Remove CWM from Xperia Neo V How can I remove CWM from my Xperia Neo V?

EDIT: I have obviously rooted my device but I did not unlock the bootloader. (At least I assume that I didn't do it accidentaly -- in any case, I didn't root my phone using the official method.)

The boot loader is unlocked yes? If it is, I am not certain if it can be re-locked again for the OTA update to proceed.

Do not accept OTA updates if the bootloader is unlocked!

Best bet would be to use the Sony's companion phone software under Windows and let that update it manually instead :)

Do not try that in a virtual machine/virtual box/vmware!

Edit:

Why don't you go into Settings > Applications > Manage Applications, then uninstall it from there, or if you have Titanium Backup installed, just un-install it from there. Its an ordinary apk app, that is somewhat, IMHO, misleading. I'll explain why in a minute.

Sony has this strange and unusual concept of recovery/bootloader. In general speaking, there is two partitions out of many, for the sake of the edit, I am specifically focusing on boot and recovery.

The general consensus is this, there's two partitions, boot and recovery, boot is what you know, is responsible for bringing up the system when the power key is pressed. This is highly specialized machine code that is tied intimately, as per the manufacturer/OEM.

Recovery on the other hand, is where you can do basic recovery, that is, clean the data and cache partition, and re-flash the stock ROM as indicated by the OEM.

In Sony's case, the reason, that your so-called CWM is in fact an APK is because, it would p^&$ off a lot of users if it was installed directly on the recovery partition, ... the big gotcha... yes, there is, for some obscure reason, Sony decided to bundle Boot and Recovery into the one partition, that's where the danger lies with Sony handsets, flash it directly into that, its buh-bye to your handset.

As for accepting OTA updates if bootloader is unlocked, there's some mechanism or checking going on in respect to the OTA zip file (I'd guess) for the presence of locked bootloader hence the warning I mentioned above. Use the Sony PC Companion suite software for Windows if you express a desire to go with the official updates from Sony.

So there you have it, a bit of knowledge and empowerment in understanding the nuances of Android when it comes to manufacturers. Yeah, I don't understand myself why the two are "merged" into one partition as a result, hence there will be the danger of messing up Xperia handsets.

What got me questioning about it was, why the .... was it being dumped into /system directory which is where the real ROM lies in, then it dawned on me the reason, that's why there's a big fat warning and notice about unlocking bootloaders via the Sony way.

IMHO, there really should be two partitions - boot and recovery, after all, if that's the case, it would make modding and customizing even easier but maybe due to whatever reasons Sony had, they decided to have that combined into one.

(Samsung has definitely the two partitions but its not as easy as it sounds but that's a discussion for another time :) HTC is the same as Samsung, Zte - which I have the Blade in my possession has the two hence its popular on modaco due to the ease of hacking and modd-ability)

In fact, you can actually still flash custom roms even with the bootloader locked - that was news to me but I'll leave this edited answer for now.


how to clean out a htc desire 626s I have a Boost Mobile HTC Desire 626s. I just upgraded to a ZTE Warp Elite. When I 1st got the HTC phone I got the phone rooted. The phone worked fine except for 1 annoying problem. Every few days a bar would popup saying a "system update" was needed. The only 2 options were "later (as in doing the install later)" and "install". I keep hitting later. I got tired of seening that popup every few days so I hit install. Big mistake.  The phone is now stuck in a sys update loop. It says download complete, starting to unzip the file. But the unzip does nothing then error's out after a while. I spoke to Boost Mobile today. And even bigger mistake. All the hard master reset did was wipe out my pictures, phone list and so on (all that stuff is backed up on my laptop already, no lose there). But the hard reset didn't fix the system update loop problem. And now the phone is stuck in a basic phone activation loop as well.  I am trying to setup the phone so my nephew can use the phone like a tablet for now. And if he keeps his grades up in school I will activate his phone on my cell phone plain with his own number. If I can clear up this mess and get the phone working right again.

I 1st used the unlocker that I found on the HTC web page, then I used Kingo Root to root the phone. The factory reset line is missing from the download mode. Also if I go to bootloader > boot to recovery mode. The phone boots out to normal phone mode.  I am stuck and I don't know how to fix this.  A point of interest I an a Windows tech. I have been fixing Windows based laptops and desktops for years as well as 2 way radios and tv's.

Steve

Basically you need to do the same thing as if you had a failed update on a non-rooted phone.  Go to HTC, grab the utility meant for communicating between your computer and phone.  Then download that and a factory Android zip and use the utility to flash that to the phone.

It took me a little bit, but I seem to have dug out the official HTC info on this.

You want to go to the Manual system update instructions section on this page and follow those instructions.  If for whatever reason you can not get the utility to see the phone and flash the factory zip you are SOL without a custom recovery or ability to boot to the OS there is not anything else you can do.  You will want to send it in for warranty replacement if you have that going (contact Boost).  with the custom recovery gone and the OS stuck in a boot loop with the official OTA version (NEVER apply OTA updates or you will lose root and your custom recovery EVERY time).  If you hate the notification pop-up you should look for a ROM that says it is a rooted factory ROM with the update check modified so it does not check for updates.  Otherwise ALWAYS say update later and ignore it.

Here's the HTC info page: http://www.htc.com/us/support/htc-desire-626s-boost/news/

Also factory reset is gotten to through the recovery menu and NOT download mode.  Factory reset only removes saved user data and does nothing to the actual system files themselves.  To do that you need to actually download the zip from HTC and use their utility to flash it.

IF YOU STILL HAVE THE CUSTOM RECOVERY (TWRP OR CLOCKWORK) YOU CAN FLASH ANY ROM ZIP MEANT FOR THE CDMA VERSION OF THE 626s WHICH I FOUND A FEW LISTED ON XDA FORUMS UNDER THE 626 SECTION (here's a stock ROM you can flash with custom recovery (and if needed grab microsd card plug in to computer reader to load the file on it then plug in to phone and restart to recovery): http://forum.xda-developers.com/desire-626/development/rom-flashable-stock-htc-626s-debloated-t3293602

Again, this only works if you have the custom recovery and NOT the stock recovery.


Is there a way to selectively sync photos? I find the idea that all of my photos, no matter in which folder should automatically be synced to G+ a bit ridiculous.

Is there a way to only sync a certain folder/album? I'm mainly interested in syncing my camera roll.

Launch G+ Photos app. Swipe right on the left edge to open up the menu. Go to "On Device". You can select which folders to be synced by tapping on the cloud icon on the right of the folder name.

Note: You have to turn on "Back up local folders" option in settings. Initially, all folders will be synced and you can  selectively turn off for each folder in the "On Device" section.


Unbricking a FRP-locked phone while leaving it rooted I have a rooted Samsung Galaxy J1 Ace SM-J111F running the stock ROM in Android 5.1.1. I used this XDA-Developers guide to root it. The reason it's rooted is so I could format the attached SD card as internal storage. I've had no problems for the last 2 to 3 weeks until I switched the phone off in one country and switched it on in another. When the Samsung logo appears, it shows that the custom binary is locked by FRP.

I decided to re-root my phone again using the same method however, the terminal returns:

Waiting for phone to be connected...

Even though the phone is in download mode and all the appropriate settings have been set.

The guide also provides the firmware for the phone, I haven't tried it yet because I fear that the SD card will be have to be reformatted and all my data may be lost. I'm trying to find a way to fix my bricked phone and while keeping it rooted. Unfortunately, there is only one rooted binary available for this phone.

So I ask:

Is there any way to unbrick phone and keep it rooted?
If I do restore the firmware, will I have to reformat the SD card and will my data be deleted?
What caused this issue?

EDIT: I have continued this problem on a different question since it corresponds to a different issue, where factory resetting the phone still leaves it bricked via FRP.

Unfortunately, there is no way to unbrick a device and leave it rooted (1). You must flash the stock firmware into the device, thereby making it unrooted. Usually this a bricked device occurs when the device has been modified with so much alterations to the point where FRP detects it bricks the phone (3). The best way to counter this is to install a custom recovery image (like TWRP) to safely fix your device.


Link2sd showing app on sd but it is not I have a query regarding the way Link2sd is supposed to work. I came across this today. As the screenshots show when entering the Link2sd app. The app is supposed to be linked to the sd card, but, if you enter into the details of that link it show that none of them are on the sd card. The 3rd screenshot shows that everything is on the internal memory. I tried to unlink but it came up telling me that nothing is linked to begin with.
The screenshots are below:

I have gone part of the way to answer my own question. I noticed that it says on SD Card and not Linked -> SD Card. The app must therefore be moved to the SD Card no linked to it. I tried to move it back to the phone and although it allows me to go through the motions of moving it, even after a reboot it is still on the SD card. It seems like link2sd is moved to the SD card by default.


When exactly does the data gets wiped out once bootloader is unlocked? I've heard as well as experienced that unlocking the bootloader of an Android device wipes the device's data completely, and makes it like the stock one. However, I'm interested in knowing when exactly does this data wipe take place?

Does it happen when we issue the command:

fastboot oem unlock

or, when booting into the Android after completing the last step?

I've asked my question because this question is concerned with recovering data (seems to be from an unlocked device) and an answer it received is:

  You could flash TWRP recovery (not sure if available for your device) which has an in-built file manager and and terminal and move files to any usb storage.

My point is, hypothetically, in such case I would first unlock the bootloader, and then flash the custom recovery without rebooting fastboot. Then I will boot into the custom recovery directly from fastboot.

Now, would I be able to see my data or not, and when exactly would this wipe happen?

This may vary with the device, but on Nexus devices, as soon as you accept the bootloader unlock on your device after issusing fastboot oem unlock, the device is wiped so you would not be able to see the data in TWRP. This is evident because after issuing the fastboot oem unlock command to a Nexus device and confirming the operation on the device, the following text is printed to the terminal: Unlocking bootloader... erasing userdata... erasing userdata done erasing cache... erasing cache done Unlocking bootloader done!


