Show all running services on Samsung Galaxy S3 How can one show all running services on Samsung Galaxy S3?

In system-menu Tinder service for example wasn't shown.

When you go to setting, there are a few options. Depending on which OS version you're running (you haven't provided this but I'm assuming it is a bit old), you can go to the Apps sections and there are 3 tabs 1) Downloaded 2) Running 3) All. You can go to the Running tab to see which processes are running.

Another option is to go to the Memory section and it'll tell you which apps are taking up how much memory on your device. You can also force stop these services here.

Finally there's the battery sections where you can check which app/service is taking up or draining your battery life. You can force stop these apps/services here as well.

It would be best for you to provide the Android OS version so that we can better assist you since the settings and apps occasionally change with each Android OS update.


How to install 6.0.1OTA update on a rooted nexus 5 My Nexus 5 is rooted. I received the 6.0.1 OTA update but when I try to install the update (I just clicked install link when the update finished downloading), the device restarts and goes to the TWRP screen and doesn't install the update.

Can anyone tell me how I can get the update to install?

You cannot install an OTA update on rooted device because SuperSU changes some statement in install-recovery.sh to run itself on boot.

To install OTA you need to install factory image available at https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images?hl=en

If you dont want to loose your apps and data. Simply edit the script flash-all.bat and remove

-w

From

fastboot -w update image-hammerhead-*.zip

Installation script file name will differ according to your OS.

You will loose root access and TWRP after going through above method as there's no other way to install OTA because all system files should be intact for successful installation of OTA.


android phone or small device with qwerty physical keyboard with Ctrl and Alt keys? Is there any Android phone or similarly-sized device with qwerty physical keyboard including Ctrl and Alt keys? What do sysadmins use for typing on Android devices?

Not a physical keyboard, but the Hacker's Keyboard soft keyboard has Control and Alt keys on the keyboard.


Access a word definition from within an app? Sometimes when I use an app on my Nexus tablet offline, I encounter words for which I would like to quickly check the definition. This is the solution I am currently using

select the word
copy to clipboard
switch to a dictionary app
paste the word and read the definition
switch back to my original app

I have to do this often, and this is quite inconvenient.
Is there a more direct way to access word definitions when offline?

You should be able to invoke dictionary apps like GoldenDict or ColorDict by "sharing" to them:


Locked screen shows track name Recently my Galaxy S7 started to show last track's name when the phone is locked. Even if the music player is turned off. How do I turn it off?

Edit
Looks like track information comes from any app: music player, Spotify, YouTube, chrome. Whichever app plays music/video last - it leaves a name on my lock screen.

Settings > Notifications > Don't Show

Blocks VLC, FBReader TTS, etc for Android 6, so probably similar on a Samsung ROM.


I wiped everything on my phone with TWRP. What should I do? I wiped everything on my HTC 10 device using TWRP (I checked everything). My device was rooted. Now how can I get the device working properly again? I think that I don't have anything on the device (and on the external sd) but the TWRP.

With proper driver and ADB installed, sideload another ROM from your PC using ADB sideload, available in Advanced menu.


Samsung Galaxy s3 won't boot My Samsung keep booting up and then after the intro where it should show my home screen it showing a blue flashing Samsung sign with the Led light glowing blue as well. I have tried taking out the battery and holding down volume+home+power button. and holding the home button for restarting it. it's frustrating me

Press and hold VOLUME UP and Home(center) button
Press Power until the phone vibrate
Wait until you see the Android logo then release all the buttons.
Select Wipe data/Factory reset with VOLUME DOWN, press Power (right hand-side)
Select YES -- delete all user data with VOLUME DOWN and then press Power
After format, press Power again to reboot phone. (select reboot system now)


Log or find what and which text a SMS app sent? I did accidentially press YES to "[appname] wants to send a message to [premium-rate-number]. Do you want to allow this? [Coin Icon] This will incur additional fees. [Checkbox] Remember my selection. [Button: Cancel] [Button: Send]"

Now it has sent a unknown message to a premium rate number, subscribing me to a expensive service.
The app did send a "START [servicename]" to this premium rate number.

Now its pulling Money from the bill every week. Uninstalling the app dont help.
To stop, I need to send "STOP [servicename]" to the premium rate number.

The problem? I dont know what the [servicename] is. Sending "STOP" is not enough, then it ask that I need to enter a correct service shortword. My operator wont help either, they say "If its hidden from view, you have to Contact the app maker. We wont reveal what shouldn't be for your Eyes". And app maker says I did agree to a lifetime contract with weekly fee, so no recourse there.

Is it any way to log or detect messages sent from a specific app? I did try to install different "SMS Text Tracker app" primarly used for secret spying, but those do only reveal what I send myself through the standard SMS interface.

In other Words, I want to install some logger app or log outgoing messages (even messaging attempts, since sending a additional "START [servicename]" is going to fail). Then I reinstall the culprit app, and then I can find out what it send as [servicename], so I can send "STOP [servicename]" to the number and stop the automatic billing.

Any ideas how to log "hidden" outgoing SMSes sent by app?

And Before anyone mentions it: Decompiling the app wont help. Its obfuscated AND the app does Contact a https server somewhere to get the "servicename".

First, I'd report that app as fraud to Google: such behavior IMHO contradicts with their rules (you can also give the appmaker the option to either have you removed from that subscription, or you would report – with the latter resulting in his app being removed from Play).

Second, if you don't need premium SMS services in general, check with your provider to have them removed altogether. If you can convince them you cannot unsubscribe due to fraudulent behavior of an app having you subscribed to and not letting you unsubscribe, it's their duty to take care for it (to do so, they don't need to reveal that "servicename" to you, as long as they stop charging you). Otherwise you could report them to the corresponding regulation office.

Having premium services disabled altogether should stop them from charging you. After that, if you don't want to read messages coming from that dubious service, you can simply put their number on your blacklist.


Unknown host error in browser on mobile network I have a rooted HTC One X running a custom ROM. I use a firewall and Xprivacy for managing permissions. When on my Vodafone India 3G network, I can't open any site other than Google using the default browser because it reports a DNS error saying unknown host. All other apps work fine regardless of 3G or Wi-Fi. I've white listed the browser in Xprivacy and the firewall so it's not due to permissions being denied.
It works fine on Wi-Fi. Anything else I should check?

Try deleting a file named 'hosts' from /system/etc. And reboot :)


Should I do the factory reset? If yes, what will I lose? My HTC Desire S is working fine when I don't put my micro SD card in it (this card was free with the phone). But the phone keeps restarting every few minutes if I keep the memory card in it. By that, I could say that the phone is fine, but the issue can be either with the memory card or the phone not supporting memory card anymore. The phone and memory card worked completely fine for 8 months.

The thing is, if the same memory card is inserted in any other mobile, be it an Android or any other smartphone, that phone will not restart and the data is completely readable too. So, the memory card is fine. When I insert some other memory card on my phone, then my phone does not restart too. So that means the issue is with my phone & that particular memory card combo.

I am ready to uninstall each and every app from my phone, but will that solve my problem? Should I perform the factory reset? Will it solve my issue? What will I lose if will do the factory reset? Like: contacts, SMS, call logs, APN settings, etc. Any free software to backup all these?

But maybe I am going in the wrong direction. Maybe there is some easy way to get the phone and memory card working.

Doing a factory reset will not modify the SD card in any way. Only the data on the phone will be deleted. Contacts that are set up to sync with your Google account will restore, but everything else will be gone.

If you have applications installed on the SD card, I would start there. Uninstall them, or move them back to the device storage. You say that it only crashes when it is in your phone, and not any other Android phone. This would make me think there is probably an app installed on the SD card for your phone. You also said that it doesn't reboot when a different card is in your phone, again leading me to believe that there could be an app that is installed to the SD card that is causing problems.

If you think there is something in your data that is causing the issue, then backing up the data with Titanium Backup will just restore any "issue" that there is.

If you think the problem is with the data on the SD card, then you can format it under storage in settings.

I would also consider the SD card itself could have issues. The SD cards that come with the devices are very cheap cards and usually one of the slower class type of SD card. I have had a few of them last only a couple of months before. I suggest getting a better SD card, one that is at least a class 6. If you have a slower class card, this could also potentially cause issues with some applications.


Wipe and re-install Android 2.2 on Droid2? I used to have a Motorola Droid, and I loved it because it was barebones Android, none of that flashy aftermarket crap they put on it to make it appeal more to consumers. No, I like my android plain, how it comes straight from Google.

So I was slightly disappointed to find out that with the Motorola Droid2, Motorola installed their own flavor of Android with a bunch of extra shit that I don't want.

So my question to you is, is it possible for me to wipe out and re-install a base Android 2.2 on my device? Will there be any problems? If this is possible, a link to a tutorial or better yet, step-by-step instructions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I ended up figuring it out, but it took a lot of research and time. Here's what I did, probably not exactly like this since it took me a few tries to get right:

Root your phone.

Download the Koush Bootstrapper/loader and install it onto your phone, via their site or the Android Market.

Go to Team DeFuse's website to download the Fission 2.2 ZIP file. Put this on your SD card somewhere.

Boot into Koush, apply the bootloader patch, and then reboot into the bootloader.

Clear cache/data, mount /data and /system, clear cache/data again, install update, select ZIP file on SD card, once that's done, clear cache/data again, and then reboot.

You should then boot into a fresh install of "vanilla" Froyo Android. No apps. No settings. And best of all, no Motoblur!

... I think I got all that right. If I missed something, let me know.


Samsung Galaxy 2.3.5 usb storage broken My Samsung Galaxy 2.3.5 is showing the tool bar message 'USB storage broken' .

I'm unable to enter the gallery, photos or videos. I have no SD Card in the phone, all all the storage I have is internal phone storage. The phone is not connecting to the computer, how can I get the photos back?

I've already switched it on and off, took out battery and connected it to my laptop but these haven't worked.

Sounds like the sdcard is corrupted so other than trying to use a data recovery tool via USB from your PC to your phone to recover it it looks like you will have to either

1) format the sdcard storage via the settings

or

2) do a factory reset

Both resulting in losing all the data on the sdcard, sorry :'(


Calls cut-off after 10 seconds (Samsung galaxy S3) I have samsug galaxy s3 (SHV-E 210S), when I receive a call or when I make a call, it cuts off after 10 sec and I have to make a call again. In brief the call stop its self. What can you do to solve that issue. The phone don't allow me to control the calls (incoming and outgoing).

