'android' and 'emulator' commands not found I have installed android-sdk-linux on my ubuntu 12.04 netbook and I see that the commands android (which opens the AVD Manager) and emulator (to which on appending the name of a specific AVD, the AVD boots) are not found! It suggested qemulator But that turned out to have nothing to do with the android-sdk-linux.

I do know how to boot it via eclipse, where you open the AVD list and then select an AVD and click Start and then Launch.

But I don't want to go through these many stages. Instead I would like Launch it using a single command line viz. the emulator command, which I found on the website developer.android.com. I followed installation instructions. Yet I didn't get success.

UPDATE: As our friend suggested, I updated the $PATH variable and had partial success. However there is still an error and I have to get that rectified. Here is what panned out.

aneesh@nb-14:~$ export PATH=$PATH:android-sdk-linux/tools
aneesh@nb-14:~$ emulator @Andreud
emulator: ERROR: This AVD's configuration is missing a kernel file!!

The Error stating that the AVD's config is missing a Kernel file is because when I checked the AVD Manager, the concerned AVD had a red cross-mark against it! Once I repaired this AVD I found that the error was eliminated!


Google Voice and SD cards Why does Google Voice need to be able to modify or delete the contents of my SD  card? It's part of the permissions and I don't want to download it until I understand it.

Google Voice needs to be able to save data such as contact details, ongoing conversations, etc., somewhere and in the case of conversations delete them later - I suspect that this is where the "modify and delete data from SD card" comes in.


Dial number with camera/picture Is there a way so I can quickly take a picture, highlights the number and I click it so it calls the number? Or I click take picture, and call.

So it just takes the photo, process it, extract number, calls it?

I don't think processing an image and extracting the number and calling it a better idea. the OCR processing will not be 100% all the time and it may call a different number at-times.

A QR-code is more reliable than image processing and can be used for this if you dont want to type the number.

A QRcode Generator site to call to a specific number directly by scanning the code after generating it. Haven't tried it yet.


How to get vertical recent/overview navigation in Android 10? I updated my OnePlus 6 to Android 10 (OxygenOS 10.3.2) recently and having a hard time to use it because of the horizontal overview navigation introduced from Android 9.

I am in want of replacing horizontal overview/recent apps navigation with vertical one (as was available till Android 8).

In Android 9, the trick for my stock ROM was to replace OnePlus launcher with an older version from Android 8 build. However, this trick doesn't work on Android 10 anymore. Neither does disabling or removing the stock OnePlus launcher. It just disables Overview functionality at my face than.

I primarily use Nova launcher. I have tried to use one or two other launchers from Play Store in the hope that they might  bring vertical overview on the table, but all at vain.

So, how do I bring back vertical overview in Android 10 in OnePlus 6?

Note 1: I am only looking for answers as solutions that does the job I am asking for. Nothing else.

Note 2: the device is rooted with Magisk.

This is a workaround and not what the OP wants in terms of vertical recents ( I don't think it's possible for reasons mentioned at the end of answer).

Install EdXposed (How to install EdXposed on Android 10 without triggering safety net), Xposed Edge Pro at a minimum and Gravity Box for 10 (beta) (preferred).

In Xposed Edge Pro, enable gestures and select any edge (if you choose edge covered by keyboard, make sure in app preferences, to enable) where you want the gestures to be triggered (right bottom in the screenshot) and associate running apps drawer action with the gesture.

(Click to enlarge)

When you activate the gesture, it shows running apps which is far more easier way of accessing recent apps instead of multiple horizontal swipes.

(Click to enlarge)

You are done but you need to remember to activate the gesture but muscle memory tells you to tap the recent icon. If you want to associate running apps drawer with tapping the recents icon, you needn't select the gesture as described above. In Gravitybox Navigation keys action → Single tap action  → Custom action  → Shortcuts  → Xposed Edge Pro actions  → running apps drawer

Lastly, my guess as to why what OP wants cannot happen unless the OnePlus launcher is modified, somehow. You can see the launcher in the screenshot above (second row, second icon) but you don't see that using Nova recents. It's reasonable to assume that a third party launcher works with the support of OnePlus launcher and unless the base is modified, you won't get vertical apps. The trick (of installing old version of OnePlus launcher) didn't work probably because of compatibility with Android 10. If you try to freeze or uninstall OnePlus launcher, the recents key doesn't work. This further supports my theory but I haven't investigated further.


How to create a profile with multiple context in Tasker? Right now by default, Tasker runs my task when any of the context (aka. profile) are met.

I want to have the task only activate when all of the context are met:  location and time, et cetera.

How?

You can add more contexts to existing profile by:

Tap the profile to display the context
Long-press the context
Select Add +
Choose the context you want to add

For example, if you want to have location & time as the contexts:

On Profiles tab, tap + icon and select the first context: Location.
Create or choose the location
Create or choose the task
On Home profile, long-press the location name until a pop-up appears; press Add +
Select the second context: Time
After configuring the time, press Back to finish it

In case you want to remove a context without deleting the profile:

Tap the profile to display the context
Long-press the context
Select Delete
Select OK to confirm

Warning: if there is only 1 context, deleting it will also delete the profile.


Can android user become a super user in android? Is it possible to change the rights of normal user in android to super user?

My requirement is to run the super user code(I want to read a file data from system directory) in a device that has rooted shell but we can not install any super user manager(SuperSu, Magisk etc.) on that device.

I thought of a solution like following:

Install an apk in your device that has UI to call the required function on JNI side to start reading data from the file.
Find the user id of the installed application. I found it in data/system/packages.list file.
Make file owner is this new user id with su shell.
Call the required function in the application that further try to open file.

but this solution is not working. The file is not opened by code and return -8002. The errno is 13.

fd = open("/system/file.txt", O_RDWR | O_LARGEFILE | O_NONBLOCK);
    if (fd < 0) {
        return -8002;
    }

This is very important for us.
I shall be very thankful to all who will help me on this.

Depends what you want to do. With su (if it is installed) you became a superuser... But if you want to access some files you actually need to be the user system.  This looks like it is your case. The credentials of user system can be given to an app (apk) if you are the owner of the android os image or you have access to the private keys the os was built with... If you do then you need to sign your app with those keys and mark it in manifest as user system...


How do I delete a file from my Xoom? I downloaded a drawing app for my Xoom and it saves the pictures to the local device (called "SD Card" even though it is internal space).

How do I delete those files?  I can find them to attach to email, but they don't appear in my list of "downloads".

Do I need to get another app?  Is there nothing that comes with the Xoom that lets me manage those files?

You'll need a file manager, and just browse to the same path that you do when you attach to email.

If the Xoom doesn't have a file manager, I recommend Root Explorer.  If you don't have root you can try another, like Astro File Manager.


Mass transfer apps to adopted storage So now we have excellent adopted storage that lets us use the
SDcard like it should have always worked. So far so good.

However upgrading from Lollipop via titanium backup hits a snag - TB will always stick the restored apps to internal storage even if adoptive storage is the default after data migrate. Sure you can move them one by one but with 100 apps that's a LOT of fiddling. Is there any way to automate this? A console command to rerun the data migrate?

Link2SD does not work with AS as far as I know. App MGR III claims to have 1-click move but at least on the free version it just plops you into the app info page.

Okay, after some semi-random googling I found the app that will do the job. Apps2SD. It's free, requires root but does batch move apps to adopted storage. It's a bit slow too but beats having to do the "transfer to external" sequence for each app hands down.

For the interested, googling for app for adoptive storage doesn't give you anything useful but googling for link2sd marshmallow links to a XDA thread that mentions Apps2SD as a workaround for Marshmallow. It can create mounting scripts unlike Link2SD but Link2SD will then happily use the 2nd partition if you like it better.


Recover bricked "Asus Transformer Pad TF300T" PLEASE HELP ME BECAUSE I HAVE SCREWED MY TABLET UP!!!!

I have a device "Asus Transformer Pad TF300T" running on Cyanogenmod CM12.1 Snapshot build (Custom ROM).

For some reason my Google account was not working properly on my tablet, nor could I add an account to it.

When I did a factory reset on my tablet, after it restarted, a screen named "TeamWin" showed up on my tablet, it was stuck to that screen and would flash black and the same screen and it did this on a loop.

My question is do you know how do I recover from such problem, please let me know as I would like to fix and use my tablet again, thank you :)

If you can get your device to show up in your PC, or if not, there is luckily a way to revive your device. Before we begin, I present you with this firmware file. Download it, and keep it safe. we may need it.

Alright, so here is the method. If you can make your device appear in a PC, in recovery (teamwin) then just move the above file to a folder on the Transformer's SD card. Then on your device, pick "install update from sd" and find that file. Tap it, then wait. If it succeeds, you WILL be on CM 10.2 (Android 4.3) now, but its better than the alternative.


How to rate Google Play itself? I want to know how we can put review or rate google play store (not their apps)

From Play Store support

When you can write a review

You can only review apps you’ve downloaded.

Since you didn't download Google Play, you can't review it. Instead, from the Play Store → Help & Feedback → Send feedback at bottom (via mail) is an option.

Edit: Just found this, it is a better option. Raise it in the Google Play help community


Samsung Galaxy Tab, charging technique through USB Cable From Galaxy Tab is not being charged through USB Cable

@Chris Stratton

  Tablets have larger batteries than phones and may be unable to
  sufficiently charge from the half amp limit of a USB port, especially
  while they are fully on (screen on and full speed processor clock).

  Some will barely charge if the screen is off but come with high
  current 5v "usb-like" wall chargers, others use a higher voltage
  charger on a custom connector - typically something round. Sometimes
  the "usb-like" ones are actually special cables with extra pins that
  tell the tablet that a special high-current charger is being used.

@NobbZ

  The Samsung Galaxy Tab has a loading current of 2 A, but the
  USB-Specificication only allows 500 mA for the whole bus.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus

@USB 3.0

  Battery Charging Specification 1.2 released in December 2010. Several
  changes and increasing limits including allowing 1.5 A on charging
  ports for unconfigured devices, allowing High Speed communication
  while supplying a current up to 1.5 A, and allowing a maximum current
  of 5 A

So, What kind of USB Cable should be used to Charge Samsung Galaxy Tablets, for example Samsung Galaxy Tablet 2 (GT - P5100)

I don't think the cable is particularly important.  Its the jack that the cable plugs into that makes a difference.

