my phone because I like to be up to date with sw; indeed I bought a Nexus 5 to get fast upgrades. This way I always have the latest functionalities and improvements. It seems that you will get the lollipop update (see here), so you may as well install it. If you cannot chose, try reading the change-log to see whether there is a Stagefright fix or not. If there is update without hesitating!


What is "Kies via Wi-Fi" in S3? I see that "Kies via Wi-Fi" sends only 2.3 kb and receives only 876 bytes the last four hours in my phone, but it uses 26 mins of my phone CPU time and 20% of my phone battery. Is it something that I can stop it? If yes, how to stop it?

Thanks

Kies via WiFi (a stock ROM app) connects your phone to the Kies software on your computer via WiFi.

I am on CM10.1, which doesn't have Kies via WiFi. BUT, there is probably a setting in the Kies via WiFi app that lets you disable the auto-connect function.


How big is Gingerbread 2.3.5 on internal 8GB memory? How much space does the Gingerbread version 2.3.5 occupy on the internal memory drive ?
I've bought the Samsung Galaxy Player 5.0 and it promised  8GB, when I checked the size it said 5GB and only 4.85GB are actually available. What's going on ?

This seems pretty normal. The 8GB iPod Touch is similar - iOS takes a significant portion of its storage.

The device itself has 8GB of storage, but any OS takes space - particularly Samsung's flavor of Android, which has a lot of stuff added (Which, unfortunately, they don't want you to be able to remove).


How to access PC disk from adb shell? My emulator can't do adb root. Anyway, I can do adb shell and then do su and get root to do my things. But how to copy some file from my PC to connected device using adb shell? Where can I access my disk? cp Mypc/somefile /Myandroid/comewhere ?

EDIT: I can't also do adb pull :(

Lol, I just set everything to 777 with su:

x86_64:/ $ su
x86_64:/ # chmod 777 /data/mi
misc/     misc_ce/  misc_de/
x86_64:/ # chmod 777 /data/misc
x86_64:/ # chmod 777 /data/misc/
adb/              cameraserver/     media/            shared_relro/     vold/
audioserver/      dhcp/             net/              sms/              vpn/
bluedroid/        ethernet/         perfprofd/        systemkeys/       wifi/
bluetooth/        gatekeeper/       profiles/         trace/            zoneinfo/
bootstat/         keychain/         profman/          update_engine/
boottrace/        keystore/         radio/            user/
x86_64:/ # chmod 777 /data/misc/key
keychain/  keystore/
x86_64:/ # chmod 777 /data/misc/keystore/
x86_64:/ # chmod 777 /data/misc/keystore/user_0/
x86_64:/ # chmod 777 /data/misc/keystore/user_0/*
chmod: /data/misc/keystore/user_0/*: No such file or directory
1|x86_64:/ # chmod 777 /data/misc/keystore/user_0/*
chmod: /data/misc/keystore/user_0/*: No such file or directory
1|x86_64:/ #

And it worked :)))

marat@marat-desktop ~/Desktop> adb push charles-ssl-proxying-certificate.cer /data/misc/keystore/user_0/charles-ssl-proxying-certificate.cer
charles-ssl-proxying-certificate.cer: 1 file pushed. 5.4 MB/s (1348 bytes in 0.000s)
marat@marat-desktop ~/Desktop>


HTC Desire 510 Ghost texting I am having a issue where my phone would sometimes "ghost text" a HTC customer support called it. I think its just heating up when it happens but i'm not sure of the issue. When I text it would randomly start hitting things I did not hit. I noticed when I blow on the screen it also does this. Any ideas or fixes would be greatly appreciated.

Well, I don't think I have any idea about it other than heading over to the nearest store to fix this one up ! It might be happening because of some hardware issues which can only be fixed by heading to the support centre.


YouTube app not preloading I have a Nexus 7 running 4.4.2. I have one video in my "Watch Later" list in the YouTube app, which successfully preloaded a few weeks ago. I have the preload setting activated.

I have added a second video to the list, but it will not start preloading. The device is connected to a wifi network with excellent signal strength and is connected to a computer via the USB cable to charge. The battery icon indicates that it is charging.

I removed the video from the list, restarted the YouTube app and added it again, but it will not start preloading. Any ideas?

Preloading no longer available on version 5.6 and above.

source


Google restore after reflash to fix bootloop ends in bootloop I have an S3 Duo+ (s3ve3g) running CM12.1. Phone suddenly went into a boot loop, could boot into safe mode ok but not main. Cleared the dalvik and let it rebuild with same result.

Booted into recovery, did a TWRP backup then cleared data, cache, system, dalvik and installed the CM ROM plus GAPPS. Booted ok, logged into google and let it download its recovery. And we're back in the bootloop.

Does this suggest that the bootloop is being caused by a recently updated program, or does Google restore settings and/or data that could cause this?

Any suggestions on how best to proceed would be really appreciated.

No answers, so this is what I did: selectively restored parts of the google restore to identify the rogue application, then did a google restore of every but that.

The first part took about a week, the final restore took 2 1/2 days.