It seems that your call setting are pretty weird. Do following things :

Check your proximity sensors are working properly
Check your call setting might be it changed due to some third party app you installed.
Change the network provider( change 3g to 2g).
This probably is your second last option just reset your device ( backup needed)
The last I can say is contact Samsung dealers, that might help you.

Hope it helps.


nexus s rooting wifi error problem So, I have unlocked my Samsung Nexus S that runs on Android 2.3.1 and i have rooted it. The problem now is that I cant open wifi anymore, it keeps telling me "error" whenever I click on wifi ..

Why is this happening? How to fix it?

I fixed this by restoring only the android "boot" module from the original rom backup:

I used the clockworkmod recovery which can also be installed from the rooted phone using the "rom manager" app. But instead of making a whole recovery, i simply went into advanced recovery options, selected the above mentioned backup folder, and selected to restore only the "boot" module:

start clickworkmod recovery,
select "backup and recovery"
select "advanced recovery"
select the image of the original backup (see below)
select restore boot

This post describes how to restore your nexus s to original stock android and provides a backup of the original rom: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=884093


nexus 4 not allowing me to copy files I have a nexus 4 and had been trying to copy files with Windows 7 - but when I plug it in, it  doesn't show up in my device manager but when i enable USB debugging in the developer options, it shows up under "Other devices" and Windows can not seem to find the appropriate drivers for it. What's happening here? How can I make the phone to show up in my My Computer to copy files to/from it?

Thanks,
Ron

edit I now tried to install the drivers I found on http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1992345 and now my nexus 4 shows up as an Android ADB Interface but I still can't see it in my device manager... :o

I've figured it out, had to enable MTP mode under Settings => Storage - > settings button on top right -> USB computer connection and then enable MTP from there.


How fast can CPU governors change their frequency? All CPU governors descriptions that I could find use subjective words such as slow and fast to explain how the frequency changes over certain conditions.

What are the typical values here, are we taking about over or under 1ms?

I'm curious about a) how fast can the hardware go from min to max and vice versa and b) what would be a reasonably conservative number such as in a on demand cool down?

Are there any typical values for say an open source ROM or any other, in such and such device, available anywhere? Or in the lack of it, is it feasible to measure my own device over adb/ndk/sdk tinkering?

This is what I got on my S4 international with CyanogenMod Rom 4.4.4 nightly build from 2015-06-14 with an on demand cpu governor.

On this test I opened the coursera app then browsed for some section. So it's a typical one touch action what you're going to see here.

So I did an adb shell and started tinkering. I found nothing usefull on /proc/cpuinfo, then I headed for dmesg.

Note: to run dmesg you need to be root.

Note 2: dmesg -c clears the buffer, so you can be sure you won't see the same thing twice. It helps because it's kinda confusing because it's going up and down all the time.

root@ja3g:/proc # dmesg -c | grep -i clock
<6>[74960.230777] B0  23943 PVR_K: SGX change clock [177] Mhz -> [266] MHz req [266] MHz / M[800] / B[0]
<6>[74960.330888] B0  23943 PVR_K: SGX change clock [266] Mhz -> [350] MHz req [350] MHz / M[800] / B[0]
<6>[74960.431147] L0  23943 PVR_K: SGX change clock [350] Mhz -> [480] MHz req [480] MHz / M[800] / B[0]
<6>[74960.630002] L0  23943 PVR_K: SGX change clock [480] Mhz -> [350] MHz req [350] MHz / M[800] / B[0]
<6>[74960.930147] B0  23943 PVR_K: SGX change clock [350] Mhz -> [266] MHz req [266] MHz / M[800] / B[0]
<6>[74961.229909] B0  23943 PVR_K: SGX change clock [266] Mhz -> [177] MHz req [177] MHz / M[800] / B[0]
<6>[74962.330790] L0  23943 PVR_K: SGX change clock [177] Mhz -> [266] MHz req [266] MHz / M[800] / B[0]
<6>[74962.734868] L0  23943 PVR_K: SGX change clock [266] Mhz -> [177] MHz req [177] MHz / M[800] / B[0]

My interpretation of the data is the following:
I touched the screen and it started transitioning about 74960.230777 seconds from boot, when the governor kicked in.
It went from min frequency (177) to 266 then 350 and finally 480 Mhz at 74960.431147 seconds, meaning about 200 ms after it started throttling up.

Then it started slowing down on 74960.630002, reaching minimal speed on 74961.229909 (600 ms later). I have no clue what happened after that, probably it was still building something on the screen and throttled up and down again.

I don't even know if this makes sense, I have 4 slow processor and another 4 fast/power hungry processors, maybe I should run some heavy lifting tasks to be more sure of what happens.

It's funny though to notice that even incoming unread hangout text messages make a small bump from 177 to 266 to 177 MHz.


How to open all numbers from WhatsApp directly in Truecaller I'm part of some WhatsApp groups and there are people whom I know but unable to map them to those phone contacts which does not show anything but blank profile photos and no name.

Asking everyone will be too much work.

This is too much frustration.

Is there anyway to directly open the contacts in Truecaller instead of the default android app?

The simple way to get people details for WhatsApp messages is to use Auto-Search in Truecaller by allowing Notification access to Truecaller
Go to Truecaller->Settings->General->Auto-Search and switch Messaging apps to ON
And whenever you get a message from person who is not in your contact list, you will get a notification like:

WORKS FOR MESSAGES FROM GROUPS TOO.
YOU WILL GET NOTIFIED ONLY WHEN SOMEONE SENDS YOU A MESSAGE(CAN'T FETCH ALL UNKNOWN CONTACTS FROM WHATSAPP GROUP).
ALLOWING NOTIFICATION ACCESS IS A DANGEROUS PERMISSION

  Truecaller will be able to read all
  notifications, including personal
  information such as contact
  names and the text of messages
  you receive. It will also be able to
  dismiss notifications or trigger
  action buttons they contain.
  This will also give the app the ability
  to turn Do Not Disturb on or off and
  change related settings.

P.S. WhatsApp does shows names(which user has set in his WhatsApp profile) in group info for each person.


How does the Heartbleed security vulnerability affect my Android device? The "Heartbleed" vulnerability in particular versions of OpenSSL is a serious security issue which allows malicious servers or clients to undetectably obtain unauthorized data from the other end of an SSL/TLS connection.

My Android device has a copy of OpenSSL installed in /system/lib. Its version number is 1.0.1c, which appears to make it vulnerable to this attack.

shell@vanquish:/ $ grep ^OpenSSL\  /system/lib/libssl.so
OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012

How does this affect me? Do Android apps use OpenSSL? If not, why is it there?
Can I expect a firmware update from my carrier? If I root my phone, can I update it myself?

There is now a new attack that targets wireless networks and devices connected to them. Simply connecting to a corporate wireless network (one that uses EAP for security) is enough, if you are running a vulnerable version of Android. However, it is unlikely (don't quote me on this!) that they will be able to retrieve anything particularly sensitive from your Android device with this method. Maybe your wireless connection password.

You can use a detection tool (more info) to check if you have a vulnerable system OpenSSL lib on your device. Note that, as lars.duesing mentions, it's possible that specific apps are statically linked against vulnerable versions different from the system library.

According to this comment on Reddit, certain versions of Android are affected by this bug. Worse still, some browsers, especially the built-in one and Chrome, possibly use it and are therefore vulnerable.

Android 4.1.1_r1 upgraded OpenSSL to version 1.0.1: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/openssl.git/+/android-4.1.1_r1
Android 4.1.2_r1 switched off heartbeats: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/openssl.git/+/android-4.1.2_r1
That leaves Android 4.1.1 vulnerable! A quick grep on my access logs reveal there is a lot of devices still running 4.1.1.

Some other sources indicate that 4.1.0 is also vulnerable.
It seems the easiest way to fix it is to upgrade off that version, if possible. If you're lucky, your carrier will release a new version - but I wouldn't count on it. If not, you may have to investigate custom ROMs, possibly a downgrade, or rooting and manually replacing the library.
It is highly recommended that you resolve this issue. This bug can result in the theft of data, including usernames and passwords, from your browser by a malicious server.


App can't be moved to SD Card , Option not available I've installed a app called PyDroid 3 from Play Store, but  I don't have much space available on my internal memory so i wanted to move the app to SD Card. But Move To SD Card option is available on this app.

Using Android 5.1 on Samsung J2

Check the app manifest using an app like Manifest Viewer and search for android:installLocation

android:installLocation attribute
Can app be moved to External SD ?

Internal Only
NO

Not declared
NO

auto or prefer external
Yes

Note: This is for unrooted devices
Related Google Play store asks to uninstall apps on sd card to free up space for new installations


Help Identifying Statusbar Icon Is anybody able to tell me what this supernova looking icon in between the bluetooth and wifi icon is?

Go to Settings -> Notification center -> Status bar icons
there the all icons for your status bar will appear. Find what it is.


Galaxy S6 Google Bypass. PLEASE HELP! How do I bypass the google verification on my galaxy s6 after I factory reset the phone? Had to reset the phone after an app I downloaded made my phone have a melt down causing me to reset it but now I can not move past the Google setup. When I did the hard reset I was unaware that The gmail verification would be an issue unfortunately I no longer have access to the original google account. how do i get around this so i can use my phone???

I wish the phone you are using was not stolen, you are facing Goolge FRP issue.

To solve your problem, try this workaround: Bypass FRP on Galaxy S6.


Since which Android version is exFat supported? Which Android version supports exFat, if at all? The web seems unclear about that.
Thanks!

It seems that, according to here, It's been supported since KitKat (whether using apps or not) But (as always) it's down to The OEM's discretion if a device can Run it. Chances are, If a device supports SD cards bigger than 32Gb, It supports SDXC, which has a exFAT filesystem (First Graph here)


Why does my HP 10 Slate Tablet factory reset every time I turn it on? I rooted my HP 10 (4.4.2) with Kingoroot, as I was unable to find anything else capable of doing so. It actually worked fairly well, except that if the tablet gets turned off and turned back on again, it acts like a factoy reset prompting me to enter user info, language, etc. I unrooted with Kingo, rerooted, unrooted with SuperSu, rerooted, unrooted with an App off the Play Store, tried factory resetting through the recovery, wiped the cache, and even drained the battery hoping that may kick something out.

