Using command-line to boot into primary and secondary ROM of MultiROM I've a OnePlus One with unlocked bootloader, modified TWRP v2.8.6, unofficial MultiROM v32k, MultiROM Manager v1.186, Cyanogen OS 12 as primary and several Android 5.1 secondary ROMs. I don't have any non-Android secondary ROM.

I created a Android backup script in my PC which requires me to boot into a particular ROM of mine for backup to take place. This is not an XY problem and hence I need not to discuss anything about the flexibility of backup. I must boot into a particular secondary ROM (say S1).

At present, I'm using automation, Tasker precisely, which using time trigger launches MultiROM and uses combination of input tap commands to navigate to S1's entry and taps it to boot into it. As you may have guessed, this approach is mundane and is bound to fail should the user deliberately or inadvertently touches any soft/hard button or interacts with UI of the active app during which the series of input commands are in use.

I'm absolutely aware about AutoInput, Xposed Additions Pro apps and screen pinning of an app, where the former two  allows independently disabling soft/hard keys for an active app. AutoInput can even simulate recorded touches. However, none of them can disable input from touchscreen, with touch input being the biggest cause of failure with current solution.

Being unable to find out a way to block touch input on-the-fly, I decided to figure how MultiROM Manager app causes a device to boot into a particular ROM. It was a hopeless journey to begin with, given that the keywords viz. command, multirom, adb, boot, secondary, primary ROM, are found wherever MultiROM is mentioned. Since even advanced web search didn't benefit me, I decided to peek into the output of logcat and see whether it gives me something useful. Once again, nothing of any good use.

I found myself left with the choice to contact Vojtech Bocek (Tassadar, the original developer of MultiROM) for the solution or peek into the source code of the app. Deciding to go with the latter choice, during my exploration I stumbled upon these lines in MultiROM.java

public void bootRom(Rom rom) {
    String name = (rom.type == Rom.ROM_PRIMARY) ? INTERNAL_ROM : rom.name;
    Shell.SU.run("%smultirom --boot-rom='%s'", m_path, name);
}

Being through with libsuperuser already, I took an educated guess that Shell.SU.run("%s/multirom --boot-rom='%s'", m_path, name) most likely corresponds to the command run in a shell with superuser privilege.

And, this is the end of the story since I've checked all the locations under $PATH and none of them contains the binary named multirom.

So, how do I boot into a particular ROM now?

I searched for the string multirom --boot-rom and came across an interesting paste (copy) posted by an untitled guest, with these relevant lines:

<alvinmobile> How do you autoboot other rom in a secondary rom?
<alvinmobile> I mean where do you store the info?
<Tassadar> it runs "multirom --boot-rom=nameoftherom" in su shell, and MultiROM takes care of that - it loads ROM list as usual and either directly kexecs the required kernel or sets force-autoboot into rom X (which saves into multirom.ini) and reboots

I was on the right track as it seems. I suddenly realized that multirom installer zip may be the final piece of the puzzle. And it was, since it contains the multirom binary and uses extract_multirom.sh script to place the binary et al into /data/media/0/multirom (accessible with root access only).
As for finding the name of a ROM, it is what you see in the ROM list in the app or the name of the top-level directories under /data/media/0/multirom/roms.
Boot into the ROM
(Prefix adb shell in commands if you want to use adb to test them.)
The command is very simple:
su -c /data/media/0/multirom/multirom --boot-rom=ROM_NAME

Replace ROM_NAME with the name of the ROM to which you want the device to boot into. It is case-sensitive so Internal works but internal doesn't to boot into primary ROM.
I've not tested passing a ROM's name consisting of special characters but whitespace can be escaped using '' and \. E.g., the name Xenon HD can be passed as 'Xenon\ HD' and  the whole command would be
su -c /data/media/0/multirom/multirom --boot-rom='Xenon\ HD'

You can create a symlink for convenience.
Trial and Error
With a bit of testing, I reached the conclusion that the ROM can be switched by editing the multirom.ini file alone, followed by an ordinary reboot instruction. Among other lines in that file, these are the most useful ones:

current_rom=COS12
auto_boot_seconds=5
auto_boot_rom=Internal
auto_boot_type=0

Here,

current_rom - contains the name of the currently active ROM or the last active ROM if the device powers off without an instruction to be switched into an another ROM
auto_boot_seconds - timeout to boot into default ROM
auto_boot_rom - the ROM that should be booted into after timeout
auto_boot_type - governs whether there should be a direct switch between ROMs or should the UI for ROM selection be shown during boot

(There are no sources to support the claims. I've reached the conclusion based on my experiment only.)
Let's assume that your active ROM is named COS12, internal ROM is named Internal and you want to switch to Xenon HD. Switch it this way:
(Requires Busybox)

su -c cp /data/media/0/multirom/multirom.ini /data/media/0/multirom/multirom.ini.orig       # one time command and optional, but it is safe to make backup always
su -c sed -i 's/current_rom.*/current_rom\=ROM_NAME/g' /data/media/0/multirom/multirom.ini  # for Xenon HD, ROM_NAME would be Xenon\ HD
su -c sed -i 's/auto_boot_type.*/auto_boot_type\=2/g' /data/media/0/multirom/multirom.ini   # changing to `2` causes MultiROM to directly boot into the ROM mentioned in `current_rom`. The setting would later be reverted to 0 after successful boot
su -c reboot

Commands are optional here. You can use a file editor app, such as QuickEdit to edit the file.
Note: During reboot:

If auto_boot_type is found 1, the ROM selection UI would be shown after boot logo and it overrides auto_boot_rom which means after timeout the device would boot into whatsoever the current_rom has, automatically.

If auto_boot_type is found 3, device would boot straight into whatsoever the current_rom has, but, auto_boot_rom would also now be found same as the current_rom. auto_boot_type later reverts to 1 after successful boot.
I cannot comment on whether this is a bug or a desired behavior, but this is how it is.

Further note that I wouldn't be surprised if methods mentioned in this answer fails for a non-Android ROM.


How do I remove GIF emojis from Gboard? I can see how to remove emojis from Gboard, but is it possible to remove just the GIF emojis?

Play Store -> GBoard -> Uninstall -> Select the three dots on upper right -> disable auto-update
This will mean that your version of GBoard is without gif functionality, as it was introduced in a later update


MIUI 8 extended icons I have MIUI 8 installed on my smartphone.
 It looks great, however icons for non-stock apps look ugly. Is there any icon pack, so I can keep the stock theme, but have MIUI-style icons for popular third-party apps?

Finally, I've managed to do that:

You need to have a Xiaomi Designer Account, because MIUI 8 doen't allow installing custom themes unless you are a 'designer'
You should go to http://designer.xiaomi.com/, sign up and enter valid    data. After a day or so you will be able to import *.mtz files from the default MIUI theme manager.
Download an icon pack from MultiRom ROM. You can find them here:
https://multirom.me/read.php?tid=343 (download link is in first post, sorry for russian)
After that you should open a theme manager, go to themes and import downloaded file. The final step is to select these icons in 'components' menu in theme manager


How does Google Now know it's listening to music? Once you launch the Google Now app, it listens to determine if it's listening to speech/noise or a song.
What is the logical process that the Google Now app uses to identify noise vs music? I'm assuming it reads the frequency/tone of the song it is picking up through the microphone, but if not, what is the actual process?

I don't know specifics of Google's system, but there are two technologies that are relevant to solving this problem, and it may use both together (depending on circumstances). Either way, the first thing it does is to Fourier transform short samples of what it's hearing. This gives it the spectrum of the sound, telling it how much of each frequency is present, and (because it has a sequence of samples) how that changes over time. Once it has this, it can filter out some very high- and low-pitched bands that don't help to identify the sound.

The output of this is a collection of "buckets", where each bucket represents a frequency band for a particular fraction of a second, and the value tells you how much sound there is in that bucket. This is where there are two possibilities.

Bayesian classifier

The simplest possibility is to give these buckets to some kind of pre-trained Bayesian classifier. This is a class of AI algorithms that can take some collection of features (the frequency/time buckets) and classify the situation into one of a set of groups you define: in this case, "speech" or "music" or "something else". Although it takes a lot of training data to teach the algorithm how to make this classification, the parameters that result (the pre-trained algorithm) are very compact, so it's practical to include these data in the app, allowing off-line classification. I'd expect that it uses this kind of algorithm on its own if you're using Google's off-line speech recognition feature.

Don't forget that a use of this feature might be to recognise an "OK Google" query in a pub with music in the background, so the classification isn't just as simple as "speech" or "music": it has to decide which is louder or in the foreground.

Music recognition

The other possibility is to try to find a matching piece of music straight away. Music recognition involves a big database of all the music you want to recognise. Each piece of music has already been run through the frequency analysis, so it's indexed by the same frequency/time buckets that the app has recorded. The app just has to go to the cloud to ask the database, "Do you have any music that has these buckets?"

The time part of the buckets is only calculated relative to nearby buckets, so it will find the piece of music regardless of what part of it you're listening to. Also, the information in the buckets is reduced with a hash function (a function that turns some numbers into a smaller number), so it's resilient to losing some frequencies (because of a bad sound system or other noise in the background).

This is a really long-winded thing to do just to tell speech from music, and it requires querying Google's servers to do it, so it wouldn't normally be a good option. It's only a good option because, if it is music, the app will need to do this anyway to recognise it.

Summary

Given the advantages and disadvantages of the two algorithms, I'd expect that the app includes both. For off-line use, it would just use the simple classifier. For on-line use, it might well use both in parallel: using the classifier to give a quick result if the input is very likely to be speech, while it waits for the music database in the cloud to try to recognise the particular piece of music (or say no).


I have used a GB of data in less than 24 hours, how is this possible I got my android phone a week ago. This morning I recieved an text from telus telling me I have used 75% of my data, then an hour later I recieved a text saying I used 95%. Since I was sleeping and was not using my phone I want to know if this is at all possible, I took my phone into telus and all the settings for wifi are off. Is someone taking internet from me? What should my settings be?

All sorts of background processes and applications will use cell data bandwidth.  If you've installed some new apps recently, which given your phone is only a week old seems likely, check to see if some of them are doing anything in the background.

