If I change SIM card, will I lose my memos? I have a Samsung Galaxy Exhilarate. I have accumulated a lot of memos through the Memo app that came with the phone. I am going to Canada and plan to replace my SIM card with a Canadian SIM card and temporarily buy service from a Canadian provider. Will I continue to have access to the data I've accumulated though the Memo app?

SIM card and application data are not related at all. You can change SIM and the only thing you will lose is contacts and messages stored in the SIM card – if you have them stored on SIM. See this for help Backup SIM message and contact without transfer to phone


Will charging a smartphone while it is in a case lead to damage? Will it harm my Razr to charge it while in an Otterbox case? I heard that would cause excessive heat which would damage the battery or shorten lifespan. True?

Heat and lithium ion batteries aren't the best of friends, so anything you can do to maintain a lower battery temperature will prolong your battery's life. While charging or under heavy load, you typically generate more heat than while resting, so in either of those cases, if your phone feels physically warm, it's probably a good idea to remove it from the case. However, if you're charging it somewhere that it's likely to be damaged by being knocked off a table, having something dropped on it, having a kid find and play with it, etc. then I'd be more inclined to keep a protective case on it. The life of your phone is much more important than the life of your battery, as a battery is much cheaper to replace (Note: I'm not familiar with how easy or difficult it is to replace the battery on a Razr, beyond knowing that it's not as simple as popping the back off and pulling the battery).

I'll add that while it's possible that a case (particularly the thicker ones like Otterbox produces) could lead to enough excessive heat that it damages the battery, I haven't heard of anything beyond a faulty battery actually damaging itself (think of the exploding battery stories). I would think that we'd hear a lot more about this if it were a significant issue.


Control of apps while driving. (Macros?) I want to create a few simple macros which I can activate while driving. At the moment, for safety I would need to park the car in order to use the GUI.

What I'm after (if it's possible) is to assign to a trigger (such as shaking the phone, which I can do while driving without taking my eyes off the road) to a series of taps or the clicking of a button etc.

Can one app control another in this way? And can macros be recorded which would for example, click on an item in a list, and then when a new screen pops up, click a GUI button in it?

Specifically, I listen to a number of di.fm radio station streams in the car and want to be able to change between them. DI.fm has a custom app for this, but their stations are also available as standards-compliant streams (mp3, aac) for 3rd party programs like WinAmp (which might have more accessible controls for switching between streams which could be managed by an additional 3rd party app)

Tasker can do that (and a lot more things), as long as the app in question supports it (a list of apps with Tasker support can e.g. be found here − never mind the German, if you're just after the list). As you've described, it supports "Shake gestures", and if your device has a camera button, you could utilize that as well. "Flip gestures" might also come in handy (flip the device to face down, then face up, etc.)

I know it's a paid app. But to try it out, visit the app's project site and get a 7-day trial (remember to export all your configuration and profiles before "day 7", then you can simply uninstall, re-install, and re-import your settings for another 7 days period − this hint comes from the dev himself, so it's nothing bad ;)

The app needs some time to get warm with it. But once you did, you don't want to miss it anymore :)


Fixing water damage in phone I dropped my phone into some water, immediately removed battery and soaked in rice (all I had at work). The phone dried, but the keyboard (G2) had some bad keys that have never corrected, and there seems to be some kind of residue on the screen, and the backlight is not uniform across the whole thing.

This all happened 2 months ago, but I would like to fix it.

Question is:

Do you think I could soak the phone in alcohol, and then dry it in an airtight container with Damp-Rid or silica gel or something similar to help fix the existing problems?

Some people seem to think this would cause more damage, I would love to hear the reasoning why though, as alcohol evaps clean...

How I remove consequences of water damage?

Disassemble device. You need to disconnect every power supply such as batteries.
Carefully look on every component.
Wash plastic details with cleaning agent likes 'Fairy', 'Mr.Muscul' and so on in water. Dry them.
Wash PCB in water as plastic details before. I use toothbrush. You need to take off any sign of corrosion. Then I wash PCB in isopropyl alcohol. After that I take air pump and blow compressed air on every electrical component on PCB. In such way I remove water. Then it is good idea to give ability PCB to become dry by natural conditions. If there are some troubles with traces on board, I repair them with special soldering equipment (beginning from common soldering iron and ending with BGA soldering station because ICs on PCB is soldered by such way)
Assemble device.

If you have troubles with your LCD, the only quality way is to replace it entirely. LCD is a set of number of transparent films. So it is very difficult to reassemble it without issues.


How configure the DHCP settings of WIFI Tethering (Hotspot) on Android? When connecting my PC to Android Wi-Fi hotspot, it assigned a 192.168.42.x address to my PC. I really need to change this as it conflicts with one of our work subnets - is this possible?

Unfortunately, there is no way to change the IP address range for the builtin tethering support, even in CyanogenMod. The Wi-Fi hotspot IP is hardcoded in android.net.wifi.WifiStateMachine.startTethering(); the USB tethering IP is hardcoded in com.android.server.connectivity.Tethering.
However, if your phone is rooted, you can try using third-party apps for tethering which have the option to change the IP address range. E.g., when the builtin USB tethering was broken in CyanogenMod alphas for Samsung Galaxy W, I used Wired Tether for Root Users, which has such option. For Wi-Fi tethering you can try the Wireless Tether for Root Users app from the same authors, which also has the option to change the IP address range.

Because Google Code was shut down, the above links no longer work. Some people exported the source code from those repositories to GitHub:

https://github.com/luftreich/android-wired-tether
https://github.com/mmorciegov/android-wifi-tether

However, there was no further development activity, and the apps probably no longer work on recent Android versions.
Just in case someone wants to try those obsolete apps, I have been able to find some APK files in the Google Code Archive:

wired_tether_1_4.apk
wifi_tether_v3_4-experimental1.apk


Locked Samsung tablet A My grandson has put a pattern lock on his tablet & has forgotten it. When I try to turn it off or sign in I keep being asked for the pattern I’m just locked out

You might keep trying patterns if you think that after a number of wrong patterns you could get right one but android will setup a timer to wait if wrong pattern is drawn and each time timer to wait will increase.
The next option would be a hard reset your device.
Please keep in mind

• Resetting your device will completely erase all user data on the device.
• After reset you may be asked to sign in with the previous Google account (as a security feature named FRP) that the device had previously signed in before Resetting. So, make sure you have sign in detials of that account.

How to hard reset Samsung tablet A ?

Switch off the device.

Press and hold the Volume Up key + Home key + Power key simultaneously.

Release keys when the Samsung Galaxy Tab screen displays.

Recovery menu would take a little time to appear(It would take couple of seconds to show you System Update so wait.)

Choose wipe data/factory reset by pressing volume - button.

Press power to confirm factory reset(choose delete all user data.)

It would take couple time to reset it, after process is done the option may appear to 'Reboot' device or it may be Rebooted to system automatically.

Now you would be asked to set up your tablet and you all screen lock is disabled.


How to change Android device's default search engine? I am trying to play with Android...To change the default search engine (now is Google, or add more selectables) when I press the "search" button on the device.

Is there anyway to do it? I have HTC Hero and HTC Desire, already rooted

Not currently possible. It's not locked in to Google, but determined by manufacturer and/or carrier. (For instance, there was a bit of a tempest in a teapot when a new phone was released with Bing as the search engine.)

I do not know if this is something that can be got around by rooting.


What's the difference between a service and a broadcast receiver? I keep hearing about services and broadcast receivers. What's the difference between them, and how do they affect the operation of my Android phone from my point of view?

Android applications have three kinds of components. In general, users don't need to know about them: they're a way for app authors to program particular behaviours into their apps. But if you're watching your apps' behaviour closely such as with a task manager, or if you are automating things with an app like Tasker, it's helpful to understand how they fit together within the system.

An activity is the most familiar type of component: it's a window you can see: either full-screen or dialog-sized. An activity only runs while it's displayed on the screen. Once you leave the activity, Android will keep that app in memory ready to be started again, but the activity won't run, meaning it won't use battery or network. An app starts an activity using an intent. The intent can specify explicitly which activity to start, or it can specify an action to perform (such as opening a particular file). If more than one activity can "handle" the intent, you see the dialog asking you to choose one.

A service is another application component. Once another component (maybe an activity, or another service) has started a service, it runs in the background until it stops itself. This means that a service could be keeping your phone awake (using a wake lock), running down the battery, or using lots of network data, without anything showing on the screen.

Apps can use services to do long-running processes in the background, such as downloading files from a server, or checking for email, or checking your location. Although services don't show up or interact with you directly, they still show up in the "Running apps" list. From the Settings app, choose Apps or Applications manager, and then Running. You can stop a service that way, but it's not usually necessary. Because services aren't directly visible, Android considers them less important than activities, so they'll be the first to be killed when your phone needs more memory.

Broadcast receivers are the third kind of component. Like services, they only exist in the background and don't interact with you directly. But unlike services, they can't stay running or perform long tasks: they exist to respond to events. And unlike activities and services, more than one broadcast receiver can be started in one go.

A component broadcasts an intent, possibly to one app, but more often without specifying a particular app. In this case, the intent usually represents an event that's happened, such as the battery running low. The system finds all the broadcast receivers that have registered an interest (using an intent filter), and runs each in turn. Each broadcast receiver can react straight away, for example by creating a notification, or it can start a service or an activity to take further action. As soon as the broadcast receiver has handled the event, it is stopped and will not run again until another similar event is broadcast.

An example of all three components working together is when you download an app from Google Play. First, the Google Play activity provides the visual interface for you to choose the content to download. The list of apps might be one activity; clicking the "install" button starts another activity to show the confirmation or payment dialog. When you confirm, the dialog activity starts a service. The service will continue to download the content even when the activity has finished and is no longer running.

