How can I delete from my smartphone the images downloaded by Google Chrome from the internet, which I can't find anywhere? I have a A3 Umidigi smartphone, Android 9. I downloaded the images by Google Chrome (search images engine), and I can't find them in any folder (included Download, Pictures or DCIM), but I can see and use them as backgrounds (actually I use as background one of these downloaded, invisible images). I searched them using the App "Total Commander" (and other similar), and I connected the smartphone to the desktop by usb cable, but I couldn't find them. Google Chrome has access to the drive. Now, if I download another picture, Chrome asks me where to save it, but I have a dozen images I can't find.
Download folder (without the downloaded pictures).
Download options in Google Chrome (without the pictures).
"Background" selector: I can see and select the pictures (even offline). By the way I can't find any App named Background or whatsoever.
Root folder
Root/data/data folder
Root/system folder
data/com.android.chrome/files/Download folder (empty)

In the folder /data/data/com.android.chrome and its subfolders, would be the place to look. You will need superuser permission to be able to access this folder. In Total Commander start File System Root.
For example /data/data/com.android.chrome/cache/image_cache Has picture files. Actually all the files in there are pics even though they have no extension.


How to install XAPK packages on Android 4.4 (API 19)? There is an Android 4.4 (KitKat, API version 19) device, that should get some external programs with XAPK packages. These XAPK packages does not contain any OBB files, they just have a "main" .apk, then a lot of configuration APKs.
How to install that mentioned XAPK files? If I install the APKs manually, then the app simply fails to launch. The XAPK Installer app, which could handle this, is available from Android 5+, so also not an option.
Updating or upgrading that device is also not an option. So, no need the comments like "that is outdated" etc.

An XAPK package is basically ZIP files containing the different split APK files. Before trying to make an app work on your device I strongly recommend to you to extract the base APK files from the XAPK package and check the minSdkVersion in it's AndroidManifest.xml. You can do so easily by opening the main APK file e.g. in Jadx or any other tool that can decode and display the AndroidManifest.xml.
If this entry is 19 or lower there may be a chance to install the app on your device.
If I remember correctly the possibility to install multiple APK files as one app was introduced with Android 5, therefore the XAPK installer is limited to Android 5+. Also installing multiple APK files as one app via adb will not work. The only option I can see is building an universal APK from those multiple APK files inside the XAPK package. See section Re-Building an universal APK from my answer Creating universal APK form multiple APKs without having *.aab:

On the Internet you can find a tool named "SAP (Split APKs Packer)"
which seems to allow to combine multiple split APK files into one
universal APK file (if you have all the necessary split APK files)
This "SAP" tool is available for Linux and Windows, however it is
closed source and contains a lot of binaries. I am not sure if it is
really trustworthy - I would not recommend to execute it outside of a
protected environment (e.g. a virtual machine).
The following blog post describes the SAP tool and provides download
links.


Phone won't turn on - Samsung Galaxy S II My Galaxy S2 won't turn on. It just keeps flashing the Samsung Galaxy S2 screen.

I turned it off, then held the power button and the down volume button and a screen popped up with the green android. It says "downloading do not turn off target". How long does this take to download?

Check out this solution: http://www.widefide.com/mobile/samsung-galaxy-sii-not-booting-heres-the-solution

It was written by me years ago and helped a few who had their S2 bricked.
Follow in order: First soft reset, then hard reset and if it doesn't reboot even afterwards, move on to the third (advanced) step.


Will Google Play Services work on Yun OS phone? I have this Chinese Phone which is a Yun OS, I've tried all different types (Architecture, Android Version, Screen DPI) of Google Play Services from APKmirror site but all goes "Unfortunately, Google Play Services has stopped".

My phone is also not rooted. Tried many root apps (kingroot, kingo, etc.) mobile/pc but no luck.

TL;DR answer: It won't work.
Google Play Services relies on several apps and libraries to reside in a few different system directories, you can't just "install" Google Play Services, you need to flash them into your system with a 3rd party recovery like TWRP or CWM Recovery. The gapps are available from OpenGapps and other sources.
Although a little research tells me that Yun OS is NOT Android, although it is based on AOSP.

According to Google, Aliyun (YuOS) is a forked but incompatible version of its open-source Android operating system.
Yun OS incorporates its own virtual machine, which is different from Android's Dalvik virtual machine.

Source

And some searching also show very few, if any, people who have gotten the Google Play services to work, probably the biggest reason is YunOS uses a unique VM that is not Dalvik or ART, therefore it will not work.


HDMI + USB communications I have a LG-P930 cellphone with Gingerbread 2.3.5. This device has a micro-USB connector that shares pinout with HDMI. I bought a MHL adapter but it seems that the USB plug on this device is for power only.

I know that my question is not purely about Android but does someone know about a MHL adapter that would preserve the USB data connection? In other words, I would like to connect to my HDMI screen while communicating with the computer through USB.

USB and MHL share the same pins on the connector. Once the phone is in MHL mode, there is no USB capability. So, currently you can't use MHL and USB simultaneously.


What is exynos5-fb.1 wakelock? Samsung Galaxy S4 running stock Android 4.3. This wakelock is mysterious. What is it? It's taking up a big chunk of my Awake time. How do I stop it? Thanks

It is You Tube.  Even after turning my tablet off, while charging, or not, You Tube starts running, on it's on, and wont stop until I force stop it.   Everyday when I seen battery drain or battery not charged after hours of charge time the first thing I do is check task manager and there it is, You Tube running.


android phone not connecting to the internet My phone does not connecting to the Internet – it's saying "connected,no internet":

When I open a web browser, all I get is the same message ("no connection").

Can some one help me please I am begging. I have tried so many things and nothing work.

Can you see The SSID of available network's. When you click on the SSID does it say connect but no internet? Press and hold the SSID and select forget this will disconnect then reconnect make sure the password is correct if no password the you may need to agree to the terms


Are there any window managers for Android? I once saw a YouTube video where someone had hooked up a bluetooth mouse and keyboard to a Galaxy Note and was manipulating apps like on a desktop computer, where each app had window decorations and multiple apps could be visible at once.

I would like to have such a window manager (preferably not requiring any external devices) for my Galaxy Nexus. There are occasionaly situations where it'd be helpful to be able to see two apps at once.

For example, I might receive complex data in an email that I want to input into another app. However, Gmail doesn't allow you to copy text from an email (which is just rediculous). So, I have to remember a little bit, switch apps, type it in, switch apps again, etc. It would be much better to be able to put my phone in landscape mode, fire up the window decorations, and tile the two apps side by side so I can see the email address at the same time I'm entering data in the other app.

I've searched for a window manager for Android, but I can't find anything, despite the video I saw. Does anyone know of one?

The window manager you saw is part of Samsung Android 4.x O.S. and only works on Samsung Tablets.

There are lots and lots of differences between Samsung Android and Google Android.

I did a quick comparison for the Galaxy S3 smartphone:
here


Sync failed when I have 2steps verification I do on phone factory reset and after that I can't sync when I have turned on 2steps verification but when I turn off verification all works correct. Any suggestions?

Do you mean it is Google Authenticator? If So, Please refer it might be worked.

Please verify your time on smartphone is correct and do re-setup 2FA or re-generate ASP again it might be worked. Some user in Japan has similar problem.

Google Authenticator require having correct time between your phone and Google Account server. Also each node such your smartphone has NTP client and use different NTP server depends on maker.

(I would like to put this as comment but I have no rights yet.)


When clearing my androids cache should I go into my settings and do it manually myself or can I rely on an app to to clear it properly? Google playstore offers many phone cleaning, cache cleaning apps but I noticed that after I installed one app in particular, I went back into my storage just to check out the levels and they were not cleared. Could this just be a faulty app or are they pretty much useless?

Clearing cache is not something you need to do regularly. You do that when some app is misbehaving.

As a thumb rule it's better to do things manually rather than using apps - ads, malware, unreliability are some of the reasons.

If at all you want to install a phone clearing app make sure it is from a reliable source and doesn't infect your device. Google about the app in question !


Stuck mid-way through Root process (Samsung Galaxy S3 SCH-1535) Root Instructions

I've been following the root instructions above. I'm at this step:

Using your custom recovery flash the download you chose above from Step 1 (#3)

However, I had forgotten to move the SU/Bootloader zip file to my SDCard (not a removable SD, the system SD). So I connected to my mac, used android file transfer to move the zip file to the SD card root directory (/sdcard/), and rebooted into recovery mode.

Now I'm in the samsung recovery mode (3e), with the little android fella and the red triangle, (manual mode), and if I select 'external storage', obviously since I don't have any (no removable SD), I can't seem to get to the file.

The first time I had rebooted into recovery I had gotten this screen:

TWRP Screen

But now I can't seem to get back to that screen to attempt to install the Super SU and Bootloader zip file.

Help?

I'll put this here so you can mark your question as answered.

Some phones' stock ROMs automatically replace custom recoveries with the stock ones on boot, so when you rebooted to put the ZIP on your phone, TWRP was wiped away. So, simple, reinstall it.

As for a good ROMs, I use ParanoidAndroid on my Galaxy Nexus and I love it.


CyanogenMod on an unsupported device I'm using a Karbonn A52+ running Mediatek processor and Android 4.2.2 Jellybean. My device is rooted, but unfortunately, no custom recovery (CWM / TWRP) is supported for my device. There is also no CyanogenMod build available for my phone.

Still, I was planning to give a try to this method

Unfortunately, CyanogenMod has shutted down all its systems, including its webpage; so probably, link would also not work.

Now, is there any risk of my phone getting bricked? If yes, then soft brick or hard brick? If my phone gets bricked, can I repair it by simply flashing the stock ROM?

It is always best to install CM Roms that is suited for your device.

If you can't find one, then it's best to stick with it.  The risk will always be there, when you force something into your device that isn't compatible with it.

Hope this helps ...


Does WhatsApp keep my status when I change phone? I am also changing my phone, maintaining my same number. Will my status be restored to "Hi there using whatsapp"?. i.e., the default?

No. The status is stored on WhatsApp's servers along with other basic information about your account, such as phone no, profile picture, last seen and changing your device doesn't automatically change them.


