Core GMS package Suddenly started Malfunctioning (old Huawei Honor 8, ~2 years in use) I have been using my Huawei Honor 8 for about 2 years now. I live in the US. And I have been using Google Play Store and other apps without any issues. Last night my phone ran out of charge and died. When I plugged it in and turned it on, I received tens of notifications stating: "Get Google Play Services. [App name] won't run without Google Play Services which are missing from your device". I Double checked it, and Google Play Services are still installed. However, whenever I attempt opening any Google-related app, I get an error message saying: "Core GMS packages. Install core GMS packages to use [App name]".

Has anyone encountered this problem before? What could cause it? And how could it be resolved?

Model Number: FRD-L04
Build Number: FRD-L04C567B398
EMUI version: 5.0.4
Android Version: 7.0

The issue was resolved. Since only certain Google-related apps were affected, I was able to back up everything else I had on the phone, including data and apps. After that I ran the Factory Data Reset and used my back up to make the process of setting up the phone and all the apps, I had been using, easier. The problem was resolved immediately after the reboot and I was able to set up the phone with my Google account.

/Posting this answer to end the thread/

P.S.: Prior to running a factory reset, I attempted clearing cache and data for the affected and related apps and resetting phone settings without deleting all data. That did not work.


Samsung: Backing up messages fails I am trying to back up a Samsung S5 mini (SM-G800F, running Android 5.1.1) using either Samsung Kies or SmartSwitch.  With either program, the backup stalls for a very long time when it gets to backing up messages.  When it finally recovers, it announces that backing up messages has failed (the rest of the items are fine).

  The following categories have failed to back up due to an error.

  Messages — Device not responding.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?  What could be the root cause?  Is there anything I can do on the phone itself to correct this, and allow messages to get backed up as well?

In the past backup has worked correctly with the same phone.

I had the same problem for month, I updated to the last version of smart switch today and have reboot my s8 yesterday (I have almost 25% of free space on the phone)
I gave a new chance to the backup with smart switch today and, after being stucked for almost 2 hours on "backing up message" at 18%, it finally went to the next step of the backup!
So my advice is : patience (and use an usb 3 port!)


Creating a backup with adb results in 41 byte file I have an old droid RAZR Maxx (4.1.2) that I decided I want to root, but I want to make a backup first just in case. I've followed instructions from this site:

How To Create a Full Android Phone or Tablet Backup Without Rooting or Unlocking Your Device

My command was this:

adb backup -apk -shared -all -f c:\backup.ab

The resulting backup.ab file on the C: drive was only 41 bytes and, when opened in a hex editor, appears to only be the header of the backup file. I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong here, I've googled but can't find anything that helps. Any suggestions?

Edit: This is not a duplicate of the suggested a topic linked by beeshyams. That topic explains why the user couldn't back up one single app's files, I'm trying to back up everything. I don't care if I don't get SMS included in that backup because it's an old phone, I'm not using it to text, but there are other apps and settings that should back up without issue.

Found solution here, worked for me:

https://docs.j7k6.org/android-adb-backup-41-bytes-549-bytes-bug-fix/

  Appearantly the adb backup command stopped working for older Android
  devices in recent versions of the Android Debug Bridge. When invoking
  a backup with adb, the backup process is started but stops
  immediately, leaving a local backup.ab file with a filesize of only 49
  bytes (549 bytes when the backup is encrypted with a password). This
  bug is well known, but hasn’t been fixed at least until recently
  (version 1.0.39). To fix this behaviour, download the last working
  version of the adb executable (1.0.31) and invoke the backup with
  this. The executables for all platforms can be downloaded at Mozilla.

https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/labs/android-tools/

adb-1.0.31-linux.zip    479K    09-Sep-2015 18:44
adb-1.0.31-linux64.zip  455K    09-Sep-2015 18:44
adb-1.0.31-mac.zip  433K    09-Sep-2015 18:44
adb-1.0.31-windows.zip  474K    09-Sep-2015 18:44

Download, unzip, run unzipped adb:

(linux, mac)

./adb devices
./adb backup -apk -shared -all -f backup-file.adb

(win)

adb devices
adb backup -apk -shared -all -f backup-file.adb

Enjoy! ;)


SD card not detected after re-partitioning it, FAT32 + EXT4 I followed the steps here to add an EXT4 partition on my 8gb sd card:
http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/properly-partition-sd-card-for-app2sd-android-roms/

Now I have 6.xGB FAT32 as the primary partition, and a 1GB EXT4 logical partition.
But my Samsung Galaxy Ace (running on CyanogenMod-7.2.0-C1-cooper, official nightly build) doesn't recognize the sd card anymore.

Please help. Thanks.

Update: I gave up and reformatted it back to a single FAT32 partition, copied my backup into the sd card, now the apps don't get recognized. Please, please help me. :(

If your phone is rooted and got ClockworkMod installed, then try formatting and creating an EXT partition in ClockworkMod. Its the most simplest and easiest way to do it. It will automatically take care of your Fat partition too.

For more info, read this article


How can I verify my phone's Bootloader, OS, and ROM haven't been tampered with? I just purchased a Galaxy S7 for a really cheap rate... and it makes me wonder if the phone has been hacked in some way.

I know the phone supports Samsung Knox, and am new-ish to Android overall.

Question

What can I do to verify if this phone was untampered with?
How can I reset it (restore ROM?) to a known-trusted state?
Is there a general process for all Android phones, or is the verification method and technique manufacturer-specific?

Would love to know about any notable Android hardware security solutions (I already researched Blackberry Priv and Samsung.)

There are a few indicators of modified/unmodified devices, depending on what was modified and how.

Depending on the manufacturer and model, some of these indicators are not available.

These should apply to any recent Samsung phone:

: Go to Settings -> About phone -> Status -> Device status.
As long as the ROM/firmware hasn't been tampered with, it should show Official.
This can be Official, even when using custom ROMs, so it's not the best indicator, but the easiest to access.
: Hold Volume-Down+Home when powering on the device to boot towards the bootloader (used to install official and custom firmware, recoveries etc) and press Volume-Up without connecting it to a PC (just to be sure).
It will show some information about the state of the device like
the binary status ("Custom" means it's modified), the system status (I rarely seen this not reading "Official")
or KNOX warranty void status (just voids any warranty around KNOX, not anything else; hardware warranty and non-KNOX software warranty is still valid) that indicates tampering with the system at any point in the past (not even reinstalling an official firmware will reset this).

Devices which utilize fastboot, can be queried using the fastboot command (from the Android SDK, but there is a package with only the required files).
The command should be fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability (not tested, I don't have a device with fastboot capability).


change native Android SIP dialing settings My SIP Trunk (hooio) has a specific dialing plan:

[Country Code][Phone Number incl. Area Code]

However, all mobile carriers have a different dialing plan:

[Local Phone Number]   OR
+[Country Code][Phone Number incl Area Code]

The main difference here being the 'plus'

All my phonebook entries are geared to work with the +[country][number] plan.
But when I dial these using the native SIP client, I get errors - since the trunk does not like the plus (!!! Should this not be a standard?!)

I'd really like to keep using this trunk, and they apparently cant or wont change their dialing plan.

Is there any way to configure rules for dialing with the native client? like remove the plus before dialing?   The only alternative is to have duplicate phonebooks for mobile vs internet calls - and I don't like my provider enough to waste time on this :(

Thanks anyone for advice or feedback on this! and Happy New Year!

I suppose "Prefixer" (written by "253°Below") or another app "PreFixer" can make the job of cutting the "+" symbols from the numbers' beginnings. However you will need to switch the Prefixer off to make the regular GSM calls. Else you can let the Prefixer do a smarter job by cutting pluses only from the numbers which look like "+123....." transforming them into "123.....".

Also there is an application which automatically transforms all the local(short) numbers in the address book into one standard by adding country codes and area codes. Its name is "Contacts Clean-up". It might do a portion of the required job, too.


My headphones wont work when i use with with my LG When I plug my headphones in (I have apple headphones) the icon shows up for a second then disappears. How do I fix this?

It's very likely there's something wrong with the 3.5mm jack. My brother had the same problem, he'd have to replace the jack but it was better to just replace the phone since it was an older one.

Test the headphones with some other music device, like an MP3 or radio and see if the same problem persists. This way you can be sure there's nothing wrong with your headphones.


How to install Google Play services on an Android 6.0 emulator? Is there a way to install Google Play app on an Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) AVD?
I have found the Open Gapps for Android 6 here:
https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=24269982087008996

To install them you need to boot into Recovery mode and install that zip file, but
an emulator does not have a recovery partition, so the steps target the case of a
device.

Do you know, how I can do the same for the emulator? I tried to unzip the file and
put the 4 APKs described here (for Android version 5):
http://www.flinkd.org/2015/02/instal...i-21-lollipop/

but after rebooting the emulator, although the icon of Google Play appears in the launcher,
when I tap on it, then the emulator crashes with some fatal exceptions in logcat.
I tried to install the packages one at a time, rebooting the emulator after each installation,
and found out that the crash happens after installing the Phonesky.apk no matter if you
click on the Google Play icon.

1) Go get GApps for the emulator from http://opengapps.org

2) Unzip to get

GmsCore.apk
GoogleServicesFramework.apk
GoogleLoginService.apk
Phonesky.apk

Launch the emulator from the command line, on linux you do

./emulator [name] -no-boot-anim -writable-system

on windows it's probably

emulator.exe [name] -no-boot-anim -writable-system

Make sure you have adb access to the emulator.

adb remount

last but not least, push everything to system.

adb push GmsCore.apk /system/priv-app/

(and repeat for all the other APKs)

then reboot with

adb shell stop

and

adb shell start


Phone intermittently not responding to screen touches I have a (non-rooted) Samsung Nexus S - Android 2.3.3 phone. It has recently started becoming completely unresponsive to my screen touches, despite many attempts, cleaning the screen etc. But if I put the phone to sleep by pressing the button on the right hand side, then press the button again to wake it up - I find it always immediately works perfectly again. It may then work perfectly for a minute or two until the same happens all over again. The problem can occur regardless of what apps I am using.