But perhaps the phone loses Internet connection while the new app is downloading. If this happens, Google Play's download service will register a broadcast receiver, with an intent filter to say that it's interested in network connectivity changes, and then the service will stop itself. When the phone connects to the Internet, the system broadcasts an event. Android will start the broadcast receiver the Google Play service registered, along with any other broadcast receiver waiting for that event. In this case, the broadcast receiver will start the download service again. The service will create notifications as the download proceeds, and when it finishes, it will send its own broadcast to inform other apps that the new package has been installed, and will then stop itself. In turn, this will start broadcast receivers from other apps, to update the list of apps in the launcher, etc.

In summary:-

An activity represents a window on the screen; a service performs a possibly long-running background task; a broadcast receiver runs for a short time, to handle an event.
All three are started using intents, but using a different mechanism. The launching app has to state explicitly which type of component to start (by calling a different method in each case).
When an app starts an activity using an intent, it only starts one activity (possibly showing the "Complete action using..." dialog to let you choose which), and the same goes for services, but broadcasting an intent may start several broadcast receivers, possibly from different apps.
As a user, you interact with activities directly; you don't interact with services, but they can slow down the phone and consume resources; you don't interact with broadcast receivers, and because they're short-lived you don't need to worry about managing them.


Can Android app repair battery's bad cell? I know this was covered in a different post, but I've been wondering how this app can actually make a difference in battery life. I've tried many of these, and "Repair Battery Life" is the only one that seemed to help. I understand that, like everything Android/Linux, the battery is a file, and that file can be manipulated to show whatever percent (a bad ROM/Kernel combination once showed -%1078663).

I've got a Galaxy S3 (i747). There are times when my phone will sit charging for an hour or so, yet only have 10%-15% charged. When that happens, I run this app, and it manages to find 2 or 3 "bad cells". After fixing them, my phone then charges much quicker, and battery life is back to normal. I was under the impression the only thing you can do to impact the apparent battery life was recalibration, which I'm not convinced matters. It's also worth mentioning that I've installed this app several times after wiping my phone and flashing a ROM, and it had upgraded itself to the Pro version with absolutely no input from me. The first time I ever used this, it upgraded itself. Next couple times I reinstalled it, it didn't upgrade. This past time, it did - again, for no reason. So, I'm really confused, here, because I don't understand why the app randomly upgrades, and I still can't figure out how this app "fixes" my battery.

It's also worth mentioning that every so often, it "finds" new "bad cells" randomly. And every time I have it "fix" the problems, well, it actually seems to fix the battery issue. Doesn't make sense to me.

However, my phone has been through some semi-traumatic events in it's life (well, in my possession). It has fallen out of my pocket while crossing a road, and after I realized it was gone, I retrieved it. Luckily, it had been face-down. It had been run over a few times, and it cost me my rear camera, which still worked for a few months but finally crapped out entirely (any camera app crashes almost immediately). It has also been victim to an unexpected dip in a pitcher of water for about 10 seconds, while playing music and downloading, so it was also running a bit hot. After letting it dry overnight on the air vent, it worked. Mostly. About 90% of my touches didn't register, and so I figured I'd have to either replace the digitizer or just get a new phone. Later that day, it finally started working again, perfectly. I did read, however, that people who had the same luck with their screens were complaining that after about 6 months or so, their phone would behave erratically and eventually die completely.

So, is this app actually making good on its claim, or does it seem like my phone is just suffering a weird, periodic combination of events that only allow "Repair Battery Life" to right them? I've seen this app report "bad cells" on a brand new Note 5, and read that someone had "bad cells" on an emulated copy of Android. I mean, right there should be the obvious BS-flag, but still. It does seem to do something beneficial in my experience.

It's a scam. Android app cannot access physical battery directly.
The battery file is just an interface for Android with value provided by the battery's sensor. Again, a sensor only reads data; it cannot write/modify anything.
An article on Android Police explained this very well,

Battery not working correctly? Well, just defrag it! It's all so obvious now. No, but really, there's an app in the Play Store that claims to repair your battery and basically looks like a hard drive defrag program.
So here's what the app supposedly does—Battery Life Repair analyzes your battery "data cells" to see which ones are under-performing (okay, whatever). Then it magically fixes them and improves your battery life by unrealistically huge margins.
Anyone who knows much about technology will immediately be suspicious of this app's claims. If it were possible to wave a magic wand over your battery and fix the "data cells," you can be sure the engineers who made your phone would have built that into the software.
The fact that so many real people (and probably some bots) are praising this app is a tribute to confirmation bias and the power of the placebo effect. Consider this a cautionary tale.

(Emphasized added)
Also, looking on similar app's permission,

modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
read the contents of your USB storage
view Wi-Fi connections
full network access
view network connections

It's doubtful for this app to really be able to access the battery, compared to other reputable optimization apps, like Greenify (this app doesn't access the battery directly either, but it can kill apps that may drain much power, improving the battery life in a sense).
Disclaimer: I don't have any affiliation with the offending app nor Greenify


Pop ups in Chrome trying to have me install an application, how to find the root cause? Recently I have seen a lot of these:

This is not the typical "fake pop up" trying to have you tap on it and redirect you to the Play Store. This pop up actually replaces the tab I'm browsing, and is trying to have me go to the play Store to install one specific app.

Everything in this phone comes from the official Play Store, and the phone is not rooted.

For SEO sake, here are the domains used in this scam:

eu.sustainable-49.xyz
samsung.giveaway-deal-com.xyz
us.east-85.xyz

Here are a few screenshots:

The text basically says that my phone is infected and I NEED to install those applications, or that I have won something and I need to something (I didn't follow in that case..)

In one case, this leads to this application, which contains this comment (from yesterday):

Hi, thanks for your feedback. We’ve found that some ads/redirected pages may be malicious promotion from unknown channels, slandering us on purpose. Would you please be so kind that next time you come across the pop-up ads, please send us the link/spam/redirect pages or a screenshots to our Email: cleaner@duapps.com. Thanks a million.

I'm not sure whether this is a local attack on my smartphone, ie an app which would somehow mess with Chrome, inject some code in the pages, or an attack on those websites, or a compromised ad network. It's a bit hard to tell exactly when this is happening.

Could you suggest a method to capture this behavior next time it happens so that I can understand why this is happening ?

Here is one example:

1/ click on Google search result
2/ now I am on some domain on forum-actif.net
3/ redirect to android.earix.com
4/ some data containing this url: go.onclasrv.com/afu.php?...
5/ redirect to onclickads.net
6/ us.east-85.xyz -> virus notifications leading to some Play Store App

Another example

1/ m.wikipedia.org
2/ orange.com-getprize.net

1/ bfmtv.com (French news TV website)
2/ redirect to eu.sustainable-49.xyz/fr002rd/redirect.html?model=Nexus%205&brand=Google&browser=Chrome

This leads me to think that the attack could be from a malicious app on my smartphone, because there is no way this is happening because of a compromised ad network on wikipedia.org.

Cause of your problem is probably:

DNS injection in your network (check other devices, try setting DNS to 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4)
Man in the middle attack in your network (check other devices, try enabling Data saving in Chrome settings)
weird unknown Chrome data corruption - try going to Settings->Applications->Chrome->Clear data & Clear cache
Google Ads script injection - try disabling ad personalization as described in provided link
virus - use Malwarebytes Antimalware for Android

You can try:

using other browser
entering sites with HTTPS - try for example typing https://new.google.com/

EDIT: How to capture redirections using Chrome Developer Tools?

download Google USB Drivers & ADB on your PC
plug your phone in
run adb devices, it should say your device is unauthorized
on your phone, you will get a window, select "Always trust this computer" and Yes
open Chrome on both your PC and phone
on PC, open Developer Tools on any page (f.e. about:blank)
select (hamburger)->More tools->Inspect devices...
make sure USB is checked
your device should appear on the left
run https://www.google.com on your phone (or any other working site)
on PC click on your device and select Inspect on your working tab
go to Network tab and select Preserve log checkbox
select Doc tab
navigate on your phone and see every HTML document your browser loads (it sometimes may go to Other tab)


Is there an equivalent to iOS "Reset Home Screen Layout" on the Nexus 7? On iOS, "Reset Home Screen Layout" auto-arranges your application icons.  Is there an equivalent for this on my Nexus 7 Android tablet?  Right now my icons across several screens.

Go to Settings->Apps, swipe to All, scroll and press Launcher, then select Clear data.

Your home screen is as good as new :)

UPDATE: As suggested by Chahk below, a good way to avoid cluttering your homescreen is by going to the Play Store then going to Menu -> Settings and un-checking the Auto-add widgets option.


How do I prevent unauthorized accession of my data when my phone is connected to the internet ? I have an Android smartphone and my data connection is always enabled. I often use browsers like Opera Mini and UC Web as they are faster than the inbuilt browser apps. I often use Mobile banking services for several purposes. I have heard that the  hackers can steal data from Android smartphones without my permission when my phone is connected to the internet.

How do I get to know that my private data is being accessed by others without my authorization?
Other than installing an Antivirus app, is there a way to prevent my smartphone from allowing access to my data? Like, is there any default inbuilt security option in Android smartphones as of such?

Yes, just like for any Linux PC, you can install a Firewall to block wifi/mobile internet accesses and XPosed to keep track of all access attempts made to you device from programs. But unlike what Google and Samsung want to make you believe. Rooting your device is essential to allow you to have far better control of leaked data and unauthorized access. I highly recommend using apps like:

AFWall+ (The firewall to control internet access.)
XPrivacy
(Uses the
XPosed
framework for fine-grained access control.)
App Quarantine ROOT/FREEZE (Temporarily disable unruly apps.)

These are just a few fundamental steps to take to better protect your privacy, to mention a few. In addition you should also know that Google AOS/API often circumvents iptables based firewall settings on many devices. This is especially true for mobile carrier provided phones. See for example, Android betrays tethering data.

Finally, Anti Virus, is almost useless in the mobile device world, as there are so many other attack vectors that can be far more easily exploited, than what's detectable by signature based heuristics.