Remote factory reset and changing Google password In case I ever lose my Nexus 4 phone, I've opened to the Google Settings app, then tapped "Android Device Manager" and from there, I've enabled both "Remotely locate this device" and "Allow remote factory reset."

Then I can use Android Device Manager online from anywhere to ring or reset the phone.

My question is: in the event my phone is stolen/lost, I'd probably change my Google password so the phone can't sync any more while I attempt to find it. If I change my Google password and then reset my phone after that, will the remote wipe still work since the Google password changed?

Note: I have 2-factor auth enabled, but keep in mind my phone and the apps in it are already authenticated.

Why not for sake of it, activate 2-step authentication on your Google account?
And just use the random generated password instead, be sure you have enabled Google to SMS you for any login attempts on your Google account, and keep your real password hidden. That is what I use here, where-ever I log in, I get an SMS direct to me, asking to enter the verification code, no one else has it.
Also, it would be easier to just revoke it from your Google Account settings page, i.e. access denied.
I use a spare, crappy phone that I carry with me everywhere, zero chance of anyone trying to steal it, that receives the Google SMS notification, and yes, its a dumbphone :)
Edit
To clarify: Your account on the device is called a Application specific password. See the Revoke beside each application specific password.
In event of phone or should I say, device getting lost/stolen, its a matter of simply clicking on it. That is what I was referring to, in my case, I have the application called "My smartphone google account signin", and if it gets lost, I click Revoke, even after factory reset, data is wiped cleanly for my peace of mind.
I still have my laptop as my authorized login, that is, I can use my real password on the laptop, everywhere else Google is accessed, is using the random generated password. And if I was to login on another computer using my real password, the verification code gets sent to my dumbphone which I check and use.


How to record all calls and auto-sync to Dropbox? I just installed Automatic Call Recorder, which almost does as I ask - it can auto-record all calls. But it stores them to an "inbox" on the device, and deletes old items when the inbox is filled.

I'd like to auto-record any call and then auto-sync every call to Dropbox. How can I achieve this? I would also like to know the disk space it takes.

You can do this from the app you are currently using. Go to the settings and click the dropbox link which can be found under Cloud. Make sure you have installed Dropbox and you're connected to the internet.

Image: Google Play. Click here for a larger variant.

There are other options such as Call Recorder with DropBox as well.


APN Requires mcc and mnc but my carrier requires none I used to specify only the Name and APN fields whenever I needed to configure my carrier's APN. I've just rooted my Galaxy Nexus with Cyanogemod and whenever I try to set the APN it prompts me to enter the mcc and mnc number's which my carrier doesn't specify.

How can I resolve this?

Thanks in advance

Aha! Ok I'm no where near a cellular expert but based on a wild guess I searched for carrier APNs and found here a list of APNs per carrier per country. I guess these are always required but somehow cyanogenmod is not configured to determine these codes automatically.

While this may help others facing the same problem, I hope someone with real insight shares the knowledge


Where can I find the Smat Tab 4 Clock and Weather Widget? The Vodafone Smart Tab 4 has a clock and weather widget that looks like this:

I accidentally deleted the widget, and I cannot find it in the widget list.

What's the name of this app? Where can I find it?

Do this (at your own risk) if that's a default widget came along with OS because those widgets are unrecoverable once deleted.
1 Perform a backup of your important data (remember 'not the settings') in the Tab to a PC or Cloud.
2 Then do a "Hard Reset" of Tab. (Every handset has a unique way to do a hard reset. So Google it.)
3 Tab will be reset to its initial state of course.
4 Restore backup again.
-This is bad idea if you have large amounts of important/sensitive data on your Tab and also ignore this answer if that is not a default widget-


How to use Wi-Fi and hotspot at the same time on Android? Is it possible to create a Wi-Fi hotspot from an Android device using its Wi-Fi connection rather than Cellular data?

Without the help of any third-party application (Like Netshare), by changing some code in setting application?

Note:
I'm having AOSP 7.0 so there is no question of the root device.

WI-FI REPEATER MODE ON ANDROID

I don't know of any straight forward tool other than Android apps (which use Wi-Fi Direct) that will let use wi-fi and hotspot at the same time. Neither it's a standard feature introduced in custom ROM's so far (AFAIK). However you can do this manually if you are comfortable with commandline usage. But it's NOT possible without root.

WHAT'S NEEDED

Rooted device
Device must support nl80211 driver

All newer devices with Qualcomm MSM chipset support this AFAIK e.g. Xiaomi's Redmi Note 4 (mido) built with MSM8953.

Kernel must also support this driver. To confirm:

~# zcat /proc/config.gz | grep CONFIG_CFG80211
CONFIG_CFG80211=y

~# lshw | grep wireless=
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wcnss_wlan multicast=yes wireless=Qcom:802.11n

Device must support managed mode and AP mode at the same time.

~# iw phy | grep -iA2 'valid interface combinations'
        valid interface combinations:
         * #{ managed } <= 3, #{ IBSS, AP } <= 1, #{ P2P-client, P2P-GO } <= 1,
           total <= 3, #channels <= 1

This means that your wireless chip supports creating at maximum 3 interfaces, one of which can be in AP mode, with others being in managed or P2P mode, and at maximum 1 channel is supported. If channels value is 2, you can operate both interfaces on different channels. However using same channel is recommended to avoid interference.

Standard wi-fi interface on Android devices (usually wlan0) is always run in managed mode. We are going to create a virtual wireless interface to be run in AP mode.
Linux tools: iw, ip, iptables, hostapd, dnsmasq etc.

You can also use wpa_supplicant in place of hostapd with slightly different configuration.

Usually these binaries come bundled with Android. However there are modifications by Google and vendors to make these tools fit for Android needs. So they may not behave as standard Linux tools and in rare cases you might need to compile them from source.

Wireless tools should be newer enough to have support for driver nl80211.
Terminal emulator (Termux is a good one)

STEPS:

For ease of use, I have summarized all steps in a shell script with brief explanation. You can put this on your $PATH e.g. /system/bin/android_ap and execute it directly: ~# android_ap start. A Custom Quick Settings Tile can also be created for ease of use.

#!/system/bin/sh
set -e
#set -x

[ "$(id -u)" != 0 ] && echo 'Not running as root!' && exit

SSID=MyAP                           # set this to your desired string (avoid spaces and non-ascii characters)
PASSCODE=foobarfoobar               # set this to your desired string (8 to 63 characters)
WIFI_INTERFACE=wlan0                # set this according to your device (lshw | grep -A10 Wireless | grep 'logical name')
SUBNET=192.168.42                   # must be different than WIFI_INTERFACE
AP_INTERFACE=${WIFI_INTERFACE}-AP
IP=${SUBNET}.1
DIR=/data/local/tmp/$AP_INTERFACE

USAGE()
{
    echo 'Usage:'
    printf '\t%s\n' "$(basename "$0") start|stop"
    exit
}

STOP() {
    # hope there are no other instances of same daemons
    pkill -15 hostapd dnsmasq
    # remove iptables rules
    iptables -D INPUT -i $AP_INTERFACE -p udp -m udp --dport 67 -j ACCEPT
    iptables -t nat -D POSTROUTING -s ${SUBNET}.0/24 ! -o $AP_INTERFACE -j MASQUERADE
    iptables -D FORWARD -i $AP_INTERFACE -s ${IP}/24 -j ACCEPT
    iptables -D FORWARD -i $WIFI_INTERFACE -d ${SUBNET}.0/24 -j ACCEPT
    # delete AP interface
    ip link show | grep "${AP_INTERFACE}:" && iw $AP_INTERFACE del
    rm -rf $DIR
} >/dev/null 2>&1

CHECKS()
{
    for binary in iw ip iptables hostapd dnsmasq; do
        which $binary >/dev/null && continue
        exit
    done

    # this check is necessary if need to use single channel
    if iw dev $WIFI_INTERFACE link | grep -q '^Not connected'
    then
        echo 'First connect to Wi-Fi for internet sharing.'
        exit
    fi

    if ! iw phy | grep -iqE '{.*managed.*AP.*}' && ! iw phy | grep -iqE '{.*AP.*managed.*}'
    then
        echo 'AP mode not supported.'
        exit
    fi
}

CREATE_AP()
{
    if ! iw dev $WIFI_INTERFACE interface add $AP_INTERFACE type __ap
    then
        echo "Couldn't create AP."  # :(
        exit
    fi
}

FIND_CHANNEL()
{
    # find what channel wi-fi is using
    CHANNEL="$(iw $WIFI_INTERFACE scan | grep -C5 "$(iw $WIFI_INTERFACE link | grep SSID | cut -d: -f2-)" | grep -i channel | tail -c3)"
    if [ -z "$CHANNEL" ]
    then
        echo  "Couldn't find channel info. Are you are connected to Wi-Fi?"
        STOP
        exit
    fi

    # if more than 1 channels are supported, use any frequency
    [ ! -z "$CHANNEL" ] || CHANNEL=11
}

ADD_IP_ROUTE()
{
    # activate the interface and add IP
    ip link set up dev $AP_INTERFACE
    ip addr add ${IP}/24 broadcast ${SUBNET}.255 dev $AP_INTERFACE

    # routing table 97 needs to be put necessarily on Android
    # because in main table, route for $WIFI_INTERFACE takes priority (ip route show)
    # and all traffic goes there ignoring $AP_INTERFACE
    ip route add ${SUBNET}.0/24 dev $AP_INTERFACE table 97
}

HOSTAPD_CONFIG()
{
    mkdir -p "$DIR"
    cat <<-EOF >$DIR/hostapd.conf
        # network name
        ssid=$SSID
        # network interface to listen on
        interface=$AP_INTERFACE
        # wi-fi driver
        driver=nl80211
        # WLAN channel to use
        channel=$CHANNEL
        # ser operation mode, what frequency to use
        hw_mode=g
        # enforce Wireless Protected Access (WPA)
        wpa=2
        # passphrase to use for protected access
        wpa_passphrase=$PASSCODE
        # WPA protocol
        wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
    EOF

    # you can tune other parameters such as mtu, beacon_int, ieee80211n, wowlan_triggers (if supported)
    # for better performace and options such as *_pairwise for better security
}

