How to check if a device can be made root-able There are many similar questions to what I am asking, but from my searches so far have not pointed this out:

  What keywords on the device advertisement or how can I tell prior to purchasing a device, if it can allow root access to applications?

For instance, is there a brand or a model, or even OS version, that comes with an "allows Switch User" application by default?

Is there a way for me to direct possible customers to "easily" check if a device can be made rootable...

Long story:

I built a device to help users without mobility to control an Android device. The users are usually illiterate, have no Internet access and have low resources.

My application requires root access, however, my users are very uninformed about technology, and thus I need some sort of pointer or something to help them purchase Android devices (currently, they send me an e-mail that they usually can only check/reply once every 3 weeks, then I check that product, and give yes/no replies to that device.... this scenario is not working out, and giving out lists with all possible/know devices is also troublesome, since most shops will sell an Android device, but will not be able to tell the client the model.

As an example, we had the D2212 Sony E3 model working (this was my local testing device)... but clients keep on asking if the "Sony one", "the black one", "the telephony dealership one", etc.

Rooting is not something endorsed by vendors (otherwise they would provide official instructions for doing this, or even ship the phones already rooted). Sony provides instructions to turn your device into a developer tool by unlocking the boot loader and changing the OS to a custom build. Motorola once offered the same. Also Nexus devices are friendly to rooting.

But in general there's no simple way to answer your question. Every user is on his own with this problem. Yes, I know this is disappointing.


Custom recovery reporting wrong device when flashing CM11 in Samsung Galaxy Note 8 even when I downloaded the right firmware I'm trying to flash CM11 firmware on a GT-N5100 device. I installed the custom recovery (tried both CWM and PhilZ), and while flashing it says I'm on a wrong device. On CWM, it was saying "The package is for N5100 and you are in a N5110, update aborted".

And on PhilZ, it says "This package is for kona3g, kona3gxx and you are on a konawifi, operation cancelled."

Now what am I supposed to do? I'm unable to install CM11??? So sad.

On comparing the models, there is difference between the two (especially when it comes to network). I suggest that you do have a look at this before proceeding and try that first.
But if you are sure that your model is N5100 and still want to try and proceed, there is a workaround you can do so it doesn't check/compare the models.

Open the ROM zip file with winrar.
Go to META-INF/com/google/android and open the updater-script with notepad.
You are looking for line similar to:

getprop("ro.product.device") == "N5100" || abort("This package is for \"  N5100\" devices; this is a \"" + getprop("ro.product.device") + "\".");

(this line should in fact be the very first line in script).

Erase this line, save the zip and flash again. It won't verify your model.

Warning: I am not really a Samsung user. So I am not aware of its models and naming conventions that much.  Make sure about models otherwise you may end up bootlooping your device or having other problems and having to flash firmwares over again (you can ask on xda itself about this).

Hope this helps ;)


Using an external SDcard with KitKat? On a Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition running 4.4 and non-rooted (I'd prefer not to root a device used for professional development purposes)

Having stored some ebooks on my external SDcard, I decided that I wanted to add some audio as well (as my internal device storage is quite full.)

As far as I can tell not one app (nor adb) can perform any write operations to the external SDcard's root directory.

The one exception that I've found is that my ubuntu computer, can create and rename directories inside /storage/extSdCard/Android/data/ even though none of my apps can.

Is there a workaround for this that doesn't involve rooting the device?

Google has screwed up the KitKat API, apparently Google thinks there is a big security problem with external SD cards.  Apps will have to be changed to use a different API call, so expect that nothing will use external SD cards for a long long long time (small percentage of KitKat users and even smaller percentage of KitKat users with external SD cards).

There are a lot of people asking similar questions and some partial workarounds but nothing good.  Even Googles own Gallery app doesn't read the external SD card.


How can I change the lock screen on my Galaxy Note 2? I got myself a new note 2 last night, and I'm trying to configure it. It's my first android device, so I'm not sure how the system works in some respects.

I came from Windows Phone 7, and there were a few nice features on that phone that I find I'm missing - namely the ability to see upcoming calendar events on my lock screen, as well as the number of emails/texts/whatever I have waiting, and the number of calls that I missed. I found a couple of potential lockscreen apps on google play, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to enable them. There appears to be no option in my settings.

Using android 4.1.2 - don't know if that's the latest version available for me, but I did update last night, presumably from 4.0.

GO Locker has probably the most intuitive interface for changing the lock screen.  Plus they have an embedded store on their application making installation of new themes very easy.  I've noticed in the Google Play Store description for Lockscreen Calendar (not part of GO Locker), that there are reported problems for replacing the lock screen on Samsung devices.  Try Go Locker, that might help override Samsung default settings, then perhaps your own screen locker applications might work.

If your stuck on how to use these applications, try starting them from the Applications menu.  There should be instructions on their use.

NB: Here's a LifeHacker review of Lockscreen Calendar.


How do I get my keyboard back I just got a new tablet a few days ago & today I disabled a lot of apps that I knew I wasn't going to use. When I put it down 2 go eat dinner & came back, I turned it back on & when I tapped the little box to put my password in the keyboard didn't pop up. I reset it about 20 times but nothing happened. What do I do now?

Option 1:

Use/get a USB OTG cable and plug a USB keyboard in to type the password. After that it's a matter of finding the likely disabled keyboard app or installing a new one from the store ie op2.

You may be able to jigger up a bluetooth keyboard also if the pairing popup overrides the lock (likely not but can't say for sure myself).

Option 2:

This is assuming you can get around the lock issue which is unlikely but I figure I throw it out there in case its helpful to someone else in a similar situation that isn't blocked by a lock.

You should be able to use https://play.google.com/store?hl=en to install a keyboard remotely like: Swiftkey Keyboard or Google Keyboard.

After it installs on your device, run it from the notification tray and go through the prompts/settings to enable it. At the very least you now have a backup keyboard to use to find and re-enable the presumably disabled one.

Option 3:

This requires root and a good deal more knowledge of your system and also depends on whatever method you used (unmentioned as of writing) to disable the apps in the first place.

Get an adb shell going and get a directory listing of /data/app &| /system/app &| /system/priv-app and reverse the disabling process manually.

Option 4:

Do a full Factory Data Reset from recovery.

Typically Power+Vol Down held down to get into the bootloader and then launch the recovery from there. May vary by device (unmentioned as of writing).


Can’t enable the developer options of Samsung Galaxy Tab I have several time tap on “Build Number” for 7 times but it does not show any toast message and also not enable the developer options.

Where can we find the USB Driver for the Tab.

I have Samsung Galaxy Tab(GT-P1000).

Have you looked under Settings/Application for the option Development? If not, do that first. That option should be enabled.

Look under Development for USB Debugging. It may not be enabled. Go to Settings/Wireless and Network/USB Settings and choose Ask on connection.

Go back to Settings/Application/Development. The USB Debugging option should now be enabled.

If you're on Windows, download Samsung drivers, install them and then connect your tab.


Does anyone know, or know how to determine, the dimensions of the Samsung Galaxy S6+ screen in pixels? The reason I want to know is because I want to make a wallpaper for my girlfriend that exactly fits the screen

Samsung devices allow, under Developer Options, the ability to mark screen locations.

See Settings > Developer Options > Input

Select
Show Touches,
Show pointer location

Move to the points desired, and note their coordinates.

If you find the constant coordinates undesitreable, turn OFF the options after the operation is complete to your satisfaction.

To turn on Developer Options if needed:

Go to app drawer and open Settings
Go to bottom and tap About device
Tap repeatedly Build number 7 times. Starting at 3rd tap, you'll see a toast saying You are now X steps away from being a developer.


Is Backing up my Android Device to the Cloud using Skydrive or Dropbox Equally as Effective As using dedicated Back Up Apps? Is it equally effective to backup my apps, photos, contacts, SMS texts etc on my Android Smartphone (which is non rooted) using MS Skydrive or Dropbox compared with using a dedicated Backup App from the Google Play Store eg My Back Up Pro ? Is it the case that, it is as effective but the process is far simpler and less time consuming to carry out if a dedicated application is used.
This applies to general backing up and backing up in order to migrate/transition as seemlessly as possible when upgrading to a new smartphone

One more thing to keep in mind is privacy: While you mostly have control over your locally stored data, you cannot say the same for Cloud services. For storing personal/sensitive information to the Cloud, you should always consider encryption.

A third option is to have your app creating backups on your sd card, and use another app (e.g. FolderSync) automatically sync the backup directory to your local computer (or NAS device). This way you are a bit safer if your card breaks, and have more privacy. And you have both, a local and a remote backup -- plus even if you need the latter one, download is a bit faster as from the Cloud. If you trust some Cloud service, chances are also good that service is supported by FolderSync as well.


All connections dropping down after a while Lately I started to have this degrading connectivity problem.

(one month ago) When connecting my laptop in tethering, through WiFi from the Android hotspot, the internet connection (on the smartphone side) was dropping completely; I needed to set the Airplane Mode fist Off, then On.
(last two weeks) I noticed that the internet connectivity was dropping (the usual H/3g/E/G symbols were not there) after some time from the restoring (still turning Off/On the Airplane Mode, or restarting the phone).
(last week) Together with the loosing of connectivity it started to not call or receive calls. Moreover the same exact thing happens at the same time for the WiFi connectivity.
Sometimes I could restore the functionality. Other times it didn't work for a lot of time, even restarting everything.
Note: the carrier icon shows a full/strong signal (but just doesn't work for real)

A couple of other infos:

in the last months the display has started to flicker; so I suspect there should be some battery problem (like not enough tension). But except for that everything always worked perfectly
I almost finished the space on the phone, so it is slowed down. But anyway everything for working fairly.

What could be the reason?
Is most probable an hardware problem? Should I change phone?
Or is something I could fix on the software?

My phone:

Huawei Y300
Android 4.1.1
Rooted
With Dr.Web antivirus

I had this kind of troubles before(not screen flicker).

