My Nexus 6 turns itself off randomly; How can I fix this? TL;DR: Nexus 6 shuts itself off randomly, seems to be connected to the camera, wifi, and cellular. Internet is full of placebo solutions and "me-too" posts. Logcat output below.

I've been having this problem for months now, but it wasn't there when the phone was new. Here's what happens.

I will be on a phone call, using a headset, and when I open the camera app, WhatsApp, or - sometimes - when I'm doing nothing at all, the phone will just shut itself off instantly.
Sometimes it'll shut itself off when I leave the house and look for a Car on DriveNow. My house has Edge coverage, my street has LTE.
A few times the phone would shut off again after I've switched it back on. This can happen a few times in a row. Waiting before I do anything after switching it back on seems to help.

Note:

I am nearly always on a phone call when this happens.
I think the display is always on when it turns itself off.

Searching the internet, I have found tons and tons of complains of the same or similar problems, and I've been reading the Google product forums, with hundreds of me-too type posts and placebo solutions.

People will claim that uninstalling an app I and the other posters have never heard of fixed the problem for them. Some claim what wiping the phone will help, others say that that doesn't work.

The problem occurs very sporadically. It's very hard to find out whether doing anything has fixed it or not.

This is what I've tried so far:

I've uninstalled all apps I can live without. Making sure I only use apps that I have been using when the thing was working properly.
I've deleted the cache partition (one of these placebo solutions)

I would try a factory reset, but the data inside of WhatsApp is extremely important to me and I don't have a spare phone to load my WhatsApp backup before wiping the Nexus 6 (you need your SIM for WhatsApp to work, so the emulator doesn't help me). I don't want to bring the phone back to the store or send it to Motorola for the same reason. If I can help it at all.

For the last two days, I've been keeping my phone connected to my computer with a shell open and watching the output of logcat, and a few minutes ago it did indeed shut itself of with the shell connected. Here's the logcat output from shortly before the crash

I wouldn't be posting this Question, I'd just live with it until I get a spare phone and send the Nexus 6 in for repair, except for the fact that I now have the output from logcat, and that might make sense to someone here.

The phone is running Android 5.1.1 (LMY47Z LMY48I)
I have a german T-Mobile SIM
Here's a list of apps I have installed

Update

I did a factory reset. It went fine. :) Of course I have no idea whether that fixed it or not.

Update the second

It didn't :-(

The problem also happens (just happened) in safe mode.

Update the third

It also happens on the Android M developer preview. I've since bought a Moto E (lovely) and I will send the Nexus 6 in for repair. Hoping I won't get it back with a message saying there's no fault.

This is a partial answer based on the output of logs provided.

Okay, after looking at the logcat, my guess would be a buffer overrun error originating/stemming from mm-camera and connected services/processes and ion memory allocation.

Snippets,

08-11 17:51:19.504 E/libaprpmem( 1539):  Ion allocation success virtaddr : ret=2996989952 fd=48 heapid=33554432
08-11 17:51:19.507 E/libaprpmem( 1539):

08-11 17:51:19.332 E/mm-camera( 1539): mct_stream_destroy_buffers: Exit

08-11 17:51:19.337 E/mm-camera-isp2( 1539): isp_port_check_caps_unreserve:807 ide 3000f port 0xb6749d60
08-11 17:51:19.337 E/mm-camera-isp2( 1539): isp_handler_destroy_stream_param:1616 num_streams 0

Okay so don't be ready to quote me on that but dig this article discussing buffer underrun/overrun http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/computers/buffer-underrun-and-overrun-scenarios.html

I can't pin it to a specific specific cause but try setting your camera resolution to as low a setting that you can get it, and if you can, disable your proximity sensor. Either when the camera crashes it takes your phone with it or even though it crashes , seemingly repeatedly, it keeps gobbling up your ram till your phone tanks and shuts off. Hit some development sites and see what devs have to say or are doing with respect to this subject if it's common. It could be "fixed" by a decent/corrected kernel build. Unless you are under contract or tied down by the knox/enterprise-ability thing.

You may need to go pirate/commando and break your contract to save your data though. Meaning rooting and ripping all your data off the device.

OH! and i forgot this,

08-11 17:49:33.932 W/ResourcesManager(29010): Asset path '/system/framework/com.google.android.media.effects.jar' does not exist or contains no resources.

That one is a genuine WTF.run ls -al /system/framework/ and look for zero length *.jar files.

More- missing lib

08-11 17:51:10.373 E/mm-camera( 1539): Tuning lib open failed: dlopen failed: library "libmmcamera_tuning.so" not found

Edit- Rerun your logcat "live" as logcat |grep F/ as before with phone connected till crash.


Help on fixing "unfortunately the process com android systemui has stopped" on galaxy s3 Every time I open any app then press the home button to get out of it: meaning that the app is running in the background, then press the home button again to swipe away or close the app the message, "unfortunately the process com android systemui has stopped" , appears and I get sent to lock screen. I haven't done anything to my phone before this message kept appearing. I didn't touch any files, download games, or do anything risky to the phone.  Is there a way to fix it? If there is please help.

The following worked for me: Go to Settings → More → Storage → Applications, and uninstall updates and clear cache of Google Search (now named just "Google App").


Stuck with draconian security restrictions after adding and removing corporate e-mail account After adding a corporate e-mail account to my phone, my device asked to encrypt itself as well as the attached SD card, and change the lock to password. I immediately removed the account, but the security restrictions are still in place. The device no longer requires encryption, but it refuses to read the SD card without encrypting it ("Preparing SD card") appears in the pulldown menu. It's also stuck on password lock with all other options greyed out.

From reading this post, I tried all of the following to remove these restrictions; nothing has worked.

Deleted all e-mail accounts.
Settings > Security > Device administrators; remove all (including related e-mail accounts.)
Settings > Security > Clear credentials; remove all certificates
Re-connect to the offending account, and repeating steps 2 and 3 before encryption. This actually shows a more detailed message when about to remove device administrators, including all of the security restrictions, but it still doesn't remove them.

Nothing succeeds in a) removing the restriction to password lock, and b) stopping the device from constantly trying to encrypt the SD card. If you uncheck the "Encrypt SD card" it is just checked again automatically. Currently there is no way to access the SD card at all without apparently first going through the encryption.

There must be a way to fix this that doesn't involve backing up and wiping the device, or rooting it. Either this is a really strange bug or I'm missing something obvious. I'm running Android 4.2.2 on a Samsung Galaxy S4.

My response is specifically in respect to Exchange based device administrators.

What you should find is, dependant on some security policies device administrators cannot be removed without a device wipe. This is to protect company data and is set at the exchange level and conformance is met by Android.

I have followed the process on android 4.2.2 and it works however, dependant on which company exchange account I use (i work as a sysadmin contracted to many companies managing many exchange servers so different policies) i can see different behaviours.

If you have not been asked to wipe your phone when device administrators were removed, then I'm shocked. I've not seen this behaviour on any exchange server I've tested with.

I'm sorry to say that generally once you admit an exchange administrator you are stuck with a factory reset.

That does not mean all YOUR data is lost though. You may do a SMS backup, Application backup and if you have root and recovery, a system backup. Do these to your internal SD or external SD as these will not be wiped in a factory reset. If you are concerned about encryption depending on which file systems you encrypted (usually it's just system, not internal or external SD cards) you may want to copy these backups to another device.

Now do your wipe.

Restore your backups and find your applications, sms's and all your photo's etc should be exactly as they were. All that will be missing is the exchange accounts.

This is tedious I'm aware. However this is becoming more common in a BYO device oriented corporate world.


How can I install an app given only its APK file? I downloaded the APK file for an app to my PC.  How can I install it on my phone?

Use DropBox.  Put the APK in your DropBox folder.  Open up the DropBox app on your phone, find the apk, tap on it, and it should download it to your phone and then install it.
Use the SD card. Plug your phone into the computer via USB.  Mount the SD card drive.  Copy the APK into the SD card.  Unmount your phone.  Browse to the APK using a file browser app such as Astro.  Tap on the APK and it should present to install it.

There are countless other ways to do this, but these two are probably the easiest.


MacroDroid shell script non-root location permission denied I am currently trying to run a simple shell script via MacroDroid. devices are Huawei and Samsung (Oreo not rooted).
in MacroDroid tried following locations:
/data/local/tmp/script.sh
/storage/emulated/0/MacroDroid/script.sh
/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.arlosoft.macrodroid/files/script.sh

MacroDroid reports permission denied:
/system/bin/sh: <stdin>[4]: /data/local/tmp/script.sh: can't execute: Permission denied
/system/bin/sh: <stdin>[4]: /storage/emulated/0/MacroDroid/script.sh: can't execute: Permission denied
/system/bin/sh: <stdin>[4]: /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.arlosoft.macrodroid/files/script.sh: can't execute: Permission denied

the script itself is working when running from adb shell:
adb shell
$ cd /data/local/tmp
$ chmod 0755 script.sh
$ ls -nZ script.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 2000 2000 u:object_r:shell_data_file:s0 ...
$ ./script.sh

In Terminal Emulator the script is readable (and passing as argument to sh works):
$ /data/local/tmp/script.sh
/system/bin/sh: /data/local/tmp/script.sh: not found
$ sh /data/local/tmp/script.sh
$ sh /storage/emulated/0/MacroDroid/script.sh
$ sh /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.arlosoft.macrodroid/files/script.sh

MacroDroid got all permissions granted in settings. Macros can create own log files in /storage/emulated/0
What is the proper location for shell scripts on non-rooted device?

Shell script Action is somewhat misleading in itself. It should be renamed as "Shell commands" instead. In the input area you are required to input the whole of your script actually. If you don't want that but wants to run an already made script instead, run it as
sh SCRIPT_PATH
sh /sdcard/my_script.sh     # example

This should work.


can sony xperia u(st25i) 's otg be connected to external power? Can Sony Xperia U be connected to a Y-Cable to provide extra power for OTG to avoid phone battery consumption?