INTERNET_SHARE()
{
    # allow IP forwarding
    echo 1 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
    # route and allow forwrding through firewall
    iptables -t nat -I POSTROUTING -s ${SUBNET}.0/24 ! -o $AP_INTERFACE -j MASQUERADE
    iptables -I FORWARD -i $AP_INTERFACE -s ${IP}/24 -j ACCEPT
    iptables -I FORWARD -i $WIFI_INTERFACE -d ${SUBNET}.0/24 -j ACCEPT
}

DHCP_SERVER()
{
    # configuration
    cat <<-EOF >$DIR/dnsmasq.conf
        # we dont want DNS server, only DHCP
        port=0
        # only listen on AP interface
        interface=$AP_INTERFACE
        listen-address=$IP

        #bind-interfaces

        # range of IPs to make available to wlan devices andwhen to renew IP
        dhcp-range=$IP,${SUBNET}.254,24h
        # where to save leases
        dhcp-leasefile=$DIR/dnsmasq.leases
        # set default gateway
        dhcp-option-force=option:router,$IP
        # add OpenDNS servers for DNS lookup to announce
        dhcp-option-force=option:dns-server,208.67.220.220,208.67.222.222

        #dhcp-option-force=option:mtu,1500

        # respond to a client who is requesting from a different IP broadcast subnet
        # or requesting an out of range / occupied IP
        # or requesting an IP from expired lease of previous sessions
        # or obtained from some other server which is offline now
        dhcp-authoritative
        # don't look for any hosts file and resolv file
        no-hosts
        no-resolv
    EOF

    # open listening port
    iptables -I INPUT -i $AP_INTERFACE -p udp -m udp --dport 67 -j ACCEPT

    # start dhcp server
    dnsmasq -C $DIR/dnsmasq.conf
}

if [ "$1" = stop ]
then
    STOP || true
    exit
fi

[ "$1" = start ] || USAGE

# basic check
CHECKS
# stop running instances
STOP || true
# create virtual wireless interface
CREATE_AP
# find channed already used ny wi-fi
FIND_CHANNEL
# configre newly created interface
ADD_IP_ROUTE
# configure acces point daemon
HOSTAPD_CONFIG
# start hostapd
hostapd -B $DIR/hostapd.conf
# share internet from Wi-Fi to AP
INTERNET_SHARE
# run a dhcp server to assign IP's dynamically
# otherwise assign a static IP to connected device in subnet range (2 to 254)
DHCP_SERVER

echo Done.

SOURCES:

Linux Wireless Modes
Software Access Point
create_ap
Linux and Android routing tables
hostapd.conf
dnsmasq.conf


How can I get dictionaries for more input languages? Ok, so I figured out I can enable other input languages through settings, which at least makes it easier to enter some special characters, but only the biggest languages have "Dictionary available". Is it possible to somehow add dictionaries for the other selectable input languages?

It looks like that all dictionaries are embedded into keyboards, but you can try to find the dictionary by searching in Android market with query:

  Your_desired_language language pack

For example for "Finnish language pack" there are packs for 3 different keyboards: SlideIT, AnySoftKeyboard and Gingerbread keyboard (unfortunately not the original one, you should install Gingerbread keyboard app from market even if you already have original Gingerbread keyboard).


does LBE security work on android 4.3? how do i make LBE work on and android 4.3 stock touchwiz rom? i have tried a few versions but they were in chinese. is there any working English version?

Be careful with what version you pick here. The (original) LBE Privacy Guard (English) worked fine up to Android 4.1 but would cause a boot-loop if installed on 4.2 or up. The LBE Security Master is only available in Chinese, as you've already noted.

Now, there are multiple ways to get it localized:

There are patched versions available at XDA, which you then had to manually update each time a new version is available (and rely on the XDA member providing a patched update then)
If you're running the Xposed Framework, there's a module called LBE Security Master - Translation International which you could load. That way you could simply use the updates from Playstore, and the module would take care for localization. Naturally, that would leave some original terms "shine through", especially with new stuff added to the app and the module not yet updated – but hey, one can live with that as long as it's below the threshold.


Google Account Sync Error I have been looking through all kinds of forums.  But have not yet found a fix. am trying everything but dont want to do a factory reset. I have a samsung galaxy core prime. its about 4 months old and everything has been updated regularly.  I am not sure of the cause of this it it may have been when i accidnetally unchecked the sync button in the menu with wifi, airplane mode etc.  i re-clicked the box and thought nothing of it.otherwise maybe it was when i changed the password of a gmail account/ I cant think of anything else i did.  i dont mess with the settings much.

Basically a few days ago I noticed I wasnt getting gmail notifications.  So i tried to open the gmail app.   Nothing loaded, just a white screen.  At first other gmail accounts I use wouldload but one wouldnt.  Eventually nothing at all would load.  This coincided with play stre not opening, I just get a white screen just like with gmail.  There is the spinning wheel showing that its trying to open but nothing happens.  Also I can not load any of my google sheets docs either.

I ahve tried turing data on and off, airplane mode, clearing cache for all of the google apps.  I eventually tried to delete my google account.  then i added the account again but it wont sync.  it just says syncing and it never finishes the job.

I tried rolling back my google play store to the factory version, did not solve the problem.

As of right now none of these apps will load for any of my google accounts.  even the ones that are listed as synced. some times there is an error message that says experienceing sync errors and check back shortly.

when i currently click gmail its as if i am using it for the first time.  i try to set up email and add an address but the 'next' button does nothing when i click it.  so its as if i have no gmail accounts added but i cant add any.

I would like to delete the gmail app and start again but play store isnt working so not sure if i can. also the fact that all google apps are affected leads me to believe its not a gmail issue but a google account issue.  I guess i could delete all google accounts and try to start fresh? Any other ideas?

I am a bit afraid of losing data or some how screwing up this worse if i delete all my google accounts.  before when i tried to delete the google account that mhy phone is mainly synced with for all the apps it told me i cant because all theother apps are using that account. i cancelled the deletion after reading this warning but it seems to have been deleted anyway.  i re-added the account and it said it was successfull but it wont sync.

does anyone know anything that i can try. thanks , i appreciate any help you can provide.

i just managed to get it to work by force shut down of gmail play store and play services. and deleted all app data and cleared the caches for all of these apps and restarted the phone and then i tried to oppen google play and seuddlenlly it asked me to sign in with a new google accoun and suddenly everything was fixed.  been banging my head against the wall all day wwith this.


How to get updates for apps which use Google Play on my Kindle Fire? A number of apps on my Kindle Fire indicate that updated versions are available and prompt me to "tap here to update" or words to that effect. The trouble is this: so far all the apps with updates -- even those purchased directly through the Kindle Store -- will open up Google Play and ask me to download the update package. This, of course, is impossible for me to do since the Kindle Fire is unwelcome at Google Play.

Bringing up the app's info page in the Amazon App Store app just gives me the option of launching the already installed version, but there's no option to download the latest update.

So, how can I update these apps? Must I hunt down the APKs for each app individually? Shouldn't these apps be opening up Amazon's App Store rather than Google's? Is there a system setting I can change that makes them do so?

I can't seem to find any mention of this type of problem anywhere; Google just spits out results about installing apps rather than updating them.

My Fire was previously rooted but I haven't re-rooted it since the last time Amazon pushed out an update to the OS.

I have a rooted B&N Nook Tablet and see this same sort of thing.  Applications are identified primarily by their package name, and most app authors don't bother using a different package name across markets.  My nook has the B&N Market, the Amazon AppStore, and Google Play.  These three markets tend to get into a game of tug of war, each trying to update apps to the version they see as most current.  The thing to keep in mind is that, just because that market says it has an update doesn't mean it really is a newer version of the app than what you have, just that the version number is different.  I get this quite a lot with the revisions of Netflix on my nook as Google Play likes it at one revision number while the B&N Market likes it at another.

If your goal is to be completely rid of update notifications from apps you can't update, your best bet is to factory reset your Kindle.  A complete factory reset will get rid of Google Play and will eliminate the update notifications. Then you can re-install the apps you've purchased via the Kindle's native app store.

Alternatively, you can re-root your device and let Google Play updates complete.  I don't think this is the best solution for you, though, since your device could end up like mine with different markets each clamoring to apply their own updates in a continuous loop.


/data/data nightmare: FC's because of 100% Utilisation I feel like I need to clear things from /data/data every 2 to 3 days to prevent cascading FCs when it becomes 100% full. Is there any possible way to move any of that data to the SD card (and still have it be accessible from my apps), or to increase the maximum size of the folder? I am rooted and running cyanogenmod 7.1 on my HTC Incredible. Thank you all so much for your assistance.

Have you tried moving your Apps to the SD Card?  Go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> Downloaded tab then tap on any 3rd-party app and then tap on the Move to SD card button (if available.)  This should move most of the app to the card, thus freeing up space on the /data/ partition.  Not all apps support this method, but do try it on the largest space hogs like Flash Player and Adobe Air, for example.

Unfortunately moving Apps to SD Card this way doesn't touch the apps' cache or Dalvik cache.  To move those you'd need the old-school "apps2sd" hack.  The basic idea is to re-partition your SD Card and create a 2nd partition with Ext2/3/4 format.  The contents of /data/ folders are moved to the SD Card's Ext partition and the phone's internal memory is therefore freed up.  Then a script is added to Android which mounts this partition at boot time and links /data/app, /data/app-private, /data/data, and /data/dalvik-cache folders to their corresponding locations on the SD Card's Ext partition.

There are some apps on the Market that automate this (except re-partitioning the card, which you'll need to do manually.)  Try Link2sd or Simple2ext for example.  Of course make sure you have a nandroid backup of your phone before trying anything.

There are obvious pros and cons to this method. The pros are the ability to greatly extend the phone's storage for apps, while keeping the internal memory relatively free.  The cons are inability to cleanly un-mount and remove the SD Card (since the apps are mounted on the 2nd partition that the OS isn't aware of,) and possible slow-downs in launching apps depending on the speed of the card.  There SD Card will also be subjected to more wear and tear, since it will be used by the system for reading/writing more than usual.


Open current video in YouTube app from Firefox From a youtube.com page open in Firefox, is there a straight-forward way to open the video using the YouTube app?