I have tried using task killer, just in case it was some side effect of one of my running apps, but it made no difference.

Any suggestions what I could try next? Or could it be an unfixable hardware problem?

There are two possible reasons:

A. Something is wrong with your hardware. Unlikely since you're saying putting device to sleep and resuming fixes this problem for a while.

B. Something is wrong with your software. Most probably it is misbehaving third-party software. You can try to diagnose this as following:

Visit "Developer options" under Settings, and enable the following:

1.1 Show Touches - You'll see if your touches are registered on OS level at all.

1.2 Show CPU usage
If you see that your touches are registered, but CPU usage is high, try the following options, also under debugging:

2.1 Show all ANRs

2.2 Don't keep activities

2.3 Background process limit: No background processes

Setting "Show all ANRs" may point you to a misbehaving background process. and disabling background activities may help you understand if the problem is a background process at all. The settings above are useful only for debugging, disable them as soon as you fixed this issue, as they may interfere badly with legitimate software that needs to run in the background.
Install Android SDK on a computer, connect your phone and use "adb logcat" to see a logging trace of your phone. It may provide invaluable insight into what's going on behind the scenes there.


How can I set a custom ringtone for a contact when using Google Voice? I use Google Voice for all incoming calls. When someone calls me, their contact information (picture, phone number, name) shows up on the screen. However, the ringtone that is used is not the custom ringtone assigned to that contact, but the default ringtone. What can I do?

My phone numbers are currently stores as ########## with no leading 1. I'm not sure if this matters.

I would first test by adding a 1 to a number and having them call you.  Android should be smart enough to treat them identically but Google Voice might not play nicely.

I'm not sure of the specifics of how GVoice works, but keep in mind that your contacts are calling Google and Google is calling you.  Somehow they pass on your contact's number, but it's spoofed, and your phone is probably relying on the "real" number (i.e. Google's number) for choosing the ringtone.


Android Backup and Restore I have rooted android phone. I backed up a application, uninstalled the application from the phone and restored it back the way it was there in the phone(using backup including changes to packages.list and packages.xml). The restored application is not showing up immediately but shows up after reboot of the phone.

Is there any service that has to be restarted to recognize the presence of the app immediately?

If it'll help, an app like Titanium Backup (sounds like you're probably already rooted) handles pretty much everything for you.


How can I change the default app that opens when double tapping the screen of my Galaxy note with the S Pen? I would like to change the default behaviour of S Pen so that instead of using the (not so good) memo app from Samsung I can use the note taking app of my choice (right now Papyrus).

How can I change the default behaviour of double tapping the screen with the S Pen while holding its side button to open my app of choice?

Thanks!

I use the app Pentastic for that.
https://galaxystore.samsung.com/detail/com.samsung.android.pentastic
I was actually looking for a way to disable this shortcut. This can be accomplished by combining the above with the app "Do Nothing".
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=i.donothing


Associating a particular input method with a specific app Is there a way to associate a particular input method with a specific app?  For example, I'd like to always use the Hacker's Keyboard with the Terminal Emulator, while using SwiftKey for most other apps.

If this is a feature that requires rooting the phone and possibly installing a custom ROM, please let me know; I'm considering doing this anyway and the availability of such a feature might be my "killer app".

Currently, there's no stable solution available, but you can try KeySwap to associate specific keyboard to an app.

As Android doesn't allow an app to change Input Method programatically, your device needs to be rooted for this to work.


Cannot add gmail to unmonitored apps (battery usage) to get notifications in battery saving mode I want to have instant Gmail notifications even in battery saving mode (which typically blocks apps from background CPU/network usage). I found these amazing instructions for Android 6, however when I try something similar on my Samsung Galaxy S7 phone (Android 7.0), i.e. I go Settings -> Device Maintenance -> Battery -> Unmonitored Apps -> Add apps, then I don't see Gmail app in the list!! There are lots of others but not Gmail! Chrome neither. How is it possible?? How do I solve the issue? Thanks a lot.

Timely notifications on Android is a bit of a crapshoot since Marshmallow. Thanks to the battery management, no app can guarantee that their background process will be running on the specific intervals they have set. It varies among devices though.

I don't know if this will work since I have a LG G6 and am running Oreo.  So, the way I found to allow Gmail to battery saver mode was this:
Settings --> General --> Battery --> Power Saving exclusions
Scroll down to Gmail, then click on the switch to the right.

Tested by sending myself an email from another account and I got the notification!

Source:  Had to do it myself.


S5 G901f 4G+ on Android 6 is slow to switch tower My recently purchased Samsung GS5 G901f 4G+ on Android 6 loses network for ~10s in many locations. I have used the "Open Signal" app to get an understanding of the problem. It seems to me like the S5 is not properly switching to a different tower when I walk around. It lets the reception get really low, the connection cuts, and after ~10s of having no network it will finally connect to another antenna. I know there is something wrong with the phone because with the same carrier+SIM card I never lose network in my area on my old S4.

So my question is, is this a software problem or could it be hardware?

It was a software problem. Switching to android 5 fixed the issue.


Questions About Android Privacy The permissions warning in the Android Market is very vague. As well, I can't see the app permissions in a collective area of all the apps I have previously installed. So, I have no clue whether an app is accessing my contacts, my email address, my name, phone number, camera, microphone, image gallery, and other private information.

Is there a way, or an app I can install, which will indicate some risks to me about my apps and my privacy?

You can see the permissions of installed apps.  Go to

Market -> Menu button, My apps -> select an app -> Menu button, Security

There are also apps called Permissions Watchdog, and Permissions, as per Al's comment.


Xperia S Backup & Restore: Could not back up media files and downloaded apps with data When I tried backing up my Xperia S, the default Backup & Restore would backup only system apps.

It says "Could not back up" for "Media files" and for "Downloaded apps with data".

Screenshot:

You do not need to back up media files or app data. They are in device's internal storage. If  you are performing a factory reset these datas wont be erased unless you select Erase Internal Storage when performing a factory reset.

If you still need to backup the media files or app data, connect your Xperia S to a PC and backup the files in the PC.


Cataclysm rom and Xposed First, apology if this question is already answered before, but I can't find this question after searching.
For some reason I'd like to flash Xposed but afaik most of Cataclysm update is on delta update, is there any issue if I flash Xposed and then the delta update is released and apply it?
I know I have to ask this on the rom or Xposed XDA thread, but I guess it would be convenience to ask it in here.
Thanks in advance.

It actually depends on what is being changed in the update. It may or may not affect xposed.

AFAIK Xposed works by integrating itself through patching of a framework library app_process (I am no xposed developer, so I may slightly deviate here from what actually happens).

To go in detail, every app and task is started as a "fork" (or copy in simpler words) of a base process called zygote. This is started by an /init.rc script through app_process inside /system/bin.

In other words, xposed creates an extended app_process of its own.

Ok, but what does it mean?

Simply said, unless the update provided replaces or patches out the app_process or similar to a very large extent, it will affect xposed; else it won't.

Now normally, updates have fixes to system apps and internal framework for bug fixes/new features. app_process is something which is generally not changed much by custom ROM builders and its code still highly resembles original google code (many times there isn't any change at all). So an update affecting xposed is likely rare (as its the system apps/components like systemui or framework-res that contain code for almost all extra features and are hence most common elements to get updates). Especially since its delta update, the chances of xposed being affected reduce even more.

Again, it is not a guarantee that xposed would not be affected, especially when it comes to individual modules' compatibility. As I said, it depends on what and how is being updated. Always have a backup first.


Install TWRP and Magisk Manager on Moto G5 Plus without rooting I would like to install Google Play Services for AR (ARCore) on my Moto G5 Plus, running Oreo 8.1 - this device is not on the official Google supported list. I believe this is possible with TWRP and Magisk Manager. I have the Android SDK, and all necessary USB drivers installed. I can load .apk's using adb.
However, I'd like to install TWRP without unlocking the bootloader or rooting the phone.
First question: is this even possible? or do I need to root the phone?

I tried to follow the instructions to install TWRP withOUT rooting, but when I try to flash the latest version of the Potter image, twrp-3.3.1-0-potter.img, I get a 'Preflash validation failed' error:

\android\Sdk\platform-tools> .\fastboot.exe flash recovery twrp.img
(bootloader) is-logical:recovery: not found
Sending 'recovery' (16342 KB)                      OKAY [  0.710s]
Writing 'recovery'                                 (bootloader) Image recovery failed validation
(bootloader) Preflash validation failed
FAILED (remote: '')
fastboot: error: Command failed

According to this answer, Moto devices do not support downgrading the bootloader. However, I figured the recovery image (3.3.1-0) was the most updated, and suited for Oreo 8.1. Is there any way to check bootloader versions of the image and that on my phone?

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Answer: it is not possible without unlocking boot loader.
Thank you to @alecxs !

Also for anyone interested, rooting has some side effects: cannot load the Netflix app due to safety net checks. Even with the magisk mod for hiding safety net flags.
And ultimately, ARCore still doesn't work, even after I flagged the Pixel 2 "image", and installed Google play services for AR.


Android device stuck in a bootloop and there's nothing I can do about it I have a Huawei smartphone, which unfortunately bricked and stuck in a bootloop when I flash Magisk. It even got stuck getting into recovery mode. Can't find its firmware for now (Nova 2i - RNE-L22). Factory reset / wipe data also doesn't seem to work. What should I do?

I had a similar problem with a Samsung Galaxy Tab A.  From the Internet I got the idea to disconnect the battery, then let the unit's memory discharrge overnight.

This was not as a recommendation from the Internet, just my idea.  Of course this involves opening the back cover and fiddling with the interior battery connector.  Both tasks are not for the timid craftsman (sorry person).  But with due care it is manageable.  Although it was just a trail, it did work.

When reassembled and booted into the service mode, it did not go into the auto boot loop.  It let me select the factory reset from the menu.  Good luck.


Where to download official Wiko Jerry drivers for ADB/USB connection? I'm failing to find the page with original drivers, I only find third party websites that I don't know if I can trust. The manufacturer website is lacking the drivers (apparently). I'm using Windows 10 and have already the Whole NDK installed.