I'm asking this because the phone is already giving power ,will that make a short circuit or it's normal?

You can, but a kernel mod may be required to also keep the host device charging.
However, many devices are already prepared for this, and cables are being manufactured and sold to this specific end, as one can see from this Ebay search, there's already several cables in the market.
To your particular device, the sonic_boom user at this XDA Developers forum thread made a Dock Station to use OTG cable and charging at the same time:

My docking station will work with any 2012 maybe 2011 SONY XPERIA DEVICES with OTG SUPPORT.
I have tested this so far on my XPERIA S and working perfect.

Dock Station

Schematics


Zoom app won't cast audio via Miracast I have a Huawei Mate 20 Lite that uses Miracast for screen mirroring. So far I've been successfully able to share Zoom video calls to my TV, but the audio stubbornly refuses to share to the TV.
I've also shared Facebook Live calls and casting Facebook Live will send both audio and video successfully.
Any idea on Android settings to check for?

This article https://support.google.com/chromecast/thread/41716778?hl=en may answer your question indirectly.
I have similar problem on TV Box. Skype works but Zoom has no audio. I have posted question in this forum.
I guess that one solution is to route the "call over internet" to HDMI. I am doing research on how to do it now.


WiFi won't turn on in most recent CM11 Nightly for Samsung Galaxy Exhilarate? So I flashed CM11 nightly back in November making sure to perform the boot.img fix and things worked OK. I recently decided to update. I will confess that I updated without fixing the boot.img and soft-bricked the phone. Had to re-flash Philz Touch using odin and eventually re-installed the CM11 .zip.

Now WiFi won't turn on. If I go to the WiFi page in settings it stays stuck on "Turning Wi-Fi on...". I've tried 1223 nightly and the 1217 nightly (the earliest link which works).

Is there a way to find old nightlies? Most of the links on the Exhilarate page are broken. How else can I troubleshoot Wi-Fi?

UPDATE:
I installed the most recent available CarbonRom and the problem is not fixed.

UPDATE 2:

Dialling *#*#526#*#* doesn't do anything. When I enter the last * the code vanishes and nothing happens.

UPDATE 3:
Relevant log?

[ 01-04 00:14:29.413   680:  844 E/WifiHW   ]
Unable to open connection to supplicant on "/data/system/wpa_supplicant/wlan0": No such file or directory
[ 01-04 00:14:29.924   680:  844 E/WifiMonitor ]
startMonitoring(wlan0) failed!

[ 01-04 00:14:29.924   680:  844 E/WifiStateMachine ]
Failed to setup control channel, restart supplicant

[ 01-04 00:14:32.406   680:  844 E/WifiMonitor ]
startMonitor called with unknown iface=wlan0

Did a backup of apps using adb.

adb backup -apk -all -f backup.ab

Then booted into Recovery and performed a factory reset. Rebooted and Wi-Fi worked.

Restored apps using

adb restore backup.ab


Wi-fi wont turn on after root. Not even with factory reset!!! please help me so, my phone went completely bananas today. It was charging and i swear out of the blue a messange showed up saying the sd card memory was being deleted. So in panick i turned it off.
The cellphone then turned itself on and showed a message saying android was being deleted, again in panick i took the battery off.
When i turned it on, a message with a "dead" android avatar showed on the screen and the boot options screen showed up. I clicked on reeboot and it had been reseted to factory settings.
I was so angry and upset because my whole life and work was on my phone.
I spent the entire afternoon dedicated into recovering the data. The only software that seems to find my files costed $50. i live in a 3rd world country so thats impossible for me to pay. Then looking online i found another one that seem promising but i had to root my phone for it. in the past i used to be really afraid of doing it but as i had an old phone i rooted once for some trivial stuff i decided to do it.
Big mistake.
After rooting my  wi-fi turned off...for good.
When i click the wi-fi switch it turns on for a  aplit of a second and back off.
i CANNOT turn it on.
So i decided to hard reset it again, i mean, i had nothing to lose.
NOTHING.
I STILL CANT TURN IT ON.

i really need this phone for work, and i do not have money to get a new one. im desesperate. really.
i reaaly hope someone can help
I understand so little about this but im great at following intructions. I will be so thankfull if anyone can help.

its a samsung Galaxy J5, with android 6.0.1

Since you have nothing left on your device, you can try re-flashing the stock ROM by downloading the flash file and flashing it via Odin. It should reinstall the corrupted modem drivers and system files.


Use of the -i argument in fastboot command-line? I was planning to flash a custom recovery in my Yu Yuphoria. So I searched for it on Google, and found a download link along with a written tutorial. I'm acquainted with the fastboot commands, so I avoided reading it, but somehow came across something different. Instead of commands like:

fastboot oem unlock
fastboot reboot

I came across commands like:

fastboot -i 0x2A96 reboot

What's the use of the -i 0x2A96? Is it specific for different devices? Why is it necessary to add this to the command?

-i <vendor id> is used to specify a custom USB vendor id

according to the fastboot --help page

usage: fastboot [ <option> ] <command>

commands:
  update <filename>                        reflash device from update.zip
  flashall                                 flash boot, system, vendor and if found,
                                           recovery
  flash <partition> [ <filename> ]         write a file to a flash partition
  erase <partition>                        erase a flash partition
  format[:[<fs type>][:[<size>]] <partition> format a flash partition.
                                           Can override the fs type and/or
                                           size the bootloader reports.
  getvar <variable>                        display a bootloader variable
  boot <kernel> [ <ramdisk> [ <second> ] ] download and boot kernel
  flash:raw boot <kernel> [ <ramdisk> [ <second> ] ] create bootimage and
                                           flash it
  devices                                  list all connected devices
  continue                                 continue with autoboot
  reboot                                   reboot device normally
  reboot-bootloader                        reboot device into bootloader
  help                                     show this help message

options:
  -w                                       erase userdata and cache (and format
                                           if supported by partition type)
  -u                                       do not first erase partition before
                                           formatting
  -s <specific device>                     specify device serial number
                                           or path to device port
  -l                                       with "devices", lists device paths
  -p <product>                             specify product name
  -c <cmdline>                             override kernel commandline
  -i <vendor id>                           specify a custom USB vendor id
  -b <base_addr>                           specify a custom kernel base address.
                                           default: 0x10000000
  -n <page size>                           specify the nand page size.
                                           default: 2048
  -S <size>[K|M|G]                         automatically sparse files greater
                                           than size.  0 to disable

As for usage, I've never had to use it, but this suggests that it's for getting fastboot to work with unrecognized devices:

  As you've already know, you can force fastboot to work with a device, even if the vendor ID is unknown by fastboot binary, by -i parameter: -i <vendor id> specify a custom USB vendor id


Is it possible to permanently disable CSS on Android browsers? Is it possible to permanently disable CSS on Android browsers like Firefox, Dolphin, Chrome and Opera?

I want the browsers to completely ignore any stylesheet rule.

Can this be achieved with the help of AdBlock Plus?

I have to suggestions that are probably going to be about as close as you're going to get to removing the 'styles' from websites. They're there for a reason, like previously mentioned, and removing them is very close to disabling the HTML but not entirely the same as you're stil left with the paragraphs and links (the core content of the site, just without the look and formatting).

The first suggestion will replace (not remove) a lot of the CSS from the pages. The add-on is called Stylish, just do a search for it in Firefox Mobile, and then go to 'Menu' -> 'Tools' -> 'Add-Ons', tap the Stylish add-on, and then the 'manage styles' button. When the page opens there's a link that you can click on that will direct you to a page that has a ton of 'styles', which will let you change the whole look of either one, several, or all web pages.

The second suggestion is to use an app like Pocket (which is what I currently use and love) that will let you easily save a page from nearly any browser (using an add-on) into your 'Pocket' and then view it as an article (with the CSS/styles completely removed from the content). Another major benifit of Pocket is you can configure the settings in the app to store all of the pages offline so you can access them even without an internet connection (extremely useful for tablets that don't have mobile data).

I know these suggestions aren't exactly what you were looking for but I'm hoping that between the two you'll be able to accomplish what you are trying to. I did search the web for a few minutes and didn't find a way to completely disable the style sheets in any mobile browser or I would have posted my findings.

Note: You can completely disable the styles on a PC (and probably a Mac) by using the Web Developer plugin, there's a Chrome version as well but I can't provide the link because I don't have the 'reputation' on stackexchange yet. After you install the plugin, you can quickly disable them using the shortcut key combo Alt + Shft + A or by clicking the CSS menu button and navigating to CSS > Disable Styles > Disable All Styles. Hope this helps!


Problems accessing message logs on Jelly Bean with aLogcat Summary

I have been having problems accessing the K9 log messages using aLogcat, see below for more details. What I would like to know is:

Why are no log messages from K9 appearing in the aLogcat log viewer?
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can see the full text of the errors which are occurring when trying to sync my K9 folders?
Could something have changed in Jelly Bean which lead K9's logging to stop working?
Since there seem to be remarkably few messages being shown by aLogcat in general, has something has changed in Jelly Bean which could mean that it is no longer able to access all messages?

Detail

I have recently been having connection problems with K9. My folders fail to sync and the folder list ends up full of socket errors (libcore.io.ErrnoException:) or ssl errors (javex.net.ssl.SSLException:) etc. where the last checked time should be. I get different messages depending on which problem is occurring at the time, but I can't see the full text of the error message, so it's difficult to guess what the cause might be.

Thinking that the log files might contain more information, I followed the instructions at Recording a debug log, enabled debug logging in K9, installed aLogcat and tried to look at the logs. Sadly, whichever log buffer I select (Main, Events or Radio), there appear to be no messages from K9.

If I add the suggested (k9|AndroidRuntime) regex filter then I see nothing in any of the logs. If I remove it then Main contains mostly garbage collection messages, Events seem to contain mostly messages from aLogcat itself and I haven't seen a log message in Radio yet.