Is there a way to block incoming calls from specific phone numbers? I want to block a number from calling me. I don't even want to know if the person even tried to call me. Don't want any notifications. The person on the other end should not get a ringing sound when he try to call me. He shouldn't even know that I've blocked him. If possible I would like to block text messages from that number as well.

The specifications of my device can be seen from the attached image:

Is there a way to do it?

You can access Xiaomi call blocker that way:

Go to Settings > System Apps > Call Settings > Blocklist.
Enable Blocklist by sliding the toggle
To block any number you want, Click on the Blocked numbers > Click on Add & choose from the contacts or enter the contact you wanted to block manually.


Where does BlueStacks store my app's data (e.g. save game files)? Where does BlueStacks install my apps and where does it store the data (e.g. saved game files) for those apps?

In Bluestacks 3 and 3N, apps are installed in various Android folders, such as:

/data/app (stores APKs)
/data/app-lib (libraries)
/data/data
and more.

/data/data also contains your app's data (such as save files, whether the app stores game progress locally). You need to root the emulator to access those folders.

Userdata\SharedFolder only contains files that you shared between Windows and the emulator.


How to disable multiwindow icon I have an old Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet (GT-N8010), Jelly Bean 4.1.2.

Since the last firmware update, a multiwindow icon appeared in the lower right corner.  Its purpose is to switch the current app from fullscreen to windowed.  I don't use this feature, and the icon is right over the virtual keyboard -- very annoying.  How can I disable it?

Thanks in advance.

For the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the MultiWindow function is part of the Display Settings. Most likely similar in your device.

Settings > Display > General > Multi window

Disable by unchecking the feature.


Laugh detection in Android I'm trying to detect laughs in Android. Something like a score if your laugh is louder or something similar.

Is it possible to detect laughs maybe through microphone, or facial detection through cameras? Any libraries/APIs or ideas how to achieve this?

Sources of facial detection, on a phone that detects face rests at:

/system/vendor/pittpatt/models
/system/vendor/pittpatt/recognition

I'm using CM13 for my case. They are located there. Maybe facial detection might do that


Facebook for HTC Sense not working Somehow, Facebook for HTC Sense has disappear from my HTC Vivid.

In /system/app I've found HtcFacebook which is  com.htc.socialnetwork.facebook. When I try to install it errors with Application not installed.

I've tried to find this package on the Internet to install it, but could't find it anywhere.

How can I get the HTC Facebook back onto the device?

After many failed tries to reactivate the HTC Facebook, I've decided to reset to factory defaults. This fixed the issue. Now Facebook for HTC is working fine.


How to automatically lock the screen or something when the Wi-fi disconnects? I think this would be useful if you're entering data into a form, but you don't want to accidentally press "submit" when there's no Internet, causing you to have to re-enter everything.

Also, it would be nice for macros. Say you have a macro doing something on an app that requires Internet. When the Internet fails, the macro goes haywire by clicking on random stuff it's not supposed to click. It would be best to lock the screen in that case.

I have Android 4.4.2. I do not have cellular data on this phone.

Using Macrodroid:

From the drawer, select variable and create a global variable of type boolean. Set it to false and save.
Create a macro. On the Triggers tab, on the Connectivity section, select Wifi Enable.
On the Actions tab, on the Conditions/Loops section, select Repeat actions, then "While condition repeat". On the Condition, go to the Connectivity section, select Wifi State, then Wifi is connected to, finally select Any network.
On the Actions tab, on the Macrodroid specific section, select "Wait Before Next Action", set a time (I set it at 1mn).
On the Actions tab, on the Connectivity section, select Connectivity check. Enter a website that the macro will keep checking if there is an internet connection to it or not. Set the timeout. Click the + and add a variable.
On the Actions tab, on the Conditions/Loops section, select "If clause", under Macrodroid specific, select Macrodroid variable and choose the variable created on the previous section. Set its value to False.
On the Actions tab, on the Screen section, select "Screen On/Off", choose Screen Off.
On the Constraints tab, under the Screen and Speaker section, select "Screen On/Off", choose Screen On.
Give the macro a name and save it.

The macro will look like the image below. Click the up and down arrows on the Actions section, to be able to move the actions up or down.
Click the 3-dot on the top right and select Test Macro.

Explanation: When the macro starts, it checks if Wifi enabled and the device is connected to any network. It waits for a certain time before checking if there is a connection to the website enter in step 5. If after the set timeout in step 5 there is no connection, the screen will be switched off.

The delay in step 4 also serves as a fail-safe mechanism when you switch the screen on again to allow for example to disable the macro.

Note: To see the Conditions/Loops section under the Actions tab, the macro must be saved. Then when opened for an edit, the section will be visible.


Get media playback time using ADB I working with C# script to control android device media. I have been able to check and set volume as well as send commands to pause, play, skip, etc for media apps like Spotify or YouTube

One thing I have not been able to figure out however is how to get the current time of the media. For example, if Spotify is playing a two-minute song, and it is currently at 1:16, I'd like to get that information. So far, I have not been able to find documentation on how to do this.

Is there a way to get the current time of media that's playing. In addition, is there a way to get the total time of the media?

Thank you

Issue this command:

adb shell dumpsys media_session | grep "state=PlaybackState"      # assuming that only one media player or alike app is playing audio, such as Spotify.

Demo output:

state=PlaybackState {state=2, position=44912, buffered position=0, speed=0.0, updated=14800717, actions=142132, custom actions=[], active item id=-1, error=null}

The highlighted position shows the position of the playing media in milliseconds.

Issues:

1) The position does not reflect real-time media position, and it gets updated in these conditions (based on my observation) only:

when the media is played from fresh or from paused state
when the media is paused
when the media's position is changed manually by the user (such as, by dragging the position slider)

2) There is no maximum media position available, so this is all you get.

You can try briefly pausing and then playing the media using adb command to update  the position to reflect that in the script. It would be disruptive, but would work.

Tip: you can get meta information, mostly the description, of the playing media from the output of adb shell dumpsys media_session too.


How to enable the "Allow Peeking" option on Lollipop? I have recently upgraded my Samsung Galaxy N3 (SM-N9005) to Android 5.0 in the hope that I would get the heads-up style notifications. According to online resources I have found, this option is called "Allow Peeking" and is found under the notification options for each app.

However, when I go into the notifications for the apps I have installed, none of them have the "Allow Peeking" option.

Is there something else I need to enable? If not, how do I get the "Allow Peeking" to appear?

"Heads-Up" Notification is introduced in Android Lollipop. However you can only disable the feature by updating to Marshmallow. Marshmallow has the option for disabling Heads-Up notification so-called "Allow Peeking".

Below is the screenshots for Lollipop and Marshmallow.

App notifications on Lollipop

App notifications on Marshmallow


How can I use Google Play without storing any Google account information on my phone? I am using HTC Wildfire handset, but I think following question applies to all Android-based handsets.

My Google Account has been added under

Settings
-> Accounts & Sync
--> Google (under Manage Accounts)

When I click on "Google", I get following options

Sync Contacts
Sync GMail
Sync Calendar

In Accounts & Sync option, I have turned off (unchecked following options)

Background Data
Auto sync

NOTE: I have turned off Background Data, and Auto Sync before adding my Google Account.

I want to get apps and games from Market, but I don't want to sync any of my Google Account data with my phone i.e., there should not be any traces of my Google Account in my phone.

How can I do it?

Beyond what you've already done, you can't.  The Market requires you to have your Google Account added to your phone, and this naturally stores data such as your email address even if you don't sync email.


prestigion tablet : lost my pattern and google account and dont have recovery menu i lost my android pattern and my google account password.
my tablet dont have any recovery menu and download mode ...
i hold down Vol Up + Power OR Vol Down + Power OR Home + power and ...
no resone to go in recovery menu ...
no fastboot and no adb is active ...
how i factory reset my table without adb,recovery Mode and fastboot ?
is any way to auto update from update.zip from sd card in boot time like some HTC phone ?

tablet model : Prestigio PMP5197D Ultra

help me

You can flash your tablet to be able to use it again.
Head on this site to learn how to: flash it


How do I configure ADB for the Huawei U8650 on Windows? I have an Huawei U8650 smartphone. And, as I understand, I need system device drivers for it to be able to develop and debug applications for it using Windows.

On Linux this is as simple as just typing an identifier number in a few places and I'm able to run and debug applications. However I can't seem to find the appropriate drivers to be able to do this on Windows.

Does anyone have any idea how to set it up on a Windows machine?

As pendant to the UDEV setup you describe in your question, Windows needs a special driver. Until recently that meant the manufacturer had to provide one matching to the device; but luckily we now have the Universal Android USB Driver, which should work for most devices. If that doesn't work for yours, you need to check with Huawei for a specific driver.


Droid Explorer Setup problem : cannot start service exception When I try to add the SDK path I always end up with an error message. I have checked that the path is correct, added the platforms required, etc.
This is the message:

System.InvalidOperationException: Cannot start service DroidExplorerService on computer '.'. --->
System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion

 --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

at System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController.Start(String[] args)
at System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController.Start()
at DroidExplorer.Bootstrapper.Panels.StartServicePanel.StartService()

Does any one have any ideas?

Disclaimer: I am the developer of Droid Explorer.

This message is typically not about the SDK. This usually happens when you try to update your version of Droid Explorer. It happens because Droid Explorer first removes the Service and then creates the new service. Sometimes, Windows does not completely let go of the original service and the installer is unable to start the new service.

Usually a reboot will allow the new service to start successfully. If you got that far, you don't even need to reinstall after reboot, just a reboot will suffice.


Decrypting wpa_supplicant.conf on Samsung Galaxy mobiles When I do cat on wpa_supplicant.conf file on Samsung mobiles, I see that the passwords are encrypted. But when I open the same file on LG mobiles, I can see the passwords in plain text.