You could try to factory reset and make fresh clean install of stock firmware.
Edit: Remember to backup your data.

If you are using some custom rom flash it after doing stock and make sure to check from xda if anyone is experiencing similar issues.

Issue could be related to some sort of corruption which could happen if flashing went wrong or tweaking while rooted.

Normally when flashing orginal stock firmware this fixes issue.

You could also try to check SIM card(take off put back) and take battery off for few minutes(this preforms soft reset and sometimes could fix some problems).

This brand is not familiar to me but i hope this helps to your problem.


Unable to boot Android in a multiboot PC configuration I installed "android x86 4.0 rc1 asus_laptop iso" on /sda3 (NTFS partition created in Windows 7) of my Advent Verona recently. I already run Windows 7 and Linux Mint 11 so was dual booting with GRUB.

When I installed Android it took over the Mint bootloader and would not show Mint in its bootloader, but I was able to correct the problem, thereby getting the Mint loader back, through this site.

However, this caused Android to disappear from the bootloader. I tried to get it to appear so I could load it from there and was able to do so using this information.

I've been able to edit the file that makes you see all the OS on the laptop and I see all the three OSes now. I can load into Windows 7 and Linux Mint without problems but when I try to boot Android I get these errors on a black page:

[numbers] VFS: could not find a valid V7 on sda3
[numbers] kernel panic - not syncing: vfs: unable to mount root fs on unknown block (8.3)
[numbers] Pid. 1 comm: swapper not Tainted 3.0.8 android x86 asus_laptop

Then it reboots after a few seconds. What am I not doing right?

The one thing that sticks out from your question is that /sda3 is NTFS-formatted

  on /sda3 (NTFS partition created in Windows 7)

and thus the Android's Linux kernel panic's due to not understanding NTFS.


Securing Memory Card? What should I do so that the Memory card in my phone works only in my phone? Also, I should be able to connect my mobile to a PC through a USB cable and completely see/edit/organize the data on my memory card.

I want this to prevent anyone from gaining physical asses to my mobile, removing the memory card and getting asses to my sensitive data, by using the memory card with some other device.

You could use encryption on the entire drive. This can be done with certain apps like EDS (which creates an encrypted container on the device, which requires a password to be opened -- but after that the file system is mounted transparently for all apps to access; these containers are TrueCrypt compatible). Some of these Apps (like e.g. Cryptonite or LUKS Manager) require the device to be rooted.

However, if those encryption does not work on the device filesystem itself (but uses containers), I'm not sure how an app will work with it if it expects files at hard-coded places. You can try and find out, as most of the encryption apps offer free trial versions.


Is there a way I could sync my Facbook galleries with my Android Gallery? Is there a way that allows me to sync my Facebook galleries to my Android phone if possible? I use HaxSync but that only seems to handle the calendar and the contacts, and the Facebook app doesn't have any such functionality.

Photosync is set as "ON" by default IMO. Anyways read this


Huawei G700 keeps asking permission to use mobile data after WiFi disconnects I recently bought a Huawei G700. It's a fairly new and uncommon device. It runs Android 4.2.1 in combination with Huawei's own Emotion UI

When I have WiFi enabled and for some reason my Wifi disconnects (for example I go out of reach), my phone keeps asking me, each and every time, if it's allowed to use Mobile Data. if I don't answer, my mobile data does not connect thus I can't recieve any mails etc which is highly annoying.

This is the exact error/popup message that I get:

  Data connection change
  WLAN is unavailable, try to connect to mobile network?

I've googled this exact phrase, but I get 0 results. How can I prevent my phone from asking if it's allowed to use mobile data?

It seems that this behavior is present in all recent Chinese ROMs from Huawei and there is no way to disable it. However, I found a workaround for it; The message only popsup if you have WiFi and Data Enabled and you lose WiFi connectivity. Then your phone will ask if it's allowed to switch from WiFi to Data. So, if you make sure WiFi is disabled before switching to Data, it will not ask this question. To do so manually, takes a lot of time. Luckily there is an app that can automate this task for you. Here's how:

Install the app 'Llama' from the Market (Free) and create these two events:

The 1 second delay is necessary, else it does not work properly.

What it does: Switch off WiFi as soon WiFi disconnects from your WiFi network and then enables Data. This way, it does not show the popup and 'automatically' switch to Data. Don't forget to manually enable WiFi again if you are in reach again of your WiFi network.
If you want Llama to automatically turn back WiFi on as soon you get home/in reach of your WiFi, you have to let it learn your location. Read the help/documentention on how to do so. It's pretty easy to do :)

This 'fix' works for me 9 out 10 times. Give it a try, I hope it helps you.


Do I need root to use NewzDroid? I would like to use NewzDroid for usenet, but I'm not sure if I need root for it to work.

Their website doesn't say that you need to be rooted to use it.  Just need a NZB file and a Usenet account.


Data Network mode doesn't get activated on gingerbread 2.3.4 This happened all of a sudden. I could not start the 3g on my phone.

The Data Network mode is always deactivated now.

Although, when I go to Settings > Wireless and network settings > Mobile network settings,
the Use packet data option is checked.

Unchecking this option and checking again doesn't work.

Installing the internet settings again from the service provider also didn't help.

Restarting the phone didn't help.

Restoring factory settings didn't help.

Any idea what's going wrong?

Do not know if you got it sorted but I had the same problem and did this:

Tap Settings > Wireless and Networks > Mobile networks > Access Point Names
Then tap on one of the relevant APN's pertaining to your provider, such as, for example O2 Mobile Web (Pre-pay or contract)
Set the APN Type to 'internet,mms'
Tap on Menu, tap on 'Save'.

Back out of the Access Point Names screen, back out to Mobile networks, then:

Tap on Packet data (In some ROMs this could be labeled as Data Enabled), and also, Data roaming to turn them off.
Turn those two options back on

And voila its working again!


Is there a way to mount a Windows shared drive so I can access those files on my phone? I have a shared network drive full of files I want to access from my phone over wifi.

Is there a easy way to mount it on my phone?

I have a rooted Motorola Milestone.

ASTRO File Manager by Metago available from Google Play Store has an SMB plugin (ASTRO SMB Module) that serves your needs.


Notifications enabled on app make the app run on background? Let me start with an example, Delta's airline app called "FlyDelta" has an option in it settings to enable/disable "Get check-in reminders & status notifications". My question is, if I enable this "Get check-in reminders & status notifications" will the app from that point on run in the background at all times (even after restarting the phone or killing the app)?
I'm a bit confused on how notifications work. I know that Google has a very nice infrastructure to push notifications to an app, but does the app has to be running in order to consume the data? any help explaining this specific app behavior will be greatly appreciated.

Polling for updates
It depends on how the app is written. Most commonly, the app uses Android's AlarmManager to run itself at intervals (say, every hour) to check for updates. Some apps might do this to keep themselves in sync with server data regardless of whether notifications are turned on or off in the app, and may (or may not) have another setting to disable syncing completely. Other apps might only run this periodic check if notifications are turned on, and only sync when you start the app yourself.
However it controls that, you should expect that when the AlarmManager starts the app in the background, it runs for as it long as it takes to get any new data from the server, and then stops running when it's finished. It will then not run until the AlarmManager starts it again in another hour (or however long it's set to wait). There's (usually) no need for the app to be running in the background the whole time, though of course a badly written app may do this.
Cached background processes
Don't forget that Android keeps background processes in memory even when they've stopped running, unless/until another process needs to use that memory. If the app is 'stopped', it's not using any resources, not even if Android is keeping it in memory.
Google Cloud Messaging
Apps can use Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) to be 'pushed' updates from servers (i.e. from "the cloud"). Instead of being started at regular intervals to check for data, they're only started when new data are available. This means they use less power, because they're not being started unnecessarily; and less data, because they only talk to the server when they know it has new data.
As above, an app might use GCM to keep its data in sync with the server, even if notifications are turned off. It's an implementation detail of the app: it shouldn't affect its observable behaviour, just how much power and data it uses.
Android itself keeps an open connection to Google's servers. There's only one such connection on the whole phone, so installing a new app that uses GCM doesn't use any extra resources. When the Android system receives a GCM message for a particular app, it starts that app in the background to give it the message: the app doesn't need to have been running already.
The app then runs, and reads the message. The size of GCM messages is severely limited, so the app may still need to contact the server to find out more. For example, the GCM message might just say how many new emails there are, and the client then needs to check the server to download the new emails. For flight details, it may be that the message only has a gate number or an updated departure time, so the app might not need to contact the server for more details. As before, when the app has finished processing the update, and it has created a notification if necessary, it can stop itself: it doesn't need to keep running.


Phone unable to recognize headphones Explanation of issue: when I plug in headphones (any pair of headphones), the line out icon appears instead of the headphone icon (see image below).

As a result, no sound comes through the headphones, although there is definitely mild feedback that does come through.

Phone: LG G4

Things I've tried:

Different pairs of headphones
Turned phone off and on again (with headphones plugged in and without)
Checked all audio related settings
Downloaded SoundAbout, but even this doesn't help, as it's not an issue of the phone misunderstanding the type of headphones, it thinks they're something else entirely. I did get some audio coming through the headphones after selecting "Wired Headphones" and telling the phone to ignore the headphones being plugged in, but it was very quiet and distorted by feedback.
Cleaned out headphone jack with compressed air

Ended up sending to back for repair. They replaced the mainboard, which means they couldn't be bothered to actually debug the issue and just nuked it. Not very satisfying, but it works now.


Can USB charging (via mains adapter or from PC/Mac) of Android tablets be the main, primary method of charging? Or are there design issues? Are there design issues with tablets being charged by USB not seen with Android phones?

I saw this on another forum, what are your thoughts on this with regard to my question?
http://forums.androidcentral.com/acer-iconia-a100/112270-charge-via-usb-port.html#post1696260

  An important consideration in the design is the amount of current the
  usb connectors can handle. I figure the designers find that it is
  safer to design a separate charging and power connector because as the
  devices get larger they draw more current to operate and charge the
  battery. I think that is the reason they do that. Is there no 12 volt
  adapter for these devices? I don't own one yet, just leaning towards
  the acer 7 inch tablet.

