Why did my battery usage on 3G grow with the Android 2.3 update? There were different nice features followed by the official update of Xperia X10 to Android 2.3 like the sound stuttering, but the most annoying is the following.

I live in the Netherlands and here it's nice to use 3g a lot to have internet connection whenever you need it. Both on 1.6 and 2.1 I never run into the problems with battery using 3g. Moreover, there were problems rather with WiFi which ate battery a lot.

Unfortunately after I've updated the phone, things have changed. WiFi  is working fine now though it seems to me that it's off when the display is off: it establishes connection for about 10 sec each time I turn on display. But when I turn on 3g for the night, on the morning the phone is out of charge.

I don't think it's about apps using 3g, since:

if these apps need the internet connection, they will use WiFi as well, but if I leave my phone with WiFi for the whole night, only about 2-5% of the battery are lost for the whole night long.
in settings->applications->battery usage I can see that Cell Standby = 35% while apps in total are about 6%.

That gives an idea that 3g connection is rather expansive for my battery - but I don't have an idea why did it happen after an update on v. 2.3.

I've never rooted the phone, so all updates were made in the right way. Hope someone can help me.

"cell standby" = "background sync". And if your Wifi turns off on screen off, apps will use 3G instead.

You might want to check your Wifi policy, which is hidden in the "advanced" menu: When in "network & wireless" -> "wifi", hit the menu button and select "advanced". Here, switch your Wifi policy to "always on" -- so it will stay on when the display is switched off, which means no 3G fallback as long as Wifi is available.

I've read about this issue a couple of times, and many report setting the Wifi standby policy as described above largely improves the situation.

UPDATE:

I obviously wrote bullshit here. I left the bullshit in (but striked it so you can see where I was wrong). Closer investigation brought me to this: What is Cell standby and how can I keep it from eating my battery?.

So basically my reasoning here was wrong, but luckily the recommendations still match somehow :)


HTC Desire - phone's dead I was trying my application on HTC Desire when I realized there was a problem with the app so I force stop it. Next thing is the screen freezed - HTC white welcome screen. I tried rebooting several times, but it never got into the desktop. Sometimes it restarted itself. I tried removing the battery as well to no avail. Now my phone is completely dead. I cannot turn it on and when I charge it, the red/green light is not on. What should I do? I was thinking of resetting the phone via command line or something like that. Thanks for any suggestions!

I don't know what your app did, but I find it strange that it is no longer booting. I would suggest trying to get your device in to recovery mode. I have never done this on a non-rooted device so I am not 100% sure you can do a factory reset from the "stock recovery". But I know you can do it on a rooted device.

I found these steps, but again, I am not sure if this pertains to only rooted devices.

Turn your desire off, Now hold the volume down and power button in to boot into hboot.
Now use the volume button to navigate to boot recovery and select it by pressing the trackpad button.


Function of directory /Android I just deleted the directory /Android from the external card. It gave me 20GB memory back. So far I haven't seen any bad effects. At least not during the first 5 min of testing including restart.

I have a similar /Android on resident phone memory. Can I wipe that one too without any bad effects?

What is the function of /Android?

My device is Android 5.0, Galaxy Note 3.

Edit:

After 10 min running, the extSdCard/Android has reappeared and is now size 95 MB. (I asked one dictionary-app to expand compressed files there. But right now it stays around 95 MB.)

My "maintenance" has been run by Avast since long time. It regularly claims to delete "unnecessary" files.

I try to reply myself based on the little I have found out from experience and comments to this question.

DO NOT TAKE THIS INFORMATION FOR GRANTED AND ALWAYS KEEP BACKUP IF YOU MANIPULATE THIS DIRECTORY.

This has not been thoroughly tested yet.

It can be useful to delete files in the /Android directory. You can save a lot of space.
The obb directory was small in my case and I did not delete it on phone resident memory. It contains APK expansion files. Among other data it may contain licenses for the apps.
Ad. But even if you delete obb directory and .obb files, it is still possible that licenses and necessary data will be downloaded again from Google Play, as long as the phone is signed in to the same account/email address. So you may lose nothing.
If you have asked Android to install apps on the external SD card and you delete /Android on the external card, the apps must be downloaded again.
If you delete /Android on resident phone memory (Sd0), apps will not have to be downloaded in complete again.
"Important" app data, like log-in passwords etc are not stored in /Android. (They are stored in /data/data.) So you will PROBABLY not lose this kind of information.
Data for apps can be stored in the /Android directories. But the data seems to be "less important" than passwords etc. When I wiped the /Android directories, I only seem to have lost few, easily replaceable data, see below.
If you delete the entire /Android directories or subdirectories, the system will recreate them.
If you plan to delete /Android on the external card, you can get an idea of the effects by testing the phone after unmounting/removing the external card (use the Android command under general>storage).
Before I wiped the /Android directory on Sd0, I backed it up (under another name) on the external card. I have now deleted the backup.

When I wiped /Android on both Sd0 and external card I regained 21 GB space. After restarting and using the phone for about less than a day I have only noted small changes: The recycle basket Dumpster was emptied. I had to download datafiles for two dictionaries again. I.e. only very small changes that were easily corrected.

After almost one day usage the /Android directories now occupy about 2G on my phone compared to 21G before wiping them.

If you try deleting /Android directory, it is definitely recommended to be on line so you can download missing components.

With my setup and usage, wiping the /Android directories seems like a good idea, to save space.

PLEASE NOTE! THIS INFORMATION IS ONLY BASED ON WHAT I FOUND BY TRYING ONCE! BE CAREFUL AND KEEP BACKUPS!


How to dump and recover sdcardfs Sdcardfs is a virtual file system in Android or some Linux systems. It is implemented using FUSE.

It is called Android's 'adopted storage', is used in virtual sdcards, or protected partition areas. (For example: /storage/simulated/0)

If you try to dump an sdcard file system (ex: /sdcard) by dd command, It is not dumpable. (It does not have sectors or anything.

So, if I try to dump the parent file system (ex: 'FUSE like vFAT' on EXT4), it is not recoverable by all of commercial file recovery software. Because sdcardfs is a virtual file system using FUSE, it is not stored like a file or agglomerate something(s).

How can I dump and recover an sdcardfs file system?

You can back up any filesystem by backing up individual files, e.g. in a tar archive. Assuming that you have a set of Linux command line utilities (e.g. a full BusyBox installation):

adb shell 'tar -cz /sdcard | uuencode sdcard.tar.gz' >sdcard.tar.gz.uu
uudecode sdcard.tar.gz.uu

The uuencode/uudecode step is necessary because adb corrupts binary files on output (it adds CR before every LF).

You can open the archive in any archive browser (except the one built into Windows, or at least older versions of Windows, because it only supports the zip format).

To restore:

adb shell 'cd /target/directory && tar -xz' <sdcard.tar.gz

I don't know if there's a lower-level tool to dump an sdcardfs filesystem. Since sdcardfs is a view of an underlying filesystem (i.e. a stackable filesystem), rather than a filesystem built on top of a storage device, there's nothing to dump. But the underlying filesystem is built on a storage device; if you dump that, you will get a full backup and you can access the sdcardfs part by using the sdcardfs driver on the backup and mounting it with the same parameters.

FUSE is pretty much irrelevant here. It's an implementation technique, not a description of the filesystem format.


Xperia S, sleep-to-snap not capturing automatically Xperia S has the sleep-to-snap function:

  A single key press takes you from sleep to snap in just over a second.

But when I press the shutter-button, the phone wakes, goes into camera mode, but it doesn't snap a photo - I have to press the snap button for that.

How do I make it also snap automatically?

A friend showed me how to, you go to the Camera App's Settings, then go to "Quick launch", and check "Launch and Capture". It was set on "Launch only (still camera)".


Cannot choose apps to share with in Google Play Store When I click the "Share" button at bottom of the app description page, I do not get the usual sharing panel. Instead, it pastes the link to SMS, from where I have to copy, discard SMS option and then share it by mail (as an example). I end up doing three steps to share by mail, instead of a single click. Strangely, this happens only from Google Play Store. From all other apps, say ES File Explorer, I can choose and share the way I want to.

This behaviour started a few days back and I can't think of anything that could have triggered it. Searched in Play Store and Google settings but couldn't find any way to alter this behaviour. Other things which didn't help are reinstalling Play Store, uninstalling recently added apps, cleaning system and traces of leftover apps by SD Maid and cleaning Dalvik Cache.

This behaviour isn't driving me nuts but being unable to find the cause and fix is. Pointers on how to fix and what could have caused it are eagerly sought. I don't have access to laptop plus my Linux/coding knowledge is pretty much nil, so if it has to be command based, request something I could copy-paste on device terminal emulator.

Specs:

Huawei Honor 6 (4.4.2) , rooted stock ROM
Play Store Version 6.0.0 (reported as up to date in settings)

Identified the cause.

It is known that Xposed clashes with heavily modded stock UI. That's one reason Xposed version 2.5.1 is the last version which supports without breaking theming engine. Xposed has a setting "Disabled Resource Hooks". If you uncheck it, this problem doesn't occur, but if you check it,it recurrs.

In my case, I don't want to uncheck it as it breaks other things in UI, so it's easier to live with the problem. Though why this should only happen with Google Play Store is unexplained


Better way to handle notifications I am using latest android on my phone. One issue I face is that I have a lot of apps installed. Many of them generate notifications which I dont want to loose. If I leave notifications unattended for a day or two, a lot of notifications get stacked up (almost 100+). I dont want to turn off those notifications. I just want better way to handle those notifications:

is there any way (or app) to archive notifications
is there any way to group notification belonging to same app (so that I may decide to archive or delete all of them)
is there any way (or app) which allows me to archive or delete all notifications at specific dates or dates older than the specified one
For many months my phone has issue of restarting and with each restart the notifications get cleared. So I also want to know if there is any way (or app) that can periodically backup/archive notifications so even if my phones restarts I can always pull them up.