This is what I see on my Galaxy S5. The information below is for my network which has a WPA password 77807780 (psk is the encrypted passkey):

network={
        ssid=""
        psk=fce6c4f64304b00c5783199bbd2b1f91
        key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
        priority=10
        frequency=2462
        autojoin=1
        usable_internet=0
        skip_internet_check=0
}

Is this a feature on Samsung mobiles? What kind of encryption is used to encrypt the password and how to decrypt them?

Use wpa_supplicant's wpa_passphrase tool to create your own "real" psk. Actually, the plain-text psk (double-quoted) must be processed at every startup and config reload to generate the real, 64 hex-digit (256-bit) psk. So, using wpa_passphrase to manually create the fully-processed PSK actually optimizes wpa_supplicant's startup & config reload time. :)

About decrypting them... wpa_supplicant uses an AES-based cipher, which is well respected. I think TKIP is deprecated and possibly exploitable.


Accidentally deleted Google Play Services, now no Google supported app works I accidentally deleted Google Play Services after rooting my phone . Now I'm not able to open any Google supported apps , can't open my Gmail. It says:

  Google play service which some of your applications rely on, is not supported by your device. Please contact your manufacturer for assistance.

I downloaded Google Play Services from XDA also but it's not working.

Can anybody tell me how can I can correct this problem? I'm using Lenovo A3000 tablet.

First, you can install Google Play Services APK, which you can find in the xda-forums. This should normally work.

If nothing else works, you can do a Factory Reset. Unfortunatly, this will delete your Data on the Phone, so i recommend making a Backup.

EDIT:

Go to https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.gms with your PC, log in, click install, and choose your phone.


My voicemail number transfers to 000 My voicemail number #101 when dialled, dials the emergency services #000 how do I stop it happening?

Go to settings>call>voicemail. Change the number to the one your carrier requires. Check online to find out what number that would be. I'm not sure if dialing #101 will do the trick, but after changing the above settings, long press on number 1 in the dialing app and that should bring up your voicemail


SD card cannot be mounted as /storage/sdcard0 My problem is, that my Vodafone Smart Prime 6 (VF-895N) with Android 5.0.2 mounts external sd-cards as /storage/sdcard1.
On other devices with "settings" - "storage" there is a menu to change the default write disk.
This menu is missing on this device.
Is there any possibility to mount my external sd-card as /storage/sdcard0 and the internal storage as /storage/sdcard1 without rooting?

The internal storage is present as 'storage/emulated/0'. There is no way you can "load" the internal storage as 'storage/sdcard0' or anything else. Internal storage is always present as 'storage/emulated/0', you cannot change it.

Even with rooting I think you cannot reload the internal storage as sd card. Default storage location cannot be set like that. If your phone doesn't have that option, it's a pity and I believe there are apps which allow you to do so (caution: I haven't checked any).


What is the other number in the alarm notification? I set up an alarm (using Google Now) for 55 minutes, so the end time was around 20:13 (and therefore the start time was 19:18

When I looked at the alarm notification, there's another little number in the right hand side which said 19:43 (so 30 minutes before the time the alarm was set for)

It would make sense if it was the start time (19:18) but by itself it makes no sense.

Edit: I just tried it again and the same thing happened. I set the alarm for 55 minutes at 20:36, and it says 20:36 on the right hand side of the notification, then when there's 30 minutes left, it changed to 21:01 (which is 30 minutes before the end time)

The time on the right-side of the notification is - just like all other notifications - the time when the notification appears.

The alarm notification is a new feature from Android stock Clock app on KitKat.

  Google's latest Clock app ... now notifies you two hours ahead of when your alarm is set to go off ...

The clock app will display the first notification 2 hours before, then the second one 30 minutes before the alarm goes off.

By looking how Android works on the notification, when the notification is displayed using same ID and it's not dismissed yet, the notification will be updated instead and the "time when notification appears" will also be updated (overwritten) to the new (current) time.

In your case, when you set the alarm for 55 minutes, the notification appeared since it's already less than 2 hours. Assuming you didn't dismiss the notification, when the alarm was less than 30 minutes, the app updated the notification. Since there was no info changed (alarm's time & name are still the same), you wouldn't even notice that the notification was updated, except the "time when the notification appears".


CyanogenMod 7 - can I hide the status bar on the lockscreen? I am using a Google Nexus One and have just flashed CyanogenMod 7 onto it.  I noticed that the lockscreen shows the status bar on it, as shown on the image with this post.

Is there a way to hide the status bar on the lockscreen?  You can see what I am trying to achieve in this case, which is a lockscreen that only displays the wallpaper (CyanogenMod gesture to unlock).  I have been able to hide the sliders as well through the CyanogenMod settings but could not find a way to hide the status bar when the lockscreen is active.

(Click image to enlarge)

Switch to custom lockscreens. Many provide a way to hide status bar. I use WidgetLocker Lockscreen which supports this feature.


hangouts not syncing from PC to Nexus 6 I have the hangouts extension installed in chrome on windows 7 and windows 8 PCs and a stock Nexus 6 which has hangouts installed as a system app. When I send and receive messages on my PCs my phone doesn't update with those messages sent on the PC. I also have a Nexus 7 on lollipop and it syncs messages just fine. My LG G3 also syncs messages. I have tried wiping cache/data in the app, signing in and out of chrome and the google account on my phone, factory resetting the phone, etc.

Anyone have any ideas? I tend to switch between my phone and PC all the time and would live to be able to have synced conversations.

It looks like GCM Push Notifications don't work with IPv6. I disabled IPv6 entirely in my router and now everything is fine. Though IPv6 was enabled for the past two years and I didn't have any kind of issue. Let's hope a Play Services update fixes it.

Here is where I got the answer. On rooted devices, you can install [ROOT] Disable IPv6 to fix the problem.


Can a Custom ROM affect the performance of my battery? My Device is Samsung Galaxy S4 I9500. A week ago, I flashed a custom ROM on my Device, now my phone's battery drains out even if the phone is on stand by. Previously, it degraded but not so drastically. Sometimes the battery percentage increases automatically.

Is it a battery problem or Is it due to the Custom ROM?

It's the custom ROM but it may not be the ROM itself. Most of the times it is the kernel that comes with the ROM that is most influential. But, it is possible that the ROM has a feature or two that is draining the battery.

Also, since it is an S4 I have to ask, is it a Samsung ROM or AOSP? Because AOSP is so much different that usually because it is not the most compatible with the hardware it will take a toll on the battery. Samsung knows how to customize it's software the best so generally Samsung ROMs (doesn't have to be stock) are better than AOSP ROMs on Samsung phones or any OEM phones for that matter.


Blue screen? Is mt phone toast? I was going to go charge my phone because it died so when I did I checked the percentage and went to social media and it gave me this blue screen and it turned itself off. Is my phone toast?

Probably not, it most likely happened with a Samsung device, but it's also possible with other devices. Just let it charge for a bit and try to turn it back on


Connectify not working properly? I use connectify to create a wifi hotspot which I use in my Android device. But a problem occurs that the internet access stops after a minute or so in my Android device. I have to restart connectify so that it works fine again, but again I face the same problem in a minute or so.

Its not a problem with my device as it runs properly on other wifi networks.

Any solution to this??

Use a portable small utility mHotspot instead of Connectify. Connectify does have such type of issues. So, mHotspot is my all time favorite when it comes to creating virtual hotspot.

If you're unable to connect for the first time (which shouldn't be case as you were able to connect with AP of Connectify), reload the Wi-Fi driver by dialing *#*#526#*#* or install the "wifi-fixer" app from Play Store.


How can I use "The Old Reader" on Android? The Old Reader is so far my best replacement for Google Reader.

Is there a way to use it on Android, for example an RSS app that syncs with it?

The Old Reader's website has a list of apps that are known to use its API. The only Android app currently listed is: Listener Launcher which is an alternative Launcher, so probably does more than you want.

However a quick search of the Play Store for "the old reader" comes up with: The Old Reader (unofficial) app, and the gReader (free version) (paid version) app both of which claim to sync with The Old Reader, amongst other services.


How do I rename entries in Google Authenticator? I have about a half-dozen entries for one site. So the name usually only displays the last two letters of the account name. It's hard to figure out which account the entry is for.
How do I rename entries in Google Authenticator?

Touch the entry you want to rename for one/two second until a an accordion appears.
On the top of the screen, you'll see edit icon (pencil) allowing you to rename the entry.
Click on the pencil and rename the entry.


Firefox - long img titles cut off This is one thing (in fact, the only thing that comes to mind) about Firefox on Android that bugs me. If an image (or "img") has a title, I can long-press the image to get image options to pop up, but it also shows me the title-text. If the title text is too long though, it gets cut off with an ellipsis.

For example: xkcd.com/1987 <-- on my Firefox, the title text shows as: "The Python environmental protection agency wants to seal it in a cement chamber, with pictorial messages t..."

xkcd is a long-running comic, which (since it began) has continuations to its jokes (or sometimes just related bits of information) in the comic title-text. Frequently, these are too long for me to read in Firefox, so when this happens I have to swap to another browser just so I can view the full title-text. In Firefox, I've also tried double-tapping or long-pressing on the cut-off title-text, in case it was just hidden but is able to be expanded, but I've had no luck on that front.

Is this a bug in Firefox? If so, is there any word yet on when it will be fixed/has this been reported yet? And if it's not considered a bug, are there any Firefox extensions out there which ensure that the full title-text is shown?

Asking this here on the Android stack-exchange, as I don't have this problem with Firefox on my computer.

What you are seeing is the default behavior of Firefox. Rather than calling it a bug, I'd say that it is how Firefox for Android is designed. That said, I see that this is pretty inconvenient and you should probably open a bug report at bugzilla.
Meanwhile, you can use this handy addon (extension) for Firefox for Android which allows you to view the complete tooltip menu. It goes by the name Mobile Tooltip. You can also use this link to see it at Mozilla Addons (AMO). In your case, you can use it to read the full title tag of the image.


SMS shows up in alert box. Why? I have recently been using a particular 2-step authentication system and there is something odd about the SMS messages I am sent which I have never seen before.