CyanogenMod no keyboard I have cyanogen mod on my Motorola Xoom. I did a reset and now I cannot access my keyboard. It's says 'unfortunately keyboard has stopped working.' I'm not connected to the internet. What can I do? Thanks

If you don't have access to internet than you can't do anything, however if you have internet on your PC and USB cable or your friend have internet on their phone you can download .apk file of let's say GBoard from apkmirror.com and transfer it to your phone via USB/Bluetooth and than install (first enable unknown sources in settings>security). And set new keyboard as default in settings> language and keyboard. If you new keyboard crashes as old one let me know, on CM for my old phone I had to delte some lib file to make keyboards work.


How do I make my phone number appear in my friends' phones? I updated my number on Google+, but that's not displayed in my friends' phone or their Google Contacts. It appears when they see my Google+ profile, though.

Other users' address books are not synced with your G+ profile AFAIK.  Your friends would have to either manually update their Google account contacts on the web or manually update their address book on their phone.  Either way, if sync is turned on for that account on a friend's phone, updating the one will update the other.


How can I remove the default Google Account on my phone? I no longer want to link my default Google Account on my phone. I have a Nexus One runnin 2.2.1.

How can I unlink my Google account?

Set up a new gmail account (you have to have one associated with the phone). Next, on your phone go to settings > applications > manage applications > gmail and choose "clear all data" do this for gtalk and google voice too if you have them set up. This should prompt you to start the account setup on the phone where you'll enter your new gmail acct info.


Why does my Moto X phone support mDNS but my Samsung Tablet does not? I have a device that is broadcasting mDNS, I am using this app to view it in the Bonjour Browser:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.he.networktools&hl=en

On my Samsung Tablet, it cannot find my device.
On my Moto X, the device comes up in the bonjour browser list.

Why does my device show up on the bonjour browser of my Moto X and not my Samsung Tablet? (and how do I fix it?????)

My Samsung tablet cannot detect mDNS packets. I tried the code here and it failed on my Tablet but worked fine on my MotoX. http://cafbit.com/entry/testing_multicast_support_on_android

The standard Android distribution (as of version 6.0) doesn’t support mDNS resolution nor announce it’s device name on mDNS yet. So it’s up the device manufacturer to add support.

I’ll investigate how much effort it would be to write a mDNS client for Android to announce a device name. Shouldn’t be too complicated, though mDNS resolution wouldn’t be possible for an app at the current API limitations.


Does NFC enabled phone means the phone has an NFC tag inside? I would like to clarify what it means when Android phone is a "NFC enabled phone" (example list on RapidNFC).

Does this mean the following:

The phone can read and write NFC tags?
The phone should also have a NFC tag inside so others can read them?

I believe it only means #1 but it can also mean #2 is existing. Do we have a definitive list when #2 is supported?

Also what does the NFC chip compatibility means? The phone can read does type of NFC tags?

Can my phone write NFC tags?

Your phone can read and write NFC tags, but only if the tags are writable. Many are read-only, or are write-once.

Is my phone an NFC chip itself?

Yes, your has an NFC chip, in a sense. It is merely a much more advanced one, as it uses the phones processor to do logic and respond.

All unpowered NFC tags have a tiny chip that responds when powered (the scan itself provides enough electric energy to power a standalone NFC chip). There is nothing particularly special about it, other than the very limited capabilities and very low power requirements. Some NFC chips even do a secure handshake, such as credit card chips; They don't just respond with a preprogrammed response.

Your phone is just as much of an NFC tag as any other. However, you can actually control the response it sends, and you can even disable the NFC sensor to prevent scans.

One big difference is that the phone must be powered on to respond. Unlike NFC tags you are familiar with, a phone does not have a low powered processor capable of responding using the energy solely provided by the scanner. So, in that sense, your phone does not have an NFC tag.

But if a phone has an NFC scanner, it by definition can also take on the role of an NFC receiver (aka tag). It is the same frequency and technology, and all that matters is which end initiates the scan. An NFC tag can only respond; your phone can do both roles.

Why are some NFC tags not supported?

Not all NFC tags run on the same frequency. There are competing standards, and some phones can read certain sets others can't.


Qualcomm HSUSB device driver issue I have a Qualcomm HS-USB device on which I want to test my developed application. The problem I am facing is that the device drivers are not getting installed. I have tried the following steps:

Downloaded the Google USB drivers (latest).
Downloaded the ZTE USB drivers (the device is ZTE manufactered).
This device I have configured earlier also on a Windows 7 system and it worked fine. I dont know why it is not working this time on a new Windows 7 system.

Please help me to make the device driver work. Or please tell me if there is any other solution to this.

As for all driver problems, you should first try the following:

Disconnect the device
Uninstall all drivers for it
Reboot
Install the official drivers (probably the ZTE-specific ones)
Reboot
Connect the device


Soft bricked Sony Xperia M I was trying to unlock the boot loader of my Sony Xperia M.
May be I undertook a wrong step and bricked my phone.
It doesn't have recovery mode.
How can I solve the issue
Please help

You need to flash the phone to solve the brick. This works on locked and unlocked bootloader.