You just need Mediatek drivers for any phone powered by an MTK chip. Since [all] Wiko devices are powered by Mediatek chips, you can use drivers for Alcatel MTK, or ZTE, etc.
Go here to download the firmware which contains the flashtool, drivers and instructions.

or here to get the Wiko drivers (VCOM and CDC)


Restore messages from old whatsapp file i need to restore old messages from a year and a half ago that i have the files of but everytime i load it onto the phone it does not load those messages, can anyone help me? it is also no longer the same phone...
S5 to S6

A year and half? I don't think you can do that because WhatsApp changed the encryption system of messages a couple of months ago.

Below is my WhatsApp message backup.


Install GApps onto HTC One w/ CyanogenMod 10.2 + ClockworkMod Recovery 6.0.4.3 I'm currently trying to install the GApps onto my HTC One. I got CyanogenMod working using the installer app on the play store, but now I don't have any of the GApps. Help me? How can I install the GApps?

Download and copy the GAPPS zip file to your SD card.

Reboot your phone into CWM recovery mode. To do this, turn phone off, and press Volume Up + Home + Power button together. Your phone would then startup into recovery mode.

Select install zip. Look for the gapps file via choose zip from /sdcard if it's in the internal sd card, or choose zip from /storage/sdcard1 if it's in the external SD card.

After you flash it, reboot your phone (it's in one of the options).


I have factory reset my phone, there is almost a gb of app installation space My 16gb SD Card got corrupted today, so I lost all of my data as I was unable to format it.

The real problem is, I also factory reset my phone just now, so there is 16gb internal memory amd 1.5gb app installation memory, out of which only 400mb is used.

When I attempt a download from Google Play Store, they get downloaded completely however while installing, it gives an error message "Insufficient storage". I'm fed up with this issue, I don't know what to do.

Let me also tell you, my SD Card data was encrypted, so I was unable to format it, should this be a problem. However, I factory reset my phone and now internal memory can do nothing with it.

My phone is Intex Aqua Power HD running Android 4.4

Ok, try to connect your SD Card to another device and Format/copy out your important files.

If that does not work, use a card reader to access your SD Card on a Windows device and SCAN as appropriate.

It could well be a minor threat and your PC anti-virus could solve.


How can I communicate with someone that only has a tablet? My wife and I recently ran into an unusal situation: She left her phone in my car, which I didn't know. I, of course, drove off with it. So we couldn't communicate by standard voice or text.

She did, however, still have our tablet with her. So I was wondering: what are the various ways that a person with a tablet can communicate with a person that has an Android phone (so never mind "borrow another phone" type answers)? I'd like as many different solutions as possible since, in this situaion, certain methods of commication (such as email) might be ignored as unexpected.

Here's a couple of answers to start with:

Email
Hangouts (or any other IM app), which usually require the other person to be logged in.
Glympse - Send a check-in glympse to their mobile number with a message. They'll get it as a text.
using some SMS gateway either via Web (browser) or a specific SMS app supporting this
using a messenger app like Tango, Skype, or LINE


Making the white bar below the keyboard black I just got a new OnePlus 5T. I like to use a dark theme whenever possible, including the Android keyboard. In many apps, the bottom bar is white. (I'm talking about the navigation bar which has the three buttons, back, minimize and show active apps.)

Here are a couple of examples:

Any idea how I could make it black?

Use substratum theme engine for this purpose. You can theme individual ui element with the help of this. You screenshot looks like you are using oreo build so you can use substratum even without root. Check out this link
https://www.xda-developers.com/custom-themes-android-oreo-substratum/


Detect Which App is Sending SMS I noticed on my phone bill that I have a lot of sent SMS messages which I'm not aware of and can't find in the sms app.
Is there a way to find out which app is sending these messages? And how to view the details of these messages on my android phone (I'm using Galaxy S7 Edge).

Well first take a look at what is your standard SMS App. If it is anything that is not native to your phone (e.d. third party App) or something you installed away from google play store (e.d. untrusted source) it can be some sort of malware.

But before jumping to conclusions it is recommended you check every app in your phone and try to see which apps are even capable of sending SMS. To check if the app is capable of sending SMS, go to your Settings -> Apps and than click on each App individually. It should display a list of permissions the App has on your phone. If you see that the app has the permission of sending and recieving SMS, but is not the App used normally for communication, uninstall it immediately. Of course, this doesn't include Apps such as Viber, because they can indeed send SMS messages.

Hope this helps.


WhatsApp Web doesn't work on the phone When i try to start WhatsApp Web on the phone, the QR-Code scanner screen does not even open, but i get a passive notification "check your internet connection on the phone".
While i can chat with WhatsApp without any problems, so the internet connection and the connection to WhatsApp cannot be the real problem.

How can i get Whatsapp to recognize that the internet connection is fine and open the qr code scanner?

It works after a Backup & Reset:

Make a new local backup (via settings -> chats -> chat-backup)
uninstall WhatsApp
install WhatsApp
Login via Phone number and sms verification (even when there's a backup)
Whatsapp finds the local backup and asks if you want to import it. Nothing is lost, but a few settings. Profile image is restored, but for the screen name whatsapp asks you again (and suggests the name from your google account)

So if someone has the same problem: backup & restore works fine.
Of course it doesn't hurt to have a TitaniumBackup, adb backup or similiar as well.


How do I Switch off NFC? My Nexus S alerts me when it is close to my Oyster season ticket.
It says New Tag Collected. Unknown tag type.

Can I stop it doing this.

According to the Gingerbread User Guide, under Settings -> Wireless & networks, you should have an NFC option that you can remove the tick from to turn this on or off.


Firefox freezes when typing into forms Experiencing freezes or slowness of Firefox (current and beta version) on a Nexus 4 using Android v.4.3, only when typing into forms. I've read on Mozilla support that it was a known problem and that is could be solved using the Nightly build of the browser.

However, using a tests only build is not sastisfacting. I don't know what to do to get a better diagnostic for this issue, any help is welcome, thanks.

If it's a known issue, and it's already fixed in the nightly builds, then you shouldn't have long to wait before the fix reaches the stable version. If you can't wait that long, then the Firefox beta offers a middle-ground, and will probably get the fix sooner.

If you know enough programming, you could try and make your own Firefox build that consists of the stable branch with this one bugfix merged into it. (If you don't know how you would do this, you shouldn't attempt it.) But if the fix is non-trivial, your custom build is more likely to have bugs than even the nightly, because your build won't have had even the minimal testing that the nightly gets.


Turn off tablet desktop noises I'm sure this is pretty basic but its driving me nuts. I have a new tablet (cheap one) with Android 6.0 on it.  When I touch an icon on the desktop I get a vib and noise. The only way I've found to shut this off is to turn off all sound and vibrations - is there a better way of just stopping the touch noises.  I've found how to turn off the keyboard noises, but not the "icon" noises.  Any help would be appreciated.

You can get an option in your settings of haptic feedback. Turn it off and ping back if it was worked


Can I symlink /data? I have a rooted Google/HTC Nexus One running Android 4.0, Cyanogenmod, and MIUI. These mods were done by the previous owner.

Considering that the amount of internal storage my phone has is really tiny, I'm always looking for ways to free up space. My current idea is to symlink either all or part of /data to somewhere on the SD card where I have lots of free space.

My question is, would this cause any problems? I've got a lot of Linux experience, but I'm an Android newbie. The filesystem seems to be a bit different from what I'm used to in the Linux world.

Also, are there any pitfalls I should be aware of, such as certain data that must be available before the SD card is mounted?

Yes you can do that. Scripts like data2sd do exactly that.


Gmail labels or folders Does anyone know how to create a new label using an Android Tab s.
I have tried all the Internet pages with no success.
Kind regards
Paul

You have to log into you Gmail account on a PC (or via Chrome/Browser etc) and create the label from there.

You can't create labels using the Gmail app unfortunately.


How to log into Google Keyboard on Samsung phone? I am using Samsung S6 and I installed Google Keyboard on the device.

When I was using Google Keyboard on Nexus device, it was logged into my Google account. On Samsung, if I go to Settings -> Language & Input -> Google Keyboard -> Accounts & Privacy, the Change Accounts preference there shows No accounts selected and does nothing upon tapping.

Is there a way how to make it log into my Google account so that I can sync my dictionary and use other functions of Google Keyboard only available when logged in?

Try this solution:

Open up your Settings
Navigate to Accounts
Click on Google
If you have multiple google accounts, find the account which you would like to use
Tap the account you would like to use
Now enable sync for the following things:

Sync App Data
Sync Google Keyboard (if you have the option to)

Reboot
Go to Google Keyboard settings
Sync, and have fun

Add a comment below if you have any questions, or require further assistance!


how do I access the SPDIF signal from my phone my galaxy s has the option to have 5.1 surround enabled. what plug on my phone produces the digital audio signal to carry the 5.1 surround?
is this option only available through bluetooth or can it be used through the headphone port or USB port?

The Samsing Galaxy S series has a virtual surround, not a true surround. Therefore there is no way to get multichannel audio out of the device, only analog stereo.

Source: Phandroid, Unleashthephones, Intomobile


"Ok Google" voice unlock stopped working on Google Nexus - "Actually I can't do that while the device is locked" On the Google Nexus 6P phone, I had a variety of behaviors that were occurring.  Before my Android OS upgrade, Google Now worked fine when the phone was sleeping and locked.  After the upgrade, it stopped working.

Behaviors after upgrade:

Then after I retrained the Google Now app...

I put the phone in sleep mode by pressing the power button once.  You can also put the phone in sleep mode by waiting for the elapsed time period.  When saying "Ok Google", nothing happens.

If I take the phone out of sleep mode, and get the phone to the 4 digit pin code, there's a little microphone icon in the lower left.  If you press and hold and swipe up and to the right, you can begin talking.  Google will say, "actually i can't do that while the device is locked".

There are various forums saying Google Now no longer works.  Is this true with Android 6.0.1?