Basically, if the tablet can tell that its plugged into a special (high amp) jack, then the tablet will charge more quickly (at 2A), otherwise the tablet will assume its plugged into a standard USB port and charge at the specification limit (500 mA).  The best way to get an adapter that the tablet can identify is to use the official wall adapter.  I believe there is no "standard" way of doing this, so different manufacturers may do different things (e.g., using an Apple USB charger may not work).

You should be able to see what your tablet is doing based on the battery icon in the system tray (assuming its similar to the older Galaxy Tab that I have).  On my tablet the icon will have a small red "X" if its being charged through a "normal" connection, and should have no such "X" if its being charged through a high-amp connection.

See How much power does a Galaxy Tab 10.1 charger need to supply?

And Do Samsung tablets have the same USB connector as Apple's iPad?

And Why is charging from computer using USB slower than using an outlet?


How to move Apps to SD on the LG P-705 with Android 4.0? I can move apps manually or progammatically on my Samsung Galaxy Ace 1, but on my LG P-705 with newer android version there is no such an option. Apps like App2SD don't work as well.

Why does LG P-705 Android 4.0 Smartphone not have a move to SD feature?

First, you should root your smartphone. Then, use Link2SDapp. Then, move the app to the SD card.


Remove thousands separator in Calculator app of Samsung Galaxy S2 Is there any way to tweak a standard Calculator application in Samsung Galaxy S2 mobile phone not to display the thousands separator?

I mean to display 1000 instead of 1,000. Is somehow related to locale?

No, there doesn't seem to be any configuration to remove the digit grouping on the stock calculator app.

If you are not particular about using that very app, you can try out some free calculator apps from the market. I tried RealCalc Scientific Calculator, and it's got an option in its Settings to remove digit grouping.


how to *really* kill adware app the BLU Dash X2, Android 6.0, has a known adware app shown as Preinstall Data2 in the Settings | Apps list, and I finally figured out this is the same as com.android.packages.oseasapps shown in pm list packages -d by disabling and reenabling it. the problem I'm having is that recently killing it with Force stop and Disable no longer seems to do anything. it's still injecting ads into other apps which I can see happening using adb logcat, and still is shown in the process list using adb shell ps.

how can I kill it for real without having to root the phone?

thanks to the supererogatory efforts of alecxs my backup phone is now adware-free. he went above and beyond to help me in the comments.

to eliminate vendor-installed adware without rooting phone you need SP Flash Tool, which is available (at least) for Windows and Linux; and an unofficial TWRP image available from https://romprovider.com/2018/12/blu-dash-x2-root-twrp/. you'll also need the scatter file, obtainable from any firmware file for your model phone. I got mine by googling BLU D110L Firmware Download, finding not my version 21 but both v12 and v22. I extracted both firmwares and the scatter file was the same in each, named MT6580_Android_scatter.txt.

power down the phone, fire up SP Flash (flash_tool.sh) and point it to your scatter file. then select recovery in the Download section (misnamed, IMO, because you're really uploading to the phone from the computer), and double-click in the Location column in the recovery row, and select the TWRP image. it should look like this:

click the Download button, and it will just wait there until you briefly pulse the power button (about 0.5 second). then in about a second, you will see the progress bar zoom across the screen, and hopefully you will get a popup indicating a successful write.

after done flashing, disconnect the cable, as it won't (at least mine didn't) power up with it in. holding the volume UP button, hold the power button about 10 seconds and release it. after you see the phone starting, you can then release volume up. it should be booted into TWRP. you will need to slide the bar right to allow writing the system image; but the language can be confusing, and if you wait too long, a big padlock icon will appear, at which point you need to slide twice, once to unlock the app, and a 2nd time to allow writing to /system.

then connect the cable, adb shell and you should have a root prompt! however, /system won't be mounted, but you can do it simply: mount /system. from there I navigated to the folder where the evil app resided, and appended .evil to both the .apk and .odex files:

~ # find /system/priv-app/ -name '*Preinstall*.apk'
/system/priv-app/PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_us2/PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_us2.apk
/system/priv-app/PreinstallProvider-utm_source-utm_campaign-oem_BLU_us/PreinstallProvider-utm_source-utm_campaign-oem_BLU_us.apk
~ # cd /system/priv-app/PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_us2/
/system/priv-app/PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_us2 # ls
PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_us2.apk
oat
/system/priv-app/PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_us2 # mv PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_
us2.apk PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_us2.apk.evil
/system/priv-app/PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_us2 # find oat
oat
oat/arm
oat/arm/PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_us2.odex
/system/priv-app/PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_us2 # mv oat/arm/PreinstallProvider-
oem_BLU_us2.odex oat/arm/PreinstallProvider-oem_BLU_us2.odex.evil
~ # reboot

when the phone came back, the app was gone. and since I didn't actually root the phone itself, I hopefully won't have any other problems with it.

note that if you fail to boot into TWRP, and instead reboot normally, your modified recovery partition will be gone. the phone will have automatically overwritten it, and you'll have to start over with SP Flash Tool. also: if you get it into FASTBOOT or META modes you may need to actually open the phone up and remove the battery to powerdown. this was not a painless process. and a couple of times I managed somehow to get it into a 4th mode, Factory mode, which is useless but at least had Reboot and Shutdown options.


How can I run the Android emulator together with another VM? Whenever I open an Android emulator when a different kind of VM is already running, I get the "usual" error messages:

  emulator: Failed to sync vcpu reg
  emulator: Failed to sync HAX vcpu context

Here it is recommended not to run another VM, but what if I need the another VM for development, or to run the server for my Android app on it? Is there a way to run a VirtualBox Linux guest VM and the Android emulator at the same time? My host OS is OSX if that matters.

You can’t run two different emulation stacks on your processor at the same time. Sorry, it wouldn’t happen.

Update: Your processor can only run one emulation system at the time. Kernel modules will “reserve” the right to use the processor’s emulation capabilities at the exclusion of any other emulator that want to use it. So you can only use VMware, VirtualBox, HyperV, etc. separately.


Hide contacts from Contacts, but still have them appear when the contact calls There are some contacts I almost never dial, and never wanna dial, but I still don't want them to show up as unknown when they call me. Otherwise I could just put them in a group and hide them.

Would it be possible to just hide them but let call manager or whatever handles the incoming call still display their detail? (or is that too much having my cake and eating it too?)

Here is the way I used to do it (make sure all of your contacts are backed up to Google):

Delete all non google contacts.
Add contacts to phone that you don't want to appear.
Delete the contacts from Google that you just added to your phone.
In you contact book:

  Menu Button > Contacts to Display > Google Only

Now your contact book will only show your Google contacts, but your phone contacts will show up if the person calls you. This is a little inconvienent if you like to use both your google and phone contacts for different things.

NOTE: this process can be reversed to get the opposite effect (store main contacts on phone, store contacts of people you don't want to see on Google).


how to turn on the vibratiton when moving icons? I just got my replacement Samsung Galaxy 3 phone, and every time I moved my icons around my phone would slightly vibrate but now after I made some changes to the settings I lost that feature. It's been driving me crazy trying to get it back.please help!

I've gone to the sound settings and turned the haptic feature on and off and still no changes to my phone.

Have you checked the settings for the launcher? Many launchers have this option in their settings menu. Go to your home screen, press menu and choose Settings. Look there for a vibrate or haptic feedback option.


Can I create a restricted profile on an Android cellphone? Background

I want to prevent myself from viewing pornography on my cellphone. I do occasionally go to addiction support groups, but haven't yet done the Twelve Steps that they recommend. I'm hoping that, if I set up a sufficiently-good filtering setup, I can manage at least somewhat OK without doing these Steps.

I used to use the app locker formerly known as Smart AppLock in order to try to prevent myself from installing the app which I normally use to view pornography. But the app locker had a bug in it which allowed me to bypass its protection. It's not an obvious bug.

I guess I could have tried emailing the developers of the app locker; but I didn't know whether or not they'd actually care.

I could have installed a different app locker and given the password to a friend. Or I could have used Pluckeye Lockbox or a similar service to store the password. But I'd rather not rely on third-party app lockers at all. I'd rather rely upon security code written by Google. So I'd like to rely upon Android itself and to make myself a restricted profile in the normal way.

I don't want to install a custom ROM and hope that it can help me. I don't want to play around with XML files and hope to achieve my goals that way. I don't want to make myself an almost-restricted profile. I just want to create an ordinary restricted profile in the ordinary way.

My question

If I buy a cellphone running the newest version of Android, will I be able to create a restricted profile for myself in the same way that I could do so on a tablet? And, if so, how do you know? :)

Yes. You can turn your Google account into a "child account", and can get a parent or friend to set parental controls for apps and games with Google's Family Link app. You can then get the parent to adjust the settings to restrict installation of certain apps.

You can get Family Link from here.
Then help them set up parental controls on Google Play.


How can I prevent Telegram from notifying me about contacts that recently joinedTelegram I don't want to get any message when a contact starts to use telegram. In the notification settings switched off notifying me when a contact has joined telegram, but my telegram chat history is still full of messages such as "John Smith uses Telegram now!".
And the telegram icon also shows that there are new messages even if I got no real new messages but only some contacts joined Telegram.
This is really annoying, especially now when many people start using telegram.

You can stop these by going to Settings > Notifications and Sounds > Contact joined Telegram. Turn that option off and you won't get notifications about new contacts joining.

-Quora answer


How can I access the internal phone storage via ClockworkMod recovery? I have an HTC Incredible, rooted to MIUI, and am frozen on the white Incredible boot screen. I need to grab a few pictures off the phone before I do a new install. Is it possible to access the phone memory from ClockworkMod recovery? I tried to mount the '/emmc' from the recovery prompt, but nothing shows up on the PC. How can I access the photos?