Multiple items of interest in this context:

there is a built-in functionality to access your notification history, see How to get the notification history for details
there are several apps to backup/archive notifications – e.g. Past Notifications (a notification history surviving even reboots) or Notibox
there are apps to Filter/block notifications
there are several more apps to control other aspects of notifications (same page as the last link goes to)

Still, I'm not sure there's a way to control aspects 2 and 3 of your list (group apps,1 delete by date). I've not yet encountered any app for those, so chances are rather low – but one might have slipped through my net.

1: Nevolution promises to "bundle notifications" – but it's not clear from its description if "bundles" cover multiple apps


Android Sat Nav Apps I have a few questions about Sat Nav applications running on Android.

Does the pre-installed sat nav app require a connection to the web? Does it operate in car and pedestrian modes and be updated automatically.
Am I right in thinking that the after market purchase of the Tom-Tom app can function without internet connection?

Thanks for any replies.

Android provides different methods for localization. Some of them are network based, some cell based, some GPS based, some mixed (well, that was simplified).

So yes: You could use plain GPS without network. Might take a little longer to get your initial fix, though. (Assisted GPS aka AGPS can speed this up, but requires a network connection.)

And quite logically yes to your second question as well, as far as GPS is concerned. For map data, if it's already downloaded to your device, no data connection is required either. But if you need updates while on the way, or want to be updated about traffic, things are certainly a little different.


Is USB host supported by hardware? Im using an Acer Liquid E2 Duo (with Androium 5, which is based on 4.4.2).

I would like to know how i can find out if OTG is supported on the hardware side, or if someone knows about this phone specifically.

The first place to go, would probably be to the specifications' page on the manufacturer's website or other alternative reputable websites offering the same kind of information.

For a quick check this website doesn't state your device as being supported for USB OTG. The other one GSmarena: Acer Liquid E2, doesn't list this functionality, which most likely means your device doesn't support OTG.

The other ways of checking may be using an application e.g USB OTG Checker ✔ , just as Izzy mentioned, they normally check the presence/absence of certain parameters required for USB OTG to work. For example they  check;

  the presence of USB Manager,  the presence of
  android.hardware.usb.host.xml or find the list of connected OTG USB
  devices.

It is important to note that this functionality should be supported by the hardware as well as the kernel of the phone.

  Additionally some users claim the possibility of enabling USB OTG by using tools as  StickMount or USB OTG Helper (if the chipset supports OTG and the device doesn't) when rooted , or using a using a usb Y cable (if your chipset doesnt support OTG) to power up pendrive externally.


Have I got the virus? I have Google Nexus 7 tablet for some time and I recently noticed that I have file named "Designing for android.pdf" in "Download" folder (native OS folder) . Now problem is that I never downloaded this file ever, since I am not android app developer and neither I have plan to do it any sooner.

Anyways coming back to it, on top of that whenever I try to open that file using , Adobe reader, Native one (I just get the option which app to use to open the file), and Kingsoft office viewer, none can open the file reporting different errors like file is corrupted etc.

So is this file malicious? Anyone reported of any malicious file having name similar to above file? or OS itself distributes it as it's part?

If you think this file is not pdf.. then downlad it on windows pc and open by notepad. First few letters in first row will tell you what format is current file. You can paste it here to let us see what is that.

For example:

  %PDF-1.6


I'm having trouble rooting my Samsung J320P with heimdall I can't download the pit. i connected to the device with adb. i'll try downloading the pit file and heimdall will tell me

Initialising connection...
Detecting device...
Claiming interface...
Setting up interface...

Initialising protocol...
Protocol initialisation successful.

Beginning session...

Some devices may take up to 2 minutes to respond.
Please be patient!

Downloading device's PIT file...
ERROR: Failed to send request to end PIT file transfer!
ERROR: Failed to download PIT file!
ERROR: Failed to send end session packet!
Releasing device interface...

Ending session...

Rooting doesn't need you repartitioning the phone. Just flash a custom recovery and then flash the rooting files through that recovery.

I'd suggest you to install TWRP recovery.  There is a complete guide on how to flash the recovery and rooting zip files here. Just follow CAREFULLY everything, step by step. (The guide is for Odin, I think it will work for Heimdall as well).


How to show the recent apps in the Overview button? On Android KitKat v4.4.2 that came with my phone the Overview button (the button that is not Home nor Back) is showing the home screen settings:

How can I change the button behavior to show the list of recent applications instead?

My old android 4.4 phone had me press and hold the home button, while that third button would pull up a menu. I believe that was how things worked in Android 4.4 days.


Huawei Ascend Y330 Mass Storage notification bar not showing I want to sync some pics from my phone onto my laptop but I can't since the drop down notification bar is not showing. This means I can't turn on the USB to connect to my laptop. I have hard reset my phone back to factory settings and it still won't show. I've been trying for 5 hours now and I can't work out how to get it to connect to my laptop.

Go to main screen
drop down menu from top while plugged into computer
click on device file manager
click device file manager (transfer and manage files with a computer

on computer, click in file manager
you should be able to see your phone
click on dcim
click on camera

This worked for me


Facing issues in gallery I'm using one plus 6 and I'm facing issues with my gallery. If I save pictures from Facebook, Snapchat or any other app it doesn't show up in gallery. Only screenshots and camera pictures are showing
I've tried almost everything clearing cache, uninstalling installing apps, force stop, .nomedia (It wasn't there )

The possible reasons are :

The app is built in a way that it only reads media files from some directories like DCIM>CAMERA, Pictures>Screenshots, main directory, Internal>Videos etc. It will not read the media files from the folder named with the application names like WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat(some popular applications).
The Apps like Facebook, Snapchat will change the encoding of the image by reducing the size(still it may be in JPEG format). This encoding can't be read by the gallery apps.
Hidden files are also can't be detected by some gallery apps(saved media from popular apps are not hidden but all thumbnails are hidden).
Some apps give file names as a random character without file type like
dfasvssvd56 rather than dfasvssvd56.JPEG but may or may not be encoded differently. This will result in not detecting the image.


htc evo 3d wifi connected but internet not working this is my first question on android, so I hope I will not miss anything. I bought my phone from friend probably 5 years ago, so there is no warranty. I used to login to wifi networks with no problems, but probably yesterday I clicked on "save network" (my wireless home network). For some reason, it stored my network with weird ip address(169.254.169.59), that I can not delete from phone.
My router automatically asignes 192.168.0.1, 192.168.0.2, ...
I tried renaming my wifi SSID and connected to it. Again, ip address in my mobile phone is 169.254.169.59. I tried connecting to two different wifi routers, my mobile still has this weird ip address.
I also tried connecting to that saved network manually with ip address I set (192.168.0.15). After connecting, my phone claims it has ip address 169.254.169.59.
How do I get rid of this saved ip address? I tried reseting my phone. I do not see any other usefull settings in my phone. I can not delete saved network (I did not see any options for deletion).

Android version - 4.0.3
HTC sense 3.6
Software number = 3.28.401.1
kernel = 3.0.16-ge733186

How do I fix this? Is it possible without factory defaults reset? My phone has never had a jail break.

I probably made a mistake that I thought I had two routers, but actually I had router and wifi extender. I was working with extender as router, trying to restart it and alter settings. But after I intalled main router, my mobile connected. So I guess main router had saved that weird ip address for my device and kept it. Restarting main router made it work.


How does a incoming call show my location? I got a spam call on my mobile recently and while the phone was ringing, on the screen I can see my location displayed along with incoming person's name.
Why my phone was showing my own location for this particular call?
Does it mean that my phone is compromised or something?
Edit:
Just before the call, I was having a call with a scammer who was trying to trick me to enter my bank details through a phishing site (which I entered some random numbers, but correct phone number)

When many phones receive incoming calls, they display the incoming number as well as an approximate location of the incoming call, usually based on a table lookup for the country code / area code / prefix of the Caller ID of the incoming call.
The Caller ID data is easy to forge, so often scammers set it to match whatever location they are calling (by matching your country code / area code / prefix).  This way, when they call, it looks like a local call, and they believe you are more likely to pick up the phone.  But, in reality, they can be calling from anywhere in the world.
When they set their Caller ID to match the country code / area code / prefix of your phone number, your approximate location will appear on your screen because that is simply the location associated with that Caller ID data.
The best way I have found to circumvent their tactics is to get a phone number with a completely different country code / area code / prefix from where you live or typically travel and different from any of your close contacts.  That way, when an incoming call uses Caller ID data that is similar to yours, you quickly know it is most likely a scammer.


How to disable auto hide navigation bar in cyanogenmod 11? The navigation bar is automatically hidden in Cyanogenmod 11. Maybe it's a good idea but my tablet case does not let me swipe from bottom to show it.

Is there a way to prevent a navigation bar from hiding so that it is always displayed?

I think you're talking about Expanded Desktops. Can't you disable it from the Power Menu?

Image from phandroid.


Usb otg not detected I checked my phone with USB otg checker and it shows that USB host support is detected. But when i plug in a otg cable it does not detect my flash drive. Any idea how to fix this.

Gadgets 360 review for P3S (see connectivity under detailed specifications) states OTG is not supported

Maybe the app you used returned a false positive


Is the Galaxy S II stable? I am thinking about getting a Galaxy S2. It seems like a great phone, but I have some concerns about the system stability.

I hear from Android users that Samsung's original ROM is very slow and heavy (and doesn't handle right-to-left languages very well - I speak Hebrew), and that other ROMs have their own problems and the releases are not so reliable.

Is any of this true?

As an Android user for about 2 years (and an iPhone user for 2 years before that), I feel that Android is very stable.

BUT you have to remember, that with the ability to load widgets, and background applications - you can certainly bog down your phone and decrease its performance.

In Apple's walled garden this isn't a problem, but you also don't have the freedom and choice.

As a modern computer user, I want the choice to slow down my phone if I want :)


Nexus 5 gives Status 7 error when flashing 5.1 OTA I've been trying all day to install 5.1 OTA via ADB. In my struggle, I tried installing TWRP to try to get it to work, but it didn't. I since flashed the stock recovery.

When trying to flash via ADB, this is my output log:

Finding update package...
Opening update package...
Verifying update package...
Installing update...
Verifying current system...
"System/bin/install-recovery.sh" has unexpected contents.
E:Error in /sideload/package.zip
(Status 7)

Installation aborted.