If you list your apps, perhaps we could shed some light on which ones might be data hogs.


At what application size does android add the WiFi tag to it? In the Google Play Store, when an app is too large in size, a "WiFi" tag is mentioned next to the app name. That way the user can know that the download is heavy.
At what application size does Android add the WiFi tag to apps ?

Good question. I believe the answer has been recently changing, because while I was initially under the same impression as SaintWacko (thinking the cutoff was 25 MB) I have been unable to find any Google documentation defining such a limit.

What I have found is that the maximum APK (app) size is 50 MB. Developers can also choose to use up to two APK expansion files to be downloaded along with with the app's APK, each of which can be up to 2 GB. Even for these larger expansion files, though, I could find no mention of Wi-Fi only download restrictions (unless explicitly required by the developer). I remember seeing the Wi-Fi download flag you mention on some larger apps that I use personally, but today I've gone back to those same apps and don't see that flag.

As best I can tell this policy has changed.


Navigate your Android with Cardboard Can I view my phone with the screen split-duplicated and turned sideways (for use with Cardboard)? I have a controller for navigation.

I am looking to run regular apps, see my regular homescreen, etc., but with the screen split and rotated sideways (for use with Cardboard).

As per today I have found nothing that solves your problem.
(I also don't see any use for it but that is another question.)


Why can't I install apps when I have enough storage? In "Settings" > "SD card & phone storage settings" under "Internal Phone Storage" it lists "Available Space" as 13.78MB.  I'm trying to install an app that is 2.38MB.  Why do I get the "Insufficient storage available" error message?  I clearly have enough space.

If it's relevant, my phone is an LG Optimus V.

Android devices actually have several different buckets of storage that can fill up independently, any one of them can cause an "insufficient storage" error.  This question:
Why is "insufficient storage" wrongly reported when installing an .apk via adb?
seems to cover the details and options best.


Why does the home screen stay empty (no application icons/no widgets) sometimes? I have a Motorola Milestone, and sometimes when I press Home to go back to the Home Screen, the screen shows no application icons, no widgets.

It simply stays blank, with the wallpaper on background. I can navigate to the other Home Screens by dragging to left or right, but every screen it empty.

The phone seems normal, no slowness, the app drawer opens up normally.

The only solution I thought was to restart the phone. I don't use any task killer.

I also noticed this started to happen recently, after installing many applications. And it normally happens after running some heavy app, like Angry Birds.

Did anyone notice this too?

The Milestone (original Motorola Droid to all you Americans) doesn't use the default home screen app because of the slide out keyboard, since the default home screen app doesn't support landscape.  Switching to one of the other alternate home screen apps might solve your problem.


Best to block autostart apps, or let them run at boot time? When Android was still a baby green robot, I would go through all user-installed apps (not system apps), and turn off autostart privileges on most of them.  This would make the Android device boot much faster and start with more available memory.

Then I started wondering: What if some of those apps are actually doing something important when the phone starts?  Perhaps they are cleaning up their temp files, compressing databases, sorting indexes, or performing other important maintenance or initialization tasks.

Without reading the source code for each app to see what it does at boot time, I decided it was better to leave them alone and let them run on bootup.

Now, as Android devices have gotten more storage and hold more apps, I've begun to rethink that logic.  I've seen Android devices with over 75 apps running at bootup.

What's the best practice now: Allow most user-installed apps to run at boot (if they are set to do so), or block most of them?

Stability of the operating system and apps is very important.

-As you know there are the custom apps which you download from the external source(play store etc) and the standard android apps which come inbuit in the Android OS(You might/ will also have some bloatware)

-Now as you disable the custom apps which you download you will get the desired result of free RAM,faster loading,less battery consumption.

-But if you disable the standard android apps then definitely you will have issues with the device to run normally.(i.e if you close/stop a standard app  then your data transfer may not get enabled at all etc).

-So you can go ahead with closing/stopping auto restart custom apps downloaded from the external source but in some apps its hard coded to auto-start by default i.e even after stopping its auto start it will restart on its own as per the Android architecture so to some extent you will get relief from RAM management.

Note:-Although the Android devices are featuring with more chip level storage their Operating System Size has also increased manifold.That is in order to support an Android Kit-Kat v4.4 operating system on your device it should have a min 2-3Gb of on board storage space apart from the space for Custom android apps downloaded from external source(approx value depends on the device and the amount of bloatware present)


Does adb backup/restore still work because it says it's deprecated? I want to reset my phone but want to recover the system data before doing so. I tried to create a backup with adb and tried to restore it on a virtual device to see if it works. So I tried to restore it with adb on the virtual device and it would say that it fully restored it at the end. But nothing really changed. I wonder if adb backup/restore still works or if I did something wrong.
Thank you in advance

Deprecated means it is fully functional but may be removed in future versions. Google of course prefers that their cloud is used so that they still control access to the backup data.
However adb backup has a problem with app that disallow backup via it's AndroidManifest.xml. The main problem you don't get any warnings or errors for such apps. hence it is totally unclear if a backup was successful by just looking at the messages printed on the console while creating the backup.
From an app perspective there is also the way to allow only partial backups. By a configuration file the ap can specify certain paths or file types to be included or excluded from backup.
Therefore my recommendations is to backup only single apps without APK. Based on the size of the created backup archive you can see if the backup was potentially successful or not.
An alternative is to create a full backup (with or without APKs) and in the end convert the created backup archive using Android Backup Extractor to a tar archive and check that archive for the most relevant apps what files have been backuped.


How does Over-the-air updates (OTA) work I read the Wikipedia article but it's not totally clear on how Android updates are pushed to devices. This is what I understood but am not certain which is correct so please add details to approve or disapprove my statements.

Case A
Phone has some service that periodically checks manufacturers servers (with some sort of polling) then if there is a new update it informs the user with a notification.
User than clicks the notification and downloads and installs update from manufacturers server

Case B
OS updates are just like ordinary software updates, there is a Google Cloud Messaging or similar broadcast receiver active on the phone and manufacturers just send message using this which shows user a notification.
User than clicks the notification and downloads and installs update from manufacturers server

Case C
Phone is notified about the updates by the mobile network (over-the-air provisioning (OTAP) like MMS and WAP settings) and than it shows a notification of the update.
User than clicks the notification and downloads and installs update from his/hers mobile network provider

These all seem probable but consider these cases:
What would happen if phone is not registered on network for a long time and internet is disabled (think of a tablet without internet access for example)?
Why are phones with same version (international version) of firmware getting new updates at different times on different networks?

NOTE: I recently found out that CyanogenMod has OverTheAir updates in newer versions, how are they doing this, I doubt they have mobile network providers support?

CyanogenMod ROM has a built-in Updater application which can periodically (or manually) check their servers for a new release of the ROM.  Your current ROM version and date stamp are sent (in a completely anonymous way, no identifiable information is sent for privacy reasons) to their servers, and any new versions are returned.  The user is then presented with a notification, and can choose to download the update (entire ROM actually) and automatically or manually flash it via Recovery.


S2 with working Lollipop Custom ROM, stuck on boot , won't reinstall ROM in CWM Someone gave my daughter a (hardly) used Samsung Galaxy S2, still on Gingerbread.

Did a lot of research online (rooting for dummies guide, S2 specific sites, youtube videos, etc) and managed to

Successfully Root it and installed CWM based recovery v6.0.5.1
Installed Resurrection Remix Lollipop specific for my S2 device (i9100)

It was a successful install, for 2 weeks. My kid used the new Lollipop ROM with no problems (except the occasional freeze, but still reboots OK).

Then one day, it just froze and won't reboot to OS anymore.

Symptoms:

Boots up, shows the logo for 2 secs, then shuts down.
We took out the battery for hours, recharged the battery, still the same.
Entered back to Recovery Mode, Wiped cache partition, Dalvik cache (and later, various storage area space) and tried to Install a ROM zip again (Resurrection Remix).

AT FIRST, it shows that its installing for a few seconds, then shuts down.

After several repeated attempts, it won't even show any progress, as soon as I choose the file and select it, the device shuts down.

Then it reached a point where even wiping cache will cause the device to shut down.

Plus, its getting increasingly difficult to enter Recovery Mode. It now takes me several attempts to boot back into Recovery Mode.

Download mode (Odin Mode) I can get into without much difficulty though.

I even downloaded a different ROM (CYANOGEN+OS+12.1S+V.1.0+s2+GT-I9100) but it won't install either (also shuts down).

Now Device just boots and gets stuck at the Samsung logo, and as I said, it's really difficult now to get back into recovery mode.

Is this a hardware issue or is there something else I can try?

Using Odin, I'd reflash the original official rom for your device (you can download from sammobile.com), this is to restore the original partitions. I'd format all current partitions in recovery, check your mounts that they all are unmounted.
The system partition should be mounted before formating (I usually mount everything then format all).
Reboot into download mode, hoping that your recovery options allow that.
Plug into odin and flash official firmware, you might lose your root access and custom recovery should you be unable to use the hardware buttons to boot into recovery immediately after the flashing completes.
If so, repeat your rooting procedure, custom recovery installation and finally, lollipop again...
P.S. Without a log, chances of getting specific assistance is greatly reduced.
Use ADB to diagnose any exceptions and errors thrown.

Remember to always make a full backup of the complete system before flashing new roms, or have the official ROM should such things occur, and they do...

Try a different ROM, or even better, look into building your own ROMs in the future... That's where the fun is...good luck and happy flashing


Saving contacts to SIM / view SIM contacts I've just bought a new Android phone (Wileyfox Swift 2X) and updated to Android 7.1.2.

Up until now I have always saved my contacts to my SIM card, which saved me a great deal of trouble with past Android phones that had broken screens, as I only had to insert my SIM card in a new device and voila, all my contacts are there.

However, on Android 7.1.2, I am unable to view SIM contacts or save new contacts to the SIM card. My only option is a Gmail account (linked to the device) - which is not what I want. I am even unable to save new contacts to the device itself.

In the 'Contacts' app, the 'Contacts to display' menu item has 3 options:

WhatsApp
Google (....@gmail.com)
Customize (no SIM options here either)

I'm pretty sure that in all my Android phones up until now I had a 'device' and 'SIM' option.