I also downloaded Busybox and ran it and manually moved the busybox file with rootexplorer.

I am assuming that Kingoroot did something to it initially, but rooted or unrooted, the tablet factory reset starts every time. Is there something like a MBR or something that needs to be rewritten or is there a /system file that needs to be recovered?

Hopefully that is enough information to help someone get started to figure out what I did.

Thanks in advance.

I had this problem too on my old Chinese tablet. What I did was move the busybox file to /system/xbin using a root explorer and reboot. It worked fine after that.


How to remotely turn mobile data on if phone is missing In the event that I loose my phone, like what happened today, when I left it at a store, I want my mobile data to be switched on. This is primarily for two reasons:

Lockwatch will send photographs  of anyone who tries to open my phone and enters the wrong PIN.
Android Device Manager and Prey can locate the phone via GPS.

But for both these services to work, I need mobile data to be switched on. But it will usually be off and is there a way I can turn it on remotely, maybe by SMS?

The "trick" here is to employ an SMS Receiver which extends Broadcast Receiver
(for example: public class SmsReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver).

The SMS Receiver gains control whenever an Android phone receives an SMS.
I am writing  from my experience in writing 2 applications, which can notify person 'a' of the location of person 'b'.

When I want the SMS receiver to perform a specific task I send a certain code (such as a 4-digit number). If the SMS receiver receives this code it is programmed to perform the specific required function, otherwise it terminates and the message is processed as a normal SMS.

The question of sending any remote command to another phone is thus simplified, so that when such a request is received on the callee's phone it is processed on the callee's phone in the normal way.

So if you have the code for enabling/disabling mobile data on your phone, you would install it inside an SMS Receiver and then be able to activate it from any other phone possessing SMS capabilities.

I may add that in my specific application I used GPS and Network/Mobile data location functions, together with Google maps, and when my wife was in Rome recently I sent her an SMS from Jerusalem, and with about 30 seconds received from her phone text giving her current longitude and latitude, Country City and Street, and then - the real bonbon - a Google map giving her exact location at streetname level.

I've written all this because for the last 6 or so months I've been gaining an abundance of information and assistance in problem-solving from this website.

Thanks, Website people!

Avraham Reiss, Jerusalem


Stopping an app from hijacking browser downloads I have an app (EBookDroid) that automatically opens all PDF links instead of letting me download them. Is there any way to stop this without uninstalling the app?

I'm on unrooted Android 4.2 and using Chrome as my browser.

Note that EBookDroid has no defaults set. If I open a PDF with a file manager then I'm given the option to choose an app to open it with.

Since EbookDroid is open source, I took a quick glance at the AndroidManifest.xml, the pertinent information is this part, between lines 24 and 33:

<intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW"/>
            <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
            <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE"/>
            <data android:host="*"/>
            <data android:scheme="file" />
            <data android:scheme="smb" />
            <data android:scheme="content" />
            <data android:scheme="http" />
            <data android:scheme="https" />
.... SNIP ....

The keyword(s) is in the Intent Filter's category

android.intent.category.BROWSABLE
and the android:scheme="http"

With both of these, the app "listens" on the http/https both web, plain and secure and among others such as smb for samba file shares, etc, for the content links that contains the pdf, djvu and others, identified by the lines between 35 and 43:

<data android:pathPattern=".*\\.pdf" />
<data android:pathPattern=".*\\.djvu" />
<data android:pathPattern=".*\\.djv" />
<data android:pathPattern=".*\\.xps" />
<data android:pathPattern=".*\\.oxps" />
<data android:pathPattern=".*\\.cbz" />
<data android:pathPattern=".*\\.cbr" />
<data android:pathPattern=".*\\.fb2" />
<data android:pathPattern=".*\\.fb2\\.zip" />

This will explain why the app hijacks any browser downloads and thusly

  that automatically opens all PDF links instead of letting me download
  them

Why not post an issue on the same site to let the developer know about this?


Contacts lost in Samsung S3 I had my Gmail account linked to Samsung S3, all my contacts were added to this account.  I removed this account and re-added it, and found that all my contacts were lost.

When I checked the Settings it seems the Sync service is not working, and when I checked my contacts' page on Gmail I found only the very old contacts. It means that the Sync service wasn't working since a long time ago.

Is there any possibility to retrieve my contacts from Samsung S3 itself?

Sorry to say this, but there isn't any way to do so as far as I know.

What you can do now, is to simply add your Gmail account to sync at-least your old contacts.

If your sync is not working properly, then do the following:

Check that Internet connection is working properly on your phone, by resetting your mobile internet connection.
If above solution isn't working then try restarting your phone after removing your SIM card for at-least 10 minutes.
If the problem still persists then please contact your service centre for further help.


How to root lenovo A7000? I have tried to root lenovo  a7000 a with kingo root application with no success. My computer will be infected due to this method as the download page for apk file forces me to download malicious file.SRS Root claims to support this device but is SRS Root safe? Is there any other way to root my device ?

maxritz from XDA Developers has built a ClockWorkMod (CWM) recovery that works for Lenovo A7000-a by porting the CWM recovery for Lenovo K3 Note.

Here's a link to the recovery file: A7000-CWM-Final.zip

You'll need a Windows computer and Smart Phone Flash Tool to flash the recovery file. Instructions on how to flash CWM using SP Flash Tool are listed here and here.

Once you've flashed the CWM recovery, you'll need to get the latest version of SuperSU and flash it by booting into CWM recovery (do that by turning the phone off, depressing the volume keys and then pressing the power button until you boot into CWM) and selecting the ZIP update package.

You can get the latest version of SuperSU in ZIP format here: http://download.chainfire.eu/supersu

According to maxritz, you'll need to delete the recovery-from-boot.p file from the root filesystem /system as it may overwrite the recovery and undo your changes. You could do that by using a file manager app like AROMA Filemanager that works in Android recovery environment. Usage instructions and download links for AROMA are available here.

NOTE: Rooting your phone will most likely result in loss of warranty.


Can't accept pop-up for "block" or "allow" alerts in android chrome I have Moto G6 play Oreo 8.0.0 and I can't reply to alerts like approving access to the microphone.

Things I've tried:

rotating the phone to Landscape
killed the Display Over Other Apps for twilight

Edit:

I can close a JS alert popup.
And there's no problem on android FF.

Make sure you've allowed pop-ups (pop-ups from some sites may be blocked).
You can do this by going to Settings > Site settings > Pop-ups and redirects. Then turn "pop-ups and redirects" on.


How do I make my Linux PC mount my Android 4.2.2 phone using MTP? I have just purchased a new TCL (S950) Idol x phone and I'm figuring out some issue to make it visible on my system.

This phone uses Android 4.2.2 and I guess this is the cause of the issue: my previous phone with android 4.1 was correctly displayed in nautilus/dolphin ( using mtpfs )

Now I have tried to install mtp-tools but nothing has changed.

lsusb gives me that list (T & A Mobile Phones should be my phone )

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 1bbb:0168 T & A Mobile Phones
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 1bcf:2b80 Sunplus Innovation Technology Inc.
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 8086:0189 Intel Corp.

dmesg gives me this output:

[15780.855333] usb 3-2: new high-speed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
[15780.874336] usb 3-2: New USB device found, idVendor=1bbb, idProduct=0168
[15780.874348] usb 3-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=4
[15780.874354] usb 3-2: Product: TCL S950
[15780.874359] usb 3-2: Manufacturer: TCT
[15780.874364] usb 3-2: SerialNumber: FESKMRSOYLW8RKSK

Any idea what could be wrong here ?

UPDATE:
I have added the following rules to udev (/etc/udev/rules.d/11-android.rules
) and now at least adb shell works fine:

## TLC
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1bbb", ATTRS{idProduct}==”0167″, MODE="0777", OWNER="fra"

( change OWNER user name with yours )

I've written a tutorial on how to get MTP devices recognized under Ubuntu.  If you've already installed mtptools and added the udev rule, you still need to create a static mount point for your device and let mtp know that's where it lives.  Make sure you've restarted either your computer or the udev service since you added the udev rule (sudo service udev restart), and then

sudo mkdir /media/MTPdevice (call the directory whatever you like)
sudo chmod 775 /media/MTPdevice
sudo mtpfs -o allow_other /media/MTPdevice

Attach your phone (make sure it's unlocked, if you have a pin or swipe pattern).  You should then be able to see both the internal and external cards.  Note that you won't be able to open files directly from the cards, you'll need to copy them locally first.


Is there a stylus-based notepad app for Android? One of the things I assumed the Android OS could do was let me use a stylus and just record notes in my own handwriting (without handwriting recognition). The goal being that I could remove the need for a notepad and mechanical pencil on my desk.

I found that the Samsung Galaxy Tab sells a cheap stylus that does exactly what I need, but I need to know what app is out there (even if I have to pay for it) that lets me store long notes in my own handwriting. Have you heard of any?

Sparx's suggestions seem pretty good.  Here are a few more (also untested):

Genial Handwriting
MyLetter (this one seems if-y)
Graffiti for Android (very cool if it works because it converts the handwritten notes to text)


Multiple phone numbers of the same type & Exchange My company's directory uses the "Business" field to list the internal extension, and the "Business 2" field to list the fully qualified phone number. Obviously my cell phone cannot call the internal extension.

"Business" shows up in my phone as "Work", and "Mobile" shows up too, but "Business 2" does not seem to appear. Now, my phone is pretty new to me so it could be I'm not navigating People correctly.

Has anyone dealt with this before?

Moto G, KitKat. I think I am sync'ing against Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2010.

Whilst the custom fields are synched to the device, the inbuilt contact managers can unfortunately not view, or edit them. I experienced a similar problem on my HTC One.