Download the firmware (search on Google)
Download and Install the flash tool. The default directory of installation of flash tool will be C:\Flashtool
Open the drivers (C:\Flashtool\Drivers) directory and install the Flash mode and Fast boot drivers.
Now Open Flash Tool. Click on the “Black Lightning icon” at the top left corner.
Then choose flashmode from given two options.
Now browse to  where you saved the firmware previously download.
See the right hand side of window under the “Wipe” tag,.  If you don’t want to delete all user  data and don’t want a factory reset then you should uncheck them.
Click on “Flash” button.
After clicking on “Flash” Button in above step, now FlashTool will prepare file. When prompted the notification of connecting your phone, connect it in flashmode: Press Volume down button and then insert usb in phone.
Wait untill the process finishes. Et voilà, your phone should boot normally.


Is it possible to use mobile minutes on a tablet Is it possible to make phone calls from a tablet and use minutes instead of data?

The ultimate goal is to have a tablet (e.g. nexus 7) and a Bluetooth headset and make phone calls without using up all my data.

I was looking into SIM cards to see if a different kind if card would produce the desired result, but I couldn't get a clear answer.

It depends on the tablet. Not all 3G tablets have the facility to make voice calls (just like a phone), but some do. Some have the hardware and OS support, and you just need to install a dialer app to use it; some don't even have the right hardware. The Nexus 7 in particular doesn't.

You should check with the seller or the manufacturer's website before you choose a device.


Why wont apk files download I used to be able to install apk files on my phone before I factory reset it and now it does not work
I have a sony m5

In your settings there is an option to allow APKs from unknown locations. This is under Security for me, can't be sure where yours is but it will be there. A factory reset most likely returned it to the default off state.


Samsung Galaxy S3 choosing contact for text..takes forever to come up When I am sending a text and i type in the name for the contact it takes several mins for the contact for to come up..this is very aggravating when you need to send a text fast..how to i fix this????

If your contacts are stored on a SD card you may have a faulty SD card. Try moving your contacts to the device storage or sync them to your Google contacts.


Page Down and Page Up Don't Work So I have an external keyboard plugged into my android device that has Page Down and Page Up keys but they don't work in anything but I think the Chrome web browser.

Is there a fix for this?

This is related but doesn't tackle the same issue Page up and page down in web pages and elsewhere

So I have experimented with this a lot and basically have concluded that Android devices were not intended to be operated this way.

Even Chromebook's running Android apps don't support the PageDown key.


'Ok Google' doesn't work on LG G3 Recently the "Ok Google" feature no longer works on my LG G3, unless I factory reset my settings. But after a few hours it stops working again even if I don't change any of my settings back. I even upgraded my phone to Lollipop, but that didn't help either. Also, I tried reprogramming my voice back into my phone via "Google settings", but it won't pick up my voice either.
So long story short the only way I can get it to pick up my voice is by clicking the microphone.

Make sure "ok  Google" detection is on for every screen. Do this by opening the Google app, navigate to settings > voice > "ok Google detection" and make sure the "from any sceen" option is enabled. Hopefully this solves your problem.


Privacy with third-party accounts with Gmail app When I add a third-party account (POP/IMAP) to the Gmail app, do emails for that account go through Google servers or directly to my phone? Is there a way to know whether the incoming or outgoing connections are secure (use SSL/TLS)?

On your device, Install Packet Capture and you must install it's Certificate to decrypt SSL packets.
Start Capture with Packet Capture.
Launch your Gmail App and try to send a test email with your non-google account.
Return to Packet capture and verify the sent packet.


Recovering google authenticator codes on a broken phone So recently my galaxy s3's screen broke and I lost my Google authentactor app. I thought I had all the backup codes stored in my laptop but when I went to recover them I found out that one of my family members decided to go on a cleaning spree and deleted a bunch of files because they "didn't know what they for" So my question is there anyway to recover the codes off of my old phone?

You cannot recover codes from this app as it produces new ones every minute and doesn't provide Backup codes functionality. Perhaps, file recovery software might help you in recovering them from laptop but that's more like an opportunity lost here.

I always have my backup codes saved in a cloud in case any tragedy occurs.


Download AT&T OTA update while out of country I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 that I want to install Android 5.1 on.  AT&T released this as an OTA last year (https://www.att.com/devicehowto/tutorial.html#!/stepbystep/id/stepbystep_KM1143907?make=Samsung&model=GalaxyS4I337), but I whenever I check for updates it says nothing is available.  The phone is currently running Android 4.4.

Could this be because I'm currently living abroad and accessing the internet via local Wi-Fi?  Is there another way to get the update?

You need to be connected to the AT&T network to receive the update, which isn't possible if you're abroad.

If you can't get the update through auto updates on your phone, or via Kies, then you can download the firmware and use Odin to flash it.

I found this answer helpful, as well as this tutorial that shows you step by step how to do it.


Opening incognito tab in chrome when swiping on chrome icon? As you all know that Nova Launcher allows assigning swipe actions to icons on home screen. For example I have attached the swipe action on the dialer to call home directly.