/emmc is basically ok and accessible if you can 'mount' it. You already have a working CWM installed which comes with adb enabled. This gives you some options.
Boot to CWM recovery and mount your partition in the 'mounts and storage' section. It's now accessible internally and you can use the adb tool (ADB stands for 'Android debug bridge', it's usually used to develop and debug things) to pull data off the device:

A windows tool (sadly discontinued): http://code.google.com/p/adb-file-explorer/
by commandline: adb pull /path/to/folder or adb pull / to pull all currently mounted data partitions
Another GUI: http://sourceforge.net/projects/adbbrowser/?source=recommended

PS: I prefer the command line adb tool (2nd solution). I have little experience with the gui tools. But generally they should work as well.

Here's how I usually do it (using only the commandline):

me@workstation:~$ adb shell
~ # mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
tmpfs on /dev type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,relatime,mode=600)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/block/mtdblock4 on /cache type yaffs2 (rw,nodev,noatime,nodiratime)
~ # mount /sdcard
~ # exit
me@workstation:~$ cd /tmp/
me@workstation:/tmp$ mkdir htc_sdcard
me@workstation:/tmp$ adb pull /sdcard/DCIM/100MSDCF/ htc_sdcard/DCIM
pull: building file list...
pull: /sdcard/DCIM/100MSDCF/DSC00110.jpg -> htc_sdcard/DCIM/DSC00110.jpg
pull: /sdcard/DCIM/100MSDCF/DSC00114.jpg -> htc_sdcard/DCIM/DSC00114.jpg
[...]


Why can't I see live wallpaper option in HTC wildfire after updating to 2.2 (Froyo)? Hi I updated my HTC Wildfire from 2.1 to 2.2(Froyo) i can't see an option to set live wallpapers also i don find the Android wallpaper option. Is there any fix available to this.

Live Wallpapers aren't available for the Wildfire.


View Android phone's call log from PC My Android phone's screen suddenly stopped working - gone totally blank. I am getting lots of incoming calls, but am unable to view who is calling or pick the call. Also just before it stopped working, I had put it in Silent Mode with Vibration. So I have to listen to vibration to know that someone is calling, and there is no way I can turn Sound On now.

I want to access my phone's call log from PC by connecting using USB cable. There are many softwares, but they require to be installed on phone also. While I can install the software on the phone using MobileGo, but I may not be able to read the port no. on which the software is listening.

Is there any software which I can install just on my PC (like MobileGo) and directly access phone's Call Log? MobileGo has many useful features but this one is missing.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

You can also install the software directly from the Android market. But you won't be able to start it easily. You can use ADB to start the app as described here

I recommend MyPhoneExplorer. You'll also need to install the desktop program and then start the app on your phone as mentioned in the link above.

Be mindful of any optional toolbar that might ask to be installed on your desktop though.

UPDATE: I didn't need to start the app on my phone, merely connecting the cable was enough. Galaxy S2 on Gingerbread 2.3.3 (rooted, but that shouldn't be a factor).


Connected to wi-fi but Whatsapp messages won't send My phone is connected to the wi-fi but my Whatsapp messages won't send.  They have a clock icon next to them.

First wait for sometime, while device is connected to wifi and it starts to auto update apps and uploading/syncing of local data backup such as photos, notes, contacts get started.

If you're seeing a syncing sign  on the top of the screen as shown in picture then wait for sometime until process ends.

Alternatively, the other major thing could be settings turned on that is "stop app using data in background".

I use above settings to prevent specific apps from using heavy data in background.

Read the linked article.


How can I condense the icons in the quick settings panel on Android? Icons in the  quick settings panel look like:

But instead I would like to make the icons smaller:

How can I condense the icons in the  quick settings panel on Android?

Interestingly the two above screenshots were on the same unrooted phone, but it was the first time I saw the small icons, and it reverted back to the normal sized icons the next day. No idea what happened.

The screenshot show the "quick settings panel" with "tiles" for actions.

The number of "tiles" per row is defined by ROM and you can't change that (unless your ROM provides a setting for doing that). If your device is rooted, there could be solutions. This is defined by a system UI property quick_settings_min_num_tiles (not sure if it is ROM dependent)

Gravity Box EdXposed module is one way to do this on rooted devices (See this
 How to install EdXposed on Android 10 without triggering safety net)


Android 2.3: Expected behavior for setting time automatically with Wifi only I want to understand how Android 2.3 sets the time when the Date & Time settings are configured to "Automatic" but no SIM card is present.

I am setting up LG E400 Optimus L3 devices as WiFi-only devices, no Sim cards. Retrieving the time automatically would be highly desired, however it only works sometimes and most times nothing seems to happen and I fail to see any pattern.

From some web and Android source code research I've learned that Android only supports Network Time Protocol (NTP) from Android 4.0 on and before it was NITZ/GSM only - however, that does not explain why I can sometimes set the time automatically with no Sim card.

Android only supports Network Time Protocol (NTP) from Android 4.0 on and before it was NITZ/GSM only - certainly not in my opinion.  The app ClockSync which I use in my LG Optimus One (P500) running Android 2.3.3 (rooted) works with NTP protocol. I did not rely on my GSM operator's time settings as I found the deviation was unacceptable limits.

Please see the question Inaccurate time? How to fix it? and its answer.


Quitting eBay application Is there any way to quit the eBay app, so that I stop receiving all these event notifications? I like notifications, but only when I decide to run the eBay application...

Since Jelly Bean (Android 4.1), it's possible to disable notifications for individual apps. Long-press on the notification and go to App Info or go to Settings -> Apps and then choose the eBay app. Uncheck the Show Notifications checkbox (detailed description with video here).

Notifications are most useful if an app needs your attention but is currently not in your focus. So i don't think there is a system setting that allows to stop notifications when the app is closed and to reactivate them if the app is started.

Maybe you can send a feature request if that setting would make sense for this individual app. You can contact their mobile support team, find out how on google play.


In ICS 4.0.3 using ADWLauncher EX, how can I make only three home screens instead of five? I just upgraded my android phone to ICS. When I had Gingerbread (2.3), I remember the option to change the number of home screens. I also had ADW launcher in 2.3 before. Now I can't find the option in ICS to change the number of home screens.

From the Homescreen, go to Menu, then Edit. This brings you to an overview of configured home screens. Long-press the one you want to remove, and drag it to the trashbin which appears. Continue until only 3 screens are left.

Similarly, if you want to add more screens, there's one "screen" with a plus-sign ("+") in the same place. Tap that one, and you'll get an additional screen.


Is the Android desktop screen (on any version) a Dalvik executable? I know that all Android apps, as far as I know, are compiled to Java bytecode, turned into dex code (for the Dalvik Virtual Machine), and then executed with respect to whatever ABI is compatible between the VM and its linking/exposure.

However, after booting Android, I always wondered if the desktop itself was also a Dalvik executable, or if it's not running on the virtual machine as all other apps do?

What do I mean by "desktop"? I mean the home screen:

Could anyone clarify this/does anyone know this? Not the widgets, backgrounds, etc., but the essence of the whole GUI/home screen/desktop. Is it an "app" that runs on Dalvik, like all others supposedly do, or is it a system process/separate process running outside of the virtual machine?

What you describe as "desktop", and the screenshot shows, is called by different names. Mostly it listens on the names Launcher and Homescreen, depending on the aspect referred to. And yes, it's an app that ships with its own .apk file, as all its "replacements" (e.g. Apex Launcher, GoLauncher, or Holo Launcher – to name some) do.


POP3 E-mail Downloading Old E-mails I had Deleted My Galaxy S3 phone recently received an update.  My POP3 e-mail via Comcast now downloads e-mails from several weeks ago, apparently when it wants and however many it wants, at the same time it checks for new e-mails.  I end up 'marking as read' and deleting these in bulk time and again.  I've tried NOT marking as read as well.  This did not happen until after the update.  Any suggestions?

You have to tell the mail application to delete the messages from the server explicitly.  This options is provided during the initial setup, but is also accessible from the Account Setup options.  Change "Delete message from server" from "Never" to "When I delete from Inbox".

This was not part of my original answer, but was added by the editor:
This is fine if you do all your email on your handheld, but if you need to leave messages on the server for any reason (you deal with some later on computers at home or work) your android will keep grabbing other old messages to take their place until your set maximum is filled.  This seems to be a bug or at least a weakness in the platform.


fixing a corrupted SD card in linux My phone is a HTC Desire (model Bravo) and I previously rooted it (using tacoroot and revolutionary) and had the clockworkmod recovery (5.8.0.2) on it as well as the liquidsmooth v3.2 rom for the Desire.

I formatted the SD card in clockworkmod, choosing 2G for the extended partition and 128M cache. This still works after flashing CWM: advanced -> Partition SD Card -> Ext Size 2048M -> Swap Size 128M returns the happy message

Partitioning SD Card... please wait...
Done!

But then with the new ROM when I tested the camera, it said that there was no SD card present.

So I went back to the recovery and re-partitioned the SD card with different sizes (not sure how to go back to the original setting). Clockworkmod said that the re-partitioning was successful.

But after that first re-partitioning the SD card has not been accessible. This also means that I cannot install a new ROM (the browser invariably crashes in LiquidSmooth).

I have now installed the -very user friendly!- TeamWinRecovery version 2.3.1.1 to try and re-format or re-partition the sd card, but it says E: unable to mount /sdcard and E:EXT + Swap size is larger than sdcard size. That is not right because the card is 16G.

The following Linux command tell me that the phone is connecting with my computer:

$ fastboot devices -l    # during boot loader
SH07XPL04124             fastboot usb:2-1.1

Sometimes (but not always) when I attach the phone to the computer, I get the dmesg lines

[2076992.175291] usb 2-1.1: new high-speed USB device number 70 using ehci_hcd
[2076992.280434] usb 2-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0bb4, idProduct=0c87
[2076992.280442] usb 2-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[2076992.280448] usb 2-1.1: Product: Android Phone
[2076992.280452] usb 2-1.1: Manufacturer: HTC
[2076992.280456] usb 2-1.1: SerialNumber: SH07XPL04124
[2076992.284078] scsi168 : usb-storage 2-1.1:1.0
[2076993.285389] scsi 168:0:0:0: Direct-Access     HTC      Desire           0100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[2076993.287105] sd 168:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[2076993.295416] sd 168:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk

And in the File Manager (PCManFM 0.9.10) the device shows up as 'HTC Desire'. Clicking on it gives no result though -- the program asks which application should be used to open this file.