WebView not loading for any apps? Any app that has an embedded browser in them don't load anything. A few examples: Steam, Telegram, and Relay reddit client all have embedded browsers and none of them load. Firefox works though but I guess it uses a different thing than the system default that the previously mentioned apps do. I'm not sure what things to try to solve this problem.

Apparently, it was an older version of AdBlocker Reborn that was causing the issue. I had the "Enable WebView Block" feature enabled. After updating to the latest version of AdBlocker Reborn, everything worked again.


How do I turn off the light that comes out of my moto droid's usb port? When I plug my moto droid into a charger a bright white light comes from the micro usb port. It is super bright when its on my nightstand and the lights are out.  It drives me nuts.

Simple hack: cover it with a small strip of black sticker. Or, cover the nightstand with a handkerchief.

Complex hack: Find if the USB port driver allows you to turn the light off; I think that's quite unlikely, as it may be hardwired to the hardware itself.


Undo Factory Reset on oneplus My Kid has been playing with my phone while it was on lock screen, my kid did not have the access code but somehow don't ask my how he somehow managed to factory reset my onePlus 6T.

I googled and found a few commercial programs all promising to solve the issue I tried one gihasoft, but when I try to connect my oneplus to my macbook it fails with "ftp or mtp must be enabled", and I cant find those settings.

Is there anything I can do to restore my device? I'm also quite shocked to learn that it can be factory reset that easy.

Many Android phones can be booted into a recovery mode and factory reset from there. In the case of the 6T you power it off then hold down volume up at the same time as pressing the power button. That boots it into recovery mode, and from there the phone can be reset by selecting the appropriate option. Your child must have managed this without meaning to.

There isn't any way of retrieving the data from the phone. OnePlus or the FBI might be able to do it but there's no way for you or I to do it. However if you go back through the setup and choose the option to restore your data from Google you will get back anything that has been backed up to the cloud.

Reading the data from a factory reset phone would be a serious security flaw. It would mean anyone who stole your phone could reset it to wipe your phone lock then read your data off the phone.


Telegram does not recognise account after being offline for almost a week due to battery failure On Sunday, 13th September 2020, the battery of my Motorola Moto G5 broke down and I ordered a new one. Today, on Friday, 18th September 2020, it finally arrived and it works just fine. Several errors, however, occurred:

I have lost some of my contacts and only had the chance to recover some of them by importing an old VCF file that was not very up to date anymore. This, at least, brought back some contacts in WhatsApp. (Does anyone know why many of my contacts were lost after such an incident and some were not?)

But when I opened Telegram, I was asked to set up a new account. Even when I reinstalled Telegram, I am still asked to do this. I am, however, able to log on the Telegram web app. (Telegram sends me an SMS instead of an in-app text message.) There, I am able to see all the chats that are stored on Telegram’s cloud servers and also the contact names of people who are now not in my address book anymore, are displayed correctly. (Why is that? Is there a way to recover my address book via Telegram?)

What shall I do? Can I just “re-register” at the Telegram app with my phone number and see my cloud chats again on my phone? What error occurred there?

Edit: One thing just came to my mind. Can I just log off my phone via the web app and then just try to “register”/log on to my Telegram account via the Telegram app on my phone? Would this work and prevent data loss?

Ok, I think I was able to solve the problem. Telegram just logged me off the phone app. I was able to log back in and now I can use Telegram as before.


Play Store updating over Mobile Data when it is not supposed to Today I got a bit of a nasty surprise with my mobile data and I am not sure how to correct it.

In my settings for the Play Store I have (and had for ages) download only on Wifi.

This month something has changed as my phone has gone over its data allowance and looking at the list of apps and usage the top bandwidth user is the Play Store on Mobile Data with 540Mb.

I do not understand why the Play Store is updating on Mobile data even though it is not supposed to?

Under the Wifi Usage tab the Play store is also the largest user of bandwidth, which I do expect as that is what is supposed to happen.

Any ideas why Play Store is running over Mobile Data?

Google Play Store/Services does actually download stuffs over mobile data. Its a bit annoying and under certain circumstances can be quite frustrating, in cases like if someone went camping or on a trip with limited data plans, and google play used all of it to update stuffs.
Well, things you could do are, turning off mobile data when not in use, although as soon as you go online, it'll srart downloading.
Second thing you could do is, turn on powersaving mode, which reduces the amount of power consumption and also restricts background data.
Third thing you can do is enable restrict background apps which is separate from power saving as it only includes restricting apps from taking up data in the background over mobile data plans.
And the fourth and probably my favorite is to use a firewall app. Although firewall apps are build into modern Android versions, google play being a system app has an upper hand over that function. That's when a firewall app like "NETGUARD" comes in handy. This app basically stops all incoming and outgoing traffic from your phone (except apps that you allow) with the help of a vpn that routes to localhost. This app is hands down one of my fav so far, and yeah, might as well give it a try perhaps?
This app is available both on F-Droid and on Google Play Store. Hope this helps (:


Changing Text message limit I want to change my text message limit to a smaller size (default 200 msgs per conversation) so that it will be easy to scroll and read messages. But I don't want to lose previous messages. Can I start a new conversation thread with the same contact?

Also, is there a method that will allow me to backup my messages in a text or HTML file? Where are the messages stored (can I just copy to my laptop)? I have not rooted my phone yet. I use a SMS backup+ application which saves in Gmail as separate entries which is not desirable.

I use SMS Backup & Restore which backups your text messages to an XML file on your SD card (does not require root). This way at least you can safely lower the message limit and still save your messages somewhere.

I'm not aware of any way to lower the limit without the Messaging application automatically deleting old messages - in the stock messaging app anyway.


Gmail notifications stopped working I don't receive Gmail notifications on my phone recently, no sound, no light and nothing appears on the notification bar. Searching the web, I figured it might have happened because I turned syncing options off. So I turned it on except for some syncing options such as Pictures and browser. I still am not getting notified of new emails. What's wrong?

Summing up results from the in-comment-discussion:

Starting with Android 4.1, notifications can be disabled on a per-app basis: Either by long-pressing a specific notification in the notification area, and navigating from there to the app which sent it -- or directly from the Android settings in Apps → Manage Apps, and selecting the app you want to disable notifications for: here you will find the possibility to allow/forbid an app to place notifications in the notification area. This is valid generally and for all apps, starting with Android 4.1.

As with the Gmail app, some apps also offer this option themselves (which then also works for Android versions prior to 4.1). You find it from inside the app, when visiting its settings page(s). But as said, this will vary between apps -- not all apps offer this option.


Galaxy S4 Mini not recognized by Linux in Download Mode I'm currently trying to root my Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini, so to install CWM, I boot the device into download mode using my Linux Mint 17.2 laptop:

$ adb reboot bootloader

Now, as intended, my phone boots into download mode, yet fastboot doesn't recognize the device:

$ sudo fastboot devices
$ sudo fastboot continue
< waiting for device >

However, in lsusb, the phone clearly shows up:

Bus 001 Device 005: ID 04e8:685d Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd GT-I9100 Phone [Galaxy S II] (Download mode)

As you can see above, I run fastboot as root, so it certainly isn't a permission problem.

I can't find a solution anywhere on the internet, so any help is appreciated. If you need any further information, let me know.

Let me throw some additional stuff on you, in case it helps:

My PC:

$ dpkg -s android-tools-fastboot
Package: android-tools-fastboot
Status: install ok installed
Priority: extra
Section: devel
Installed-Size: 154
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Architecture: amd64
Source: android-tools
Version: 4.2.2+git20130218-3ubuntu23
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14), libselinux1 (>= 2.0.65), zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.3.4)
Conffiles:
 /etc/bash_completion.d/fastboot df71a6a847b1d7c6499ad718502b651f
Description: Android Fastboot protocol CLI tool
 Fastboot is a diagnostic protocol primarily used to update the flash
 filesystem of Android devices over USB.
 .
 This package provides the fastboot command-line tool.
Homepage: http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/adb.html
Original-Maintainer: Laszlo Boszormenyi (GCS) <gcs@debian.hu>

$ uname -a
Linux dracarys 3.16.0-38-generic #52~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Fri May 8 09:43:57 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

My phone:

Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini GT-I9195
Android 4.4.2
Linux version: 3.4.0-3173303

Samsung devices do not support fastboot. To flash a custom recovery, you can either use the dd command from within your ROM (assuming you're rooted), or use Heimdall. Instructions on using Heimdall can be found in the Heimdall Linux README.


How to find out my Galaxy Nexus' version? (maguro, toro or toroplus) I have a Galaxy Nexus phone.

I want to install JellyBean manually, but I don't know which one of these I should download. How do I know if my phone is maguro, toro or toroplus?

Go to Settings > About phone > Model number,
and see which one matches:

Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Maguro; GSM/HSPA+) - GT-I9250
Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Toro; Verizon; CDMA/LTE) - SGH-I515
Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Toro Plus; Sprint; CDMA/LTE) - SPH-L700

Edit #1: You can also check the back casing if it has Verizon (toro) or Sprint (toroplus) written on it. If not, then you have maguro.


Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 drops home wifi connection and and can't reconnect unless the router is turned off and back on. My girlfriend has had her Tab 2 for ten months and only recently it has this problem. She will be using the tablet on the internet and the connection will suddenly drop. The signal is strong and the tablet detects the signal. It will try to connect for 10 or 15 minutes until it says it can't verify the ip address or something like that. Turning off and on the tablet doesn't work, neither does forgetting the network and reentering the name and password.
Turning the router off for ten seconds and restarting it does work. Laptops and playstation do not have issues with the wifi. Restarting the router is a solution except this occurs daily. I am wondering if the source of the problem is low internal memory. There are a ton of images because she takes a lot of screenshots.

I have had similar problems with mine - and I heard that it is a design fault in this particular model. It is incredibly inconvenient. I am returning mine to the supplier, as mine constantly drops the wifi signal, which is just no good at all. I will be claiming a replacement or full repair in terms of the Sales of Goods Act 1979 which states that the goods must be fit for purpose (which mine is not) and free from minor defects (which mine is not). This is in terms of Trading Standards Duty of Care legislation. Hope that helps.