If it makes any difference, I'm using a Nexus 7, but I would have thought that logging would have been to a standard location which wouldn't change between android versions.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can see the full text of the errors which are occurring when trying to sync my K9 folders?

It seems that there is no way to see these log messages on the device without root access, but if you do have root access, there are a couple of options, either grant the required permissions to aLogcat or consider using a horrible hackTM to view them directly.
View the log files on your PC or workstation via adb
If you can connect your Android device to a PC or workstation, then you can access the logs via the adb command.
To do this on Windows, first you will need to install the Android SDK (which will require the Java SE SDK) and add the android-sdk\tools and android-sdk\platform-tools to the system path. Then enable USB debugging on your Nexus 7, plug it in via USB, and install the Android Composite ADB Interface from android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver (I had to force Windows XP to look here, it wouldn't find the drivers on it's own).
For details of how to get adb up and running without the full Android SDK install, or on Mac or Linux machines, see Izzy's excellent answer to
Is there a minimal installation of ADB?
Then you can open a shell (i.e. a cmd window) and run the command:
adb logcat k9:V *:S AndroidRuntime:E

I have confirmed that this works on my non-rooted Nexus 7.

Grant permissions to aLogcat
If you have root access, you could consider granting the READ_LOGS permission to aLogcat, as suggested in this post aLogcat/CatLog/Lumberjack not working? Do this ... on the xda-developers forum:
pm grant <pkg> android.permission.READ_LOGS

To grant this permission to alogcat or alogcat.donate, you would use one of the following commands, depending on whether you are running the donate version or not:
pm grant org.jtb.alogcat.donate android.permission.READ_LOGS
pm grant org.jtb.alogcat android.permission.READ_LOGS

According to one post on android-developers and the ticket, the permission grant survives reboot and update, but not uninstall/reinstall.
Sadly since this requires root access, whether I run this on the device or on my PC (prefixed by adb shell) I just get the error:
Neither user 12345 nor current process has android.permission.GRANT_REVOKE_PERMISSION

I cannot confirm that this works, since my Nexus 7 has not been rooted.

Consider using a horrible hackTM
If you have root access, you could consider making logcat setuid root and running logcat from the device shell, as suggested in this answer to my How can I access android log files on my Nexus 7 without root access?question:
chmod 04755 /system/bin/logcat
logcat k9:V *:S AndroidRuntime:E

Again, I cannot confirm that this works and I would probably only use it as a last resort, given the security implications.

Why are no log messages from K9 appearing in the aLogcat log viewer?
Could something have changed in Jelly Bean which lead K9's logging to stop working?
Since there seem to be remarkably few messages being shown by aLogcat in general, has something has changed in Jelly Bean which could mean that it is no longer able to access all messages?

This appears to be a change in Jelly Bean which affects all applications which may try to read the log files.
Apparently READ_LOGS permission is not granted to 3rd party applications in Jelly Bean. Since this link seems to be unreliable:

Today I've tested my application on newest (api 16) emulator before releasing it to Google Play. It turned out that Android now refuses to grant this permission to 3rd party applications. This is weird because I've looked through all Jelly Bean's documented changes and couldn't find anything that mentions READ_LOGS permission.

and later

The protectionLevel for READ_LOGS is now "signature|system|development". The new pipe syntax for protectionLevel is also undocumented (see http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=34785).

My suspicion is that aLogcat is only seeing messages generated by itself and it's vm.
For further information, see Flow answer's to my question How active should I expect my Jelly Bean system log file to be?


Restore WhatsApp messages after deleting the account I deleted my WhatsApp account and I would like to restore the conversation I had. I didn't uninstall the app, or doing any reset.

When I checked the /databases folder, it's empty. Is it possible to find the last backup file somewhere?

If it's related, I've got LG G3.

Go to SDcard or Internal SD (whichever available default). Find WhatsApp folder. The daily scheduled backups that occur at 4.00am is present in the databases folder.

To restore, fresh install WhatsApp. There will be a dialogue "Do you want to restore your chat history?". Click Restore.


How can I download arbitrary files to the SD card on my phone? So I have an android phone, and I wanted to download some files on it that are not currently accessible from my PC (corporate firewall).  The thinking is that once the files are on the phone, I can easily connect the PC to the phone to access the files.  The problem I have is that the phone refuses to download the files, claiming that

"Cannot Download.  The content is not supported on this phone."

So how can I get the content onto the phone?  I know the phone will be unable to run these files meaningfully;  I just want them downloaded and stored for later access.

If it's a file from a website, you should probably try to use a different browser. Opera Mini for example uses a different download manager (not the native one) so it doesn't refuse to download any files.

If you want to move them over from a PC, try some of those methods.


Unable to add exchange email account on LG G3 with Android 4.4.2 I keep getting the message "Login information incorrect. Try again". But the login info is most definitely correct. My work IT department confirmed the domain, port, and server address, and my username/pword were correct. Online search results showed this may be a known issue going back more than a year as described here: http://windowsitpro.com/blog/kitkat-causes-activesync-headaches-android-users, but none of the fixes described seem to apply to my phone. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Login to your email on the Web.  Check Settings > Options . There might be an option such as "Connect Devices & Apps with POP".  Ensure that this is set to Enable.

I had the same issue when setting up a Windows Live email on an LG G3.  Once the POP setting was Enabled, the email email account set up worked fine.

Good Luck.


How do I root a Huawei X3? I have a Huawei X3 (U8510) which I've purchased for testing Android applications I'm developing. I'd like to root this, but as I've not had any experience with rooting Android handsets, its something I'm approaching with some caution.

What is the recommended way to root the X3? I've found mention of a Windows app called SuperOneClick, which looks like it may be useful. My development machine is a Mac, but I'm not adverse to using Windows apps to do this if its easier.

Full rooting instructions for Huawei IDEOS X3 (U8510) are posted on this thread over at XDA:

  Download the Automatic Root Enabler for the X3. For more recent versions I suggest checking original thread and the forum
  it's in as I may not be able to update this thread all the time.
  Install the latest USB drivers for the X3. Search for the latest version of "HUAWEI Android Phones USB Driver" from the Huawei
  Downloads site.
  Turn on USB Debugging from Settings -> Application -> Development on the X3.
  Connect the X3 to your PC via microUSB.
  Run the Automatic Root Enabler and it should start rooting your phone automatically.


"There was a problem parsing the package" when uninstalling an app I have Android phone which I flashed. Now, I want to download WhatsApp, but after downloading it, I can't open it. It continues to display "There was a problem parsing the package" when I try to uninstall the app, I can only disable it.

I'm trying to download again, but it is just showing me to update it, meaning that I still have the app on my phone. How to fix this?

This parsing error appers when either:

The APK file is corrupted (unlikely if you're downloading from the Play Store)
The APK file is not compatible with your Android version (again, unlikely if the Play Store works fine for other apps)

If the APK file is not provided by the Play Store, it is likely that either of these errors occur.


ADB Debugging on LG Watch R today i got a LG Watch R for a programming project - first i had a Gear Live that was now replaced. When i follow the guides step by step i never get the "authorize this computer" like i did with the gear live. My machine runs windows 7.
My steps were:

Setup LG R with my Note 3
Dev Mode enabled, enabled ADB Debugging
Plugged the Charging Station in my PC (got detected as "Android Composite ADB Interface" with Samsung as Company
Normally the popup should appear on my Smartphone asking me to authorize the machine
in the CMD "adb devices" does return unauthorized

In the device manager the Watch R is recognized as "Android Composite ADB Interface" from Samsung. I have tried the following: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24583354/adb-doesnt-recognize-samsung-gear-live-or-lg-g-watch/24716409#24716409 but it doesn't change much as it is already recognized as ADB Composite.

I'd be grateful for any tips.

I ran into the same problem. It turns out that the watch has to be connected to an Android phone running the Android Wear app; then the "authorize" dialog will appear on the Android phone. After you authorize you can unpair the phone.


Work-around for process substitution in mksh An extremely useful feature of Bash, known as process substitution, is missing in the Android shell, mksh. This is highly unfortunate as it prevent you from doing things like:

diff <(sort list1) <(sort list2)

The mksh site has marked this as a "future plan" here. So my questions is:

Are there any work-arounds for this? (And what are they?)

Apparently the only (?) way to do this, is by using a named pipe like this:

mkfifo myp1 || exit
mkfifo myp2 || exit
sort list1 >myp1 &
sort list2 >myp2 &
diff myp1 myp2
rm -f myp1 myp2

This need to be put into a mksh shell function in order to be of any real command line use. Another tricky part seem to be that AOS has implemented some kind of timeout that kills or messes up the pipe, if not used within a few seconds. (Reason unknown.)


How can I programmatically backup Android phone's settings? I was wondering if I could programmatically backup my Android phone's settings. The "PHONE"'s settings and not application settings.

The easiest way availaboe to you is using a third party app. I found My Backup Pro (there is a free version as well) which seemed promising.

You can also search he market for settings backup.

I use an system app provided by the manufacturer which is called backup and restore. I'll give them if the mentioned solution does not work for you. The reason im asking you to go with the first app is that the manufacturer's system app is highly unlikely to work properly ina device other than the one is originally made for.


How do I flash a modem for CyanogenMod / CM10.2? I have already flashed the latest nightly (as of this time) and the corresponding gapps for my Samsung Galaxy S4 via CWM. But when I checked the Phone settings (About Phone), Baseband version is Unknown.

I have already tried flashing I9505XXUEMJ7_MODEM.tar via Odin (as Phone), but the Baseband is still Unknown.

What am I missing here?

I know this doesn't solve your problem of flashing a Modem via Odin, but have you had a look at the Collection of CWM modems, e.g. here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=47234771&postcount=1220&nocache=1&z=1674485336989164

There is this hint:

  Originally Posted by lambstone
  Ok it worked.
  If anyone else is having issues with the baseband not changing, do this.