Following the dmesg lines, the command gparted /dev/sdc results in

Error opening /dev/sdc: No medium found

During the recovery session, I can adb shell but nothing is listed in /proc/filesystem or /proc devices. With lsusb I get

Bus 002 Device 083: ID 0bb4:0c87 HTC (High Tech Computer Corp.) Desire (debug)

During fastboot, adb shell returns an error.

On the phone, in the TWR file manager, I can go to the directories /sdcard (which contains a directory /sdcard/TWRP with a file .twrps) and /sd-ext (which is empty). Using adb shell I can also delete /sdcard and /sd-ext --it turns out they are just directories created during the mounting attempts. Trying to mount them again re-creates the directories but also says:

E:Unable to mount storage
E:Unable to mount '/sdcard'

I just cannot partition or format the sd card to a usable state again.

My suspicion is that the previous partitioning in CWM causes it to mount as a system directory (or something like that) so that it is not available any more for mounting as external storage.

Does that make sense?

And has anyone an idea how to solve this?

Well, that one is solved!

The problem was not the SD cards, but the fact that rooting etc. the Desire caused it to USB-brick. Never heard that before.

As Spezi77 advises in the presentation of his CM11-for-Desire link, I switched to the 4ext recovery, which has a special USB-unbrick function. Some sources also name fastboot commands that should do the same, but they did not work for me.

Long story short, I'm running Spezi77's version of CM11 on my Desire now!


How can I find out the current price of an app on Google Play after I've purchased it? After you buy an app, it'll just say "Installed" where the price tag usually is.  I'd like to look up the current price to ensure a sale is still going on as I pass it to others.

Load the application's play store URL in a web browser with incognito/private mode. This way the play store will not be aware that the viewer has already installed the application.


Samsung Tab GT-P5100 stuck in bootloop PLS HELP MEE!! I was playing with my tab and all of a sudden it started rebooting itself every minute. after that there was this screen asking me to download a custom OS. i don't want to, so i pressed volume down button (it says there to press volume down to cancel. volume up to continue). but i was shocked when it started to download. there was odin which i don't know what it means and says that 'downloading.. do not turn off target!!' so i was too scared to do anything so i just waited for it to finish but sadly it took very very long and i just let the battery drain. when it finally shut down i charged my tab and tried rebooting it. but unfortunately it just stuck in bootloop :(

Seems like you inadvertently booted in Download mode (You held volume down while powering up your device).
You should've just cancelled the process and everything would be fine.

Okay now you are on a bootloop, you can try booting in recovery mode (Holding volume up then briefly pressing on power button).

From there just perform a factory reset and your device should boot normally. Only a con: data loss.


How do I transfer contacts from my PC to my phone, without putting it in Gmail? I have a Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo. I want to copy my outlook contacts to my phone without gmail. This is my first time I bought a Android. It seems great, but one thing I do not like is that I have to sync my whole life with google first, before I can transfer it. The previous software allowed me to copy back and forth between PC and phone,without going onto the internet.
Hopefully it is something I'm doing wrong, because if it is not, I'm changing OS!

Please help

es

AOSP/Stock Android builds allow importing contacts from SIM cards, or VCF files (which are just text files.)

I am unsure the SE Xperia Neo allows you to do this - if so, it's relatively easy to build a VCF file.


How to add camera brand or model in exif meta? In my android mobile there is no  camera brand or model in exif meta  but rest of the exif tags are ok. how can i fix this?

Model :Xstreamer Aiki 5

You can use apps like EXIF Tag Editor (Photo) and Pixelgarde to view/edit EXIF data of your images. Both apps has the ability to batch-process the images.

If you are looking for a way to automatically add information (particularly the camera model as in your question), you cannot do anything rather than waiting for an update from your device manufacturer. This is because embedding that information is configured the the ROM itself.


Is there a way to access files off a locked phone with a black screen? So my Droid 2 died on me and went grey screen with lines. I can't see anything and I can't access my files.

Is there any way to maybe project the screen or access it so I can unlock the phone?

Since you have adb debugging turned on, you should be able to use Droid@Screen from your PC to control your device over adb. There's nothing to install on your device, as long as the adb daemon is running.

Once you have that going, you can use the device from the PC as you would if the screen was working.

Also, if you know what files you're looking to pull off the device and how to navigate the Linux filesystem, you can grab them with 'adb pull ' from your PC. Again, this depends on USB debugging having already been turned on and previously used with the PC in question.


How to swap UI of a custom rom with other rom? I have a custom rom which has Xperia like UI. It's very fast uses very less Ram. The other rom has Kitkat/Jellybean like UI but it has low performance as compared to Xperia UI like rom.

I was wondering if I could change UI of Xperia rom with the other Kitkat rom. is it possible?

I want to change Notification bar, menus , locker, Popup windows, buttons etc.

I use custom launcher and keyboard so no need to change that.

If your ROM has Theme Chooser integrated into the system, I would recommend just switching to an AOSP theme, like this KitKat theme.
You can check if you have Theme Chooser by doing any of the below:

Android 2.3: Check if there is an app in your launcher named 'Theme Chooser', with an icon of the Android robot colored four different colors
Android 4.0+: Check if there is any theme-related menus in Settings.

If your ROM does not have Theme Chooser, then you would have to get your hands dirty with manually themeing system APKs. Go to xda-developers for more info and tutorials on that.


FTM screen cant remove battery my phone says FTM it suggests taking the battery out but I cant remove my battery so now what do I do ?

Even you didn't mention which phone is that, I guess it is a ZTE device. Well, FTM mode or Factory Test Mode  is like fastboot mode, is used to flash the phone. So I wondering how you get there. To get the phone out there, remove the battery. If it's a non-removable battery, just hold power button + volume down for a certain seconds.


Mediaserver using excessive CPU time and battery I've got a Nexus 4 on OS version 4.2.1 that suddenly started to drain it's battery very quickly. When looking in the battery usage I see "Mediaserver"eating 60% of the battery over time, with several minutes of CPU time logged and several hours of Keep Awake time. Typically the screen, phone idle or other services eat up the majority of battery life.

I tried closing all apps and charging it up, and sure enough overnight it still drained significant battery, again Mediaserver was the culprit as reported in the Battery usage chart; it had kept the device awake all night and drained 10% of my battery despite zero use. I haven't added a large number of files and I'm not playing music/etc so Mediaserver shouldn't be doing very much on the drive.

How can I stop Mediaserver from eating my battery life like this?

Killing all running apps didn't solve the problem, nor did disabling the automatic sync for Google account items like videos/photos (which I heard suggested for a similar battery issue).

What did work was simply rebooting the device by holding the power button and picking shut down. After rebooting Mediaserver no longer appears to use much of my battery in the usage chart and my charge lasts like it always did. So if you get the same issue, just reboot.


[re]mount the internal sdcard on the Huawei U8836D (G500 Pro) please? Good day

re: Huawei U8836D (G500 Pro)   ICS

It is an old phone now I realise, however until I [ignorantly] ruined it yesterday mine was going strong.

As I understand, it has ~1GB of RAM and a ~4GB in-built SD card....I think. There is the external SD card slot, where I have had an 8GB card in.

The internal card ,as I call it, used to show up in the storage details screen until I stupidly repartitioned it following link2sd article(s), in the hope I could 'expand' the available space.

The internal card does not now show up in the storage details and appears not to be mounted (is that the correct term).

I am not confident on android, but can get around ADB, linux etc reasonably ok. Rather than start to dump extra info right now, please let me know what I need to provide as I/we go along.

Therefore, I would really appreciate if some knowledgeable kind soul will spare some time and guide me through getting each storage area back and working as it should please ?  - if that all makes sense.

Thank you.

continue after the reply post (my apologies if this is not the correct way to add more details):

Thank you for the reply. I am a bit puzzled.

I have removed the external card - as for one i was getting a 'low space' message which has ceased now it is out and for another reason, to remove its affects on the output to the system tools just leaving the phone and its internal storage however that is.

Now, when I connect phone  with USB to linux, I was able to fdisk the device listed in /dev, but the print showed its size at a little over 2Gb.  I was then able to format the one primary partition to vfat and reboot successfully.

Yet when using adb shell and running mount and df, there is no info reported on the existence of that 2Gb vfat partition. Under /dev/block on the phone, there is only the mmcblk0 entry and its associated parts 1 to 6 (im not familiar with this structure so sorry for being vague). If I fdisk that mmcblk0 the print displays a size of just under 4GB. I'm not sure what that all means yet (need to try find some articles on how android uses storage).

My question now, is with the phone connected in adb shell, can I safely repartition that mmcblk0 (removing the I presume the boot time setup partitions of type id's 5 and 83) into 2 partitions of types 83 and 0b, reboot and the machine will sort itself out accordingly using those?

If not, how do I get the 2Gb of that 4Gb showing up to use, as 'storage menu option' from the android ics menu doesn't show it, file manager app doesnt show it etc (even link2sd cant see it)  ?

I am making progress even if I seem to be wafting about in the air :-)

Since you are okay with Linux and ADB, let me first clarify 2 things:

Repartitioning the internal SD for Link2SD specifically as per the guide will partition it with a filesystem like ext2/ext3/ext4, which will cause partition to be recognized as system and not show up in most file managers. Some file managers, like ES File Explorer, may allow you to access it through the /mnt namespace, if it was mounted, or as some block device in /dev if not. Link2SD on first startup detects this partition by running some variant of the mount command and adding a mount-at-boot for this partition to init.rc and/or vold.fstab, and makes its permissions so that it isn't easily accessible even by the system.
This not showing up is intended behaviour, but you will find the partition under Link2SD's partition options as "SD card Partition 2" or some such.

Now, if you want to go back to using that internal storage for something, you would have to repartition the internal SD again, using GParted or some such software or Linux which recognizes an ext filesystem.

You will have to:

Find the correct partition for Link2SD.
Format it to FAT32, and set it as active and primary.
On device, mount the partition's block device (mmcblk0p6 in your case) as /mnt/sdcard0 and add this in init.rcand/or vold.fstab (Follow this and this answer).

For you the command to enter in vold.fstab will be

dev_mount sdcard /mnt/sdcard auto SDCARD=/dev/mmcblk0p6

And reboot. It should work. Format this position to FAT32, not VFAT, to avoid useless errors about "read only filesystem".