Now I am trying to assign the activity to chrome so that when I swipe the chrome icon it opens the chrome in incognito mode.
I have tried assigning the activities from chrome but it does not have separate incognito function.

So I was wondering to any of you guys know anything of this sort can be done.

I don't believe this is possible. According to this Reddit post it is not possible when writing an app as the Chrome code ignores the request if it is not Chrome initiating it, so an app or user cannot trigger the incognito tab. I assume the same applies when trying to launch the activity 'manually'.

  So what these are doing, is checking whether the intent should be ignored based on whether it is the user or chrome performing the action. They make this determination based on whether there is a token from a signed Google app. So unless there is a way to trick find that token and figure out how to attach it to Tasker I don't think it'll work.


Google Voice Search no longer automatically takes action I was recently using my phone and noticed something odd. Previously, when I used Google Voice Search, and I said something like "Set a timer for 10 minutes", my phone would recognize that I wanted to set a timer, and if I took no action, would automatically start the timer after a short duration. Now, when I take this action, the phone recognizes the voice command, but only has a button labelled "Start Timer".

I'm not sure what in particular has changed, but I haven't found any similar problems via Googling. The only thing I can think of is that I recently upgraded to Cyanogenmod M11.

How can I regain the previous behaviour of Google Voice Search?

Same here on Xperia Z2..

If you uninstall updates to the Google search app functionality is restored so it is definitely a Google update


Can we install Android 4.4 factory image on Samsung Galaxy Core? Google has released Android 4.4 factory image for Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 today. The steps to install Android 4.4 factory image in nexus 4 is

Download the factory image corresponding to your device's model and version
Extract the downloaded file and cd into the extracted directory.
run adb reboot-bootloader
run ./flash-all.sh

Can I follow the same steps and install the above Android 4.4 in Samsung Galaxy Core or in Galaxy Grand? Any help will be highly appreciated?

No, you can't. Those ROMs are intended for those devices only. Flashing a ROM that is not compatible with the device can brick the device.

You should wait for 4.4 ROMs for your devices.


Use laptop's keyboard shortcut in in Android device I am using Ubuntu 18.04 with Genymotion version 3.1.0 for my laptop. How do I use the laptop's keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V in the installed android device?

Genymotion added support for copy and paste around their 2.1.0 version release.  The host device and virtual device share a clipboard so copy/paste is possible.
There are a few ways to copy/paste into an Android emulated device:

long press on a text entry field and then choose "paste".
menu+c/menu+v if your keyboard has this button.  It looks like this.

Sometimes this is called the "application" key.  See: https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/keyboard-key-menu.html.en

Change the IME to a keyboard that supports ctrl or alt for copy/paste.

I haven't used Genymotion in quite some time, but I would also try digging around its settings to see if there are key remapping options for things like copy/paste.


Is there a DLNA enabled media player for Android? Is there a DLNA compatible media player app available for Android?

UPnPlay is an Alpha release and apparently still a bit glitchy, but still some positive reviews.


How to always resolve a domain name to a fixed IP without rooting? The financial website https://wex1.in got it’s domain name deleted but it’s still possible to reach it by adding 104.25.31.35 wex1.in to etc/hosts files on a ᴘᴄ.

So how to access the website without editing /etc/hosts?

There are a few options you can go with:

Enter IP address directly (with port 80 or 443) to web browser's address bar instead of domain name. But this won't work if web server relies on host header or SNI for virtually hosting multiple websites on same IP address.

It's possible to use VpnService API of Android to capture all DNS traffic without rooting phone. That's how apps like this and this work. Then the VPN app may use a custom hosts file before making queries to configured upstream DNS server. Virtual Hosts is an open-source app to achieve this.

As suggested by @iBug, you can setup a DNS server (locally or on cloud) and configure your phone to use that for DNS queries. For instance if using dnsmasq, add address=/wex1.in/104.25.31.35 to “dnsmasq.conf”. Or on dnscrypt-proxy add wex1.in 104.25.31.35 to “cloaking-rules.txt”.
Similarly other DNS servers can be configured to return a predefined IP address for a specific name.

Configure phone to use a proxy or VPN and then add the entry 104.25.31.35 wex1.in in hosts file on proxy server or run a local DNS server on VPN server.

If you don't want to root the device but bootloader is unlocked (or possible to unlock) and a custom recovery is available, mount /system in recovery and edit hosts file there. Set proper permissions; ownership, mode and SELinux label.
If you don't want to modify /system partition (e.g. to not break dm-verity or OTAs), it's possible to bind mount a custom hosts file from somewhere on /data. But that would require some extra effort like defining an init service, modifying SELinux policy etc.

Make sure not to use Private DNS (on Android 9+) so that DNS queries always go on port 53 unencrypted.
PS: Same methods can be used to block ads without rooting phone.


Moving or hiding the system bar I find that the system bar (containing the back, home, recent application, and status menu buttons) at the bottom of my android tablet often interferes with typing. Is there currently a method to reposition the bar to the top of the screen? The closest application I've found is Hidebar, but it only works on Honeycomb.

may be you can use another home screen called "Launcher Pro" Free version.