March 7, 2017 (this edit is no longer the answer):

No, Google Now ("Ok Google" command) is not broken when the phone is in sleep mode or when the phone is locked.  Don't believe all of the forums.  If you haven't asked a real software engineer (like myself) a question about phone configuration, don't trust the internet!  Period!  However, Android 6.0.1 has a slight bug.  The "Always On" toggle switch is broken after an Android 6.0.1 upgrade.  There are two ways to get to this from the Google Nexus 6P phone.

Settings > Language & Input > Google Voice Typing > "Ok Google" Detection > Always On (toggle)

Settings > Google > Search > Voice > "Ok Google" Detection > Always On (toggle)

If you don't reboot after the Android upgrade, this "Always On" option cannot be turned on.  It's forever in the off position.  To fix, reboot the phone, and then turn on the "Always On" toggle.

Wala!  Now you should be able to take your phone out of sleep mode AND unlock your phone with your voice by saying "Ok Google ... Call {contact} on speakerphone", assuming you've trained the phone.  Google paid to patent this.

Note: I also have "Trusted Voice" turned off.  I have NOT tested with this turned on yet.  Will do that now.

March 13, 2017 (this edit is the new answer):

Google decided to remove this feature now.  So now you get the "Actually I can't do that while the device is locked."

Settings > Google > Search > Voice > "Ok Google" Detection > Always On (toggle)

A Google manager must have read my post and told their team to disable this broken feature.  So now the configuration (Always On) controlling this feature (that Google paid the patent for) is missing.  So the Nexus 6P phone cannot be unlocked using this configuration any longer.

To unlock your phone with your voice:

Looks like Google decided to recently start using the Trusted Voice configuration to unlock the phone.  This must be set up and turned on.  Then you will get the functionality back.


How do I remove HTC Desire pre-installed Android applications? Possible Duplicate:
  How can I uninstall applications that are locked by phone vendor?

My HTC Desire from Orange came with a number of pre-installed demo applications and games, these cannot be removed normally from the application settings or from the market place.

What is the best way I can remove them and free up the space for applications I actually want?

Generally the only way to remove these manufacturer-added apps is to root the phone.


"USB Debugging" mode not visible, Samsung Galaxy Note II resolved (see below)

The only options I see are "Media device (MTP)" and "Camera (PTP)", I can browse the phone files and download images from the camera directory, so the USB plug and cable are fine.

I tried following the steps on this page from Google.

I am only trying to access browser tabs (for inspect element on mobile device web development).  The only software installed so far is the Samsung driver from the Samsung site and any drivers installed when the phone is plugged into the USB port.

I have the "Developer options" enabled, and "USB debugging" is checked
When going through the list on the page I did not install Samsung drivers first, as it is out of order on the page, so I went back into Device Manager and removed the drivers that installed from first plug in of the phone thinking this was the problem
I then followed the steps again, installing Samsung driver first then plugging in my phone.
After all drivers installed I rebooted (as computer told me reboot required), plugged my phone in again, and USB debugging is still not an option.

Computer OS: Windows 7 (64 bit)
Phone: SCH-1605 (Samsung Galaxy Note II - Verizon)
Phone OS: Android 4.4.2

resolution

using this howtogeek link provided in the accepted answer I was able to install the Java JDK and Android SDK, which apparently is necessary to get it to work as expected and put my phone in debugging mode when plugged in

Apologise for my ignorance as I dont have a Galaxy Note II but since you have the SAMSUNG Android ADB Interface I am presuming when you run command (and get this from google too)

adb.exe devices

Do you at least see a Serial Number??

I had a similar issue with my Nexus 5 and noticed I too have the same drivers however for my computer to connect to the device I had to make sure my device is:

NOT in a Locked State (meaning the phone is not on the lock screen)
Debugging is enabled (You already have)
And accept the adb connection physically on the phone (just do the adb connection and it'll prompt your device for privileges.)

EDITED - 01/08/2014


Google Play Store force closing I have a Karbonn S5 Titanium. Whenever I try to open the Google Play Store, it gets closed within a second. A notification saying 'your google store has stopped unfortunately' keeps coming every 2 minutes. I can't download any apps or access a few of them. What can be done to set it right ?

Try to uninstall any Play Store updates, and then rerun the app; if all goes well, it will re-update the app, and the force closing should stop. If it still force closes, and you don't have much data on your device, you can try to factory reset the phone. That usually makes my Play Store work fine (although I don't have S5).


My phone buzzes (twice) but no notification Since maybe a week I have this weird situation where my phone buzzes twice every so often, but there is no notification. It is really annoying.

I saw some search results suggesting that this is a notification reminder in Accessibility -> but I cant find such an option in that section of the settings.

Others suggested that this might be apps that are blocked from notifications that are trying to create push notifications but I was able to confirm(reasonably) this isnt the case by unblocking all of them.

Recently I updated my phone, and installed Any.do. I verified that it isnt Any.do either.

I am using One Plus One, with Lineage 14.1, and when I say I updated my phone it is to a newer nightly of 14.1.

After using https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.evanhe.nhfree&hl=en I discovered that all of my ghost vibrates were due to Accu Battery. Some search results had pointed to that but I did not consider because i hadnt made any changes to it recently, but the problem had only started recently.


adb restore progress Using the backup and restore function with adb (as discussed in Full Backup of non-rooted devices) there is no progress available and often it is very hard to follow the adb logcat output as long there are much more background events than the BackupManager.

While backups often takes up to 1.5 hours (on my Nexus7) and restore often gets stuck or takes up to 2h i'm asking myself

is there a (native, i.e. w/o root) way to

get a progress while taking a backup
progress on restore
statistics (bytes written per second), estimated time for backup/restore etc.

any tools (adb wrapper?!) available to archive this?

adb logcat outputs the BackupManager activities, so you can monitor if the process is running or stalled. Since adb logcat produces lots of logs from other processes, it is not easy to watch BackupManager logs. The easy way to watch BackupManager output is to use grep.

adb logcat | grep BackupManager

will filter only BackupManager logs.


What are some use-cases for FireFox|Chrome-to-Phone? According to FoxToPhone (presumable, ChrometoPhone is similar)

you can

Send current page with address bar button
Right click on any link/image to send to your Android phone
Highlight any text and right click to send to the clipboard in your phone (Max. 1024 chars)
Click on market:, smsto: and tel: links to open them in your phone
Best of all it’s free and open source

mmmmm. nice. Okay. It's installed in FireFox and on my phone. I highlight text, right-click, send to phone. Blammo! It's on my phone's clipboard!

But..... what are the uses for this? WHEN does anybody need to send a block of text TO THE PHONE'S CLIPBOARD?

If anything, I'd want this the other way around -- when browsing a page in Dolphin, I'd rather read in on my desktop later, or something.

What do y'all use this for?

See also: Sharing Browser Links between PC and Phone

Maps. Setting up directions and alternate routes in Google Maps is much easier with a full-fledged web client. Then, when I have what I need, I can send it to my phone.


JOdin3 and Heimdall - corrupt PIT file - Samsung i9300 I'm running an Android 4.3 (never rooted) on my Samsung Galaxy S3 (I9300).

I'd like to install a brand new CM 12.1 (Android 5.1).  Along with rooting, I need to install Clockworkmod Recovery to backup the system before wiping and installing the new system. To install Clockwordmod, I need to root the phone with CF-Auto-Root.

I'm trying to do this using JOdin3 on my Ubuntu. I can't do that, because JOdin3 says:

  The PIT file was corrupt. We cannot continue without a PIT file.

I created the PIT file using Heimdall, this works without error. Also, I can print-pit with Heimdall and everything seems fine.

It seems really strange for me, because the rooting has been done before thousands of times from other people using the phone.

Anyone knows what to do?

Thanks in advance!

As I wasn't able to solve the problem related to JOdin3, I rooted the device using heimdall and CF-Autoroot. It worked flawlessly. I installed Clockwork Recovery and I'm able to backup the system. Now, I can continue upgrading the system to CM 12.1. Anyway, heimdall-frontend seems to be more advanced than Odin.

Here's a tutorial for it: http://www.all-things-android.com/content/how-root-samsung-mobile-device

The tutorial shows how to use CF-autoroot by using the heimdall-frontend. First, you need to download/create the PIT file from your mobile phone. Be aware, that there is no finished dialog or something similar shown. After doing this, you can flash the recovery image and the cache image from CF-autoroot. If everything went fine, you should see "Flash completed successfully"!

I installed CM 12.1 successfully and Android 5.1.1 is now running on my I9300. :)


How can I tell which version of Voodoo to install? I want to install Voodoo lagfix on my phone, and I see that there are a number of kernels for Froyo on the download site:

stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XWJS3.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XWJS5.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XWJS8.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XXJPM.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XXJPO.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XXJPU.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XXJPX.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M
stock+Voodoo-Froyo-GT-I9000-XXJPY.tar   19-Mar-2011 03:18   5.7M

However, none of these version seems to match my phone.  This is what's shown in Settings -> About (sorry that it's in Hebrew, but it should be in the same order as English phones):

Based on this, what version should I install?

The difference in the filenames reflects the codename for the kernel version.  The phone only shows the version number, making things difficult.

The good news is that you can use any 2.2 kernel with a 2.2 ROM (or 2.3 with 2.3, etc.).  I'd just use the newest (they're alphabetical, so JS8 is the newest).  You can always experiment and see which one gives you the best performance, or hit up the XDA forums where people will certainly have discussed it.


widgets not working when app is moved to sd card When I move my applications to the the sd card using the "Move To SD Card" feature in ICS the widgets for particular application stop working it says "Problem loading widget".Does anyone know a solution to this? or do I just have to keep the application in the internal memory for the widgets to work?,

There are some technical reasons explained on the Android developers website that justify why the widget may have stopped working:

Any of this ones aren't recommended to move to an External Storage due to possible failure:

Services

  Your running Service will be killed and will not be restarted when external storage is remounted. You can, however, register for the ACTION_EXTERNAL_APPLICATIONS_AVAILABLE broadcast Intent, which will notify your application when applications installed on external storage have become available to the system again. At which time, you can restart your Service.