I'm not providing the commands here as you are familiar with Linux, and in this case on Android it's similar (a root shell through ADB).


How to install cwm recovery in non-supported device karbonn titanium s5 plus I have Karbonn Titanium s5 plus.I want to install cwm recovery but my phone model is not supported.how to install cwm recovery in it??? Also, can I install it without using pc?anybody can give link of s5+'s recovery file...
Also, I want  custom roms for s5+ ....share the link if available.

Because CWM does not support your phone model, I assume you should search for an alternative  recovery (TWRP, Philz).
Most installing methods require something like fastboot or simply flashing an image to your phone, which is hard without a PC (Mobile ODIN may do the job, but I don't know about supported phone's).

For custom ROMs search xda-developers for your phone and that particular model in the appropriate subforum (look out for Android Development). There should be tutorials on how to install ROMs, recoveries, kernels etc., too.


I cant wake my phone with "Ok Google" anymore I did a factory reset this week of my phone, and now I cannot seem to be able to "wake" my phone saying "Ok Google".

I can use it in the lock screen and everywhere else, but when the screen is off, it will not work anymore. It will remain with the screen off.

Maybe useful information:

I am using a OnePlus 2
I am using "Nova Launcher"

UPDATE

I know that it works, if the phone is being charged. But I would like to have it working, even if the device is NOT charging.

This problem occurs in most android devices. When screen off, OK Google is not working. If you want to use OK Google when screen off, make sure your device is in charging. It will work definitely. Try it in your device.

Recently updated my Pixel to android 8.0 Oreo OS. In android Oreo devices OK Google is working perfectly when screen off.


Android M Preview 2: "Error: Cannot Load System.img" I am trying to update my Nexus 9 to the M developer preview 2, and when I try to run the command fastboot flash system system.img, I get the error

  error: cannot load 'system.img'

I've tried re-downloading the image from Google and reflashing many times, but it gives the same error. I am able to flash other system images from Google, but not this one. I didn't see this listed as a known issue on Google. Anyone else see this issue or have any suggestions?

I faced the same error. Error cannot load system.img. I figured it out after few attempts and a few images. It turns out I had an older version of ADB and I could only install old factory images.

If you want to install Android Marshmallow, make sure to install the latest ADB version.


Mount /sdcard with Linux I have two Android 4.x devices, one 4.0.2 and another 4.4.2. On both, I have installed SSHelper to push data to and from the device using rsync. It worked, but the new environment does not even have a usable rm. I would like to switch over to something that works better and possibly faster.

My next attempt was to use MTP over USB with mtpfs, but that does not work, it freezes. simple-mtpfs is not packaged for Ubuntu 13.10. KDE KIO is able to read from the device over MTP, but that does not help me at all, since I want to write my own script using rsync, and it is not able to write to it.

Then I tried sshfs, I do not get any errors mounting it, but I get IO-errors whenever I even try to cd into the mountpoint. I guess the environment with SSHelper lacks something. It does not work with HTTPS and FTPS Server either. The SFTP provided with the latter works with Filezilla, though.

So how can I get /sdcard to be mounted somewhere on my Linux machine and copy and delete files from it like I want?

If you want to give adbfs a try, here are some instructions. You need to take care to grab the right one, as there are two projects around: one is simply called adbfs, I couldn't get that to work correctly. The other is adbfs-rootless:

go to the projects github page
on that page, at the right-hand side in about the middle of the page, you find a button labeled Download ZIP. Click that to download the sources.
create a new directory, e.g. mkdir ~/adbfs-rootless, and extract the .zip to it
now first install the dependencies: sudo apt-get install libfuse-dev
change to the directory (cd ~/adbfs-rootless), and build the binaries by simply running make
copy the resulting adbfs binary into your $PATH, where your adb binary is located (for ADB, see Is there a minimal installation of ADB?)

Now you're ready to go. Another one-time job is to create a mountpoint, e.g. mkdir ~/droid. After that, connect your Android device via ADB (after having enabled USB debugging, of course). Then mount it using adb ~/droid, and do whatever you wanted to do (e.g. running rsync, copying stuff, whatever). When you're done, don't forget to disconnect: fusermount -u ~/droid.

To make things easier, I created two aliases:

alias mdroid="adb ~/droid"
alias udroid="fusermount -u ~/droid"

So I only need to type mdroid to mount, and udroid to unmount the device.

Enjoy the fun!


Rear microphone not detected I purchased a few lapel microphones to test out for recording my talks at conferences using my android device. These mics are all mic-only devices, not headphone or head-set units.

The issue is that the microphone, when plugged in, will be detected by the OS as ear-phones/headset on some older devices like an S4, while on newer devices like the G4, it will be seen as 'Microphone'.

The issue is that in the app I'm using, the only microphone that gets picked up is the front mic (the mic on the phone) and never my plugged-in microphone. There is a setting in the app to choose which mic to use, I select Rear Mic, but it says it will only be used, "when detected".

This is my problem, it doesn't seem to be detecting anything. If I plug in headset (ear-buds with a mic), I can record from that mic no problem.

How do I configure the OS to recognize the lapel microphones so I can use them?

I have tried a few adapters that came with the mics, nothing worked. On the G4 the only difference I saw was that using an adapter would make it see a headset or microphone, but the result of not picking up audio from the mic was the same.

I've tried 6 different microphones and yes, they were all intended to be used on android/ios devices

From the following article, it could be due to need for an impedance (a resistor) between the Mic and the Ground wires. As per

  The trick in detecting the external microphone on the smart phone is
  to have right impedance between the mic pins. Samsung phones seem to
  require a microphone with impedance of around 1.0k – 1.5k Ohm. Some
  other devices might also work with somewhat higher resistance values
  (1 kohm to few kilo-ohms).

I don't think it's a matter of altering the OS as detection is probably reliant upon the physical/electronic components used.

The article explains that there are two standards used for 4 pin OMTP and AHJ. It also has links to some articles about how to connect (aka DIY wiring/rewiring).

Here's a link to the article.

Android device external mic wiring

I don't think that it's a matter of changing the OS, rather catering for the specific components used.


can't scan whatsApp web qr code? i have htc wildfire 3
i can not scan qr code for whatsApp web
i see the "OK, got it" button , no problem with that
but it seems camera keep scanning but not getting anything
any idea how to fix that ?
every thing is updated already

It happened to me once because I had a slow internet connection. Connect to a high speed internet and try again.


How to browse Android mounts like /system on a PC? I know that AndroidCommander works but its site is offline so I can only download version for windoze.

I ALSO want to do this if possible the other way round too (access PC files in Android not only Android files from PC)

How else can I do this?

ES File Explorer has this feature.

On the side Navigation bar you have the options that includes Favorites, Local, Library, and Networks.  Expand the Network tab and click LAN.  You'll see your LAN resources the same way you see them in Windows.

Click on the computer/share you want to browse.  You'll have the option to see the items as icons or detailed listings.

Browsing Android Files from the Windows PC

To browse the items on the android from the PC, run an FTP server app on the android (There are many such as: FTP Server Ultimate).

On Windows Explorer you can type the full ftp link server name in the Explorer address bar to browse the files and folders just like the other local files and folders on Windows.

You can also type the command "explorer [ftp link]" in Windows 7 Search field to bring up the folders.

Ftp Link Example:

explorer ftp://192.168.1.4:2121

The numbers after the colon is the port.  2121 is the default port used by most of the android ftp server apps.


Sound Amplifier for Android Is there any sound amplifier app for android? My HTC Wildfire S speaker is just too low for my ears even when at maximum. Is there any way I can boost the sounds? i.e Music Player, call ringtones e.t.c. Thanks

I am afraid this is not really an answer, but I found no way just to post a comment to the question so here it goes:

For the Samsung Galaxy S and the Samsung tablets, Vodoo control effectively amplifies the sound and it is available in the Android Market


my samsung galaxy s2 wont charge what do i do? I'm having trouble with my Samsung galaxy s2 I need some help on how my phone can start charging again. Every time I got to charge my Samsung S2 it seems not to charge. I need some help on how to charge it.

You can verify if your charger is faulty or not by installing Ampere app. If it not showing any in flow of mA after connecting, that means your charger is faulty. For the other way, you need to get your phone repaired.


How to Block/Filter Sites on Mobile Data Connection (Preferably using DNS Server) I researched a way to filter sites using DNS Server on android phone, and that is to changed the phone's DNS Server, it worked for WiFi connection, but not for Data Connection, how would I Block/Filter Sites on Mobile Data Connection (Preferably using DNS Server).

There are no settings to set DNS server with Mobile Data. An exception is Private DNS (DoT) on Android 9+. Also sometimes DNS leakage may occur with WiFi DNS settings e.g. if some app has hard-coded DNS server address. However with root access you can force redirect DNS queries to any specific server using iptables. See details in How does Android OS do DNS name resolution? and How to configure DNS properly?

Or you can edit /etc/hosts to blacklist commonly known ad domains using available hosts files like this one.

Or even better is to run a local DNS server on device to use features like pattern matching etc. dnscrypt-proxy, for instance, provides flexible options including encrypted DNS (DoH or DoT) which nullifies the possibility of ISP's eavesdropping on your DNS traffic. For setup instructions see How to fix SELinux errors when launching DNSCrypt as init.d script?

On non-rooted devices it's possible to use VpnService API of Android to capture all DNS traffic. That's how apps like 1.1.1.1 and NetGuard work. Then the VPN app may use a custom hosts file before making queries to configured upstream DNS server. Virtual Hosts is an open-source app to achieve this.


Cookie Alert on Android Is there a way to block eu cookie alert on android?

Tried Adblock browser - no luck. and i am using a cookie alert blocker on PC, which doesn't work on Android.

Have you looked into this? If this is what you are looking for it can be done inside the chrome browser on Android. It's almost at the bottom.

https://www.howtogeek.com/241006/how-to-block-third-party-cookies-in-every-web-browser/


Remove Bloat from Google Play Update list? Is there a way to remove uninstallable apps from showing up on the google play updates list?  I don't mean uninstall them, that is not possible without root as I understand.  Just hiding them from the update all list would be nice.

The only way I know of to remove an app from the update process is to disable it - but then of course, you can't USE it at all.