In the setting there is an option to hide the system bar. you can try it out if you like the home screen. though i like it better than stock home screen.


Internal memory almost full I've got Samsung Galaxy J5 with Marshmallow 6.0.1 and in this phone I've got internal memory of 8 gb and a memory card of 8gb. I've stored every little picture and audio in external memory and many apps too but the system memory takes up 3.28gb and the apps take 3.83gb and there's no space left after that. I don't know what to do I don't even have many apps and games in this phone. Please help me on how to save up internal memory space without having to move everything to external memory?!!

Adopt SD card so it becames like internal storage, but backup data from SD first. Also you can disable (uninstall updates) for google apps you don't need.


Android asks me for USB debugging permission on one computer, but not another I have two Ubuntu machines, a laptop and a tower. ADB works on the tower but not on the laptop. I'm using the same Android device on each, with the same adbkey and adbkey.pub. On my tower, ADB works - I can access the shell, etc. However, the moment I plug the device into my laptop, I get the "Allow USB debugging?" popup on the Android device. This is a problem because this device is non standard hardware with no touchscreen, so I have no way of clicking Yes. How can I troubleshoot this and get ADB working on my laptop?

The device is running Android 5.1.1.

This was due to missing udev rules on my laptop which I'd forgotten I'd set up on my tower. You can find information on setting up udev rules elsewhere, but I'll post the exact steps I took here (which I got from my company's internal help wiki - remember we use weird hardware, so I can't guarantee this will work in all cases).

Create a file at /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules with the following contents:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0e79", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0502", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0b05", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="413c", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0489", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="091e", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="18d1", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="12d1", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="24e3", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2116", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0482", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="17ef", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1004", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="22b8", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0409", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2080", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0955", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2257", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10a9", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1d4d", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0471", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="04da", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="05c6", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1f53", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="04e8", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="04dd", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0fce", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0930", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="19d2", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1bbb", MODE="0666"

Then run:

sudo chmod 644 /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
sudo chown root. /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
sudo service udev restart
sudo killall adb

Disconnect and reconnect the device physically, then start using adb.


Update to Android 5.0 Lollipop on Nexus 7 I currently own a Nexus 7 (2013) device, but after updating the OS several times, I am stuck at Android 4.4.4. I know that Android 5.0 Lollipop has been released for the Nexus 7, but I don't know why I can't download it.

Is there a way for me to download it without sideloading/factory imaging my device?

First of all, you get updates to your device from google on the basis of the date on which you bought the device. That is if you bought a tab 5 months ago and one yesterday the one which was bought earlier will receive update first. So don't worry when you have upgrade chance you will be notified.

Did your tab notified you that you have a upgrade available?
If yes did you actually download the upgrade for 5.0?


How to be alerted when to get off the train? Let's say I'm playing a game, reading a book, surfing the net or watching a video and I'm getting close to my stop. Is there some way (perhaps an app) that can alert me that it's time to get off?

Other situations where this app would be useful

Dark platforms at night where it's difficult to see where I'm at
Crowded services where I just can't see out the window reliably
Travel in a foreign country where signage is in a different script
Travelling along unfamiliar routes
Useful for other modes of public transport as well

How it would work

I imagine an app like this would allow the user to configure the location of the stop via maps and set the amount of lead time (e.g. I want to be alerted five minutes before we arrive). The app would then monitor progress along the route and also estimate the lead time based on progress so far or some other smart means.

Any ideas?

Ask your railway company. Or your government. Or both.

The Dutch Railways (NS) has an app where you can plan train trips, but also get notifications when you need to check in and out and change trains, and realtime information about delays and schedule changes.

And since all Public Transport data is freely available in my country (and some others), there are other apps that can do the exact same.

So just search for the names of your transportation comnpanies in the Play Store, and see what you find. You may be surprised.


How to Sync Text Messages from Outlook 2010 to Android I went from the HTC "Tilt" running Windows 6.1 to the Samsung INFUSE running Android. I use an exchange server plus Outlook 2010 at my office. I can no longer send/receive text messages from my desktop. Everything else sync's fine. Does Android support an exchange between the PDA and the desktop for text messages?

SMS Backup + will sync SMS messages to your GMail account, you can then sync those to your outlook using Google Apps Sync.


How to find out which apps are creating *.space files in Internal Storage? There is a folder at internal memory:  .space/

Inside it has one folder that is a big hash name (probably sha1sum), and inside that folder there are lots of files (also named as a hash something like 60b725f10c9c85c70d97880dfe8191b3.space) occupying 2.7GB of my smartphone precious internal memory.

In hexa/chars/bytes, thru X-Plore File Manager, I saw that they begin with "PK", which means they are ZIP files. So, after renaming them to .ZIP, I saw many pictures inside them that were all about games, and the manifest.xml was Uber annoying to try to read.

My conclusion, they were all unwanted, unasked, auto-downloaded .ZIP (.APK?) games.