I would prefer charging via USB (via mains or PC) when considering a tablet so that I don't have to carry around a specific charger.

Many Android phones use their micro USB port for charging - connecting the USB cable to a mains adapter or using the cable to connect to a full size USB port on a computer.

I see that some major brand Android tablet manufacturers (Motorola, Asus) as well as some smaller less know brands either use a separate power input (non micro-USB) or a dock.

The USB spec specifies that the power supplied over USB shall be ~5V DC, which is fine.

A single USB device (e.g. your tablet) may draw up to 500 mA of power in USB 2 and 900 mA of power in USB 3.  This is the issue - it's workable but not ideal.

Using a USB cable as a power connector between a tablet and the AC adapter that came with the tablet is a different story - they can do anything they want - but charging from a USB port is governed by the above limitations.


Force CPU full with display black i have a galaxy core duos and minergate instaled for test, however, my H/s in on display stay in 7 and in off stay in 0,5, i instaled overclock app however did not work.

how to force CPU full speedy in off display?

Samsung did this on a galaxys s3 rig

You can force your cpu to work at full speed by changing the governor to Performance. If you are not sure what a governor is, you need to have ROOT ACCESS then you can use an app named Kernel Adiutor(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grarak.kerneladiutor&hl=en) to change the cpu governor.

Also, overclocking would require a custom kernel which you can find at XDA Forums.

Found these relevant guides:
Tomsguide:https://www.tomsguide.com/us/overclock-android-device,review-1762.html

Androidpit: https://www.androidpit.com/how-to-overclock-android


Guided access for android Guided access is an excellent set of features for the iPhone that allows one to restrict or block inputs to the device.  How can I replicated this behavior with my Android phone?

The features the I am most interested in
(so that I can restrict access to my phone when my children are using it) are

ability to disable all hard buttons (power, volume up/down, back, home, the button that display open tasks, etc.), and
ability to disable all touch events.

Of course such an app must also provide a way to re-enable these inputs again using one of them (or said another way, to disable the restrictions).  For example, to disable guided access on the iPhone, one triples clicks the home button.

Lollipop includes a feature called 'screen pinning', where you can lock access to only a specific app; from the app you want to lock to, tap the Recents/Overview button, tap the light teal icon in the bottom-right of the card and follow the instructions onscreen.


init.d doesn't get executed i am using samsung s2 and a custom rom, external sd card is mounted to /emmc but i want it to mount to /mnt/sdcard/external_sd, how could i mount it using init.d?

i made a file called "99mount" with a the content

mount -o bind /emmc /mnt/sdcard/external_sd

however, it isn't being executed an start tried also

busybox mount -o bind /emmc /mnt/sdcard/external_sd

and no luck, do i need to add 99mount to some xx.rc file?

Your SD card isn't prepared at the time that the bind command is executed, because the mounting process hasn't ended yet. To bind, you have to wait several seconds for the mounting of SD card & external SD to be finished.

#!system/bin/sh
sleep 10
n="$(dumpsys mount | grep -c 'external')"
until [ $n -eq 1 ]
do
sleep 1
n="$(dumpsys mount | grep -c 'external')"
done
mount -o bind source target

Note: n="??" is changeable by according to your own system.


Recovering Information(Contacts,Messages) from the Android Backup file My Android Phone Micromax a99  canvas got locked due to unknown number of trials by My kid's friend.I was left with two options
- Restore factory settings
- Delete/wipe user data

I preferred second one , I also took the backup of the user data by booting into recovery mode( volume up/down powerbutton combination) and then copying the backup into my PC.
Now I did restore factiry settings and then tried to restore from my backup file but to my amazement(but thats likely as well) after restoring the phone I again got the same phone lock issue , since it was the part of my old user configuration.Now I am left with just one option
- To recover my contacts/messages on the PC and store it on My phone manualy.Oks thats not a problem for me ,  I just want few important contacts.
Is there any free/opensource tool I can use to  extract the contacts from my .backup Android Backup file.

I just need to get my Contacts !!!
Thanks in Advance !

there are some ideas to restore backup and reset screenlock without flashing anything.

if still interested please come back to forum.xda-developers.com and answer my question regarding solution C.

solution A is easiest way, but i have not tested
1. create userdata_20160208_095026.backup
2. root the phone. don't flash custom recovery
3. factory reset
4. copy /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db to /cache
5. install some shell script to copy back settings.db on every boot
6. restore userdata_20160208_095026.backup with stock recovery

solution B, tested on MT6582 Jelly Bean, works!
(because some phones dont have fastboot and its difficult to flash)
1. use my script to convert stock backup to cwm backup
2. root the phone. don't flash custom recovery
3. install stericson.busybox and jackpal.androidterm
4. insert sdcard with ext2 partition
5. mount ext2 partition
6. copy /data to sdcard
7. unmount /data partition and symlink sdcard to /data
8. mount /data partition to /cache/data
9. unpack cwm backup
10. replace settings.db

solution C (with flashing) tested on MT6582 works!
1. use my script to convert stock backup to cwm backup
2. replace settings.db in cwm backup
3. root the phone
4. flash custom recovery
5. restore cwm backup

currently i am writing a shell script for solution B. it works at moment for cwm backup only, try to fix up some errors regarding stock backup...


Bluetooth Car Disconnects :( Having a pretty irritating issue with my bluetooth connection and my car. The phone will connect up no problem, but as soon as you try to play a track, switch apps or sometimes even unlock the phone, it'll say the device has disconnected, with a few caveats.

Details;

Device is a Nexus 4 (The LG One), Rooted running an official rom of 5.1.1, i haven't run any updates or updated any apps in the past week since this issue cropped up randomly one morning.
Car is a Ford Fiesta, built in 2015, UK 15 plate.
I'm connecting my phone to the built in Ford SYNC system, had no issues with it before on the same device

What i've tried;

Full factory reset on phone
Installed same ROM again from google
Full Dalvik cache wipe
Full factory reset via CWM recovery and via TWRP before flashing roms
(Separate occasions)
"Factory Reset" in car
"Master Reset" in car (that cleared all my audio preferences for the radio)
Remove pairing from car and phone and repair (connecting from phone first)
Remove pairing from car and phone and repair (connecting from car first)
Allowing car to access contacts, messages and phone audio
Allowing car to access nothing but media audio

I'm truly at my wit's end here it's driving me absolutely insane, and it only started randomly last week.

What's weird, is that my phone will connect up no problem, the SYNC system on the car will tell me my phone's connected, but as soon as i go to play music, switch apps or unlock my phone, it'll tell me it's disconnected. What's REALLY weird though is that my car will still give me a reading of my phone's signal strength and battery level, even when it's apparently disconnected, and it seems pretty accurate as well.

Just thought i'd run this by you guys incase there's something blatantly obvious i've missed before i head into the Ford garage and start whining at them

So an update for anyone who's stumbled across this question in future;

I think I've managed to solve the problem. Connection restored and music is playing no problem, I've yet to test phone calls and texts yet though.

It would appear the problem was with SYNC and my text messages, I was using the Google hangouts app previously which is notoriously unreliable on older handsets, installed Google Messenger (their new SMS client) this morning, just tried connecting again during lunch and all seems well and stable.

If you're having disconnects especially with a Nexus 4 and (by chance) Ford SYNC, try force stopping, uninstalling updates and ultimately disabling Google hangouts. I'm going to fully remove the app tonight via ADB but for now the disabled state seems fine.


Fake High Accuracy GPS Location Many apps can fake GPS location, but none can fake the high accuracy option provided by the internet.

And I need this mocked as well. Many apps demand this option enabled

When high accuracy is disabled, the mocking apps succesfully change my position

But they don't work when High accuracy is enabled. My real location is detected

Edit:

When I say "provided by the internet", I mean aided by the internet AND/OR carrier/towers.

I don't understand much of this part. And apparently, I got things wrong: non-accurate location being towers and accurate being the satellites.

The phone is rooted and xposed, and Mock locations is enabled under developer

And lastly:

When I say High accuracy, I mean the option that can be enabled/disabled under Settings→Locations→Mode

Faking your GPS location .. or Mock Locations.

Mock Locations can be enabled using the Development Options, this will acquire your location provided by triangulation of the connected cell towers and then apply an offset, I'm fairly sure.

If you use Network Location, your device could be calculating your location extremely inaccurately, by simply not reading the correct signal strength from a specific tower, maybe your body is on one side of the device and disrupting the signal to the Ariel.

Using High Accuracy GPS is not using the " internet " ( Network Signal Strength Calculations ) rather it's using calculations based on recognising visible satellites, then checking where on earth those satellites are visible from, it uses a separate internet connection to do these calculations, you'll see the network is active when your GPS Icon is flashing.


How to turn off animation in Lenovo A6000 Plus I am using Lenovo A6000 Plus smartphone.

I want to turn off all the animations. But in  Developer options there are only few options. The animation option is missing. I searched but I didn't find anything.

Screenshot (click to enlarge)

There was an app released a long time ago that might be able to do this for you called Spare Parts Plus


Gallery app crashes when trying to view photos or videos The Gallery app on my phone does not show any of my photos or videos. If I try to view them from the camera app the screen just goes black and exits to the home screen. I have an Xperia Mini Pro. Is there any way I can troubleshoot this?

Try clearing the data and cache of the gallery from App Manager of your phone's setting.


How can I tell if I need a valid SIM card (active phone #) on my old Smartphone to use an App? I gave my old Moto RazrM phone to my daughter. The phone and Mobile internet had stopped working. So it only has wifi. It also has not valid phone "account".

Will this limit her ability to use Apps?
If so, how can I tell when that's causing problems?
(Several apps/games she's downloaded are not working. And at least one of them worked previously.

The phone service (which includes texting) is a feature of the Android.  Tablets don't have this feature.