Use Odin v3.04
Untick Autoreboot
Flash modem
Reboot once again into Download Mode using (Vol Down plus Home button combi)
Flash Modem once more
Once done,unplug then reboot device manually.
If this doesn't work, try repeating the flash process again while rebooting manually and with auto-reboot option turned off.


How to Tether NordVPN internet from Android to Laptop? I tether my internet with my phone.
I connect with my laptop to it.
If I keep my VPN client (NordVPN) activet, internet does not work.

NordVPN support says to configure VPN in Settings > VPN.
However, I want to use many VPN servers so manually setting each there is not possible.
NordVPN frontend has a nice map where you can choose which VPN server to use.
Internet works with VPN in my phone but not in my laptop when it is using the tethered source.

Differential condition: NordVPN Android application does not keep VPN active all the time

complication: Client laptop cannot get internet in USB tethering when VPN is active in the phone

I forwarded this thread (26.9.2016, 3.10.2016 and 4.10.2016) to the NordVPN support and stated a deep wish to get a manual about using NordVPN internet from phone with your Debian laptop.
Feel free to ask me more details about the test configuration if needed.
Questions of the tech support

Does [Android NordVPN] disconnect when you are browsing or not launching at all? It disconnects itself when browsing internet.
Can you give more information about our application not keeping connection at all time. How often you are getting disconnect and on what event it disconnects ( i.e. when you lock your phone or when it fall in sleep for not using it). It occurs daily. It occurs when I lock my phone.

Phone: Oneplus 2
Phone OS: 3.1 OxygenOS
Laptop: Asus Zenbook UX303UA
Laptop OS: Debian 8.5 64 bit
Laptop Linux kernel: 4.6 of backports
VPN client in Android: NordVPN (tried many locations)

How to Tether NordVPN internet from Android to Laptop?

Answer from NordVPN support of ID #555274

  Unfortunately, when you are using VPN your device automatically becomes unreachable to any other devices due to safety so sadly you won't be able to use usb tether while VPN is active.

I asked further why this is going to be changed in NordVPN.
Why it cannot be guaranteed at the moment?

  Unfortunately, it's technically impossible to make a device to be
  reachable when it uses VPN. Maybe someday someone will find how to
  make unreachable device to become reachable when VPN is active but for
  know there is no solution.

I think this is not right because you can create a virtual machine which handles the ports for you.
Please, see

My Apple threads but applicable in Linux How to Mimic Location of Slave VPN for Primary VPN? since you cannot split the tunneling as observed in the thread How to Do Split Tunnelling with Slave ppp0 VPN + 2nd VPN?

Differential solution:
Same security policy is used with openvpn terminal application in Debian OS.
So it can be easier to test it first there and understand the situation better.

Differential condition: NordVPN Android application does not keep VPN active all the time

  When you lock your phone the internet might disconnect for few seconds
  because of battery save feature on phone. However it should reconnect
  when you unlock your phone.

I think the battery save explanation is sound here.


Voice action "Set alarm..." doesn't work on HTC Desire I have been trying out Voice Actions on an HTC Desire. Actions like "Navigate to...", "Directions to..." and "Note to self..." work fine. When I try saying "Set alarm to 9 o'clock" though I get this error message:

"Set alarm..."
In order to use this feature, download the latest Clock from the Android Market.

I already have the HTC Clock application and as far as I am aware it is fully updated but I'm assuming that the HTC Clock doesn't support the voice actions. Where is the correct "Clock" application? Opening the Market and searching for "Clock" doesn't seem to show any promising results (though I have to admit that I haven't checked all 1062 hits). Has anyone got this working on an HTC Desire? What do I need to do?

It appears that it is possible to get the "Set Alarm..." voice action working by installing a leaked version of DeskClockGoogle.apk as described on this website. I have not tested it.

It seems that this feature is not yet officially released but is coming soon.


USB tethering not working after installing CyanogenMod 7.2 on Samsung Galaxy Ace (GT-5830) I recently installed CyanogenMod on my Galaxy Ace and now its USB tether option is not working. The phone is detected by my PC only when I check the USB debugging mode. I can tether with external applications like Easy Tether but earlier USB tethering was built in for my phone when I had the Samsung stock firmware. What could be the possible problem?

ROMs like CyanogenMod and others by no means are complete. They are always under major refactoring and between minor revisions major functionality may be broken. For a long time I have been using custom roms, and if some functionality is broken I would advise you to return to a previous version of the ROM, or switch to another ROM.

The problem can also be related to the kernel you are using. Kernel is different than the ROM. ROM is built on top of kernel meaning that kernel part covers the more low-level functionality. If the kernel you are using does not support some functionality about USB bus, then you can still have problems although the ROM has no bugs.


"com.android.phone has stopped" after dirty flashing CM13 After dirty flashing my OnePlus One (bacon) from CM12.1 to CM13, I am constantly getting force close dialogs popup

Unfortunately the process com.android.phone has stopped

Logcat is filled with stacktraces like this:

Shutting down VM
FATAL EXCEPTION: main
Process: com.android.phone, PID: 13148
java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to get provider com.android.providers.telephony.TelephonyProvider: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Couldn't read row 0, col -1 from CursorWindow.  Make sure the Cursor is initialized correctly before accessing data from it.
    at android.app.ActivityThread.installProvider(ActivityThread.java:5205)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.installContentProviders(ActivityThread.java:4797)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleBindApplication(ActivityThread.java:4737)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.-wrap1(ActivityThread.java)
    at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1424)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:148)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5466)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:726)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:616)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Couldn't read row 0, col -1 from CursorWindow.  Make sure the Cursor is initialized correctly before accessing data from it.
    at android.database.CursorWindow.nativeGetString(Native Method)
    at android.database.CursorWindow.getString(CursorWindow.java:438)
    at android.database.AbstractWindowedCursor.getString(AbstractWindowedCursor.java:51)
    at com.android.providers.telephony.TelephonyProvider$DatabaseHelper.getStringValueFromCursor(TelephonyProvider.java:993)
    at com.android.providers.telephony.TelephonyProvider$DatabaseHelper.copyPreservedApnsToNewTable(TelephonyProvider.java:905)
    at com.android.providers.telephony.TelephonyProvider$DatabaseHelper.onUpgrade(TelephonyProvider.java:641)
    at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteOpenHelper.getDatabaseLocked(SQLiteOpenHelper.java:256)
    at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteOpenHelper.getReadableDatabase(SQLiteOpenHelper.java:187)
    at com.android.providers.telephony.TelephonyProvider.onCreate(TelephonyProvider.java:1457)
    at android.content.ContentProvider.attachInfo(ContentProvider.java:1748)
    at android.content.ContentProvider.attachInfo(ContentProvider.java:1723)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.installProvider(ActivityThread.java:5202)
    ... 10 more

Once I somehow get rid of the persistent UI popup, it seems like com.android.phone is crashing at least 10 times per second, flooding logcat, and making it almost impossible to use the phone.

Is there any hope for a fix, or is a hard reset the only option?

This was because of a change in the code.

As Firelord has said, clear the data for the apps, This can be done like so (this will also delete your SMS/MMS database, so make sure to backup them beforehand):

adb shell
rm -fr /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/
rm -fr /data/data/com.android.phone/
exit

The -f flag is for force and -r flag means recursive.


Verify Cyanogenmod update - checksum? I am running Cyanogenmod 11. The OS made an automatic check for updates, and there are new nightly builds available. I downloaded one of them, but have not yet installed it.

Can anyone advise what security features are built into this automatic update process?

Where is the update downloaded from?
Is it possible to see the checksum of the update in question?
Are updates signed?

You dont have to worry about corruption of update. If its corrupt, the zip file will not be parsed and recovery wont flash it, no damage done.

Still, if you want checksums, you can go to http://download.cyanogenmod.com/, find your device and check the checksum of latest build for your device.

If you are still not comfortable installing update, backup first using recovery. You can always restore if it doesn't work out.

  Are updates signed?

I dont get what you meant by that. CM updates are signed with Android's default debugging keys (test-keys). Ofcourse feel free to research about this on your own at Cyanogenmod Wiki.


How to connect Galaxy Spica 2.1 to tv using RCA/ Phono cable I bought an RCA phono cable 3.5mm. Connected it to my phone and to my tv but I only hear the audio that I play.
I wanna watch the movies of my phone on the tv.
Any help?

According to the specs I was looking at, the Galaxy Spica only supports audio out, not video.


Is there any way to re-render a photosphere? I took a photosphere earlier today, and went to the gallery to wait for it to render. While it was rendering, I switched from landscape to portrait and the gallery app crashed. I'm now left with the pre-rendered, non-stitched images.

Is there any way to force the gallery to re-render the photosphere? Or do I just have to re-take it?

Not a full answer (came here looking for an answer myself), but here are a couple of partial solutions I figured out so far, perhaps someone else can improve upon these.

First of all, temporary files for the last few photosphere sessions can be found under /sdcard/Android/data/com.google.android.gallery3d/files/panorama_sessions/. You can extract these out and use an external program such as hugin to stich them. I tried this on a couple of photospheres and though they didn't come out great, I have at least something instead of nothing. I kept the files around and looking around for a good guide on using Hugin.
I was able to trick photo app to reprocess them, but it didn't produce desirable result. This is what I did:

I connected the phone to my laptop and went into the directory where the session files are (via adb shell).
I identified the directory for my previous session
While the camera is still connected to the laptop, I started taking a new photosphere, took a couple of snaps
Identified the directory for the new session
Copied all files from old session directory to the new session directory
Ended the photosphere to trigger a processing.

The photo app did process the old images, but it doesn't reread the session.meta and orientations.txt and instead uses the data from the new session (must be cached in memory). The result is that you  don't get a full photosphere, unless you complete the photosphere in the new session also, which I don't mind doing in the interest of saving the photosphere, except that I realized I had to capture the new photosphere in exactly the same sequence as before or the resultant image will all be out of place as it would be stiched in the wrong order.

Ideally, if there is a hidden task in the photo app to invoke the rendering, we should be able to trigger it on the old sessions folder, but I don't know where to begin.