When I receive and SMS from the system, there is no notification, and the message does not immediately show up in my hangouts inbox. Instead, the SMS pops up as an alert dialog over whatever I am doing with the phone at the time with the option to "Cancel" or "Save". If I tap "Save", the message is then stored in hangouts and I get a notification.

What I would like to know is why this happens. Is there a (rarely used) part of the SMS specification which provides this functionality? Is this 2-step auth system making use of that? Perhaps setting a flag in the header or something?

EDIT

I am running Android 5.0.2 and the default SMS app is Google Hangouts. I'd like to be clear though that this only occurs when receiving texts for this particular 2-step authentication process. All other messages are received as normal.

Is this 2-step auth system making use of that?

Could be, in order to be sure, we need details on the application. Open the config tool, check the application that is creating the confirmation box, and check if that app has access to read your SMS.

  Perhaps setting a flag in the header or something?

There are no "headers" in the sms PDU. They can either filter by "sending number" (the number from the SMS sender), or by filtering words inside the message. Check if the received message always starts with something such as "X company says..."

  What is going on?

Again, this is speculation, since we saw no details on your problem. But...

It is possible to intercept SMS messages, read then, check for a condition, then use an ordered broadcast to open an application, and given a specific condition, become the default sms app, stop the continuation of sms delivery intents, and erase the message, then stop being the default app, or just let it fly onwards...


How to make Line save pictures & videos to the SD card? Line is the application taking up most place of my internal storage ; this is because it saves many profile pictures and chat videos, to the internal storage.
How can I tell it to save them to my SD card instead?

Head into the Settings menu.
Scroll down to find “Apps“. Tap on it.
Now, you will observe the list of applications installed on your device.
Tap on any of the apps that you want to store on SD Card. ...
Scroll down, and you will find “Move to SD Card” option.


Android x86 Oreo (8.1) stuck at _ (underscore) after GRUB I'm trying to install Android x86 on virtual machine in VirtualBox 6.0.

The image I've downloaded is android-x86_64-8.1-r2.iso from android-x86.org

The installation process I've followed is similar to this video

But when I'm reaching GRUB boot option selection and choose Android-x86 8.1-r2, it stops working and hangs on underscore before "Android" logo, which never shows to me.

I've tried this and this fix, but it didn't work. Also, there's a post regarding similar issue on Android Enthusiasts, but it never was answered.

Stack, what do?

Set VM Settings > Display > Graphics Controller to VBoxVGA. Unless done so, Android x86 won't launch.

More here.


Names not shown from number anymore All of a sudden, half-way using whatsapp, the names are not shown anymore. Instead I can only see the number. I went to my contact list and checked.

Most of my contacts appeared to be shown in email address. And it's the same person's email address.

I clicked in and found that the detail of these contacts is gone.

What happened to my phone and what should I do?

My phone is Galaxy Note2

In Settings > Contacts > Show all contacts should be disabled which was the case for me but still had same problem. So I enabled "Show all contacts" and exited whatsapp. Launched Whatsapp again and disabled 'Show all contacts' and got the names back again instead of just phone numbers. Hope my experience helps.


How can I set the default Google Drive account used? I have two Google accounts set up on my phone, both are also present in Google Drive.

When I open the Gallery app and chose to share a picture via Google Drive, it will always be shared with the same account. Of course, I want it to use the other account.

I can not figure out how to do it. I would happily accept it if the wrong account was completely removed from Google Drive on my phone.

I tried disabling sync for the account I don't want in Google Drive, but that didn't have any effect on the problem. I don't want to completely remove the account from my phone, as I have purchased apps with that account and I fear that I won't be able to install/use them otherwise.

I didn't realize you can change the account to use when uploading the file. I don't understand how I missed it, but here it is:

Given that the marked account value always changes back to the other account and I have to adjust it every time, I guess there is still merit in the question. But my problem was finding this UI item.


Encrypt the phone's internal storage Is there a way to encrypt my phone's internal memory, in the same way you would encrypt a computer's partition?

Ideally, the phone would always ask for the password when booting, and even if someone had physical access to the phone and plugged it into a computer, this person could never see what's inside the phone unless he/she knew the encryption password.

I'm looking for a way to encrypt the internal storage only (that's where the sensitive data is kept). Encrypting the SD card is nice but not necessary.

Running eclair on a motorola milestone, and I'm willing to root it if necessary.

Note: I know that there are security related apps that offer to remotely nuke the phone. I also know that this might seem exaggerated and tin-foil-hatish to some people, I'm just a bit of a security freak. :-)

Android 3 (Honeycomb) offers full system encryption natively.  However, as it's only for tablets at this point I will post some other avenues.

There was some work done on this for the G1 using LUKS and Cryptsetup.  I think I've seen this on a moto droid rom too, but you'll definitely need root.  It is not trivial to do, and there isn't too much interest so popular roms like Cyanogenmod don't provide for this natively.

There are some apps in the market that support encrypted file stores (check out Lock Files). I have no idea how transparent that is on the system however.

To your italicized point on remote wipe.  There are MANY solutions for this.  If you're using Exchange you can push this with ActiveSync, if not apps like Lookout, and more provide remote wipe and other functions.  There are even manual ways w/ dyndns and a listening SSH server.

Hope I was some help.


Saving contacts on Nexus 4 I'm using the Nexus 4 with android 4.3 and i have a problem. Since i don't want to never, ever sync my contacts with google (when i choose the phone it lasts about 5 years so no need to worry about "what if i change it?") i want to turn off that feature because it's more pain than gain.
When i try to add new contact ("People" -> "Add new"), when app shows up i have only two options - to sync that contact with my google account or with my company mail account. No "store locally" option.
When i go to "Settings -> Accounts" and delete all email accounts (gmail and company mail account) and then try to insert new contact - voila, i can choose to save that contact locally. As soon as i create any account (needed for tracking my email) i lose "save locally" option. What to do? What service do i have to disable so i never get that annoying "sync with email" message?

Somone just did this here. DISABLE GOOGLE CONTACT SYNC IN YOUR APP SETTINGS!! (Not the app setting. Settings -> Apps (in all) -> contacts sync -> disable

this is not the same as just disabling the syncing aspect of the contacts page, it removes google from being all up in your contacts period since they blocked nexus owners of having a local contacts option.

and there is another way as well. i did the first one.
http://forums.androidcentral.com/general-help-how/352276-i-have-stock-android-phone-there-way-have-contact-list-not-google-affiliated-2.html#post3392252

repost it to people who ask! google is full of it. I've never seen another phone not have a local contacts page.


Can I Delete a WhatsApp Message After 7 Min. Deadline? So I know that if I send a WhatsApp message to someone, I can delete the message on the recipients phone within 7 minutes, using the new "delete for everyone" option in WhatsApp.

Is there a way to get passed this limit, and delete the message a few hours or days later?

Yes, there is a simple way to trick WhatsApp into thinking that 7 min. haven't passed yet.

This would involve A few simple steps.
(Note: this will only work within 5 days of sending the message)

disconnect WhatsApp from internet connection. You can do that by going into airplane mode, or disconnecting from mobile data and WiFi.
Change the date of your phone. in settings -> date and time turn off "automatic date and time" and change the date to within 7 min. of sending the message or even before that.
(If you sent a message on nov. 20 at 7:30, then just change the date on your phone, to nov. 19)
Force stop the WhatsApp app. Go to settings>apps>WhatsApp>force stop.
delete the message. Open WhatsApp and find the message that you want to delete, long press on it and now the "delete for everyone" option will appear, press on it.
Change the date back to normal
Turn off airplane mode or enable data/WiFi

As soon as WhatsApp gets network connection, the message will be deleted on the recipients phone. But you will not get any notification that it was deleted.

If for whatever reason there is a red exclamation mark next to the message, make sure you changed the time, and then press on the exclamation mark and press "resend message" that will delete for the recipient.


How do I set a custom MP3 as a ringtone for other notifications? I have an HTC Droid Incredible running Android 2.2 FroYo and would like to use custom sounds/songs as ringtones for text message notifications, event and task reminders, Facebook and Twitter notifications, and email messages. I have the MP3s that I want to use located in the /ringtones directory of my phone, but they don't show up on the list of possible sound effects/tones/notifications, but they do show up in the selection for incoming call ringtones. What do I do to use them?

Put the sounds in the /media/audio/notifications folder on your SD card. Create this folder if it doesn't exist.


Can Google Drive be deleted from a Samsung Galaxy Express? I have a Samsung Galaxy Express phone running Android 4.1.2

Is there a way to delete Google Drive from the phone [without rooting it]? In the Application Manager, there is no DELETE button for Drive. The only buttons are to FORCE STOP and UNINSTALL UPDATES.

I don't beleive so. Drive (I beleive), along with Gmail, Maps, etc is a required app that Samsung must include with their phones, and it can't be uninstalled - at least not easily without the likes of rooting.


Is it possible to kill your phone by installing wrong system software? I asked a question yesterday about my Sony Xperia Z1. It look likes it is completely empty and I don't have the ability to flash anything on it.

But my question is:

Can you break your motherboard by rooting, flashing or whatever?

My custom ROM (PAC-man ROM) worked perfectly fine until I restored my TA partition.

My previous question:

Sony Xperia Z1 won't start up again!

Nice question! Short answer: Yes and no, it depends on how a device is designed.