Without being connected to a phone provider will cause you to loose features the service provide.  However other features of the Android OS will not be affected.  You don't need phone service to use many apps.  Also there are many apps that can be used without Internet service (as long as you have a means (such as USB tethering to get the app on the device.

In other words the Android device should function very similar to a computer that works offline with applications installed and online when connected to the Internet.


Unable to move files to my SD card - how can I do this? I have tried moving files from the Android (internal) storage (now almost full) to the 16G unused SD card I have installed.  I click and hold the item I want to move (i.e. a movie file) and the option to move (cut) is offered.  I press it and see the flag 'holdingFILENAME.wmv'.

I navigate to the area I want to move it to and press the icon (like a paper icon) in the top right of my screen.  I have the option to move, attach, copy, or delete.  I select move, but nothing happens. Any ideas how I can move files?

I am using Android v4.0.3, kernel 3.0.8+, baseband 1.01.

Try to use Astro or if possible (I mean if you are rooted) Root Explorer.
In case "move" fails, then try "copy" first and after successful copy revert to the original location and delete the aforementioned file.
You're done!


Cannot flash phone to install TWRP (One plus One) I have a one plus one phone and I am looking to install TWRP on it as its built in OS crashed.
I have run

fastboot oem unlock

the result is

    ... OKAY

command to unlock the phone but when I run

fastboot flash recovery c:\recovery.img

I get the error message that

    writing 'recovery' Failed remote: Device not unlocked cannot flash or erase

I have gone over the docs but have not found anything helpful.
Note: Before the OS crashed I had not enabled USB debugging (Could this be the issue)?

Have you rebooted the device after "Unlocking bootloader"?

  fastboot reboot

You need to execute this command before flashing custom ROM.
Also, You don't need to turn on USB debugging when unlocking bootloader.


Facebook Android - Too Many Server Redirects Error I have posted a bit.ly link on Facebook, which got converted to an epi.us link (it was an epicurious.com link to begin with). Everything works as normal in most cases, but on the Facebook Android app, there is an error when I click on the link. It states:

  Data Connectivity Problem - The page contains too many server redirects

This is with the latest update to Facebook (just updated today 12/8/11). I am running Android 2.2 (Froyo). Is this something that can be fixed by using a different url shortener?

It's probably doing something like m.facebook.com -> facebook.com -> bit.ly -> epi.us -> epicurious.com, which is a fair number of redirects.  You could try a different browser that might have a longer limit or you could just post the link directly.  Unlike Twitter you don't need to shorten URLs for Facebook most of the time.  At minimum you could remove the epi.us step.


Galaxy S not responsive after an aborted firmware update I just bought this Samsung Galaxy S, installed the Kies software, then it automatically downloaded an update for my phone.  I plugged in my phone and it began the update.

After a few seconds the client said something like 'Error: DLL not found.' (I can't remember exactly what it said.)  The update stopped. (In the client.)  On the phone's screen, it said "Downloading...".  It said this for around 2 hours before I eventually decided to take the battery out and attempt the update again.  But, when I restarted the device, the following symbol was displayed on the screen:

I plugged the phone into my PC, and Kies and it said "update failed, Emergency recovery." The client couldn't connect and told me to refer the the manual on how to boot my phone into recovery mode.  I tried it and nothing happened. The same symbol is still on the screen, all I can do with it is turn it on and off.

Is there any way I can use my phone again? I don't care if I have to do a factory restore and lose all its data.

The below assumes you have the GT-i9000 (international Galaxy S).

Go to this XDA thread and download the newest 2.2 firmware for your region.  Download Odin for Windows (search for "Heimdall" if you are on Linux).  Then do the following:

Put your phone into Download mode

Remove the battery
Hold VolumeDown plus the Home key plus Power.  While holding,

Reinsert the battery.
Release the Power button, still holding the others, about 1 second after the white "GT-I9000" text appears.
After a few seconds a yellow triangle with an android in it should appear, this is Download Mode.  If it doesn't, try this again while holding Power the whole time.

Start up Odin.
Attach the phone to your PC via USB so that Odin recognizes it.
Load the .zip file you downloaded (the ROM/firmware) into the PDA field of Odin.
Load the 512 .pit file into the PIT field of Odin.
Check "Re-partition".
Hit Start.  Odin will tell you when it's done; if it fails, reboot your phone and try again.  (This happens occasionally).

Note that you do this at your own risk; Odin is very powerful and misusing it can damage your phone.  I've used it dozens of times myself safely.


After dead-zones carrier is dropped until restart So I'm assuming this has to be a property that can be changed through buildprop, but I thought I'd consult you guys first.

Phone: Unlocked Galaxy S7 (Sprint), Android 6.0.1

Network: T-Mobile

Issue: If disconnected from the GSM network(in a deadzone/tunnel/big building), the device will continue to stay disconnected until it has been powered off or restarted, even if its in an area with known coverage.

I checked the APN while it was "disconnected" and it still detects a SIM is installed and all the carrier settings are good, but it wont reconnect to the carrier unless it is restarted.

Solved it myself after tinkering with it for the last day. While not recommended, it is possible to flash the Galaxy with other carrier's "version" of the android OS. So the old stock Sprint operating system was removed and replaced with a T-Mobile variant which changes all of the settings to GSM on the back-end for me. If you move from carrier to carrier and experience no issues... I highly recommend the "ain't broke, don't fix it route."

First by putting the phone into download mode (home+pwr+volume down)
Connecting the device to the computer, and running ODIN
Installing a T-Mobile variant of the S7 ROM (this will essentially change it from a 930S to 930T)

Downloads included:

New OS, I used "G930TTMB3APG1", but your mileage may vary depending on what carrier you need to change to.
ODIN 3.12.3


Forgot alternative password for encrypted & fingerprint-protected Samsung Galaxy S5: how to reset it? So I have an encrypted Samsung Galaxy S5 with Android 6.0 and set fingerprints for its lockscreen (fingerprint is set as lockscreen-type for the setting device encryption). Now it seems like I forgot my alternative password - or at least what I tried didn't work.

I can still unencrypt my phone with my password and unlock it with my fingerprints. I didn't need the alternative password so far.
But I'm not sure if it's possible that this could change - e.g. if I happen to make too many false fingerprint-attempts(?) What would you recommend me to do?

I'd prefer changing / resetting the alternative password only if that's possible.
This page has some info which could be relevant here. However that's not for encrypted phones plus I'd like to make sure that I'm not breaking anything.

Okay so it basically solved itself by now: I tried to enter the passphrase many times. Then I used my phone as always and then I shut down. After reboot it showed a screen with an option to change the alternative password. Great!

I think I might have failed to enter the passphrase correctly because it only accepts 16 characters and iirc the password I had was longer than that. Actually what I thought was my alternative password was shorter than 16 characters.

Follow-up question: "Alternative password has been set as the decryption password"

Another follow-up: now the data on my encrypted SD card has been wiped. Not sure why this was done - the apps still work but the photos on it are just unreadable files. Great.


Is it possible to install Stock Android? I have a Lenovo K3 Note and it comes with Android Lollipop with some custom skin and apps from Lenovo. The problem is, in spite of having a decent hardware, the phone lags too much.

I was wondering if installing Stock Android would somehow make it better. So can I get stock Android image and can I format my phone with it?

This page has a list of custom ROMS (some based on the stock ROM) for your phone.
Since each phone has a different hardware configuration, stock Android has to be modified to suit each phone's requirements. So Google's ROM will not work directly on your device; someone will have had to mod it themselves, and such ROMs may have other issues. Some custom ROMs have been tweaked to have even better performance than stock Android, so keep that in mind.

If you want to minimize the chances of having other problems (connectivity issues, battery issues et cetera) on your phone, your best choice is to research more on each ROM, and flash one made by an experienced dev.

You can Google the ROM + your phone name and find out more about each ROM and how well it works on your phone.
Please note that stock ROM, refers to the ROM your phone came with, and not Stock Android.

If you don't find any stock ROMs to your liking, consider flashing a well known ROM, like CyanogenMod on your phone.

Here is a tutorial on flashing CyanogenMod on your phone.
Read the video description first to install the ClockWorkMod ROM manager first.

Flashing any ROM on your phone voids your warranty, and may cause your phone to have more problems than you did on your phone's original ROM. Keep that in mind before you do any of this.


Any way to listen again to BBC radio? I would love to listen again to BBC radio in the UK. There was an app called beebplayer for watching BBC TV as catch up, and for live radio, but not for radio listen again, although it has now been withdrawn.

So are there any other apps (that don't require flash)? Are there statements from the BBC about Android support anyone could point me to? Is it flash only for ever?

My phone has Android 1.5, so I cannot use the flash player that comes with Android 2.2

Edit: Just to be clear, the "listen again" service is for catching up with radio programs you've missed, rather than just streaming what is on at the moment. Some are available as podcasts, but not all.

I haven't tried it, but perhaps TuneIn Radio will do what you want?  It appears to be internet streams of actual radio stations, I'm sure you can find one that streams BBC.  They have a listing of stations here by location: http://radiotime.com/region/c_0/Browse_Locations.aspx


My phone gut stuck signing in with g-mail So, I recently factory reset my J1 phone. It was twice. First bec. of the continuously switching on and off and then second, it was because I can't sign in with my existing g-mail account. I don't have any other solutions so last choice was to reset it twice. Now, I can't use and download apps. It got stuck on signing in with my existing account. It takes so much time. I even waited to sign itself in for the whole night but when I checkec it the next morning nothing happened. "The process com.google.process.gapps has stopped" and "Google Play Services has stopped" kept on popping out for like every 5 sec. I almost tried everything I saw on the net that can help me bug none of them actually helped with my prob. I just don't know what to do anymore. It sucks that I can't even use my phone. Please help me. I am hoping for your response. Thank you in advance.

The only solution left to you is flashing the phone with a stock firmware using Odin (on Windows) or Heimdall (on Mac).