I tend to disable a lot of built-in stuff (usually after the first time it decides to 'notify' me about something I don't care about). But as I said, that also means I can't use the apps in question.


Heartbleed check for Android App How I can check whether a particular android app is vulnerable to heartbleed or not? I don't want to use any third party app.
I have seen https://github.com/musalbas/heartbleed-masstest/blob/master/ssltest.py but I want to do it with app. I don't know the domain name the app is communicating to. Are the app bundle the OpenSSL libraries with apk, If yes how to find the version of OpenSSL being used.

@Solution:
I have wriiten python module which takes an APK and it do the check for openSSL version and heartbeat extension.

import zipfile
import os
import re

def heart_bleed(tempdir, msl_outputfile):
    parrent_tempdir = tempdir.split('tmp')[0]
    sslpattern = re.compile("1.0.1[a-f]")
    flagssl = False
    flagheartbleed = False

    msllst_heartbleed = []
    msc_vulid = "heartbleed"
    msc_infoseverity = "Info"
    msc_medseverity = "Medium"
    apkpath = ''
    if (parrent_tempdir):
        for root, dummy_dirs, files in os.walk(parrent_tempdir):
            for allfile in files:
                if allfile.endswith(".apk"):

                    apkpath = os.path.join(root, allfile)

        #print(apkpath)
        with zipfile.ZipFile(apkpath, "r") as msl_apkread:
            for i in msl_apkread.namelist():
                if i.endswith(".so"):
                    data = msl_apkread.read(i)
                    if "part of OpenSSL" in data:
                        start = data.index("part of OpenSSL")
                        resultdata = str(data[start:start+40])
                        sslversion = re.findall(sslpattern, resultdata)
                        if sslversion:
                            flagssl = True

                            if "tls1_heartbeat" in data:
                                flagheartbleed = True

        if flagssl and flagheartbleed:
            print("The App is using OpenSSL version " + sslversion[0] + " which is vulnerable to Heartbleed and Heartbeat extension is enabled."))
        elif flagssl or flagheartbleed:
            print("The App is using OpenSSL version " + sslversion[0] + " which is vulnerable to Heartbleed but Heartbeat extension is disabled."))

Please comment is it right to do ?

It will be hard to test something without a tester. Android doesn't ship with a Test-App for Heartbleed (or any other security hole, such as the Master Key Exploit discovered about a year ago), as this would somehow defeat the purpose: Such a check-app must know about the security hole and how to check for it, and thus requires knowledge about that. If that knowledge is there, instead of writing an app to check for the hole, the devs rather should decide to fix it in the first place – which would make that app obsolete :)

So if a 3rd party app is not acceptable for you, you're most likely out of luck. But in case you change your mind, you can find several security-checkers in this list. There's e.g. Heartbleed Security Scanner, which is pretty well rated (as of now, 4.6 stars with over 5,000 votes), and you can find it introduced in this AndroidPIT blog post.

Linked list category also holds some security suites covering multiple exploits and security risks, which might be a good choice to check if you're interested how it stands about security with your device.


No memory avaiable on my Galaxy S4 I don't understand why I can't take photo or video with my Samsung Galaxy S4. I have 32 GB of memory and I haven't a lot of photo or apps in my mobile phone. I tried to delete photo, video or apps that I don't use, and also I have just restart my phone but the situation is the same.

Speaking with experiance with a galaxy S4.

  Try deleting the cache, from the storage menu.
  Goto Storage->Internal Storage-> Delete Cache

Should empty up a lot of space by now, for more storage,

  Goto Storage->Internal Storage-> Explore

Delete files named,

.thumbnails
.profigos
.faces

These are temporary files created, you can delete them, it won't harm any of your data.


Taking a screenshot in ICS without rooting Is it possible to take a screenshot in ICS (Galaxy Nexus) without external apps and without rooting? Most apps on the market seem to require rooted phones.

I did find this app which claims to not require the phone to be rooted but it costs $4.99 which is a bit steep for an app that only takes screenshots.

Press the Volume Down and Power buttons at the same time and hold them for a second or so (this is the vanilla behavior, at least; source).

By default on my device it will save to /sdcard/Pictures/Screenshots (or whatever your equivalent "external storage" path is, I assume).


Sound architecture in android What is the sound architecture in Android. Is it the same as in Linux? I mean virtually every linux distributions use ALSA, so do android also use ALSA as sound driver?

Ok, so, I did a little bit of search and this is what I found.

Android, on the kernel level, uses ALSA or its alternative OSS (Open Sound System) to speak to the Hardware.

HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) sits on the top of Kernel which is a purely android implementation that communicates with the Kernel. Apparently, apps can't directly talk to ALSA/OSS as they do in Linux. Only HAL provides interfaces that audio services can call and work with.

And then there are few more frameworks and abstraction layer between HAL and the interface that the actual code of applications use. This layer is called Application framework.

This page has good illustration of the these layers.


How to choose external SD Card in Storage Access Framework (Open Camera App) I am using Open Camera, I want to store photos in an extarnal sdcard.
The FAQ says:

  you can enable "Settings/More camera controls/"Use Storage Access
  Framework", and this should allow you to save to external SD cards. If
  when choosing a folder, you only see "Recent", you may need to click
  on the three dots at the top right to open the menu, to enable showing
  the drives

However when I do that, I don't see anything but this:

How can I include an sdcard option in that screen?

I had the same issue.  I followed all your instructions and ended up with just "Recent" showing.  But if you tap the three dots at top right of your screen on that page you get an option to show the SD card.  That actually is the secret.  It seems to work!


How to set a really wide home screen that scrolls How do I set a really wide home screen as the home screen that as you swipe from page to page the background scrolls with it.

I swear it used to do this or I'm imagining it did.

Samsung Galaxy S6, Android 5.1.1 that came with the phone.

OPTION A

Pinch to zoom out on home screen.
Tap on rectangle with PLUS sign. (Located furthest to right).
Add as many as need. (There is a limit of 10 - S6 Edge+).

OPTION B

Long press on blank area of home screen.
Follow steps 2 & 3 from Option A.

OPTION C

Access launcher settings.
Swipe left to access the home screen page.
Follow steps 2 & 3 from Option A.

I didn't include any references as every site confirmed the information above. The list would be too large.

Search keywords:
add home screens to Samsung Galaxy S6


Will JTAG wipe internal memory on Galaxy sII? I have hard bricked my phone by flashing wrong bootloader. My phone wont show any signs of life but warming of the back side.

I have some private photos, messages, etc  that i don't want the repair man see them. He said to me that when you JTAG the phone, all the phone memory contents such as ROM and internal memory are completely wiped. Is this true? Cant he recover internal memory sdcard before or after JTAG?

Please only answer if you are 100% sure

Thank you

Your files even the deleted files Can be recovered even from dead phone with the help of JTAG or ISP Solutions !

1 - Find or Locate Pinouts

If your phone available pinouts for JTAG'ing you can JTAG otherwise you can relate to ISP pinouts if two option not available for your phone you can always chip-off and recover the DATA !

JTAG : ort-jtag.com
ISP  : emmc-pro.com

For the case of Galaxy S2 - You can JTAG or ISP Direct!

2 - Read the Full image of your phone !

After reading the full image of your phone with the software mentioned above .
You can analyze the Dump and extract your private pictures etc..

3 - Data Recovery
Data Recover : Autopsy ( Sleuth Kit )

Best Regards


How to restore data from Google Drive? My Samsung Galaxy SGH-T99 broke recently. I can see the backup of my data on Google Drive. I will not repair the device and want to restore my data. How can I do that? Please provide guidance.

Google should ideally offer you to restore a cloud backup when you set up a new device using the same Google account. Works well on my Nokia phones. I do not know if Samsung as a varied implementation.


How to recover glitching Galaxy S9? The bad
Last week I totaled a Galaxy S9's screen which I owned for over two years. I liked the phone so I headed up on Facebook market to look for another one.
I discovered a phone that I liked and went on to buy it.
When I had the phone in my hands, before paying, I run a service code (#0011# to see if all sensors/screen etc worked). This passed so I bought the phone.
Also, the phone won't do Samsung updates. It would either throw an error after download (The downloaded file is not correct) or restart when attempting.
The ugly
Here's the harsh part: not long after leaving the dodgy seller, while going home, the phone started behaving really weirdly: sudden restarts, some screen glitches, and artifacts. The phone also loses battery pretty quickly, either due to the weird sudden restarts or else.

Note the purple glitches. I was able to record these with a screenshot, meaning it comes from the GPU chip?
The good
The first thing I looked at was the water damage sticker beneath the sim tray:

I then managed to charge the phone fully and log in with a Google account, which allowed me to do further diagnostics. I installed Geekbench and run a test. The phone has a normal score for this model.
I tried filming, calling, playing games on the phone and all seems well.
The only times when the phone restarts are after receiving an error like "Google Services App crashed" or "Samsung Services App crashed" or suddenly when I try to use a service or disable/uninstall blootware.
I also managed to get the phone to update through Samsung Smart Switch to the latest update (Security Patch 1 Dec 2020)
Resolution:
I have a few options for repairing this weird phone

Find what version of firmware I could flash on the phone and hope for a stock experience (including bootloader etc) - This option assumes that the hardware is intact, the chipset has no water damage, etc.

Open the, in which case I lose IP68 (assuming this is not lost already) and change the motherboard with my old phone's.

How to proceed from here?
I am a bit unfamiliar with choosing the right firmware etc. I have the following information in the phone's software info:

One U.I 2.1

Android 10

Baseband version: G960FXXSBETG8

Kernel version: 4.9.118-18847185 # 1 Mon Aug KST 2020

Build number QP1A.190711.020.G960FXXSBETH1

Knox 3.4.1 API level 30 TIMA 4.0.0

Service provider SW ver.: SAOMC_SM-G960F_CKH_DRE_QQ_0009 / 2b282a7f23017ece (DRE/DRE/DRE)

CSC: G960FCKHCFTK1

AP: G960FXXSCFTK2

CP: G960FXXUCFTJ1

I tried downloading this firmware version, but from what I've read the bootloader version here is too old and cannot replace the current bootloader. How can I determine the bootloader version on my phone? XDA forums say it's the 5th digit from the Build Number. However, my Build Number doesn't seem to respect the format of the above file.
Can anyone suggest what to do next? I'm itching to open the phone, but I think it's wiser to try and repair it from firmware.

bootloader level is increased in 1 digit
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D
G960FXXSBETH1 = B
G960FXXUCFTJ1 = C
you can download rom for SM-G960F from updato, samfirm, frija or samloader. try lowest bootloader first, as you already stated downgrade is impossible (and higher version usually comes with higher protection against rooting). you can check bootloader version from download mode screen


How to change incoming call notification size in Nexus 5X I use a Nexus 5X Android phone and it is quite good.