Can I flash another phone's ROM or Kernel on my phone? Can i flash another phone's kernel or ROM on my phone and what would happen is i did so?

Simply put, you would brick your phone.

  But Why? Why if my device is similar to another one. Would it work?

That would also not work because of a for example different CPU, or screen size, etc.

When building android, you have a device, and a vendor folder. These contain configurations specific to your device, and the vendor folder has what's called proprietary blobs, which are also specific to one device only.

If there is some custom ROM that your device is not compatible with, then if it is open-source, you could have a go at porting that ROM to your device.


Google Play services not working I just rooted my S4 using KingoRoot. After rooting I am not able to access any of the Google services.

When I try to open any of the Google services, it says

  Unfortunately, Google Play Services has stopped

I am not able to open any app. When I try to open an app, it says,

  [App Name] has stopped.

I tried clearing cache data of Google Play Services, reinstalled and reinstalled it, but to no avail.

First you need to factory reset your device from recovery.

Download GApps from xda-developers. (You need to search it xda). Download pico or mini version of gapps.

Copy zip file on your device and flash it via recovery.

Mostly, this will work. If not, then try to switch from dalvik to ART or ART to dalvik. (This applies only if you have 4.4+ Android OS)


Should I be worried about applications with weird looking permissions? Possible Duplicate:
  How important is it to review the permissions that an app is using?

When I install apps from Android Market (Play Store now) there are some apps that require special permissions and for some of them it's weird to have for example "Read phone call history" when the app is a compass or whatever...

Should I be worried? Should I uninstall an app with weird looking permissions?

Yes, you should be worried.  Lots of malware disguises itself as something else that the writer thinks you might want to install so that it can get the app onto your phone.  If you are at all suspicious about permissions (and reading phone history is definitely suspicious for a compass app), contact the app developer with your questions.  An honest dev will get back to you.


Why does my ZTE Score have so much trouble emulating video game consoles + games? I have an ARM v6 600 MHz revision 5 CPU with 512 MB RAM. The GPU is an Adreno 200 with 245 MHz clock speed.

It seems that anything in the 3-D realm, including some 2-D games, have trouble emulating perfectly smooth. I realize that 600 MHz CPUs are pretty poor these days, especially single-core and with dated microarchs.

Some emulators also exhaust the CPU. My question is, is this ability to perform emulation based more on the hardware or software on Android-powered devices? It has to be a little of both, but I'm using Gingerbread.

Do any newer Android OSes have better demand, or am I limited solely by the CPU?

The clue is in both the graphics GPU and the CPU for emulation. The Adreno 200 GPU chipset and its related driver is old by today's standards, plus the fact, that the older ARMv6 devices were more or less running kernel 2.6.xx which did not have much Adreno driver integration into kernel space.

This was the key change in Ice Cream Sandwich and later, which usually went hand-in-hand with the kernels 3.x.x where the actual driver was loaded into that kernel space for Adreno chipsets, which in turn, made the GPU drawing much smoother. There was attempts to backport those kernel features from 3.x.x back into 2.6.xx which was a nightmare for the ARMv6 so all sorts of hacks were put in place to give it, more or less, a "smooth" experience for the GPU and Adreno at that point. Plus the fact, that kernels 3.x.x has dropped ARMv6 architecture support as well!

As for ARMv6, well, it did the world good and is gathering dust. I did point out about a year or so ago, that ARMv6 cheap smartphones will be phased out in favour of single core ARMv7 in that category of cheap smartphones.

Nonetheless, emulation is indeed CPU heavy, no questions asked, as the emulator's running code for such a game has to be "translated" or "interpreted" for the actual CPU that the emulator is running on.

Might be worth trying a better emulator, I did run Pokemon on the Gameboy Emulator, this was found in the F-Droid repository,  and ran ok on the Zte Blade (ARMv6, 512Mb RAM, Adreno 200). The only snag with such emulators like that, is you need to find the emulator ROM, really, a small file that simulates the equivalence of the BIOS for that said emulator. Plus, it is hard to find for that matter as well due to copyright laws.


How to Override Google Play's Compatibility Check I own a mid-range Android phone with pretty decent specs,yet I find many a times that certain games and services are shown to be in-compatible with the phone.However when I download the apk from the internet and run it,the application runs with no snags.

Of course I could continue with my MO,but I was just wondering if there was a method to circumvent the compatibility check that takes place,even if it involves rooting.

I don't see a way to do so without massive system modifications (rooting and more) because the "compatibility check" is done on Google (server) side.

When using your phone with Google PlayStore your phone registers and identifies itself with a certain brand, name and version at Google.

Furthermore a list of available system libraries, device features and device characteristics (screen size and resolution, ..) is sent to Google.

Last but not least the country and mobile network operator is also sent as some apps country and/or MNO restricted.

If you now search for an app or try to access one specific app Google compares the app specification with your device spec and then decides if you get access to that app or not.

Note that the app developer can (optionally) manually select the devices the app is compatible with. Google has a large list of each and every Google Android device on the market.

Hence if you want to bypass the compatibility check your phone would have to pretend to be a different device and model that it actually is. This can get complicated as Google has a list of every Google Android device with every firmware version ever available. Hence forging the data to pretend to be a different phone model can be pretty complicated as Google exactly knows how what data to be expected.

Furthermore there is the problem that sometimes you don't know why the compatibility check fails. Some years ago Google was "so friendly" to exactly send back to the device why your device is incompatible (e.g screen too small, system library xyz not present, feature xyz missing). But that changed at some point and now you only get back the info "hardware incompatible".


ICS: Use site's bookmark icon The bookmarks on the home screens of my Galaxy Nexus have the same red bookmark icon.

Is it possible to automatically display the site's default icon (i.e., the one which appears in the URL bar) as the bookmark's icon?

The icon that is displayed on the action bar is called a favicon. It's a low resolution (usually 16x16) icon made to be displayed next to the name in a bookmark bar.
Android understandably doesn't use this as it would look hideous on your homescreen. For a website's icon to show up they need to add another icon: the apple-touch-icon. This one was meant to be used as an icon on the homescreen. Originally for iDevices, but android adapted it. Unfortunately I'm not aware of a way to add an icon yourself if the site doesn't supply it.


Custom Recovery for Samsung-SM-T337A? I am going to start from the very beginning so I can explain myself. I am currently on a mission to be able to play Pokemon GO on my tablet and spoof my GPS without getting banned. Ill be running it on an account that I wouldn't care if it was banned so please do not just tell me to not do it. First of all I had manually installed an update to lollipop (5.1.1) when first receiving the tablet. This was still Samsung official OS. In order to obtain my goal I had to root it. So after trial and error I managed to get my device rooted using KingRoot. Couldn't understand a damn thing because it was in Chinese but it was still successful. This allowed me to install my GPS spoofer hider (supposed to hide GPS spoof from GO). Now it seemed promising until it told me I needed Xposed framework installed. Went to go install it however now I need a custom recovery manager to install that. I have checked with both ROM Manger and TWRP but I cant find my device. I assume its not supported by either. Is there any decent customer recoveries that will work for my device or have I hit a complete dead end? I dont know if you need this to answer any questions but my build number is the following: LMY47X.T337AUCU2BOH4
Any help would be MUCH appreciated. Going to post this in xda forums to see if I can get answer there. Thank you again!

Don't expect anything for AT&T devices - AT&T intentionally locked down the bootloader. Unless the device is popular enough to attract devs to work around it (Safestrap), you're out of luck.

In the meantime, there should be recovery-free Xposed installers around, but they're much less reliable. (link unavailable - on my phone right now)


Can I connect my XLR mic to my mobile via an XLR -> USB cable via OTG? I have an XLR mic. I want to connect it to my mobile phone. But even after using all kinds of solutions / cables / connectors my mobile's audio (TRRS) socket is not detecting the mic.

I was thinking of bypassing the audio socket by going in for a USB based solution using an XLR -> USB cable (https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B06XBMMC1D)

If I use this cable and a OTG connector, will my XLR mic work in Android? The cable has a microcontroller based chipset inside it which converts analog signals to digital (that's what the manufacturer says).

My USB pc webcam mic works perfectly on my mobile when connected via a OTG connector. So will the above solution also work?

I went ahead and bought the XLR -> USB cable and IT WORKS through the OTG connector on my Redmi 4 mobile. But there is a lot of background static in the recordings.


Upgrade Android OS without SIM card I have a Moto E phone which I bought from Tesco in the UK. I assume it is unlocked as it doesn't have any Tesco mobile branding on it when I turn it on.

I have already tried the manual way and it says it's up to date. But I know that a Lollipop update is coming soon, so I'm not sure whether it is available and I need a SIM to download over WiFi.

Can I upgrade it to Lollipop without the SIM card?

No. You won't need a SIM card. Simply connecting to a working WiFi network is all you need to check and update your Moto E. Here is a post from an user on Androidcentral claiming he updated without a SIM card.

You might want to read : Who are responsible for pushing out the OTA updates?


No charger connected but showing as phone is charging Moto G 2nd Gen phone is not working properly with android lollipop. Sometime the charger is not connected but it is showing the phone is charging. Even if I use headphone the music comes out from the loudspeaker.

Sometime the charger is not connected but it is showing the phone is
  charging.

A restart would fix this problem. I had this problem just after updating to LP and I never got after a restart. It's probably a small bug.

  If I use head phone also the music comes out from the loudspeaker.

You need to change your headphones. Bad earphones are the cause of this issue. I had a cheap quality headset then I faced the same problem and upgraded to a quality headphone like sennheiser or skullcandy. Even the headphones which comes in the package is not so good. I personally use mi headphones which I found better than skullcandy in terms of sound and quality.


I'm having trouble opening my play store I have a galaxy s3 and the play store will not open, I've  i tried every way I can think of to open it but it won't work:

I restarted my phone many times, I've also tried opening it from the application clearing page where it has the option to force close, uninstall and clear data. I also tried deleting some apps, and nothing.