Now I need to stop  the app doing that kind of thing on my precious cellphone's memory.

It looks like a malicious or spamming app. Did you download any app from a suspicious looking website in a date close to the date the .space files were created/modified, as mentioned in the explorer app? Then that downloaded app could be the culprit.

It is not usually possible to directly check what app downloads a specific file, but you can try checking Data Usage and look for apps using suspiciously large bandwidth amounts.

The location of the Data Usage statistics is sometimes different depending on the device and the Android version, but you can usually find the statistics in Settings > Wireless & Networks > Data Usage. If you can't find it there you can try typing "Data Usage" in the settings search box. You can choose to show Wi-Fi usage from the menu button on top right corner, and then you can look for any suspicious apps using large amounts of bandwidth and uninstall them.


Galaxy Note 3 - Is there a way to add more apps to use when drawing a 'Pen Window'? Is there a way to add more applications in the list that appears when you press the button on the S-Pen and select "Pen Window" to draw a floating application?

It would be really nice if you could open a floating twitter or Facebook application.

Without root it is up to the developer of the particular application, and chances are there aren't enough Note 3s out there to justify it.
There is an S-Pen SDK from Samsung
There are lists (but these will often be out of date in no time)  like this best S-Pen apps out there.

With root access  there is a way to open any app in Pen Window Mode

First, make sure you are rooted with busybox installed.
Second, make a backup.
Third, just download PenWindowManager_v1.apk  and install as normal.
Finally, just tick the apps you want and don't forget to press the save button. A soft reboot maybe required for the changes to take effect.


usb otg thermal printer interface to android tab with usb device I have printer with USB OTG capability which I want to use with my Android Tab (as USB device).

Is this possible -- and if so, will it work for all Android versions from 2.3 up? Is there any driver needed for this communication?

Did you try this App?  Supports Ethernet, USB or Serial (with serial-USB adapter).
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=qsrtech.posprintdriver

Also, try this app from Opera Mobile Store. If this app doesn't work with your printer, send printer profile to the app server. They might add support.
http://apps.opera.com/en_in/usb_printer_driver_21_developer_edition.html


How to make an incoming call in genymotion emulator in android? How can I make an incoming call in genymotion emulator in android?

I am using genymotion emulator to run and test my app.

In the native emulator DDMS, we can make a fake call. Can this be done using the genymotion emulator?

Hey i found call function in geymotion :) #thanks @Rajkiran

The Phone widget allows to test applications relying on telephony features and observe their behavior when receiving a call or a text message.

To use the Phone widget, click  or Ctrl + 8.
To simulate an incoming call:
1.Enter an incoming phone number.
2.Click Call.

To simulate an incoming message:

1.Enter an incoming phone number.
 2.Enter a text message.
 3.Click Send message.

The text message is displayed in the virtual device via a notification and can also be read in the Messaging application.

:( This feature is only available with Indie and Business licenses.


Do I root to my model, or my version number? When I rooted my last phone, I was able to find a detailed tutorial made specifically for the model I had. It was great, because I knew I had fully compatible tools and ROMs, which limited my amount of fumbling around.

I don't see anything out there for my new (to me) phone. I've seen generic guides for my Android version, but since it's specific to my carrier, I am wondering if I can just jump right in and start trying it out.

In order to root an Android phone, you have to take into account the Manufacturer of the phone and the Model, and also you need to take into account the Android Version installed. The process to root a phone is based on some exploit in the system, and each Android version with each model has a different method, which takes advantage of different exploits.
There are common exploits across some models, but in general, you need to look for a rooting method for your phone model and the Android Version it has.
I have used this page on some occasions to look for tutorials, but you can also look in xda developers


ProxyDroid not working I am using connectify + proxy droid, yet only proxydroid seems to connect to the internet, while nothing else works.

Proxydroid connects in the sense that, it loads ads.

Nothing else works.

I'm rooted.

Is there any alternative way to set system wide proxy access? Nothing seems to be working. I tried autoproxy also.

Help.

Hmmm. Did you definitely tick the 'Transparent Proxy' option? That tells it to make everything go through the proxy.

Another thing I have noticed when using it is that it can be quite specific with a proxy - my school uses microsoft tmg, and has the proxy as 'tmg' in browsers, but proxydroid needs the full URL to the system (which is TMG.academy.(myschoolwebsiteurl).co.uk)


Renaming a contact group on Android Is there any way to rename a contact group on the HTC Desire?

Via "Edit Group" in People you can add and remove members, but the title doesn't seem to be editable.

I could add a new group of course and move contacts over, but unless there's an easy way to do this en-mass this would be inconvenient.

Go to www.google.com and sign in. Click settings in the top right corner. Then click on "Dashboard      View data stored with this account". This will take you to your dashboard. Scroll down and you can manage contacts. The only group names you can edit are the ones you created yourself. The default Google ones are not editable.


Front camera on Nexus 4: no HDR, and downgraded from 2MP to 1.2MP? In Nexus 4, why is the front camera downgraded to 1.2 MP only, as it was 2MP initially? And also, we had an option of HDR in that as well, which is absent in Lollipop 5.0.1?