EDIT:

Download the firmware from here(may need a registration)
Unzip it
Download Odin from here
Power down the phone, press volume down + home button + power button simultaneously
A menu should appear, press volume up button
Open Odin
Now connect the phone to the computer, you should see COM in blue (1), meaning the phone has been recognised.

If not, install drivers which can be downloaded from here - Download Kies and install it, will also install all drivers.
Click on AP (newer Odin version)  or PDA (for lower Odin version) and browse to the extracted firmware folder. (2)
Click on Start and wait till the end (3)


"Connected, no Internet" even though the connection works I'm running CyanogenMod 13.0 on my OnePlus 3. I have successfully connected to my home WiFi. I have proper networking. I confirmed it by successfully pinging 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

Still, Android thinks the AP doesn't provide any Internet connection (Connected, no Internet)

How can I fix it? I have root access available. I'm not using Google Play Services.

Most likely your country banned access to Google, or at least its "captive portal" which is responsible for verification of network access on OS level. As I answered here,

  Just execute su then settings put global captive_portal_server SERVER_YOU_WANT_TO_USE in a terminal emulator app or ADB shell.

For China using g.cn is alright, while for your country you will need to figure out a suitable captive portal. A possible list of that can be seen in this answer.


How to access and modify previous commands (bash history) in Termux I use Termux on my Fairphone 2 and I want to speed up working with it. What slows me down is not having an up arrow key that I can use to access the last command in my bash history. I can do !! !7 and so on, but most of the time I don't want to actually repeat the commands, I just want to do something similar. I know some keyboard shortcuts to work with my bash history but they require a ctrl key, which none of my keyboards have. I use

AnySoftKeyboard
Hacker's Keyboard
AOSP Keyboard

None of them have up arrow or ctrl keys

At the moment, I select and copy text by touching, but this is still slow.

How can I access my previous commands more quickly?

See the Termux help page for how to input arrow keys using the VolumeUp button, VolumeDown for Ctrl and some additional shortcuts!
Volume Up+W → Up arrow key


Can an app installed from the Google Playstore install another app with different permissions? I installed an app for custom notifications from the Playstore. The app requires sensitive permissions (camera, contacts, and storage), but has no network access. When I selected a setting the app said I needed to install another app and then my phone displayed a window prompt asking if I will install an app from an untrusted source. My concern is if this app could be spyware with internet access to steal my data. Is this possible if the main app has no network access and no downloading permissions?
I contacted the developer and they told me that particular setting requires an "older API level" that is not possible for main apps to have. I am not knowledgeable enough to know if this is a valid reason.

It's not common but it's not unusual either. I use this MacroDroid automation app. It requires a helper app that can't be published on Play Store and therefore developer provides a link to download, with this explanation:

In order to toggle Wifi on devices running Android 10+ a new helper file is now required. This helper file is built against an older target SDK allowing it to still invoke the Wifi functionality. It cannot appear on the Play Store since they no longer allow apps built against older SDKs to be uploaded.

When a WiFi toggle action is triggered, the installed app (from Play Store) sends an intent to this helper app, thereby circumventing Android 10+ restrictions. So it's a win - win for all because the app functionality is not degraded.
So, if you trust the developer and are sure you need that additional app, you can go ahead. As an added precaution, download the apk and examine it's permissions before installing (Mixplorer does that).


Is it possible to have Skype for Android automatically answer calls? I have this working well for the Skype client on Ubuntu Linux, but I don't see any option to do this in the Android client.

I would like to configure the Skype client for Android to automatically answer calls from contacts.  Is this possible?

Thanks!

Currently and sadly, there's no such option to allow the action of auto-answer an incoming Skype call.

You can keep an eye out on this threads, maybe in a nearby feature such solution will arrive:

Skype Support Network: Auto answer incoming call on Android OS
XDA Developers forum thread: [RQ] Skype auto answer
XDA Developers forum thread: [Q] Skype Auto Answer

Additionally, 3rd party solutions aren't possible to this end, since Skype uses a proprietary protocol with no available API as explained on this Stackoverflow answer.


Can I remove the default clock without rooting my phone? I have a modern Pixel Android phone on the most up to date version of Android.

I'd like to not show the time on the homescreen and the topbar.

I've seen many solutions that include rooting the phone.

Is it possible to get rid of these two clocks without rooting the device?

You can use adb to do this without root (But you need a PC). First download Android platform tools from https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools now unzip them in a folder in your PC.

Go to that folder and open Command Prompt. Now in your phone, find the build number and tap it 7-8 times to enable Developer Options. Now open Developer Options and enable USB debugging. Then plug your phone with your PC. Confirm the box.

Now first type adb devices. Then enter the command adb shell to start adb shell. Now type the command pm list packages | grep "clock" or if you have problem with grep then use pm list packages | find "clock". Find the package name of default clock. Now use pm uninstall -k --user 0 package-name. If you see Success message, then clock app will be removed.


How can I save the maps downloaded from Offline Maps in Google Maps for reusing after a factory reset? How do I save the maps that were downloaded from Offline Maps so that when I factory reset my phone I can simply put the backed up Offline Maps that were downloaded for reusing?

If your device is rooted, you can use Titanium Backup to backup the Maps application, which will backup the application and it's data.

After resetting, again install Titanium Backup, (you have to root again, if you had lost the root access, as a first step) and restore the Maps application. While restoring, you get a chance to opt for restoring app alone or app with data. When opting for the later, your offline data also comes.


Google Process Location Accessing location for whom? I am seeing google.process.location is always running in my phone and whenever I tried to google it, all the posts are related on how to fix an error in this not what I want to know.

Is it the process responsible for giving Google Maps location data or generally serving the location requests in Android ?

Thanks in advance

That process is used for all Google apps — Maps, Chrome, Google+, etc.  It does not provide location info for independent apps like MapQuest.


Samsung Galaxy S2 'Not Registered on Network' I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 that I want to sell.  I have reset it to factory settings.  However, I have a problem.  When I bought the phone new, it was on O2.  I changed fairly recently to Virgin Mobile.  Now, however, I have taken the SIM out of it to put it in my new phone.  The original SIM (O2) was PAYG, which changed to SIM only contract and that was still the case when I changed to Virgin.  Now, when I put the old (O2) SIM back into the phone, it says Not Registered on Network.  I've tried a factory reset and messing with the APN settings but nothing seems to work.  I'm at my whit's end. Please help.

From what I understand of SIMs, it's the SIM that is "not registered on network" since I'd guess you haven't kept up the payments on it when not using it, having moved to a new one.

If the phone works with your active SIM, it should work with a new activated SIM bought by the new owner, or an active SIM moved from the new owner's old phone.

Mind you, I have a phone with a useless SIM slot that's on a non-SIM network, so I might not have the right grasp of this, but that was what I had gathered about SIM phones - that for all intents and purposes your account was as portable as the SIM, and you could toss it into a phone and your account would follow; or get another SIM and have another account (ie, a country-local one when traveling.)


Whatsapp permission to record when calling I can understand the request for the App to access to the Mic for sending the voice in a phone call. But why is it necessary to say "record"? Recording is a separate function and the caller's choice. It is scary to think that Whatsapp is recording and storing your calls somewhere.

I think record comes with Mic permissions, the calls are not recorded, at least not by Whatsapp. The record permission is for sending voice messages. Also Whatsapp voice calls like its text message service is end to end encrypted. That means that only your phone and the recipient's phone can decrypt the information being passed.


samsung s4 heat issues my phone is a samsung galaxy s4 I9505

after a little use e.g. browsing, scrolling through the phone,  the top part of the phone gets pretty warm which is where the cpu is

the top part of the phone also gets quite warm when charging but the battery remains cold

in all instances the top part of the phone gets very warm

I have seen the display s4 s in a shop and they don't even get a little warm

is this a hardware problem, should I get a replacement

Galaxy s4 has a lot of heating issue with both android 4.4.2 as well as android 5. But the temperature can be decreased if you follow some steps as described belowdecks the link:

http://www.androidpit.com/galaxy-s4-lollipop-problems-and-how-to-fix-them

Now if you have not updated the device and still it heats much then ask for refund. Despite being said all these I would suggest you not to go for s4 because it's     Not what you think of this 2014 flagship model.

it lags too often.
It's battery backup is very less (don't see 2600 mAh)
it heats very much (temperature goes beyond 62 degrees) .

These are quite few problems , there are still lot of bugs too which will definitely let you ask for refund.

Here is a screenshot of what i mean.


Is it possible to run any sort of hardware diagnostics through ADB I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 that I had for a little over months before getting caught outside in a serious rainstorm. As I was pulling the battery out of the phone, I noticed the screen flicker. I pulled the battery and left everything in rice for a few days after the fact. Upon powering up, it appeared that the phone was still working, except for the display. It would buzz when I got an email or a text, and it would ring when called.

I'm fairly certain that my problem is simply that the LCD and/or digitizer has gone bad. I've found the replacement parts that I need to replace those, but before I drop the cash on it, I'd like to know for sure that everything is else is working as it should (camera, IR, wifi, etc).

I've found a couple of apps that do hardware diag, but since I can't really interact with the device, they aren't a lot of good to me. Does anyone know if there is any sort of hardware diagnostic that can be run through the ADB shell?

Investigating in this issue, we already have a lot of broken screen questions providing some clues:

You could hook your device to your TV screen via HDMI. This should mirror its (invisible) screen. Of course this would require your screen at least to respond to touch events.
AirDroid might provide some help, as it allows to manage your device for many things, and also advertizes to stream the screen of your Android in nearly real-time
You could use some VNC server, and start it via ADB as described in Broken Screen + Using adb shell to run vnc server

The latter obviously was the solution fitting you best, as you reported having done exactly that with VMLite VNC server. Not the cheapest solution (this app comes for about US$ 8) – but certainly cheaper than paying off a tech :)


Zipalign Issue with -f Flag I'm attempting to sift through a folder of .apks, and zipalign them

I have the latest ADT

My command lies in a bash script, that loops through the folder

and my zipalign command is: zipalign -f 4 my.apk my.apk

It keeps popping Input and output can't be the same file

My understanding is (from the ADT docs), is that this is supposed to be possible.