When I click on it to open it opens for a second and displays Play Store on a white screen but in about a second it closes. When I'm doing anything on my phone an error saying play store has unexpectedly stopped and the only thing I can press is an "ok" button. I have also tried downloading apps directly from a website and it doesn't let me, instead it closes the page.

Any ideas?

As the OP didn't report back, it seems safe to assume that the hints given in my comments to the question solved the issue:

One of the general solutions to issues with the Google Play Store app:

From your homescreen, use the menu key/button, and go to Settings › Apps
On the resulting screen, make sure to select the "All" tab
Scroll to the Google Play Store entry and open it
Chose to Clear Cache, then Delete Data, and finally Uninstall Updates1
Reboot your device (either by switching it off and on again, or long-press the Power button to bring up the "Power Menu", where you possibly can select "Reboot" directly)

1: you can try with Clear Cache only to see if that's sufficient, and if not add the other steps one after the other until you succeed


Do any open source Android roms work on smart clocks? Has LineageOS or any other open source Android rom moved into the Smart Clock (bedside alarm clock space)?
It seems some of these run Android Things

The touchscreen isn't as robust as Google's other smart displays, but it uses the same Android Things software which is a trimmed-down version of Google's mobile operating system meant for smart home gadgets.

It looks as though the Lenovo Smart Clock open source software is here.  Looking quickly it appears to be the kernel only.
The device's SoC appears to from MediaTek, codename mt8167s  possibly the same device powering the Lenovo Smart Display.  (The kernel config file is called mt8167s_ref_debug_defconfig).  I don't see any device repositories on github for this, but interestingly, there is a file for Google's Fuchsia OS Zircon microkernel for this board.
Somoene appears to have put the source on github here.  He (I assume "he"- the name is "deadman96385") has a TWRP recovery repo here for the smart clock (which may actually be named iot_mt8167s_som ??) which might be a good starting point for doing a full android port.
Also, looks like he dumped the rom here.


Clear Default not enabled in 4.0 I'm trying to set Chrome as my default browser but cannot. I go to apps and the clear default button is not enabled and says no default is set.

You don't have to go via your browser (Chrome, or some other browser in this case) to reset your default app settings though, you can do this from Settings > Apps. Click the "settings" dots in the top right hand corner and then choose "Reset app preferences". Your phone will now reset all app preferences and start asking you again what browser to use.


More notification sounds not available? I have a ONE X and have just reset it to factory default as it was starting to get laggy, I have had 8 Android phones in the last 18 mths ( I have a phone fetish) and all have been HTC except my Galaxy S 2 however when setting up notification sounds on any of my android devices I have always gone to the "Get More" in the notification sound list in settings and a bunch of other sounds are shown and I always d/l "Shooter" as its loud and distinct, however now I click "Get More" it does a search and comes back with "No available content, Tap to refresh", I don't know what I have missed or haven't done this time, yes I have internet connection and when I go through the same procedure in the Ringtone settings it works and I can d/l more ringtones  anyone got any answers other than resetting it again and starting from scratch?

                              ------------------

Sorry guys found the part of the answer myself, hope it helps someone else who has a blonde moment lol although it didn't solve the inability to get more notification sounds through the phone features by hitting the "Get More" button it does allow you to add your own downloaded sounds, a good place to get them is http://www.zedge.net . However if anyone can help with the D/L notification sounds through the phone's "Get More" button issue it would be appreciated.

Change the ringtone, notification sound, and alarm from the Personalize screen.

Choose a ringtone or notification sound from where ever on your PC connect your phone to PC and transfer it to your ringtone folder on your phone,

On your phone slide the Notifications panel open, and then tap > Personalize. On the Sound tab, tap Sound set. Choose a sound set you want to customize (Ring tone, Notification or Alarm), and get your new sound by hitting the + Add at the top of the screen and choosing your new sound and then tap Apply.

All done

HTC One X automatically saves your choices to the current sound set.


Is there a way to get a history of Facebook profiles that I've visited? I have visited a profile on Facebook recently but now I've forgotten the name of person. Is there a way that I can get a history of the profiles which I have already visited?

I am currently using Android Facebook application

From Facebook help center,

  To view your activity log on the Android app, first go to your timeline. Under your cover photo, you should see a group of tiles (ex: About, Photos, Friends). Swipe the tiles left until you see the Activity Log tile, then tap on the tile to view your activity log.

Then,

  Tap Activity Log > Filter
  Scroll down and tap Search

For the desktop version, click on the little down arrow at the top left of the screen, then Activity Log, then MORE then scroll down to Select.


Is there a way to "own" an app so that if it becomes paid, you will already own it? In the Amazon Appstore, you can own any app, even if it is currently free.  That way, if the developer later charges for the same app, you still own it.  Similarly, if it is currently on sale for free, you can own it forever.  This ownership survives uninstalls, device resets, and switching to new Android devices.

Is there any way to do this in the Google Play Store?

From what I can tell, in the Play Store, you don't actually own any app that you got for free or through a sale that reduces the price to zero.  As soon as you uninstall it, reset your device, or switch to a new one, it seems like you lose it.  Hopefully I'm mistaken.

Google doesn't allow a free app to switch to paid status. So if you download a free app and they later choose to charge for it, they'd have to do so via an in-app purchase, in which case there's nothing you can do about it beyond raising a stink to the developer and Android blogs. Something else developers regularly do is make a SECOND app available on the store, this time paid, and rename the original app to indicate its lesser status, then either stop updating it permanently, or turn it into a trial version. Either way, you'd be SOL in this scenario.

Also, I don't believe they have any sales that reduce app prices to zero on the Play Store (someone can gladly correct me if I'm wrong), unlike Amazon. There was one year they put a ton of apps on sale for $.10, but that's the lowest price I've ever seen a paid app discounted to. That said, if they did put it on sale for nothing, you would go through the purchase process and see the full price, along with a discount of the same price, which means it would still count as a purchase on your account. The same way they do regularly with movies and music. Those have all gone back up to full price, but I still own them.


Mobile data is turn on itself I am using android, it started a week ago. It automatically turns on mobile data. I switched it off but after a couple of minutes it again gets switched on. Please suggest me to solve this problem.
its koreaios8

One of your apps is controlling your data connection. Find it and remove it. You can try clearing app cash. And last you can try factory reset.


Why did my Nexus 4 download the Jelly Bean 4.3 update again? I've got a stock, non-rooted Nexus 4 which I updated to Jelly Bean 4.3 when the OTA update came out a month or more ago. Just today I got another message that there was a system update available. It said it would update to 4.3, and I double-checked (and took a screenshot), and  confirmed I already had it in "About phone."

Nonetheless, I went ahead with the update to get rid of the notification, and it went through the usual process. The before and after screenshots of the about screen confirm that I had the exact same Android, Baseband, and Kernel versions, as well as the same Build Number. I can't find any differences after the update. Does anyone know why this might have happened?

Before screenshot, taken 2013-08-23 16:28:04, before the update was started about a minute later:

After screenshot, taken 2013-08-23 16:36:14 after the update finished and it restarted.

The before and after screenshots of the about screen confirm that I had the exact same Android, Baseband, and Kernel versions, as well as the same Build Number

Actually, they do not. The first screenshot shows a build number of JWR66V, and the second is JWR66Y. An official changelog has not been released, but T-Mobile's documentation indicates that the update contains "security" updates. You can also find some (unofficial) discussion of the actual code commits in this article. So although the version number was not incremented, it is a different build than you previously had.


Internal Storage Memory reduced after installing custom ROM I just installed Cyanogenmod 12 into my HTC Desire 816 , for flashing I used TWRP. So the whole proccess was as follows:

Install CM via TWRP
Reinstall CM and GAAPS

Everything works fine and dandy but I have one big problem. My internal storage only shows 4gb of total space, from which I have only like 1GB of free space available. The phone originally came with 8gb of internal storage, and is just after I did this that it was reduced. I did clean up all the Dalvik cache, I also tried doing a new factory reset, but still it's showing only 4gb.

Unfortunately, devices with small ROM are prone to quick "runout", as correctly pointed out by previous comment. It is indeed true that the "actual" ROM size is not the one stated from the vendor but the one dictated by the Android OS itself. As an example, try to insert an SD card to your computer then right click and get to the properties. You will see that although empty , the available memory is less than the total memory reported. This is because also the SD card host some hidden files necessary for the proper functioning of the card itself.
Hopefully you will have a slot for a microSD card on your phone so that you can save all your media and transfer most of the apps to it thus keeping your internal ROM as free as possible.


Where are WhatsApp voice notes stored on an Android device? I have checked the /WhatsApp folder (and all the subfolders under it) but they are not there. I also tried the /Android folder but I am not able to find an entry for WhatsApp there.

I am using a Nexus 5, if that is important.

Your voice files are also stored in the whatsapp folder.

The path is:

For voice notes:

WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Voice Notes/

The file names are starting with PTT. The files are stored here if the sender recorded the note via whatsapp.
For audio:

WhatsApp/Media/WhatsApp Audio/

The files are stored here if the sender recorded the note in an external application and shared it to whatsapp


SMS messages disappear right after being received I have LG Optimus one with android 2.3. I get text messages (SMS) and notification appears in the notification bar. But I can't find them (messages) in the "messages" app. They simply disappear!

Check if you have set up date right! I have just observed that the date was set to 01.01.1980 and changed it to the current date and everything started working right.


Can't install a new p12 user certificate I can't import a new company-issued personal certificate in binary .p12 format. The old one worked fine, I have a new one (CA was updated so we had to be issued new ones) that fails the import.

Both have the same password and the old one imports fine, yet the new one doesn't. When the (correct) password is entered, it prompts for it again with "Type the correct password." error message. When I export it (from Firefox) with another password, it fails the same. If exported without password, Certificate Installer crashes ("Certificate Installer has stopped unexpectedly. Would you like to send an report to HTC? This will help us improve our products.)

I don't want to send report because I'm afraid of the certificate being leaked.