In the 'Contacts' app, I do have the option to import/export:

Import from .vcf file
Import from SIM card
Export to SIM card
Export to .vcf file
Share all contacts

So for now, I imported my SIM contacts (to the GMail account), so I can use my device for now. However, I want to only store my contacts on the SIM card.

I've checked out some apps in the Google Play Store that read the SIM contacts and they work fine (although with ads) so this is not ideal.

Did they remove the SIM contacts option? Is there a way to enable it?

Thanks in advance!

I cannot specifically tell with your device, as I've never used it, but I can surely tell on Samsung Galaxy Edge 7, which runs on Nougat.

There, this option available under More options in Contacts, as per this video.

It may have been possible that your manufacturer has developed the User Interface in such a way that this is not supported, but Nougat OS clearly supports it.


Why Android phones do not have Internet firewalls? No Android phone has an Internet firewall
Unless you root your smartphone

Why manufacturer devices of Android phones do not put Internet firewalls on it?

Most consumer firewalls block incoming connections only and allow all outgoing traffic. This is to make configuration easier; you enumerate what services you are running and want to allow, but you do not need to enumerate all the kinds of outgoing connections you want to allow.

Most android devices do not run as servers. Setting up a server process that can listen and respond continuously breaks power-saving features. If you want to send data to an Android device, you get the Android device to connect to you, possibly alerting or sending via cloud messaging, which is a connection setup and managed for power-saving from the Android client side.

What will a consumer firewall do for a device that isn't running services? Nothing because there is nothing listening that you can block traffic to.

If you run server processes on your Android device, this situation obviously changes, but this is not the expected normal usage.


How to disable long press home button? How can I disable or set password on long press home key button on smartphone?
As you know, with long press of home button, the running process (like sms, gallery, internet explorer, etc.) will be shown that can be kill them to make phone faster.

My question is how can I disable, change, lock or set password on this button to ask permission to show and kill apps, and prevent anyone to see and kill running apps.

My phone is Huawie and is not rooted.

Your best bet might be to change what the home button does instead of disabling it all together. You can use alternative launchers such as Go Launcher to change what the home button does. I was also able to find a free app that does it on its own here. I haven't used the latter but it seems useful.


Sending Google Play Credits Is there a way to send or 'gift' a person Google play credits?  We would like to allow students to redeem points they earn for good grades, etc for Google play credits.

From the Google Play Help pages:

  You can only purchase Google Play credit to add to your own Google
  Play balance. At this time, aside from giving someone a physical
  Google Play gift card, it is not possible to add credit to another
  user's Google Play balance as a gift.

That said, there are places like PCGameSupply.com that allow you to buy "digital" gift cards (Google Play included)- which means the redemption codes are emailed to you rather than a physical card in the mail/store. Just pick "Send as Gift" at checkout. These always seem to come with a caveat though- digital gift cards have an activation fee on top of the face value. Personally whenever I've bought a physical gift card in a store, there wasn't an activation fee.

Alternatively, since I don't know how your points/points redemption system works, you could just buy a stack of physical $10 Google Play gift cards, and once a student has earned enough points to redeem $10 worth, give them one of the gift cards. The cards don't expire, so no need to worry about that.


How can I make my lockout time stack? If anyone has ever used an IPhone (Or tried to mess with someone else's - yes, I'm looking at you) you may be aware the the lockout timer scales with each fail after 5 attempts.

I want to do this on android, preferably Without root. anyone know how?

Edit On IPhone, after 5 failed passcode attempts, you are locked out for a minute. If you keep failing, it escalates (it will go up to 5 mins, then 15, then 60) I basically want to replicate that behaviour on android, where its 30 seconds lockout (and does not go up in time)

This feature is rate limiting
 and is done to prevent Brute Force Attack

This being a core security feature , it can be changed at OS level ( if at all ) and certainly would not be possible  without root

While I could not find reference to PIN / password rate limiting, you can see the Compatibility Definition Document
(CSD ) mandating that for finger print recognition, specifying the number of attempts and duration. See
How can I limit the number of fingerprint attempts before fallback to other login type?


Corrupted Images on S4 on Android Lollipop 5.0.1 I am experiencing issues with my S4 and the images I am taking on it.

Over the past week nearly all the images that I have taken have been corrupted when I go into Gallery or Photos to look at them.

I have had images sent to my via WhatsApp that I can save that do not become corrupted.

I'm using a 32gb sd card and I'm on Lollipop 5.0.1.

Is this a botched software update or a failing SD card?

As reccomended by The Droid Guy for Galaxy S5. I can only assume the solution can be proposed for the S4.

  Lollipop Update Corrupted Photos in Galaxy S5 Sport

  Problem: Good morning, I am hoping you are able to help. Two days ago, Sprint did a lollipop update on my Samsung Galaxy S5 Sport. Since
  that time, about half of my pictures, are black, stating unsupported,
  or media not found. I am heartbroken, as many of the pics are of our
  new grandchild. I have tried everything to fix this, but to no avail.
  I do have backup on, but, they are not there either. When removing sd
  card, to put on computer, same issue remains. Please help. — Julie

  Troubleshooting: It appears like the update, somehow, has reached your microSD card and corrupted its contents. If your computer can’t
  ready from the card either, then find some technicians in your area
  who knows how to extract photos or files from corrupted SD cards.
  There’s nothing much we can do about it because it’s more of a
  hardware issue than anything else.

Read more here


Hebrew language to a physical keyboard I have a Nexus 7 (2013) (Android 4.4.2). Recently I bought a Bluetooth keyboard to go with it.
For English the keyboard works as expected, however I noticed that there is no Hebrew language when adding layouts for the Broadcom BT HID.

I have Hebrew with the virtual keyboard (comes with it - I didn't have to use 3rd party software).

Is there a way to add/install Hebrew so I could use it with the physical keyboard (without 3rd party apps)? As I see it, it is a software thing since the keyboard sends the same signals only the mapping is different.

If no, is there a way to do such a thing with 3rd party apps?

External Keyboard Helper Pro (costs $2.50) has Hebrew support.


I want to make static IP on my tablet using usb-c to ethernet port I have Huawei Meta Pad t10s tablet & usb-c to pd rj45 adapter to connect it to ethernet not WIFI and it connect to internet automatically but I want to connect to server with another Gateway and need to enter static IP but can't find the way in the software of the tablet.
can any one help me to find solution to this situation?

If you have access to the router/DHCP server, you can do a DHCP reservation on the MAC of the USB to ethernet adapter.  This means that even though the port is set to DHCP, it will always get the same address.


Stereo mix functionality in Android? Is there any way/app for Android that mimics the functionality of stereo mix in Windows?

Android does not have such a functionality.
Audio streams/pipes are very closed source and only the system itself has access to the data  of them. There are some apps that can stream your audio output to your PC, but they require additional software.

The problem is: You can only write to the audio output (add your sound to the mix) and
only read the microphone input (listen to what comes in).

You may go the easy way and connect a male-male audio cable to your phone's audio jack and your PC's microphone jack. That way you get your audio as easy as possible to your PC (assuming you use Skype on your PC).
There are some apps that require a rooted phone to access the system audio pipes and then will stream the audio output to AirFoil Speakers or similar (requires additional software), but because of the way they do that (rerouting all audio) you won't be able to hear what is coming out of your phone.
Also they are quite delayed (up to 5 seconds even in good networks) and require you to buy the full version just a few minutes after using them.
My suggestion:
If your device is not rooted: Try the audio cable method.
If you have a rooted device: You can try finding an app that allows you to stream the audio output to your PC.
The problem is: Audio streams are deeply embedded into the system. Normal apps can't read the audio stream of the system, except for their own data before it is played.
Worth noting: some headphones with TRRS jacks result in stereo mix recording if playing music through the headphones and recording. Even if the extra wire is not for a mic but a switch.


Emails address on two cell phones How do I delete 1 googled  account on two phones?
One google email on two phones with different phone numbers how doI delete without losing apps.

One can remove Google Account from a device without any loss of apps installed.

However it is necessary to add atleast one Google Account in a device to enable downloading apps from playstore or using any Google App within the device.

To remove - Open Settings/Accounts/Google

Tap on Google account you want to remove and tap 3 dots on the upper right corner of the screen. Choose 'Remove Account'.

And remember to add an Google Account if you don't have any logged in after removing existing one.


Not all images showing up in gallery Some photos do not show up in the gallery app. I can find those particular shots trough the camera app for some reason, and using a file-browser I can find them too. But they will not show up in the gallery.

I found this topic about thumbnail problems. I did what the answer suggested, although it was not exactly the same problem. Sadly it didn't help.

Another topic talks about latency. I don't think "use a quicker phone" is a solution (desire-z is quick enough), and we're talking about a different problem: I have pictures from yesterday not shown, but from today are in there, so the scanner has been running.

Why don't all my photos show in the gallery?

edit: the images do not seem any different. They are all saved in

/mnt/sdcard/DCIM/100MEDIA

called

IMAG0402  //visible
IMAG0403  //invis
IMAG0404  //invis
IMAG0405  //invis
IMAG0406  //visible

(I checked this trough ASTRO browser)

Try deleting the /mnt/sdcard/DCIM/.thumbnails folder and rebooting your phone.  You may need to clear data for Media Storage and possibly the Gallery app/anything related as well.


When will my device get the Android 4.0 update (Ice Cream Sandwich)? Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) was officially announced on October 19, 2011.

(You can review the high level SDK changes in Android 4.0 or the official changelog at the official Android Developer's site.)

Of course, not all devices will get this update right away and others won't get it at all. Each manufacturer and carrier often choose to add their custom modifications which tend to delay the official release.

When will each device get Android 4.0, either officially or unofficially, if ever?

See also:

When will my tablet get the Android 3.x update (Honeycomb)?
When will my device get the Android 4.1 update (Jelly Bean)?

This community wiki will list all of the known and rumored dates for devices. If you have an update make sure to follow the format that's been established, and the following guidelines:

Keep phones in alphabetical order listing the manufacturer and model
Specify if the date is confirmed or rumored and link to the source
If there is an unofficial release, link to the site where it can be downloaded

Note that devices that do not meet Google's Compatibility Definition will not receive a Google-sanctioned update. In the case of the major manufacturers and many others, that means they won't release an update at all since Google's certification is important to their business.