LG Optimus G fastboot not working Alright, I have an LG Optimus G that I'm playing around with and trying to install ubuntu on. I'm following this guide I've done everything up to the point where you enter this into the terminal:

$ adb reboot bootloader

Which just reboots the phone but not into the bootloader.

when I check for adb devices:

$ adb devices
devices attached
LG-LS970-9c07c856   device

And when I run

$ fastboot devices

I get nothing. Any idea how to fix this so that it will reboot into the bootloader?

try using

adb reboot-bootloader

from the adb usage text

  adb reboot [bootloader|recovery] - reboots the device, optionally into the bootloader or recovery program
  adb reboot-bootloader - reboots the device into the bootloader


is there a way to automatize the setup/configuration of an android device? i'm used to setup computers with linux-distributions pretty often, so i partly automatized it with a shell script...
now also the amount of android-devices i have to setup/configure starts to increase and i'm wondering if there is a applicable way to automatize it.

is there a android-app, a desktop software (linux preferred) or some other way (maybe adb and a script) to set several system-settings, uninstall/deactivate pre-installed apps, install apps and maybe also set their settings.

the devices are completely mixed but all used without google-account! - phones and tablets are from different manufactures with no particular android version; also some devices run with custom roms but not all will be rooted.

i know the demands are pretty high, so i'm afraid there won't be an exact answer which accomplishes everything and therefore also answers with partial successes (e.g. restricted to special android-versions, rooted devices, etc.) or also ideas/hints in a good direction will be welcome!

this question was inspired by @gyuriscs question on Software Recommendations: https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/38977/configuring-android-phones-from-pc

There are a few things you can do.

As far as system settings go, you're not going to automate that part without root unless you're rolling your own images from source (I doubt that you're doing that and don't recommend you try). The vast majority of settings are merely entries in a SQLite Database somewhere, so if you can find the required SQLite files, you can manipulate them directly if you are rooted. This can be scripted.

ADB can install the software you need. Use the following command:

adb install path/to/your/Android/executable.apk

Alternatively, to remove software, use:

adb uninstall package.name

(Note that I said package name, and not user-friendly name. The package name is the one that looks like com.company.product)


Unlocked bootloader, not booting I unlocked the bootloader on my Nexus 5X phone. When I tried to boot into recovery mode, I get the standard message that my device isn't being scanned for corruption. I expected it... but then nothing. It doesn't boot, it doesn't change. I tried relocking the bootloader in an attempt to fix my mistake, but then I get a message that my device is corrupt. Still doesn't let me boot. Tried unlocking and relocking again. Same thing.

If I hold the power button down long enough, I can go back to the broken Android screen. The Start option has the same problem as above. Restart bootloader just shuts the phone off for a split second, then goes back to the broken android screen. Recovery mode doesn't work as described above. I'm afraid to go with "Power off", I'm afraid it might ruin my phone.

I can re-re-unlock the bootloader and go back to the "can't check for corruption" message. Re-re-locking it makes the "your device is corrupt" message again. What do I do? I'm afraid I might have already ruined the phone.

It seems that fastboot mode is working and bootloader is already unlocked, so what you can do in such a case is flash the stock firmware in the device. You can either flash it via fastboot itself or via recovery. The one with recovery is a bit safer.

Full OTA image for Nexus and Pixel devices can be found here along with the instructions. If the instructions there do not work for you, here is what to do:

Download TWRP (a custom recovery) for your device and follow the instructions there to flash it. You can alternatively directly boot into TWRP by using this command:

fastboot boot recovery.img

Make sure to rename the downloaded TWRP image to recovery.img and provide the full path to wherever you have downloaded it within the command.
Download the full OTA image in the PC.
In TWRP, go to Advanced → Sideload, and push the slider to begin sideloading. In the PC, issue this command:

adb sideload FULL_OTA_IMAGE.zip

Replace FULL_OTA_IMAGE.zip with the actual name and path of the full OTA image you have downloaded. Once it reaches 100%, your sideloading is finished. You can now issue the command adb reboot or reboot from the TWRP.

Your phone should boot fine now. Note that this would remove TWRP if you had installed it earlier. This does not locks the bootloader though.


Force links to open in the app, not the default browser For example, I get an email from Pinterest with interesting links for the week. When I click a pin, it opens in Chrome and not in the Pinterest app. This happens with a few apps and was wondering if there's a way to "open link with" type of feature.

Is it possible to force the links to open in their respective application and not in the default browser (e.g. Chrome)?

Apps can request that links be opened using the app, using an API called an "intent filter".

If the app has the correct intent filter, you will be prompted to open the link using that app, and the app will then do something with it.

This has to be coded in by the app developer, and there is no way to implement it yourself unless you decompile the app and add it in.

An example of an app that does this is the Google+ app.


Installing Google Maps giving error "Application requires newer SDK version" I have a galaxy S 3(d2att,US variant). Today I got an update for Google Maps.
But when I try to update it after downloading play store gives error as "Application requires newer SDK version".
I'm running on 4.2.2 Jellybean. Phone is rooted and using CynogenMod 10.1.2.

How can I update it? or Why it shows so?

Screenshot (click for larger variant)

Google Maps needs the correct version of gapps to work. Download the gapps and install it from recovery


How does Startup Manager block startup apps? I am using the market app Startup Manager on Android, but I am a little bit concerned in the way that it operates. Is it effectively runnning every time as a daemon and thusly keeping the apps from not starting or does it simply change the bootable flag in the apps, without running in the background?

Some research indicates that this is most likely done by revoking permissions to the apps you specify. Specifically, the app needs android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED in order to run at startup.

However, while this is the most likely situation, I can't speak for the exact functionality of Startup Manager.

Additionally, if you're concerned because the app's description isn't clear about how it works, you can alternatively use Autostarts, an open-source Android startup helper tool which controls which intents actually get sent to which apps.


Cannot write files to sd card A few days ago, my sd card became unusable. I tried to copy a few mp3's from my laptop (win 7) to my phone (Samsung S2 plus, running android 4.2.2) and the load bar didn't even move an inch. Eventually I got an error saying "This file cannot be copied. 1) Try again 2) Abort".

The most annoying part is that I backed up and deleted all files (to clean the sd card) an hour earlier, and now nothing works. I tried writing files using usb cable over both MTP and camera mode, without any results. I tried apps on the phone, and still the same error. The sd card is inserted correctly and does not appear to be damaged.

I have heard about the kitkat not being able to write files to sd card (like this forum post) but I think that is only for android 4.4. I have been running 4.2 for a while now, and have never faced this issue before. Phone works perfectly except sdcard.

EDIT: My phone actually tried to launch a software update, but since I wasn't connected to a WIFI nothing happened, no loading bar and no update was started.

How to find out what's going on

As this problem can have many causes, it's important to first figure out the real culprit. Without knowing that, attempted solutions are nothing but guesswork, and the process nothing but try-and-err. So here are a few steps:

Is it a hardware error on the card?
Put the card in a different device. It the same problems occur there, we can rule out your problem is with the device, and it's rather the card.
Is the card corrupted?
You can put the card in a card reader, attach it to your computer, and have it checked there. With a terminal app, you could try the same from within your device, using the /sbin/fsck.vfat tool – but on your computer, graphical tools might assist you.
Check the Android logs for related errors:
Our logging tag-wiki gives you some hints on how to do this. Especially useful might be our question on How can I view and examine the Android log?

The third step lead directly to the cultprit(s) in your case: corrupted files. Deleting those made the card usable again. So next, let's check a few possible causes:

What could be possible culprits?

the card could be physically corrupted.
In this case, the same errors should occur on other devices, and as well on your computer when using a card reader. Only solution for this is to replace the card with a new one, as a "physical repair" is not possible.
there might be problems with the contacts.
Here a few things could be tried, like cleaning the contacts of the card. If the same problem occurs with any card you put in your device, it's rather the device itself – in which case you'd have to send it in for service.
logical corruption of the cards file-system:
The file system can get corrupted. This e.g. happens when you disconnect the card without cleanly unmounting it first. While in such a case the same problems should show up in any device using the card, some might be "more tolerant" on errors than others. So it doesn't hurt to check the file-system for errors – see step 2 in "How to find out" for checking. If there are errors found, the same tools usually can solve them. Re-Formatting the card would be a last resort for this as well.
corrupted files on the card:
The card might be physically perfect, and have no issues in the file-system. But in some cases, corrupted files might led to problems as well – especially if occuring on "central files" Android is always looking for on the card when it's mounted (in the /Android subdirectory, or while scanning for media). If you can read the card using a card-reader on your PC, you can make a backup there and then format the card – copying the files back one-by-one until the error occurs again, and then skip those corrupted files. Easier approach is the one you've taken on my recommendation in the comments: check Androids logs (see step 3 on "How to find out"), and simply delete the culprits (again, via a card reader – as you cannot do so on the device itself, which doesn't correctly mount the card anymore).

Possible solutions

have already be mentioned along the lines, together with the related causes:

cleaning the contacts of the card
checking the card for file-system errors and, if there are any, have them repaired
formatting the card1
checking the Android logs for other hints (e.g. corrupted files, which then should be removed)

1: remark: switching to an alternative file-system type does not affect whether formatting helps, but rather might lead to additional issues – as not all file-system types are supported by Android. Which are, differs from device to device, and depends on the rom used: VFAT is the default shipping with most cards, and hence always supported. EXTFS is mostly supported as Android uses it internally (but might not be automatically detected, as it's not expected here). Other types such as NTFS or HFS are very unlikely to be supported


Installing Applications in Isolated Environments Is it possible to install (multiple) instances of the same app in an isolated environment, whereby it can't detect other apps, or read/write files anywhere else?

Yes just as the other answers have suggested. AFAICT, this mechanism is now being implemented in newer ROM versions by some manufacturers, and even some independent developers.

For example, Lenovo has incorporated a similar isolation mechanism in order to allow installation of multiple instances of applications or at least dual installation.

This feature is called Dual Apps in some Lenovo devices:

The brief description states:

  Dual Apps will let you run two separate instances of the same app.
  Both instances will run independently of each other and will not share
  any kind of data with each other, except for contacts provided you
  have allowed that.

I believe this idea has been inspired with the recent surge of dual sim-powered smartphones and growing popularity of social networking applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook etc.

For this reason Huawei's EMUI 5.0 has implemented the same feature called App Twin

Essentially for now it supports WhatsApp and Facebook but more applications can be added as suggested on this XDA thread.