Alarm Services

  Your alarms registered with AlarmManager will be cancelled. You must manually re-register any alarms when external storage is remounted.

Input Method Engines

  Your IME will be replaced by the default IME. When external storage is remounted, the user can open system settings to enable your IME again.

Live Wallpapers

  Your running Live Wallpaper will be replaced by the default Live Wallpaper. When external storage is remounted, the user can select your Live Wallpaper again.

App Widgets

  Your App Widget will be removed from the home screen. When external storage is remounted, your App Widget will not be available for the user to select until the system resets the home application (usually not until a system reboot).

Account Managers

  Your accounts created with AccountManager will disappear until external storage is remounted.

Sync Adapters

  Your AbstractThreadedSyncAdapter and all its sync functionality will not work until external storage is remounted.

Device Administrators

  Your DeviceAdminReceiver and all its admin capabilities will be disabled, which can have unforeseeable consequences for the device functionality, which may persist after external storage is remounted.

Broadcast Receivers listening for "boot completed"

  The system delivers the ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED broadcast before the external storage is mounted to the device. If your application is installed on the external storage, it can never receive this broadcast.

Copy Protection

  Your application cannot be installed to a device's SD card if it uses Google Play's Copy Protection feature. However, if you use Google Play's Application Licensing instead, your application can be installed to internal or external storage, including SD cards.


Full desktop backup from Android Is there a reliable way to make a full desktop backup of all apps, app settings, files from an Android running Oreo?

I have tried using SDK and using the adb backup command. It seems to backup all the data but restore doesn't work. I have also noticed that backups made a few hours apart can be wildly different in terms of file size, which implies that it doesn't work consistently.

Is there something similar to the itunes back for iphone which works reliably?
Thanks

You can install a custom recovery (TWRP, Philztouch) depending on your phone's brand and unit.
After installing, you can now perform nandroid backups and restore it anytime you want.


How to recover viber messages after reinstalling Viber? Hi guys i badly want to recover my messages, by mistake i delated viber from my phone, i didn't do a backup, is there a way to get the messages back ?

Viber doesn’t provide any backup of the chat history from their servers. But, you can restore deleted Viber messages with Free Android Data Recovery, It can recover deleted Viber messages on any Android device.

P.S: you should be using viber on the phone where it was installed on.


How to "extract" files from an Android app? Is there a possible way to extract (I'm really sorry I can't think of a better word, my English vocabulary is not that good) files from an android app I downloaded from the app store?
Like, I got this app and there is an image I'd like to have on my PC. Is that possible? If so, how? I'm not familiar with coding and stuff.

Basically, APK files are ZIP archives. You can open, view and edit them, however, after editing, you need to re-signed it to be able to install. You can download APK files directly on websites like APKPure, APKMirror,... If you want to extract the APK file of the app you downloaded on the Google Play Store, you can use ADB (require computer) or ES File Explorer (directly on the phone and does not need ROOT).


Gmail account from old phone to new Galaxy S7 Ive just recently updated my phone from a motorola to a Galaxy 7 and now my husband has my old phone. How do I remove my gmail account from the old phone please without removing it from my new phone?

on your old phone go to settings -> accounts-> then select google, now you can select Gmail account you want to remove, on the action bar there are 3 dots click on it and you will see a menu saying remove account. Click on it and your are done.
hope this will help.


How to run a script on boot in CM12.1? Most questions I can find related to this are dated 2011 and thereabouts, so perhaps it's not too surprising that things have changed since. I've tried a whole bunch of things, with no results whatsoever.

There are some scripts in /system/etc/init.d (which also appears under /etc/init.d on my device). In particular, there is a 00banner script which is supposed to log a welcome message. The welcome message never appears in logcat.

I've placed my own script here, which was eventually reduced to nothing but this:

#!/system/bin/sh
log -t mytest Testing

Nothing. Never appears in logcat unless run manually via terminal. Then it works.

There is also a 90userinit file here, which invokes /data/local/userinit.sh if it exists. I've created it with the same contents as above. Again, nothing ever appears in logcat. Which is not surprising, really, since if 00banner won't run then this wouldn't either.

I searched for anything named "init.rc" but nothing like that exists anywhere on my device.

All of my scripts have 755 permissions.

What else can I try? (other than apps that run scripts for me)

there is a simple method to add init.d support to any rooted android for versions 4.0 and above ,google made a script that runs at boot as superuser the script is install-recovery.shit is used to reflash stock recovery at every boot they thought it was a good security to prevent custom recoveries but it opened a new hole that can be exploited by users to fake init.d feature.
Dependencies : in order to this method to work you need the following

Busy box installed with the run-partssymlinked to your path like /system/xbin
Obviously you gonna need a rooted phone with the /system able to mount as rw
kernel version doesn't matter.

Method I : (The easiest way !)

Download this APK (free to use,don't mirror, thanks @Ryuinferno from XDA).
Install the apk like any normal app.
Launch the app.
click on Activate ! that's it you're all setinit.d is now supported you can click the test button or reboot your phone to see if your init.d scripts are exited
you can uninstall the application it wil not affect the init.d support

Method II : (difficulty: medium)

Download this zip unzip it and put init.sh on your sdcard (in this exmple it's gonna be /sdcard it can change from device to other.
now open a terminal ,or use adb shell from computer and run the script.
su
cp /sdcard/init.sh /data/tmp/init.sh
chmod 777 /data/tmp/init.sh
/data/tmp/init.sh

the script will run and ask you to reboot twice ,that's it you have officially init.d support :D

Reference: [MOD][APK+SCRIPT+ZIP] Enable Init.d for Any Phones w/o Need of Custom Kernels!!!


Is there an app to take a photo and add a comment to it Does anyone know of an app, which allows to take a photo and add some comment or notes to it?

Doesn't have to be anything fancy. I'd just like to take a picture of something and add some comments/notes (e.g. while shopping, take a pic of something and make a note of its price).

Catch notes should accomplish this very well. They even have a widget that allows you to take a picture and go straight into their editor to comment and add notes. Highly recommended. They also have a web counterpart which may make viewing/managing your notes easier.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.threebanana.notes


Adb doesn't work, "adb.exe has stopped working" window appears I want to learn flutter, so, I installed Android SDK from Android Studio but when I tried to connect my device a "adb.exe has stopped working" window showed, then I tried using 'adb devices' command but the same happened and the window just keeps appearing over and over until I kill the adb.exe process.

I also tried the following:

Run adb kill-server and adb start-server (Same window appears).
Reinstall the complete sdk including the platform tools.
Run adb as administrator.

But so far, the window keeps showing and I'm running out of ideas.

I would really appreciate your help.

adb.exe needs this runtime to work. try installing it first and running adb.exe:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/2999226/update-for-universal-c-runtime-in-windows


How to set a lossless quality wallpaper? I'm trying to set a .png file I had prepared myself as the wallpaper, but the thing apparently (as in EVIDENTLY) gets converted to a .jpg.

It strikes me odd google.com has nothing on this issue, that's why I've come here.

Is there a way to set a .png wallpaper without it being converted to .jpg? A workaround app maybe?

This is a png screenshot, scaled x2. Note the artifacts by the edge of the shape.

EDIT: 6 JUNE 2015
Conclusions from my investigation (and answers below) so far:

Android stores the wallpaper file in a png
This means the fault lies within the piece of code doing the cropping and saving the new file
In my context (samsung a3 original firmware) I have yet to find a resolution which would bypass the cropping tool, allowing me to set the file as is

THERE ARE MEANS of achieving the effect though:

Muzei app is quite easy to set up, streaming whatever source you like to your wallpaper (including unconverted image files -- or a single file)
Surprisingly, Moonshine's wallpaper setter does its job the right way too, although it only handles the few graphics that are bundled with it (however lovely they are).

If you're looking for a workaround, you could try Muzei: it is a live wallpaper, which you can set your own wallpaper to.


Kindle Fire Freetime questions We have 2 kindle fires for each of our kids: 7 YO and 10 YO.  Like most kids all they want to do is watch YouTube.  I'd like to let them do that but with time limits and blocking inappropriate content (I know the blocking isn't perfect).  It seems like if I enable free time, there's no possibility for accessing YouTube.

Freetime also seems to have weird ideas of what websites are  appropriate for a 10 year old child.  I tried setting the age range in Free Time to the range 10-13+ and it's still recommending "Paw Patrol" and "Nick Jr. Preschooler."  This is for a 10 year old whose read the whole Harry Potter series and reads a 300 page young adult novel every week.

Other than me having to set a stopwatch or something is there an easy way to set time limits on a Fire without using Freetime.  The Windows parental controls, which I also use, seem to work a lot better.

Unfortunately, i do not believe there is any way, unless you are on a 3rd generation and up version of the kindle fire.

If you do have a kindle fire 3 and above, you could attempt to install google play store unofficially on the tablets, and find apps there that can do just what your asking, including youtube kids for them, and set an age limit on that app.

I personally do not recommend amazon tablets, as they dont come with a google play store pre-installed.

As to this link, it states that you must:

"Go to settings > Security > click on enable unknown sources"
Download Google Account Manager on your device
Download Google Services Framework on your device
"If you have the 2017 Fire HD 8 download" Google Play Store - Fire 8 otherwise Google play store - other
Install apps from .apk in order (Google account manager, Google Services Framework, Google Play Store)

The above method is for a tablet that has not been rooted, if you dont know what rooting is, it probably is not rooted.

I hope this helped


When updating an app, is it newly installed or only part of it updated? While updating an application, is the application newly installed, or only updated-part added to previous application?

Is it possible to download only updated part of the application?

This is called "delta update" and Google already does this on Play Store.

  These delta upgrades, which save time and bandwidth when updating larger apps by only downloading the actual changes (rather than the entire program), [...]

Emphasis mine.

Basically, instead of downloading the whole package, Play Store will instead only download and apply part of the code that are changed. In the video demonstration on the site, you can see the difference between updating OfficeSuite (whole app) and SwiftKey (only a small part).


If I have Android can I respond to group messages from iPhone users? I have Android phone and use Handcent SMS. I have gotten group texts from iPhone users who use iMessage and I can see what everyone is saying, but when I try to respond I only get a loading circle that just keeps spinning and it ends up saving as a draft and doesn't send. Is there a way to fix this?