Phones

Google Nexus ONE

Official: never (confirmed)
Unofficial: Oct 2011 (alpha)

Google Nexus S

Official:

GSM - T-Mobile (GT-I9020): Soon (rumored)
GSM - AT&T (GT-I9020A): Soon (rumored)
CDMA - SPH-D720: April 2012 (confirmed)

HTC Amaze 4G

Official: May-June (confirmed), June 16th 2012 (unconfirmed)

HTC Desire

Official: never (confirmed)
Unofficial: November 2011 (beta)

HTC Desire HD

Official: never (confirmed)

HTC Desire S

Official: By the end of August 2012 (confirmed)

HTC DROID Incredible 2

Official: To be determined (by the end of August) (confirmed)

HTC DROID Incredible S

GSM (international)

Official: 2012-July-2 (confirmed)

Verizon

Unknown

HTC EVO 3D

Official: Early August 2012 (confirmed)

HTC EVO 4G+

Official: May-June (confirmed)

HTC EVO Design 4G

Official: 1 August 2012 (confirmed)

HTC Incredible S

Official: June-July (confirmed)

HTC Raider

Official: TBC (confirmed)

HTC Rezound

Official: August 2012 (confirmed)

HTC Rhyme

Official: June-July 2012 (confirmed)

HTC Sensation

Official: March-June (confirmed)

HTC Sensation 4G

Official: March-June (confirmed)

HTC Sensation XE

Official: March-June (confirmed)

HTC Sensation XL

Official: April-Jun (confirmed)

HTC Thunderbolt

Official: 31-Jan-2013 (confirmed)

HTC Velocity 4G

Official: March-June (confirmed)

HTC Vivid

Official: March-June (confirmed)

Huawei Honor U8860

Official: 12 January 2011 (confirmed)

LG Optimus 2X

Official: 2012 (confirmed)

LG Optimus 3D

Official: 2012 (confirmed)

LG Optimus Black

Official: 2012 (confirmed)

LG Optimus LTE

Official: 2012 (confirmed)

LG Prada 3.0

Official

Germany and Italy: 4-July-2012 (confirmed)

Motorola Atrix 2

Official Q3 2012 (confirmed)

Motorola Atrix 4G

USA (MB860) Official Q3 2012 (confirmed)
AsiaPac/EMEA/LatAm (MB860/MB861/ME860) Official: (TBA)

Motorola DROID 3

Official: never (confirmed)

Motorola DROID 4

Official: 2012 August 14 (phased update) (confirmed)

Motorola DROID Bionic

Official: Early Q3 2012 (confirmed)

Motorola Droid RAZR

Official: 2012-06-21 (confirmed)

Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx

Official: 2012-06-21 (confirmed)

Motorola Photon 4G

USA Official: Q4 2012 (confirmed)
Japan Official: TBA

Samsung Captivate Glide

Official: 7 Sep 2012 (confirmed)

Samsung Galaxy Note

Official: March 2012 (rumor)

AT&T: July 2012 (confirmed)
T-Mobile: August 2012 (at launch) (confirmed)

Samsung Galaxy S

Official: never (confirmed (1), confirmed (2), confirmed (3)) but Android 2.3-based firmware upgrade to give some ICS-like features

Samsung Galaxy S Advance (GT-I9070)

Official: unknown (Techzek, Slashgear, Samsung Forum)

Samsung Galaxy S 2

Official: March 2012 (rumor)

T-Mobile: May 14th (unconfirmed)

Samsung Epic 4G Touch

Official: August 2012 (confirmed)

Skyrocket

Official: July 2012 (confirmed)

Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman™

Official: TBA (confirmed)

Sony Ericsson Xperia active

Official: TBA (confirmed)

Sony Ericsson Xperia arc and Xperia arc S

Official: March - May 2012 (confirmed)

Sony Ericsson Xperia mini and Xperia mini pro

Official: June 2012 (confirmed)

Sony Ericsson Xperia neo and Xperia neo V

Official: TBA (confirmed)

Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY

Official: TBA (confirmed)

Sony Ericsson Xperia pro

Official: TBA (confirmed)

Sony Ericsson Xperia ray

Official: TBA (confirmed)

Sony Xperia P

Official: 17-August-2012 (confirmed-official)

Sony Xperia S

Official:

Three: 29-June-2012 (confirmed)

Tablets

Acer Iconia Tab series

Official: April 27, 2012 (confirmed)

Archos G9

Official: Early Feb 2012 (official)

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer

Official: Feb 23rd (Feb 24th for North America) (official)

ASUS Transformer Prime

Official: January 2012 (rumour)

HTC Flyer

Official: Q1 2012 (rumour)

Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet

Official: May 2012 (offical source)

U.S.: 1-July-2012 (confirmed)

Lenovo Ideapad K1

Official: June 15 2012 (working date) download (not OTA update) (source)

Motorola XOOM

Official:

US Wifi models - Mid Jan 2012  (confirmed)
non-US Wifi models - Q2 2012 (confirmed)

UK: August 2012 (confirmed)

US 3G models - Q2 2012 (confirmed)
non-US 3G models - (TBC)

UK: August 2012 (confirmed)

Unofficial:

US 3G/LTE models (CyanogenMod "Kang", Team Eos)

Motorola XOOM Family Edition

Official: Q3 2012 (confirmed)

Motorola XOOM 2

Official: Q3 2012 (confirmed)

Motorola XOOM 2 Media Edition

Official: Q3 2012 (confirmed)

Motorola XYBOARD 8.2

Official: Q3 2012 (confirmed)

Motorola XYBOARD 10.1

Official: Q3 2012 (confirmed)

Samsung Galaxy Tab Plus 7.0

Official: 3 August 2012 (confirmed)

Austria: July 2012 (confirmed)

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7

Official: 4-July-2012 (confirmed)

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9

Official: August 2012 (official)

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Official: August 2012 (official)

Toshiba Thrive

Official: 3Q 2012 (confirmed)


Picture Frame widget resized The size for the picture frame widget originally was 3x3. Now, inexplicably, it is only 2x2. How can I change it back or pick what size a widget should be?

I've created cue cards perfectly readable at 3x3 but at 2x2 too small to view the diagrams/text.

Powering off and back on restored the 3x3 picture size... makes no sense, but it worked.


How to safely root the Samsung Galaxy Tab A 2017 (SM-T380)? I am wondering what would be a safe way to root my Samsung Galaxy Tab A 2017 (SM-T380)?

I understand there is CF-AutoRoot and such but I have no experience in rooting any device with that method and I'm extremely scared that if I attempt to root my tablet with CF-AutoRoot and such that my device will get bricked.

Details about the tablet below.

• Android Version: 7.1.1

• Security Patch Level: January 1, 2018

• Build Number: NMF26X.T380DXU1ARB3

• "OEM Unlock" option available ✔

I also have another question. The tablet has a pending update to Android Oreo, if I were to update the tablet and the tablet was rooted at the time I updated it would it affect my root?

I removed my RMM prenormal with miracle box no box and after finding the twrp tar on xda used it to install a custom zip file i made with superr kitchen and a rom from samfirm .
There are no roms a


Can't send emails from huawei tablet using outlook address We have got my son a huawei tablet, and he has an @outlook.com email address. He can receive emails on the tablet, but can't seem to send any-they say they are sending but never arrive, nor do they appear in sent folder or drafts? What am I doing wrong? Thanks

You can check the SMTP server settings of your mail program. The SMTP server is the one used for sending E-Mails.

The recommended settings for the SMTP server for @outlook.com is:

Server: smtp-mail.outlook.com
SMTP port: 587
SMTP encryption method: STARTTLS

If it still does not work your network may be blocking port 587. But that would be a problem of the network and not a Android problem.


How to set google calendar widget as trasparent in kitkat? My nexus 4 is updated to the last version of google calendar.

Now I am not able to set the trasparency option.

Try it with a  other calernder client (app). For example Business Calendar (Kalender)

This has transparent widgets. You only have to connect this app with your Google account then will sync the widget it with your Google cal. app


running base android on S4 I have an s4...tired of the bloat I rooted and flashed CyanogenMod onto device...

Frustrating...nothing on phone works...Facebook YouTube and other apps crash on load...

Unfortunately X has stopped is the error I get

Facebook just closes...no error

The time system tray display doesn't update I have to use clock app to get time at which point the system tray 'sometimes' updates.

My alarms don't work...I can configure them but no sounds...volume is cranked

I am certain something fubared during flashing I had several problems getting it going

I am looking into other distros...but base android appeals to me...however I understand the base won't likely have required drivers hence mods like cyanogen for S4

Restoring the default ROM is an option I think...I believe I backed up before flashing...

Anyway...what are my options here... Suggestions??

Your options are:-

Re-flash the stock ROM, either from your backup or by finding it on sammobile.com.
Flash a working Cyanogenmod. Be sure to use a stable release, not a nightly build. Nightlies are not suitable for day-to-day use and often contain serious bugs. And to use the apps you've mentioned, you'll need to flash the gapps package that matches your Android version.
Flash some other ROM. Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device?
Ditch your phone and buy one with a minimal ROM, such as a Nexus.


Why Google Play Music app gets turned off when I'm running? Whenever I go for a run and I'm using my Google Play Music app, my phone turns off within 5-10 minutes, causing said app to turn off.

Is there a way to stop this from happening?

If relevant I have a Samsung Galaxy S III.

Check your settings within Google Play Music for 'Stream via WiFi Only'. If you have this set, and you're out of range, the streaming cannot continue until you return within range. It may just be coincidental to always appear consistently at that time or range.Also remember about caching. Caching may queue a number of songs, making it appear to extend range.