Firefox version 43.0

This may be a solution. You can make the video open in the YouTube app when you press the little Android icon in the right corner of the address bar while you're on the site!


why does my mic not work with headphones plugged in I can hear they cannot hear me I plug regular headphones into jack it shows headphones on my bar can hear person talking they cannot hear me why does this happen how can I fix samsung galaxy note 2

This gogorapid link provides some things to try. Check if the issue is fixed after each of these.

Remove the battery from your phone for 30 seconds and then re-insert it before powering the device back on.
Use an app such as Smart Voice Recorder to record a short audio clip. Then replay the clip. If you can hear the sound clearly, it means that the microphone is working fine.
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.


Cm 12.1 Update - Bricked Phone Well guys I seem to have bricked my phone. I updated my Nexus 4 from 12 to 12.1 and update went good but gapps failed as it constantly crashed on upstart. So I tried to update gapps with no success.

So I backed up my rom via ClockworkMod Recovery v6.0.4.7 and wipe data/factory reset. But I got an error, E: unknown volume for path [/sd-ext] and phone wont boot. Well I thought I better restore and see what I can do from there but I was not able to MD5 missmatch. So I figured I'm going to sideload an older version of CM and take it from there but I'm not able to because of google new security settings which are enabled.

So I try to bypass this as instructed from this tutorial "http://www.addictive...-adb-commands/" but none of these methods work.

When I try to clear dalvik cache log says
rm: can't remove 'data/dalvik-cache': No such file or directory
rm: can't remove 'cache/dalvik-cache': No such file or directory
rm: can't remove 'sd-ext/dalvik-cache': No such file or directory

Whats going on everything worked just fine until I updated to CM12.1 via built in updated system, I just don't understand why wipe/factory reset does not work.

I'm really out of ideas and would apprciate any advice.

Best Regards

Well I was forced to use adb sideload to reflash my phone. If this happens to anybody else, follow these steps to fix the issue:

Install ADB on your computer, tutorials are easy to find, just Google.

Boot to Recovery and navigate to adb sideload.

Now set adb sideload on your phone and from you computer type
adb sideload rom_image.zip   where rom_image.zip should be your ROM's file name.

This should reflash your phone.


How to get a list of latest apps released on Play Store sorted by date? Is there any way to get a list of recently released apps on Google Play Store sorted according to date added?

ShivamSoni

As google play store have daily adds New  Updates of Apps of thousand/lakhs/millions  of new versions all of them are new for Play store .

But still I searched and founded links for  new releases sections for you in play store website options.  I am sharing below links of website of new releases  and option to search apps latest releases apps category wise. But i dont think its possible to sort all apps list date wise launch option in app or website.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/new?hl=en

https://play.google.com/store/apps/collection/cluster?clp=Si8KKQojcHJvbW90aW9uXzMwMDA3OTJfbmV3X3JlbGVhc2VzX2FwcHMQBxgDOgIIAQ%3D%3D:S:ANO1ljKj5O4&gsr=CjFKLwopCiNwcm9tb3Rpb25fMzAwMDc5Ml9uZXdfcmVsZWFzZXNfYXBwcxAHGAM6AggB:S:ANO1ljILDUU&hl=en

In Google Play store App version 19.3.36 there are tabs named "for you, Top Charts,  Categories....." tabs of at very last there is a tab in last  "Early Access" which  shows latest to be launched beta developing Apps and  games.

There are  many 3rd party apps that you can utilizes to sort and easy your work  about one of popular one i searched   is called AppBrain App Market, and can be downloaded for free via Google Play (see the link at the below). The best way to find new apps in Google Play.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appspot.swisscodemonkeys.apps&referrer=utm_source%3Dappbrain%26utm_medium%3Dappbrain_web%26utm_campaign%3Dappbrain_web

According to appbrain website link says product details says

https://www.appbrain.com/app/appbrain-app-market/com.appspot.swisscodemonkeys.apps

  Description

  The best way to find new apps in Google Play (Android market).

  Make the Android market usable, and find your next favorite app, live wallpaper or widget:
  - App recommendations
  - New and hot apps of the day
  - Find top Android apps with a price drop
  - Share your best apps (eg twitter/facebook)
  - Tracks market update: notifies of updates available
  - Fast uninstaller
  - Browse "my apps" on www.appbrain.com and install apps with a sync instead of barcode scanner
  - Keep your list of installed apps as a backup on AppBrain.com

  AppBrain is the best way to discover top Android apps in the Android market and to manage your apps. The recommended apps helper provides recommendations based on what you already use. We also have recommended games. It does not work with the Amazon app store.

  The manage apps is like a killer file explorer / task manager for your already installed apps:
  - Start app, Quick uninstaller, share to Facebook
  - Fast sync widget to access AppBrain from the desktop and backup your apps to the cloud
  - app2sd functionality to move apps to sd (app 2 sd)
  - Find market update: notifies you of any updates available

  Discover cool apps and top games in the Android market:
  - sort by hot apps today, hot apps this week, highest rated apps, price drops etc
  - Filter apps by free apps, paid apps, price reduced apps, app2sd enabled apps, new apps
  - Fast search over the entire Android market
  - Unlike applanet or black market, these are only legal apps.

  AppBrain is the best app market and app discovery tool for Android apps from the Android Market. It allows you to easily find the best apps in the Market, the free apps and downloads, the price drops, live wallpaper, widgets and much more.

Hope this app will help you  any further  option i will get  i will update in the answer.

  Hope my answer suggestions helped you if any thing helped you out from your search or my or others help do tell me what helped you in comments for my knowledge. if any doubts or further clarification feel free to ask and if worked do not forget  to accept and vote for the answer


Can I use the adb shell to know that the phone support OTG or not? Can I use adb shell command to detect the phone support OTG to transmission the files with an USB Flash Drive with OTG function?

Yes.  All you need to do is test for the presence of the file that enables it.  On devices that do:

# adb shell ls /system/etc/permissions/android.hardware.usb.host.xml
/system/etc/permissions/android.hardware.usb.host.xml

And otherwise:

# adb shell ls /system/etc/permissions/android.hardware.usb.host.xml
/system/etc/permissions/android.hardware.usb.host.xml: No such file or directory

Of course, it's possible for a device to be misconfigured — but you have to actually physcially test OTG to determine that.


File not deleted from Downloads message (but got disappeared) When I try to delete a file using the downloads app (Android 8.1 app), I sometimes get the notification that my file couldn't be deleted and subsequent message by tapping the notification that my file wasn't deleted.

 (click to enlarge)

But after this, the file is nowhere to be found in the downloads app, even when using a file explorer like Files Go or ES File explorer. I wonder what happened, whether my file got deleted or if not, then where is it?

I am using Nokia 3.1 Android version 8.1.0 Oreo.
This problem has been there since my phone was new and had Android 8.0 Oreo.

Any help is much appreciated.

The Downloads app gives a list of all files that were downloaded - like a browser history. If the file was deleted already, it would still show up in the Downloads app even though the file doesn't exist any more. In that case, when you try to delete the file, the deletion will fail as you're seeing now.

This would happen if you deleted the file from the Downloads folder using a file explorer app (or some other app) instead of using the Downloads app, or if an app requested the download but deleted the file as soon as it finished using it.

This isn't the only explanation, but it's the most common one that fits your description.


horizontal and vertical blue lines across screen, galaxy note 5 I have blue horizontal and vertical lines across my screen(galaxy note 5)
This happened once before and I was told to take it to best buy to refresh it.
It worked well for 5 months, but is back.

I would like to find out what is it and how do I get rid of it for good before I need to refresh again.

I read online it could be developer options are on. I discovered how to shut it off, no change!

From your description, I believe we are talking about the "Universal Switch" feature.

  "A universal switch lets you designate certain touches or gestures to control specific actions on your phone..."

I had get in confidence with this unknown feature when my Samsung S6 was stuck, thus unresponsive, on this mysterious interface control. I finally got out of that hell by a "Power+Vol UP+Vol Down+Home" restart.

more on http://www.samsung.com/uk/accessibility/product_galaxy_universal_switch.html


Screen recording tool for the samsung galaxy tab Possible Duplicate:
  Is it possible record videos of my screen?

IS there an available video screen recording tool for the samsung galaxy tab, or any other android device, Thanks

There is a tool called Ashot, but the device has to be connected to a PC and it has a pretty low framerate.


How bad is my screen damaged? Do I need to replace the whole screen? My dad has a Samsung phone. He dropped it once long ago and there was a crack across the screen as shown in the image:

Now he is having difficulty using the phone. There is always a touch at one spot automatically, which is very annoying. To show you what I mean, I have enabled "Show touch" in "Developer Options".

I have uploaded a video on youtube here showing how annoying it is.

Here are images showing the unwanted touch:

So how bad is the screen damaged? Do I need to replace the whole screen, as the guy at the repair shop said?

Update:

If there's a constant "touch" at one spot, the digitizer is probably damaged, along with the glass.  For some screen cracks, it's possible to replace the glass only (at least in some Samsung models including the Galaxy S4, which yours appears to be).  Unfortunately, that's probably not the case here.  A complete screen and digitizer assembly and labor to replace it cost about as much as a good used phone of that model, or a bit more than the insurance deductible if you carry insurance with service.  If you can do the work yourself, cost would be reduced by about 1/3, and it may be worth attempting.


Separate volume level for speaker-phone mode? My phone (a Samsung Vibrant, aka T-Mobile's variant of the Galaxy S) has a single volume level for both the speaker-phone and normal modes.  I like to have it up high if I'm using speaker-phone mode and less deafening when I'm holding the handset to my ear.  This causes some problems when I use a different mode from the previous call.

Is there any way that I can have a separate volume level for the two modes of operation?

Boy, separate volume controls for the speaker and earpiece would be useful, wouldn't they?

You can probably do what you want with Tasker. It lets you control all kinds of settings on the phone based on events. (Some ideas from Lifehacker.)


How to factory reset my phone via my pc when i cannot get a start up logo on the screen on my phone When I dropped my phone the screen showed some weird colours on upper right corner. I replaced the screen.  Now by using the recommended three button sequence the led in upper left corner comes on for a few seconds as well as the home button and the other two lights up and then go out. I call the phone and it vibrates but screen remains black. Can I reset the phone using my PC? How can this be done when I cannot get any response from the screen OR is the mother board at fault?