Your clue is in the output log:

  "System/bin/install-recovery.sh" has unexpected contents.

Since Android 5, OTA installs verify each partition as a whole so any changes will result in verification failing even if the file is not changed by the update. Something has changed the install-recovery.sh file, so you will need to revert the change or copy the original file back from a backup.


Display two clocks in two different time zones in the notification bar How can I display two clocks in two different time zones in the notification bar? By default, only one time is displayed at the top left of the screen.

You can achieve this using tasker Play Store Link and a plugin called Text Inject Xposed Repo Link you will need to be rooted and have Xposed installed.
Instructions:

Setup a profile in Tasker that runs every 2 minutes. (Smallest interval)
Set the task to Parse Format Date/Time
Input should be Now.
Output should be h:mm a z
Formatted Variable Name set to whatever you want. Ex. %TimeOffset
Offset should be set to Hours and set the amount of hours needed.
Set a task to set TextInject Variable to the variable setup in previous task. Ex. TimeOffset = %TimeOffset
In TextInject set statusbar time to #TimeOffset and parse as time
Done


How to choose which contacts to download from google I am using a really old version of Android (2.2.2). I have had it for about five years. It's an HTC Desire (the first ever). My contacts list in my phone keeps getting bigger and bigger (currently at 27mb) and I want to reduce it. I have my contacts synced with my google account so they are always backed up. But how can I choose which contacts it downloads to my phone? Everytime I send an email from my gmail a new contact is added and that contact is automatically downloaded to my phone. How can I stop this and only download the ones I tell it to download?

EDIT Forgot to mention, I want the ones that are created from my email activities to continue existing but only on my email account and on my phone contacts

I don't remember if you have that option in froyo.  What I know is the following:

1) In gmail / settings / general, you can configure if you want new emails to be added to your contact list. These new contacts will be added as "other contacts", but won't have the label "my contacts", which is the main label that all your good contacts should have.

2) In lollipop, the contacts app, settings, you can configure which contacts to show:  gmail contacts, whatsapp, ....  Inside gmail, you can choose which contacts to show, and therefore, you can select "my contacts".

3) However, I doubt that this avoids downloading all the contacts. Probably is just a filter to show the ones you want.

4) I suggest adding as contacts those you need. It's fast of you hover the mouse over the email and go to "Add as a contact". The label "my contacts"  will be added to it.

PS: 27 MB in contacts?  That's a hell of a list!


Enabling Mass Storage instead of MTP/PTP Is there any way to enable the old Mass Storage Mode in Android 4.4.2? Right now I can only see MTP or PTP modes, but not the Mass Storage mode that was used to be around in old versions(2.3, I guess).

The old Mass Storage Mode allowed me to play audio in my car when connected via USB, but ever since with the MTP, my music player doesn't recognize my device. Also when connected to PC, it enabled me to modify partitions directly.

Any ROM hacks or tweaks probably?

P.S. I have a rooted At&T Galaxy Note 2(Android 4.4.2)

Unfortunately, Android has switched to the newer MTP/PTP protocols, so no, regular "mass storage mode" can't be enabled. (That is unless there's a ROM hack I haven't found.)

Source: A post from 2013 confirming it's not a thing anymore.


Lock screen clock cut off? I have a new Samsung Epic 4G which has a clock on the top of the unlock screen. For some reason, however, most of the date gets cut off. So what I see is "Fri May." and the time. It seems like a font problem, but the phone is brand new.

I'm not even sure where to look for fixes or insights.

This was resolved. Unfortunately, I don't have any recollection of how it was resolved. Presumably a software update?


Reducing the size of the screen I have a LG G Pad 8.3 which its digitizer is broken and touch of the half of the screen is unresponsive, is it possible to reduce the resolution just from top side of the screen. kind of like cropping.

I have similar problem with my Nexus7. Try NOMone Resolution Changer. It allows you to choose diferent aspect ratio for screen. Is it possible to find combination to suit your needs:

  Two Android shell commands control screen resolution and density (dots per inch):

  am display-size
  am display-density

  For Android 4.3 and higher, these two commands were moved from am to wm. Now they are:

  wm size
  wm density

  This application nicely wraps these two commands so you can try different settings quickly and easily. It doesn't implement these functions, it merely uses them. So, if they don't behave well on your device then there is nothing we can do about it, please don't rate us down. We are just trying to make things easier.


How does carrier/network lock work? How is it implemented? I feel like I should have been able to find the answer to this, maybe I'm distracted or something, but does anyone know how carrier/network/sim lock actually works and if there are any workarounds? Say I wanted to make one of those unlocking services. What is the process?

I saw a couple answers from some years ago, they all seem fairly vague and as if it's actually an unknown, so I'm not sure if that's current information. It seems inevitable that someone would have leaked or reverse engineered that information by now, right?

Carrier locks work at SoC/bootloader level. In simple terms the modem - which has its own Baseband Processor -  is tuned to certain frequencies / bands or programmed to register with only one MCC/MNC which identifies a universally unique carrier. MCC/MNC is part of IMSI which is stored on SIM card and used in initial authentication process when device goes online.

Both modem (which is integrated in SoC) and SIM (which is a Java card Secure Element) are completely isolated from Application Processor (the one on which Android OS runs); they have their own processors, OS and possibly storage. Modem's communication protocol (through RIL) is usually vendor-specific and closed source (used to be simply ATC in good old days). Communication to SIM (APDU commands) is also routed through BP. So the unlocking workarounds aren't very straightforward but hacks do exist and they work, usually through special hardware/software.

Mostly modems accept some kind of dial code for SIM unlock, which is calculated by passing phone's IMEI through some mathematical functions, which are cracked by hackers sometimes. Another approach is to communicate with modem thorough some service mode e.g. Diagnostic Mode (DM) on Qualcomm SoC's (see this recent example), or possibly go even below that and directly use UART/JTAG entirely bypassing Android OS. So there is no standardization and official/unofficial unlocking methods largely vary from vendor to vendor and device to device.


can only access SD card; cant access the internal storage on pc i need to delete 3 gigs of "pictures" from my internal storage,it says there is 3 gigs of photos in there but they dont show up in the google file manager and when i connect to pc it only shows the SD card and not the internal storage.

Try going to the settings and then storage and then files to explore if there are any pictures that you can delete.


Any New (not low end) phones using Froyo (or Froyo-style software system)? Considering the bugs I've heard about the newer Androids (battery life, GPS and distance etc), and the fact that Froyo/gingerbread have better menu systems (larger, with text, not a toolbar), as well as more hardware buttons, 8 recent apps shown in the hold-home listing instead of 2 or 3... I was wondering if there are any modern phones with 2.2 or 2.3-based ROMs?

The problem is, with this old of a phone (or new one, they still sell 2.2/2.3 phones in stores) you shouldn't use the default browser, it has many known security vulnerabilities.

Considering the open source nature of it, I would be surprised to hear there is not a Froyo-skin or a version of Froyo with updated API.

Thing is, if a manufacturer would decide bringing a new phone on the market with such an old system, he'd get no license to pre-install any Google apps. Either your device runs an up-to-date Android version (I don't remember the details completely on what's counted here as "up-to-date", whether it were the latest two versions, or a version "not older than x months" – but Froyo is definitely out, as is Gingerbread, and IMHO even ICS) – or no Google Apps. As a device without Google Play pre-installed isn't that big selling hit for most people, manufacturers want the GApps shipping with their device. That doesn't leave much choice.

So it's pretty unlikely you will find a device with up-to-date hardware running Froyo or Gingerbread.

This doesn't keep modders from "skinning" the look-and-feel, sure. And many things can modified that way. Though I've never heard/read from any modification in this direction, you might find some "ROM kitchen" or the like offering it.


Google play store reviews: For an older version Whilst reviewing a certain application  on Google play store I came across an odd comment "For an older version" which  seemed to have originated  from several users and this  confused  me whether all the users had  posted the same comment complaining the "old version was better" or it means something else.

It is specifally from users of maybe has something to do with the developer, but either way this still remains vague to me. I just wish to know what exactly do they mean with such a review comment?

It simply means that the comments posted by reviewers pertain to older version of the app , immaterial whether they are good or bad

Other comments which don't have this comment are for the current version, so that's what you need to pay attention to (Bugs in older versions may have been fixed as is usually the case)

As clarified in this SO question, there can be only rating for app by a user , irrespective of the versions. Hence the need to differentiate old reviews from current version reviews

Seeing wbogac z's comment, found this blog which mentions that their is a separate versioning that is not visible to the users and older reviews are likely based on that.

Edit: See this for versioning details from a developer point of view
App updation- Google Play Store wants to update an older version of app when latest version is already installed?

Requesting developers to confirm or correct


Android 5.1 & Group SMS in Messenger defaults to MMS Am I right in thinking that as of Lollipop 5.1 all group messages sent via Messenger are sent via MMS?

In prior versions I had the choice to send them as multiple SMS messages, which is what I want as my contract gives me unlimited SMS messages but charges me per MMS.

I was recommended the Textra app to send group SMS as an actual SMS rather than MMS and I would recommend it to everyone else too. Cost me something like 60p after the trial period ran out, or about the same as 2 MMS messages!


Does Cyanogenmod reduce battery life? My galaxy mini was running GB 2.3.6. I recently rooted my phone and installed CM 7.2. Now it looks like my battery is getting drained a little quicker than before. From what I have heard CM increases performance while giving a better battery life. So is my case an exception? Can somebody suggest methods to increase battery life after installing Cyanogenmod?

I can think of two reasons why a CM ROM might reduce battery life:

CPU governor:
The cpu governor controls the frequency of the CPU depending on the requirement. Your ROM might be using a governor that favours performance over battery life. Selecting a governor that achieves a good balance between performance & battery life might help you. You can learn more about cpu governors here
Battery calibration:
The battery status is stored in a file called batterystats.bin. Its possible that your phone is using the same batterystats.bin that came with the rom. You can use an application like Battery Calibration to regenerate this file with new/accurate stats.(a myth according to this)


How to get specific contact's "+1" Play Store applications list? I would like to get list of "+1" Play Store applications of specific contacts. Are there any ways to do this?