Smartphone laggy and slow: when a factory reset is ineffective First of all, I would like to say that I recognize how tiring it must be to read about people asking for help to solve problems all the time. I tried to not be that person... but here goes my story.
I have  Galaxy S6 (SM-G920i), 4.5 years old, that I used a lot, and always served me well (within its capabilities). It is running Samsung's stock Android 8.1.
However, two days ago, out of nowhere, he became excessively slow. It was very sudden: in a second I was reading some messages on WhatsApp, and in the next second the device was not responding, taking many seconds to answer any command from me.
I decided to restart it. But even that I couldn't. It was as if it didn't recognize that I was hitting the screen lock button. Then I forced a shutdown (I connected it to the charger, and held the power off + volume key).
After that, I turned it on again, but now the phone was stuck in the boot loop: taking 5 or 6 minutes to boot (screen with the Samsung logo) and as soon as it went to the lock screen, it restarted on its own.
I did a search on some specialized sites and forums, and the first recommendation was to "Wipe Cache" through the recovery mode. I was able to enter recovery mode, but I received the message "NO COMMAND" on a blue screen with the green android! Moments later, while I was searching about that new and unexpected error, the recovery screen finally appeared. I selected the option to clear the cache (Wipe Cache Partition), waited for completion, and then restarted the device... No success there! The problem persisted. Bootloop again.
The next recommended step now was to perform a factory reset. Against my will, I did. But, unfortunately, it did not solve the problem: the smartphone is still very slow, it is taking several minutes to boot up, it is taking 3 or 4 seconds to respond to simple commands (lock, unlock, scroll, etc...) and is exaggeratedly slow to open any application (simple as it may be, such as a calculator). Sometimes it hangs and gets hot (e.g. if I try to open the camera). Even in the safe mode, it behaves this way.
I am aware that this problem may be something related to the hardware since the storage units have a life cycle (although unlikely, it is possible that this occurred in less than 5 years). That said, I am also aware that the problem may not have a solution.
On the other hand, hope dies last: have you guys ever seen something similar, even on other devices? Am I missing something? Is there a path that I have not explored? Is it (soft or hard) bricked? Or, considering the facts, it is indeed a dying device?
Thank you for your time!
TL;DR: A Samsung Galaxy S6 with 4.5 years of use suddenly became laggy and unresponsive. "Wipe cache partition" and "Factory reset" were unable to restore device performance. Is there a solution?

I am passing by to post a possible solution to those who have similar issues.
Although I cannot say it is definitive/long-term (I did it only yesterday) the device is really much more responsive now, and the hangings and crashes seemed to disappear.
The steps were (without deep details):
In my computer:

Downloaded a stock ROM from a reliable source (mind the exact version);
Downloaded Odin v3.13;
Installed Samsung USB drivers;

In my Samsung S6:

Wipe Cache (recover mode), then reboot.
Started it in Download Mode.

After that, plug the USB cable between the phone and the PC, and flash the firmware using Odin.
I followed these steps. It may help someone too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEnm5TU5KMw
In my case, I needed a factory reset after the flashing because the new FW did not erase the data. Now everything seems fine. I wish I had discovered that before buying a new smartphone. However, no problem... I'll give this one to my father. :-)
Hope someone finds this useful.
See you guys!


How can I get the location to update again in my News and Weather widget? On my Galaxy Nexus running stock Jellybean 4.1.1 the News & Weather widget thinks I'm in Hong Kong airport, and has for the last week.

I have been to Hong Kong airport 3 times in the last month (it's a hub airport for Australasia) but never stayed there for longer than 3 hours. I'm currently in London, and have been either here or elsewhere in England for the last 7 days.
If I tap the widget and tap the refresh icon (circled-arrows) it does show the correct location until the next auto-refresh interval (I have it set for 6 hours) when it will switch back to "Chek Lap Kok Airport" in Hong Kong again.
Following the instructions in this previous question News & Weather Widget Not Updating I have deleted the widget from my home screen, done a Clear Data and Clear Cache on the News & Weather app in the applications listing, and then re-added to my home screen. This sorted it out initially, and then 6 hours later it switched back to Hong Kong again.
I have all of the Location Services in the Android settings enabled, Google Maps shows me in the correct location whether I'm outdoors (on GPS) or indoors (using network location). I leave Wifi switched on for most of the day, and this happens during the day at work when I'm using mobile data, and overnight at home when I'm connected to my wifi.

Tap the widget so it opens the News & Weather app.
Tap the overflow menu and go into Settings.
Tap Weather settings
Check or uncheck "Use my location" as necessary. Clear out the value under "Set location" as necessary


Installing LG Escape Drivers on Windows 7 I'm the guy who posted this. The provided answer didn't work on Ubuntu or Windows (it seemed to go into an infinite loop). I then tried SuperOneClick, and it didn't work either--then I noticed that ADB wasn't even detecting my phone. I tried installing the drivers from here, but that didn't help. Am I doing something wrong?

OP here. I used the info here to fix another (relevant, if I remember correctly) problem I had, then reinstalled the drivers, rebooted, set the phone to "Camera (PTP)" mode, and let Windows do it's "installing drivers" thing. It works now.


CyanogenMod logo loop My mobile, HTC One X was on CyanogenMod 10.1 which received a update cm-10.1-20130304-EXPERIMENTAL. Once the update package download is completed, I tried to update it via update settings but it restarted on recovery mode and restarted without being updated.

So, I installed the update package via TRWP and once the update installation is completed, the phone restarted and the cyanogenMod logo is on loop.

Any suggestion ?


How do I use the emulator with AppInventor? How did you enable an emulator for AppInventor? I want to test out the junk that I created on a emulator, before using it on my phone.

Check out this page on the App Inventor website on how to use App Inventor with an emulator.


Connecting Sony Xperia U with my Windows XP laptop I am unable to link my phone with my laptop. When I connect the USB it says st25i camera connected. I use a Sony Xperia U model and my laptop has Windows XP OS. What can be the issue?

Most probably driver issue, following resources may help you

http://talk.sonymobile.com/thread/42763?start=0&tstart=0
http://www.priceandspecification.in/sony-xperia-u-pc-suite-pc-companion-software-download.html
http://developer.sonymobile.com/downloads/drivers/


Can't find SuperSU on Google Play I rooted my phone with SuperSU ZIP, and I want to update the app, but I didn't find it on Google Play. I also tried manually creating this URL but it returns 404.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.supersu

What should I do?

As of October 1, 2018, SuperSU has been removed from Google Play. However its pro key (US$3.99) is still available.

The latest version of SuperSU is 2.82 SR5, you can find it on this XDA thread. However, as Android evolves, SuperSU is no longer the best choice for rooting. Instead Magisk is recommended for Android 5.0 or newer. SuperSU is still good for Android 4.4 or older systems.


Wrong time of photo on Nexus 4 After I took a photo with my Nexus 4, I clicked "Details" and found out the taken day and time are wrong. Such as, it should be "Feb 25, 2015 6:50PM", but it shows "Feb 26, 2015 12:50:13AM". How should I fix it?

I was having that problem until I turned on Save Location, then the time stamp became exactly the right time.


Add emoji to Motorola I have an unlocked Motorola Moto X running 5.1. I want to add tennis emojis, like these. How do I do this?

You need to first enable the Emoji Keyboard under the iWnn IME. After enabling this, open any active text area and open the iWnn Emoji Keyboard and select the Car emoji icon group() and scroll down a bit. You'll be able to find the Tennis racket and ball emoji (Unicode U+1F3BE) like this,

Image and source: Emojibase

Here's a screenshot of it,

iWnn Emoji Keyboard - Tennis ball racket emoji (Click to enlarge)

In old Android versions it is dislayed like this

Alternatively, you can also use the shortcode :tennis: to add the tennis racquet and ball emoji to your messages which works in most of the phones.


Micromax A26 USB Debugging mode Not working I am having a Micromax A26. I have enabled the debugging mode of my phone and when trying to root it doesn't show up. One of my friends is a android developer he tried to use my phone for development purpose and he is also not able to detect my phone on android emulator even if the debugging mode is on. Everything else is working. USB data transfer and stuff works. But even if it is enabled debugging mode it doesn't detect. Can some one help me find a solution for this?

Thanks in Advance.

I also had this problem, but I solved it for myself. I just needed to change my cable, and it worked again. Maybe you have a defective cable as well.


Factory reset disabled by server policy My phone (LGL15G running 4.4.2) has been behaving suspiciously, and since it is relatively new and I do not have any important data on it, I thought it would be best to wipe it.

When I select settings > backup & reset, the factory data reset option is greyed out, with the sub-heading reading: "factory data reset is disabled by server policy".

I unchecked my backup provider (Google) on the same screen (backup & reset), and the factory reset option is still greyed out with the same message. How do I get it to allow me to reset?

If you cannot factory reset from  Android due to  a server policy, you can do a hard reboot via the recovery mode. From LG's website1:

  Using the hard reset

  If you cannot recall your unlock pattern, PIN, or password, you need to perform a hard reset to access your phone.

  When the phone is turned off, press and hold the Home Key  + Volume Down Key  +Power/Lock Key . When the screen shows the LG logo, release thePower/Lock Key .

  When the screen displays an Android robot animation, release the other keys.

  Leave your phone for at least a minute while it performs the hard reset, then your phone will reboot.

That should bypass any policy. Of course,  all the user data will be wiped.

1: The link is dead now. Gives error 404.


Swype keyboard turns into a black area Every day or two,  my swype keyboard turns into a black area. There are no keys or anything. Just a black area, and I have to change input mode to samsung keyboard and then back to Swype to get it working again. This is really annoying . any one else had the same issue ?

I am using a Samsung Galaxy Note (Android version: 2.3.6, N7000XXLA4) that came with Swype pre-loaded.

This may be a symptom of the Swype application data becoming corrupted following a hardware upgrade.

To resolve this, go into Settings > Manage Applications > All > Swype and clear the application data. Then force the Swype service to restart.


why is my file system suddenly read only? Some background:

My HTC Desire HD has several issues.
The first issue being that I can not connect to it using a USB cable.

So I found that I can tell ADB to work over wifi and I was using this method for some time.
I am using VISIONary to temproot the device, then I run a terminal on the device and execute:

$ su
#setprop service.adb.tcp.port 5555
#stop adbd
#start adbd

I then use netcfg to find my device's IP and finally on my pc I use

adb connect {device IP}:5555

I am then able to run on my pc

adb shell

and use this shell to do the following:

cd /etc
echo 127.0.0.1 localhost >hosts
echo {my pc's IP} some.dnsname.com >>hosts

This is when the second issue comes into play:
once in a while (seems related to killing and clearing cache of an app that uses some.dnsname.com - but not always) the hosts file just reverts to an empty file :(

Not having the deep knowledge to handle those problems (yet) I just "learned to live with them"...