GoSMS Pro will allow you to group message (including adding pictures) just fine to iPhone users. Just tried it and it works great! Messages come back as single addresses but that is because they are sending via iMessage. All people in the group do get them however. And as an added bonus, you can add GoSMS emoticons so you can send and see emoticon smiley pictures from your iPhone friends!


Locating a wallpaper that comes activated by default after ROM flashing So I have a v5.1 ROM that has this one wallpaper that automatically comes activated by default when the ROM is flashed that I wish to locate and "remove/replace" - yes I do not want to salvage the wallpaper which I am aware could be done with root and root browsing. I have unpacked the system.img and look it up in the 'media/images' directory where I have found image files on other Lollipop system.img with no success. I have also tried to bring out all JPG and PNG files that exist in all ROM folder directories and the said image file was still not amongst them. This brings me to think that it may have an extension I am not yet familiar of which one of you may be already. A pointer will be greatly appreciated.

Default wallpaper is found in /system/framework/framework-res.apk and /system/priv-app/SystemUI/SystemUI.apk. Incase of the lock screen paper

To remove it copy the .apk to sdcard and rename the apk to .zip so that it is extractable by archivers like RAR. Extract it's contents and find it at

/res/drawable-hdpi-v4

If your phone's resolution is 480x800

/res/drawable-xhdpi-v4

If your phone's resolution is 720x1280

/res/drawable-xxhdpi-v4

If your phone's resolution is 1280x2440

They are renamed as:

default-wallpaper.png
keyguard-wallpaper.png

Their file extension can vary to jpg mostly in many devices. And as added by Andy, it can be found at  /res/drawable-nodpi resolution of device is not considered. It always persists under all resolutions

For example mine is found here

And it's properties are

This goes down to tv-dpi or xxxhdpi for android tv. Replace it with your favourite but ensure to keep resolution of the paper for good results, zip it again and rename it back to apk. Replace it with the system one.

Note: For framework-res.apk I recommend you to use TWRP file manager to replace it to system original apk because framework is always actively used on a boot device and will crash the system if you try to replace the apk using root on a boot device.


How do I make "Emergency Call" harder to hit? I keep pocket calling 911! I have a Samsung Captivate Glide phone running 4.0.4 on the AT&T network.

Unfortunately, I have pocket called 911 at least four times.  To call 911 on my phone you have to:

Activate the lock screen
Swipe near the bottom of the screen on "Emergency Call"
Press on the screen

I think that this is how it happens:

I unplug the phone from the charger (which wakes the phone up from sleep and shows the lock screen)
I slide the phone into my pocket without looking at it (which does the swipe)
The button gets pressed in my pocket

How can I stop this from happening?    I'm hoping for something like an app that replaces the lock screen, or a setting to change it from a single button press to actually dialing 9-1-1.

For clarification, I have not rooted this phone.

Just search for lockscreen in the Google Play Store. There are many lockscreen replacers available. I think Start might be a good one to start with.

Make sure to read the instructions on these apps. Some require other apps like GO Locker (requires GO Launcher) to be installed first.


How to reboot an android device without using power button? Unfortunately, the power button doesn't work and I'm not able to power off the device.

The only way, is physically pull out the battery, but if I'll do so, I wont be able to power it on again.

The cellular network doesn't work , and the Wi-Fi seems to, too.

The device is up for 53:21:59 hours!! (and seems to count..)

I must force somehow a reboot.

Is there shell command (and if so - how to access it?) , or application that forcing reboot?

Thanks.

If you can connect using adb (usb debugging), you can simply use the command "reboot".

If you're rooted and have a terminal emulator installed, "su reboot" will do the same thing.

The reboot command will also accept arguments of "recovery" or "bootloader", which will reboot you into the recovery or bootloader respectively.


Messed With Android Partition I tried to partition my android phone and messed up the internal partition system.

When I reset my system this message appears

E:Can't open "/cache/recovery"
E:Unable to mount "/cache"
E:format_volume: make ext4fs failed on /emmc@cache

Now (condition): my phone boots up but it stucks with just logo.

Phone Name : Walton Primo Gh3/GIONEE CTRL V4S
Chipset: MTK6582
Os Installed: CyanogenMod 12.2 (Custom)

Is there any way to recover it?

Hope you have fixed that issue by now. As it is a Walton device, flashing a ROM would have done the thing.
However if you can go to the recovery, download a script to re-partition your system.
And, I think the current Walton devices have a fastboot option.


Automatic deletion of new mail gmail notification on android when already read online If I get a new mail in gmail I am happy to see the notification for this.
But if I had read the mail on web gmail on a desktop pc already I don't want to see a notification.

Is there a setting in gmail or an other possibility (app) that the notification is removed as soon as I have clicked on the email in web gmail?

(I searched already similar questions in stack exchange and google. I use kitkat)

I just recognize it's working what I asked for and only took 5 seconds to synchronize. Maybe functionallity came with a Gmail Update.

Current version:
- Android: 4.4.4
- Gmail App: 5.0.1


How can I see which applications is reading the clipboard? Upon reading TikTok says it will stop accessing clipboard content on iOS devices, I wonder: How can I see which applications is reading the clipboard?

Prior to Android 10, all apps could access clipboard by default without even asking for permission.
Apps actually need a permission (that is automatically granted) to read the clipboard: READ_CLIPBOARD (from XDA Developers) - thanks to Andrew in comment

In Android 10, See Privacy changes in Android 10,
access to clipboard is limited to OEM apps only that have READ_CLIPBOARD_IN_BACKGROUND permission, which are keyboards and "apps in focus" (not sure what latter means)

Unless your app is the default input method editor (IME) or is the app that currently has focus, your app cannot access clipboard data on Android 10 or higher

TikTok would need to ask and be granted the same signature as OS since this permission is Signature permission

The system grants these app permissions at install time, but only when the app that attempts to use a permission is signed by the same certificate as the app that defines the permission.


Can the trebuchet launcher be installed on the stock ROM? Phone: Samsung Galaxy S4
Android: 4.2.2

Can the trebuchet launcher be installed on the stock ROM?

I can't find the app on Google Play. Where could I get this?

Yes it can (with varying degrees of success)! I'm running it on my Prestigio 3350DUO (Android 4.2.2). But there is a problem with crashing on certain preferences (NumberPicker), so I cannot change number of screens or default screen, as well as number of docker icons/pages. Besides that, it works great - it's fast and stable and looks cool!


LineageOS : upgrade nightly to unofficial, switching keys not working referring to: LineageOS : upgrade nightly to unofficial

@Taknok:
Did this work for you? I tried to follow the instructions on the Wiki page you mentioned, but it did not work. I always ended up with the error described above.

I tried to run "migration.sh unofficial" from recovery which resulted in an error message:

  CANNOT LINK EXECUTABLE "/system/bin/sh": cannot locate symbol "__aeabi_memset" referenced by "/system/bin/sh"...

I run the same script while LineageOS was running:

$ adb shell sh /data/local/tmp/migration.sh unofficial
Official to unofficial migration
Saving backup as /data/system/packages.xml.bak
Done

But when I go to recovery to flash my own build it still says:

  Can't install this package on top of incompatible data. Please try
  another package or run a factory reset

How did you manage to do it?

so, today it worked fine! Here is what I did:

# changing to unofficial, unsigned builds:
adb root # This requires an userdebug/eng build and ADB root access to be enabled
adb shell stop
adb push migration.sh /data/local/tmp/migration.sh
adb shell chmod +x /data/local/tmp/migration.sh
adb shell sh /data/local/tmp/migration.sh unofficial
adb reboot recovery
# Now install the official LineageOS install zip

Then I modified migration.sh replacing the release_keys with my own ones and switched back to official.


What is the minimum specification for Android 2.2 (Froyo)? Possible Duplicate:
  What are the minimum specifications for Android?

Assuming that the handset and carrier both allow the OS to be upgraded, what is the minimum specification needed for Froyo in terms of processor, screen, and other capabilities?

Almost any Android phone can run Froyo (if you root it and it can run Cyanogen) but carriers won't be upgrading the majority of the phones that were out before the "Droid" era (which was out around November of 2009). Basically, if the phone came with 2.0 or above it'll probably get upgraded to 2.2 (Froyo) but lots of phones that came with 1.5 or 1.6 just arn't powerful enough for all of Froyo (Cyanogen had to disable a few features to get it to work on the first Android phone, the G1).


Apps missing after sd card unmount The core issue is in the title: the apps that were installed in the SD card seem to be not installed at all after I unmounted the SD card.

As additional information, these are the steps preceding the moment I have noticed this problem:

installed some apps (so, it's not an app-specific problem)
moved many of them to the SD card using App2SD - apps working properly
unmounted the SD card and detached from the phone (which is turned on)
no data were written on the sd card (only read operations)
put SD back in the phone (the same SD card)

At this point, I was, and currently am, not able to launch the applications previously moved in the SD card. The links are available on my home screen, but after tapping them I get an error message saying "error launching application".

They are not available in the app menu, neither are marked as "installed" in the play store.

Fortunately, the applications' data are still there, and installing some of the apps again they appeared the same as the last time I used them.

So, the question is twofold:

Is there a way to recover the apps, or do I have to manually reinstall them?
Is this a potential bug of App2SD?

This sounds like a case of a vital hidden folder that you're missing - when apps are moved to the SD-Card, a hidden folder called .android_secure is created which is where the apps are stored in!

This is a common mistake to make, when replacing a SD-Card for a bigger one, so the moral is to ensure, when transferring to a bigger SD-Card, do not forget the hidden directories including .android_secure. Upon restart after inserting the bigger SD-Card, Android will re-scan the card and proceed to look in that specific hidden folder, for any apps that are moved to external storage and loads/caches the shortcuts for those respective apps.