Google just added this to the Play Store a few days ago. Open the Play Store and tap the menu in the top left and then tap People. Here you will see an overview and some recommended apps and people. If you scroll to the bottom, you will see a few g+ contacts. Tap "See more" to view a list of all the people in your g+ circles. Then tap on the person you want and all their reviews and +1s will be there.


Are there any rowhammer resistance phones? It's taken 31 years but someone finally get around to implementing rowhammer for the arm instruction set.

So are there any ECC or MEU RAM chips available for phones or currently in use in any phones?

The list from the
Drammer app mentioned in your first link, shows some devices are not vulnerable, E.g, HTC Desire 510.( Row hammer wiki suggests that ECC overcomes TRR mentioned below the table)

Quoting from Source

We encourage everybody to try our Drammer test app and help figuring out how widespread mobile Rowhammer is. We expect, for example, that devices equipped with LPDDR4 are less vulnerable. This is because the LPDDR4 standard includes optional hardware support for the so-called target row refresh mitigation.
I have a phone with LPDDR4 memory. Am I safe against Drammer attacks?
Again, we don’t know. Chances are that your DRAM comes with the Target Row Refresh (TRR) mitigation, which makes it harder – but still not impossible, in theory – to induce bit flips. Moreover, TRR for LPDDR4 is optional, so your DRAM manufacturer may have decided to drop this technique and leave you vulnerable.

I doubt if you get that specific confirmation of implementation as you can see from How to know whether a RAM module is vulnerable to rowhammer before buying? a question on Security SE
From another question on Security SE, answers imply ECC is not necessarily a protection against the rowhammer vulnerability

Using ECC, whilst not a guarantee of security, might lower the probability of successful exploitation.

Edit: Based on the paper submitted on 26 Oct 16 by the authors in the annual CCS 2016 , which is quite beyond my understanding, my conclusions are :

There are many countermeasures and ECC is one of them ( clearly my understanding that ECC was the sole reason is wrong as also pointed out by OP in comments

Following devices were shown to be not vulnerable in the tests and as mentioned in the conclusion of paper x86 devices are not


Disable "vibrate" in lock screen When in lock-screen, I have to move the middle circle over the "lock" on right hand side. The device vibrates 3x during it - is it possible to disable all the vibrations?

(Using ICS)

No, this is not an option.

Actually this seems like a bug as this should be controlled by the option, Vibrate on Touch under Sound in the settings.  Either that, or the option Vibrate  on Touch should remain visible when setting the screen security option to Slide in the Security part of the settings.

You may want to report this as a bug to the Android team using the Android Issue Tracker.


Unable to add contact to SIM I want to add new contact and save it in SIM Card.

I use OnePlus One with CyanogenMod 11S, which is on top of Android 4.4.4 and inside I have O2 pay-as-you-go card from UK. When I used Gingerbread and Ice Cream versions of Android in the past, I always had 3 options when creating contacts - Google account, Device and Sim.

Now when I tap on New contact icon, I cannot change the type from Google contact to anything else (tapping it just doesn't do anything).

I know this might be stupid question, but I cannot check it with other card. My real question is - is this problem specific to O2 (carrier), or Cyanogen, or Android 4.4? Or am I doing something wrong and there is some option I need to enable first?

After some investigation, I believe this in Android 4.4 issue.

It seems to be designed to use only Google contacts, synchronized with Gmail. I could not find any option to even display SIM contacts - they can only be imported from SIM to Google.

I know for sure, that in Android 4.2 devices, user can choose between location of contacts and can display all contacts, regardless of where they are saved.


I've installed a custom recovery image, but not yet rooted my phone. How can I install SuperSU and subscribe to automatic updates? I own a Samsung smartphone.  I'm running Android 4.1.2 "Jelly Bean".  I've also installed ClockworkMod Recovery 6.0.4.5.

Each time I exit ClockworkMod Recovery, it offers to root my phone.  I haven't accepted this offer yet.

Binaries are not yet available for the currently-maintained fork of Superuser.  So I guess I'll install SuperSU instead.

OK; fine.  So I want to install SuperSU.  I also want to start getting automatic updates — in other words, as new versions of SuperSU are released, I want the Google Play store app to install them automatically.

Please note that I would rather not boot Android up even once with su installed but with no su GUI installed.  Doing such a thing would be a security risk which I'd rather avoid if possible.

What steps should I take, and in what order?

Follow these steps:

Download the flashable ZIP for  SuperSU app into your device. It would have both the APK as well as su binary. Choose the stable build .
Boot into the custom Recovery → flash the ZIP → Reboot.
After the boot animation you would see "Android is upgrading" dialog for few seconds. Once booted to Home screen, launch SuperSU app.
Go to Settings and scroll down until you see CLEANUP section.

Choose Reinstall. It would remove SuperSU app from the system but not the su binary.
Go to Play Store and install SuperSU app. Since the app is now installed from Play Store, you would definitely receive updates to the app as long as they are pushed to Play Store and are compatible with your device.

Done!


Turn off volume button notification sound in Galaxy S2 1) I get a beep sound every-time I increase the ringer volume using the side button in Samsung Galaxy S2. How can I turn of this sound. I have set the notifications sound to Silent. But still am getting this sound.

2) Also whenever I connect the charger, I am getting a notification sound. How can I make this to silent as well.?

I haven't found any way to do this through the software. The only way I've found to disable the sounds is to go to /system/media/audio/ui on your phone and delete files Volume-1.mp3 through Volume-7.mp3 for the volume tones, and Charger_Connection.ogg for the connection tone. Just tested this on my phone and it does indeed work. You may want to back up the files first in case you want to restore them at some point. You may also have to be rooted to be able to remove the files.

Edit: Actually, I'm sure you'll need root, as I had to su in a terminal emulator to be able to do anything in that directory.


Tab bar in Chrome browser I have a Galaxy S4. I use Chrome browser. Anytime I play with an Android tablet, Chrome has a tab bar like on a desktop OS. I want to enable this on my phone, but I can't find an option to enable it. I tried looking into the prefences file but didn't see anything pertaining to this. Is there a way to enable this? I'm rooted, and don't mind messing around so I don't mind if there's a "hackish" way to do this.

It seems like Chrome is a universal app, so I don't see why it acts different on a phone versus a tablet. Or at least provide an otion for it.

Yet to find a way for chrome without installing a tablet ui rom. Boat browser has this feature. After initial install it will dissapear if you scroll down the page. If you go to settings and lab, just tick the top option to show nav bar.

Dolphin browser also allows this but used too much battery and ran more sluggish to be worth it.

I dont understand why chrome doesnt allow it. Im on a note 1. Its a deal breaker browser feature for me.


Easiest way to reduce power consumption to phone only Sometimes I'm in a situation where I can't charge and want to have phone service as long as possible.  I won't care if nothing else is enabled.

What's the easiest way eliminate as much other power consumption as possible?  Minimal apps, no sync, no data, GPS, Bluetooth.

I'm configured to easily turn off all the radios (BT, Wifi, GPS), but I'd like to strip down as much else that burns power as possible without spending a lot of time reconfiguring.

...AND I'd like to be able to return to normal use just as easily (rebooting would be fine for this, too).

In my case, needs to work on CDMA network, too.

See my related answer about battery conservation.

In your case, you want your phone to become a "dumb" phone.  Use APNDroid to cut off your data.  There's even a widget to make it a one button press.  Other than that, keep your screen dim and you should be good to go.


Unknown error in bootloader during unlock after crash With my ACER a700, Android crashed. Now, each time I turn it on it starts in fastboot mode. I tried to unlock bootloader to install Cyanogen, but after command line I have an response like "Error: Unknown error".

Is there a possibility to reset completely the device in order to reinstall a ROM?

EDIT:

I downloaded rom from this link and move update.zip onto SD card. I would boot in recovery mode but I can't, because of bootloader. I have the following output:

Booting failed
Bootloader vJB-663b3d3: Starting Fastboot USB download protocol

It seems I have not recovery menu. Also, I can't doing 'factory reset', I have the same failed.

The issue can be solved by flashing stock firmware to your device.

Download the firmware and flashing tool from here.

Edited: List of A700 ROMs and updates from XDA Developers + Flashing procedure.

Another download links


Can an app keep onto its root access permissions after the phone is turned off? My question is plain and simple. Can an app keep onto its root access permissions after the phone is turned off? Is there a way an app with root access can keep this permission and start running with this permission without asking for it again once the device is turned back on?

For all I know, it can not, but it can be set to "grant root access whenever it demands" by superuser app.

The reason I ask this question is: I talked to the support service of the spy apps such as mSpy or FlexiSpy (apps that fetch your every single info but requires root access) which accept their app would not survive a factory reset but insist that their app would keep working properly after a reboot.

Apps like SuperSU will remember your decision regarding root access to an app and will give that reply each time the app asks, unless you specify otherwise in the settings.
Make sure your app starts after the device boots.

If your application needs root permissions during boot (not after the device has booted) you'll need to enable "su during boot" (SuperSU)


can I flash stock sony z2 ROM on my Xolo play 1100 directly I want to replace my full phone interface with Sony z2 I have both the phones right now. So I was thinking to make a full cwm recovery of my z2 and flash it my xolo.
I know might be it won't work like that but if suppose I download the stock ROM of z2 from internet and correctly flash that to my Xolo will it work. (Can one run another other companies stock ROM on other phone)

Plz advice me the most correct method.

hardware specification of both the phone are approximately same

Please don't do it, unless you were born with the golden spoon in your mouth. Ok on serious note, flashing different device's ROM to another device, will NOT work. It will brick your device. Once I flashed GT-S5570i ROM on GT-5570, My phone was dead, I thought a small "i" wont matter..But it did.

Look Here.


Recovering data from "Recently deleted" folder (SD card) in Huawei P20 after removal I sent some files from my SD card to the "Recently deleted" folder and then removed the card.
May I be able to recover these files if I insert back the SD?
Thanks for your help!