However it seems its not as fine-tuned as the former as it has some limitations :

  You cannot backup or clear App Twin account data separately. When you
  enable an app in App Twin and perform a backup, both the main account
  and twin account are backed up. When you clear app data, both accounts
  will be deleted.

Probably the most interesting project on this topic now is Island

The developer (Oasis Feng) is working on a beta version of this project, and is described

  Island is a sandbox environment to clone selected apps and isolate them from accessing your personal data outside the sandbox (including
  call logs, contacts, photos and etc) even if related permissions are
  granted. Device-bound data is still accessible (SMS, IMEI and etc).
  Isolated app can be frozen on demand, with launcher icon vanish and
  its background behaviors completely blocked.

The features are summarised as follows:

app freezing,
privacy protection,
parallel accounts

As mentioned above its still in beta, and installation is via
Opt-in the open beta test on Google Play


I have less than 40 apps (including system apps); What else can I remove? I'm trying to remove as much bloatware as possible, but there is no information about some of them on Google. Here is the list of apps I'm not sure what they are for:

com.android.provision
com.android.keyguard (WHY doesn't it have a name in apps list? After removing it, I couldn't use the S2 home button. The phone has to be rebooted to make it fully removed or installed)
Input Devices
Documents (com.android.documentsui)
Package Access Helper
Market Feedback Agent (Is it for adding your apps to Google Play my apps list?)
HTML Viewer
External Storage (Storage works without it)
Key Chain (Is it for storing passwords?)
Settings Storage (Can't settings store data itself?)
Google Services

Requirement: Rooted phone Samsung Phone

AccountAndSyncSettings.apk -- NO, Sync settings, this is required, even if out don´t sync, this is because it syncs more than just calendar and contacts, it is the effective sync to your google account, required for just about anything.

ApplicationsProvider.apk -- NO, required for application installation and uninstall.

audioTuning.apk -- ?, not really sure about this one. I guess this is an automatic sound adjustment according to background noise, however I´ve never seen this into effect. If you´re feeling lucky, you can try removing it, however I´ve never monitored this actually showing up resource managers.

AxT9IME.apk -- YES, This is the stock Samsung keyboard. You can remove it, but even if you have swype, swype doesn´t have all of the keyboard layouts. I´d leave it, to my opinion, this is kind of essential.

BadgeProvider.apk -- NO, Something to do with messaging and email. Removing this causes SMS and email related apps to force close. Even if you manage to keep the program open for long enough without it foce closing, you won´t be able to send messages, they´ll just be stuck on "sending".

Bluetooth.apk -- YES, incorrectly named, this apk actually manages the Bluetooth printing rather than the bluetooth itself. If you have no need for bluetooth printing, this won´t ever be missed or will never bother you in any occasion.

BluetoothOPP.apk -- NO, this apk actually manages file transfer between phones. Remove this and you´ll never be able to transfer files. This actually includes streaming music through Car bluetooth and headsets, since they effectively speaking, file transfers.

BluetoothServices.apk -- NO, provides general framework for Bluetooth. If you´re going to use bluetooth for any reason, this apk is a must. Removing this one breaks all other bluetooth applications.

BluetoothTestMode.apk -- YES, this is activated when you need to test the fidelity of your bluetooth. You can do that by going into the test section by typing the secret code ##197328640##. Removing it is possible, however, some BT connections actually test the bluetooth to measure how much data is transfered. This way, it calculates the buffer size it needs to use, and at what quality media can be streamed. Removing it can disrupt communications with those BT terminals or you can experience fade-outs, where while listening to songs, the sound will fade every few seconds, because of inadequate bandwith. (this can occur even with this application left as is, if your BT terminal doesn´t have the auto regulation feature)

Browser.apk -- YES, removing this will make you lose your browsing ability (not internet as a whole). If you have firefox or opera for android, and like those best, you can remove this without any problems.

BuddiesNow.apk -- YES, this is just that widget offered by the TouchWiz launcher. If you don´t use it, remove it.

CallSetting.apk -- NO, do you like to use your phone for... umm calling people? This is kind of essencial, it will allow call setting to be edited. Stuff like call waiting and forwarding will not work if you remove this, as well as other stuff I didn´t have time or willingness to test, as soon as I confirmed dialpad and other things while calling had been disabled.

Camera.apk -- NO, this is the camera application. If you find an alternative one (I don´t think there are any on the market) you could remove it.
CameraFirmware.apk -- NO, this is the actual ROM (if you will) for the camera. Without this, camera.apk is useless.

CertInstaller.apk -- NO, Installs certificates for the apps you install. I assume without this, you cannot give permissions for apps to do things and access certain folders and files. I´m guessing if you don´t have this installed, you couldn´t even install root on your phone. So in short, no.

ClockPackage.apk -- YES, however this controls the alarm clock, stopwatch, world time and timer. There are alternative applications online if you want, but this seems to do the job pretty well and all under the same apk.

Contacts.apk -- NO, this controls the contacts application (the contacts / groups / history / activities tabs). Removing this will make you have to call everyone by physically inputing their number.

ContactsProvider.apk -- NO, this controls contacts sync. Pretty useful if you still don´t use google contacs sync, you should try it. In theory if you don´t use it, you could remove it, but I don´t know what effect it would have on your contacts.

CSC.apk -- NO. This breaks CSC. According to insanity, this can be removed after first successful boot, but if you ever have to hard reset or restore factory settings, this will not allow you to boot successfully.

DataCreate.apk -- NO.

DialerTabActivity.apk -- NO. This controls the dialer. Even if you have all your contacts already stored, you cannot call them without this app.

Divx.apk -- YES. This is some licesing information for the video player. I don´t really watch alot of videos on my phone, but after removing this I´ve never had any problems. If you do remove it, and have problems, post it on the comments.

Dlna.apk -- YES. This is allshare. Never had any use for it, and it shall not be missed.

DownloadProvider.apk -- NO. Handles file downloads and market downloads.

DrmProvider.apk -- NO. In theory, you cannot remove it, it will break your ability to play DRM protected files, aka, Ringtones and SMS notifications. I´ve been in the process of de-DRMing my ringtone files. I would imagine, if you don´t have a reason to play DRM protected files, this could be removed. However keep in mind all DRM protected files will not be able to play. This apk takes up a lot of memory and stays on all the time on the background. It is one of my most hated apks, it serves no function rather than to protect you from copying or editing the stupid samsung ringtones.

DrmUA.apk -- NO, see above.

DualClock.apk -- YES. Dual clock widget. If you don´t need, remove it.

Email.apk -- NO. According to insanity, removing this will break things.Haven´t tried it yet though.

EnhancedGoogleSearchProvider.apk -- YES. This controls that ability to hold the menu button for a second or two and the search menu pop up. I usally keep it.

FactoryTest.apk -- YES. Removed it without any problems. If you have ever run autostarts, you´ll realize how much of a hog this apk really is during some actions.

FlashPlugin.apk -- YES. This allows flash content to be displayed, so even though you can, I don´t recommed it.

FlashSVGPlayer.apk -- YES. As far as I know, this is the player which provides you to view the flash content through the plugin above. Removing this might break your flashplugin.

FMRadio.apk -- YES. Radio player.

Gallery3D.apk -- YES. This is a battery hog. It´s that fancy 3D accelerometer enhanced gallery. If you remove it, you won´t be able to easily access photographs though. If you want a good replacement, I would suggest QuickPic, it does the job, it´s fast and doesn´t hog memory (although its not fancy like the 3D Gallery)

GlobalSearch.apk -- YES. This is the search function on your phone. Remember the Enhanced search this above, well, that actually accesses this to do the search. That can be removed and this will be fine (although you´ll have to access the search feature by the app drawer). But if you remove this, the enhanced search will be useless.

Gmail.apk -- YES. Don´t use gmail? It can be removed, but will break Talk.apk as well.

GmailProvider.apk -- YES. I guess it is tied to gmail.apk. See above.

GoogleApps.apk -- ?. This is didn´t even come installed on my phone, so I guess it´s not that important.

GoogleCheckin.apk -- ? Same as above.

GoogleContactsSyncAdapter.apk -- YES. Syncs contacts through google. This can be removed, but you won´t be able to sync contacts.

GooglePartnerSetup.apk -- NO.

GoogleSearch.apk -- YES. This is the google search widget you can add onto your launcher desktop.

GoogleSettingsProvider.apk -- NO.

GoogleSubscribedFeedsProvider.apk -- ?. Don´t know, this is not on my phone.

GpsSetup2.apk -- NO. This sets up GPS configurations.

gtalkservice.apk -- YES. You might have this as talk.apk or gtalkservice.apk, although it´s all the same thing, it´s Google Talk.

HTMLViewer.apk -- YES. No side effects were noticed when removing this.

HwCodec.apk -- ?. Don´t have this on my phone.

IcsService.apk -- ?. Don´t have this on my phone.

InfoAlarm.apk -- YES. This is the daily briefing widget. Don´t need it remove it.

InputEventApp.apk -- NO.

Layar-samsung.apk -- YES. Layar. Seems awesome on paper. Never has been of any use in reality.

LbsTestMode.apk -- YES. GPS testing mode. Can be accessed via ##197328640##, but not needed per se.

lcdtest.apk -- YES. Removing this will cause your screen to not turn off when you lock your phone. By installing spare parts you can fix this, however if you don´t use spare parts for any other reason, that´s just replacing a passive apk for one that invades your phone on all levels. So I rather just leave it and not worry about it.

LogsProvider.apk -- NO. Lots of things will crash and force close if you do.

Maps.apk -- YES. Google Maps apk. If you don´t use it, remove it, but it is pretty useful, since it has gps navigation as well.

MarketUpdater.apk -- YES. Safe to remove but when the market gets updated you won´t be recieving the update.

MediaProvider.apk -- NO. Needed to access media files and ringtones.

MediaUploader.apk -- YES. This uploads pictures to picassa (facebook as well?). If you don´t need it, remove it.

Memo.apk -- YES. Remove it and you won´t be able to write memos though.

Mms.apk -- NO. This controls MMS sending and recieving on the phone.