A factory reset won't do you any good. This is hardware damage somewhere else in the phone and it needs to be brought to an electronics repair shop or sent to the manufacturer.


charging from power outlet or computer? to save battery lifetime I realized that charging my HTC Desire (Android 2.1) takes longer if connected to computer compare to power outlet.

Does it matter which method I use to charge in terms of battery life time?

No, the battery doesn't care how it got charged in terms of a given charge. It just takes longer when using your PC because it's getting less current from the PC than the AC charger.

Here's a post on android forums which suggests that the current coming from the PC is significantly less than the AC charger. The forum posts list 100mA or 500mA for the PC's USB port vs. 1000mA from the AC charger; these numbers could be off but the point is correct. I also found this regarding the same phenomenon with the iPhone 4.

So using the AC charger is just a matter of whether you want the phone to charge quicker or not.


Cannot switch between users on Android 4.4 (CM11) I have enabled multi-user support on a phone running CyanogenMod 11 (KitKat) by adding the following to /system/build.prop:

fw.show_multiuserui=1
fw.max_users=4

and I was able to create a new user after that.

However, I still can't switch between users because there is nothing on my lock screen that would allow me to do this (no user switcher or whatever it's called), same in Power menu. I rebooted the phone multiple times.

I can only switch between users via adb or a terminal app using am switch-user <user-id>, and only as root (so not from non-owner user).

After reading this question:

How do I switch between multiple users in KitKat via Lockscreen?

I additionally added lockscreen.rot_override=true to build.prop in order to enable rotating into landscape mode for lock screen but it didn't work.

How do I enable the GUI for switching between users?

It turns out I forgot to disable rotation the lock in display settings. This was preventing lock screen from rotating.

(Still nothing in Power menu though.)


Show Settings->Apps on desktop as a distinct icon? Sometimes I want to kill a buggy application (ANR) I've deployed to my LG G3. This seems to be done on Lollipop via Settings->General->Apps. I find it quite tedious to get there, every time I have to kill something that isn't responding. Sadly, the Settings app resets the tabs each time, so once I enter Settings, I must change tab to General, scroll down, hit Apps, scroll down to find the app, enter its screen, and then finally kill it - tedious if you value a fast workflow.

On my old Samsung Galaxy S (Gingerbread), I could get to "Apps" much more easily.

What I'd really like is to have a desktop icon that takes me straight to the "Apps" part of Settings.

Is that even possible? Better yet, are there any nice shortcuts for killing the focused application?

Simple enough without installing apps. Lollipop (at least my G3's build) lets you to go the activities carousel by pressing Square. In that view, you can close any app down using the X in the top right.


Opera mini v12 automatic clear cache history & cookies Is there a way to get rid of all cache, history and cookies automatically.
Preferably each time I shut down or start up the browser Opera mini.

If this one doesn't anyone know another browser that does?

Manually deleting each privacy setting all the time is a pain in the ass.

And if no mobile browser supports this is there another way to get rid of
all this data automatically?

Maybe you try two avenues:

Dolphin Browser (Which does prompt for to clear cache, etc on exit), there's the Mini version, this version as linked to the Play Store, and the HD version.
History Eraser - this clears all the history of SMS, Calls, Browser history etc in one swell foop.


KitKat wireless keyboard support I have a Nexus 7 2013 Wifi running KitKat 4.4, unfortunately the glass cracked which has affected the digitiser meaning it no longer responds to touch. I have a micro USB male-USB female adapter with allows me plug in a wired keyboard and mouse via a USB hub. This allows me to use the tablet just fine, however when I plug in the receiver for my 2.4 GHZ wireless keyboard with trackpad I get no functionality.

The wireless keyboard works on my mac and pc without the need for drivers, and I would have thought this lack of need for drivers makes it a suitable candidate for working with the Nexus 7, has anyone had any success with wireless keyboards and or mice?

By wireless I mean 2.4 ghz wireless, not Bluetooth.

You can buy a OTG USB cable and plug in your wireless keyboard and it works like a charm. I tested this in many ways. Just like the wired keyboard and mouse, it pretty works the same.

Note: some devices may not be compatible with this method but check with your manufacturer to see if it works.

Amazon

Hope this helps.


initialisation problem on whatsapp My whatsapp has been on the initialing page for more than a week  I've restarted my device
I've reinstalled the app
I've downloaded the app manually
Still not working
What should I do

You can try to reset your phone or try WhatsApp Plus instead of normal WhatsApp.


How useful is Android Wear without Google Apps? I'm thinking about flashing my phone to Cyanogenmod, but I have an Moto 360, so I'm wondering how much of Android Wear is still functioning without Gapps. Does anyone have experiences with this?

I don't really mind things like Google Maps not working properly, but I would like Google Search to work (at at least basic task). I also wouldn't mind installing just the Android Wear app.

When flashing cyanogenmod you can also flash GAPPS. But without it your watch will pretty useless. You won't have maps, hangouts, agenda, Google, Keep, Play Music, Reminders, etc. So I would HIGHLY recommend flashing GAPPS along with CyanogenMod.


How to keep display always off during the call on HTC Sense 4.1 (Android 4.0.1)? My wife has a problem with HTC Desire X (HTC Sense on Android 4.1) that during the call sometimes (in ~10% cases) the screens goes on for no reason. This cause phone calls to be canceled, loud speaker to be on, etc.
I do not know how to reproduce it, but I was on another side of the line already many times when this problem has happened.
The solution I see is to disable this "automatic on" feature. When the call button is pressed or the phone call is answered, the screen should go off and can be switched on only by pressing a hardware button (central or on/off button) and not by the proximity sensor.
I could not find an application that can do this.... Is there any?
If not, is it possible in theory to create such app without replacing the HTC Sense interface?
ADDED: Are there maybe some other interfaces around that have such settings? In Samsung or other devices?

Is she left handed? The sensor is on the top left side of the phone making it miss the ear sometimes when holding the phone with the left hand while talking.


Bad blocks and Link2SD I have a rooted Android 2.3.6 phone (Samsung Galaxy Y Duos, S6102B) and use Link2SD to acquire more storage for apps on it using a 8GB micro SD card (partitioned in partition #1 for my files and partition #2 for linked app data from Link2SD).

Well, it is the 2nd micro SD card I bought to my phone and the same issue appears: bad blocks. I don't know if it is because of the charger I use on my car... But the real issue is that with bad blocks on partition used by Link2SD to store files from apps, the SO become slow, I cannot launch apps or it reboots a lot.

Did anyone here encounter that issue? How to solve it without the need to throw current micro SD away? Partitions with EXT2/3? NTFS?

You could try to "repair" the bad blocks and see if that works. Below is the Windows and Linux methods for doing it. Repairing won't fix damaged parts of the card but flag them to ignore.

Windows:

Plug your device into a Windows PC.
Start>Programs>Accessories->Command Prompt
If on Vista or newer, right-click and choose to runs as Administrator. If on XP, just run it.
Find the drive letter for the device. Let's say it's "G:" drive.
Enter chkdsk G: /r

Linux

Open a terminal (Applications-Accessories-Terminal) and give the command

sudo fsck -a /dev/sdd1

(Replace /dev/sdd1 with the actual partition device for the micro sd card) (fsck = File Systen ChecKer.)

Failing that you will probably need a new SD card. If it's the 'usual' FAT32 corrupting (which it does a bit) then you may be ok, but if any of it is damaged then it will need to be replaced.


Strange status bar icon on Samsung devices after using Developer Options I have a Samsung Galaxy S8 phone running Android 8.

I have enabled Developer Options today and after I finished with it, I disabled it again.

The problem is that a strange icon has left on the status bar. This icon appeared immediately after I enabled Developer Options.

Here is a screen of it.

What's this icon and how can I hide it?

Thank you very much for your help.

The icon appears to be for when the device is locked to "Portrait" mode. Or in simpler terms, when screen rotation is turned off.
It is most likely inbuilt into the phone and was there before. In case it wasn't, you can disable it from the SystemUI tuner.
Simply tap and hold on the gear (settings) icon which you see when the notifications bar is pulled down. That will enable the SystemUI tuner. In there, select status bar and disable the icon for Auto-rotate screen.


adb pull says it pulled all of the files from my Android phone into my Windows PC but in reality it didn't So I am using adb to copy all of my Android files to my Windows PC with this command: adb pull -a /mnt/sdcard C:\backup

And when it's done it says all x amount of files have been pulled, I can confirm that the number of pulled files matches the amount of files that reside inside the folder of my Android storage but when I check how many files are actually in the C:\backup folder, I see about 200 missing or in other words adb skipped about 200 files and did not copy them over to my C:\backup folder.

I understand that this could be due to path limit or due to some files containing characters in their filenames that Windows' NTFS file system just doesn't allow.

How can I see what files are actually being skipped? Is there a switch in adb or some trick?

Just pulling all files via adb to a WIndows computer has multiple problems:

Android/Linux allows multiple files in one directory that just differ in their case.
The file-system on Linux allow characters in file- and directory names that are disallowed on Windows
Some file-names are completely disallowed on Windows which are just regular file-names on Linux/Android
There is a path limit as you have already mention that may cause trouble

Hence the best solution to create a full backup of the sd-card is to pack all files into one tar archive as all file-system limitation of Windows can bypassed using this method.

Via adb you create a full backup of the sd-card using the following command:

adb exec-out "cd /storage/emulated/0 && tar c * -" > sdcard.tar

This command creates the tar archive on the device and directly streams the data of the tar archive through adb to your PC and saves it there as sdcard.tar.


How to detect who is downloading apk files in background? At some point in time my Android phone start downloading some .apk files in background. I assume this is doing some of the free apps what I've installed on my new phone from Google Play (I've installed 30-40 new apps recently). This is very annoying, but I can't get rid of it. I've tried to scan for viruses by antivirus app, but it found nothing.

How can I detect exactly which app is periodically downloading apk files in background?

Update:
In notification bar I can see only usual notification about that .apk file was downloaded successfully. If I click that notification, it opens usual "Downloads" app with list of downloaded files. Here I can see files that I've downloaded by myself and files that was downloaded by some app in background. So, files are downloaded by native browser, I think.

My phone: Sony xPeria Sola, Android OS 2.3.7

Probably the quickest fix is going to be when it downloads an .apk, go to the notification, long press it, and when "App Info" pops up, click it. It will open in the application manager the app that downloaded it. (It may not be available on your phone, but it works on my S3.)