A few moments ago, when I went through this process for for maybe the 30th time or so, A new issue decided to make my day more interesting.
I tried to modify (overwrite) the hosts file and I get the following  message:

cannot create hosts: read-only file system

I tried to read some about it and it seems I need to remount the system in read/write mode.

running

mount | grep system

returns

/dev/block/mmcblk0p25 /system ext3 ro,relatime,errors=continue,data=ordered 0 0
none /system/xbin tmpfs rw,relatime,gid=10132 0 0

I need help with:
1) Making my system read write again (what mount/remount command do I need to run?)
2) Understanding what could have caused this new issue.
3) Any ideas on how I can handle the two background issues is also most welcome.

thank you for reading...

/system is almost always read-only by default. Just remount it as R/W:

# mount -t ext3 -o rw,remount /dev/block/mmcblk0p25 /system

There's also at least one app that will attempt to do this for you, but it may not work on all devices.

Another option is to use adb root (if your ROM will allow it) to restart adbd as root, then simply issue adb remount. On ROMs where adbd is already running as root, the first command is unnecessary and adb remount will work right off the bat. From a PC:

C:> adb root
* Some response about success *
C:> adb remount
Remount succeeded

As to why it's getting blown away, is your device NAND unlocked? Many HTC devices will attempt to restore their /system partition to a stock state if they are NAND locked, making changes to /system fleeting at best. That's something of an educated guess, but the fact that you noted that you are using VISIONary to temproot seems to support that hypothesis.


Data usage slider missing in Android Lollipop After upgrading my Galaxy S5 to Android 5.0, the sliding bar on the graph which allows you to show data usage for a prescribed date range is no longer there. For example, in the older Android I was able to slide the bar to show data usage for the last 24 hours, or for whatever range of days I wanted- it was so easy and fast. I understand that there is an option to change the date range in the options, but this is more time consuming and you need to change it every time you want to show a different range- the slider was so much easier and faster. Is there any way to bring this back or perhaps an app that has this feature? I don't understand why several useful features have been removed in the new update, as I mention in my other question here.

Samsung probably removed this ability in their recent update, as LG handsets are also missing this feature from previous Android versions.  The best course of action to monitor your data usage in detail is to run a search on the Play Store for data monitoring apps.  A quick search I ran returns a plethora of results.


Is it possible to get the password from a wps wifi connection? At school we have two wifi networks, one for teaches and one students, but the teacher network is much faster and is available everywhere in the building. I could connect to it by pressing the wps button on a repeater, but some of my classmates could not because they have iphones (iphones don't have wps). I would like to help them by telling the password, but i don't know if there is a way to retrieve it from this kind of connection. And this is what i'm asking your help for: Can i get the password somehow?

Thanks for your time.

Yes, WPS is insecure and the WPS PIN can be used to recover the password.

This app and this app claim to be able to do so if you have root.

However, as pointed out by Izzy the password should also be available as plain text in the file /system/etc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf after you have successfully connected to the network once.


Something is secretly eating up my Acer Iconia A500 internal memory and I need help finding it I've been a happy owner of an Acer Iconia A500 for a bit over a year now but a couple of weeks ago it started to complain about its internal memory being full.
I was a bit surprised as I keep movies, and such on the external SD card but I assumed is was some browser cache, Maps or so which had eaten up a fair chunk of the 32G memory it has internally.

However, that doesn't seem to be the case. I have cleared the data of almost every single App I have installed but still if I look at the Storage tab of the settings I see the following (a couple of hours ago):

I get the feeling that the rightmost grey part of the bar should be a bit more than 379MB(the Available part)... (SD Card at the bottom of the picture is the external one, never mind that one).

I've tried almost every disk usage app available out there and they all show similar results, the following is DiskView (picture taken after I removed a few apps):

(in this picture "SD Card" is the internal one...)

One thing all the disk usage apps seems to have in common is that unless the device is rooted, they cannot see what is in some directories (like /data) which makes me think it is either Android itself (4.0.3 on this device) which has some kind of cache which is misbehaving or that some process is producing extreme amounts of logs somewhere.

Sorry for this long intro, but the basic question is: How do I proceed?

I guess one alternative is to find what is worth backing up and do a factory reset or something but I wold really like to find out what happened first.

Rooting it is an alternative which would probably help me find out more but I sort of like it as it is (except for this issue). If it is needed to resolve it I could of course do it but it feels like you shouldn't have to with an appliance like this.

Is there another way forward? I have this naive hope that there is a button somewhere I haven't seen that clears all logs or reduce the log level from debug to info.

Edit: One thing I've been considering but cannot investigate is if it could be cores. I've had a lot of crashes lately (presumably because it has been running low on disk).
In response to Izzy's comment below. Apps adds up to more or less exactly the 700MB listed as "Apps" (seems to be the total of data and the apps themselves).

Here are some key points to this problem. Though not all of them applied in this case, I will still include all of them -- as in another case they might prove helpful:

A good starting point to check is apps -> manage apps in Androids system menu, which lists all apps+data and can be sorted by size, to identify the "biggest consumers". While here, you can "delete" too-big caches (per app)
some directories in the file system cannot be investigated without having root privileges, so the preferred du -k|sort -n (to find the biggest files) would e.g. skip directories below /data
still, having a terminal emulator available (Android Terminal Emulator would be a good candidate), at least a df -h could show where free space goes toward zero (see screenshot below). In case the -h parameter ("human readable") is not understood on your system, you might try to replace it by -m ("megabytes"), -k ("kilobytes"), or omit it completely.
The article Debugging Android core dumps describes "core dumps" under Android are called "Tombstones", and stored globally as /data/tombstones/tombstone_nn, with "nn" simply being a counter. As many crashes were reported, this might be a place "filling up" (see below). But only 2.5MB could be located here in this case.
According to Android Forensics by Andrew Hoog, it might be worth diving into /data/local: The “/data/local” directory is important as it allows shell (the user account nonrooted phones run adbd as) read/write access. When an app is installed, it is first copied to “/data/local.” Which means, even on non-rooted devices one should be able to dig in here.
SD Maid - System cleaning tool might find some more orphans -- but without root access, this apps capabilities are limited.
If the "big egg" cannot be found and removed, one can either start to uninstall some apps, cleaning "big data" from others (see first step), or, as a last resort, there always remains the factory-reset which should clean up everything -- but be aware: all your downloaded apps and all your data (on internal storage only, of course -- SD card will not be affected) will get removed as well when you do this.
if still unable to solve the issue, a last resort is a factory reset. But before doing that it would be good to be prepared for the next time, so one last chance are a few steps immediately before the factory reset:

backup as much data/apps as you need and can
switch to airplane mode -- the market must not know what we are doing now
one by one, uninstall your apps (for system apps which cannot be uninstalled: uninstall their updates, clear cache and data). After each uninstall, check your free space for unexpected "big jumps". If such a "jump" happens: Note the app uninstalled at this place -- it has to be a/the evil one. Continue if it still doesn't make up for the missing space
when finished with the last one, go to the "point of no return", pull the plug, do the factory reset. It's over now ;(
after the reboot, re-configure your "virgin device" with your original market account data (you remember them hopefully?). As we made sure the market stood uninformed of our actions from step 2 on, you should now be able to re-sync your apps and some data. The apps for sure, the data only provided you synced them with the market before step 2.
keep an eye on the "evil app(s)", if you detected any at step 3. You may want to remove these (now or later).

The following screenshot shows the output of df -h on a Motorola Droid 2. As you can see, there are 2 mount points on internal storage which could be candidates for "getting filled": /data (the most likely -- and got the hit in this case) plus /cache. The command was executed without root privileges:

Tombstones: The folder's location is /data/tombstones. Permissions of the /data directory are drwxrwxr-x, the tombstones subdirectory has drwxr-xr-x -- so they are accessible also on non-rooted devices. Using a terminal emulator (see above), you can cd /data/tombstones and do a ls -l to see whether there are any tombstones, and what size they occupy. Unfortunately, all tombstones are owned by system, and permissions are set to rwx------ -- so if that's your troublemaker: you cannot remove them without root :( Have a good backup (huh? how, without root?), and probably a factory-reset will be your last resort...


Wi-Fi works well in other devices but shows "limited connectivity" in my Sony Xperia Mini Pro I have a BSNL router in my house. I can connect and browse using Wi-Fi in my laptop and my brother's and dad's mobile but it shows limited connectivity in my Sony Xperia Mini Pro.

It has WEP security. I've used that Wi-Fi earlier but now it shows as limited connectivity to mine alone. Even if I enter the wrong password, it shows "obtaining IP address" and shows "limited connectivity". I've also  used static IP address option in that. It gets connected in that case but I can't browse.

How do I solve this issue?

use dynamic ip address ..and forget network and restart  your mobile  and then enter correct password in wifi network .and  stay in wifi router range.


Doing a search on the YouTube app I use the YouTube app on my smartphone.

I want to know how I should proceed to search on a specific channel.

Because every search I make in the application takes into consideration all the internet sites.

And that's exactly what I do not want.

No there's no way you can search into a specific channel on YouTube. Basically YouTube does not provide that privilege.

But if you are considering a specific channel and want to search videos related to the channel only than you can perform relative search which includes the basic search attribute with the channel name. By doing so your search results will be narrow downed and you will find easily what you wanted.

For example:- If you like Luis Fonsi vevo channel and want to search within his creation than try something like this:- x+Luis Fonsi vevo(where x=your basic search attribute.)


What does "protect this backup" in Titanium Backup do? After creating a backup, there is the option "protect this backup". What exactly does this do and when should it be used?

Good question. Discovered one more feature of TiBu. Wiki (Titanium track) does not explicitly mention what it does and searching net gave clues pretty much aligned to Izzy's comments
Most likely use case

.... protect backups of certain apps that have gotten worse with an update. This keeps my "good" backup from being overwritten when my schedule runs.