My Android version is 7.1.1, kernel 4.4.21-perf-g0a2f731cb614, Android security patch level June 1, 2017, the device is a stock unrooted up-to-date HTC U11.

I don't have any other Android device to test it on. The certificate imports fine in Windows, Firefox on Windows and Firefox on Linux.

Any suggestion on how to debug this? Is there a known incompatibility with some ciphering maybe?

Both the working old and not working new certificates are located for import in the same folder in the internal memory.

Android Nougat doesn't allow to install user specific CA certificates. From Google blog:

  By default, apps that target API level 24 will—by design—not honor
  such CAs unless the app explicitly opts in. This safe-by-default
  setting reduces application attack surface and encourages consistent
  handling of network and file-based application data.


How do I change the Android Market email? I bought a second-hand mobile.

When I open Market it asks for the password of another account. I don't know how to change the account.

Also, when I go to the Google Play Store and try to download something it is says that the id is missing even when I have signed in to my gmail account.

You can factory reset your phone, in that you can add a new google account.

  Before you reset your Android One, see options for backing up your data.
  On your mobile device, open the Settings menu.
  Under "Personal," touch Backup & reset. You may need to enter your - pattern, PIN, or password.
  Under "Personal data," touch Factory data reset.
  Read the information on the screen and touch Reset phone.
  If you have a screen lock, you'll need to enter your pattern, PIN, or password.
  When prompted, touch Erase everything to erase all data from your device's internal storage.
  When your device has finished erasing, select the option to reboot your device.

Now just add new gmail account by going to settings  --> Accounts --> Add New Account. Add your gmail account.

Original Source:

https://support.google.com/android-one/answer/6088915?hl=en

Hope that helps !!


New sd card doesnt work in my Android Alcatel one touch phone I purchased a new sd card for my Android phone to increase memory.  Its a 32 gb card, but my phone still says not enough memory when I try to download an app. I tried selecting sd card and it shows 32 gb available but still cant download apps.  Then I switched to internal memory just to see if that worked but it did not.  It shows I have 32 gb of memory but phone says not enough memory. I tried to format new sd card but still getting same message.  HELP!!

There isn't any problem with your SD card since it is recognized buy the phone. You know what else? Apps can't be placed on sd card without some help. Phone shows to you message 'not enough memory' because you lack internal memory where apps go when installing. So please rephrase your question. And check out this:
insufficient-memory' tag wiki,

'app2sd' tag wiki,

link2sd tag wiki,

adoptable storage tag wiki


How do I disable all emoticons on incoming/outgoing text messages? I just received a couple of text messages from a friend.

The first message read
"Type in this expression exactly, or the script will not work."

The second message read "Equals symbol, emoticon, five, emoticon, closing parenthesis, emoticon"

I later found out that he actually sent "=x-(5:O)<3" ("Equals symbol, x, minus symbol, opening parenthesis, five, colon, capital o, closing parenthesis, less than symbol, three")

I have noticed that my outgoing texts have the same problem.

I have searched the internet for solutions, but there is conflicting information about whether or not the emoticons are sent over the internet as text or as images.  See

Some say that smileys are not ordinary characters and are converted into MMS before sending

and

Others think they are just sent as it is and phone translates them later

Furthermore, none of the proposed solutions on the internet have worked for me.

I have 2 questions:

How do I disable all emoticons on incoming text messages?

How do I disable all emoticons on outgoing text messages?

You can install a 3rd party SMS app called Handcent Next SMS which provides the option to disable emoticons on all (incoming/outgoing) sms.

Install the app → Settings (inside app) → Custom style → Conversation settings → Disable smileys

Click to enlarge

Alternatively if you're on rooted android, you can recompile your Samsung Stock-Messages app (SecMmsCandy.apk) by deleting all the supporting pre-defined resource files and install back the modded version onto the phone although I'm not sure if it's such a good idea and most probably won't work, too. But if you're feeling adventurous here's the path
/system/priv-app/SecMms_Candy/SecMms_Candy.apk

Click to enlarge


Use an usb printer from an Android device I have an old usb printer and I'm wondering if it's possible to use it to print from an Android device.

I'm thinking a micro-usb-to-usb adapter and then just plug it in... Will it work? If not out of the box, how simple is it?

It likely wont. Because two things:

1) Drivers: Android wont know how to operate that printer. All ends here.

2) Even if printer has some Gandalf's spell to be detected by android, AFAIK android doesn't have a mechanism to pass out binary pixel data to printer to print the image.


How can I stop QuizUp from using up so much of my storage space? After a few weeks of usage the apps settings show that QuizUp is taking up several hundred megabytes of local data storage.

What is causing this and how can I prevent it? Clearing the app cache won't work.

Edit: After recent updates this problem does not seem to occur anymore, so this answer is probably obsolete.

Overview

This is caused by the results screen. Quizup will download each match question as a screenshot instead of rendering it on the client's side. Not only does this result in a lot of additional mobile data usage but it also takes up a lot of space on your device because all screenshots are cached. Unfortunately there does not seem to be any limit to this caching and there is no way to turn it off from the app itself. Fortunately there are two workarounds.

Workaround 1: Clearing the screenshots cache manually

Navigate to /sdcard/Android/data/com.quizup.core/ on your file explorer of choice and delete the screenshots folder. This will only affect the screenshots cache. As oposed to clearing the app data from the apps menu all user data, e.g. your account and settings, will be preserved.

Workaround 2: Disabling screenshot storage

Navigate to /sdcard/Android/data/com.quizup.core/ with your favorite file manager. Delete the screenshots folder. Then proceed to create a new empty file called screenshots.

From now on no screenshots will be saved locally. They might still be retrieved and continue to cause high mobile data usage, though.

The downside to this method: The Match Questions section on the result page will stop working.

Sources

http://www.reddit.com/r/QuizUp/comments/2059bb/data_usage/


Desk home screen display appears randomly even when disabled I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 and every so often, without any apparent reason, while my phone is idle sitting on my desk (no dock or anything; it's just laying on my desk) the screen will light up and display the time and the icons of my any current notifications appear.

I have disabled daydream and unchecked "Desk home screen display"

It appears to happen randomly after device has been idle for some time. It's not a huge deal, but it's annoying and rather distracting.

My device  is a rooted Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4 running android 4.2.2 on baseband VUAME7.

Go to the air gesture settings and deselect "quick glance"


Restore a ROM Back-up I am going to try out CyanogenMod tonight on my phone. Before I do that, however, I am curious about one thing. I performed a NANDROID backup, per instructions that I received on this site (thank you to Bryan), as well as a Titanium Backup of all my applications and data. What I am confused about is - say I really screw something up during the CyanogenMod process? How would I recover from that? From my own research, it appears it works something like this:

Made NANDROID backup. (Should be on the SD card.)
If something goes completely screwy, boot into Recovery mode (hold X on boot, Volume Up + Camera key).
Flash using the NANDROID backup off the SD card to return to a safe state.
Get Titanium and restore all apps.

Is it really that simple, or am I missing some aspect? (I should just do it, but I'm a bit worried about royally screwing up my phone.)

It's really that simple. :)

And you wouldn't even have to do step 4 (because your NANDROID backup is like taking an image of your phone, that includes all installed apps and data too).

If you wanted to do a quick test, you could try installing one app, then restoring to your NANDROID backup.  When it's done, it should no longer have that one app  you installed.  And it'll also show that your backup is good.


Where can I download Google Maps 5.0? Google Maps 5.0 looks like a great upgrade, with offline maps and 3D. However, I can't find it in the market. The direct download link on Google does't work as well.

Do you know where I can download it directly?

You are probably not in the US, right? Seems that Google Maps 5.0 is not yet available in many countries (just like Google Reader for Android). Meanwhile, you can use a link to the .apk file here: http://thegadgets.net/technology-news/download-google-maps-5-0-apk/

Download the apk file, copy to the SD card, and open with e.g. Linda File Manager. Hope this helps.


Unable to copy certain backed-up folders from PC to new microSD card I bought a bigger microSD card for my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. I took out the old card and copied its content to a folder on my PC, via a card reader. Then I put the new card in the reader, formatted it and started copying the data back onto it. One rather irrelevant .jpg file was signalled as damaged, so I skipped it, then some folder required admin rights to be copied, so I clicked the "continue as root" button. So far so good.
But finally a folder named "cache" couldn't be copied or skipped, and the only option I was left with was to abandon the whole copying process. I searched my backup folder for "cache" subfolders and there are quite a few of them, but all are buried deep in the recesses of the directory tree, so none of them is THE Android cache that I hear a lot about when googling for a clue.
Any ideas what it is I'm up against, and how to solve it?
My PC is running Windows 10.
TIA!

If your Windows ask you for admin permissions something is wrong - this should never happen as you just copied it from the other SD card.

Anyway copying and SD card file by files is IMHO not a good idea because the Windows Explorer does usually hide certain files.

Therefore I recommend to use a backup tool or alternatively use a compression program like 7Zip/WinZip/WinRAR and zip the whole source SD card to one file on your hard disk.

Then switch to the new SD-Card and restore the backup respectively decompress the created archive to the new SD card.

Edit: Note that a lot of SD cards on the market are "fake SD cards": Their controller has been manipulated to make the SD card look larger than it is (e.g. the card has 16GB flash memory but tells the Smartphone/PC it has 128GB). Writing to such a card will earlier or later end in a total disaster. Therefore I strongly recommend you to test any new SD card before using it. One of the best tools I know for doing so is a small Windows tool named h2testw (Language German and English). It writes files with a special pattern to the SD card until it is full and then reads it and tests if the pattern of every file is correct.


Can a flashed rom leave behind artifacts? I found a few "unofficial" Lollipop ROMS floating around the internet.

I don't know how reliable are they, or how many viruses are there.

All I want to do is to play with it a little. I'm thinking of making an NANDROID backup, flashing the rom, playing with it a little (with no private information placed there), and restoring the NANDROID.

Is this safe? Can a malicious Rom writer intercept any attempt to flash a Recovery and keep itself on the phone (sort of like a rootkit)?

No, it can't.