MobileTrackerEngineTwo.apk -- YES. This app and the next control the tracker ability on your phone. What this does is if you lose your phone you can use this to track it down and find it. If it gets stolen, you can use this to lead the cops to the thief. Although this is an awesome idea, if you don´t live in a perfect world, it would be wiser not to go after the guy who stole your phone in case he decides to, hum..., go kill you afterwards... Besides, I live in Argentina, and the cops cannot be trusted to do this kind of job... they´ll tell you they can´t do anything. These things stay on memory all the time and really consume battery, so if you don´t care about this feature and really just take care of your stuff, you´ll not be needing these two apps.

MobileTrackerUI.apk -- YES. See Above. I forgot to mention though an extra feature this offers though. If you have these 2 apks installed, you have the samsung apps and singin (you´ll see them later further down), you can use another apk called wipereciever.apk to remotely wipe all the data on your phone, in case you are very privacy concious. However, removing any of these 2 apks, removing samsung apps and not setting up a samsung apps account before your phone gets stolen, this feature becomes disabled. Really in my opinion, its too much stuff to be worried about, and my phone doesn´t contain any nuclear launch codes. So I rely on my lock screen password to protect my data. (Most thieves don´t have the knowhow to crack the lockscreen protection and access the info inside the phone. At most they´ll get bored and might find the info on how to flash a new ROM or reset to factory settings, where your info will be deleted and your privacy sensitive stuff with it).

MtpApplication.apk -- YES. Required to sync with Kies. Do you flash your ROMs rather than update through Kies, this is useless to you then. (Updating through Kies is the equivalent of upgrading from XP to windows 7. It does the job, but it never works as well as installing from scratch.)

MusicPlayer.apk -- YES. This is the music player. If you remove this, you can still preview sounds and stuff through the SoundPlayer.apk. This can be effectively replace by PowerAMP and Winamp. In fact, if you have a stable music player alternative installed, I would recommend you delete this, since it could cause clashes and you might even get both players playing different songs at the same time via Bluetooth.

MyFiles.apk -- YES. This is the default file viewer installed by Samsung. If you use RootExplorer, this is kind of pointless. However, I sometime do things on the go and need to access things fast. I usually use this for everyday use and leave RootExplorer just to do alterations such as what we are doing in this list, so as to not delete important things by accident.

NetworkLocation.apk -- YES. This is the semi-accurate GPS simulation. It uses Cellphone Cell information to estimate your location, rather than using the battery hog GPS antenna. If you remove this, things like automatic weather location will be broken (you´ll have to input your location manually). I usually leave this on, because since it uses the very GSM network used by the phone, it seems like hitting two birds with one stone. Using the real GPS will force you to have two antennas working together. This wastes a lot of battery, and really most of the time the network location does a pretty good job of narrowing down your location. If you use GPS A LOT, I recommed just buying one of those TomToms or Garmin GPS, it has better maps, better accuracy and the very device is optimized to use only the GPS antenna, therefore wasting less battery, and not wasting your phone battery life.

OtaProvisioningService.apk -- NO. According to insanity, this is required. However see wssyncmlnps.apk to get more of an idea.

PackageInstaller.apk -- NO.

Personalization.apk -- NO.

Phone.apk -- NO. Remove this and you won´t have the dialer application. Even though your phone will theoretically work, you just won´t be able to dial out or view missed calls and stuff.

PhoneCrashNotifier.apk -- ?. Don´t know, my phone doesn´t have this.

PhoneErrService.apk -- NO.

Phone_Util.apk -- NO.

PicoTts.apk -- YES. This is part of the text to speech (not speech to text). If you´re blind, this is kind of important, because the phone will read via a a robotic voice things to you. This is also part of the Google GPS application where it will tell you "turn left" "keep right". If you remove this, GPS navigation will work, you just won´t have someone talking to you. If you decide to remove this, remove TtsService.apk as well.

Preconfig.apk -- NO.

RilFactoryApp.apk -- ?. The galaxy 3 seems to be the only phone in the world that has this. Nowhere I have seen is this apk mentioned. I have no idea what this does.

SamsungApps.apk -- YES. Samsung apps, if you remove this, you can remove signin.apk as well. If you remove this, and you manage your music and have apps via Kies, they might not work, however Kies will still connect (if you want to update firmware via Kies). By removing this, your samsung and touchwiz widgets will still work.

SamsungWidget_CalendarClock.apk -- YES. Calendar clock widget.

SamsungWidget_FeedAndUpdate.apk -- YES. Feeds and Updates widget.

SamsungWidget_StockClock.apk -- YES. Stock clock widget.

SamsungWidget_WeatherClock.apk -- YES. Weather clock widget.

SecDownloadProvider.apk -- NO. I believe this has to do with the maket, so I´d just leave it alone.

serviceModeApp.apk -- NO. Required for secret codes and service tasks, such as those accessed by secret codes.

Settings.apk -- NO. Isn´t settings explicit enough?

SettingsProvider.apk -- NO. Some Carriers will send you settings via sms or internal message. This is mostly for those people who don´t really know how to configure their phone (anyone not reading XDA ). Although it seems banal, it could be useful at some point, and some people have reported things force closing because of this

SetupWizard.apk -- NO. In theory can be deleted after first successful boot. However this could cause problems if you need to factory reset

shutdown.apk -- NO. Tells you your battery is low and manages shutdown notifications.

signin.apk -- YES. See SamsungApps.apk

SisoDrmProvider.apk -- NO. Has to do with the DRM. If you successfully manage to remove DRMUA and DRMService, maybe this can be removed as well. Don´t know, haven´t been able to rid my phone from drm still.

SnsAccount.apk -- YES. Does the feeds sync with facebook and twitter. Without this, you won´t be informed of new tweets of your friends saying "OMG! I´m at the toilet reading cosmo magazine. LOLZ".

SnsProvider.apk -- YES. See above.

SoundPlayer.apk -- YES. This, not to be confused with MusicPlayer.apk plays sounds and previews ringtones. Even though it can be removed, you´ll be pretty limited if you do, since it works a bit faster and to the point than MusicPlayer. It doesn´t genera playlist, history and has no visualization. It just plain to the point plays sounds. Even if you have Winamp, PowerAMP, cubed or whatever I recommend keeping this.

Stk.apk -- YES. You know those annoying menus your carrier offers you, you know, to inform you about your hororscope (no I didn´t misspell it), roaming information or traffic information, making you send a message so they can send you the info back? This is the menu apk for that. Don´t want to download your carrier (payed) games or apps telling you bad jokes? Delete this.

Street.apk -- YES. Streetview for Google Maps. Removing it will not break google maps, but you won´t get to view street pictures.

Swype.apk -- YES. Swype keyboard, and awesome alternative to samsung´s. It does a good job at predicting text, but not essential if you like to manually type all words out.

syncmldm.apk -- YES. Device Management. I read something somewhere but don´t really remember what it was. I deleted this accidentally while trying to delete syncmlds.apk but nothing has broken yet...

syncmlds.apk -- YES. This has to do with the Synchronize page options in the settings menu. If you don´t use it, it has no meaning in your life.

Talk.apk -- YES. Google Talk. There was some chatter about removing this breaking Gmail or the Market. As far as I´ve read, this can be removed, although I still haven´t gotten around to trying it out.

TalkProvider.apk -- YES. See above.

TelephonyProvider.apk -- NO.

thinkdroid.apk -- YES. This is the mobile version of a microsoft office clone. Removing this will not let you open .doc or .xls or .pps on your phone.

TouchWiz30Launcher.apk -- NO. Even though if you use Zeam or LauncherPro or GoLauncher, removing this is kind of dangerous. Let me explain. A while ago when I was a virgin at ODIN flashing and new to the phone, i deleted this because I was using LauncherPRO. I had also deleted something that made my phone force close all the time. I didn´t trust flashing yet, and in my haste, I decided to restore factory settings. The thing is, when you do that, it deletes all non stock apps and reconfigures the phone to use stock apps. When I that, even though the phone booted, I couldn´t access anything, because launchers also control the appdrawer. My phone was literally blank, although if was working. The problem is, if you factory reset, the settings that control your USB connection as MODEM or PDA go back to its original settings. As mine did. So I couldn´t get to anywhere on my phone and couldn´t get my computer to recognize the phone. Until I flashed it via Odin (after a 7 hour desperation overnight, and finding some miracle Samsung USB x64 drivers for mobile phones on a forum) the phone was in effect soft bricked.
If you remove anything from this list and have problems, you can factory reset or prepare you contacts and apps for a flashing via ODIN. If you delete however, you won´t even be able to prepare yourself or backup anything. I wish this upon no one, so I advise keeping this, just to be on the safe side.

TouchWizCalculator.apk -- YES. Calculator app, although can be removed, it´s pretty cool and functional.

TouchWizCalendar.apk -- YES. Calendar app, although can be removed, it´s pretty cool and functional.

TouchWizCalendarProvider.apk -- NO. This has something to do with calendar sync and seems to be the connection between the calendar app and the phone´s internal calendar and date settings.

TtsService.apk -- YES. See PicoTts.apk

TwWallpaperChooser.apk -- YES. Wallpaper Chooser. If you have 3DGallery or QuickPic installed, you can use those to set wallpaper, even though there are some wallpapers (internal to this apk) you won´t get.

UNAService.apk -- ?. I have no idea what this is, and so doesn´t insanity.

UserDictionaryProvider.apk -- YES. You know when you add new words, like names and nicknames to your keyboard prediction? This is where those are kept. Delete this and you´ll have to write like the English Academy of Words wants you to write. LOLZ and WTF won´t be recognized as words and you´ll have to write them out everytime you write them, rather than it being available to you via prediction.

Vending.apk -- NO. Part of the Android Market. Actually this IS the Market.

VideoPlayer.apk -- YES. Video player. Do as you wish.

VoiceDialer.apk -- YES. Allows you to dial by speaking someone´s name. Most people´s names when I say them, tend to return something entirely different from what I was looking for. Sometimes though, it surprises. For some reason this sometimes doesn´t work if you don´t have mobile internet activated, making me believe this actually sends via internet the recording, and an algorith somewhere in the Google empire sends the decodification back... Very ineffective.

VoiceRecorder.apk -- YES. Allows you to record your voice. Some people complain the quality is too low, however I use this as a notepad, rather than writing my to-do list, I speak them. Much faster and much easier. Don´t see why something such as this would need audiophile levels of quality.