One needs to now how a device initially boots and look at the involved components to be able to answer this question. To get an idea, here are some examples from my memory:

All newer Google Nexus devices (except the Nexus One) are pretty much unbrickable.
Most Samsung models for example have their bootloader on the eMMC chip: Brickable
To unbrick, one needs an alternative way to boot from e.g. USB to fix it (this solution exists for the original SGS i9000, but there's currently no way to do it with later models)
Sony Xperias have the bootloader in non-writable mask ROM: Unbrickable.
You could delete the whole eMMC chip and still boot into Flash Mode or fastboot mode (needs model specific key combos on boot), unlock the bootloader or use their software (PC Companion) to revive it. See Androxyde's FlashTool and Sony's FlashTool.
Raspberry Pi's have the bootloader in mask-ROM which then boots from the SDcard: Unbrickable
(Well, this is not a real Android device per se, but you get the point. PS: The Pi can be damaged by overclocking)
Some Samsung eMMC chips have faulty firmware: Brickable (source)
A way to fix it has recently been found but it's very risky and only tried by one of the devs. CyanogenMod's Wiki has more information.
The original HTC Magic had its bootloader on the eMMC: Brickable
In general: If one part of the chain is breakable (without the ability to revive it), you can brick your device. For example, it's possible to get into a catch-22 situation where no further action is possible (e.g. unlockable bootloader + broken system&recover) although the device would still boot to the bootloader.


Can the disk digger app restore a file even after factory reset I recently read about how disk digger app works for android, I wanted to know if the app could search the memory and find the deleted files even after doing factory reset?

Yes, but not reliably.

If you want to prevent this, zero and/or encrypt your device.

If you want to maximize file recovery do as little as possible with the phone and backup with adb pull /dev/block/mmcblk0 mmcblk0.img from recovery (tested with TWRP) then use photorec.


I'm stuck at TWRP recovery menu,whenever I turn on my device. I had a perfectly good root on my Samsung Tab (SM-T111).
However I downloaded and installed "quick reboot" from play store.  I selected boot to recovery (in the app).
Now whenever I try to turn on my device I'm stuck in the Twrp recovery menu.  What to do?

You probably flashed TWRP both as recovery and as boot. to fix this just install the latest version of your ROM or flash you ROM's boot.img as boot;

fastboot flash boot [boot.img]


Is that possible to upgrade HTC wildfire s os? Is that possible to update the HTC wildfire s OS from Gingerbread to some other higher versions.

See this previous question: When will my phone get the Android 2.3 update (Gingerbread)?, according to that HTC have announced that the Wildfire won't be officially updated to Android 2.3 or newer as it doesn't meet the minimum requirements for the newer operating system versions (in particular its CPU runs slower than 1GHz).

There are unofficial upgrade options, as noted in that question CyanogenMod 7.1 supported the Wildfire. This question, How do I update the OS on my device? goes into some of those options.


Android 2.3.5 unlock screen activated unexpectedly My Android HTC Sense 3.5 running Android 2.3.5 suddenly and out of the blue activates the unlock screen without pressing the power button. That's a problem because it gets unlocked by itself sometimes when it is in my pocket. Is there a special setting to disable this activation of the unlock screen?

I don't know why this happens, but you may be able to combat the problem with Proximity AutoLock.  If the phone's screen is somehow turned on, the proximity sensor should tell the phone to turn its screen off right away.  Now, this works when the power button gets pressed; I would think it would also work when other events turn the screen on, but I'm not completely sure.


Why has my GSIII's battery life dropped from 50-60 hours to 16 hours? I have a GSIII (Sprint) running Android 4.0.4.  In the last three days, I have not made any changes or installed any new software that I know of, but my battery life has dropped such that my phone, when fully charged in the morning, now powers off sometime before I go to bed.  This would make sense if I spent a lot of time using it, but I generally will check a few emails (every 20 min or so) and make maybe 4 calls of 5-10 min each in a typical day.  I have not varied this pattern lately.  I used to have to charge my phone maybe every other day, sometimes when really slow I could squeak 3 days out of it before charging.

Battery usage screen shows 'Cell Standby' taking up 40% of power usage.  I hadn't been looking at battery usage lately, but it strikes me that when I first got the phone (3 months ago) I checked these a few times and Cell Standby was fairly low, around 10% as I recall.

I usually keep the phone on WiFi because of Sprint's crummy network, and the phone was in my house the entire time it was on battery, so was on WiFi for data...and WiFi takes up 3% of the total.  Display takes up 2%.

I remember on my previous phone, the Evo (original) there was a Dialer bug that caused a wake-lock of some sort...I'm presuming something similar here.  Several hard power cycles have not improved matters.

What do I do to stop it, or find out where the CPU cycles are going?

Edit:  taking a look at the battery pane of the settings app reveals that the phone is staying awake 100 percent of the time that the radio is on.  It did not used to do that. Putting the phone in airplane mode lets the phone sleep as usual except for a few times in three hours, as expected.  So, apparently this is a wake lock condition again.

Cell standby being high means you have a really weak signal wherever your phone was.  The phone cranks its radio up to maximum power to try to maintain a usable signal.

There are several ways to stop it - none of them ideal:

Put the phone somewhere with a better signal (near a window maybe)
Put it in airplane mode to turn off the radio (but you won't be able to get phone calls/texts)
Switch to a carrier that has a better signal near your home/workplace

As for why it's doing it now, it could be that you're leaving the phone in a different place in your house most of the time, or weather is affecting the signal strength, or sprint is extra crummy in your area lately.


Is there Malware on LineageOS that causes to receive SMS Spam I never get SMS text spam on my phone.  Installed Lineage OS on a Samsung Galaxy S4 mini phone.  I installed TWRP and LOS both from official website (not various links on google or XDA).  Installed F-droid (with privilege extention).

I only had a handful of apps installed:  Fennec F-Driod, Firefox Focus, Stocks Widget, Net Guard, net Monitor, BlueBourne Scanner, Termux, SnoopSnitch  and Yalp,

Phone was running without a SIM for about a week.  All was OK until I inserted a SIM.  Moment I insterted the SIM a got spam from a load.

Note I have used the same apps (except for Fennec) on another phone without a single spam SMS!

So is the nightly infected with malware or spyware?

Beware of post hoc, ergo hoc : it's not because you started getting spammed after installing LineageOS (+ apps) that it DID cause the spam.

Since LineageOS (any many if not all the apps you cite) is open-course, it's highly doubtful that it's infected (that's the point of open source software !). Also, have you asked on the LineageOS community channels (Reddit, IRC, of XDA forum) if anyone has the same symptoms ?

I've set up a Galaxy S4 Mini with pretty much the same apps as you, and did not get such a spam.

My take is that for some reason, your phone number got leaked to a spammer during the time of your LineageOS transition. I think the cause lies elsewhere.


Does a broken screen affect the resolution of an android device? I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 which screen was recently broken. I am trying to use the phone with a third party app on my PC. I tried vysor but the screen resolution is terrible. I also tried the Connect app in windows 10 and I am facing the same problem again. Here are photos of what I mean:

Connect app screen

Vysor Screen

Is there anyway I can go around the issue?

I'm a big fan of Vysor, especially for texting with my keyboard. Have you tried messing around in the resolution settings? Click the gear icon in the upper right hand corner of your Vysor screenshot to see this menu:

There could also be some strange stuff going on with your device. You need to enable USB Debugging from the Developer Options on your Android, which might be tricky if your phone screen is completely broken and unusable. Here's a HowToGeek link on getting it enabled.

Finally, Windows users need to download some special drivers to get it to work. Download link: http://download.clockworkmod.com/test/UniversalAdbDriverSetup.msi

All of this info comes from the Vysor page on the Play Store, and some quick Googling.

If you've tried all of this without any luck, we'll need more info about how broken your screen is to help further.

EDIT: I don't have enough reputation to comment below, but I can respond here. How exactly is your screen broken? Is it merely cracked, or is it totally unusable?


Is there any study on how which services/sensors consume the battery? I am looking for some study/comparison on how battery-consuming are specific services/sensors (3G, Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth, accelerometer) in Android devices. I know that the exact answer might differ depending on a phone but the question is general - which sensors are more consuming than others.

Has anyone stumbled across something like that?

If you look at this video from the Google I/O conference and the slides you can see that they show how much WiFi, the CPU, screen, GPS, accelerometer etc. use in a device.

Here is the video and the slides.

A quick summary in case the links go down:

This shows the amount of battery used by the components in milliamps (mA). Another unit needed is milliamp hours (mAh) which is what battery capacity is measured in, a typical smartphone might have 1600mAh capacity. Having just the screen on we can see how long the device may last by dividing the capacity (1600 mAh) by the usage (~100 mA) giving us 16 hours of use with just the LCD screen on.

It's an interesting video if you take the time to watch the whole thing. It discusses wake locks, where an app will wake up the device to update itself, and how they affect battery life which is an aspect I don't usually consider about applications.


Google music not syncing on Nexus S I received my invite to Google Music a couple weeks ago. I've been using it in the browser since then. My Nexus S however, refuses to sync music.

Some people on the web report the same problem but it always fixes for them after awhile or after they do one of the following steps which have not worked for me. The settings menu simply does not appear in the Music App which would allow me the option to sync music.

I have tried the following things to no avail with exception of factory reset which I do not want to do.

The Sync Music option is not available in Accounts and Sync so the problem is not that this is not turned on as the option isn't even there.
I have uninstalled updates and re-downloaded the updates and that didn't help.
I have cleared application data and that didn't help.

I've probably tried other stuff too that I can't remember, and FYI, I'm using Google Apps so I don't know if this is a piece of the problem as well.

Yes, as far as I remember, Google Music is incompatible with Google Apps.
Have you tried using a normal Google account? I know, huge pain in the ass to use another account, but I think that might be the solution :/


How do I turn off the sound of Zoom on Android? (not the mic) I'm joining a Zoom call on my laptop, but I also want to join the same call on my Android device in order to share my Android device's screen and to use my Android device's camera. I don't want to hear other people's voices coming from both my laptop and my phone, I only want to hear their voices coming from my laptop. So I need to turn off the volume on my Android phone.
If I press the Volume down button, Zoom won't let me decrease the volume all the way to zero. I expected they developed the app this way to help users who don't realise that the volume on their device is set to zero. However, in my use-case, this is proving annoying, as I'm now hearing the same voices coming from my phone and from my laptop.
How do I turn off sound on an Android device when on a Zoom call?

When you're joining a meeting, you can find an option Join Audio. If you don't enable it you can't hear the participants' voice.