As long as you don't flash any new firmware files (like we have to do with the HTC One M8 to get it on lollipop) you should be fine with a nandroid backup.

Long story short, if you only flash via recovery and not via fastboot etc. you should be fine.


Default music app for bluetooth audio Situation: Connected to BT audio device, listening to Spotify app.  Press pause on the BT device (car stereo), then press play.

Expected behaviour:  The music being played by Spotify pauses, then resumes

Actual behaviour: The music being played by Spotify pauses, then the Apollo music player launches and starts playing.  Most likely to be completely different music.

Extra information: Apollo is the OEM music player which I occasionally use and don't want to uninstall.  HTC One X runnning Android 4.2.2 CyanogenMod 10.1

Can I fix this annoying behaviour?

If you want a specific app to react to bluetooth commands, you have to set it to high priority. I know PowerAmp has such a setting. Check the spotify settings for a high priority option.


Troubleshooting the Android Emulator When starting up my emulator at home, the emulator takes forever to start. Sometimes it does not start. If the emulator starts, it is hit or miss if I get a network connection. When it does finally start, and I do get a network connection, it is incredibly slow.

I have the same set up at work, and the emulator flies. It is a joy to work on it, while at home it is a borderline nightmare.

My work computer and my home computer are both Windows XP. My home computer has 8 gigs of ram, while my work computer has MUCH less. My home computer has plenty of more processor.

What should I look for in comparison or analysis in getting the emulator at home working better?

First step: I would update the Google SDK.  The latest SDK introduced snapshots.  This means you don't have to wait on the emulator to boot the next time you cold start it.  Instead it'll load right where you left it when you last closed the emulator.

I'm not sure why your home computer is performing less than your work computer if it has better hardware.  My (new) desktop is running the newest i7 processor (8 cpus, HOWEVER: the emulator only runs on ONE cpu.  So your clockspeed is what matters here, not how many cores you have.  Does your home pc have a slower clockspeed than your work?), 8 gb ram, and a SSD and the emulator runs much faster than my laptop (last gen i7 with 4 cpus, 4gb ram, no SSD. But my desktop has nearly twice the clockspeed as my laptop).  My guess would be the clockspeed.


Samsung Galaxy S3 black screen and automatic reboots I have a Samsung Galaxy S3, purchased on July 2012.

Sometimes, when I press the power button, the screen keeps black. The button LEDs turn on, but nothing else happens, and I have to remove the battery, or hold the power button for 20 seconds to force a reboot. It has happened to me 4 times; the first 2 were quite distant in time, but the last 2 were both this week.

Also this week, the phone has started to reboot itself. That has happened three times, two of them while I was using it, and the last one tonight, with the phone being idle (no wifi, no data connections, nothing). It just reboots automatically and then everything works fine.

I've never flashed the device, it's not even rooted. It's running Android 4.1.2, as I've installed all the official updates via OTA (base I9300XXELLA, kernel 3.0.31-836582, compilation number JZO54K.I9300XXEMA2). And no, I did not install recently any app which may be causing my problems.

So far, I've retired the microSD card (32GB card, manufactured by Samsung), because I've read that this may be the cause of the reboots. I'll try keeping it without the card for a few days. Although I've been using the same card for 5 months, and the reboots didn't start until this week. Edit: OK, we can rule out the SD card as the source of the problems - the phone also reboots itself without the microSD.

There are a lot of posts from people with similar problems, and most of the answers say they should try a factory reset. However, in most of the cases that doesn't seem to solve the problem. So, I didn't try it...  yet. Maybe I should, but I'm afraid that the problem will be still present, and it's a lot of trouble for nothing.

I've already contacted with Samsung customer service, but in the meantime, is there anything else I can do?

Can I at least diagnose somehow what's happening? I've read here about something called logcat, however they say the log is only kept on memory, it's not stored, so it would be of no help to determine what happened after a reboot or a black screen problem...

Any ideas?

Edit: the phone rebooted itself again, and this time the microSD card was not inserted. That means one suspect ruled out, but I still have to find the culprit.

Edit: it seems that the problems were solved after doing a factory reset. At least, the phone hasn't rebooted itself for the last 5 days...

I gave up and did a factory reset. Since then, the phone has been working for 5 days in a row... so it seems like at least the reboots are gone (I hope not to jinx it...).

I've also noticed that since the reset, the battery lasts at least twice longer than before. I've fewer installed apps, which should lead to a slight battery life improvement, but this isn't slight, it's the double. Before the reset, at night (no data connections, no WiFi), the phone consumed about 1% of its battery per hour. Now it's consuming less than 1% in the whole night. Obviously there was something wrong before the factory reset. I hope everything is fine now...

In case it's helpful for anybody else, this what the Samsung Customer Service told me to do:

  Start the phone in Secure Mode for a couple of days. That means that only preinstalled apps will work. So if that solves the problems, there is an app causing them. To enable Secure Mode, you have to reboot the phone, and press the options button (the left one) when the Samsung logo appears; it should vibrate, and then you will see "Secure Mode" at the left bottom corner. To disable Secure Mode, turn off the phone and extract the battery for a few seconds.
  --- For Verizon GSIII phones: after you reboot the phone, press and hold the volume down button  when the Samsung logo appears. Directions also state that you may need to hold the button for up to 45 seconds before you will see "Safe Mode" in lower left-hand corner. http://support.verizonwireless.com/support/devices/knowledge_base.html/59242/
  Perform a factory reset (if the phone still has problems running in Secure Mode). To perform it, go to Menu > Settings > Backup & reset > Factory data reset. It will revert the phone to its original factory status, therefore, you will lose all the data and applications stored in your phone's memory (it will not affect the SIM card, nor the microSD if you have one). Be sure to backup everything you don't want to lose! You can use Samsung KIES for that backup.
  If the phone still has problems after the factory reset, it should be checked by Samsung Technical Service.


my screen just went black My Samsung galaxy s3 just went black and now it won't turn on and when I try to turn it on it just vibrates. I tried restarting it I tried taking my battery out. That don't work either.

Just let it recharge for some time then try again


Why are some emoji not displayed? I am wondering, on what does it depend which emoji are available on which system? I was using an emoji from the Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs code page and it displays on OSX, but not on Android. Looking at the chart from the Wiki article, I can see that it displays in full on OSX, but only some of the emoji are visible on Android Nougat.

Why is that?

It depends on the NotoColorEmoji.ttf font file you have installed. If that file doesn't include a glyph for the Unicode code point you want, it can't show it. Here's an SO post about fonts and glyphs:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3582944/how-does-a-unicode-character-get-mapped-to-a-glyph-in-a-font

This reddit post talks about replacing your system's NotoColorEmoji.ttf font file with one that includes EmojiOne emojis:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/3xezb9/emojione_on_android/


Unknown Android notification message. Updating Data This morning my Project Fi Nexus 6P with Android 6.0.1 had an animated icon in the notification list with a progress bar and the text "Updating Data".

Using the search features I didn't find anything that explained what it was.

Here's a screenshot:

Screenshot (click image to enlarge)

Zooming in to the icon helped identify the app as a Yellowstone guide app.

https://goo.gl/photos/H55YTqfJabp8uiB17


face recognition as password Looking for an application that use face recognition of the cellphone's owner wnen you are powering on your cellphone + activating the phone after being stand by with black screen.

Where can I find it?

I'm using Galaxy SII with android 4

Is it face unlock you are asking about? If so, there is a handy guide here. It requires your phone to be rooted and have ClockworkMod Recovery installed. Here are the installation instructions from the link:

  Installation Instructions

  Before you proceed with setting up Face Unlock on your Galaxy S2, make
  sure that your phone:

  is rooted, has ClockworkMod Recovery installed, and is running Android
  4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich firmware build XXKP8.

  If your phone meets those requirements, you can follow these steps:

  1.Download the Face Unlock update file to your computer and then copy the downloaded ZIP file to your SD card. Get the file here.

  2.Turn off your mobile phone and reboot it into recovery mode. You can do this by pressing the Volume Up and OK buttons. Press both buttons
  at the same time and then press the Power button.

  3.If you are already in recovery mode, proceed by selecting “Wipe data/factory reset” and “Wipe Cache partition”.

  4.Reboot your device by selecting “Reboot system now” from the recovery menu.

  5.Reboot your device again into recovery mode.

  6.From the menu, select “install zip from SD card”, then ” choose zip from SD card”, and then choose the Face Unlock ZIP file which is on
  your phone. After you have selected the file, installation will start.

  7.After installation, your device will again display the recovery mode screen. Select “Reboot system now” to reboot the phone. Take note that
  this time, restarting your device will take much longer. On the other
  hand, you can also opt to update this package from ClockworkMod
  Recovery.


How can you get a local filesystem link of an offline-accessible PDF file in Dropbox? I would like to get a link to a pdf file in my local Dropbox of my android.
This is because I want to access the file by the syntax /local/system/something/file.pdf#page=116 in Internet Browser.
I have the file as Available for Offline Use in Dropbox.
I do not know if this stores the file as readable in my system.

This would help me a lot because then I do not need to browse books at the very beginning of the file. The Dropbox browser is so limited that I cannot add there #page=116 in Dropbox's pdf browser so I need a link to the file in the filesystem.

How can you get a local filesystem link of an offline-accessible PDF file in Dropbox?

It's in

YourLocalStorage/Android/data/com.dropbox.android/files/uXXXXXX/scratch/Your/Folder/In/Dropbox/file.pdf

Note that YourLocalStorage depends on your mobile. For example, it is storage/emulated/0/ on some LG phones.

To access the file from your web browser you have to put file:/// before the given path.


Can I save a web page to my SD card with the stock android browser? Can I save a web page to my SD card with the stock android browser?  I'm using an HTC Droid Eris, if that matters.

There is an application called Save Webpage which will let you do it, I don't know of any  other way to do it in the stock browser.


Using Android only with Outlook and not Google Calendar When using Android ICS, can I use my phone without having my calendar and associated items going on Google Calendar but just synchronizing with Outlook (the desktop app) ? If yes, how may I do this ?