From GSM Arena, the secondary (front) camera has 1.3 MP, and the camera settings provide 1.2 MP as the highest, so I'm not sure if it was 2 MP before. (Camera resolution is related tightly to hardware capability, so it's strange to be able to have higher resolution in the first place).

As for missing HDR, it seems it's caused by Google Camera, as reported by other on Google Product Forum. Google Camera is the default camera app on Lollipop. Previously, Android uses AOSP (Android Open Source Project) Camera as the default camera app, and it supports HDR on front camera. The intended solution is to use AOSP camera back, as some people have ported and published them on Play Store, since it's open-source:

Nexus Camera: KitKat Camera (free)
Camera KK (adware)


Device does not boot after crash without power plug In the last few weeks I'm faced with a somehow strange behaviour of my Android device (Samsung Galaxy S4 Active, GT-I9295, Android 4.2.2, Kernel-Version 3.4.0-2015525):

If the phone crashes resulting in power-off when doing some CPU or network intensive task, it is not possible to boot it afterwards unless it is plugged into the power outlet. Even using a so called Battery Power pack as external power supply doesn't help.

In some cases, it boots until the PIN input. In other cases, it completely refuses to boot.

Any suggestion?

Problem solved: the reason was a defect in the battery. There was a small crack over the side of the battery. It was replaced by the shop where I bought the Phone last year.


The vibrate mode on my phone will not work My phone will not vibrate on vibrate mode. It will not vibrate on the sound mode (which is what I have it set on). When i get a text or notification it has to be on full volume to make a sound or silent. It will not vibrate at all, not for a call or for a text. and my phone is HTC desire 810

How to fix vibrate in my samsung galaxy phone

Remove the battery from your phone for 30 seconds and then re-insert it before powering the device back on.

check, first if this issue is caused by a third party app installed in your phone by starting your device in Safe Mode. Once in this mode observe your phone and see if the vibrate changes on its own. If it doesn’t then the problem is most likely caused by a third party app installed in your phone. Find out what app this is and uninstall it.

Factory reset your device but be aware that this will wipe all user data such as your contacts, photos, app data, etc. Make sure you backup first.

If the problem persists, it means that the microphone is damaged. You should take your device to a repair shop to get it fixed or replaced.

Source - http://www.gogorapid.com/how-to-fix-vibrate-not-working/


Delivery of SMS from blocked contact I would appreciate if someone could please let me know about the following:

When I block SMS messages from a contact and then eventually unblock it, then will I see all the messages that have been sent to me during the time the contact was blocked?
When I block a contact for incoming SMS messages, will the contact be blocked for incoming calls as well?
How do I know if my SMS messages has been delivered and/or read by the recipient?

[My device is BlackBerry Priv (Android)].

No, you can't see.
No, blocking messages is different from blocking calls.
After your message is delivered you 'll see a single tick

For more options use Private space, Handcent SMS apps.


Recover pending text messages deleted before sent Last night I got a number from a girl, I tried to send her a message, but it hung on "message sending".

I decided to delete the message without saving the number to my phone, and the whole thread disappeared. Now I want the number back.

I have tried to access it from my carrier but they don't have it on there because the message wasn't sent in the first place.

Any ideas on how to recover it? I am using a Motorola Atrix 4G.

It is extremely unlikely that you can recover the text message itself, but you can try following something like this.

If you haven't rebooted your phone, you could also try running this from your PC while your phone is connected:

adb shell "logcat | grep handleSmsReceived"

The output will look like:

D/Mms/Txn ( 9092): handleSmsReceived messageUri: content://sms/789, address: +15551234567, body: this is a text message

If you don't have ADB installed, you can get it from the Android SDK Tools.


Alcatel One Touch S'Pop remap power button How can I remap the camera button to work as a power button?
I have a rooted Alcatel One Touch S'Pop.
I edited system/usr/keylayout/Generic.kl by copy-pasting POWER WAKE string from the power button to the camera button, turned off the phone and reinserted the battery. Nothing happened. The camera button still activates camera. Now I restored the old file.
In system/usr/keylayout folder, I have these files:

ACCDET.kl
AVRCP.kl
Generic.kl
hid-keyboard.kl
mhl-keyboard.kl
mtk-kpd.kl
qwerty.kl
Vendor_05ac_Product_0239.kl
Vendor_22b8_Product_093d.kl
Vendor_045e_Product_028e.kl
Vendor_046d_Product_c216.kl
Vendor_046d_Product_c294.kl
Vendor_046d_Product_c299.kl
Vendor_046d_Product_c532.kl
Vendor_054c_Product_0268.kl

Which one should I edit?
Thank you for your help and time.

Try with the file mtk-kpd.kl and change these values. First, make a backup of that file.

key 116 GRAVE
key 212 POWER      WAKE
Key 211 POWER      WAKE


How can I trick or force an app to work on an unsupported device? I recently purchased an iMito MX1 mini-pc. I was disappointed to find that Hulu Plus is not fully supported on my device. I am able to download the app just fine, but I get an in-app error message that tells me that I am able to browse videos through the app, but video playback is not supported.