The easiest way to recover data from an SD card would be by connecting it to a PC.  I recommend an open source, cross-platform tool called 'PhotoRec'
https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec)

The reason is that files can be a little broken when they're recovered from being deleted, so having a tool that understands file structures can be helpful.  The name 'PhotoRec' is a little misleading, since it actually recovers hundreds of different file types
https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/File_Formats_Recovered_By_PhotoRec)

There's a good tutorial here since the UI is quite simplistic:
https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/photorec-recover-photos-memory-card/


How to set password request for booting the smartphone? How can I set the phone so it requests to unlock the screen before starting up?

Earlier I had to unlock the phone so it starts up but now it boots without unlocking (and I didn't change anything in this regard, at least deliberately). (I bought it as used so I don't know how it was activated).

It seems that there was an issue described in the link provided by Firelord in the comment:

Don't get tempted by any app asking you to enable its Accessibility Service. It will change your encryption password to the Android default one allowing everyone to decrypt the "encrypted" data. The PIN you enter at powering on your device may not be used for encryption at all - without a warning given.
If you use encryption on your Android device, follow these steps now:

Open up the Accessibility settings menu.
If a Accessibility Service is listed there at the top, disable it.
Change your screen lock PIN/password/pattern whatever to reset the encryption password. Make sure to tick the "Require PIN to start device" option.

These three steps reactivate the password request for powering up on Android 8.0.


Enable Notification LED in Do Not Disturb mode in Android 6 I recently got a new Phone (BQ Aquaris X5 plus) and with that a new Android Version (Android 6). Before that I had another BQ Phone, but running KitKat. I'm missing a way to disable the vibrations, but still enable the Notification LED, so to be able to put it on the table without the loud vibration. The best option would be a separate setting, but if there's some way to get that with using the do not disturb mode it would be fine also.

If I enter the do-not-disturb mode, it doesn't activate the LED, if I allow priority notifications, it still vibrates.

I also found that someone advised to just turn down the volume once more after entering vibration mode, but thats triggering the do-not-disturb mode.

Things like this are frequently not tweakable in stock ROMs. I would suggest downloading Tasker which will let you control settings for the notification LED.


How to fix "There is a problem parsing the package" when sideloading WhatsApp? I downloaded the apk from here with  WhatsApp version 2.17.106 (size 34601974 bytes).
There, it says: "Android OS 2.3.3 or above". I can extract the APK's contents without errors, so the file is not broken.

My old smartphone model is GT-S6102, a Samsung Galaxy Duos, running Android 2.3.6.

I have enabled "Install from unknown sources" and "USB debugging".  I have let Lookout scan it before installing.

When trying to install that APK using the file manager, I get this message:

  There is a problem parsing the package

I am also unable to install it from Google Play Store. From Google Play, it says "Package file is invalid".

Update: version 2.17.350 does not work again.

File from https://www.whatsapp.com/android/  version 2.17.251 has minSdkVersion="15"  which means that it supports android 4.0 and later.
Declaration "Android OS 2.3.3 or above" is on the same place.

Ask support?


google pixel 2 phone rear camera not working suddenly i am using google-pixel 2 phone since  2017. phone not able to start camera app  and app getting crashed when i tried to open rear camera . front camera is working fine .i contacted google support team they said that try to clear app cache and data. i cleared camera app cache,data but no luck. how do i get my phone rear camera to working condition ? pleas help me out to get it working. thanks

Before downgrade to the stable version of android you've to keepfew
things in mind.

You've to backup your data (because flashing erase your data permanently)
You've to download the stable image file of your device
You've to download Android SDK Tools (don't have to download Android Studio, Command Line Tools will be enough to get your jobs
done)

Now the process of flashing into stable version will take some time and follow the rules below.
1. Turn your developers mode on (by clicking the phone's build number
multiple tiles).
2. Enable USB debugging, unlock OEM and then connect your phone with you PC.
3. Unzip the SDK Tools and then open command promt inside that folder.
4. Unzip the image's zip file into the SDK Tools' folder.
5. Unlock your phone's bootloader, and accept the unlocking by clicking the volume up button of your phone.
6. Go to the fastboot mode and then flash all the image files using "flash-all" command.
7. After successfully flashing to the stable version don't forget to lock the bootloader (if you don't do experimental stuffs then it'll be better to keep the bootloader locked).
8. Set your phone up.
And now everything will work fine and will be stable after setting up your phone with your credentials.


My laptop cant detect my nexus7 My laptop used to detect my nexus7 tablet but for some reason its stopped detecting it. Any way to try and get it to start detecting it again?

These can be a little tricky to troubleshoot without a LOT more information and a ton of back and forth. My best suggestion to do an end-run around all of that would be for you to download WugFresh's Nexus Root Toolkit.

Now don't worry if you're not interested in rooting, as that's not why I'm suggesting it. I've just found that its "Full Driver Installation - Automatic + Manual" function is one of the easiest, cleanest, most step-by-step ways to both clean out all the remnants of the old Nexus drivers that might be causing your problem, and installing the most appropriate new drivers that will hopefully resolve your problem the rest of the way. A bunch of them are for the purpose of flashing/rooting/repairing/etc., but even if you don't want that, it can't hurt to have them there in case you have a need for that later.

Outside of that, a few main suggestions that sound obvious, but assuming they can't be the case sometimes bites us in the butt:

Try a different cable. Even when the cable charges fine, or connects for some purposes all right, it can end up causing issues in other situations. Worth a shot.
Try a different port. Any different port, but especially if you're connecting via a USB 3.0 port, try a 2.0 port. There are some known, odd issues with Nexus devices and some USB 3.0 controllers.
Try switching the connection method. When you connect it, there should be a notification allowing you to switch connection modes. One usually works better than the other in some situations.
Try it in a different computer to verify there isn't a problem with the port on the Nexus 7 itself.

That's about all I've got. Good luck!


Galaxy Tab A (7.1.1) Refuses to Root I'm using Kingo Root, but it keeps stopping at 90% and giving me error code 0x12B263. I've tried iRoot, Kingo, and many more but they've all failed. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

You're going to have to use a computer to phone based soultion. One touch rooting apps use a exploit that has since been patched.


Gboard doesn't save new words and use my personal dictionary? I have both swedish and english activated in GBoard, but I'm using the swedish layout so I get easy access to the letter  å ä ö.

My problem is that Gboard doesn't seem to "learn" some new words. A specific example is when I'm swiping hon (swedish for her), it never suggests hon, instead it autocorrects it to jobb (swedish for work) every single time. I've erased the suggestion, I've typed h o n manually and clicked it in the top bar - I even added hon to my personal dictionary in the Gboard settings, but nothing seems to help.

It's gotten so ridiculous that I just stopped erasing and correcting it when texting some of my friends, I just informed them that if they see an oddly placed jobb, just assume I mean hon :)

On a side note - both me and one of my friends (who's using Sony's built in keyboard) seem to experience periods of our predictions going haywire and suggesting completely wrong words, or in my case often weird acronyms like DF, DT, DGV etc. This seems to last for a few days and then it gets better for few weeks. Might just be coincidental, but I'm curious if anyone else is experiencing something similar?

I just figured it out while trying all possible Gboard settings. Turns out that "block offensive words" was activated for some reason, and apparently the word "hon" is considered offensive in some places.

I had no idea it was an offensive word, and either way I'd have thought Gboard was clever enough not to block english offensive words when I'm in "swedish mode" (i.e. when the last word i typed was in swedish and all the suggestions it comes up with are in swedish). Turns out it doesn't care, and "hon" gets blocked either way.


boot loop after flashing partitions from stock firmware I have Arch linux installed and have installed android-tools(so fastboot and adb commands are available).

Because I had a problem with kingroot I needed to flash the phone to stock.

I had stock firmware downloaded and extracted it to see the sin files inside it.

I flashed partitions using these commands :

fastboot flash system system.sin
fastboot flash userdata userdata.sin
fastboot flash cache cache.sin
fastboot reboot

Now the first two succeeded but the third one failed saying partition not found(guess I don't have cache partition for some reason).

After that I got stuck in a boot loop.

Normally sony Xperia P boots with Sony word and then to Xperia word(which blinks) and then to android but it's stuck in the Sony word.

I tried powering off the phone and flashing the boot partition using this command :

fastboot flash boot kernel.sin

rebooted, the same problem.

I tried to flash FOTAKernel but I don't seem to have this partition.

I tried also fastboot reboot-bootloader and then reboot but the same.

I've read the boot-loop wiki, both Safe mode and recovery mode are unreachable.

I would try to flash the other .sin files But I don't know to what partition they belong and google didn't help me to get this information :3 .

So what to do ?

Update

I forgot to mention that I tried to flash .ftf file using FlashTool 0.9.19.10, this tool didn't work, I click the lightning bolt, I chose the Flash mode, I choose the .ftf file(after putting it in ~/.flashtool/firmwares), after clicking ok it tells me to plug my device in fastboot mode.

I click Volumne Up while plugging the device and I see the blue(somewhat purple) Led light on.

I wait and wait and even when Flashtool said "Device connected in fastboot mode" it doesn't do anything but telling me to plug my device :3 .

Device

Sony xperia P runing android 4.0.4, bootloader is unlocked but the phone is not rooted nor has custom recovery(so no CWM or TWRP here).

I have found the answer.

FlashTool worked after using Flashmode, it wasn't working because of my mistake, I was plugging the device in fastboot mode instead of flashmode.

After I flashed it it works great.


Rooted phone, but can't pass "Install" dialog I am running Android 4.4.4 with the LiquidSmooth ROM and SuperSU. All these components work flawlessly, as far as I can tell. I am also able to use TitanicBackup (to demonstrate Root is working).

However, whenever I try to install an app that queries for special permissions (like Xposed from XPrivacy), the installer presents me with a "Cancel" and "Install" button at the lower end of the screen, but I can only tap "Cancel", but not "Install" (which seems to be disabled).

Any idea what's going on and how to fix this? I can workaround by manually defining permissions in SuperSU, but if I need to install a temporary download from the browser, for instance, the app/apk name doesn't show up in SuperSU, so i can't enable it to allow installation... :-/

This happens, when you have installed some kind of overlay app like Twilight. It is a security feature against screen manipulation.
Solution: Find that app and disable it. After that you will be able to hit the Install button.