Have a look at Sync Calendar. With the right settings I think it can accomplish what you want. If it's not what you're looking for you can try Outlook Mobile Calendar but it only has 3.5 (EDIT: 2) stars.


Galaxy S2 Not Booting After Editing build.prop I'm really far from "rooting Android devices" . I had root my device . SuperSU and CWM installed.

But today i did a mistake and decided to try Facebook Home. So install it from an .apk and then edit build.prop file, changed ro.product.model from GT-I9100 to GT-I9300 . (Also i did a backup BEFORE doing this) . Now i'm trying to boot my phone but it's not booting. Just there is Galaxy S2 booting screen. It's like this :

I have searched it and found a few solutions, but i couldn't follow them because i didn't understand them exactly. For example , in one of this solutions they said "install cm9 mod" but in this page : http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/I9100_Info there is'a warning about superbrick it's scared my.

I have tried booting with CWM (power button + sound up button + home button) and factory reset but i'm getting **Error mounting /sdcard/.android_secure error.I'm trying to mount it from mounts and storage but it's giving error Error mounting /sdcard.

I have really no idea what should i do, i have read a few articles about this but i couldn't understand ANYTHING .

And i really need this phone this evening, i'm going to a travel.

These are some posts about my problem :
http://www.transformerforums.com/forum/transformer-pad-300-development/27254-solved-help-can-t-pass-through-asus-tegra-logo-screen-did-i-brick-2.html

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1948094

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1903407

NOTE : I'M USING MACBOOK

Summing up the solution from above comments:
Fixing up the possibly broken build.prop file
You don't need to mount your SDCard to revert your changes. If you can boot into recovery, and access the device via adb shell, you can do so and replace your edited build.prop file with the backup copy you've created (using the cp command), thus restoring the state of before your edit. Example, assuming you've named your backup build.prop.bak and placed it in the same place as the original:
# re-mount /system read/write
adb remount
# copy back the original file
cp /system/build.prop.bak /system/build.prop
# as bassmadrigal pointed out: let's make sure the file permissions are fine
chmod 644 /system/build.prop
# reboot the device
adb reboot

Keep in mind the file ends with "prop", which is short-hand for "properties" -- not "prob" as short-hand for "probabilities :)
If it still not boots: uninstall the last app installed
As the first part didn't solve the problem here, it might be the app installed (facebook home in our case) is causing trouble on the device it was not intended for. So let's kick it out. Boot into recovery again, get your ADB ready, and
# uninstall the app
# adb shell pm uninstall <package_name>
adb shell pm uninstall com.facebook.home
# reboot the device
adb reboot

This finally solved it.
As a factory-reset was done, how was the app able to survive that?
This was an after-thought to the entire issue. A possible explanation lies in the fact that the factory-reset complained about the SDCard not being able to mount. So if parts of the app got installed to the card, they might have survived there. Unlikely as this is (after all, apps on SDCard should not be able to cause boot issues, as the card is mounted only after boot_completed), I see no other explanation (comments welcome, I can include them here if wished for).
This lead to another question:
Should I remove the external SD card to protect it from factory reset?
Normally, a factory reset should not touch the external SDCard. But "better safe than sorry": if it should not be touched normally, it shouldn't matter whether it's in the device or not, so it shouldn't hurt to remove it before the factory reset. However: if you use(d) app2sd, there's a special directory called .android_secure on the SDCard holding the (encrypted) parts of the "moved apps". After a factory reset. the system does not know of them -- so when re-installing such an app, it might lead to problems. Thus when removing the card before doing a factory reset, make sure to remove the .android_secure directory from the card (using a card reader and your computer) before re-inserting it again.


How can I make a change language shortcut for voice recognition in android 2.3.4? I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 Phone, I work in English, Spanish and French, and constantly have to change from one language to the other, making a shortcut to change the language of the voice-recognition would make this the perfect, perfect phone, I would prefer to dictate my email and WhatsApp messages instead of typing them all the time, but going in to the home screen/menu/voice-recognition settings etc... just defeats the purpose... it takes more steps than to just type it...

By default It should be that: when I swipe to change the language of the Gingerbread keyboard it should also change the language of the voice recognition...

Please help, anyone... I would gladly pay for any app or script that solves this... does anyone know where can I find this?

I believe if you hold the microphone icon it brings up a menu that allows you to change those settings. It may be the comma icon on your phone however. Previous versions allowed you to swipe the keyboard. Otherwise there are many alternative keyboards you can download from the Android Play Store.


Is it safe to install Launchers for Android which require quite a few permissions? I have HTC One X with Sense on it. Sense is a bit slow. So I installed Apex Launcher. It was fast but it required quite a few permissions so I uninstalled it. I looked at other Launchers in Google Play like Nova, Go, etc. but all of them had required some or the other permissions which were giving me goosebumps, like

Service that cost you money: Directly call phone numbers
Your messages: Access mail information, read your text messages (SMS
or MMS)
Your personal information: Read call log, read your contacts
Your accounts: Find accounts on this device

So my question is, is it safe to install Launchers for Android which require permissions like they can read your emails, SMS, call number directly? Also Apex launcher cannot create widget on home screen unless the phone is rooted and shows a message - NOTE: Due to limitations of the Android framework, you won't be able to add widgets from the drawer unless Apex Launcher is installed as a system app (root required). Please read the FAQ for more information. Is this the case with all Launchers?

Those permissions (call, SMS) are in most cases used for "quick-access-widgets/shortcuts" the launcher provides. To create a call widget for a contact, the contacts need to be read, which again might need the account data in some cases to retrieve them.

So all those permissions are obviously making sense in context of a launcher. Of course this does not mean they cannot be abused. So I'd either stick with a heavily used / well known app, or have additional protection (PDroid, LBE).

You explicitly mentioned Apex, which I use on some of my devices. On others I use GoLauncher EX. I also use LBE to keep watch. None of these two launchers ever misused these permissions (at least I never got a warning) -- though I must admit I did not check all the logs thoroughly all the time.


What is this Phone/Eye Icon in my notification bar on LG Volt? This icon appears seemingly at random, especially on my lock screen but not always. I can almost guarantee it pops up if I make a screenshot but I am not sure. I am on an LG Volt phone from Boost Mobile, and I was able to (finally) screenshot this icon after wondering about it for over a month.

A screenshot of the image is here:

Any guesses or preferably solid answers to what this could be are very much appreciated! It only appears for a brief moment (sometimes not even a second) before it disappears again.

I want to reiterate I see it most on my lock screen, but there could be other times it happens that I am not noticing.

Thank you in advance for your assistance in identifying what this is!

This icon seems to be some "user is active" icon that notifies you when the device captured you looking at the phone, but not actively using it.

There is a similar icon I know from my Samsung device that is meant to do this. It will prevent the display from becoming dark/locking the device so you can read your article, book etc. without tapping on the screen to keep it bright and unlocked.

If you like you may be able to disable that feature (active camera uses quite some battery) in the Display settings under Smart Screen.

Reference: How to Enable Smart Screen on LG G2


How to turn on HTC One Mini with a broken power button? My power button is broken, and unfortunately you cannot take the battery out to turn it on like I seen in youtube tutorials, therefore Im seeking for anyones help to tell me how to turn it on? I also tried the volume keys; don't work...

Thanks

I guess there's no other way than opening the case and manually shorting out power button pins for 1 - 2 secs.

It's not that hard, I've done that with my HTC Desire before. :) Just google for "disassemble HTC One Mini"

Just one tip: If the case refuses to open, do not try too hard, maybe you're just doing it wrong, think first, then do, it should open easily without putting much pressure and power
Good luck


How to change default keyboard on Android N? Somehow my default keyboard got changed.  I used to be able to go to Settings -> Language and Input and then there was something that would let me change the keyboard.  Now under "Keyboard and input methods" I only see "Virtual keyboard" and "Physical Keyboard".  When I select the former it lists all the keyboards I have installed and enabled, but doesn't show me which one is the selected keyboard.  If I tap any of the keyboards it takes me to the settings for that keyboard, which doesn't provide me with any way to make that keyboard the default.  Long pressing does the same thing.  There is nothing helpful under the menus.  If I tap on "Manage keyboards" it shows me all the keyboards installed, and a mini-slider showing if each is enabled or not and allowing me to change.  But again, nothing to set the default!

How do I change the default keyboard in Android N?

Update: Apparently Google doesn't even know how to do this - I contacted chat support and the agent wasn't able to help me!

It appears that some keyboards offer something under their keyboards (e.g. a special key) to switch keyboards.  However others, such as the Google Keyboard do not.

However, what I have discovered is that whenever the on-screen keyboard is up, no matter which keyboard it is, there is a new virtual button at the bottom right of the screen with the icon of a keyboard.  When I tap this icon a dialog box pops up to change the keyboard.


Android dies at 20% battery? It all started about three months ago when my HTC One (M8)'s USB charging port died. At first the port would sometimes not work, you just have to move the cable around a bit for it to charge, then you had to hold the cable down to make it keep charging, and finally device wouldn't charge at all.

The same exact thing happened to my HTC Vivid. When I got the Vivid fixed, the technician said it was water damage.

Anyway, after the local phone repair shop successfully installed the new USB port on my One phone, failing on the first try as it was still in the same condition, everything was fine. For a few weeks. Then the phone started shutting down as if it had no battery left, at 20%. I immediately plugged it into a charger, turned it back on, and the phone read 1%.

Its been doing that ever since. Some days it goes down to 0%, some days it goes down to 20% or 25% and dies.

Here's a screen shot of what is going on.

Under device settings, it says that the battery condition is good.

So I'm just wondering why my phone may be doing this, and what do you think the best option is to fix this.

I tried recalibrating the battery, clearing the cache, and installing a new ROM. None of the above worked.