Or You may disconnect the audio from the more options present at the right- bottom (the dots)


How can I sync the bookmarks in the web browser? I want to open the bookmarks I saved in my PC to be seen from my cellphone's browser. So I need them synced. How can I do that, say with Nexus One?

Fennec (pre-release FireFox mobile) is supposed to have bookmark synch.

I haven't tested it, as the Fennec install keeps failing on my Incredible. :-(


15 Min my battery goes to 97% to 17% Yesterday I was watching a video on my andorid GTP3-100, and my batter was at 97% after 15 min I looked at my battery it had gone to 17%,  and it was draining battery fast and after 5 min its went to 7% so and  I had no  application running in the background I usually charge with my usb wire in my office . I have also noticed something strange since I  have started to  charge with my usb wire suppose the battery is at 77% if i plug in the usb wire to my pc within 1 second it goes to 100%.

I believe it is your battery which is at fault. I've seen this problem as well. How old is your phone?

Also, you may try charging the battery separately once from an external charger. If the problem you mentioned persists, then you should get yourself a new battery.


Missing edit icon on Galaxy S launcher I am trying to change the 4 icons that are along the bottom of the screen on my Samsung Galaxy S. All the answers I have looked at say 'press menu and then select edit', but I don't have an edit button. When I press Menu I see:

All programs
Add to home screen
Wallpaper
Search
Notifications
Settings

Where is the edit button?

When you go to Menu, press view type and select customizable grid. Now you can see an edit button as mentioned by several posts


Encrypted phone no longer asks for pattern when turning on? Nexus 6 running stock 5.0.1 not rooted. It used to ask me for my pattern every time I turned it on from a powered off state. Now it seems to boot fully without asking. Under Settings > Security it still claims to be Encrypted and tapping the option does nothing.

Would upgrading from 5.0 to 5.0.1 change this behavior? Am I still secure?

Would this behavior stop if I add my Android Wear watch as a trusted device?

I have since figured out my own answer. I can reproduce it with the following process:

1) Settings > Security > Screen lock > put in current pattern > Select Pattern > Note that "Require pattern to start device" is checked

2) Make no changes and back out to Settings (or press home and re-open Settings)

3) Go to Accessibility

4) Turn on any Accessibility Service (I turned on Pushbullet but it doesn't seem to matter what service you do)

5) Follow step 1  until you see that "Require pattern to start device" is unchecked.

In the Android M Preview 2, turning on Push Bullet prompted me with "If you turn on Pushbullet, your device won't use your screen lock to enhance data encryption" and pressing ok brought me to a screen where I needed to enter my current pattern. The text reads "Because turning on Pushbullet affects data encryption, you need to confirm your pattern." I do not remember this screen in 5.0 or 5.0.1 but I believe this is what was causing it.


False "low on space" (internal storage) warning on HTC Incredible A while ago, I posted another question here when I had plenty of free internal storage but was getting the following warning:

Low on space: Phone storage space is getting low.

The problem was apparently a bug during the upgrade to Gingerbread, and following the steps in the accepted answer to get the hotfix resolved the issue for several months.

However, recently I've been getting that same message again. Even though it complains about low internal storage, clicking on the warning brings me to a screen that shows me:

Internal storage: 348MB used, 400MB free

I'm using a Verizon HTC Incredible running Gingerbread. I have followed the steps in the other question (clearing system cache) and rebooted the phone several times. I have moved many apps to the SD card which seems to resolve the issue for a few days, but then the warning comes back. It seems like 47% full should not be triggering a low space warning (which has other ramifications, like my email not refreshing).

Any ideas what's wrong this time?

To consolidate comments:

I've found a fantastic guide to Android partitions and basics here via WIW's XDA post. /data is all your personal settings, messages, and information, while /data/data is specifically for your apps' private data. My guess is that wiping /cache as described above does not wipe /data or its child directories (otherwise you would've lost all your apps and settings).

I don't believe I've ever run against the particular error you're seeing - when mine has trouble I just get tons of force closes :-/. However, my app settings screen shows me what must be the /data usage (never close to full, numbers match /data size reported by DiskUsage) even though my apps are actually constrained by the much smaller /data/data (where I run out of room often). I think it's giving you an error because of /data/data but showing you details from /data instead. That's confusing as hell.

My dinc's /data is 748 MB and my /data/data is 149 MB. Sounds like that should be the same for yours (and others'). Until you give in to the dark side and root your Incredible (and are then able to see specific usage) you'll want to keep things below 149 MB (ish). FWIW, my biggest disk-hogs are Facebook and Dolphin Browser.


If Wi-Fi connection drops internet, can device failover to network connection? Once in awhile the internet will drop on the network that my phone is connected to via Wi-Fi. It's pretty rare, but in instances when it happens, my phone remains connected to the network but won't receive notifications. I won't know that it's not connected unless I'm intentionally attempting to do something that requires internet access at which point I can just disable Wi-Fi.

I imagine that my phone should be able to figure out it no longer has internet access even if it's connected to a network. Is there a way to have it failover to the provider's 4G/LTE connection when this happens?

My device is a Galaxy S6 Edge+ running Android 5.1.1

In the Wi-Fi settings, there's a feature called "Smart Network Switch" which is described as:

  If Smart network swich is on, your device will be connected to a mobile network automatically when the Wi-Fi connection is unstable.

So I had this off, which I assume is by default on my phone. Turning it on I assume resolves the issue.


Add myself back in a chat group in Telegram I'm trying to figure out how a friend of mine add himself back in a chat group on telegram. How is that possible? I think he uses an app for that.

He can add himself only if he leaves and is not kicked out. If he gets kicked out, he won't be able to add himself back.

You will have to use the web version of telegram to exploit it.
After logging in to the web.telegram.org website, select the group that you left from the left (direction) pane.

Now click on the group name from the top bar. In the dialog box that open, click 'Return to Group'!
Hope the telegram developers market it as a feature for adding yourself back and accessing archives of groups that you used to be a part of.


Phantom songs on Cyanogenmod 10.1 phone I am running Cyanogenmod 10.1 nightly (2013-02-19) on my Samsung Galaxy SII (I9100), and have about 190 songs on it that I listen to with the latest Songbird app.

The strange thing is Songbird thinks there are 380 songs (i.e. two times 190) and shows me a duplicate of each song I have on the phone. For each song, one copy plays fine, and the other copy doesn't play and doesn't show its cover art.

I tried clearing the Songbird data and cache but that didn't help. I also tried to install the JUST PLAYER music app and it showed the same problem!

Does anyone have thoughts as to where these duplicate phantom songs are coming from? Is there some data store or cache in the Android system that I could clear or reset to resolve this issue?

Thank you very much.

It is a problem on your ROM. I also had that issue, until the ROM dev fixed the sdcard mount points. It is because your sdcard has two symlinks (usually @ /mnt/sdcard and /storage or whatever) so your phone thinks that you have 2 sdcards. You can solve this by excluding one of the mounts like I do on MXPlayer before it was fixed. You should inform your ROM dev about this issue so he can fix it.


How do I switch between multiple users in KitKat via Lockscreen? I am using CynogenMod CM11 R22 on Xiaomi Redmi 1S phone.  I enabled multiple users using adb:

cd /system
pm get-max-users
setprop fw.max_users 3
echo "" >> build.prop
echo "#" >> build.prop
echo "# ADDING USER TO SETTINGS" >> build.prop
echo "#" >> build.prop
echo fw.max_users=3 >> build.prop
echo "" >> build.prop
echo "" >> build.prop
echo "" >> build.prop
echo "" >> build.prop

I can toggle between users using Power menu,  but I want to show them on Lock screen.  How can I do that?

Multiple user support was designed for tablets only in 4.4 KitKat, and therefore the user picker only appears in landscape mode.  On CM11 for phones you will need to enable lockscreen rotation by adding a line lockscreen.rot_override=true to your build.prop file in the same manner as you did to enable multiple users:

echo "lockscreen.rot_override=true" >> build.prop

Reboot, rotate the phone to landscape mode, and you should see the user picker on the lockscreen.


Is there any way I can delete individual text messages? I have a Huawei U8850 running Android 2.3.7 and want to manage my text messages more efficiently. At the moment the only delete options I can see are to delete all thread or the current thread.

However, what I want to be able to do is delete individual text messages (both received and sent). The conversation with my wife (say) will include messages that are just acknowledgements of other messages being received or ones that are no longer relevant (shopping lists, say) and I would like to get rid of those, but keep the more important messages (at least for the time being).

Is there any way to do this or am I stuck with either keeping the entire conversation or deleting it all?

All you have to do is press and hold the text message you want to delete. You will then be prompted to select more text messages to delete or just delete the one you have selected. If your Android version  is too old for this let me know and I will emulate your specific version and figure it out for you.


Root detection by server or app Many banks and video streaming services don't allow root on Android devices.

My question is

Is it the app itself that detects root and refuses to work at some stage  (for     example by refusing to call the associated internet service)?
Is it the internet service that somehow directly or indirectly probes your device to see if it is rooted and if so instructs the app to disconnect or display some error message?

I guess this might interest people for which the app Hide Root doesn't work with some service providers.

Banks detecting root devices is a bit disturbing but then again Java script is very powerful when abused. Perhaps get a browser with better privacy options.

Usually root detection is performed on the target device when the application loads. @acejavelin summed it up best in above comments.

I'd suggest to any reader concerned about apps probing for permissions on rooted Android to check into Xprivacy module for Xposed. This and Donkey Guard, both are fantastic for disabling or modifying access to entire features of the device on a per-app basis. Generally I prefer Xprivacy because device specifics can be forged much easier.

  One short note on security with Xposed; it's not really secure. Lots of permissions and portions of processing are exposed to the device's user.

Reporting (if any) is done over the network. While it's possible to attempt detection from the server side it's very noisy and would cause lose of trust with customers.