VpnServices.apk -- YES. VPN for Android. Perhaps gMote or applications that allow you to control your phone via PC desktop might require this. I don´t , so I delete it, and it doesn´t break anything.

wipereceiver.apk -- YES. Remember mobile tracker? This is the apk that lets you wipe your data remotely.

WlanTest.apk -- YES. Tests wireless settings, via the same test menu mentioned on the above test apks. Required for OTA updates.

WriteandGo.apk -- YES. Write and Go application.

wssomacp.apk -- NO. Required for SMS messaging.

wssyncmlnps.apk -- YES. This is Over The Air Programming. What this does is if your provider decides it has a better way to configure your device or alterations to do to improve something, they´ll send you a message telling to dial such and such number. Your phone will go into download mode and somethings will be updated. My carrier never has done such things, and really I trust the guys from XDA to configure my phone way better than my carrier. I usually remove this.

YouTube.apk -- YES. Since android has limited flash support, this application allows you to take the full youtube experience, rather than having to access youtube through the browser. Delete it if you don´t watch videos.

Source: XDA


What happens to Crash Reports sent to Google? Many Android applications have bugs. These include app crashing, screen flickers or failing to start altogether.

The app crashes present the well-known Unfortunately, **AppName** has stopped screen.

But sometimes actually pressing the left button and sending the report seems like a bit of a waste of time since I never get to know what happened to the report.

What does actually happen once this report is sent? Is it known what Google does with it? Does Google pass them on to the developers of the app that crashed? And do we how many crash reports Google receives per day?

Actually, I think Google won't diagnose those crashes for individual Apps, instead they only collect those reports and present to the developers responsible for the App, and it's their business to trouble shoot the problems. Please check the official document as below.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/6083203?hl=en


How to turn off auto rotation in aide I am not able to turn off auto-rotation in aide app, i tried many times but i could not found any solution.
i also tried to find the option for rotation in aide setting but there was no option given as the same.
please help.
thank you.

Some apps enforce auto rotation. There is nothing you can do about that.

Make sure your device has it shut off. Should be a quick tile (slide down twice from top of screen) that had a phone symbol. Make sure there are no circular lines around it, and it is not brightened/bolded


How to root a Lenovo Tab M8 FHD (TB_8705F) I have tried to root my tablet using the one click options but wasn't successful.
Does anyone know of a way to root it?
Thank You,

Here is a solution that I found after a lot of research and trial and error.
Disclaimer I don't take any responsibility for your device follow this at your own risk!

Warning This step will factory reset device (delete all your data) Unlock your bootloader.

Turn on OEM unlocking and USB Debugging in developer settings.
On Pc do fastboot flashing unlock. For more info on unlocking please see here.

Get the firmware for your device using "Rescue and Smart Assistant"
form Lenovo's website. You will need to log in with your Lenovo ID
to be able to
Install Magisk Manager on your device.
Get the boot.img from the firmware and copy it onto your device.
In Magisk Manager click on Install and select Select and Patch File then select the boot.img you copied.
Copy the patched image back to the PC.
Flash the patched image to the boot partition with fastboot.

All Done!


How do I bridge Android guest network traffic? I need a way to direct all traffic from an ARM Android guest to a virtual bridge on the host.

I'm using the Android emulator binaries (built from source) and Android images built from the AOSP repository.

What I have tried:

Starting the emulator with qemu parameters to create a NIC and connect it to a host bridge (my-interface) gives a Segmentation Fault.

emulator -avd [...] -qemu -net nic -net tap,ifname=my-interface

Disabling the adbd service inside the guest did not solve the above.

From what I understand, the system uses the default interface (eth0, which is a default qemu user mode interface) for adb, which might be why I cannot replace it with a TAP interface.

Is there a way I can work around this?

you can see my answer to this post:

How to use -net-tap with android sdk emulator?

and some resulting issues that I have found:

Connect android emulator to lan


Phone calls seems to be from viber while they are not! It strange to say but it happens to me often when people call me from italy only(This probably might happen from other countries as well). They call me in their cell phone while at my smartphone it comes as a viber call.
So I open the viber calling and continue to talk to them, and I ask if they are calling me from viber but they say: - No I am just using simple call option.

I am using samsung galaxy j5 2016

Does anybody have any idea why this might happen ?
Should I check something into my phone or it has to be due to their payment plan or something ?

I think I found the solution in viber app. Going to settings > calls and messages > viber in calls. It was checked so I unchecked it because it says: - Receive regular incoming calls with viber when possible


Finding super voice recorder files on computer AFTER it was created on my android 8 I have two recording apps on my Galaxy 8 android.  "Super Voice recorder" which I use to tape meetings to create meeting notes and "Call Recorder" that records phone conversations.  When I sync to my windows computer, I see all of my phone call conversations (from Call Recorder) as MP3 and it is in the audio file, but I do not see any of my Super Voice record files.   The folder is completely empty but the app on my phone tells me I have 5 files.  Where is it storing outside the application?

I Assume, you are using Super Voice Recorder from MeiHillMan.

He has mentioned the storage location of your files in

Play Store Page

Audio recording files are stored into “AllVoiceRecords” in your SD card
  root folder. In addition to using the built-in player, you can use your device’s file browser or a USB PC connection to view, copy or share the files in the directory.
Android Application

On Windows, if you can't see your files from Explorer, and you're familiar with ADB, open CMD shell and try this command:

adb pull /sdcard/AllVoiceRecords %userprofile%\desktop

You'll find a folder called AllVoiceRecords on your desktop

Otherwise, if you want to view your files via Windows Explorer, try media.Re.Scan application to scan your MTP media storage and update its information.


Android tablet separate user account - app installed once or multiple times? Today I bought a tablet Samsung Nexus 10, it came with latest Android 4.3 installed. Android 4.2 and higher supports multiple user accounts which is awsome.

My question is, if let's say I have Facebook application installed on two accounts, does it install it two times (taking 2x place necessary) or is it efficient and it installs it once and changes only login settings for seperate users.

The second user will have to explicitly install the wanted app (in your example: Facebook) – as otherwise all accounts' app drawers would be cluttered with a bunch of apps not wanted by everybody, except for those who installed them. But if the app already had been installed before by another account, it will rather be a "fake install" (i.e. it appears as if the app would be installed anew, but it's not downloaded again from Playstore, and thus doesn't consume "double space").

One side-effect to that is: whenever a user decides to update the app, that update applies to all other accounts of the device as well.


Setting any e-mail accout in Android Can we set Any e-mail address as the main or primary account in Android device like Yahoo! e-mail account?

And with this Email Account, can we get all access to the Google play store?


Force country code on known numbers to send an SMS I've been looking on the internet for an answer, to no avail. I have a phone mostly used in France, I recently brought to the US with a US sim card. Unfortunately, most contacts were added with the default French format (ten-digit number starting by "06" or "07").

Unfortunately, here in the US, one would need to have the country code in front of the number (+336 instead of 06) for the text to go through the US network. And this is where Android shows its weaknesses.

Indeed, even if you:

delete a complete SMS conversation
add the country code to the contact, and then change one digit at the end of the contact so the number associated to the conversation should be removed from the system
reboot the phone
wait 1 day for anything delayed to take effect
change the digit back into the real number, this time with country code
try to send a text by explicitly typing in the number (not the contact name) with +33

Then, it does not matter that you have done steps 1-5, Android will still "snap" your complete number with country code, to the default one he had (and still remembers somehow), which was without.

It now comes to the extent that I especially pay attention when writing a new contact, to always add the country code, since the first time the system sees the number, so that it can never dream of removing that country code by itself.

I have tried installing a third-party SMS app like Pulse SMS, but it uses Android's built in SMS contact book, so same "snap" problem.

What I would like instead, would be an SMS app that ignores the contact book, or recreates its own from the real contact book (not the image of the contact book stored in the SMS app), so that I can finally "force" the country code onto the SMS app (or more simply, that adding the country code in the address book would add it in the SMS app, which would be normal behavior), so the SMS can be sent, otherwise, it can't!

Does anyone know of such a low-level SMS app, or of a way to trick the built-in app to finally use the country code?

Thanks!

I confirm that the problem persists on a pixel 3a. But, it is kind of reversed. In my case it is a US number and the SMS messages are linked to the number with the country code. But, within the US the messages must be sent without the country code. I find the same as the OP, there is nothing I can do to prevent the country code from being added. Delete the SMS messages, delete the phone book entries. Android is smart enough to always link the number I enter with the old entry that included the country code, recalling it from oblivion. But, it is too dumb to know that the message must be sent without the country code.

Also the answers given are missing the point. There is nothing we can do to control whether the country code is added. You can delete the contacts or edit them any way you like, the original form of the number will always be retrieved, with the result that you cannot text that number.


Low Signal Strength after Firmware Upgrade When I first bought my Samsung Galaxy S (GT-I9000) phone a month ago, it had it's factory installed 2.1 Eclair running. Despite many 'Android Market' apps not being compatable with it, my signal strength was half to full 3G signal wherever I went.

I then upgraded to 2.3 Gingerbread. My signal strength was lucky to get higher than half strength and often had an E or H next to the signal indicator instead of a 3G ledgend.

I have since upgraded again to CyanogenMod9 (4.0 ICS) with no change to signal strength. In the locations I got full 3G signal only a month ago, I still struggle to get over half signal strength with an H ledgend. The bars are usually grey but occationally turn blue.

I am wondering if the factory Eclair install had a preset setting making it suitable to work in Australia with the specific frequency bands we have here, and upgrading has over written these settings. If this is the case, my phone may be looking for frequencies used in Europe or America that arn't used here or are the 2G frequencies.

My googling has found many forum threads where people have lossed signal quality after upgrading, many blaming the carrier or ICS. Several people have subsequently downgraded to default Gingerbread to fix the problem, for me this would mean going back to Eclair. I don't really want to do that.

Is there anything I can do, changing settings or installing an app, that can bring me back to full strength?

UPDATE 26Aug12

I think I have deciphered the signal strength bars. E denotes EDGE (2G) signal, H is for HSPA and 3G for UMTS fast 3G connection. The signal bars are grey normally, and turn blue when you have an active data link (and little up/down arrows show data transfer).

I wonder if my phone is having trouble with UMTS and therefore not connecting at 3G speeds after the upgrade.

Flashing your Phone probably also changed your Modem/Baseband. Flashing another might give you better Signal.