Android Wifi : How to change network interface used by android When I boot up my Android Device and go to Wifi settings,the status of wifi remains "Turning Wi-Fi on" forever.I looked up in logcat logs,below is the error that I see.

E/wpa_supplicant( 1713): nl80211: Could not set interface 'wlan0' UP
E/wpa_supplicant( 1713): wlan0: Failed to initialize driver interface
E/wpa_supplicant( 1713): Could not read interface wlan0 flags: No such device

Below is some useful information.

root@android:/ # netcfg
netcfg
lo       UP     127.0.0.1/8   0x00000049 00:00:00:00:00:00
gannet0  DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00001082 1e:e9:6e:bf:45:f7
dummy0   DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00000082 ba:ad:f6:ae:6a:09
rmnet0   DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet1   DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet2   DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet3   DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet4   DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet5   DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet6   DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet7   DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00000001 00:00:00:00:00:00
sit0     DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00000080 00:00:00:00:00:00
ip6tnl0  DOWN     0.0.0.0/0   0x00000080 00:00:00:00:00:00

Contents of /system/etc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf:

update_config=1
ctrl_interface=wlan0
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1

Question: How can I enable android to use some other interface other than wlan0 ?

Things tried:

1)I tried to edit ctrl_interface parameter in /system/etc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf usiny adb pull and push to other interfaces shown by netcfg but android still tries to use wlan0.

2)I also tried to start wpa_supplicant daemon using below command.

/system/bin/wpa_supplicant -Dnl80211 -idummy0 -c/system/etc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf

but this gives error.

E/wpa_supplicant( 5390): dummy0: Failed to initialize driver interface

Are you sure dummy is a wifi interface?   Typical wifi interface's name is wlan0.

If you're 100% sure it is right wifi interface, you might also need to change the wlan0 inside the wpa_supplicant.conf file.

If that still fails, run the wpa_supplicant command under strace and try get more info from there.


error while retrieving information from server rh-01 play store I have rooted android phone it gives following error :

Error retrieving information from server [RH-01] for play store.

So I am not able to use any Google application. I installed custom ROM on my android. I did all help provided on internet and on this question: Keep getting “Error retrieving information from server. [RH-01]” from the play store.

So can i do anything to log in to my Google account.

Kept getting the same error message on Play Store (previously have uninstalled updates on Google Play Store and Google Play Services) after trying the steps in: Keep getting "Error retrieving information from server. [RH-01]" from the play store. Guess this is an instance not caused by corrupt cache. Thought of reversing the previous uninstallation of updates by installing the latest Google Play Store and Play Services. First proceeded with installation of latest Google Play Store apk but the same error message persisted. I then uninstalled the Google Play Store updates and installed the latest Google Play Services app and viola, Google Play Store auto-updated to the latest version and the error message was gone!

Therefore installing the latest Google Play Services app solved my problem. I googled for the latest Google Play Services app and downloaded online.


How can I block an app from accessing my contacts? An app that has access to the list of contacts is capable, without further notice, to upload that information to a server. (If it has internet access, that is, but most do.)

I am concerned of the breach of trust to my contacts that this entails.

For example, someone on my contacts list may have gone into some trouble to remain unlisted in any phone book, and yet their phone number could become near-public, depending on the privacy policy of the app, which I, like many, never bother to read.

I'm here not even referring to app(s) that exist with the sole and express intent of making contact lists public.

Is there any way to be in control by choosing whether a given app has access to my contacts list, similar to how an app can have access to notifications, but I can disable its access to notifications while continuing to use the app?

To be clear, a messenger app becomes meaningless if it doesn't have access to contacts, but, for example, an app showing me the nearest grocer or coffee shop has no need to access my contacts. Please do not suggest "Just don't install an app that gratuitously asks for permission to access contacts." Doing so leaves users in the stone age. I'd like to be able to use any app, but to remain in charge.

Edit:

For comparison, here is a link to a companion question for iOS.

Here a step by step guide working since Android 6.0+ (Screenshots from Android 7.1.1).

Go so Settings via the gear wheel icon
Select Apps
Select the gear wheel icon
Select App permissions
Select the permission of your choice
Disable the app's permission


How to remove the bootloader unlocked sign while restarting device Ever since I unlocked my Nexus 6p to root the device, I started getting the boot-loader unlocked sign with a big flashing yellow icon telling me to go to some link to reset my device. It is quite annoying when this happens. Is there a way to remove this icon without re-locking the device?
Android: 7.1.1 Nougat (rooted w/ TWRP)

Someone found a way to get rid of this screen on a Nexus 5X by replacing the imgdata bitmap files. Not sure if there is a one for 6P.

XDA forum link here


How to install superuser HD2 rom on SD card Usually I just install superuser.zip through recovery. But now nothing happens. I tried using TWRP both from NAND and from SD (latest version with F2FS support).
I try to root this rom: SLIMLP LP5.1.1 based on CM12.1 for HTC HD2.

Looks like the recovery wants to install superuser on NAND always.

I can install superuser application like apk, but root did not work this way. But with adb shell I can get root access. And from screenshots I see in thread people have root. I want to use superuser with this ROM. How do I go about doing it?

It was easier then I thought. I just need activate Developers options and under Developer section activate root.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knm1kKVkJd8


Voice commands, bluetooth, double press home Is there a way to improve the voice recognition command when you press the bluetooth button or double press home? It's terrible. I've already 'trained' it or 'adapted' it. This isn't the same as Google voice search. The settings > about says

Nuance, VSuite 3.2, Version 3.2.55, Build 4.5.102

I tried going to manage app to see if I could share and look it up in the market for an update, but no luck. The phone is Droid2WE.

Although we may not be referring to the same program, I had issues with Android's built in Voice Dialer app. There are a few replacement voice dialer apps on Google Play, including Choice Dialer.  In many of these alternative voice dialers, there are options for controlling the confidence threshold before taking an action.  In the case of Choice Dialer, if a command cannot be understood with a configurable level of confidence, it asks you to confirm with a simple yes or no.  I found that this alone made it a lot better than the built-in voice dialer.

So, to answer your question, consider getting a replacement voice dialer.


How to restore phone numbers from contact.list file to my phone I made a backup using tunesgo software which turned to be a scam, I couldnt restore the backup I must to pay for them 40 dollars!

I managed to extract the bak file using winrar but my Xiaomi mi max cant read the contact.list file and I cant get my phone numbers back. please help

So I have a solution but it is not totally able to re save them on your phone,you will only be able to save them in a word file

1-convert the .bak (backup) file to into zip file by renaming it and changing the last word after the dot from .bak to .zip

2-unextract the zip file with winrar , open the folder and you should find contact.list file,leave it.
open a new document notepad , choose open and click on the "contact.list" file to open it in the notepad text

3-now select all and copy them into a word file,you can search for your numbers or specific contact by the search and replace tool of the microsoft word.


I don't know what my credential storage password is. Can anybody help? I want to change the VPN on my Samsung Galaxy S but it keeps asking me for my credential storage password. Does anybody know how I get this?

Go to Settings -> Location and security -> Credential storage -> Set password to change it.


Do regular Bluetooth keyboards work with Mororola Droid X running Android 2.3? I remember reading couple of years ago that most (or even all) normal Bluetooth keyboards would not work with Mororola Droid X running Android 2.2. (surprisingly this didn't seem to be covered on Android SE)

Does anyone know whether the situation has improved since then by introducing Android 2.3 stock ROM, or better/more capable Bluetooth Keyboards? Or was the problem with Droid X hardware and thus unfixable?

Download BlueKeyboard JP from the Play Store. This makes it a lot easier to set up a bluetooth keyboard.

Here is how to set it up:

Install the app.
Then go to Settings > Language & Keyboard.
Check BlueKeyboard JP and go into its settings, and then into bluetooth settings.
Enable Bluetooth and scan for devices. Make sure your bluetooth keyboard is on also.
If you see it in the devices list, click it and then it'll ask you to enter a PIN. Just type 4 numbers (0000 or 1234 for example) and press OK.
Once you do that, on your bluetooth keyboard, type the same number sequence and press Enter and it should say your keyboard is "Paired, but not connected" on your Droid.
Go back and disable Auto Capitalization, select your keyboard in the Selected Keyboard tab and you should be good to go. To try it out effectively, disable your Android keyboard (or select the Bluekeyboard JP keyboard in the Input Method tab) and go into any app and select a text field and it should say that the keyboard is trying to connect in your notification bar. Once it does, try typing and it should work!

The Google Play page has some reviews from Droid X users saying it works just fine for them. That said, a lot of reviewers (on various devices) complain of unreliability.


Where is the data for "Contacts Storage" located? Settings -> Applications -> All tells me that "Contacts Storage" uses 2.5MB which must be my contact data.

Since I had to revert to 4.03 after a faulty update to 4.1 my contacts seem inaccessible although the data seems to be there.

Could you please tell me where to find the associated data(base) for Contacts Storage? My phone is rooted.
And no, my contact data is not on GMail and I honestly don't know why...

The exact location of the contacts database might depend on your manufacturer's "customization". While "plain Vanilla Android" has them in /data/data/android.providers.contacts/databases, the stock ROM on my Motorola Milestone 2 e.g. uses /data/data/com.motorola.blur.providers.contacts/databases/contacts2.db instead. A raw mask to check for is /data/data/*.providers.contacts/databases/*.db. The file is in SQLite3 format, and can be browsed on your PC with e.g. SQLiteman or DB Browser for SQLite, which is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows alike. With this application you can browse the database in a graphical mode. Of course you also can use the command line sqlite3 client if you prefer.

Crucial point to directly access this database is that your device must be rooted -- a precondition you already meet, as your question states.

So you can either use a file manager to navigate to the database file, and copy it to your computer for investigation -- or directly pull it to your computer via adb pull. A third option would be to investigate it directly on your device, e.g. using the SQLite Manager or aSQLiteManager app.