I have root access and was hoping that editing the build.prop file would trick the app into thinking that my device was supported, but no luck.

Is there any other way to force or trick an app into working on an unsupported device?

You can't FORCE it to work. There may be tricks you can play to fake the app into thinking it's on another device, but for the specific app given (video playback), it's almost certainly refusing to playback because it CAN'T.

The hardware on the device is probably something that the devs didn't anticipate, or that the app can tell isn't fast enough to actually work. Even if you find some way to fake it out and make it try, it's only going to crash or play back so slowly that it will be unwatchable.


How to root Casio Commando phone I have the latest version of the Casio Commando.  I can't seem to get it to be rooted.  It is running the latest update and so its at Android 2.3.  Anyone know if it is possible, I remember reading somewhere that Casio locked down this phone and so access to the bootloader is next to impossible.

As of 10/20/12, no one has ever rooted the Commando. XDA Developers forum is home to some of the innovators in the Droid world, and no one there has yet come up with a way.

Couple of reference points for you:

Casio G'zOne Commando
[Q] Casio Commando 2.3.3 root-impossible


How to resolve that both Wifi Hotspot and USB Tethering need reboot to work? I am using a Huawei Honor Device running the official Ice Cream Sandwich. I use the wifi tethering quite often to get my notebook online, and realized following behavior:

I am connected to Wifi. Everything works fine.
After a random while, between 15 minutes or 4 hours, the Internet connection times out on my notebook.
Internet is still working on the device itself though.
My notebook is shown as connected on the overview list via its MAC Address
Disabling, enabling Wifi Tethering does not resolve this.
Only cause of action: reboot the whole phone and then start wifi tethering again.

I am wondering if this is an issue known to multiple Android devices or if this is a hardware issue. If this is software-related, I also am wondering what I could do to resolve this. Factory reset should only be last resort and I am hoping to avoid that.

UPDATE: This also happens on USB tethering. This makes me think that the issue is unrelated to either wifi or USB, but resides somewhere in the way Android handles the Internet connection. It just suddenly loses connection.

I to am using my phone as a 3G modem and sometimes this happens when I messed up some settings in the phone. I just clear the Settings data on my phone and it returns to normal.

Open Settings app
Go to Apps
Go to ALL tab
find the Settings app
open it and Clear Data
try tethering again

this usually fixes the wifi dropping while tethering issue on my xperia play
If your internet keeps timing out while you're connected then it might be also a network issue, or your phone automatically disconnecting from the network due to inactivity. If you frequently take a break using the internet but like to keep the connection alive then I'd recommend using a pinger


Always seeing "No connection: Retry" in Android Market I have an HTC Touch with Froyo installed that I use for app development. I haven't used it for a couple of months, and when I fired it up today I'm seeing the same error every time I launch the Market app: No connection and a Retry button. It doesn't matter how many times I hit Retry, I just end up back in the same place. The phone definitely has a solid Wi-Fi connection though and all other online apps (browser, Twitter, etc.) are working well.

I've tried force stopping the Market and restarting, clearing its data and uninstalling updates, all to no avail. What can be causing this error?

The answer is that the date/time settings were incorrect. The device had been off for so long that the clock had reset. Once I set the correct date and time the Market app ran normally.


Migrate Clash of Clans data from Android to iOS I have a CoC account on my iPad. I got an Android phone and set up a second account there. Now I got a new iPhone and I want to use my Android CoC account on that, but when I log in my iPhone, it pulls the one I have on iPad.

I have logged out of Game Center but no idea how to move into my Google account on the iPhone to pull that account over.

You just need to link your ios device to android device

Log in to Apple-account/game center on both devices.
After that follow the steps-

On android device, go to settings inside Clash of Clans
Press "Link a device" on android device
Press "This is the old device" on android device
On iPhone go to settings inside "Clash of Clans"
Press "This is the new device" on iPhone
Press "I want to link to another device" on Android (you will see a code)
Enter (on iPhone) the code you have on Android.
It will ask you if you want to replace the village you have on iPhone with the village you have on Android.
Hit "Yes" on iPhone
Type in "CONFIRM"
Hit enter.
It will now load up and you have your village on both devices. Enjoy!
Keep in mind you can only have your village open at one device at a time.


Unable to delete .apk file Hi, I downloaded a room file on my Google pixel 3a XL and it left behind a .apk file with the name of the game. I am now unable to delete the file and when I try to it just has a pop up saying ' couldn't delete 1 file'. If someone could please advise as I'm worries about having this file. Thanks

You could try rebooting your phone and deleting the file.  Its possible that a running app or service has that file handle open and won't let you delete it for that reason.

Its also possible that maybe the file is already deleted its just your app that your using to view the file needs to be refreshed.  It can't delete a file that doesn't exist.

You could also use TotalCommander to delete the file.

If that doesn't work, you can always plug your phone up to your computer and use adb.

adb shell rm "/storage/emulated/0/Download/Mario Party 7.apk"

(replace /storage/emulated/0/Download with actual file path)