Here you can download Modems for your phone:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1158783


how do i delete a photo from a hangouts conversation i sent a picture using Hangouts.  I don't want the picture in the conversation thread.  how do i delete just that picture, but leave all the other texts in the thread?

Leaving the hangout should block people from seeing your photo, even if you are added back. However, the other participants of the chat will be able to see you have posted a photo, it will just be blanked out.


MTP mode instead of charging with plugged in wall charger My Galaxy Tab P1000 was charging when it fell down.

I tried plugging it in again to continue charging but the battery icon now appears with a cross mark and instead the MTP mode initializes. How can I get the Galaxy Tab to charge normally again?

Alright guys, I had the same problem as you are experiencing. When I plugged my tablet to the wall charger it just showed a lightning icon crossed with a red cross, it wrote mtp connected and did not charge. I have read some forums about this problem there are only a few of them.  I have decided to reset to the factory settings, since I was desperate at this point, I did not even hope. Then i solved my problem just by checking the connection between the box u put in the wall plug and the cable. Honestly I wanted to throw it away but luckily i did not, it works fine now.

Hope this could help you or even if it does not I just wish you good luck with solving it.


contacts, backup, sync issues Houston We Have A Problem!!

I did something which I slightly regret now.. I updated my Samsung Galaxy S2 ( I already rooted it, hard reset, all works fine on the previous 2.24) it was only recently I decided to update to 4.0.4 that seems to work fine, though all my installed apps seems to have been wiped, the directories seem to be still on the phone.

Now I know I SHOULD have synced everything, but I had copied and pasted the whole phone on to Windows, I can not seem to find contacts.db and all my contacts seems to have been wiped off, again all the files seem to be on the phone aside from all my installed apps, games, etc..

I really do need help in getting my contacts to be found on my backed up folder on Windows to be put back into my android phone and I need this rectified as soon as possible, if anyone can kindly help, due to business, university and many other things with a lot of contacts that I need restored. I eagerly look forward to someones help!!

You should be able to find it in /data/data/com.android.contacts - check the folders inside there.

If it isn't in there, then I am afraid I have no idea where it could be stored, as that is the only place that app could store it's files.

Next time, I recommend syncing them with your Google Account.


Let's Encrypt: Is there a workaround for the 2021 SSL "cutoff" for pre-7.1.1 Android devices? In January 2021 all devices with Android prior to 7.1.1 will not be able to connect to HTTPS servers using Let's Encrypt certificate (Let's Encrypt blog post explaining the details)
Is there any workaround that's system-wide (i.e. all apps, not just a single app, like using Firefox) for the SSL certificate expiration on Jan 11th 2021? Assume that one has root access to their device, and that upgrading to a newer device is not an option.

Latest Udate 2020-12-21
Let's Encrypt has delayed the new root CA certificate for 3 years:

We’re happy to announce that we have developed a way for older Android
devices to retain their ability to visit sites that use Let’s Encrypt
certificates after our cross-signed intermediates expire. We are no
longer planning any changes in January that may cause compatibility
issues for Let’s Encrypt subscribers.
A recurring theme in our posts about our upcoming chain switch has
been our concern over the effects on users of Android operating
systems prior to 7.1.1, whose devices don’t trust our ISRG Root X1.
Thanks to some innovative thinking from our community and our
wonderful partners at IdenTrust, we now have a solution that allows us
to maintain wide compatibility. Critical to our mission as a nonprofit
is to help create a more secure and privacy-respecting Web for as many
people as possible. This work brings us closer to that goal.
IdenTrust has agreed to issue a 3-year cross-sign for our ISRG Root X1
from their DST Root CA X3. The new cross-sign will be somewhat novel
because it extends beyond the expiration of DST Root CA X3. This
solution works because Android intentionally does not enforce the
expiration dates of certificates used as trust anchors. ISRG and
IdenTrust reached out to our auditors and root programs to review this
plan and ensure there weren’t any compliance concerns.
As such, we will be able to provide subscribers with a chain which
contains both ISRG Root X1 and DST Root CA X3, ensuring uninterrupted
service to all users and avoiding the potential breakage we have been
concerned about.
We will not be performing our previously-planned chain switch on
January 11th, 2021. Instead, we will be switching to provide this new
chain by default in late January or early February. The transition
should have no impact on Let’s Encrypt subscribers, much like our
switch to our R3 intermediate earlier this month.

Extending Android Device Compatibility for Let's Encrypt Certificates
Installing new Let's Encrypt root CA certificates
If your device is running Android 5 and before or is rooted you can install the missing root CA certificates yourself. As far as I know the following two certificates have to be added:

ISRG Root X1
ISRG Root X2

On Android 5 and before you can simply install them as "user certificate". Note that this automatically forces you to use a lock screen with pattern/PIN or password lock.
The easiest way is if the device is rooted via Magisk, then you can install the two certificates as user certificates and then move them to the system store using the  Magisk Module Move Certificates.
If Magisk and the mentioned module is not available you can still install the certificates as user certificates and move them manually to the system store.
The installation process is very similar as shown in the installation tutorial for the mitmproxy root-ca certificate.
The followings section shows the certificate hash values for the Let's encrypt certificates:
openssl x509 -inform PEM -subject_hash_old -in isrgrootx1.pem | head -1
6187b673

openssl x509 -inform PEM -subject_hash_old -in isrg-root-x2.pem | head -1
8794b4e3

Also make sure that the copied certificate file has the correct permissions:
chmod 644 /system/etc/security/cacerts/6187b673.0
chmod 644 /system/etc/security/cacerts/8794b4e3.0

Once you have installed the certificates you should be able to browse (without a security warning) to the following location: https://valid-isrgrootx1.letsencrypt.org/


How can I make it so that any user can chmod in my fuse-mounted ext4-formatted /sdcard? I have an ASUS Transformer Pad TF101. I finally got round to rooting it just now.

Important: /sdcard is not FAT32. It's a fuse filesystem based in ext4. So it is capable of using chmod.

So that I can work on it optimally, I'd like to be able to place executables in /mnt/sdcard. (Note that while it is called sdcard it is not, in actual fact, an SD card; it is internal storage.) I'd also like chmod in general to succeed, as it causes problems with certain things in Mercurial when it fails (even when I've patched the things in the main codebase to make it work at all, a few things in Python standard library calls still break).

I presume that the problem is something to do with the mount flags, but I don't know what, so here they are:

$ mount
...
/dev/block/mmcblk0p7 on /data type ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,nodiratime,errors=panic,user_xattr,acl,barrier=1,nodelalloc,data=ordered)
...
/dev/fuse on /mnt/sdcard type fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other)
...

I'm not sure what happens with the FUSE stuff, but I know that /sdcard's contents are stored in /data/media.

Here, then, is the baffling thing about it all:

As 10126 (terminal) in /sdcard, I can't chmod.
As 1023 in /sdcard, I can't chmod.
As 0 in /sdcard, I can chmod.
As 10126 in /data/media, I can't chmod.
As 1023 in /data/media, I can chmod.
As 0 in /data/media, I can chmod.

Having applied chmod a+w /data/media, 10126 can then chmod appropriate files in /data/media, but still neither 10126 nor 1023 can chmod in /mnt/sdcard, which is what I ideally want. (Because it sorts out all the rest of the permissions so that you don't end up with fragmented file ownership.)

Also, if I create files in /sdcard, they will be owned by UID/GID 0/1015 (1015 being sdcard_rw), while if I create them in /data/media, they will be owned by the UID/GID of the user (0/0) rather than 1023/1023 in /data/media (they will still be owned by 0/1015 in /sdcard—I don't understand that but am not drastically worried by it).

So then, my question: how can I make it so that any account can successfully chmod in /mnt/sdcard, rather than just root?

I have been using /mnt/sdcard and /sdcard interchangeably in this question; /sdcard is symlinked to /mnt/sdcard.

Chmod will never be supported. That's on purpose according to comments in the source code.

Here's a reference to the FUSE implementation on Github pointing to a comment that says this.

And the original head on Googlesource (a bit harder to navigate than Github).

Even root cannot bypass it:

shell@android: # id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root)
shell@android: # touch /mnt/sdcard/x; ls -l /data/media/0/x
-rw-rw-r-- media_rw     media_rw        0 2013-01-05 17:35 x
shell@android: # chmod 777 /mnt/sdcard/x; ls -l /data/media/0/x
-rw-rw-r-- media_rw     media_rw        0 2013-01-05 17:35 x
shell@android: # chmod 000 /mnt/sdcard/x; ls -l /data/media/0/x
-rw-rw-r-- media_rw     media_rw        0 2013-01-05 17:35 x

Note that ownership is hardcoded to media_rw:media_rw (below /data/media). PS: /data/media is another story, all the regular permissions apply here, it's ext4 and root is allowed to do whatever it wants.


How to make certain apps turn on GPS automatically? Is there any way to have certain apps automatically turn on GPS when they launch (or at least prompt me if I want to)?

For example, if I use voice commands to ask for navigation directions, and GPS is not turned on, I'd like for it to enable GPS instead of guessing from cell towers.  Bonus points if it turns it back off when I close the app.

Take a look at Tasker.  It pretty much allows you to automate and set rules for everything on your phone based on times of the day, what apps you are using, your location...  You can set a profile to automatically turn your GPS on or off based on almost any condition you can imagine.


How to upgrade rooted HTC Desire with Unrevoked3 (Clockworkmod) to Froyo 2.2? I recently rooted my HTC Desire having Froyo 2.2 with Unrevoked3. Rooting was successful, however, after Unrevoked placed the recovery image, the system was back at OS 2.1 again.

How can I upgrade again back to Froyo 2.2? Installing the normal OTA update doesn't work I guess.  At least it didn't when I tried. Can someone provide me some hints on how to do so? (Sorry, but it was my first rooting adventure.)

If you have succesfully rooted the phone and have the ClockworkMod recovery image, you can easily flash a custom 2.2 ROM.

Have a look on MoDaCo for some good options. You should also install the Rom Manager app from the market for easy flashing, booting to recovery, backups, etc.

You shouldn't have to wait long before there are plenty of 2.3 options too :) (there are a couple already on the XDA forums, but these are very new so you might want to wait just a little while whilst all the kinks are ironed out).