Your application manager is another wealth of information. There are way too many specifics to get into much detail about, but for example an app that is supposed to be offline, look at it's data usage. If it has used several MB of data, there's your culprit.

You could also narrow down the suspects by looking at the permissions. If it doesn't require network access, it can't download anything. (Although if this doesn't work, I'm not sure how trustworthy the permissions tags really are if we're dealing with a Trojan).


Read/Unread email option does not hold, reverts to Most Recent in Galaxy S3 4.1.1 I like to sort my email by read/unread on my Galaxy S3.  I could set that option in the sort by before I upgraded to 4.1.1.  It worked great before the upgrade.  Now it just reverts back to the Most Recent (by date) option.  I have to set it to sort by read/unread everytime I read my mail now.  Any ideas how to set a sort option which will stick?

It works fine on my S3 with Android version 4.1.2 (build number JZO54K.I9300XXEMC2). It might be a bug in Samsung's email client, which they fixed in the 4.1.2 update.


Stay awake while charging, bad for battery? Is it bad for battery to use the option to stay awake while charging? Will it make my battery drain faster in the future?

PD: I use my phone for app development. I have activated the stay awake option to avoid unlocking the phone constantly.

As long as the battery stays below 140 deg F, the extra heat won't damage it.  See retailers' instructions, manufacturer's data sheets, or any professional drone pilot. If anything, the battery works better at somewhat above room temperature.


I can't update my Nexus S, shows error screen. What to do? Possible Duplicate:
  can't update, can't do a factory reset

My Phone (Nexus S) keeps pestering me to update the OS. But, every time I try, it restarts, displays the cute robot error screen and doesn't come back on until I take out the battery and restart it. I would just leave it but I'm still running Android 2.3.4, and it's time.

Any way of updating the OS other then clicking OK when it asks?

I'm not really sure what more info I can give you guys, ask and I will tell

When you see cute robot with the red triangle, press power + volume up together to get to the recovery menu, and select "update from /cache" or something similar you'll see there. Then the update process starts and, most probably, gives you some error messages about what's wrong with your phone.

If you have ever changed any system files, update process might require you revert them to the original condition before upgrade, otherwise patches cannot be applied properly.


OTA Gingerbread 2.3 update fails to install on DroidX (rooted stock Froyo 2.2.1 / unrooted back) I was trying to install the Gingerbread (Android 2.3) OTA update available from Verizon for my Droid X.

However the update ALWAYS fails to install. It downloads fine, pops up a message saying that the update (4.5.605.en.US) is about to install and needs a reboot, then reboots when I OK it.

After the reboot, it pops up "Update Status: The Software Update Failed" error box.

My only possible suspicion as far as the reason is that my DroidX is rooted via z4root - I posted a separate question on how to un-root it ( Is there an easy way to un-root Android 2.2 on Droid X rooted via z4root? ) in case that suspicion is true.

UPDATE - I unrooted using latest z4root version. The problem with OTA was NOT fixed.

As far as I have read (in some instances) rooting the Droid X can prevent an OTA upgrade from being applied.  If that is the case here, you can perform an operation to return the phone back to its stock state.  In the case of the Droid X, this would be referred to as SBF.  An SBF file is used with a corresponding piece of software (like RSDLite for windows or sbf_flash in Linux) to completely reset the phone.  Here is a site with the files and tools used - Droid X SBF files.  There are many sites and videos that can walk you through this process.

Your best bet is to SBF back to .602 and then you should be able to take the update, but you will lose root and your phone will be fully reset.  As with everything root-related, you are fully responsible for any issues with the phone.  I, nor any others members of this site take responsibility for any issues or damages you run into with your handset.


My network on the android phone isn't working what is the problem now My phone since was reset because it kept showing unfortunately android has stopped every app I selected it said the app unfortunately has stopped now my issue is ever since then my phone's network doesn't work.  I can't connect with any network provider,  what is the problem?

You may need to clean your cache, or if you are using CWM, try cleaning up DALVIK Cache


System UI has stopped working Oneplus 2 running Paranoid Android 6.01 I flashed the PA 6.01 ROM a few days ago and every time I reboot and the device turns on and an error pops up saying System UI has stopped and when I press OK it just starts the bootanimation again and after the animation has finished the error pops up again and I click OK and the process just keeps repeating in a loop. The first time this happened, I went to my recovery wiped everything but internal storage reflashed the rom, gapps bank ARM64 and SUPER SU. then just reboot. The error has popped up again and again even after doing the wipe and reflash many times do any of you guys know how to fix it? Because I really like PA the battery life it give is just amazing and I find the floating peek feature very very useful. And if any of you guys cant figure it out can you please tell me how to flash oxygen os?

Hard reset the phone by pressing the volume button and the power and hold it down.
You will loose your data
click on the below youtube link to see how to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Y1-2uUyO4


Phone bricked? Stuck in boot (can't access ADB) Unfortunately my Moto G XT1543 is stuck in the boot. PWR + VOL DWN does not work, and adb returns the following:

  adb reboot bootloader

  daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
  daemon started successfully
  error: device '(null)' not found

The official motorola drivers can't recognize the device. I'm completely stuck. Any advise?

Regards

My issue was that PWR + VOL DWN wasn't working, I apologize if I can't provide a more accurate answer, but PWR + VOL DWN finally worked and I was able to connect with adb once again.


How to extract Google contacts pictures? I would like to have all my Google contacts' pictures extracted in a folder, for instance in JPG format.

I know that it's already possible to export all contacts including pictures, for instance via the Export option in Google Contacts or via a third-party app such as Contacts Backup Ultimate. However, this generates a bundle of all contacts (for instance, a VCF file generated via the Export command above will contain all pictures Base64-encoded). I would like to obtain instead a image file for every contact so that they are easily viewable.

Is there a way to do so?

For Android device follow below steps :

Go to Chrome & visit https://contacts.google.com
Select the contact whose photo you want.
Tap on option, select export & select Google CSV.
Then the file will be downloaded.
Open that file in excel sheet (WPS office or MS office Android app).
Go to column name photo & select and copy the URL.
Paste it on Chrome's address/search bar & hit enter.
The image is opened just press & hold on image and save/download it.

I think this will be helpful to you.


Are IPv6 Privacy Extensions supported and how can they be enabled/disabled? I just read about a potential privacy issue with IPv6 addresses on phones. While the article mainly talks about Apple devices, Android is mentioned so I wonder:

Does Android support IPv6 privacy extensions and how can they be enabled/disabled?

According to this question, Android currently has partial support for IPv6.

If your device is rooted go to the terminal after each boot and enter

sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.default.use_tempaddr=2
sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.use_tempaddr=2

For automatic activation you could also add these lines to /etc/sysctl.conf

net.ipv6.conf.all.use_tempaddr = 2
net.ipv6.conf.default.use_tempaddr = 2


Disable email sync outside working hours Is there any way or a mail app where I can set a (per account) sync time? I would like the app to only fetch mails from my (work) account Mo-Fri 9-5 or if I manually sync.

I use k-9 mail since I got my first Android phone and it has a "quiet time" feature. But this seems somewhat broken in recent Android versions and I would like to have something even more aggressive if possible so I can set the app to not even download new emails from my email account at certain times.

Android version 8 (phone) and 9 (tablet).

FairEmail is a popular open source Email client (crossed 100,000 downloads) which can do this for all accounts (global) but not per account. This is because of maintenance and support of app plus battery consumption.

However, you can still use automation for custom polling to achieve individual account sync (this is a pro feature)

You can set the day /hour wise schedule

Developer is very active and responsive as you can see from the XDA thread, which is the right place to get your questions answered.

I am an extremely satisfied user of FairEmail and not affiliated anyway with it.


S5 Phone and SD Card Encryption: Do I need to enter in password twice? I have a Samsung Galaxy S5. If I encrypt the phone and the SD card, presumably with the same PIN/password, do I need to enter in the PIN two times to access the SD card?

I see that encrypting the phone and SD card are two separate processes, but does that mean that I will need to decrypt the phone and the SD card separately every time I use an app or file that's on the SD card?

No. I have that setup and you don't need to enter the password two times. Also when encrypting, android (at least my 4.2.2) does not let you use different passwords for Device and SD card.

One downside of having the phone encrypted is that Android forces you to use the encryption password in the screen lock. After encrypting the phone, you can't use pattern unlock. This has been reported two years ago.


How to get the captive portal's URL which I am currently connected to? I just connected to a WiFi network which uses captive portal login page. I would like to view the captive portal's URL or IP address.

How do I do that?

I have tried clicking forget network on the WiFi in order to get the login page again, but it just connects without triggering the login screen, I think it saves the login info upon correct login.

The second thing I have tried is to wipe the cache and data of the CaptivePortal app from system settings, with no luck.

From this answer on Stack Overflow, Captive Portal is triggered only when you're trying to make a request.

So the answer is: Open an arbitrary web page in your favorite browser, and you'll get redirected to the Captive Portal login page.

From my own experiences, I recommend that you visit a website that does NOT use HTTPS, as encrypted connection may interfere with the redirection (Captive Portal redirection is in fact a man-in-the-middle).


Seeing the full text of a long notification I've got a notification on my phone where the length of the text exceeds the width of the screen and it doesn't wrap, just wanders off the edge. How can I see the full text of the notification?

I've seen a suggestion here that long pressing for ~5 seconds shows it however all this does is bring up the App Info menu. Maybe on older versions of Android that didn't have the App Info menu this worked? Ideally looking for an answer that works on Ice Cream Sandwich and above (since I think that was when the App Info came about?) but I have a Nexus 4 running Jelly Bean 4.2.2 phone.

Here's the notification that I received. Hypothetical: Why did I lose data connectivity? What did I do!?!

In 4.2.x Jelly Bean you can pinch-zoom or two-finger glide in order to toggle between base and expanded [notification] layouts. Not all notifications can be expanded, however. The next time the notification appears try using two fingers to "pull" the notification down into an expanded layout.


Dropbox photos deleted On my HTC EVO, all of my photos from the gallery suddenly moved to Dropbox. They are no longer in my gallery nor my SD card. If I unlink Dropbox from my phone, will my photos be deleted or will they move back to my gallery?