Now, when I try zipalign -f 4 my.apk instead of zipaligning them, it simply gives me the help info for zipalign.

What gives?

You should use

zipalign -f -v 4 my.apk output.apk

Do remember that if you zipalign before you sign, the signing will undo the alignment.


Samsung Galaxy Tab: Cannot download from Google Play I bought this tablet without a SIM card. I have a WiFi connection, but it still doesn't let me download from the Android Market.

How do I fix this?

By your reference, you are using android market, not Google play store. This then, suggest that you need to update the store, otherwise you are not downloading anything. The store has been as Google play store for a bit over a yes now, so anyone using android market are severely outdated. You may have to download the apk, and install it, force updating it.


What's the directory location for Newsstand documents? I saved a few magazine issues using the options available in the Google Play Newsstand app, but can't figure out where the files are stored. Nothing showed up in the /sdcard/ directories tagged with recent modification dates.

Anyone know where I should be looking? In case it's relevant, my device is ASUS MemoPad 302C.

Without root access on the device, probably nowhere. With root, most likely in /data/data/com.google.android.apps.magazines. If the app stores data on sdcard, it should be found below Android/data/com.google.android.apps.magazines.


Where in the filesystem are settings saved? Namely ADB backup password Where in the phone filesystem are settings saved? I've lost my ADB backup password and simply want to delete it. If it affects other settings that won't matter too much.

I will be interfacing the filesystem through a root shell.

In my stock Android 4.2.1 the file responsible for holding Desktop backup password seems to be /data/backup/pwhash.

I took a backup of it, renamed it, restarted the device, and the password was reset to empty. Now I could create a new password from the Settings easily.

In CM12, I had to rename two files, namely pwhash and pwversion, and everything went well after a reboot.

Note: I noticed file modification in /data/<FOLDERS> to proceed and ultimately reach my conclusion, which of course works here.


How do I run a Google Calendar app on B&N Nook Simple Touch? How do I run a Google Calendar app on B&N Nook Simple Touch?

I never had a Nook, but I'm interested in buying it to use as a dedicated e-ink wall calendar; I heard it can run Google Calendar; if it indeed does, then all I need is to run it once and leave it alone, given the screensaver is disabled. Making it autorun on startup would be even better.

I have asked about disabling the screensaver elsewhere.

Root it by flashing one of images available on the net. Lifehacker has simewhat old instructions which worked for me. GCal runs fine it seems, but I have pretty annoying graphical glitch which I'm sure is solvable. I used NookManager image IIRC


How can I download the zip file directly to sd-card? How can I download the CM 12 zip file directly to sd-card?

You can Download the Cyanogenmod Zip file using any Web browser.

Locate the Downloaded file using File Manager App like (Ex File Explorer or  Fx Explorer)

Search for file using the search option in File Manager App.

If your File is in Internal Storage, Long Press and select the option Move/Cut/Copy to Paste into SD Card

If the File is already in SD Card then use the above steps to Copy/Move it to other folder.


Does Google back-up application settings? In Settings > Backup & reset there is a "Back up my data" option under which it says "Back up app data...".

Does it really work?

Because I got into one of those "boot loops" and had to do a factory reset. After that I re-installed the apps I had previously installed, but the application settings were not restored by Google.

Do I need to do anything?

Only apps that are coded to use the Google service will back-up and restore data. See this post for more information.

Does the built-in Google app data backup work?


Is there any way to programmatically turn on airplane mode on non-rooted android? I used to use Tasker tasks to turn airplane mode on and off automatically when I needed it. Now, it seems, this requires root. But rooting my phone bans me from using Android Pay or any other SafetyNet-locked app. (The latest updates to SafetyNet even detect the new systemless root, and may even be triggered by an unlocked bootloader even on an unrooted phone.)

Is there any way I can reliably turn airplane mode on and off with Tasker or some other automated tool, without losing access to Android Pay?

(Bonus question: why on earth does Google consider turning on airplane mode to be such a dangerous feature that it's banned entirely on non-rooted devices?)

As I promised before to post an alternative option using Tasker and AutoInput plugin, here is the proceedure:

Firstly create and profile that suits your needs (i.e when to trigger airplane mode e.g at a specific time etc)

Task

Create a new task "New Task + "
You can name this Task Airplane_mode or anything.
Click "+" to add new Action

A1: Settings  ➡ Airplane Mode Settings

We need to add a task wait action for just about 1 or 2 seconds (to allow screen to load in time).

A2: Task ➡ Wait [Seconds:2]

A3: Plugin ➡ Auto input ➡  Action [ Go to the "Airplane Mode Settings" screen in your Android settings.

Swipe down on the notification bar and touch the "Add" button in the AutoInput notification.
Touch the "Airplane Mode" setting
Touch "Accept" in the notification and go back to Tasker. There select the "Airplane Mode" text and accept (tap on tick) these settings.

A4: (Going back to original screen) Add an "AutoInput Global Actions" Tasker action. Plugin ➡ AutoInput ➡ Global action [Select the "Back" option]. Accept the setting (tap on the tick)

Tap back to exit from this task
Save this task and exit

Nb: This require screen to be unlocked as the previous workaround

Edit

AutoInput has a built-in option to unlock screen if it is disabled in tasker. Simply add this action to the top in the task:

A1: Go to new action >> Plugin >> AutoInput >> Unlock screen (note: some screen lock options are still not supported e.g fingerprint but its worth a try)

Acknowledgements

Toggle Airplane Mode At 1:20 PM


What does an android Launcher actually do? Lets consider this scenario. I have a Samsung Galaxy smartphone which comes with Touchwiz as a default launcher. If I use a different launcher does it run on top of the touchwiz interface or does it disable touchwiz temporarily and run instead of it? What are the advantages/disadvantages of using 3rd party launchers?

A launcher, in simple terms, is an interface for your home screen; it determines the appearance of it, if you like.

If you were to install a 3rd party launcher (Nova is quite common), it would not run on TouchWiz, nor would it uninstall it.

If you do install a new launcher and want to go back to using TouchWiz, it's just a simple matter of tweaking a few settings in the Settings app.


Airplane mode behaviour on Galaxy S2? I recently noticed, when I enable airplane mode, my GPS stays enabled. I do not recall this being the case in the past and it really does not make sense to me. Is there a setting somewhere for keeping GPS enabled in airplane mode? Are there other Galaxy S2 users out there with this behaviour? Other Android devices?

Thanks for any help or input. Just trying to figure out if this is expected behaviour at this point.

GPS is, generally speaking, a one-way system.  Whether your phone powers up the GPS chip and starts receiving signals or not doesn't matter because the phone is not broadcasting, the satellites are, and you can't turn off the satellites!  That's likely why it's excluded from airplane mode.  If you'd still like to have it shut off when you enter airplane mode you should look into a Tasker script or something similar than will toggle it when it detects you've entered airplane mode.  I do not believe there is a native Android setting for this.


Phone will not let me ENCRYPT I want to encrypt my apps and personal data, such as passwords to email etc.

If I have factory reset my phone (GS2sprint) and it is fully charged (over 90%) and plugged in. So I went to Settings→Apps→Security, and from there to Encrypt or Encrypt SDCard -- but it won't let me encrypt: The buttons are grayed out.

Why won't it let me encrypt? I have a new file that I have not seen before which is sprint extention. It will not let me stop it and like I said after Hard Factory reset it still will not let me encrypt anything.

I know I am late to this discussion, but, for others out there that may have not gotten an answer to this yet, device encryption on some devices may only work with a strong password. A (medium security) PIN may not be enough.


How to backup 'Favorite tracks' playlist Have a Samsung Galaxy 4S (SPH-L720) running Android 5.0.1.  Ever since upgrading Android, phone hangs or reboots randomly at least once or twice a day.  I would like to try restoring to factory defaults to see if it fixes, but don't want to lose the 'Favorite tracks' playlist that the music app creates when you 'star' a track.  This doesn't seem to be located with other playlists.  Any ideas where it is stored, or how I can back it up?

You can use Kies. If that's not an option you can download Playlist Backup and use it to back-up your playlist. This application allows you to export your audio playlists (both System, Poweramp and Google Play Music playlists) to sdcard or Dropbox. You can keep as many backups as you want for each playlist, but as  metadata.


Accounts inexplicably removed from "Accounts & sync" I'm running CyanogenMod 7.1.0 on my HTC Desire. I have a few accounts added in "Accounts & Sync" (Last.fm, Facebook, Skype, Soundcloud, etc.), but on several occasions all of them (except Google) got deleted, and I had to log in again in all of them using the respective applications. This could be quite annoying, but fortunately happens only every few days or so.

I can't quite understand why it happens and what causes it. I have some suspicion it might be related to the fact I don't have much space on the device (Desire notoriously has ridiculously little internal storage) -- although I always keep it above the "Low space" warning (which is something like 15 MB).

Is this a known problem? What can I do to prevent it?

After some months of additional observation, I'm pretty certain that the accounts disappear when the free internal space gets low, usually when I'm down to 12 MB or so. Presumably, Android tries to free up some internal space occupied by app data, and the accounts seem to be the first to go.

Due to the low internal storage, I have moved all apps to the external storage, so this might as well be a factor, as Izzy mentions in the comments.


Push notifications for Google Hangouts unreliable on WiFi I just got a Moto E and am attempting to use Hangouts as both my chat client and my SMS client. This works well except for the fact that it is unreliable about receiving push notifications. The notifications for Twitter, Zoho, Slack generally work fine.

I am running Android 5.0.2. I have not rooted the phone though it is unlocked.

I made sure I had every possible setting I could find turned on.