Cannot Factory Reset after Encrypting I encrypted my phone but now want it not encrypted so have to factory reset. However, if I try to do this from the CWM Recovery it says

-- Wiping data...
Formatting /data...
Error mounting /data!
Skipping format...
Formatting /cache...
Formatting /sd-ext...
Formatting /sdcard/.android_secure...
Error mounting /sdcard/.android_secure!
Skipping format...
Data wipe complete.

When I try to factory reset from the normal GUI it doesn't give me an error but finishes very very quickly and hasn't worked (presumably the output above has happened in the logs).

What can I do?

I have also encrypted the /data partition (on my Samsung I9300) and wanted to reset it for an upgrade. This failed with the error you mentioned, /tmp/recovery.log contains:

ClockworkMod Recovery v6.0.3.2
recovery filesystem table
=========================
  0 /tmp ramdisk (null) (null) 0
  1 /efs ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p3 (null) 0
  2 /boot emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p5 (null) 0
  3 /recovery emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p6 (null) 0
  4 /cache ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p8 (null) 0
  5 /system ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p9 (null) 0
  6 /data ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p12 (null) -16384
  7 /preload ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p10 (null) 0
  8 /modem emmc /dev/block/mmcblk0p7 (null) 0
  9 /sdcard datamedia /dev/null (null) 0
  10 /external_sd ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 (null) 0
<snip>
-- Wiping data...
Formatting /data...
I:Formatting unknown device.
W:failed to mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p12 (Invalid argument)
Error mounting /data!
Skipping format...

DISCLAIMER: I am not responsibility for anything that goes wrong, including (but not limited to) user error.

If you wish to wipe the /data partition completely (including media like photos), follow the below instructions:

Boot into recovery.
Run adb shell in a terminal (Linux) or Command Prompt ("CMD", Windows). After a few seconds, you should see a line containing ~ #.
WARNING. Triple-check the command that you are entering here. White space and capitalization are important. Make any mistake here and you may accidentally wipe your whole flash memory including recovery images.
NOTE: if you want to encrypt your partition later, you have to leave 16KiB unallocated space on the end of the partition.
In the adb shell, run the command mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p12. Substitute /dev/block/mmcblk0p12 and ext4 according to the recovery filesystem table (for /data). Output when running the command:

~ # mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p12
mke2fs 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
755904 inodes, 3022848 blocks
151142 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=3095396352
93 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8128 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 34 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

(Optional) Install new firmware (E.g. CM 10.1).
Reboot.
(Optional) In order to encrypt the partition while clearing your whole data partition, run vdc cryptfs enablecrypto wipe PIN_OR_PASSWORD (before Android 5.0) or vdc cryptfs enablecrypto wipe password PASSWORD_IN_HEX (since Android 5.0, see this post for details).
Reconfigure device, choose language, enter name, install apps, etc.

Technical details below.

The factory reset menu item activates erase_volume("/data") in recovery.c which calls format_volume("/data").

format_volume is defined in roots.c:

int format_volume(const char* volume) {
    // <snip>
    // check to see if /data is being formatted, and if it is /data/media
    // Note: the /sdcard check is redundant probably, just being safe
    if (strstr(volume, "/data") == volume && is_data_media() && !handle_data_media) {
        return format_unknown_device(NULL, volume, NULL);
    }

Since the volume name indeed starts with /data, and the recovery filesystem table contains an entry for type datamedia and handle_data_media is initially zero, format format_unknown_device is called. That function is defined in extendedcommands.c as follows:

int format_unknown_device(const char *device, const char* path, const char *fs_type)
{
    LOGI("Formatting unknown device.\n");

    if (fs_type != NULL && get_flash_type(fs_type) != UNSUPPORTED)
        return erase_raw_partition(fs_type, device);

    // if this is SDEXT:, don't worry about it if it does not exist.
    if (0 == strcmp(path, "/sd-ext"))
    {
        // <snip>
    }

    if (NULL != fs_type) {
        // <snip>
    }

    if (0 != ensure_path_mounted(path))
    {
        ui_print("Error mounting %s!\n", path);
        ui_print("Skipping format...\n");
        return 0;
    }

fs_type is NULL and the path is /data. That means that the code path ends up at ensure_path_mounted(path) which is the place where this function fails. Looking at the name, ensure_path_mounted attempts to mount the partition by name which of course fails since the encrypted partition is not supported in CWM. Therefore, CWM refuses to "format" the partition (actually, all it does is erasing all files except for /data/media after mounting).

Therefore the goal is to format /data with ext4 (see recovery filesystem table) or mount the encrypted data partition somehow. I could not easily find the tools for mounting encrypted partitions, so I decided to go the easy way and just format the partition.


Is it possible to have Google Assistant work with screen off? When I'm out and about, I usually have wireless headphones (with mic) on, and my phone in my pocket, usually listening to a podcast.

Quite often I want to add something to my todo list- and I'd like to have Google Assistant do that for me.

But the problem is that it seems that Google Assistant requires screen on to work - is it possible to get around this?

To use Google Assistant with features as shown in this article on Google Assistant headset instruction videos you'll need to be using Headphones optimized for the Google Assistant or Made for Google:

See: Official Google Assistant on Headphones Documentation


My google play store keeps saying its stopped Can you please tell me how to fix it. I have an LG android.
I have Force stopped it twice and disabled it and it's is still saying google play has stopped.

Try going in the general settings, app settings, Google Play settings and clearing all cache data and uninstalling updates.


Is this the right way to use dd for a full backup? Sadly my device (sm-g3185) isn't supported by any of the CWM or NANDbackup so I am trying to do a backup manually. I found this thread which tells me to open one terminal (I'm on Arch Linux) and run:

adb forward tcp:5555 tcp:5555
adb shell
su
/system/xbin/busybox nc -l -p 5555 -e /system/xbin/busybox dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0

And then  another terminal and run:

adb forward tcp:5555 tcp:5555
cd /path/to/store/the/backup
nc 127.0.0.1 5555 | pv -i 0.5 > mmcblk0.raw

I did all this and it seems to be working. However, there was a delay of a few seconds between launching the dd command in terminal1 and the nc command in terminal2.

Can I trust the backup I created in this way? Doesn't this mean that I've lost some of the output of dd? Shouldn't these be run concurrently or, at least, shouldn't the nc command be started before the dd one?

I let it run and after it finished, dd reported:

7818182656 bytes (7.3GB) copied, 1245.237601 seconds, 6.0MB/s

And ls -l mmcblk0.raw on my computer shows:

-rw-r--r-- 1 terdon terdon 7818182656 Nov 10 14:45 mmcblk0.raw

Since the file is the right size, presumably the backup was successful.


Sneak preview of whatsapp messages I asked this question before , but without proper solution.
I'll try to describe it better maybe someone will guide me the right way.

Let's say you started a conversation in whatsapp with your friend and you're also a member in a few groups. While you are waiting for your friend to reply you opened your email app or your favorite news app , etc. Some members of one of your groups have started to flood your Whatsapp with messages (but you don't want to silent the group). You are still waiting for your friend to answer.

The situation is that while I'm doing something in another app, I can never know if my friend reply without stopping from what I'm doing right now(reading, watching , playing...) and open Whatsapp to check it. Most of the times it is just messages from the groups or someone that maybe I don't want to reply right now.

I think that it is very basic feature that iOS have, why android doesn't have something like that ?

P.S. - I tried NILS app which is the closest app I could find, but it doesn't do a great job.

I remember you asking about this before ;)  All you can do is - disable pop up for group notifications and enable pop up for individual members. Remember that iOS notifications are totally different from Android's.


How to disable the assist input when the home button is long pressed? I have removed Google Now in order to assign long press on home button to open another app. But recently it comes back with a different interface I'm familiar with. I guess the phone just has updated it.

However I'm unable to disable or uninstall it. In Google Play I can't find which app has just been updated. In the setting of the app there is no option to disable it.

These are some system Google apps that's under my suspicion: Google Services Framework, Google Partner Setup, Google One Time Init, Google Play Store and Google Play services. But I find no evidence to against them.

It turns out that it's actually from Firefox, not Google. To disable this, go to Setting › Apps › Configure apps (the gear button) › Default Apps › Assist & voice input and change to none:


Why does Chrome reload the page when I turn on my bluetooth keyboard? Lenovo Yoga 10 HD+ tablet with Android 4.4.2.
Logitech Tablet Keyboard

If I am in Chrome and I turn on my bluetooth keyboard, the current page will reload.
This appears to happen no matter which web page I'm on.

This is obviously a waste of time, and I'd like it to stop. Especially because if I"ve already activated the edit control on the web page, the reload de-activates it and I have to tap again before I can begin typing.

Is there any way to disable this stupid behavior? I haven't seen anything in the settings that would seem to be related.

Updated: Per Dain's question, it happens no matter how many tabs are open (1 or many).

I turn on my bluetooth keyboard

That is probably detected as configuration change, which triggers a restart of the current activity in android (chrome in your case). Only the app developer can change this behavior, so the only thing you could do is to file a bug report.


Navigation app lost after updating phone I lost the Navagation app that came with my phone after updating the phone's system. None of the free apps on Google Play work well for me. Any clues on how to get it back? It is not on Google Play.

The latest Google Maps app has the navigation function in-built. The navigation "app" was always integrated into Maps. The blue icon was just a separate entry point into that maps.

If you select a destination, look at the bottom of the screen where it says navigate and you will recognize what comes up next.


WIFI connection with question mark My android phone connected with WiFi shows full signal. Whereas question mark appears on the signal mark and I'm unable to connect to the internet.

Can anyone give me a solution to reconnect my internet? So far I have not faced these problems.

I suspect this scenario is caused lack of internet connectivity with respect to the wi-fi access point.  In other words the device is properly connected to the Wi-Fi connection but the internet connectivity might be down due to one or a few cases.

This issue can be attributed to one or more issues:

DNS resolving problem with your Internet service provider (ISP) or router.

It could mean that the route to your DNS addresses/servers is inaccessible at the given moment, so the problem is with your service provider and not your phone.

Misconfigured DHCP/DNS settings

The normally results in the DNS server  not responding to connection attempts. In addition faulty DCHP settings may cause the device to having difficulties  getting IP Address assigned by the DCHP server.