I actually had the same problem recently. It might be one of those, "It's a feature, not a bug" things. I had my Dropbox associated with my desktop computer. When I deleted a folder of pictures from my computer, it deleted those pictures from my dropbox all together.

This seems like quite a mistake, as deleting a local copy should not delete the remote copy on Dropbox.

You should be able to restore your deletions on the Dropbox website. I was able to recover everything I deleted. It doesn't actually delete your items for a long time (scary).


Why is Android showing a different hosts file once my system is booted versus in recovery? In the past, I've used a modified hosts file on my system that I place at /system/etc/hosts. The process is pretty straightforward

Boot into recovery using a custom recovery.
Mount /system read-write
Use adb push to copy a hosts file to /system/etc/hosts
Reboot and the hosts file takes effect.

Note that the above process doesn't require rooting. It does, of course, modify the system partition.

However, after upgrading to Nougat, I'm seeing some weird behavior where once I reboot, the hosts file is just the standard one with only localhost in it. This never used to happen on Marshmallow or below.

I thought at first that the system was overwriting my hosts file on each boot, but the strangest part is that if I go back to recovery, the file I copied is still there at /system/etc/hosts. My guess is that the system is doing a mount at boot time that's hiding my file.

Does anyone have any experience with this or have a way to fix it?

I got this problem, too.

After my searching and try for hours, finnally it worked.

Just use adb push to copy a hosts file to both /system/etc/hosts and /etc/hosts

I think /etc/hosts probobaly overrides /system/etc/hosts when the phone rebooting.


How can I disable shortcuts from being created after install from Google Play? I own a Galaxy S2 with the Samsung ICS stock, and I've noticed when I download an application from Google Play (Market) it installs it and automatically places the app shortcut on the first free space it finds on the launcher front.

Is there any way to disable this feature?

Open the Play Store, go into its settings, and uncheck the 'Auto-add widgets' option. The option also applies to shortcut auto-creation (which makes the name rather misleading).


Vibrate not working on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean Update Samsung Galaxy S3.

I go to Settings > My device > Sound > Vibrations

Before the Jelly Bean update, I had a custom vibration which was a medium length vibration. Now, after the Jelly Bean update a little while ago, it's just two short vibrations.

I've changed my vibration after I noticed this to "Jingle Bell" and it's still the same vibration. Any ideas on how to fix this?

I've been having the same problem. it's my understanding that as of now that is the default text message vibration and can not be changed


Where is the old DDMS debugging log (logged before I my smartphone gets turned off) Where are old DDMS debugging logs that are logged before my smartphone is turned off? I forgot to keep my logs before I turned it off yesterday. I usually enable debugging mode in case of suspicious situations.

I want to debug my phone as a very strange thing happened yesterday, my smartphone was operated by microwave remotely.

My phone is a Nexus 5 (4.4.2)

They're not anywhere. The logs you see in adb logcat are stored in a ring buffer in RAM only. They're deleted when the phone is turned off. Even while the phone is turned on, the oldest entries are continually overwritten by new entries, so that the log doesn't take up more and more RAM the longer the phone runs.


Does Odin wipe system image when flashing a new Rom? I wanted to know when flashing a new ROM by using Odin does it wipe and clean the contents of the partitions(system, boot, ..) and then add the new content or just use some kind of replace over files?

The reason for asking the question is that I had my phone which was functioning normally but I decided to flash the new and updated stock ROM for my phone. So I went on with the process of flashing and after it finished and booted successfully, I noticed that stock apps are updated with some new apps but my previously installed apps and settings, contacts, ... all are there too! so I did a factory reset to have a clean start. (Note: I used a stock '.tar.md5' file which had everything in it; system,boot,recovery,...)

So what should I do if I want to have a completely fresh ROM just after flashing? (any options in Odin maybe, what about 'Nand Erase All' option?)

As stated here by user90492, dont use the NAND erase all. It will completely wipe the NAND including bits required to boot.

Odin should theoretically wipe the partition before writing on it as it does a write by block. Odin did not format the data partition resulting in old contacts data being present. The tarball file you used must be missing the blank data which is typically used to overwrite the data partition.


How could I retrive full internal storage of an Android smartphone in order to restore data? In TWRP, I originally intended to only formating Data as F2FS but didn't know that from around Android 5, data is a subfolder under /sdcard and everything in /sdcard is gone. How could I retrive a full image of Android internal storage so that I could try to use some data recovery softwares recovering as much as possible?

Well, basically TWRP is a tiny embedded Linux so we could do Linux things in TWRP. First we need to unmount all the unneccessary ones in Mount menu, plug in a big enough flash drive formatted using exFAT (By default, Linux couldn't write NTFS, and FAT32 has file size limitation. You may also need extra power supply to get the HDD working), and mount it. Then go to Adaveced -> Terminal and you get a busybox to play with, like other embedded Linux systems.
For phones using UFS, usually the block device for internal storage is /dev/block/sda, and you could confirm this by checking its size.
# --getsize64 would return size in bytes
~ # blockdev --getsize64 /dev/block/sda
123161542656

The returned number is the block device's size in bytes. That's around 123.16 gigabytes, consistent with the info available on LineageOS device specs (128 GB).
And for smartphones using EMMC, the block device for it should be /dev/block/mmcblk0, correct me if I am wrong.
Now we could dump all the content of that image into external storage device.
DO NOT WRITE BACK TO INTERNAL STORAGE. You would get your data overwritten and that's why I said unmounting all unneccessary volumes at the beginning.
dd if=/dev/block/sda bs=4096 of=/usb_otg/dump.img

Hint: You could utilize nohup to let dd running at background and continue other tasks in terminal, like:
# The "&" symbol at the end is necessary
nohup dd if=/dev/block/sda bs=4096 of=/usb_otg/dump.img > /usb_otg/dd.log 2>&1 &

After dd finishes, unmount your external drive. Wish you a good luck recovering data.


I have used DiskUsage App. But in the grid i get system data using around 8GB out of the 24GB usable memory of my Phone[32GB internal] I have used DiskUsage App. But in the grid i get system data using around 8GB out of the 24GB usable memory of my Phone[32GB internal]

Application data also is mentioned seperate. I can't figure out by what 8GB is being used. I have 32GB internal memory out of which OS has already utilized 8GB and now another 8GB is being used as System Data which does not include Applications installed and it's data. Please suggest? Not able to see what is occupied in that 8GB?

Just going to chime in here that I also had this problem - "System Data" segment was consuming about 7.5GB of space on my 16GB Moto X. Often this can be caused by a rogue app that isn't cleaning up after itself.  I deleted almost everything extraneous I could think of and finally hit upon the solution (for this case, anyway).

In this case the culprit happened to be the default android Mail app when sync'd to an Exchange account. I was set up to sync only mail from the previous week, and indeed if you scrolled through the inbox only about a week of mail was there, but on a hunch I deleted the Exchange account and then re-made it. It synced up about a week of mail and otherwise seemed exactly the same as it was before but it freed up almost 5GB of storage space in System Data.

This is Android 6.0 - go figure that a core application would leak so badly.


Problem connecting Galaxy Note 10.1 to Mac OS X Mountain Lion I'm trying to connect my Galaxy Note 10.1 (running Android 4.2.2) to my Mac OS 10.8 machine via USB. I used Android File Transfer, but it gives me an error that says:

  Could not connect to device. Try reconnecting or restarting your device.

Did you try to set the USB Connection mode to Camera (PTP) mode or Media device (MTP) mode? Might help to deinstall KIES. The USB cable does work on another laptop/pc?


Stop text messages from going into my Exchange account's Inbox When a text message comes in, the stock email app throws a copy into my Exchange email accounts that are on the phone. I want to turn this feature off but cannot find a setting for it anywhere. I have a Galaxy S5.

What's even worse is that it's not just a combined view; the text messages are actually inserted into your Inbox, so your private text messages sync back to your corporate email account, so they show up in Outlook on your PC, and they're available for your company's Exchange administrators to snoop on! It's probably the most annoying anti-feature I encountered when I first got started with Android.
The setting to make it stop doing that is there, but they hide it really, really well. Not only is it in an unintuitive location, but in order to get there you twice have to scroll down to hidden portions of the screen where there are no visual cues that indicate that there's anything more down below.
Here's how to ferret out the text message sync setting's hidden underground lair:

Select Settings from the menu (the soft button in the bottom left corner, not the hamburger menu in the top left corner).

Select Account Settings.

Select your Exchange account.

You'd expect to find it here under Sync Settings, presuming that this was designed with common sense, right? Well, you'd be wrong. Scroll down to find a hidden More settings button at the bottom, and tap it.

On the More settings screen, scroll down again.

Find the Sync text message setting, and uncheck it.


How does Android audit file actions? I was wondering if there is a log of when an application read or write data. Furthermore, how would I go about accessing this data? If there is none, is there another way you guys would think of logging applications creating or opening files?

No, there isn't, and I don't think there's any way to achieve this as a user without making your own custom ROM.


How to change the monotonous outgoing call ringtone You know that annoying beeping you hear when you call someone, waiting them to pick up? I am completely sick of it and want to customise it on my Huawei Android phone. The question is: how do I do that? Thank you

It is called "ringback" or ringing tone and unless the far end has setup custom ringback tones with their carrier, you should get the standardized tone based on the country/region you are in, or more accurately the destination you are calling is in.

These "tones" and other sounds in telecommunications are standardized so they can be recognized by equipment that is intended to see (listen for) specific frequencies, combinations of frequencies, or tonal patterns to denote call progress or other events related to the call. They are often replaced in modern devices with digital signalling, but are still standardized for older equipment.

If you want to change YOUR ringback tone, then your carrier must support it and you will have to set it up with them. Otherwise the receiving caller's carrier is in control of what is heard during ringback in most cases. Your device has no control over what ringback is heard or delivered to callers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringing_tone


Force tablet UI on a non-tablet device? I own a large screen phone and am wondering if I could make it recognize itself as a tablet, as in:

The navbar should stay at the bottom instead of rotating to the sides
Notification shade doesn't occupy the whole screen width in portrait / doesn't stay in the middle in landscape
Apps that support tablet layout will use it

AFAIK, a sufficiently small DPI (LCD density) value will trigger the change, but naturally I want the UI elements to stay at a visible, comfortable size. There's supposed to be a trigger (an if-else condition?) that calculates whether tablet UI should be activated based on device metrics and the above DPI value, however I don't know where the actual trigger is or how should I change it to make it always say "tablet". I've seen similar things done to Android versions below 5.0 via Xposed modules, but those are quite outdated by now.