In Settings -> Sound & Notification -> App notifications -> Hangouts I have its notifications set to priority.
I have Messages turned on as an allowed interruption in Settings -> Sound & Notification -> Interruptions.
In Settings -> Apps -> Hangouts I have "Show Notifications" checked.
In Hangouts -> Settings -> SMS I have SMS enabled. I also have Auto retrive MMS checked, though not Roaming auto-retrieve because that seemed unnecessary.
In my account settings in Hangouts, I have hangout notifications turned on.
In Settings -> Account -> Google Account -> Sync I have everything checked except "Google Play Movies & TV" though I do not see one specifically for Hangouts (could that be a problem?). Also, when I do a "Sync Now", that does not seem to sync Hangouts.

Most recently, I installed Push Notification Fixer (PNF No-Root) and set the WiFi heartbeat to 1 minute. After a reboot I did receive one notification but I am not yet confident that it is working consistently.

My WiFi during work hours is coming through Connectify on my laptop. Sometimes my phone randomly disconnects by I reconnect it as soon as I see it.

I have seen people trying everything under the sun for this but before I just start randomly trying something I would like to have some reasonable confidence that it may be effective. Anyone know what might be causing this?

I had to change my router settings to enable IPv6 in order to get push notifications to work again. Some networks without IPv6 have been unreliable.


Edit out a part of an audio file How can I cut out a particular portion of the song and play the rest of the song?

for example my song is of 4 minutes and 11 seconds and I want to remove the section from 2:04 to 3:30 and play from 0:00 to2:03 and then continue from 3:31 and end at 4:11

I hope you got my problem can anyone help me with this?

You can use an app like WavePad Audio Editing App. It is said to have the ability to work with multiple audio files. If you do not mind adverts, there is a free version for this software as well.


Google location history shows me driving 700 miles when I only drive for 30 miles I'm not exactly sure when it happened. Originally my location history was accurate. About a month ago my location history map looked close to being correct but the mileage was ridiculous!

For example, I drive about 30 miles one way to work. Most of the time lately the mileage shows me driving about 700 miles! It looks like it might be making multiple trips but I can't tell because I can't expand the history map.

I have a Nexus 4 with a straight talk SIM using AT&T.

Any ideas what could cause this strange behaviour -- or even better, how to fix it?

Not sure if this really qualifies as an answer, but since I don't have enough points to comment and I do want to contribute what I've discovered about this problem, it'll have to do...

I've had a very similar sounding problem for the last 2 weeks or so with no obvious trigger in terms of app or firmware updates. My location history has gone crazy with some days getting reported travel distances of 10 - 20 thousand miles in spite of me just going to work and back (60 miles each way).

What is happening is that while I am at work, or travelling (or anywhere away from home), location points are being recorded for where I actually am, then for a point very close to my home location, then back where I am again, then back at home, etc. The system seems to be seeing me travelling home and back roughly once per minute, and all those journeys quickly add up!

So far I have tried switching off wifi/cell location services, but that gives you basically no location history and Google Now is largely disabled, so that's no help.

Turning wifi/cell location services back on and then turning wifi off when away from home does help - it gets rid of the 'home and back' in one minute journeys, but the location history is less accurate when away from home. I am using an app called 'Llama' to do this automatically at the moment.

My conclusion from this is that for some reason wifi location reporting is giving a bogus result of 'near home' constantly throughout the day. The only sensible reason I can think of for this would be if I was carrying around another device acting as a wifi access point and that Google location services had learned to location of that wifi point as being at my home. However, I'm not actually carrying around such a device.

Next steps I am considering trying :

wipe the data associated with the maps app on the device
wipe the data associated with the wifi app on the device
do a factory reset on the device and restore

As suggested by GAThrawn below, the most likely cause of this problem is having a second Android device set to report location in addition to your primary device. You take your phone with you, but your tablet sits at home. Both report their location once per minute, or thereabouts, and your location history goes crazy.

The solution in my case was simply to turn off location reporting in the Google maps settings on the secondary device.

I also have a Nexus 4, on T-mobile UK


How to disable ringer off warning? Multiple times a day my Android device will pop up this annoying alert that the ringer is disabled and that I might miss calls.  I have the ringer off on purpose and the device doesn't even have phone capability.  Seems to have started with the last security update to Android 6 (maybe a month ago?).  How can I disable this annoying popup?

Disable the app Peel remote. Find the app and disable it.


Where can I find my device info? Disclaimer: I am not looking for the "General > About device" information.

I am trying to look for the information about the performance, RAM, screen size/dpi for my device, so that  I can create an emulator for app development.

There are pretty much good app in Google play you can take help from there , search for hardware information or device information application will make your work.

I prefer one of my best app - CPU Z.

Hope it helps.


How can I install .jar files on my Android? I downloaded some 3D games, unzipped them and got .jar files. How can I use these in Android?  I have a Galaxy S running 2.1.

Although Android uses java, it doesn't support normal JAR files. Instead it uses an Android specific format called APK. The main difference is that Android does not use the normal Java Virtual Machine, but contains it's own Dalvik Virtual Machine that's optimized for Android.


Which uses more power/drains more battery: HTC Evo 3G or 4G? I've read mixed reports online about which radio uses more power -- 3G or 4G.  Has anyone done any semi-scientific tests that would answer this question?

When constantly downloading data over the same period of time, which uses more battery (battery drain per second of download)?
When downloading the same amount of data, which uses more battery (battery drain per KB)?
Do both radios sleep with the same consistency?  Do they use the same amount of power when sleeping or is one better than the other?

I don't think this is a simple question since the different frequencies might take different amounts of power to transmit/receive, since 4G is faster and may get to go back to sleep sooner, since the process of holding onto a signal may be different, etc.

My city won't have 4G until the end of the year but I'd really like to know.

So I can't give you a scientific (or even semi-scientific) answer, but I can give you an anecdotal one based on my experience over the past couple months..

We have 4G here in Atlanta, and while it works most everywhere I go during the day, I've found myself leaving it off most of the time because it has a noticeable impact on battery drain.

The way I understand it, the 4G radio is separate from the 3G radio, and I'm not sure the 4G radio turns "off" the 3G.  I say this because when you use 4G it's possible to receive data during a voice call, which you can't do otherwise.

That said, using the 4G widget it's really easy to flip it on when you need it, and leave it off when you don't.  It's not inconvenient, and will help your battery life..


How can I copy a NFC badge to my (rooted) Android phone for Daily Usage For the Cafeteria a school we have NFC badges with which we pay meals or drinks.
I was wondering how is it possible to have the card on my phone? I lost it 5 times last year.

I've tried to copy the data on the card this didn't work so I possibly need to emulate the card on the phone.
Like i said it would be usefull to use it in such way and gives me something to brag about to my non geeky friends. B-)
My phone is rooted, Xposed Framework is installed (when this helps) I have Android 4.1.2 on My Xperia P it's stock.
Thanks in Advance

Depending on the type of card used in your school, copying is not a simple task: The data is may be cryptographically protected and you need to emulate the UID, an ID which gets transmitted by the card early in the communication process. Here are some tips:

At first you need to find out which type of NFC Tag our card is. You can use this app from the Google Play Store
If the card is a MIFARE Classic Tag you might be able to clone the data on it. These cards have had some security problems in the past.
Emulating the UID is not possible by default on Android (related)

But we developed an App which is capable of emulating the UID on some Android devices, for more information see the first answer here
It is also possible that your badge only uses its UID to know who you are. In this case there is no data saved on your card. If this is the case the app for emulating the UID could already be enough to have a badge on your smartphone ;-)

I hope this helps.


How to connect Galaxy S2 m250s model via USB? I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 that my uncle brought for me from Korea. This model of the S2, for some reason, has connecting issues through USB. The computer does not detect it at all!
I tried connecting it in my Ubuntu OS, and also on a cousin's Windows 8, still no luck at all.

I wish to backup the phone first, it is not rooted, so I need to follow what was said here. And after the backup I have to change its ROM to i9100 from the current m250s, so I can use it properly.

But for all that to happen, it needs be connected to the PC first.
It has ICS 4.0.4.

Additional information collected from the comments:

This is what I get when the phone is not connected:

$ sudo lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

And this is what I get after connecting through the download mode of the phone:

$ sudo lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Which is no change at all. The phone is not even detected there! I also tried different cables, but the situation stays unchanged.

As you refer to the article utilizing adb backup, you want to use ADB to access your device. So for Windows, you would need to install the corresponding drivers; on Linux, a single line in /etc/udev/rules/50-android.rules will be sufficient.

I'd suggest you read my answer on the question What is ADB..., which (at its end) mentions a few guides to get you started with ADB. For a quick configuration on Linux, follow the steps in my answer on Configuring ADB for Nexus 4 on Ubuntu.

If on the Linux host the device is not turning up in the listing of sudo lsusb, and Windows does not even claim to have found an "unknown device" (as your comments suggest), make sure to rule out the USB cable as a possible troublemaker (try different USB cables; you might even visit a shop to "try before buy", best taking a Laptop with you). In case none of multiple USB cables work, a damaged USB port is becoming the likely cause -- though it might be charging fine, one (or more) of the data pins (or their connections to the board) could be faulty. Which would mean you'd have to turn in your device for service.


How do I disable individual components of an app's APK? ROM Toolbox Pro's app manager had this feature but it has been removed in recent versions.
Specifically I'm looking at disabling individual components of an APK, AdActivity for example.

I have already seen questions on doing this programmatically on Stack Overflow, which involve recompiling it - running into signing problems later.

I'm looking for an easier way to disable activities, services and content providers.

MyAndroidTools (and its Pro variant) fits very well - offers control on activities, services, receivers and providers, and if you get Pro you can also conveniently peek into and edit apps' SharedPreferences and databases, so that's what you require and then some more.

Requires root, but that's pretty much a given for this kind of app.


Use another Google account in Chrome only My Android phone has 2 Google accounts set up. I see those when I go to Google > Account in my phone settings:

Google Account 1 (main user)
Google Account 2

Google Chrome is configured to use Google Account 1, and syncs history, bookmarks, etc.