Problems connecting to Google servers (captive portal server)

According to this post,

  Android tries to reach a file named generate_204 on one of the
  Google servers and if there is no positive response, it means that
  there is no connection to the internet, and notification is generated

Also highlighted in the above discussion, the  detection url differs between different Android versions.

  clients3.google.com/generate_204 check (kitkat)
  connectivitycheck.gstatic.com/generate_204 (marshmallow)

Possible fixes:

Change DNS address of router/modem

Check DNS settings for both your router and your phone. Try to manually set DNS servers to Google's public DNS servers 8.8.8.8 and/or 8.8.4.4.

Rebooting device (with SIM card removed)

You can try rebooting the device a proceedure similar to "clean boot" on PCs by following the proceedure:

Toggle Airplane mode On/Off.
Power off your phone ➡ Remove your SIM card ➡ Turn on your phone ➡ Power off your phone ➡ Re-insert your SIM card➡ Boot your phone.

Bypassing wi-fi check during initialisation (new user creation).

One user was able to bypass this issue, creating a new user to bypass the connectivity check during initialisation. Here is their proceedure:

  Reboot phone and wait until wi-fi is connected
  Go to Settings and create a new user
  Continue with user setup until you see "checking connection"
  As soon as you see "checking connection", switch off your phone
  Switch on your phone again
  Toggle wi-fi, and the exclamation mark should disappear quickly

  You may optionally remove the new user you just created

The following methods need root:

Changing captive portal server

Install a terminal app alternatively these  commands can also be run via the adb shell.
Open the terminal app and run su.
Run settings get global captive_portal_server. This will show the current captive portal server. A "null" reply is usually the default.
Run settings put global captive_portal_server YOUR_SERVER_ADDRESS. You can  add google.com as the captive portal server, i.e settings put global captive_portal_server google.com.
Run exit once to exit from su, then exit one more time to close the terminal.
Reboot the Android device. Will not work without a reboot.

Disabling captive portal

  Since the culprit is a method isCaptivePortal() which access clients3.google.com/generate_204 to test if a connection is deemed
  "usable". The page, as its name suggest, is designed to always return
  a HTTP 204 status code. Based on this you have a couple options:

i. Kill isCaptivePortal() completely

with adb set, run adb shell su -c "settings put global captive_portal_detection_enabled 0"

Note:  The down side is that isCaptivePortal() is actually useful to detect for example when a WiFi network requires login. If the request to the 204 page gets redirected to a login page (not a 204), the system will understand and display the exclamation mark as intended.

ii. Change the target of isCaptivePortal()

another workaround is replacing the Google host with a host that is accessible within the specific region. This host should also be returning 204 every time /generate_204 is accessed.

i.e adb shell su -c "settings put global captive_portal_server {alternate_host} "

Other methods

Using hosts

You can edit hosts to block the captive portal detection url thus bypassing the sending of the requests to captive portal server.

References and acknowledgements

Mihai Neacsu (author):  How to fix Android Cellular data and Wi-Fi network connected and working but with exclamation points
Signal data exclamation mark!
How does WiFi in android detect if the device has to sign in or not?


How to set default call audio output to earpiece when connected to bluetooth? My phone is connected with a bluetooth watch. Which has in built speakers. I can make and receive calls from my watch. Now whenever I receive a call my call audio output is sent to my watch speakers. After picking up the phone I can change it to receive output to my phone's earpiece but this is annoying to do everytime I receive a call. Is there a way to force my phone not to transfer incoming call audio to bluetooth?

P.S. I can disable Phone Audio from my bluetooth profile but then I am not able to make calls or see who is calling me from my watch.

I was in need of doing this exact thing today. I was forced to figure it out on my own after I couldn't find an answer online. As it turns out, it's easier than I expected.

Open your bluetooth settings, find your device, and click the settings icon for that device. You should see some options for the device. Uncheck the "Phone audio" option.


Which files/folders on my SDCard are unsafe to delete manually? I've had my Droid for nearly a year now, and in the process of installing and uninstalling apps, moving data to and from my SDCard, and all the various things one does with a phone the SDCard has become a little unruly.

It's time for a little file system maintenance.

It won't be difficult, but I only know enough about Linux file systems to be dangerous and I don't want to delete something important from my SDCard on accident.  I couldn't find anything on Android's site about how an SDCard is formatted, so is there anyone who can tell me which files/folders are off-limits or point me in the direction of a good resource?

Please note, I don't want to know which files/folders are safe to delete.  I know I can delete /Epicurious since I've uninstalled the app already, etc.

I'm running CyanogenMod 6.2.1 (based off Android 2.2.1) on my Motorola Droid.

I'm tempted to say everything is safe to delete.  It should be, with a storage device intended to be removed and used elsewhere.  But I know some apps will be unhappy.  So a good rule is not to delete anything that's clearly used by an app that you care about.

It's probably a good idea not to delete level 0 directories that start with a . such as /.android_secure/ (protected apps) either.  Those folders are generally used by the system and, while I don't believe Android ever stores anything important on the SD card (besides apps if you consider them important), there's probably no reason to delete them either.  /Android/ and /data/, /sd/ and /*.img, and /settings.db (if present) are also used by the system.  Those are app data, recovery images, and various settings respectively.

Also watch out for a /DCIM/ folder or similar, which may have any pictures you've taken.  Presumably you'd want to back them up.  Likewise with /download/ and /media/.

You'll want to watch out for /update.zip, /busybox, /clockworkmod/, and the like as well if you're rooted or have a custom recovery.

Note if, like me, you have "internal SD" as well as external, then most of the above is stored on the internal SD.  The external SD appears as /external_sd/ within the internal SD, or may be mounted at /emmc/ or similar.  You can apply the rules above to both storage areas.


Titanium Backup Dropbox sync scheduling I'm using Titanium Backup to automatically back up to my SD card. I also managed to get the "Sync to Dropbox " feature to work. How I can I automate "Sync To Dropbox"? I don't see it as an option when I add a schedule.

It was added in a recent update as a pro-only feature.

Edit schedule -> when finished -> Sync to Dropbox


separation contacts according to social networks is there any way to separate social network contacts and save it to a file ? like save "IMO" contacts in a file and save telegram contacts in another file ?

You can use custom filter of contacts sorted by socialnetaccount, then export it to SD


How to install Play Store on Jio Lyf LS 4005? I have recently bought a Jio Lyf 4005 which has Android 5.1 Lollipop running. But it does not have Google Play Store, instead it has Lyf Store (provided by the ISP) which has only a few apps available. Is there any way I can install Google Play Store on it?

I have already tried following and failed:

Downloading and installing Google Accounts Manager, Play Store and Google Play Services APKs. It keeps showing the message "Unfortunately, Google Play Services has stopped." When I try to open Google Play Store it shows the "Cannot Connect to the Server [RH-01]".
I have rooted the phone and tried to copy GApps files to system folder but I am unable to paste anything there.

Any help is much appreciated.

Looks like you have done so much. Seems like they have cut the server connection between Google PlayStore and they use their OS. Only possible thing for you to do is flash a custom rom. To do it,

install Clockworkmod or TWRP mod.
Find an appropriate Custom Rom made for your phone.
then install Gapps if they dont have it.

all the best


Configure apps to store data on external SD? I have a S5 with Cyanogenmod v12.  I've gone through every setting screen I could find but was unable to locate where to tell the default Camera app to store pics/vids on SD instead of internal memory.   I realize I could move them over, but that's an added step and inconvenience.

Is there a way to configure the default Camera app to save to SD?  If not, is there a camera app that comes with this ability?

In cynogenmod's camera app there are no further settings it must have .I think you should try this app- google camera .


Unlock my S4 with a cracked screen? I thought I lost my phone so I locked it with "Where's my phone" but it turns out I recovered it with a a useless cracked screen, I know the phone works because it rings and can hear the notifications of messages I get, I want to retrieve the files I have in the internal memory but at the time I plug it in to my computer it says is empty, I'm thinking it says that for security reasons because I remotely locked it. Can someone tell me how to unlock it without a working screen?

if your screen would be working temporarily then you need Buy a OTG cable and connect it with mouse [if pattern as lock] or keyboard [if pin or password] and you can unlock it without the touchscreen working


Google Keyboard takes a few seconds to enable autocorrect after the latest update. How do I fix this? In the latest version of Google Keyboard (6.6.22) I've noticed that for some reason it takes 5-10 seconds for autocorrect to start working after the keyboard is loaded. I've disabled multi language typing but it didn't help.

Is there a setting I can change to make the keyboard load test dictionary fast again? Or perhaps it's a known bug?

The issue was resolved by clearing the cache of Google Keyboard.


Cannot reinstall Google Play Services I can't seem to reinstall Google Play Services again.
I tried the APK file thingy from Google but it didn't work. I tried a website called APKPure.com but it also didn't work. I also tried some videos but those are for different models of devices.
I didn't know that Google Play Services plays a big role for an Android and now I can't even sign in into my Play Store account (the sign in button for the Play Store isn't working).
Also, if this helps, I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (I think it is a 2016 model).
Is there a way to fix this problem?

You might want to try a trick using the Device Administrator.

Settings > Security > Device Administrators
Deactivate Android Device Manager
in Settings > Apps find the Google Play Services
Uninstall Play Services updates

This might restore the version originally shipped with your phone depending on your vendor.
Check if you can activate Play Services again in Settings > Apps > Google Play Services.
Enable Device manager again, like above.
Edit: If this does not help I'd suggest to backup your data and do a device factory reset. (see e.g. https://www.rd.com/article/factory-reset-android/)


How do I prevent my phone from restarting after a System Update? Phone: Mobicel TRENDY_LITE
Android: 8.1.0

For about two days now, I have been receiving many Security and System Updates.

Every time an update is ready, my phone restarts without permission.

After each update, my phone seems slower than the last one.

What can I do? All the help is appreciated.

When a system update is performed, the phone reboots to allow the new files to take over the old (the old files will be removed from the system). On some devices, it is possible to delay the update, but when it (the update) is done, one has to restart the device.

If you don't want to update at all, then install a firewall and block the wireless update app from accessing the internet.