If I flash my ROM or wipe my device after buying an app, will I have to buy it again? Possible Duplicate:
  How many times an Android Market's application can be installed?

If I buy an app and after a few days I decide to wipe out the data on my phone and install a new ROM, will I have to buy that app again or can I download it for free since I had already bought it earlier? Can someone please confirm?

No, the market keeps track of your purchases.

Purchased apps can always be downloaded using the Android Market, assuming you are signed in with the account that you used to make the purchase.


How to browse files on my PC from my Android phone via USB? Through USB, I can readily browse my Android's file hierarchy using my PC.
How can I browse files on my PC using my Android 4.4 device?
The "ES File Explorer" app doesn't appear to facilitate this.

Specifically what I'd like to do is use my Android (in conjunction with VLC for Android) to watch video files that are stored on my PC.

I can do this over my wifi network, but it just seems so darn silly to use wifi when the USB is plugged in.  Silly enough to warrant asking the question, anyway.

Just in case it matters, the desired files are actually on a network drive.
Phone > USB > PC₁ > Network Drive > PC₂

Thanks for any advice!

It is matter of "master" and "slave". The master can see what is inside the slave but not the countrary. When you plug your phone to the PC, the PC is the master and the phone is the slave. Consequently you cannot explore what is inside your PC with your phone.


How to get email notifications on the new Outlook Android app The new Outlook Android app show new emails when they arrive but does not show the notifications for them. How can I turn on email notifications?
I am not using Quick Filter.

You can set notifications to be for Focused only, all or none per
  account. The default is Focused only, so if you turn off Focused Inbox
  globally you get no notifications unless you go into the account
  settings and set them to all. [Ref. - Android Central]

In the new Outlook app, the default notifications setting is Focused only. In order to see notifications for all emails follow the following steps:

Open the Outlook Android App Settings
Select your account, e.g., john.doe@outlook.com
Under Mail Notifications select All in the pull-down menu.


Receiving App Notifications from apps that are blocked by a network firewall I apologize if this is in the wrong spot but I am using a galaxy s7 edge and have noticed something odd that I am hoping someone here can answer.  I am currently on my companies wireless network which prevents apps like twitter and facebook from connecting etc.  However I still receive notifications from these apps when someone posts to my wall or follows me etc.  Is there a simple reason for this such as a poorly configured firewall?

Notifications for applications like Twitter and Facebook are sent through Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) or its later versions such as Firebase messaging. This is one of the ways that Google can reduce power usage on your phone, by channeling all of the periodic checking through GCM. Unless your firewall is blocking GCM, all such notifications will be let through the firewall. For notifications your Twitter app is not accessing Twitter servers directly; a Twitter server is leaving a message for your phone on a GCM server, and your phone is checking the GCM server and delivering that message to your Twitter app.

When you are actively using your Twitter app, it will directly access Twitter servers, and a firewall will be able to block it. This is distinct from notifications.


Samsung Galaxy S2 can't transfer pics, shuts down by itself, does not charge My Samsung Galaxy S2 (not rooted) has all sorts of problems.

It started when I tried to take some pics today. I would take a pic, and it would shut down.

I tried to get pics off my phone by syncing it with my computer. The computer said the files had errors, and asked if I wanted to skip those files.

Then, the phone started shutting itself down for no reason.

When I turned it back on, it said low battery. So, I plugged it in. About 30 mins later, it said it had 100% battery (I'm sure it didn't). When I turned it on and tried to use it, it would act like it had low battery again and shut down.

Now, it's getting worse. I can't get it to stay turned on for more that 5 seconds. It shuts down straight away.

I could see that the phone still had the pics on it. I'm hoping it can be fixed, so I can take it to someone to try and get the pics off the phone. My new baby pics are on there as well.

Any ideas as to what it is? I'm hoping a simple battery change will fix it, but I'm not sure why it says it's charged when I know it's not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

**Missing details....

Thanks. Yes, I've removed the battery for up to an hour. I was originally charging on AC power. I had to use the phone after being charged for about 30 mins. It showed it had around 75% power. I went to use the camera, it shut off and when I turned it back on it showed very lowe battery. When I plugged it back in and turned it on it showed 90% power. When I went to use it again it showed low power then turned off. Turned it back on and it showed 60% power. I left it charging and in a few mins. it showed 100% on charge. If its on USB or AC power it will get to the lock screen. I can unlock it then it shuts down after 5-10 seconds. Doesn't matter if I'm doing anything on it or not. If its not on power it doesn't complete the start up sequence. Only gets to the start of the "music" after you see the "S".

This answer will be updated along the process. So for now, it just holds initial steps / a raw solution.

There are several things you can try to get your device back to working normal. I will list some steps; just break as soon as anything came back to normal: in that case you will not need to walk the remaining steps unless the last step taken explicitly mentions something alike:

battery check

take out the battery, leave it out for at least 30s (2min won't hurt, more should not be necessary).
insert battery again, but do not yet switch on your phone.
fully charge your phone on AC (not USB from a computer).
switch it on again. If it's working now, everything's fine and you are done.

faulty apps check

shut down your phone
start it in "safe mode"
(how to do that depends on the device; on the SGS2 this should be accomplished as follows: Press power and menu, then release the power key but keep pressing the menu button. The word "Safe Mode" will be displayed on lower left if I'm not mistaken. -- source: LowYat.Net; I have no SGS2 so I cannot verify)
none of your self-installed apps will be started in safe mode, only system apps are available. Check if the behaviour changed (I guess not, but it's a good point to know for the last group below).
while in safe mode, try to backup as much things as you can reach. If already on Android 4.0 or higher, see Full Backup of non-rooted devices for how to safe the most of your precious stuff, but better stick to separate small packages (backup on a per-app basis, as restoring the full package later might bring the problem back). On rooted devices, Titanium Backup is probably the best choice.
this was just an intermediate step; even if your phone is working normally in safe mode, this will not have fixed the issue for "normal operation", so go on.

factory reset

do a factory reset of your device (warning: all your data and self-installed apps will be lost from the device, hence the backup recommendation above; your sd card should not be affected, but it cannot hurt to copy all its data to your computer as a backup before doing the factory reset)
startup the device again. Before installing all your apps again, make sure the issue has been fixed by the reset.
if your device is back to normal, you can go on re-installing your apps / restoring your backups app-by-app. Between each app, make sure to test a while: if any of the apps was the cause, you might otherwise bring the problem back by restoring the "faulty" backup. If that happens, remember which app it was; start over from step 3.1. and ommit this app in the next run.
if you've restored everything, and your device is still working normal: congratulations, you're done!

if the issue still remains, it has to be some hardware issue. Could be the battery is broken, so next I would go to your local dealer (best the one where you've bought it), and try with a "spare battery" from his store. Explain the reasons, including the results from the "safe mode check", and also that you've already tried a factory reset (because that's the first thing he will do otherwise). If the new battery solves you issue: buy it :) If not, next step:
If you still have warranty, send it in for repair (or let the "local dealer" handle this for you). Make sure all details (including results from the "safe mode check" and the fact you already tried a factory reset without this solving your problem) are included with the report.
if you don't have warranty anymore, ask the dealer what a repair might cost. It could be cheaper to simply buy a new phone...


How to quickly lock screen to landscape? For the use with a neoprene bracelet for running, I would like to quickly lock my Milestone 1@Cyanogenmod 7.2.0 to landscape mode.
All widgets that disable auto orientation seem to cause the phone to switch back to portrait.

I could achieve that by disabling 0°/180°/270° in the settings, but I would like an easier solution with a widget.

Rotation Locker says that it supports this:

  Lock your screen's rotation in Landscape, Portrait or Auto. When you launch the app, you're faced with these three options.

For doing this quickly, it does also include a widget to lock whatever your current orientation is:

  A widget is provided so you can lock into whatever your current orientation is. (Useful for reverse landscape for example).


Flash a smartphone with vanilla Android ROM Is it possible to flash a smartphone like the Samsung Galaxy SIII or an LG Optimus 4X with a vanilla Android ROM like the one that has been flashed on Galaxy Nexus or Motorola phones (I think)?

I am asking because manufacturers like Samsung, LG, HTC tend to make ROMs for their smartphones and tablets with preinstalled launchers like Touchwiz or HTC Sense. They explain their decision by saying that they want to make their devices to look unique against their rival devices. The problem is that Android updates for their phones and tablets get delayed and there are incidents in which some devices - which are more than capable of running the upcoming version of Android - fall way behind or never get updated at all.

So, what I am basically asking here is if there is a way to install vanilla Android, excluding CyanogenMod or any other modified vanilla ROMs, on an Android based smartphone?

Well Google only develops "vanilla" Android (called AOSP for Android Open Source Project ) for some selected phones (the Nexus Series).

Manufacturers use this as base for their phone's OS. So you probably won't get a "vanilla" Rom from your manufactures, but there are probably a few AOSP-based Ports for your phone. (CyanogenMod is also based on AOSP) Rom-Developers tend to use an existing ROM like AOKP or Cyanogen as base because it's already compatible with a lot of devices. Porting "vanilla" AOSP is quite difficult and time-consuming because it lack's drivers and phone-specific code.


How to make phone use all available ram I have an Android phone that has 3gb of RAM available it uses nearly 1.4gb at boot up and max of 2gb on using chrome ,WhatsApp and Samsung Internet and when I switch to recent apps they restart  and that I hate because despite of having more than enough RAM my Android is unable to utilize it .Please help me in getting better ram management.

You can't force android to use all the RAM you have, all you can do is keep frequently used apps open i.e., don't clear them from recents so they should stay in memory and should open fast than launching when they were closed


Disable force close vibrations I am developing some applications for Android and I'm getting some errors and force closes.

This is rather annoying, although not as much as annoying as the loud vibrations the phone does (a long vibration and 3 quick ones). This is very unpleasant for me and for my workmates.

I've set Sound >> Vibrate to "Never", but it keeps coming on and on and after searching through almost all the entire phone settings, a solution is still to find.