Is there method to send by not using SMS? I tried to send a message. After that, it displays the following toast:

  SMS is unable.

I can't use SMS. Is there a method to send messages by not using SMS?

Google Messenger is an SMS/MMS application. If you are not able to send SMS/MMS for some reason, you need to use a different messaging system and a different application. For example, you can use email, or a proprietary service like WhatsApp. If you need your message to arrive as an SMS, you can use a email-to-SMS gateway, though you need to know the carrier used by the recipient.


Default account in Twitter app I have two Twitter accounts in my Twitter app, one personal and one for work. I added the personal one first, and it appears first in the Android Accounts settings. I want the Twitter app to use the personal account when it first opens, but it always defaults to the other one - can I change this?

I would suggest logging out of both and signing into your personal account first. Then the work account. This should then default to the first account you signed up with...

-edit (sorry for being so stupid)-
Try another twitter client such as twiddle (free) or talon (Paid). These may have the feature your looking for...

I can't comment as I don't have enough rep yet.


How to resize the width of several frozen columns in Google Sheets app? I am using Google Sheets on Android and have several columns frozen on the left, but the app seems to have a fixed width for the frozen columns. Is it possible to change this width?

Unfortunately, you can't with the current version (1.19.432.04.34) of Google Sheet. Maybe it will be possible to do it with future version. For a once off (or maybe permanently), WPS allows to increase the width of frozen columns.


some apps, no problem loading on 2 devices. Not this one - help I have loaded a free app (imediashare) from Amazon store onto my Kindle Fire. I want to put the same app on my Samsung phone, but when I go to the app store from the phone and try to 'buy' it, I'm told I already own it.

I have had no trouble doing this same action with some other apps, nor with any books (putting them on both devices)

I think I may be able to reload it from my apps library, but I cannot find it, navigating from the Samsung.

Any help would be much appreciated.

This article should help:

How to install paid apps on multiple Android devices

Also you can try to install application using web version of Play Store (in the Send to list select needed device, for example, your phone).


redmi 2 prime not charging and phone not going to turn on Its battery drained to 0% and I plugged the phone for 1 hour but its still not turned on.How much time its takes to charge 0 to 1% and I cant find also that the phone is charging or not because it is not showing any logo or battery sign.

The same thing happened to my phone
I just removed the battery for about 2 min and then connect the phone with pc through usb cable and after few minutes it starts showing charging icon


Disable or prompt VoIP calling on Android Whatsapp I recently updated my Whatsapp on Android. I noticed that it allows voice calls with the new version. There is a contact that resides in the same city as me that I would like to place a call to. However, Whatsapp doesn't give me the option of making a normal call when I press the call button from within whatsapp, rather than Internet call. I would have to exit the app and call with the normal phone app. Is there an option to disable this or at least prompt which app to use?

I appreciate that Whatsapp coming up with new initiatives, but please allow users choose between Internet or carrier call. Is there a new version that allows this or do I have to wait for it?

Go to the contact. Open a message thread by tapping,  then tap on the nam/number to view contact. At the top right (on Android) is the menu button. Tapping it brings up the option to 'view in address book'. This is the only way to do it right now.


Problem importing CSV/vCARD contacts to S3 I have an S3 I'm attempting to import contacts to.

I started with a list I've converted to .CSV and then used an online converter to create .VCF files from for each of the contacts.

The S3 will not import the .CSV or .VCF files. I've combined the .VCF files into 1 and it still refuses to import them.

Is there any other way to do this without creating a GMail/Google account to first import them into? (Device is setup with an IMAP account so no need for GMail).

The S3 reports "Couldn't import vCard" then within notification it reads "The format is not supported". The .VCF's I have created are version 2.1.

What versions of vCard does the S3 support?

The reason I had this issue was a badly formatted vcard file. There were many BEGIN:VCARD tags that were not closed with END:CARD tags. As an example, it looked like this:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
BEGIN:VCARD
# Bunch of fields in here like N, FN, EMAIL, etc.
END:VCARD

As you can see, the first BEGIN:VCARD is not closed.

So in a text editor, I did a Find and Replace to get rid of any unclosed BEGIN:VCARD, such that it looked like:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
# Bunch of fields in here like N, FN, EMAIL, etc.
END:VCARD

After doing that, the vcf file imported without any problems.


rooting my samsung galaxy s4 kitkat version 4.4.2 i have read a lot of articles on rooting my s4 but it just does not happen. I downloaded ODIN to do so and there appears to be some issue there which i just cant figure out. I also tried motochopper to root my phone. this method actually worked but on downloading superuser on my phone it says that the phone must install latest 'su binary file'.
I am a first time Android user and a novice, please help

First off all you should download the proper root-file written for your phone (e.g.  cf-autoroot) and odin  3.09.

Activate the developers options by hitting the build number seven times.
Enable usb-debugging and unknown sources
Put your phone into download mode and make sure your phones usb drivers are installed to your pc.
Then turn off samsung kies and your antivir, because they will cause problems.
Now start odin as an administrator and connect your phone via usb. There should be a blueor yellow com:0 box lighten up.
Press the pda button and select the unzipped content from your cf-autoroot file.

!!!Do not touch the ticked boxes on the left side!!!

Press start. Your phone should load the data and restart by its own. The rest happens by itself.

If this is too complicated for you google for framaroot or towelroot and try them.

Cheers.


Android Bluetooth Profile - AVRCP Version on JellyBean My Car audio system supports AVRCP v1.3 which, when my iPhone 4 buddies play music over BT, the song title is displayed on the radio... I have just upgraded to JellyBean and find that i am still not having any luck with my android device

Phone Specs

Samsung Galaxy s i9000
Android Version 4.1.1
ROM MIUI-2.10.5 JellyHeff

Wikipedia quotes:
AVRCP has several versions with significantly increasing functionality:

1.0—Basic remote control commands (play/pause/stop, etc.)
1.3—all of 1.0 plus metadata and media-player state support The status of the music source (playing, stopped, etc.) Metadata
information on the track itself (artist, track name, etc.).
1.4—all of 1.0, 1.3, plus media browsing capabilities for multiple media player Browsing and manipulation of multiple players Browsing
of media metadata per media player, including a "Now Playing" list
Basic search capabilities

Any Ideas where the problem is?

I don't think that base android supports avrcp beyond version 1.0.  A lot of the community created ROMs have added support for the other levels into their custom systems. However the stock version doesn't have it.


OnePlus 3 repair issue The screen on my OnePlus 3 phone was beginning to peel away from the bezel.  There was already a noticeable separation all the way along the top, and the problem was spreading downward along the sides.  Other than a touch-screen test I had to perform every time I activated the smartphone, it worked fine.  (It must have sensed something was weird with the screen, and made me touch four randomly placed circles before it would activate.)

I brought it to a local, independent smartphone repair shop about 12 days ago. They told me the battery was bloating, which is what was causing the screen to be pushed away from the bezel.  Since I don't have experience with this sort of thing, I just took their word for it, and let them order another battery.  Now I'm suspicious; battery life was fine.  I could use the phone (YouTube, games, phone) for 8 or more hours without needing a charge.  The phone would not be hot nor have a hot spot.

Ten days later (yesterday) they phoned me late afternoon, letting me know the battery had come in, and said I could bring it in today.  Their Saturday hours are 11 to 3, and the person on the phone was confident it could be completed same-day if I brought it in around 11.  I did.

The tech told me he could have it ready in a little over an hour.  I gave him 2 hours and went back.  The tech told me they must have gotten the wrong battery.  It fit, the connector was correct, and the phone came on, but it told him it had the wrong battery. He showed the original to me.  I could not see swelling, but the black paper backing was wrinkled as if perhaps it had maybe bloated and remained stretched out after the battery went back to normal size due to no load.  At least that is what the tech said.  He showed me three round holes on the back which he said had been caused by the failing battery.  He told me it would be a very bad idea to put the original battery back. He wanted to glue the screen in place over the new battery and see what the phone's status would be then.  So I'm doing that, and have another 40 minutes before I go back to check.  (I can't call; he has my only phone...)

Am I getting the run-around from a clueless, perhaps dishonest shop?

Unfortunately I prepaid for the battery and screen repair. If it is not working when I get back, I am not going to wait 10 days for another, possibly wrong, battery.  If they can't resolve the problem by the end of the day Monday, what are my reasonable options?

Your repair guy is either ignorant /or taking you for a ride or both

Bad battery story by the repair guy is flimsy.

You had good battery life - 8 hours is actually pretty decent
Batteries are not balloons - if they are swollen, they stay swollen and don't regain original shape (on no load as you mention). See picture of  badly swollen battery

Swollen battery spin test is one way of making sure it is bad. For details, see this nice answer with embedded video

3) Batteries don't make round holes if defective. They puncture, or explode at worst

You are being taken for a ride, sorry for that, but there is no polite way of saying that.

The only sensible option I see is take your phone to an authorized or reputed repair agency and forget this guy and the money lost


How to import Yahoo Mail contacts into Google? I need help with importing my Yahoo Mail email addresses to my Gmail contacts list, using a Samsung Galaxy S4. Whenever I try to email anyone from my Gmail contacts list, I can't because they aren't imported from my Yahoo Mail account.

If you install the Yahoo mail app from the Play Store, it will synchronize your contacts to your phone's address book, and pull them up in any app, including Gmail.  The advantage of this method is that you will have an ongoing sync, meaning any contacts you add via Yahoo website will automatically appear on your phone, and vice-verse.

If you don't want to install the Yahoo mail app, you will need to use a computer.  First, export contacts on Yahoo website as a CSV file as described in this walk-through:

Go to Yahoo mail website on your computer.
Click on the "Contacts" button, and then go to Actions -> Export...
Select the "Yahoo CSV" option, click the "Export Now" button, select somewhere on your computer where to save this file, and click "OK".

Then you import the CSV file into your Google account as described here:

Sign into Gmail.
Click Gmail at the top-left corner of your Gmail page, then choose Contacts.
Click the More button above the contacts list and select "Import..."
Click the Choose File button.
Select the CSV file you generated from Yahoo, and click the Import button.