Question: How can I configure Chrome to make it so that it's the history/bookmarks from Google Account 2 that are synchronized, while keeping Google Account 1 as the main user at the OS level?

What I've tried: From Chrome, go to Settings, then click my account: it brings me to a view where I can choose between Google Account 1 or Google Account 2 (or add another account). Clicking either account 1 or 2 takes me to a lists of the various accounts from various apps I have on the system (!?) (Airbnb, Facebook, Meetup, ...). This is the same view as System Settings > Accounts. I can't find any option to choose which account to assign to Chrome in there.

Android: 9

Google Chrome: 77.0.3865.92

Open Chrome, tap on menu (top right corner), open settings.
On the first line, you should see your main account or google account 1 according to you..Tap on that.

You should see all the google accounts logged in to your android  device.
Below them, you will find sync option. Tap on that.

It will open a new window with title Sync. Find the syncing to option, tap on it. Now select which account the data should be synced to.

This will force chrome to use Account2 or whichever chosen account, keeping main account to the OS unchanged

Done!!


Failed to update HTC Desire S to latest firmware with Android 2.3.5 My phone configuration is:

Model HTC Desire S
Android 2.3.3
HTC Sense 2.1
Build number 1.47.401.4

Today I've got notification that an update is available for my phone with:

HTC Sence 3.0
Android 2.3.5

I've downloaded the update and started it. My phone rebooted, then for several seconds I saw green icon showing that update is going. After that I've received the red exclamation mark icon. I've triggered the recover console and saw the following:

Finding update package...
Opening update package...
Verifying update package...
Installing update...
Copying fotaBoot to /data/system for customize reload...
Verifying current system...
assert failed: apply_patch_check ("/system/app/EReader.apk", "5f3c2be955e09...", "c4071fc9ffc21...")
E:Error in /sdcard/download/OTA_Saga_S_HTC_Europe_2.10.401.8-1.47.401.4_release_225210fmxlt12djw1sr7y5.zip
(Status 7)
Installation aborted.

As far as I understood from the log, the CRC failed for the EReader.apk. Does that mean that the updated downloaded incorrectly? Or maybe there are some issues with my phone?

Can someone, please, help me with this issue:

Should I forget about this update and wait for the next one?
Is it the bug in the system or in my phone?
Can I somehow (without rooting the device) overcome the problem and install the update?
Any other thoughts are welcome. Thank you.

Mostly likely the update over the air downloaded the wrong archive, which failed to automatically install. In addition to that I found on several forums that the phone had many broken stuff after such update. Therefore I've decided to update it manually.

I've downloaded the zip archive with latest official firmware, put it on my sdcard, rebooted the phone into recover console. It automatically found my zip archive and the phone was updated. Everything works fine now.

The complete instructions together with latest firmware can be found here (Russian language): http://www.youhtc.ru/forum/showthread.php?p=304305&posted=1#post304305

I've translated them in short below:

Download the zip archive with RUU_Saga_S_HTC_Europe_2.10.401.8_Radio_20.4801.30. 0822U_3822.10.08.04_M_release_225161_signed.exe from here
Rename the zip archive to PG88IMG.zip and put it in the root directory on sd card
Power off the phone
Press volume-down button and then power button.
The recovery console will pop up. The phone will automatically find the zip file and check it. It will ask you to confirm the update. If you're OK with that, the phone will be updated.


Google Calendar Android app doesn't always synchronize I use a shared Google Agenda with someone else ("UserA").

If UserA:

opens his Google Agenda Android app (version 5.8.38-200532405, the latest version)
adds a new event in our common agenda
saves the event

then I often don't see it in my own Google calendar (on http://calendar.google.com desktop version for example) even if I refresh the page multiple times (F5 or CTRL+F5 or even close/reopen browser).

The only solution we found was that UserA has to click on the 3 dots menu on the top right, then choose "Refresh" (or maybe "Update"?). If he forgets to do "Refresh" after "Save" then it won't be synchronized. This is annoying and not user-friendly: a synchronization should be automatically triggered after an event is saved in a shared agenda.

Is there a solution to fix this?

PS: this lead to sometimes not knowing that the other one has added an event :) because he didn't do "Refresh" – the event was not propagated!

UserA needs to have:

ticked automatic synchronization
signed in into google account
allowed synchronization of Google Calendar


Can I forward/reply calls/sms to PC? I wonder if its possible to forward calls or sms to PC where I can then reply or at least get notified of a call/sms? For example, calls might be forwarded to Skype, isit possible?

Edit 2014/06: I've moved on and developed MAXS. See my answer here.

Original Answer:

GTalkSMS (Google Code Project Page) is a alternative for android-notifier which works over XMPP (GTalk, Jabber). It allows you to control various aspects of Android, includes a SMS/Call/Battery notification and reply system. Additionaly it is able to send and receive files to and from your Android device. There are many other features too.

Using XMPP as transport, the "desktop app" can be every XMPP Client. Which is one of GTalkSMS big advantages, as it does not need a dedicated desktop app.

Note: According to the FAQ I have to disclose that I am involved in GTalkSMS. GTalkSMS is an open source GPL licensed Android app. Everyone can contribute.


Can't mount ext4 with StickMount I have a 2nd generation Nexus 7 running Android 4.4.4. I rooted it, got an OTG cable and tried to mount something using StickMount. It always says it mounts things successfully, but in the case of ext4 partitions, I just find an empty folder at the mount point. Fat32 partitions work fine. What could be the problem and how to check?

I was not able to mount ext4 with stickmount alone, but I had some success using USB OTG Helper with stickmount still installed. If I use USB OTG Helper to do the mounting, it mounts ext4 successfully (even if it says "no drives mounted"). Both apps need to be installed at the same time for this to work.


Photos received from SHAREit are not displayed in gallery Photos and videos received from SHAREit is not downloaded to gallery and I cannot view it in gallery.Why is this happening?

(Click image to enlarge)

Just Cut(or Copy) the Files from Shareit Folder and Paste it to your SDcard/Phone Memory.


How to upgrade a phone with only 8Gb. internal memory A relative of mine has a Sony Xperia M4 (E2303), with only 8 Gb. of internal memory. Of course, it comes preloaded with all the Sony bloatware (games centers, music store, etc.) AND all the Google bloatware, and they can't be removed, AFAIK.

Currently, the phone reports only around 320Mb. of free internal memory, and therefore it can't be upgraded to new Android versions, even though they show up as available; when you try to download them, the warning about "not enough memory" appears. The same when you try to upgrade an app like Whatsapp.

We have already moved every app that we could to the external SD card, as well as every photo, music file, etc.; in fact, when you go to "Settings/Storage" to try to transfer data to the card, nothing shows up, because everything that could be moved has been already.

Given this, what are our options in order to upgrade this phone, or its apps?

If I have to install a custom ROM, I will, but I'd like recommendations on whether the existing ones for this model are stable.
If there's any way to delete the unneeded bloatware, that would be great.

Well, I finally found out about what happened, after learning a bit more about how Android works. It turns out that, although the bloatware apps are installed in /system, their updates are installed in /data. In other words: Google and Sony's bloatware not only eat up space in your system partition, but also in the space that is supposedly for the user.

What I did then was to disable every unnecessary app, and hit the "revert to factory version" option (don't remember the exact wording). This way, although you can't delete them from /system nor shrink said partition, at least you free up internal memory. After doing so, we had more than 900 Mb. of free space, and so we could update the apps that my relative actually wants to use.


Install app without touchscreen or ADB? My phones digitizer seems to have gone bad (after 5hrs of few app updates and 3hrs of a fall, working twice after that for 10minutes). It doesn't seems that the USB Debugging option is enabled on the phone, due to which I can't access phone using ADB.

I intend to install a VNC server app on my phone and use it to control the phone through my Laptop. Then try and isolate the apps to rule out if the apps caused the issue.

Is it possible to install an app in my case**?**

There are no passwords or screen locks set. Also just the power and volume buttons are working. I can go to Fasboot & Recovery mode but can't select any option. :(

Please note: No data connection is turned on. So I can't install any remote app using Google Play store.

Check if you can connect a mouse (or Keyboard) through USB OTG port (and microUSB-to-USB converter cable)...

I'm not sure whether your device supports OTG or not... Just give a try...


Log off on Nexus 7 2013 V4.3 Can you log off gmail on Nexus 7 2013 V4.3 ?  I would like to share tablet (to play games) without them reading my mail. I do not wish to open up new accounts. Thanx

Settings -> Sync -> Google : untick Gmail.

Settings -> Applications -> Gmail : Clear Data, Uninstall updates, Disable.


How can I connect my phone without a HDMI port to a non-MHL TV? I have an older LG p990 that has a HDMI port, and with the right cable I am able to show movies on it on the TV.

My new phone is a Nexus 4, it has no HDMI port. Based on this question and answer, I know how to connect it to an MHL compatible TV. But how can I use a TV without MHL capability? Is there an adapter for that? How is it called, where can I buy one?

MHL compatibility on a TV only means that it will supply sufficient power (500mA, 900mA, or 2000mA, depending on which version of the MHL spec it is compatible with) through the HDMI port to power the adapter and charge the phone.

An MHL adapter will work just fine with a non-MHL TV.  You just need to supply your own power from a regular charger.  This is what the female microUSB port on the MHL-to-HDMI adapters is for.  You plug the charger into that, plug the HDMI cable into the TV, and MHL cable into the phone and you're off to the races.

Not all phones support MHL however, the Nexus 4 in the question supports SlimPort instead.


Can I delete Zinio pdf files? There are password protected page1.pdf, page2.pdf, etc... under mnt/sdcard/com.zinio.mobile.android.reader/9380198313/123123231/32123213 etc...
Can I delete them?

If you don't need them anymore, then you should be able to delete them. I'm not familiar with Zinio, but is there a way to safely delete the magazines within the application? I would try that first.

Deleting these files may cause app instability if it is expecting them to be there (when they aren't). Try moving them somewhere else (don't delete them just yet) and see how the application behaves with them "missing/moved".