The answer could be using Xposed (not preferred but still alright, since I still need to stay on Nougat for a while), modifying SystemUI, or even modifying the Android source code and building (I have the know-how for that) - one just have to tell me where and how.

Any ideas?

After some digging I am able to sort out a relatively easy solution for the first and most important requirement, that is, keeping the navbar at the bottom. Requires root (of course - to pull and push files) and basic skill of using apktool.

For pre-compiled ROMs:

  Install apktool.
  Install your framework-res.apk by executing apktool if /path/to/framework-res.apk.
  Decompile your services.jar by executing apktool d /path/to/services.jar.
  Go to the decompiled services.jar.out folder and open smali/com/android/server/policy/PhoneWindowManager.smali.
  Search for 0x258 and replace the only occurrence of it with 0x0.
  Rebuild services.jar (preserve its signature) by executing apktool b -c services.jar.out.
  Decompile your SystemUI.apk by executing apktool d /path/to/SystemUI.apk.
  Go to the decompiled SystemUI folder, then go to res/layout/.
  Remove navigation_layout_rot90.xml.
  Make a copy of navigation_layout.xml and rename it to navigation_layout_rot90.xml.
  Rebuild SystemUI (preserve its signature) by executing apktool b -c SystemUI.
  Push the finished services.jar and SystemUI.apk back to where they were using a method of your choice, set correct permissions, then reboot.

For ROM makers:

  Open *build-folder*/frameworks/base/services/core/java/com/android/server/policy/PhoneWindowManager.java.
  Search for shortSizeDp < 600 and replace the only occurrence of it with shortSizeDp < 0.
  Find the SystemUI layout files in *build-folder*/frameworks/base/packages/SystemUI/res/layout/ and replace, similar to the method for pre-compiled ROMs.
  Build the ROM.

Note that the default button layout doesn't look good under landscape mode, but one can always use the built-in navbar tuner in Android 7.0+ to tweak it to his desire.

As of Android 10, this has been simplified to a single boolean config config_navBarCanMove, which can either be set directly in the framework or separately in an overlay (recommended).


How to find out which app is providing adverts (without reverting to process of elimination) I'm on Android 6 (P8 if it matters) and I am getting very annoying adverts.

Screen shots show it all:

Screenshots (click images for larger variants)

This icon shown on the right of the first screenshot with the word WIN persists on my "desktop" or "home" screen too. If I click on it, I get what's shown in the second screenshot – as pops up enough to be annoying but it doesn't pop up daily.

My question is, how do I know what is causing this so I can remove it.

The only option I know of is to start removing apps and use the power of elimination but that is not ideal!

The other option I know of is to click on it - sometimes an advert  is part of the app installed (in this image, it takes me to the buy plug ins from the Keyboard app I use) which probably suggests that this app is causing it (but not guaranteed).

Regardless of those 2, I'm still keen to know how to tell, be it via logs or anything else.

I'm pretty sure that your keyboard is cause of ads showing (I guess this isn't stock one, is it?) try finding settings of that keyboard and see if there is option to turn off ads (I guess there isn't but still worth of try) however if you don't find option to turn off ads than simply uninstall some reliable keyboard (G BOARD and such)


App icons disappear from home screen on app update Ever since I got my Nexus 5, I've notice that apps sometimes disappear from the launcher for no reason. This seems to correspond to that app being updated, although it doesn't always happen to every app on every update. I've seem some questions about icons disappearing due to moving them onto an SD card, but I don't have one of those so that's not it.

The apps are still installed and show up in Settings > Apps or in the alphabetized pages one gets by pressing the ::: icon. Some of the apps this has happened to include Facebook, Android IRC, TransitTimes+, QuickPic, and Minecraft — but it's not just limited to those, and it doesn't seem to happen to those with every update.

I'm not using any special launcher or anything — just the stock one that comes with KitKat 4.4 on the Nexus 5. (Updated to 4.4.2)

What's going on and how can I fix it?

This is not a bug with the Nexus 5.  It seems like the Google Experience Launcher (aka Google Now Launcher) seems to handle app shortcuts a little differently than other launchers do.  The cause of this has to do with the way the developer is updating their app.  I have seen this problems specifically with Franco Kernel Updater on my Nexus 5 with GEL/GNL, almost every update that comes out I have to add the icon back onto my launcher home screen.

I think I read somewhere that it is when the manifest file is changed... but don't quote me on that yet.


Use scrcpy to connect to multiple smartphones I just learned how to use scrcpy. I successfully turned on ADB on the Android and am able to scrcpy to it from my PC. Now, I want to connect to multiple smartphones.
I notice it is a portable app, so is it a matter of duplicating multiple folders of scrcpy? Or can I connect to multiple phones from one instance of scrcpy?

If multiple devices are connected you can select the device to connect to by specify it's serial number. This is documented on the scrcpy help page. Therefore you can start one scrcpy instance per device.

Multi-devices
If several devices are listed in adb devices, you must specify the
serial:

scrcpy --serial 0123456789abcdef
scrcpy -s 0123456789abcdef # short


Contacts app not showing all contacts! I sync'd my PC-based Outlook contacts with my Sony Xperia XA, using MyPhoneExplorer.  It tells me 3526 contacts are sync'd, and in checking the phone with ContactsOptimizer, it reports the same number.  When I open the Contacts app, it does not show some of my contacts! I discovered this, because the first one I looked for was my own - not there!

However, when I called my phone from my house phone ... my contact entry came up!  Picture and everything! And when I clicked "View Contact Entry", it showed me the whole thing - perfectly! But I go back into the Contacts app ... not there!

This happens for a relatively small (but significant!) number of contacts that I could see so far - in other words, not just one ... at least 10 I counted.

I tried Settings->Apps->Media Storage->Clear Data and reboot ... clears the picture data, for sure, but not Contacts!

PLEASE somebody help me get sane again!  How can the contact be in the phone, but not show in Contacts?!  I can't find any specific way to rebuild the Contacts app's database - only to CLEAR DATA, which I don't want.

PLEASE ... help me get sane again:-)

From the surface clues, I thought the index was corrupt. Not the issue at all. Being a newbie to the Android, I was unaware of all the myriad features of the beast:-)

A lot more digging found the "problem". Namely, I use lots of category designations in my Outlook contacts. MyPhoneExplorer does a 100% correct job of transporting all these ... BUT, turns out the Android contacts app in its FILTER option treats these in a bizarre way. Namely, if you try ...

Contacts->->Filter->Display contacts->Local

... you see that ALL the existing categories are checked ... BUT, the very bottom one ("All other contacts") is NOT CHECKED. The result is that all contacts WITH categories get displayed, and any without a designated CATEGORY are NOT displayed.

Simple solution (discovered after a week of hell:-)) ... just check the "All other contacts" box, and PRESTO! Now I see everything.

Post-script: whoever designed this "Display contacts" feature has it backwards! The default should be to show ALL contacts, with option to the user to narrow the selection by UNCHECKING various boxes.


How can I wipe my SD card on an unresponsive Nexus 4? About two years ago, I dropped my Nexus 4 and shattered the screen. It no longer registered touches and is unusable. I'm finally getting around to recycling all of my busted electronics, and I realized that this device still has all of my personal data on it, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't encrypted. I'd like to factory reset my device, but I can't actually interact with the phone's OS to do that. Removing the SD card would also probably be an acceptable option as a last resort.

If it matters, I bought it unlocked and used T-Mobile's prepaid service.

Any ideas?

You can perform a factory reset with just using the physical buttons.

Step 1: Boot into recovery mode.

Step 2: Perform a reset from your recovery.

These steps don't require screen to sense touches. If your screen is completely gone so it shows nothing here's a video of it so you can follow from there.


How to use setprop via adb shell in recovery? I messed up flashing a beta Android Q build on my phone.

After that, I can't flash my stable ROM without error 7 in TWRP - device mismatch.
Removing the assert works, but not a permanent solution.

So, I digged through google and my own phone for hours and found out why. My device is identified as raphael in recovery, but it is identified as raphaelin in fastboot and while the phone is booted.

In recovery:

# getprop ro.product.device
# raphael

In booted mode (i.e. while the phone is booted):

# getprop ro.product.device
# raphaelin

In fastboot:

> fastboot getvar product
product: raphaelin

I checked my build.prop and the value in that file is raphaelin too. I tried setprop and it showed that it can't set that property.

So, please advise me on how to set the value using setprop in recovery mode. Or, if you know, please let me know from where the recovery is pulling data for getprop and if I can change that file.

Firstly the main Android OS (what you call "boot mode") and recovery are two independent operating systems. When one is running, other is not. Running processes are different, environment is different, loaded properties are different and so on.

Recovery has its own default.prop file in ramdisk from which it reads properties. In order to permanently change the value of ro.product.device you'll have to unpack recovery.img (or boot.img on A/B devices), modify the file, repack and re-flash.

Secondly you can't set read-only (ro.*) properties once they are already set. Magisk's resetprop tool however can do this, going a little out of the way.

Thirdly ro.product.device is usually set in /system/build.prop. So you can edit this file and reboot device to see changes. There are also some other files from which properties are set on boot.
Make sure not to break dm-verity by modifying /system if enabled.

Since the (/system and other) partitions are accessible from recovery mode too, you can mount filesystem read/write in recovery and edit the file.

Fourthly the value you are getting in fastboot is independent of both main OS and recovery. That's hard-coded in bootloader. You'll get that value even if there is no recovery and no Android OS on device.


My Droid did a system update and erased everything My Droid Incredible did a system update & went to factory reset. Everything is gone.
Can I go back and restore?

Unless you had a back-up, it would be impossible to go back to a previous state. However, if you enabled Google sync, you can still restore your contacts, calendar, and other Google-syncable data.

After a Factory Reset, you will be asked to log-in to your Google account again. After which, it may ask you if you want to re-install some apps that you paid for previously. It will not install the free apps; you may want to install them manually.