This method is a one-time import, and any modifications you make to your contacts via Yahoo website will not propagate to your phone.  Instead, your contacts will appear in your Google account.


Duplicate entries in 'All apps' list I started to have for some reasons duplicated entries in 'All apps'. For many apps it was not a problem but one of apps is Google Maps - how to get rid of the problem without:

Restoring to factory defaults
Uninstalling Google Maps permanently

Edit: My phone is HTC Wildfire from 3 (to respond to comment).


Where is the backup location from Titanium Backup on a phone without an SD card? I am currently using a Samsung S6. Today I backed up all of my data with the app "Titanum Backup". After backing up all of the data, I transferred the folder of Titanium Backup to my Google Drive. Afterwards, I restored my phone. Then I installed Titanium Backup. However, I don't know where I need to import the folder "Titanium Backup" for the app to restore the the data. I saw many YouTube videos, and their restore was in a SD Card. However, the S6 doesn't have an SD card. Can someone please help me? Thanks.

You can put it on the internal SD card as well (e.g. /sdcard/TitaniumBackup). At its first start, TiBu will ask you to chose a location.


How to find downloaded .apk files on my Android phone I usually download apps and games from Google Play but I wonder if i could reuse these files and find them again if my application has been removed?
Please help. Thank you in advance.

There are a bunch of apps to backup the .apk file of apps from your device, making the process much easier than fiddling with file explorers. I e.g. used AppMonster quite a while; its paid version even automatically captures the .apk of each app when it's installed or updated. Looks like the app is discontinued – but there are several similar apps you can find listed behind the first link.

Once you've got the .apk, you can of course side-load it to another device if needed. I've usually done that if I needed the same app on another device which didn't have Playstore access. Note that this doesn't always work with paid apps: if those use Google's license check, the "target device" needs to be setup with the same Google account the app was acquired, and of course needs the Playstore app and network access to verify the license.

Of course you can use the .apk to reinstall the app even if it was removed from Playstore. License check should work fine then as well (provided you've got the Playstore app and your account setup, as described in the previous paragraph).


How to turn on load external Javascript on the Galaxy Nexus? I just got my Galaxy Nexus and was browsing Stack Exchange (in both mobile and full theme) and got the following warning. As a result things like voting, the dropdown and such don't work. I never had this problem on Gingerbread, so I think it has something to do with Ice Cream Sandwich.

So I'd like to know which settings do I have to tweak so the Javascript gets loaded anyway?

It does seem to load on Dolphin, so it seems limited to the stock browser.

It turns out my probably was solved by something as simple as clearing my cache.

Which makes me feel pretty stupid, because I should have done that before even bothering to ask. I never suspected this could happen straight out of the box, guess I was wrong.


Merged two DCIM folders by mistake So I have a moto G, 2nd gen, I was transferring stuff from my internal memory to the SD card and my DCIM folder was also transferred by mistake and when the "Merge" option popped up, I clicked on "yes to all by mistake. I can't find most of my pictures now. Any way I can fix this now?

If they had the names like IMAG0001.jpg then the file from the first directory would have overwritten the second.

I have had files even on the same device have the same numbers, probably caused by me moving files around and screwing up its count.


I am stuck on the verify your account Google on a ZTE TracFone It is stuck on the Google login screen

With the phone in that orientation, you'll need to scroll down to see the box where you can enter the login details of the Google account you used before resetting the phone.


The Cast option is unable to detect my Windows PC I am trying to cast my android screen to Windows 10 Connect App, but its not working. I have a Lenovo K8 Note running android 7.1.1(not rooted and its near stock OS).

I have an another device with Lineage OS 14.1 (7.1.2) where the Display -> Cast option works properly. But its not working with the Lenovo K8.

I guess google removed the cast support in Nougat for Miracast so users would be forced to use their Chromecast device.

Is there a way to make the cast option to work with Lenovo K8.

I used an app for screen cast to web browser. it uses cast of Mobile device but on PC or any other device I receive the cast on browser


Unfortunately google play store has stopped I installed Android 6.0 on my one plus x phone last week. Now I see these errors pop up, "unfortunately google play store has stopped" & "unfortunately google play services has stopped". I searched so many websites but no use.  How can I fix this?

Unfortunately a long time ago I had this issue. I'm sure there is an easier method of fixing it but I had to do a full factory reset before I could get it working again; hopefully you don't get to that point, but if you do give a factory reset a try :)


3G Connection Not Working on Samsung Galaxy S2 I have a Galaxy S2 that for some reason does not work when it's connected to a 3G network(or at least I think it's connected, there's a '3G' symbol next to my signal meter). When I say it doesn't work, I mean that I don't have any data connection what-so-ever. No internet, nothing.

When my phone is connected with the 'H+' symbol next to the signal meter then everything works perfectly. But the problem is that my phone is constantly trying to use 3G, which of course is useless.

My phone details are:

Model Number:       GT-I9100

Android Version:    2.3.3

Baseband version:   I9100XXKE7

Kernal Version:     2.6.35.7-I9100XWKF3-CL276555root@DELL101 #2

Build number:       GINGERBREAD.XWKF3

If anyone has an idea why this would happen, please give me a shout. It's so frustrating having no data connection for the most of my day. Also if there's a way to just stop the phone completely from trying to connect/use a 3G connection. That would be great.

PS - I'm in South Africa and my carrier is 'Cell C'.

Thank in advance!

Well, you could try going into Settings - Wireless and Networks - Mobile Networks - Tick use only 2G networks.

That will disable 3G connectivity.

If you wish to disable mobile data, then un-tick the mobile data option.


Screen mirroring on pc I was wondering if there is a way to mirror my screen of the phone to my pc using the same wi fi connection, like you can do with a smart tv; Do I need to download any special app or program for pc?

You can try AllCast witch only require a working Wi-Fi connection.

It works pretty great for me (Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 Pro, Android 6.0) :

Download here
On your PC, in Chrome, install AllCast Receiver

Make sure both your phone and laptop are connected on the same wireless network and then :

Open Mirror Beta and select your computer

AllCast Receiver will show up on your computer mirroring your Android screen.
Hope this will work for what you need.


Stuck in boot after changing dpi - Lenovo a7000 I used  Texdroider DPI  to change the dpi from 320 to 300 and after the reboot it gets stuck at the lenovo logo. I could just flash it again but i don't have the rom on this pc, and it will take 10h to download it.

Is there any faster way to reset the dpi? I have TWRP installed. With android 5.0.1.

Edit:
Output of cat /system/build.prop | grep density is ro.sf.lcd_density=300
Tried editing build.prop back to 320 with Sublime Text. Now the command returns ro.sf.lcd_density=320 but it still gets stuck.

Note:

Parts of this answer didn't work for OP, but nevertheless, they worked in all of my test cases with different ROMs, hence, the answer  would certainly prove to be useful for some users.
Device should have a custom recovery installed.
adb should be setup in PC and USB debugging be enabled and authorized in the device.
Anything mentioned next to # anywhere in a line is a comment.

More or less, the changed DPI value would either be in settings.db, /data/property/persist.sys.lcd_density, /system/build.prop or in memory only. I've covered instructions for all of these cases and they should prove to be helpful when the device gets stuck at boot animation.

If it is an Xposed module which changed the DPI and caused boot issue, then try disabling the module or the framework, or, remove the former or both. See my answer here for more info on that.
If you used command-line to change DPI (am/wm), then when the device gets stuck at boot animation (past the OEM logo), execute

adb shell am display-density reset    # For Android 4.2.x
adb shell wm density reset            # For Android 4.3.x and above
adb reboot

In my Android 4.2.1, custom display density is saved as a value for the key display_density_forced in the table global of /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db. If you've used command-line (am) or an app used this key, follow these steps:

When booted into recovery, mount data partition, pull the said file into PC and use an sqlite editor to either remove the key or change the value to a better or default DPI. After that, push the file back to its place.

adb pull /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db LOCAL_PATH     # to pull the file into PC
adb push LOCAL_PATH/settings.db /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/    # to push the file into Android
adb reboot

Replace LOCAL_PATH with the directory under which settings.db is to be saved and is saved, respectively.

In Android 4.3 and above, custom display density can be found under /data/property/persist.sys.lcd_density or by executing adb shell "getprop | grep density". If you used command line (wm) or an app used that property to change DPI then follow these steps:

When booted into recovery, mount data partition and do

adb shell rm /data/property/persist.sys.lcd_density                      # this will cause Android to fall back to default DPI
adb shell busybox printf "DPI" > /data/property/persist.sys.lcd_density  # change DPI with your custom DPI value
adb reboot

Finally, the easiest but a dangerous and extreme approach you or an app would take is to change the DPI for the key ro.sf.lcd_density inside /system/build.prop. The DPI in the said file is considered the stock DPI of that ROM.

When booted into recovery with data partition mounted,

You can choose to override the stock DPI by doing

# replace DPI with your custom DPI
adb shell am display-density DPI   # For Android 4.2.x only
adb shell wm density DPI           # For Android 4.3.x and above only
adb reboot

If that doesn't work for some reason, do

adb shell sed -i 's/.*ro.sf.lcd_density.*/ro.sf.lcd_density=DPI/g' /system/build.prop      # sed is replacing the DPI with your custom DPI value
adb reboot

If none of the solutions work then your only option is to replace build.prop. If you've a clean backup of system partition or build.prop then use it to replace original file, else flash the ROM as OP did.

Note: I personally did not test, but it has come to my notice to not edit any file of Android using any native text editor of Microsoft Windows OS. Instead, use Notepad++ or altogether do all the editing using command line in recovery.