There's another option with root reporting, run a firewall that doesn't allow the application to report out to it's servers. Though for some this will brake functionality when not allowed network access.

Bonus option "Advance Freeze" with ROM toolbox Pro

While the above linked options are free and nearly full featured this last suggestion isn't... but it's worth it to freeze features of an application outright. Some apps crash but most will just limp on without privacy invading features or adverts enabled.


Is there a way to scan unusual barcodes? I know there are plenty of apps that can read QR codes and standard barcodes.

Does anyone know of a way to scan unusual barcodes, such as ones found on mail trackers or flight tickets, etc? I imagine the encoding isn't encrypted, just obfuscated, so there's probably something out there already that can read the codes. But I haven't found anything on my own.

The Bar-coded Boarding Pass (BCBP) code is common for flight tickets. There could be other codes too, but there doesn't seem to be any app for it yet.

Mails also have different codes. The US seems to be using Intelligent Mail barcode (IM barcode). IMb Reader can be used for this.

Bottomline: there are several possibilities for the codes. You need to check first what code an airline or postal service is using. Then, check if there are apps for it.


Effect of changing resolution on battery There are various ways to change the resolution on Android devices, and I was wondering: Does it have any noticable effect on battery life? And has anybody ever tried doing some proper measurements?

I suspect the reduction in power consumption will not be significant, but you can easily test this yourself using free software like Trepn Profiler. Disclosure: I am part of the team that makes this software. Make sure to follow these best practices, if you want to get the most accurate results.

Another method to measure power consumption is using Monsoon Power Monitor hardware. I forced the screen resolution to 240 dpi using this adb command:

adb shell wm density DPI && adb reboot

Then I measured the power consumption idle and under a load at 240 dpi using the Monsoon Power Monitor. I used the Adreno Test app to load my device. Next I remeasured at the 560 dpi, which is the native resolution of my Nexus 6. At 240 dpi, icons and text appear much smaller on the screen.

Here are the results:

Idle power consumption

  240 dpi: 514 mW

  560 dpi: 522 mW

Power consumption under load

  240 dpi: 3155 mW

  560 dpi: 3287 mW

Bottom line: My simple test showed there is almost no benefit to reducing the resolution of your screen via software.


Gmail App Stopped Syncing...Again Two different devices, a Nexus 7 tablet and Moto X. Both running last Kit Kat update. Nexus has Gmail app 5.1, Moto X has Gmail app 4.9. Gmail on my computer works fine. Both devices last synced 2 days ago at same time and neither will sync even manually now. Both worked just fine until 2 days ago. All other Google apps sync fine, only my Gmail doesn't. Since Gmail on my computer is fine and two separate devices using 2 different Gmail app updates don't sync, it seems like it has to do with my Gmail account or with the Google server, not the Gmail app per ae .Why did 2 devices stop at same time with my computer working just fine? Haven't been able to receive or send emails or draft emails from Nexus or Moto X for 2 days. Again, all other Google apps manually sync on both devices but Gmail will not on either. Don't see that this is another widespread sync problem like last June. Please advise. Thanks.

Just now, 51 hours after the sync failure problem began,my tablet and phone both started Gmail manual syncing again. No fix was applied. I can only assume therefore it was a Google issue and not my account, devices or the app. The only unifying root cause would be a Google server issue or my Gmail account, and that account always worked on my computer. Hopefully it will remain functional.


No Longer Receiving Message Notifications on Lock Screen I have a SG3 recently updated to Jelly Bean 4.3. When the update ran, I received message previews on the lock screen, accessed them without trouble, and enjoyed the feature. In the last 24-36 hours, these previews have ceased, and I can no longer swipe to the lock screen where the message previews used to appear.

The preview setting is still checked, and I continue to receive notifications and previews in my status bar.

Android 4.3 has protection by default to disallow Lock Screen Widgets:

Firstly you need to go to Settings > My Device > Lock Screen as above and enable "Multiple Widgets"

You can change the SMS notifications in the SMS app > Settings > Notifications

As an alternative for anyone interested I would recommend Dash Clock lock screen Widget

This is a HIGHLY customisable Lock Screen Widget. You can have SMS/Missed Calls/Stardate (seriously)/Hangouts/Battery and lots more via extensions. You can customise the look and feel of the clock to be JellyBean, KitKat etc too!


What factors does PowerTutor measure to show energy consumption? I am trying to find the impact of the signal strength on the energy consumption of WIFI in Android using an HTC NEXUS ONE. I am sending several files starting from 1 kb to 600 kb.

I use PowerTutor as a measurement application however the values are almost the same for any signal strength of wifi.

Can you please help me to find out if PowerTutor can reflect the signal strength effect and what factors in fact does PowerTutor use to show how much energy was consumed by Wi-Fi? Do you recommend the use of another android app to measure the wifi consumption?

According to the developer's documentation, WiFi signal strength is not accounted for:

  The power states we have considered in the power model includes:

  ...
   -Wifi: Uplink channel rate, uplink data rate and packets transmitted per second.

They have a link to a study performed by the University of Michigan (who is, as best I can tell, also connected to this app's development) that looks to go much more in depth into their thoughts on the matter, should you be interested.

I don't have any better recommendations for you as far as apps go. Has the standard Android Battery Usage information not been helpful? I imagine if you set up a test scenario where you send a continuous steam of data over WiFi for an hour, then change the distance from the device to the WAP (i.e. changing signal strength) and repeat the process, you might be able to see a difference in the battery usage attributed to WiFi.


Possible to change SIM card PUK on Android device? On my Samsung Galaxy SIII, one can go to Settings -> More -> Security -> SIM card lock -> Set up SIM card lock -> Change SIM PIN to change the default PIN that came with the SIM card. But what about the PUK (the 8-digit number that comes with the SIM card to unlock the card after 3 failed 4-digit PIN number attempts)? Can the PUK also be changed from within the Android GUI, or is it a fixed number stored on the SIM card which cannot be changed?

Thanks.

The PUC (PUK) is a SIM-specific code assigned by the service provider.
  - Personal Unblocking Code (Wikipedia)

That means you cannot change it with help of your android device.

If you want to crack it you must watch this video

Video is about 'Rooting The Sim' by  Karsten Nohl at BlackHat 2013.

In this video Nohl showed vulnerability that almost every sim have  which was manufactured before 2013(Also Some cards after that whoes providers have not fixed this security hole)

Procedure
-Send binary sms with OTA command to card requesting response

-Crack DES signing key that sign Java virus and sent through binary sms

-Leverage gaps in Java VM memory separation to access arbitrary sim card data

Results
-Card may response with DES signed error message

-Card install and execute signed Java applet

-Malicious applet extract ki,banking applet etc. and send ti attacker via sms

Once an attacker cracks the key, he can commit premium SMS fraud, circumvent caller-ID checks, manipulate voice-mails, redirect incoming calls and text messages, abuse USSD payments, track and phish users, install malware on their devices, or perform any other browser-based attack. With data access enabled, Nohl claims an attacker can clone SIM cards, decrypt 2G, 3G, and 4G traffic, clone NFC takers and future SIM applications, and alter the operating system to prevent future patching.

Nohl also claims to have been able to break out of the SIMs Java sandbox and get access to this personal unblocking key


"Software installation failed" error when booting up I got stuck at Huawei Logo and it won't start, then I followed this instruction

  Download the same build you had before getting stucked or newer one, Extract it and transfer "dload" folder to the root of FAT32 MicroSD, Put the SD in the phone, Hold Vol+ and Vol- with Power button to boot into Upgrading mode

Then when the installation shows up it automatically says "Software Installation Failed". How to fix this problem? I found that some say that it must upgrade a transfer package provided by R&D, and I don't know how to update it. I'm stuck in Huawei logo.

This procedure should work:

copy the dload folder(should contain update.app package provided by Huawei R&D) in MicroSD card (root folder) and insert the MicroSD card in your phone.
Turn off the phone by removing battery or pressing power button longer than 10 sec.
Boot the device in recovery mode by pressing power + volume up key.
once it is booted in recovery, select "upgrade using external storage" using volume up, down and power key
navigate to update.app package and press power button.

It will start the installation process and your phone should work after upgrade.


How much battery drain do push notifications cause on Android 4.1? I've got an S3 on 4.1, and I have a lot of apps which have push notifications. This is convenient, but I want to know if 4.1 is set-up to use push notifications efficiently with regards to battery drain. Would having Android 4.3+ use less battery for push?

I have push enabled for 4 apps. After adding another push one last night, my battery loses 20% in an hour. I am starting to wonder how much battery do push apps really drain.  I noticed some Twitter apps state that while they use push, they use their own server which apparently uses less of our battery.

Push notifications are designed to be the solution to battery draining apps that constantly monitor for data that has changed locally or on a server. Because of this they are very battery efficient. My phone typically will get 20 notifications in a few hours with less than 1% total battery use.

If your having huge battery drain problems, your phone is probably not sleeping properly which is usually due to an app that is preventing the phone from sleeping. I might be able to help you resolve this With some more information, such as Phone, Android version (or ROM if your rooted) and a screenshot of your battery screen after your phone has been running for a few hours. I will update my answer accordingly.


Android icon showing when turning Wi-Fi on Sometimes when I turn Wi-Fi or internet data on, an icon appears at the notification bar of my android 6.0 device that looks like the android bot surrounded by 2 circling arrows like this (it is not exactly like this. The icon I am seeing is white and the arrows are thinner but the concept is very similar) and lasts for a few seconds. What does that mean? Is Android updating and if yes, what kind of updates is it getting?

*By the way, I have auto update and sync turned off. That's why I wonder what kind of updates these are.

My device is an LG G4

I have an LG phone aswell (not the G4) and icon that you are described is probably icon which shows up when phone is checking for updates of android or updates for LG apps. You can probably change when it will check for updates. I don't have any sources about this but I know that  because I catch notification several times when on slow cellular data.
Edit here is the photo of icon I get when checking for updates:

Also here is "app updater" app icon it's very similar to picture you posted