The only problem I'm experiencing is that when I get an incoming call, it shows only a tiny notification at the top of the screen so I can't normally see who is calling (all my previous phones could show a full screen caller).

Can I modify it to have a full screen screen of it without installing any lame dialer or caller id app?

This smaller Caller ID banner does appear only when on the home screen and when using an application. I assume this was done so as not to cover the whole screen in case the user is doing something critical or the like.

While on the lock screen, an incoming call will take the whole screen to show Caller ID, presumably because the user wouldn't be doing anything if the phone is locked.

I looked through my devices Phone and Accessibility and other settings, and I was not able to find any way to change this. A third party app would be your best bet.

Using Android 6.0.1 to test.


how can i use google voice instead of native phone app for receiving calls? I've discovered that when I dial out through my android/samsung phone app, there is a lot of latency, and the call is often dropped or goes silent for a few seconds.  I do not have that problem when I call out with google voice.  However, when I receive a phone call, it seems to be coming through the native phone app since it has the same latency and dropped call problems.  I use a google phone number, and it is routed to my cell number.  How can I get my phone to receive calls through google voice, not through the native app?  I have a Samsung A10e.  Thanks.

There are two settings you should change in order to receive calls in your Google voice app instead of your native phone number.

In the Google voice app, go to settings and press on "Making and receiving calls", in there make sure you change the setting to "Prefer Wi-Fi and mobile data" (if that setting was already selected, just leave it that way)

Next, go back to settings and press on "Call forwarding" and deselect your phone number as the forwarding number, but make sure that "Android Device" is still selected.

That's all, now try calling your Google voice number from a different phone and see if it calls your Google voice.


Why does OK Google voice search unlock Moto G4 Plus? So my phone (Marshmallow) was locked. I said Ok Google, to search something. It searched directly from the lockscreen and when I tapped home, it actually unlocked the phone.

Is it a security hole or something?

My phone is Moto G4 Plus

Trusted voice ("OK Google")

Trusted voice

When you say "Ok Google" from a secure lock screen and we're able to recognize your voice, you can ask Google to do things for you, or visit sites, without manually unlocking your device.

"OK Google" settings options (How to turn on/off OK Google and its settings (Trusted voice, etc)): Google Support

Source: Google


How to reinstall the uninstalled system apps (that arent availble on Google Play) What if you accidentally deleted some important apps and couldn't install them back because Google Play doesn't have them? For example android system, com.android dun server and com.android.lgsetup wizard (i.e. any prebuilt system apps). And every few seconds this message would appear:

Sorry! The process com.android.phone has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.

And I cannot even go to the browser or Task Killer because every time I do, it would force quit. How can I reinstall those apps? I think I cleared all data for those but I did not clear the browser and so why can't I open the browser?
Do I really need to send it for repair or can I fix it?

Device: Nokia-X

You need to reflash the OS. First, find the stock ROM for your device: this question explains how to get started. Then you'll need to consult the manufacturer's instructions for flashing a new ROM, and flash the ROM for your device.


How can I prevent the AT&T update software from using my 4G connection? Is there any way to prevent the AT&T update software form using my 4G connection (i.e. using Wi-Fi only when available)?

By default it seems to use the 4G connection when there's no Wi-Fi connection, as the screenshots below show. I use Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III with a rooted Android 4.1.2.

Following saloalv's answer, I tapped on "Android OS" (which is the process listed as being the one who used my 4G connection): I don't see any "restrict background data" option.

I do see the "restrict background data"  option for other processes though:

Open data usage in settings, tap on AT&T software update, scroll down and tap "restrict background data".


How to use mobile data (hotspot) and calls at the same time? I have a Huawei Honor 8X running Android 9 and it is pretty new - probably a year or so old. I am currently running it dual-SIM - one for my telephone number and one for mobile data. I am doing this as my telephone contract is pretty cheap, and the data contract is genuinely unlimited 4G. All phone operations default to one SIM, all data operations default to the other.

I have noticed that my phone wifi hotspot stops working when I am on an inbound or outbound telephone call. This is becoming a bit frustrating as sometimes I need to access something on the web while speaking to someone. I have done a bit of research on the web, and found that some phones prioritise voice data over internet data, but that situation may be changing on newer phones (presumably as network bandwidths generally improve).

My situation is a bit different in that I expect I have two modems (one per SIM card) and so even if this restriction still applies to phones with one card, I hope I might be exempt because I am running two.

Of course my ideal situation would be to cancel the voice contract and use data/voice on one contract. However I am happy to maintain both in the phone if I can get if that is the only way it will work. If this is considered hard to do these days - even with a modern phone - I can transfer the data card to a dongle and carry that separately.

I am in the UK.

Going by your problem I suspected that your device is Dual SIM Dual Standby, which was confirmed by GSM Arena.

What this means is that you can use only one SIM at a time be it for data or voice unlike Dual SIM Dual Active phones where you can use both SIMs simultaneously for voice /data.
Also the user manual which can be downloaded from here does not mention Dual SIM Dual Active.

So, contrary to your expectations you have only one modem and hence the behavior you experience.

Only solution is to use one SIM that has both voice and data plans since your device supports VoLTE (see user manual). Be aware that if you use both SIMs on 4G/VoLTE, only one will work on 4G and the other on 2G


How to activate voice wakeup in secure lockscreen on Samsung Galaxy S4? I have the T-Mobile Galaxy S4, with the newest (kitkat) update
I use the pattern draw security to wake up from lock screen. I think it is important to have some such security, so that if one leaves one's phone somewhere by accident, someone else cannot pick it up and find out all kinds of personal and financial information.
Yet, when driving a car, it can be difficult (and unsafe) to draw the pattern, or even more so a pin or password, if one wants to make a phone call, navigate, etc For driving, it would be good to be able to unlock the screen with voice. (One could set an unusual wake-up command (no, not "Hi Galaxy" ;-) ), so that others would not be able to wake it up with voice. )
I would like to be able to open from the lockscreen with either the pattern OR voice.
There is a post on a forum that shows how to do that: https://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-samsung-galaxy-note-3/361730-how-use-s-voice-google-now-hands-free-via-bluetooth-security-lock-screen-your-note-3-a.html
However, that is in the forum for Galaxy Note 3.
I tried it on my S4. I turned off the pattern security, and set it to swipe. I followed all the listed steps. Except--one command I could not find on the S4 [Quote from forum post]: LONG PRESS Voice Wake-up to reveal the hidden command> √ "wake up in Secure Lock".[end quote]
I could not long press anything to get that hidden command "wake up in secure lock".
After following all the other steps, with no security, I could wake from the lock screen by voice command. But only with no security, with lock screen set to swipe (which is no security at all).
Once I re-enabled the pattern security (also tried it with PIN), I could not wake the phone by voice any more.
Does anyone know how to get this to work on the T-Mo Galaxy S4? I think it is important to have some security, but would like to be able to wake the phone up by voice while driving.
If it is not possible from the phone's own setup, is there an app one could install that would add that functionality?
If totally impossible to do with the current update on the S4, is there a way to give suggestions to Samsung, to ask for that feature on the S4? (Which from that post, certainly looks like it is possible on the Note 3.)
Thank you in advance for your input.

I have not tried this myself, but it should be possible with tasker and (optionally) the Secure Settings addon – provided there's some automated way to let the device know you're in "driving mode". This could either be the car's Bluetooth (if any), or some NFC tag you place in your car to toggle that state (the latter could be used to toggle a custom variable or the "state").

With those pre-conditions met, setup your profile(s) corresponding to your "identifier". With Bluetooth:

Condition: Bluetooth device connected
Task: Turn off Keyguard

(will revert to the previous state, i.e. re-enable Keyguard, as soon as the condition is no longer met, i.e. your device no longer connected to the car). With NFC, slightly different, your Task should toggle Keyguard – so it turns it of on first read of the tag, and turns it back on when reading the tag again.

With Keyguard turned off, there's no pattern or PIN lock anymore, and the device should react as if you'd unlocked it. You can toggle Keyguard with Tasker itself; however, the Secure Settings addon gives you additional control. Check out what fits you best; above "pseudo-profile" should get you started :)


Changing a web app's homescreen icon I use Chrome's 'Add to homescreen' feature to add web app shortcuts to my homescreen. As a user, how do I change a shortcut's homescreen icon?

You can use any launcher (eg. Nova Launcher).

When you add the shortcut to the home screen, press and hold on the
shortcut icon, tap Edit.
After this, it will open a dialog box to edit the caption along with the icon. Tap on the icon and select the required one from your phone.


How Can I Format My Internal Storage? I Have A UBISLATE 7C+ (EDGE). One Day, I Formatted Its Internal Storage With My PC. But I Saw None Of The Files Were Deleted From The Internal Storage. From That Day Onwards, Its Internal Storage's Data Is Not Getting Erased And I Am Also Unable To Save Any File Into It. PLEASE, Suggest Me Some Ways To Make It Normal! Is There Any Way ?

If you are rooted and have a custom recovery, then you can format data from there


How do I get my wallpaper to stop moving? I just changed my background on my home screen on my Galaxy S4 and every time I scroll to a different page the picture moves. How do I get this to stop?

If you are using Apex launcher, I remember that you can disable scrolling wallpaper in Apex settings, just try to find this option yourself. FYI: Touchwiz launcher doesn't have scrolling wallpaper from Jelly Bean up.


Micro SD Card Not Detecting I am Using a Android phone Sony Z3 (5.0 - Lollipop), the Issue is My SD Card My Micro SD Card is not detecting in mobile and PC

Let me tell u clearly what i have done step by step?