Implementation of this seems to have a troublesome history as can be seen here and here apart from the above post which quotes the use case and several others of similar nature. Cursory reading reveals that:

It was initially meant only for devices not having external SD card

Initially worked only on FAT 32

Above coupled with read- write permission changes across Android versions made the implementation shaky

There were issues at different points of times in protecting and unprotecting app

Change log of app reveals, it was dropped as added later, and modified

As it stands it works on my device (rooted), running 6.0.1 with backups stored on external SD.
What does it do?
TiBu permits you to have a maximum backup history ranging from 1 to 50 (Preferences → Maximum Backup History ). On my device it is configured to 7. When I protect any version of an app it creates a kind of master version which is not counted for the 7- that means the protected version stays and with subsequent backups, old backups are deleted new ones added subject to ceiling of 7
Edit I just noticed (27/12/19) that one can have more than one protected backups! I was somehow under the impression that protected backup can only be one but with version 1.3.2, I was able to create 3 protected backups of an app whereas the maximum backup is set to 2
Protecting App
Select the desired app by short pressing and follow steps below

Unprotecting App
Simply the reverse of above


How to install recovery and rom on blank Samsung i9000 I wanted to install CM on my Samsung Galaxy S, and while trying to enable ClockworkMod recovery, I somehow managed to partition it. Now the only thing that appears is the screen with the model number, and I can enter download mode (but not in recovery mode). I tried to install recovery with Odin (I found a tar file) but that failed. Is there any chance that I can get my phone working again?

If anyone dealing with the same issue, I've found a solution on this link. It is for Froyo, but you can look on XDA-Developers for Gingerbread too, it is the same procedure.


My Macbook doesn't import or copy photos from Galaxy S3 There are 663 photos in my camera. I want to share some of them them via computer with my mother who does not have a smartphone.

My phone and computer are connected via USB cable.
The Android File Transfer app is installed and working up to the point of showing me a window on my computer with choices of files to transfer.

However, when I click on DCIM or Pictures nothing comes up. Similarly, nothing happens when I click on Camera.

What am I doing wrong?  How do I get those photos from my phone to show up in my computer? And will they be in both places?  I'd like to keep them in my phone also.

Thank you.

Connect the mobile in Mass Storage (MSC) mode instead of MTP mode. You'll find this setting in Connectivity section. MSC mode will mount the memory card to the PC just like USB storage. You can now copy contents more easily (or)
Use the Samsung's KIES software for handling all the media.


Disable Location History in Android If I disable Location History and keep Location Reporting enabled, will Google still save the Locations I've been to? I am purchasing an Android phone for the first time and I am quite paranoid about security.
If I use plain GPS and not Google Location Services, will I be missing anything?
Is using Google Maps on Android secure, or should I use any alternate apps. I am looking for an offline GPS that I can use for apps like Runtastic etc.

Summing up all the comments:

Will Google save the locations?

Definitely. As soon as you want to use the more battery-friendly “network based location” you have to agree that Google collects your location data “to improve its services”:

click image for larger variant

So “location history” and ”location report” are meaningless in this context. As it was adressed: Whilest theoretically you should be able to delete all collected data associated with your account, first Google claims here it's “anonymous” (so not connected to your account) – and second, noone except Google can tell if “deleting” really means the data was “destroyed”. Different reports rather suggest otherwise, as e.g. a German tech magazin found out: They decided to delete all backups from Google servers. Weeks later, they wanted to test a new device, and configured it with the very same account. Miraculously, that device immediately connected to their WiFi. How can that be, with the backups deleted? (Find the full article here, in German).

Will you miss anything when switching to GPS only?

Depends on your “usage profile”. When no satellites are in sight, you would be unable to find your location. That could be e.g. with heavy clouds, or inside buildings – where otherwise a “coarse location” based on WiFi APs and mobile cell IDs would be possible. But there are ways to get that functionality back without Google: The OpenCellID project is aimed to provide the data, and there are several connected apps – including alternative open source network location providers. But to use those, your device must be rooted, as these services must be installed as system apps. You can find out more in my Android without Google series.

Should you use alternative maps?

That's pretty much opinion-based. I do so, but not solely for the reasons you mentioned. There are alternatives (part 2 of the just mentioned series names some). Furthermore, let me quote Dan here:

  The answer to "Is X secure?" is always "secure against what?" What are you worried about? It's secure in the sense that it won't let people run malware on your phone, but that's probably not what you're thinking of.

IMHO you cannot avoid completely that some services collect data on you. You can minimize it, you can make it harder for them – and you definitely shouldn't offer your data on a silver tablet. It's always balancing privacy and convenience. So how much privacy you can gain, depends on how much convenience you're willing to give up.

More hints

Not only if you're absolutely paranoid (correct: today that's called “informed”), a custom-rom can offer you advantages. As those usually ship without all the pre-installed bloat, your battery will last much longer (on my “Android device without Google”, 3 times longer: 4,5 days, and still 20% left). In this context, I have to mention Replicant – which is aimed at absolute open-source. Unfortunately, only few devices are supported.


Prevent switching keyboard layout when pressing Shift+Space on an external keyboard When I use a Galaxy Note together with an Apple Wireless Keyboard, pressing Shift+Space switches keyboard layout. This is really annoying. Is it possible to disable it?

I have the same issue with the Samsung Galaxy S5 and a bluetooth keyboard. I was able to install Gboard (google keyboard from the app store) and this fixed the problem.


Can't connect Samsung Galaxy S3 to my laptop My phone (Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.3) is charging but, will not connect to my laptop.

The data cable I used first charges my phone but I cannot see it on my laptop.

It also instantly stops connecting to my phone but it supports other phones.

How can I access my phone on my laptop?

To access files from your phone on your computer, you need to have it hosted as a media device. Often these are found in your settings (in my case, when I plug the USB cable my phone asks me whether to charge phone only, or host as media device.) These are most likely found in your settings if it does not ask. Once you get that far, you need the drivers for your phone to be installed on the computer. Often they automatically install once your phone connects, but you may need to install them manually. Feel free to comment for anything you don't understand, but please try to make it understandable. They can be found here for your phone: http://www.samsung.com/us/support/downloads


Is it necessary to update android apps Recently i got a new android smartphone and i want know if its necessary to update android apps frequently.The reason for asking this is

1)does updates for android apps reduce the battery usage?

2)should i update my apps if i don't have much internal memory (i mean will it slow down my phone if there isn't enough internal memory)?

3)will there be any (real) performance improvement if we update apps?

I know that certain updates provide new features,bug fixes(i hope it means errors) and change in the background/layout.Without considering the added feature,bugfixes and layout is it necessary to update?Also each update takes a good amount of internal memory in my phone as well as a lot of valuable mobile data.

If you use Mobile Data for update purposes, then it is better to update Google services and the messaging services only, but if you have access to WiFi then keep your apps updated.

Battery Optimization: There's a reason developers constantly update apps, and most of the time it's memory or battery optimization. Keeping your apps updated also means you have the best optimizations available. Likewise, delete old apps you no longer use, because these may be running background processes that chew up RAM and battery life.
Memory: The updated apps generally use memory efficiently in most of cases, though I don't think there would be much impact due to it. You can clear the caches or use softwares like 360 Security or Turbo Cleaner for that purpose.
Performance: Not always, but most of the time there is a improvement.

Stability: New versions of software also fix other, non-security-related bugs. For example, a new version could solve crashes you may be experiencing or make a feature work properly.


Traffic of Opera Mini vs Mobile with Turbo How much traffic does Opera Mini user compared to Opera Mobile with Turbo enabled? I suppose it's less but I haven't seen any numbers.

I have found some numbers on Opera's website: They claim that Mini compresses webpages by "up to" 90%, Turbo compresses them by 80%.


What is a WTF Condition? If you go to the developer tools menu in Settings, then tap Launch Tools and open Bad Behavior,  there's an option to "Report a WTF Condition". What is a WTF Condition? Why would an app report one?

In android development there are different logging levels. For example, there is Log.v for verbose, Log.e for level error, Log.w for level warn. All these are visible in logcat during development.

Then there is Log.wtf which is like Log.e except it has level Assert which may actually terminate the program depending on the system. Ideally, this should never happen in your app.

Sidenote: wtf stands for "what a terrible failure".

Android docs on this: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/util/Log.html


Is it possible to remove the Android smileys that replace text strings like ":)"? A friend of mine was wondering if it's possible to remove or replace these smileys entirely, or if they are a native function of the Android operating system that would require tweaks in a custom ROM to get rid of. Question applies to both tagged devices (S3 and Galaxy Nexus).

These are the smileys we are talking about, for reference:

This is a feature of the particular app that you are using. If you are referring to the SMS Messaging app, there are various SMS apps replacements available on Google Play, you can customize the smiley on some SMS replacement apps or disable them entirely.


Dvorak keyboard layout on stock Android I just updated my Nexus 7 to Jelly-Bean 4.2, and it has the swipe keyboard which is awesome. I want to keep this feature of the stock android keyboard, but with the Dvorak keyboard layout. Is this possible?

I'm NOT looking for a replacement. I like the built in keyboard, I just am wondering if it's possible to change the stock keyboard layout.

Also, if it's easy to switch between Dvorak and qwerty that's preferable :-)

This is supported in stock android.

Settings -> Languages & Input -> Android Keyboard (Settings icon) -> Advanced settings -> Custom input styles -> Add style -> Set Language & Layout

Then to activate this style, go back to the keyboard settings and go to the input languages and uncheck "use system language" then check the languages you want. :-)


Can I install custom ROM on Android mobile having low internal memory? I want to install the latest custom ROM like Lollipop but my mobile has low internal memory, about 150MB.
Will that be a problem during the installation of the new custom ROM?
I have already rooted my phone and I'm worried that my mobile could get bricked.

No it will not effect

Just place the ROM in sdcard and flash it through custom recovery by following given steps properly and flash the ROM which is developed for your device  otherwise you will end up having bricked your phone.

If your device have low RAM it may become laggy.

Share the link of ROM that you want to flash and detail of your phone.May be we can help you little better


Question about the goolge play balance I am playing clash of clans and I am trying buy premium item which is gem.

I am considering buying $30 google play store gift card.

And I am wondering if I can use google play balances to buy additional things in apps that are connected to google play.

If so, please tell me how to pay with them.