The device is the SGS running Froyo.

You're probably not going to like my answer, but I don't think there's anything you can do about it. I've tried to turn this off myself in the past, but the Android OS is such that you will receive a force close vibration no matter what. Now, regarding your application actually force closing, here are my two best guesses (since I can't see any of your code):

You are trying to use a feature that requires documentation in the manifest file.
You are overburdening the UI stack by not threading processes that take a long time to accomplish (i.e. contacting a server and receiving data, handling remote data, etc.), which can be solved with AsyncTasks.

Also, if you are getting frequent force close errors, please use DDMS. It's an absolute God send for this kind of stuff. I know a lot of people who just try to "figure out" where they went wrong. Debugging is a skill in its own right.

Sorry I couldn't directly answer your question. I instead tried to pinpoint where else you may be going wrong with your applications, which, to me, would seem to be a bigger issue.

EDIT:

To show you how I arrived at this conclusion:

I firstly tried to look through all settings (including my Galaxy S manual), and obviously no cigar.

I noticed that there are two classes that a developer must look into to at least see if this vibration can be turned off programatically (for your specific program). These classes are the Notification and Vibrator classes. Upon inspection, you can see that there's nothing within these classes that will allow you to do that. It's a system property. Realizing that you must put in a "vibration" intent into the manifest in order to even manipulate the vibration should further prove this point:

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.VIBRATE"/>

I wasn't really prepared to mess around with the actual Android low-level code so I brought the issue up with my friend (who has been messing around with the actual Android kernel and OS itself for a while) in order to validate my suspicion. He said that this property was built in. In other words, you would have to override the property within the OS itself in order to change the force close vibration. For me, that was the end of me trying to turn off this property.


How to block specific notifications from an app? A certain app I use gives me crucial notifications that I need, but also notifies me almost daily that over 80% of my RAM is used. I would like to allow this app to send me all notifications except those that contain the string "80% of your RAM" in the text of the notification.

Obviously, there is no way to filter a certain app's notifications in stock Android (other than blocking all of a certain app's notifications, but that's not what I want!), but is there a way that I can block notifications if they contain a certain string of text?

Nexus 6P running Android Marshmallow 6.0.1, if you're curious the app in question is CM Security.

If your Android is rooted and has Xposed Framework installed, then NotifyClean xposed module can be used to easily achieve the goal. I have mentioned its relevant usage here.

For non-rooted Android devices, I suggest you use MacroDroid or a similar app, such as Automate.

MacroDroid defines a set of trigger(s), action(s) and constraint(s) as a macro. You must enable Notification access permission and Usage Access permission in it.

You would be needing the following macro.

Trigger:  Notification → Notification Received:

From: choose your app
Text Content: here's where you can play. Choose Contains or Matches to filter your text specific notification.

Action:

Clear Notifications → Select Application(s) → select your app → provide the filtering details again

Constraints: none

Save the macro and you're good to go.

Note: MacroDroid can remove sticky/persistent notifications only in Android Oreo and above.


Is there an alternative to Bouncer- Temporary app permissions? I'm really paranoid about my privacy idk why. Recently I installed Whatsapp Aero which is super cool but unfortunately its developer is expert in making spyware apps too. I found this Bouncer app which provides permissions temporarily. But this app is paid and not open source again. I tried shelter app to isolate it but due to the dual app feature in my phone i can't a add work profile. Can anyone suggest me how can i monitor what the app does in background OR make an script which grants and revokes permissions through adb OR any alternative to Bouncer? I'm gonna buy the bounce app if i'm outta options. The developer deserves it :)
P.S.  My device is not rooted.

I suggest using  Android Mobile Device Hardening which:

list installed apps and their dangerous permissions
revoke dangerous permissions for all Apps
list applications that are device admin


How to boot Android with flight mode (airplane mode) activated Is it possible to boot up Android so flight mode is activated?

When I set airplane mode before rebooting or creating a nandroid backup the setting will stick.

Are there any files like init.d that are easy to modify where these kinds of boot options are stored?
Another alternative would be a modified Custom Recovery. But I haven't heard of one.

Use case:
Restore an old Nandroid Backup, but before the system fetches all the updates (messenger...) the user wants to restore certain app data so nothing gets lost.

That is only possible when in flight mode.

An indirect possibility would be using tasker, which has the capability of performing actions "on device start" (amongst many others). So you could setup a profile that says: "on device start" → "set airplane mode on". Other automation apps like llama might have the same capability.

Note however that the action can of course only be executed as soon as the app (Tasker/ Llama) is started, so there might be a delay in which airplane mode is turned off (and a network connection available). If you need to safely rule that out: take out the SIM card, and delete the AP config for your WiFi. That way the device would still boot with airplane mode disabled – but had no chance to connect anywhere. Third option would be booting it while inside a Faraday cage (or a lead box) …


Can't change security settings due to VPN setup This appears to be a duplicate of this post, but the solution there didn't work for me. Clearing the credential storage wasn't even an option -- it's greyed out.

Starting at the beginning -- I started to set up a VPN on my phone (Note 3, Android 5.0) but cancelled the operation halfway through, yet the OS still enforced the security settings (a PIN). I have tried a few things trying to disable the PIN lock, but the only option I have is to upgrade the security to a "password" which is even more unacceptable.

So far, I've tried finishing the VPN setup (it worked) then removing it, also force stop/disable of the VPN app, and quite a few other things that I can't recall at this moment.

I think part of the issue is that a certificate was installed when I started the process, but I have no idea which certificate it was. The System cert list is populated with tons of entries, but the User cert list is completely empty. Is there a way to determine which certificate was installed so I can remove/disable that one? I'm concerned with choosing the wrong one, as who knows what it might break on the phone.

Try this Its an apk that can disable the screen lock. It worked for me on KitKat when I had the same problem.
Install it, select launcher and don't mind the icon.


Why the "Sign-in error" notification appear on Xiaomi device? Since yesterday, I've been getting this error message and I have no idea what application it is. I checked all of my installed apps and can't see it.

Can you help me identify this icon?

You must be using Xiaomi device with stock ROM. When you first switched on device, you created an online Mi account like Google account. Now this device is attached to that Mi account to avoid misuse in case of phone theft. This phenomenon is similar to FRP implemented by other OEMs too.
Shown number 178... is your Mi account ID. This error is appearing because device is unable to verify your identity online due to no internet access or something like that. Go to Mi Account in Settings and login again.

Be careful! If you are unable to login, you won't be able to access device on reboot.

See this to know a little bit about how FRP works.


Automatic Do Not Disturb for Calendar events on Samsung Does anyone know of any free apps that can control the Do Not Disturb based on Calendar events? I know this is built into Android OS10, but Samsung has removed that from their phones. I know of one app that should work but it does a lot of things I do not need and costs money for what was originally built in but removed by a second party.

You can try IFTTT, Automate, Macrodroid app and automate that.

look given examples and try to create automation script for those calendar events.


How to factory reset a Yxtel G928? The information I could find online about how to wipe all user data from a Yxtel G928 was confusing and not easy to find, in long confusingly written forum threads like this one, so I'm writing it up clearly here.

Turn the phone off the usual way
With it off, hold down the power button, volume down button and home key for around 20 seconds
It'll start up and show an icon. Press volume down, then a menu will appear
Use the volume keys up/down to highlight wipe data/factory reset and then use power button to select it
Confirm the same way (volume keys to highlight, power button to select)


Google Play Music songs don't show up -- but only on one of the devices I own I got a few albums uploaded, all the songs (the full albums ) show up in my tablet ( Samsung S ), also they show up in the web player and in my old Samsung S3. But my S4 with lollipop just shows two or three songs of each album.

I already tried refresh, also I changed the storage,  I cleared the data, and the cache. But everytime I log and browse the albums just two or three songs shows up.

Edit.
Also I wiped out the whole system and even the dalvik cache.

I was having the same problem and have a case open with Google on this issue.  While I have not heard back from them yet, I continued to investigate this issue myself and may have found a solution.  What I did was open Goolgle Play music from my browser on my laptop.  In settings, under my devices I deactivated my Android phone (Galaxy S5).  On my phone I did a Force stop of the application and cleared any data.  Then I restarted the app and did a refresh just to force it.

Before I did this, several artists were missing and many songs as well.  for example my phone only showed 8 Beatles songs.  Now I am showing 256.  On my laptop, I still show more songs 269, but it a heck of a lot better.  Other artists I checked show up as well.

I believe this all started after I did a full wipe of my phone due to battery issues with the lollipop upgrade.   Hopefully this helps.

MS


Does any version of Android support ad-hoc connections? I just bought a Lenovo Ideapad A1 which runs Android 2.3. It seems that connecting the device to an ad-hoc network is not possible.

Does any other Android version support this?

There are no Android versions that support the 802.11 ad-hoc mode (unfortunately).  To have ad-hoc working on an Android you need to root your phone.  This however does not fix the basic issue that the Android java API does not allow you to programatically control the wifi interface in ad-hoc mode - to do that you need to resort to native code which is not portable accross devices.

Android 4.0 however supports (and provides API's for) the new WiFi direct standard which offers some of the functionality of the 802.11 ad-hoc mode (+ a bunch of other higher level stuff).  One of the nice promises of WiFi Direct is that it will be backwards compatible with regular infrastructure mode WiFi (in the sense that a WiFi direct device will appear as a regular Access Point to non WiFi Direct devices).


set song as alarm tone How can I set song from my sd card as alarm tone ? i tried to change the tone but I cant figure out how to make the songs from my sd card to show up on the list.
I am using samsung galaxy ace with android 2.3.4

I also faced the same issue with the Stock Alarm. Stock alarm was not able to recognize the SD Card songs. I vaguely remembered the solution. Couple of restarts and removing the SD Card from the phone and plugging it again solved the issue fro me.

But now I installed Alarm Klock which has the option to see all the Songs on SD Card by Author and Album wise. It has vibrating feature which doesn't there in stock Alarm.