There could be three reasons to this (not in any order)  :

Battery lived it's life.
Fuel Guage drivers corrupted.  To rule this out, i suggest back up your data and with your recovery wipe clean all Cache and system and flash stock(not sure if you cleaned fully when you flashed a ROM)  If the problem continues, it is likely that it is not a driver corruption issue.
Hardware of battery charging chip gone bad. One possible way of checking this is to see if it is charging and discharging fully in safe mode. If  it  does unlikely to be hardware issue

I would recommend step 2 first and then if possible borrow a battery to check if it is a case of  battery end of life.

All the best and do post the conclusion


What kind of charger do I need to get for my Galaxy Tab? I have a older Galaxy Tab 1 I'm assuming because all it says on the back is Galaxy Tab Samsung. And I need to know what kind of charger I need to ask for when I go and purchase one or order offline so if anyone knows the exact name or what ever I'd appreciate the feedback thanks.

The original Galaxy Tab (GT-P1000) is a 7-inch device with one very distinguishing feature - the capacitive keys below the screen.

If this is indeed the one you have, you will need to find a charger or a USB cable with this flat connector on one end:

Given its age, it's quite cheap - sells for < $5 in my region. Usually just vaguely searching would give you reasonable results. You can just grab a cable and pair it with any modern USB charging adapter too.


SD card readers don't work via USB OTG but USB thumb drives do, any ideas? I have a Huawei Ascend G6 LTE (G6-L22) and bought a little USB OTG cable so I could read full sized SD cards while out and about.

Only, it doesn't work, on either of the SD card readers I've tried - both of them small USB2 based readers.

When I plug in USB thumb drives to the adapter, they work fine and I can browse files and photos.  But no go on the card readers.

What will happen is the phone either doesn't see the drive at all, or it sees it momentarily then it disappears with a "your SD card was disconnected" notification.  The LED on the card reader lights up when you first plug it in, but then goes into a fast blinking pattern which seems to indicate a problem.

Any ideas?  I wouldn't have thought an SD card reader would exceed the normal power supplied via USB OTG ports, and its LED lights up.  Could the phone just not have a driver that supports card readers?

Edit: the filesystem on the SD card was FAT32, as it was a 16GB card I use in my DSLR.  I use the stock ROM but am rooted.

I believe that the problem is lack of power. Your phone doesn't deliver enough power to the card reader. I would suggest using the same kind of cable you used to need when connecting an external hard disk using USB. It has one contact for the hard disk (card reader in your case), one for the phone and one for extra power (use a separate USB charger/adapter).  That should solve the power problem.

I don't know where one can find this kind of cable in your part of the world. They should be fairly easy to find though.

If this doesn't work I would use the Googles ADB developer tool to check the logs on the phone to see if there are any error messages that could help.

Good luck!


SD Card Multiple partitions USB access I want to split my SD cart in 2 partitions: one for android, and one containing a bootable OS used from computers through USB or by inserting in card readers. I can't access the second partition from USB!

Specs:

Phone: motorola defy+
System: CynogenMod 10 (android 4.1.2)
SD Card layout:

Primary FAT32, 1Gb, intended for android only (apps data)
Primary EXT4, 15Gb, invisible from android intended for computers (bootable linux system)

Current status:

Everything works with a laptop SD card reader: I can mount and browse both FAT32 and EXT4 partiations. I can boot from the SD card and boot to the linux I installed on the ext partition.
From the phone: android can mount and access the FAT32 partition, the ext4 partition is invisible just like I want.
Problem from USB: When accessing the card in the phone from a computer through USB (android is configured as USB mass storage device), I can only access the FAT32 partition.

My question:

Android seems to be exposing only the first partition as a block device through USB. Therefore I can't access the second partition, or even see it with partitioning tools. Obviously, booting from it also doesn't work.
Can I make Android to expose the full SD card as a block device through USB, so that all partitions are visible from a computer and I can boot on it.

Any help or pointers appreciated, thanks!

You can try to use the MBRFAT hack — the first sector which looks both like a FAT boot sector and a MBR partition table.  Such images can be created by the makebootfat utility.

I did not try to do this actually, but in theory you should do the following:

Create a files directory which should contain files to be placed into the FAT32 filesystem image (it could just be empty).
Locate the following files:

mbrfat.bin — should be contained in the makebootfat package;
ldlinux.sys and ldlinux.bss — come from the Syslinux 3.x package (use a 3.x version, I'm not sure that makebootfat is compatible with more recent versions).

Create a file for the FAT32 filesystem image with the desired size of the FAT32 part:

dd if=/dev/zero of=fat.img bs=1M count=1024

Create the FAT32 filesystem image with MBRFAT:

makebootfat -o fat.img -m mbrfat.bin -b ldlinux.bss  -c ldlinux.sys -F -Y -v files/

(Note that placing ldlinux.sys in the files/ directory does not work — it must be copied with the -c option.)
Put your card in the phone and attach it to your computes as UMS (it you work with a card reader, it would be hard for you to mount nested partitions).
Write the created image to the whole disk device exposed by your phone:

dd if=fat.img of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

Create your additional partitions on the same device that you have written the image to. If you want to place the bootloader on the EXT4 partition instead of using SYSLINUX on the FAT32 partition, mark your EXT4 partition active and remove the active flag from the FAT32 partition.
Make a backup copy of the MBR+FAT sector:

dd if=/dev/sdX of=mbr_fat_backup.bin bs=512 count=1

Install Linux on the EXT4 partition, being very careful to avoid installing the bootloader to the MBR of the disk. Some installers do not support installing the bootloader into the partition boot sectors; in this case either skip the bootloader installation and install it manually later, or (if skipping is also not possible) restore the MBR+FAT sector from the backup after installation, then install the bootloader into the partition boot sector. Or you may configure SYSLINUX on the FAT32 partition as your bootloader (for this you will need to copy the kernel and initramfs image to the FAT32 partition).

This configuration would work as follows:

Android will see the outer partition contents just as a FAT32 partition, although with the number of sectors in the filesystem smaller than the partition size. The Linux kernel on the Android device will not try to parse the nested partition table, therefore the nested EXT4 partition will not be accessible from there.
When Android exposes the partition contents as an USB mass storage device, the OS on the host computer will parse the sector 0 of the exposed device as an MBR partition table, and will see multiple partitions there. For the FAT32 partition it will use another sector as the boot sector containing the FAT32 BPB; this copy of BPB will contain a smaller value in the “number of reserved sectors” field, so that the FAT and data clusters will end up in the same physical sectors as when using the BPB in sector 0 of the outer partition.

The problem with this config is that accessing the EXT4 partition when using the card in a card reader will not be possible, unless you use utilities like kpartx to expose nested partitions. Booting when using a card reader could work if you create another partition on the card directly and install some bootloader there (with a separate copy of kernel and initramfs images); note that this partition will not be accessible when using the phone.

In addition, mbrfat.bin is somewhat buggy, and some computers fail to boot when using it.


Nexus 10 handwriting apps always lag So I just bought a nexus 10 and among the many reasons for getting one, I want to take notes with it. I've bought myself a nice stylus that works wonderfully on iPads and my galaxy nexus phone. However, writing with the same stylus and exact same apps on my nexus 10 isn't working as one would hope. It seems to lag quite badly in picking up where my stylus is and this forces me to write very slowly so that it will pick up all of my strokes, thus making it pretty much useless in a classroom setting, but, like I said before, I don't see this at all with my galaxy nexus.

So, why am I seeing such a huge difference in performance between these two devices when (I assume) the nexus 10 would be so much more powerful than my phone? Is it the apps or the hardware? And how do I fix this issue without just writing my own note taking app?

Make device as root
Go to xda-developers.com - Seeder Topic
Install last Seeder apk on your device
Run it

And then your device should work better.


TWRP fails to flash stock ROM (invalid zip) I have a sprint samsung galaxy s5 (g900P)
I am a mac user without access to a PC (no odin).
I have TWRP recovery installed.
I am currently running lineage OS (nougat)
I need to return to stock (the reason for this is that I am trying to activate new cellular service and it doesn't seem to work under lineage. If someone has experience activating TPO or other cell service using lineage or updating PRL on non-stock firmware please let me know since that might obviate these other problems).

I used android file transfer to move the stock firmware zip in the download section to the internal SD (root folder). I wiped the system and cache, then install zip - but it fails every time with "invalid zip file format". I have tried a half dozen other versions of the stock ROM from various sources and they all fail with the same error. ZIP signature verification is disabled. Just when I thought that i was doing something completely dumb and not flashing correctly at all - I tried re-flashing the lineageOS ROM i have and that worked fine. I've read a bit about unpacking and re-zipping these zips to get them to work, but that requires 7zip (which I don't have on mac). Help! am I doing something dumb or do I not have the correct zip files?

I saw this thread that had a partial answer but I am not a developer so it was way over my head. not sure I know how to proceed: (SOLVED - partial) Flashing Source Built ROM Fails in TWRP, Invalid File Format
Do i need to modify the zip files I have? can someone link me to a zip for the stock firmware that will work on TWRP?
for the record I grabbed the 3CQA2 zip from here: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/brujjvaro2ogo/Odin_images
which I grabbed from this thread https://forum.xda-developers.com/sprint-galaxy-s5/development/firmware-sprint-s5-factory-odin-images-t3585129

Thanks!

I encountered this too:

build/tools/releasetools/sign_target_files_apks -o -d "$KEY_DIR" out/target/product/$DEVICE/obj/PACKAGING/target_files_intermediates/aosp_$DEVICE-target_files-eng.xx.zip $OUT/$TARGET_FILES

build/tools/releasetools/ota_from_target_files --block -k "$KEY_DIR/releasekey" $OUT/$TARGET_FILES  $OUT/$DEVICE-ota_update-$BUILD.zip

build/tools/releasetools/img_from_target_files -v $OUT/$TARGET_FILES $OUT/$DEVICE-img-$BUILD.zip

TWRP will install $DEVICE-ota_update-$BUILD.zip, but failed to install $DEVICE-img-$BUILD.zip: Failed to install, invalid zip file format!. fastboot update $OUT/$DEVICE-img-$BUILD.zip works.

TWRP version twrp-3.1.1-0-grouper