Yes you can

From Google help

  Redeemed gifts and some promo codes appear as part of your Google Play balance. This can be used for many purchases on Google Play

Types of content you can buy explains further, what you can buy and What you can't. And if the balance falls short

  You usually can't combine your Google Play balance with other forms of payment to make a purchase. You can only combine it when the remaining Play Balance is less than the total order amount of your purchase. Then you can use the rest of your Play Balance and combine it with another form of payment (for example, credit/debit card, Wallet Balance, DCB, PayPal) to complete your purchase.


Persisting notifications is a pain in the neck! I'm using a Galaxy Nexus which runs Jelly Bean 4.3! Lately I have been very annoyed with notifications (from apps I have installed) which keeps coming back every ten minutes even after I close them. Can resetting my phone solve this issue or are there any workarounds? All answers are welcomed :)

You can disable notifications on a per-app basis by going to Settings > Apps > APP_NAME and unchecking 'Show notifications'


SD card not recognized if I create second partition I need to create a second partition on my SD card to use Link2SD to store apps on it, but every time I make a second partition the phone says there is no SD card at all. I've tried it a few times with FAT32, ext4 and none but the phone always says "no SD card". When I delete the second partition it works fine and I can access all the data I had saved to my SD card.

Make sure you're making the second partition primary. Both partitions need to be primary, just because it's the second one it still is primary.


Why does my Android phone think it was in Japan? According to Google location history, I was in Tokyo in February. It could be that I had so much saké I'm forgetting something important, but as far as I know I've never been to Japan.

Other questions on inaccurate location history seem mostly related to minor inaccuracies because of phone connecting to nearby WiFi points.

But what technical issue could cause the location to be off by ~6000 miles?

One reason could be that that location was determined from a WiFi access point, which had been previously moved from Japan to somewhere near you.

Google registers the location of each WiFi access point Android devices are connected to (if allowed in settings) and uses these to obtain a location when GPS is slow or unavailable. Unfortunately it takes some time to update the location if the access point is moved, so this kind of error can happen.


Select multiple files on Google Drive App Is it possible to select multiple files on the Google Drive App?

I tried every intuitive solution I could think of, perhaps it's possible on the Google Docs app?

Since Mar 6, 2015, you can trigger multiple files/folders selection on Google Drive app by long-pressing a file/folder, then ticking other files / long-pressing other folders.

After selecting them, you can:

Star selected items
Pin selected items
Remove selected items, or
Move to another folder (by selecting from the menu, or by dragging the "deck" to a folder)


Sim Problem After installing custom rom I have qmobile Noir A600 It has same specifications Of canvas a116 As We do t have any cuatom rom So i installed ro.s of canvas But now sim is not detected every thing is working fine...Is there is any solution?

It is never a good idea to flash a ROM that is not for a specific device onto a device.  With that being said, there are multiple reasons (i.e. different memory locations for the SIM circuit, different microcontroller, etc) that could be causing your issue.  My advise is to reflash the stock ROM and see if that fixes your problem.  If so then PLEASE do not flash a ROM that is not for your device.  It is to the point now (say with the HTC One M7) that you won't receive signal if you flash a ROM of a different carrier even.


Is disabling an app functionally similar to unistalling it? I don't know much about how apk and apps in android work.
Title says it all. In my specific case, I installed icon packs from a playstore app to be used along with Nova Launcher. Now I want to get rid of the app that provided the icons pack (it is occupying space). I disabled it with pm disble .. command. And the icons aren't gone. So, I guess, I'd be fine if I delted the app as well. but I am not sure.

So, does uninstalling an app does more messing with the system than uninstalling it does?

Not disabling and uninstalling are different things. Disabling the app will let the it stay on your phone, but it won't be functionally working in the background/foreground. While uninstalling (obviously) removes the app completely from your phone. To use it you need to reinstall the app again.

Disabling will hide your icons in your case. For disabling the app, Go to your Setting > Apps > All > Icons_Pack_App > Disable. If you want to get rid of it completely and free up space, then Settings > Apps > All > Icons_pack > Uninstall.

You can also disable and enable apps with the command,

pm enable <package name>
pm disable <package name>


How do I run the latest version of rsync as root with SimpleSSHD? SimpleSSHD is a free (open source, no ads) SSH server based on dropbear that supports scp, sftp, and rsync.
How do I run the latest version of rsync as root when accessing my phone from a remote host?

Download the latest rsync binary:
mkdir ~/bin && cd ~/bin &&
curl --progress-bar -L -o rsync "https://github.com/JBBgameich/rsync-static/releases/download/continuous/rsync-aarch64" &&
chmod 755 rsync && echo 'export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH' > ~/.profile

To then use the new downloaded version of rsync as root on the Android phone, use the following rsync command options from the remote host:
rsync -e 'ssh -p 2222' --rsync-path='su -c /data/user/0/org.galexander.sshd/files/bin/rsync'

You'll need to add the source and destination and other rsync options. See the man page for what these listed options are doing :)


Is there a way to make voice recognition multi-language? I am German but my Android is in English for various reasons. However, I like using voice commands since it is the fastest way to get the music playing I like.

It recognizes most bands without any problem, but I cannot get it to recognize any German bands, e.g.:

Ok Google, play Unheilig Schutzengel

recognizes as

1 highlights

and results in a google search for this term. The only ones working are bands with Latin names like In Extremo or Rammstein.

Is there a way to solve this problem? Or is my accent not American/British enough for it recognize bands with German names?

Google speech recognition software supports multi language input, so yes, you can easily solve the problem. Go to the app 'Google settings' -> Search & Now -> Voice -> Languages. Here check all the languages that you want Google to recognise. If you long press on a language it will be set as the primary: first Google tries to match your input with the primary language, then if it fails, it tries with the languages labelled as 'others'. You can either set German as primary or English, Google does recognise words from both languages in the same sentence.


Why is Widgetlocker app evading my task-killer? The Widgetlocker app (a screen lock replacement app) has a service running which I can see in my app manager (under phone settings), but NOT in my task-killer app (Advanced Task Manager).  How is its service evading my task-killer?

I can stop its service in the phones app manager, which terminates the app. I dont have Widgetlocker set as my default home app, and I'm not including it in my task-killer "ignore" list. I did give it root permission to bypass its "5 second rule".

if you go to Advanced Task Manager, you can set (in the settings) the security level to low, which will show you running services. By default it only shows processes.


How can I use the name "A Google user" in my reviews at Google Play Store? I have seen many recent reviews (2017) in Google Play Store with the name "A Google user" and I'd like to know how one can do that. I've read some possibilities, but they were written in 2012 and now you can't do it anymore due to changes in G services. Is it possible to do without creating a dummy user?

Edit: As of August 2016, it is no longer required to have a Google Plus Profile to leave a comment in Google Play Store.

However, it would still require great sacrifices to comment anonymously in Google Play Store as you have to remove your Google+ Profile and as long as you create one again, all your "previously anonymous" comments will immediately be linked back to your new G+ profile.

Previously,

  Due to Google's requirement since November 2012, a Google+ profile is required to leave comments under contents from Google Play Store, as is discussed here. All those comments from anonymous users without a Google+ Profile are left before Nov, 2012.


Moto G on Lollipop is auto-locking the screen After Lollipop update, Moto G 2nd generation phone is auto-locking even the time for autolock if undisturbed is set for 5 mins. Why and how to fix it?

Go to settings and then to security and turn off power button instantly locks


Media scanner will not recognize NEW music So I have a bunch of music already, all in /sdcard/music that scans just fine. When I add new music to the folder, the scanner does not recognize it even though I can see them in the folder in My Files. I have ran Rescan SD, it does not help. I am also using the standard Music Player that came with my Droid Charge (2.3.6, I know, it's ancient). Any ideas?

EDIT: Yes, all files are .mp3, there is no .nomedia file in it, ID3 tags are just letters and numbers, and all my music is in /sdcard/music/.  This is only happening to new music I've been putting on, all my existing music works fine.

EDIT: From what I can gather, it's a problem with the actual scanning feature. The new songs do not show up in other players and rescanning doesn't help either.

Well, It is not a direct answer for your question, but since you are using a "Gingerbread device" that probably uses "mass storage", Winamp or MusicPlayer will do the work for you.


How do I disable the stock Gallery app? I just downloaded QuickPic and so far it's all good and fast. It has more features than the stock Gallery including the ability to include / exclude certain folders from view. For this reason, I don't need/want the stock Gallery app to still be open-able. Is there a way to hide it from the list of applications from the grid of icons? I want QuickPic to catch all tasks that Gallery does and at the same time I want to prevent others (namely, friends who borrow my phone from time to time) from opening the Gallery app.

Note:
My phone (Xperia Active) is not rooted and I believe rooting it will void my 1 year warranty with Sony.

You can use an alternative launcher like Launcher Pro / ADW / Go Launcher etc. All of these have options for hiding apps from the app drawer.

Unfortunately, the Gallery app will still appear in SHARE and SEND TO menus in various apps. No way around that. If you would rather certain folders remain invisible to the Gallery app, place a blank file named .nomedia in the folder to keep it from being displayed in the Gallery. Unsure if Quickpic will also have same functionality.


Exchange - exclude emails from being sent to my phone I have a droid and MS Outlook email, which is sent to my phone using Exchange. I'd like email in some folders to NOT be sent to my phone. Does anyone know how to do this?

if their isn't an option to select a set of folders.
I'm assuming there's something about those folders like big attachments? Or to sensitive to be on a mobile device?
My best advice to you would be to move the folders in question into an archive and set up a rule to automatically sort your mail into that. You'll never see an archive folder on your phone, so job done.
Hope that helps.


Control xvoice+ with Tasker? Can it be done?

I want to enable it only when no cell radio (WiFi only)

Dev said state is controlled in "sharedpreferences"

After looking over at the XDA Developers Forums where the dev and others talk and problem solve for this module of Xposed Framework, your answer is there is no a way for tasker to enable and disabled the functionality of XVoice+.

I could describe for you an indirect way to achieve what you are looking for through simulating taps and swipes, if you're interested. If you are please post the phone you're using, Android Version, Tasker Version, Xposed Modules and Tasker Plugins you have installed.

If my answer solves your problem please don't forget to mark it ask the answer as I'm trying to build up rep as I'm new.