How can I view SSL certificate information (the padlock popup in Chrome desktop) in Chrome Mobile? When I'm on my Desktop Chrome, I can click on the padlock icon in the address bar and see the information about my SSL connection, like the TLS version, the certificate strength, the authority that issued the certificate, and whether there's unsecured content on the website.

Is there a way to view this information on Chrome Mobile on an Android device? In case it matters, the Android version is 4.4.2, but will likely soon change to 5.0, but if it's different for both versions, I'm interested in both methods.

I tried just tapping on the padlock icon in the address bar, but it just gives the url and "your connection is private" and an option to copy the URL.

To clarify: this is all that I see when tapping the padlock:

(Click image to enlarge)

No mention of SSL version or similar stuff.

The page info was simplified as the security information was cryptic for "most users":
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=302561

A subsequent issue has been raised to reimplement more detailed connection info:
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=425158

The latter issue has reportedly been started/assigned, so hopefully this will be fixed soon.

EDIT: Chrome 44 for Android has now been released (as stable). This reintroduces the connection info.


Reboot touchphone without touching the screen Sometimes touch screen on my phone is swithced off and does not switch on again. The phone is working, you can ring it, even the touch keys have light.

Can you say, it there a method how to reboot it not touching the screen?

My phone is I-Mobile IQ 5.5 (bought in Thailand).
OS: Android 4.2.2.

I've searched the phone's manual, there is nothing about this topic.

I know there is a combination of keys from other manufacturers like Samsung, but as I said here there were no word about it in manual.

Maybe there is an app, which can help me reboot the phone by pressing several hard keys?

Now, I am just taking off the battery to reboot the phone.

Pressing and holding the phone's power button for a few seconds might do the trick.

It switches off my Android phones.


Android Phone Shell Command Silent Mode? What is the shell command to enable/toggle silent mode on an Android phone?

I ask because the Tasker app can run shell commands but only can enable vibration for my specific phone model.

The settings is supposed to be called mode_ringer.
I can read its current status via adb shell settings get global mode_ringer.
However, changing its value does not seem to produce any effect and i'm still investigating why...


SuperSU or Superuser binary Can I add the superuser binary without a custom recovery?
Is there a way to force the binary install through terminal or  PC or app?

Generally no, but it depends on your device. For example, if you have an older non-updated Amazon device, you can usually root it with as little as an app install. For devices that haven't been exploited yet, however, there's little hope besides asking the community on xda and such very very nicely. It's a good idea to look for "bootloader unlockable" devices when you're looking to purchase a new Android device, to show the corporations that people want this.


Android O VirtualBox can't set up device - google play services keep crashing I have an Android O Virtualbox and when I go to set it up, it asks if i want to set it up with data from my old phone or start new. I've tried both options, and it says that the Google Play Services have stopped, everytime i try. I don't know what to do. thanks in advance.

Tested for ubuntu 16.04.

You can use this link to follow steps.,

https://www.howtogeek.com/164570/how-to-install-android-in-virtualbox/

for 32-bit system use this link for latest Android-orio.,

https://osdn.net/projects/android-x86/downloads/69704/android-x86-8.1-r2.iso/

for 64-bit system i used this link for latest Android-orio.,

https://osdn.net/projects/android-x86/downloads/69704/android-x86_64-8.1-r2.iso/

and at one step there is no Primary or Logical partition option as mention in the post, there you have to create a partition, you have to enter some values too, where there is default just let it be like it, and enter 8300 for linux. Actually that and name of the pariton is the only value i've entered in rest i just pressed enter.


What is the criteria that Android depends on to join contacts from different accounts? I'm synchronizing my contacts from many accounts (Hotmail, Facebook, Gmail), everything have worked well and the OS has joined (or shows them as one) the accounts that refer to the same person. But not all accounts, since some accounts have not been joined although both accounts have the same name and one email exists in both as well.

I wonder what is the criteria that Android depends on to join the accounts?

Note: I do know that I can join them by myself in the contants list, but I would let it know them by itself.

Raw contacts are joined according to rules described at Using the Contacts API:

  Two raw contacts are considered to be a match if at least one of these
  conditions is met:

  They have matching names.
  Their names consist of the same words but in different order (for example, "Bob Parr" and "Parr, Bob")
  One of them has a common short name for the other (for example, "Bob Parr" and "Robert Parr") One of them has just a first or last name and it matches the other raw contact. This rule is less reliable, so it only applies if the two raw contacts are also sharing some other data like a phone number, an email address or a nickname (for example, Helen ["elastigirl"] = Helen Parr ["elastigirl"])
  At least one of the two raw contacts is missing the name altogether and they are sharing a phone number, an email address or a nickname (for example, Bob Parr> [incredible@android.com] = incredible@android.com).

  When comparing
  names, the system ignores upper/lower case differences (Bob=BOB=bob)
  and diacritical marks (Hélène=Helene). When comparing two phone
  numbers the system ignores special characters such as "*", "#", "(",
  ")", and whitespace. Also if the only difference between two numbers
  is that one has a country code and the other does not, then the system
  considers those to be a match (except for numbers in the Japan country
  code).

  Automatic aggregation is not permanent; any change of a constituent
  raw contact may create a new aggregate or break up an existing one.

There is also explicit aggregation, that can be set for raw contacts, if a user explicitly wants two contacts to be joined. Read more about it in the article.


Unable to install system images for the Android SDK: "Failed to create directory" I've just installed Xamarin, to use C# on Android: on their tutorial about how to install the emulator here. I saw they installed Intel x86 Atom system image and ARM v7a system image, so I did the same and got this with both API 18 and 15, but only ARM vt7a (15) was successfully installed

Downloading ARM EABI v7a System Image, Android API 18, revision 2
Installing ARM ABIv7a System Image, Android API 18, revision 2
Failed to create directory C:/Program Files (x86)/Android/android-sdk-windows/system-images/android-18/armeabi-v7a
Downloading Intel x86 Atom System Image, Android API 18, revision 1
Installing Intel x86 Atom System Image, Android API 18, revision 1
Failed to create directory C:/Program Files (x86)/Android/android-sdk-windows/system-images/android-18/x86Done.
Nothing was installed.

I'm on win 8, 64-bit, do you think the problem is my laptop architecture?

The SDK needs to be run as admistrator to be able to write those files.

Just retry and run it with elevated rights.


My headphone jack on my Nexus 7 2012 works only half the time My 2012 Nexus 7 (Rooted; CM 12.1, Lollipop), has headphone jack issues. Most of the time, only the left ear will work, and sometimes I am able to get both the right and left to work. Sometimes they will both work perfectly, and it's not an issue. I know it's not the headphones, so what should I do? Thanks!

I think this is just general phone wear and tear. The headphone jack could be partially damaged due to water over time. You could get the headphone jack replaced and see how that goes for you but if the phone is 5 years old then this might be a good time for an update.


How do I import all contacts from a SIM-card to an Android phone? My mother have got a HTC Wildfire with Android 2.2.

Now I want to import all contacts from her old SIM-card to the phone. I did it and it worked. Then I switched to the new SIM-card, and now when I start the phone, the contacts has disappeared.

How can I import the contacts from the old SIM-card to the Android phone? This is a really annoying problem.

Two questions:

Are you sure the SIM contacts were really imported or only displayed.
Is the option to show phone contacts checked after you changed the SIM.

If you go to Contacts, press Menu -> Import/Export -> Import from SIM card.

The SIM contacts should be imported into the phone and remain there. It is then just a matter of getting phone contacts displayed.


Disable all mobile data-consuming apps Possible Duplicate:
  Preventing mobile data use for select apps on non-rooted phone?

I'm going overseas tomorrow, with a travel SIM that supports mobile data - but it will be a precious resource. So I basically want to switch every app to "don't use mobile data unless I specifically tell you". Is there a list of steps I should go through?

I know I can simply "deactivate data network mode". But what I'm concerned about is that when I re-enable it, suddenly a lot of apps are going to want to update, or collect email, or refresh a Twitter feed or something.

It's a Samsung Galaxy Note with ICS.

To borrow an answer from a previous question I answered, you could use a firewall. By specifying rules for what programs are allowed to access the Internet, even enabling the connection would still block them in the firewall, and they would not access the net. This way, you can block any app except the apps you want to always be allowed (if any), and then unblock apps as needed.

  DroidWall - Front-end application for the powerful iptables Linux
  firewall. Allows you to restrict which apps can access the network.

This app does require root however, but I think it's important to understand that what you're asking about requires low-level system access, so managing this without root is probably not possible.


NANDroid backup/restore of CM11 encrypted device after wipe is it possible to restore a NANDroid backup of a encrypted device running CyanogeMod 11 (KitKat 4.4.2) after performing "Format Data" in TWRP recovery (this function wipes the encrypted partitions)?

Here is scenario for such a case:

So, let's say I have an encrypted phone, which I back up
periodically (with TWRP: boot, cache, data, efs, modem, system
partitions)
Then, something gets messed up, so that I have to wipe
all, reflash recovery, etc.
So I flash the working recovery with
odin, boot to it, format data using TWRP, removing the encryption
from the device
Now, I want to restore the NANDroid backup I've done
before (when my system was encrypted)...

Will it work?????

Yes

As far as I know, a NANDroid backup makes an Image of the entire device.
So, this can work because the entire file system is copied along with the file system. The device will still be encrypted after restoring.

I might be wrong because I've never done this. But if you encrypt a flash drive with bitlocker, copy the contents of it including the encryption, format the drive and copy it back; It will still contain the data if you decrypt it.


With a rooted mobile ,Can I free up some internal storage (ROM) after delete some google apps from system With a rooted mobile ,Can I free up some internal storage (ROM) after delete some google apps from system. After deleted that's apps is there any problem to other google apps like play store, google ply games and other apps in my system ? . is there any problem to my phone or system ?

No. Deleting apps from the system does NOT free up usable space. System applications are stored in the /system partition which is not usable space to the user, you will not gain any usable space this way.