Encryption (Phone & SD Card)
Factory Reset the Phone
Again Encryption but this time i didn't find the option of Encrypt SD Card. so only phone encrypt completed.

I tried to find the files in SD then i realize my SD is not detected then tried to put in pc its asking to format.

Please suggest i have backup in SD.

I am afraid your back up SD data cannot be read. Reasons

On doing factory reset your , encryption keys are lost. Which includes encryption of your external SD card and without this keys, possible to access contents.   Quoting from linked source (which incidentally advocates this method (encryption + Factory Reset ) as keeping information away from buyers, if you sell your phone)

  Encrypting does not completely delete the files, but the factory reset process gets rid of the encryption key. As a result, the device has no way it can decrypt the files and, therefore, makes data recovery extremely difficult.

Even assuming that you had an unencrypted SD card and wanted to fix the problem of not being able to read it, the very fact that neither your phone not PC can read it makes it nearly impossible to obtain data. You can still try to diagnose using this useful flowchart https://android.stackexchange.com/tags/external-sd/info. This is more for information and structured way of diagnosing SD card issues


Is it possible to run Android on a Raspberry Pi? With smartphones and the Raspberry Pi both being ARM devices, is it possible to run Android on a Raspberry Pi?

Yeah ofc..
Check this out... Google Android on your Raspberry Pi with emteria OS


switching Google accounts (apps(all free), etc) I got my first smartphone, a Nexus 4, last year. I've been using two different Google accounts for e-mail etc, and I want to switch everything to one. I signed up for all my apps, etc on my nexus 4 using the Google account I want to get rid of. How do I switch over to just using my other gmail account on google play?

I just went through this with google and their answer is "you can't".  I knocked on several of their help chat doors (including the play store) and - sadly - got the same line there.


Android 6.0 Marshmallow SD Card Not mounting I was having problems with my 32gb sdcard from day 1 . It use to unmount suddenly and I had to re boot to mount it.

Also, the sdcard all folders where not showing when I connected the phone to PC.To fix this problem I followed the answer here and cleared data of External Storage App and I can no longer mount the sd card.

Moto g2 no longer detects the sd card. I have tried re booting many times.

EDIT

Sdcard getting read in other android phone but not in my moto g2

I had to do factory reset , after this the sdcard was mounted


WiFi Tether Causes a BSOD in Laptop Using Intel WiFi Hardware On a rooted Nexus 4 using stock 4.2.2, if I enable Wifi tether then connect my laptop (a Lenovo T520 using Centrino Advanced-N 6205 hardware with driver v15.3.1.2) I get a BSOD within seconds. I am using the stock tether app.

I read elsewhere that I am not the only one with this problem, but Intel refuses to acknowledge it. I even waited for an updated Wifi driver to come out, which I installed today, but the problem persists. According a thread on XDA-Dev, the workaround is to set the Local IP to 192.168.1.100 instead of 192.168.1.1 and the DHCP starting IP to 192.168.1.101 instead of 192.168.1.10. But since I am using the stock tethering app these settings are not available. Is there a tweak app that would allow me to do this? Or are there other workarounds to this issue?

TIA

Its happening to me as well since yesterday. Never happens with dell but first time in HP. Read somewhere that enabling FIPS in wifi setting in laptop will solve this problem will check and revert.


Is there a RAM test for Android devices? I need to fix a friend's phone this evening that has suddenly produced loads of android.process.media and com.google.process.gapps errors.  I am going to reinstall the OS as it's an older ROM but it got me wondering: there is memtest for x86 based devices that will test the RAM of a PC, is there a similar app that can be loaded in place of an OS on Android that will do the same thing?

This tests RAM, storage and well many other device features: Phone Check (and Test)


Play Music (KitKat): update library not working I use BitTorrent Sync to transfer audio files to my Nexus 5. All files are transfered to the 'music' directory. When new files are added to this directory, the only way to update Play Music's library is rebooting android. There is an update button in Play Music ("Vernieuwen" in dutch) but this does not add the new files. To be honest I expected Play Music to automatically add the new files.

What can be the cause of this problem? And is there a way to solve it?

Possibly related questions:

Stock Google Music app does not scan subdirectory in Android 4.2.1
The music player keeps displaying deleted songs. How do I remove them or refresh the library?
Kitkat 4.4.2 and Play music: won't find files

One of the advantages of a physical SD card: unmounting and re-mounting it triggers the media scanner. But that's unlikely to be an option for you. 1

Depending on your Android version, there are different apps available on Google Play to help you out. The "version difference": starting with Kitkat, the old mechanism of triggering the media scanner does no longer work, "normal apps" are denied the permission to call it. But there's at least one new app available where the dev found a "loop-hole" to give back the functionality.

Some examples for pre-Kitkat scanners can be found in the link of "footnote 1", SD Scanner is the one promising to work with Kitkat.

1 see my answer here for a more detailed explanation of the background


Lock Screen Wallpaper Location The Galaxy S4 comes with a TripAdvisor lock screen wallpaper that rotates images every X hours of places around the world. Every now and then it has really cool ones that I would potentially like to save to use as my lock screen permanently, but I can't figure out where in the filesystem they are stored.

I have found a couple of posts saying it is located in /data/data/com.android.settings/ or something like that, but my /data folder is empty.

tl;dr: Where does android save the current lock screen image?

That depends on your Android version, but only changes a little. Wherever it is, you need root-access to retrieve it.

For Android 6 and under:

/data/system/users/0/lock_wallpaper

While primary (mainscreen) wallpaper is available at /data/system/users/0/wallpaper.

For Android 7+, the file name has changed to wallpaper_lock and is still available at the same place. You may want to fetch wallpaper_lock_orig instead, however.


Cyanogenmod for Galaxy Y I have a Samsung galaxy Y device. It's running Gingerbread stock rom, and I want to upgrade this to Jellybean. Is there any custom rom for Galaxy Y?

Yup, there are plenty of ROMS out there for Samsung Galaxy Y, as per your requirement, the most recent cyangogen mod is CM11 (kitkat, better than jellybean) for it. The complete installation instructions and step by step tutorial can be found here.


Baseband > 2.0.1700.48 won't work without proximity and light sensor working? I have the same circumstances as Nexus 4: Stuck on boot animation for baseband version != 2.0.1700.48 and android version > 4.3. I have repeated the first two sets of tests, with precisely the same result. I am currently running build JWR66Y (4.3) which comes with baseband 2.0.1701.0, which I have back-patched with the baseband from the previous release, 2.0.1700.48. Attempts to upgrade past 4.3 fail.

The coincidence that stands out is that I, too, just had a screen repair done. Before my screen broke I was happily running 5.1. Even after the screen repair, with a broken proximity sensor in place, it still ran 5.1 just fine. The trouble happened with I returned to the tech who fixed the screen with a complaint about the proximity sensor. The tech insisted that he could not get the proximity sensor to work. We finally agreed that he could just leave it out. That lead to the current problem.

So I wonder if the difference between baseband 2.0.1701.05 and 2.0.1700.48 is that 2.0.1701.05 checks for either the proximity sensor or the light sensor (they are on the same board) during startup, and hangs the boot  waiting for the sensor(s) to come ready. This idea could be tested by repeating the test before and after doing surgery on a working Nexus 4. That's a lot of work, and fortunately I can't do it myself (no working Nexus 4 proximity/light sensor board!). But maybe someone has relevant experience.

If you look around on the net, you see lots of Nexus 4 problems relating to 4.3->4.4 upgrades failing, lots of Nexus 4 problems relating to the proximity sensor breaking after screen replacement, and several apps that do nothing but disable broken proximity detectors. There also hints that the exact placement of the rubber grommet separating the proximity and light sensors from the front glass is critical.

The reason my question is interesting is that I could go back to the tech and ask him to replace the proximity sensor (so the thing boots in 5.1) and hopefully adjust the sensor grommet (so the proximity sensor works). Even if the proximity sensor never works again, I could still use one of the software solutions that disables the proximity sensor.

I have good news.  My tech put the sensor card back in my Nexus 4, reversing the rubber grommet that separates the sensors from the front glass.  The promity and light sensors then both worked, booting from 4.2.2.

I then used the stock image of 5.1 from https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images to update the phone to the latest L release.

Everything works.  I take this as good evidence in favor the hypothesis that the absence of the sensor board was causing the boot loops described here and in the earlier article.


retrieving contacts from my Google account I stored my contacts to my Google account however I lost my phone and had my service suspended now I have a new phone I'm not sure how to retrieve them I was under the impression that once I  logged into my account they would automatically be stored in my phone

If they are in your Google account, once you log into Google via your phone it should sync your Contacts.  You may want to check to make sure that Contacts is checked under Settings - Accounts - your Google account.


How can I reduce screen brightness below the minimum without an app? I have an Optimus Elite, and it has a minimum brightness setting. In certain apps, I can reduce the brightness below the safe minimum, but when I leave the app, the brightness is increased to the system-wide minimum.

Using RootDim, I can permanently set the brightness below the safe amount, and it will stay even after going to other apps. Or using Screen Filter, I can accomplish almost the same thing even without needing root (it displays a translucent 'filter' over the whole screen, reducing brightness/contrast but not actually changing the backlighting power amount).

What I want to know is where the minimum screen brightness is stored. I have a rooted phone with CyanogenMod 9, so I have permissions to edit anything and could change a config or sqlite entry, but I don't know where this value is stored. What I would like to do is use the status bar brightness slider to be able to slide to the actual minimum of the screen, rather than the OS-controlled minimum. Having an app is useful, but having the functionality without the app seems to be within reach, if only I knew where the OS is getting it's safe minimum setting.

Where is this "safe minimum brightness" setting stored? If I can change it, I can remove my apps and use native controls.

Editing /system/build.prop and changing the ro.lcd_min_brightness property may work.  That property may not exist in your file (It doesn't in the file for my GS3), in which case it will default to 20.  Lower numbers mean lower brightness.

This doesn't actually work on all devices though.  For example, on the Galaxy S2, setting the property to a lower number will allow you to set the brightness control lower, but the actual screen brightness won't go any lower than it did before.

Alternatively, Cyanogenmod includes controls to customize the auto-brightness levels under settings > cyanogenmod settings > display > automatic backlight.  There's an explanation of how to use the custom configuration over here at rootzwiki.