Kodak Android TV Not able to connect via ADB on WiFi Am trying to change the Homescreen of Kodak Android TV by follow the steps Completely change home screen on Android TV
The TV and Laptop are connected on same WiFi. Able to ping the TV's IP.
But when am trying to connect the TV via ADB connect, it's showing below error.
C:\Intel\ADB>adb connect 192.168.1.105
cannot connect to 192.168.1.105:5555: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. (10061)
Kodak TV Android version 9, Kernel version 4.9.125, Build PTT1.181130001 release keys.
In TV, I've already enabled developer options, USB Debugging.
Am using platform tools adb version (Not Android studio). Is there anyway to connect to TV without using USB Cable?

adb connect can only be executed for an device that has adb over wifi activated (usually this is reset on every reboot). The common way is to connect the device via USB and execute adb tcpip 5555. I am not sure about Android TV devices, if they have adb over Wifi activated by default. You should use a port scanner and check if there is any TCP port open on your Android TV box. May be adb is not running on port 5555 on your device.
Without that command adb will work only via USB. Therefore the only chance I see would be an app that can enable adb wireless mode, however if I remember correctly this requires root permissions if executed from within an app.


How AirWatch MDM works? Taking a look at the AirWatch's whitepapers, it seems like the product can enforce the restriction of some features such as WiFi.

Is there any information on how this restriction works? Does the Android installation need to be rooted?

Android has a concept called "device administrators" to allow for this kind of control. A device administrator is a special app given extra permissions that normal apps don't have, such as controlling what other apps are allowed to be installed, enforcing security policies, and remote-wiping the device.

You can learn more about how this works under-the-hood on the Android Developers website.

This feature is built into the Android permission model, so it doesn't need the phone to be rooted.


is Android DHCP server when tethering? I am on cyanogenmod 7 and wonder when I do usb tethering if Android is DHCP server?

Yes. Specifically, CyanogenMod uses Dnsmasq for its DHCP services. You can see it being invoked on this line in the TetherController.cpp file of their source code.


why is my ip showing up different than the ip in android phone menu? Why is my IP address showing up different than the IP in my phones menu? I went to an IP lookup site and it automatically detects your IP address but what came up is different than that of the IP in my phones menu.

Probably this is because the network you are on is using NAT. Because of the world shortage of IP addresses, most networks (mobile networks and Wi-Fi) don't issue you a globally routable IP address. They just give you an address that only works within that network. Network address translation (NAT) is a way of letting all those devices on the network talk to Internet, by using something like a proxy server that relays the connections. When you connect to a site outside the network, it sees the connection as coming from the NAT server (gateway), so it will show you the gateway's IP address.


Which gapps cant be downloaded through the play store/marketplace? I've seen that there are quite many different modular packages of the gapps http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2397942 and I was wondering if I can install the nano and add the other gapps one by one through the play store. Or if there is by chance some google apps that cant be retrieved with the play store?

Id like to start with a very minimum set of apps if possible (and not to install google now).

Yes, I'm pretty sure all of the other 'Google Apps' can be requested from the Play Store. I myself, also usually start the basis of a new ROM installation with the Nano-gapps package.

It removes a lot of the non-mandatory Google bloatware such as GoogleNow, PlayMusic (I use an alternative) and even Gmail (I have my Gmail emails come through the stock Email app to avoid duplication).


Where are extra keyword tags for photos stored? I have a Droid3 with Android version 2.3.4.  I tagged some photos using the Gallery application.  For the first keyword tag added to a photo, the tag is stored as XMP data in the JPEG file itself.  However, any additional tags are not stored as XMP data.  Adding the second tag doesn't even modify the file at all.

Where are the other tags stored?

Is there a way to get the photos along with the tags off my phone?

The tags are stored through the media's content provider. In layman's terms, the content-provider is a way of Android interacting with a database backing store.

The location can be found in this directory:

/data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases

Which is Sqlite3 database that has the following information stored in it, or rather, a combination of certain columns, not all of them, due to the way developers can optionally add the fields of the data to be stored. (If you're un-rooted you will not be able to list the database - if someone can clarify this, just checked on Europa GT-i5500 which is unrooted and issuing ls fails)

If you have a look at this document that details the columns used in the database for the Media (that is a generic columns that is a de-facto within the database), it is combined with this other information

(Now at this stage, your brain is probably turned to mush looking at it but the pertinent information is in the column names which is found in the database)

As for the 'Tag' field you're referring to, quite simply, Android does not store them, there are replacement apps that replaces the stock version of the Gallery with extras such as the 'tag' field you're referring to. The most it can hold was the latitude/longitude/display name of the image and a picasa id in which it may get uploaded to depending if picasa is enabled with your account.


Cannot install google play store on xiaomi Redmi2 Google play store stopped working so i tried to uninstall/reinstall it

The problem is that when i try to install it by the Google Installer app (i downloaded the apk of the google installer and transferred it by usb) the download automatically pauses as soon as it starts and remains paused forever... In the notifications, google installers says that its "waiting for network"

Im using a functional wi-fi connection (can use the internet in other apps without any issue).

I already tried to:
Unistall updates/force stop/clean data of Google Play Services (wich is already installed);
Removed my google account;
Added a fresh google account;
Restarted the device several times;
Try to install using other internet conections;

but i just cant make it work...

Does anybody have a clue on how to solve this issue?

The device is a xiaomi HM 2LTE-BR, Android version 4.4.4 KTU84P

Try to use Gapps, download and flash it through recovery mode


Re-downloading app always failing So, I uninstalled an app, but whenever I try to install that app again on Google Playstore it always ends with an "App not installed" error. The error happens only when the app finishes downloading to 100%. The app that I was trying to install was "World Conqueror 3". So far, I've deleted the cache of Google playstore and even tried uninstalling its updates then tried to download the app again, but it went to no avail. As far as I know, I've completely uninstalled the app before trying to install it again. Is there any fix for this?

Some apps leave remainders during uninstalls that aid in the restoration of state or level information upon re-installing a later version. Usually these remains are unimportant to a user who does not intend to re-install or to any other user where consistent state or level data is unimportant. These remains have a particular name in an app that can clean them up: "corpse files".

SDMaid is a disk cleaner that can locate, and delete, files related to corpses.
Install the app, and select CorpseFinder from the menu to locate, and, optionally delete them.

DISCLAIMER: I am not the developer, just a satisfied user.


Notification icon that looks like 4 patches stitch together (shaped like Windows icon) What is the circled icon that looks like 4 patches stitch together (shaped like Windows icon) circled in blue is for?

It is pretty easy to figure out app icon on notification panel , downloaded from Google Play Store

App notification icons usually are on the left half of notification panel
Google Play → My Apps and Games → Installed  brings up all apps on your phone. Just scroll through and match with icon on notification panel
Google Play → My Apps and Games → All  brings up all apps you downloaded , including on your earlier devices. This icon was familiar since I had used it on my earlier device and matching icons tells me it is AVG Antivirus. Thanks to Mathew and Vivek confirming same in comments


How to disable popup on Chrome for Android? I have once opened a website on Chrome for Android. By mistake, I allowed the popup.

Now I am not able to find how to disable this popup. As a result, every time I open the URL (which is quite often), the pop-up is opened which is a pain.

How to disable the popup for a website for which it was enabled earlier?

In Google Chrome for Android, go to Settings > Content settings > Website settings. Select the website in concern, and clear the data / cache for it.


Unable to update Galaxy S3 Android after flashing CWM I just unboxed a Samsung Galaxy S3 and immediately, before first boot, rooted it installing CWM Recovery and SuperSU. I found it to be not the best idea, becuase I forgot to launch the Samsung update to 4.1.

In fact, stock upgrade does reboot the phone into recovery but then CWM says the signature is invalid, etc. I should have done all this in inverse order (first stock upgrade, then root).

The question is: how can I upgrade this Galaxy to stock JB?

Idea: restoring the original recovery... but how?

This thread gives a nice step by step tutorial on how to re-flash to stock ICS, which will relash the stock recovery.

In a nutshell:

  How to restore Galaxy S3 to Android 4.0.4 ICS XXLAF2 stock firmware:

  Download the ICS stock firmware file from here
  or here.
  After the ROM file is downloaded successfully, you should extract its contents and you will get a single file with the ‘.tar.md5′
  extension. Save it on your computer’s desktop.
  Download Odin3 3.o4 for Galaxy S3 I9300 from here.
  Extract Odin.zip contents into a single folder and save it on your PC desktop.
  Now, power OFF your Galaxy S3 phone and after this you will need to boot into download mode.
  Boot into download mode by pressing ‘volume down’ + ‘home’ + ‘Power’ and release these buttons only after the display powers ON.
  Press Volume Up button to confirm that you want to load download mode.
  Now, go to your PC and launch the ‘Odin’ executable file. The one you’ve extracted at step 4.
  Next, connect your SGS3 I9300 to your computer and ODIN should display a message box saying ‘added!!’. If you don’t see this message
  then it means that the USB drivers aren’t installed on your PC and you
  should use the download links in the preparation guide, the ones
  listed above this tutorial guide. If Odin did find the Samsung USB
  Driver you’re free to move to the next step.
  In Odin click the button that is called ‘PDA’.
  Find the file you’ve extracted at step 2. It should have the ‘.tar.md5′ extension. Select it and it will be loaded into Odin. NOTE:
  Don’t change any of the Odin’s default settings and make sure that the
  ‘re-partition’ option isn’t selected.
  Press the START button in ODIN and the program will now begin to install the stock firmware files. When the installation is complete
  you will see a ‘PASS’ alert displayed by Odin and this means that
  everything went according to plan. Your phone will also restart and
  after the Samsung Logo appears you are free to unplug the device from
  your computer. NOTE: If Odin gets stuck you are required to disconnect
  the phone from your PC and remove its battery and then re-insert it
  and, now repeat all the entire tutorial once again as something went
  wrong and the firmware wasn’t flashed.
  That should do it, now your phone has been restored to factory stock firmware. Make sure to use the comments section in case you
  other questions.


How can I use a smartphone/tablet without being distracted by it in classrooms? I want to use an android phone without being distracted. I want to be able to block calling applications such as the calling feature in whatsapp, facebook messenger, viber calls, as well as google hangouts. There are some of my friends who directly call me when seeing my online.

Just simply remove the apps from your tablet or disable them if you cant delete them.

If you want them to stay on the tablet then go into the app settings and configure them respectively.

Also Do Not Disturb is your friend, I'd put it on a schedule and set it.