How to keep using Google Maps in Chrome browser and avoid launching the app? If I point my browser (Chrome browser) to http://maps.google.com it automatically opens the Google Maps app.

Is there a way to avoid this and keep using the site through the browser?

If it matters, I'm on Android Lollipop on Samsung tablet.

I couldnt find the settings corollary in Chrome described in this post re same concern in Dolphin how to keep using Google Maps in browser and avoid launching the app?. Is it in flags?

The trick mentioned here works for me on Chrome 61.0.3163.98, the latest on Play Store

  open chrome and go to     chrome://flags/#tab-management-experiment-type

  Click the drop down under Switch preferred flavor of Herb

  Change it to disabled

  Click the blue restart button that appears at the bottom of the screen

Alternatively, you can use Chromer , which is a light weight version of Chrome. It has the advantage of launching browser from apps and quickly reverting to the app without losing place from where you clicked


Is there any device for convenient control of device while walking? I want to use some my Android device while walking. It is too dangerous to walk while looking at the screen, so I have modified the software I use so that it speaks and beeps so I know what is happening without looking at the screen.

It is still troublesome and dangerous to hold the device and use the touchscreen while walking. I'd rather place the phone in my backpack and hold some very simple controller in my hand.

Wires or wireless are both okay.
I don't need many buttons. Just 2-4 buttons is enough.

Is there any controller device which can plug into an Android device so that I can hold just the small controller while walking?

It sounds like what you want is a presentation clicker. This is a small device used by speakers to control slides during their talk. Usually it uses Bluetooth HID profile, and is visible to the host device as a keyboard or mouse. Alternatively, you might already have a Bluetooth game controller (such as a Playstation controller). Android has support for these built-in.

There are also wired USB presentation clickers, and USB game controllers. If your device supports USB-on-the-go, you can use one of these.


How to make fennec(firefox) not reopen and automatically load the last open tab? After removing the Firefox Android browser (Fennec) activity and reopening it again, the lastly open tab appears and loads the webpage.

How can this be disabled?
(by this, I mean that the tab that was last opened, is reloaded automatically upon reopening the firefox activity.)

background

I do want open tabs to be conserved during cycles of closing and reopening the firefox/fennec activity.
However, it is annoying that this setting to keep tabs, provokes the last open tab (which was displayed at the moment the firefox activity was closed) to be automatically reloaded. More often then not I do not want to revisit this exact webpage, but was expansive mobile data volume and time for this.

To disable restorng tabs, go to Firefox settings, then Advanced, click on Restore tabs. Select "Don't restore after quitting Firefox". It will not open previous tabs when you restart the browser.

But you said that is not the behavior you are looking for. Then the other possibility is to set as homepage a page you don't care for.  Go to Settings -> General -> Home -> Set a homepage, then select Custom and enter: about:blank (a blank page as your homepage). Click OK. Enable "Also use for new tabs".

From now, before closing Firefox, open a new tab. A blank page will be displayed. When you open the browser again, the blank page will be loaded. The other tabs will still be there.


Instagram creates a new "Camera" folder, how do I deal with it? I'm on Android 2.3.4, Xperia Active. And I have downloaded and installed Instagram.

Normally when I take pictures on the stock Camera app, my photos gets sent to sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO. However, when I installed Instagram and started to use it, I notice that it created a new folder under sdcard/DCIM and called it Camera and that is where it places the pictures I take inside the app. What's worse is that, aside from creating the sdcard/DCIM/Camera folder, it also creates the same image inside sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO. So whenever I take an Instagram photo, that picture gets 2 copies plus the third one with the applied filters on a separate folder called Instagram.

This may not have been an issue because I can always clear the sdcard/DCIM/Camera folder every after some time. But the thing is, it's showing up on my Gallery app as two Camera folders.

I thought I fixed it when I placed a .nomedia file inside the Instagram-created Camera folder. Sure, after I force reload the Gallery app, it will hide sdcard/DCIM/Camera then. But when I take another photo on Instagram, it resurfaces on the Gallery app again. This time, it only shows the latest taken picture as viewable. And the old contents are shown as broken images (see the one hilited in yellow below).

Sure enough when I force reload the Gallery app, it hides again but I don't want to have to force reload it each and every time. I know that this is just a simple problem for some but I'm really not too pleased to see duplicates of the same image showing up.

I'm really sorry for the lengthy post but I'm not sure how to describe my problem so I tried to put in as much detail as I can. If you need more info, please say so and I'll gladly add it.

So in essence, the questions are:

How do I permanently hide the unnecessary Camera folder that Instagram created?
Is there a way to make Instagram just use default 100ANDRO folder instead of creating a new Camera one AND creating a duplicate on the default folder?

Again, sorry if this seems all confusing, please try to bear it with me.

Use an app like gallery excluder. Alternatively you could do it manually.

in the folder that you want to exclude create an empty file and name it .nomedia than you need to delete the media scanner database. Go to:

Settings -> Apllications -> All -> Media Storage -> Clear Data

Now reboot your phone. It might take a while for your pictures to appear again but these instagram folders will not be there.

Instagram unfortunately doesn't have an option to choose a folder for saving pictures.

If the above doesn't work or if you want a really cool gallery app try QuickPic.


Why Google still use my localisation when I have disabled all location services? When I use google.com (usually I work with duckduckgo instead, because of privacy policy) on my Phone (in web browser), it shows me my city and country on the bottom of the page.

I have disabled everything in Settings -> Location services. What else do I have to do in order to disable any possibilities of sending my location to Google Search and other websites?

I Use Android 4.

The system setting and the browser setting for location use different systems. When you disabled those settings in system settings, you disabled Google Apps (and other apps) from using your location, using your hardware.

However the browser differs in that while you use a webpage, the web server can use your IP address to locate you (using IP-address-based geolocation). This does not have anything to do with system settings. The browser does not prompt you about this.  Indeed, once you connect to their servers, there is no way to prevent their servers doing IP-based geolocation, as their server can see your IP address and draw inferences about your location on its own.


How to lock down WhatsApp permissions? A number of friends are using WhatsApp for communication. So I'm thinking about installing it. However when I read the question about its permissions I'm asking myself if there is a possibility to lock down the permissions.

I'd like to do have a solution where some permissions are always allowed, some are always blocked and some are blocked, but can be enabled on a temporary basis (like a popup menu which asks). Is this somehow possible? Do some custome ROMs have such a feature? If yes, which?

You can try Donkey Guard the Xposed Framework module from which you can manage permission for apps.
DonkeyGuard allows blocking access for any installed application on your phone to the following data separately:

device_id
phone_number
sim_serial_number
subscriber_id
incoming_call_number
outgoing_call_number
gps_and_network_location
impi_impu
cell_info
accounts
accounts_credentials
read_contacts
read_call_log
call_phone
read_calendar
receive_sms
send_sms
receive_mms
send_mms - not implemented in alpha
record_audio
use_camera
read_bookmarks
wifi_info
switch_mobile_network_state
switch_wifi_state
sim_info
network_info
android_id
access_media
read_external_storage - not implemented in alpha
write_calendar
write_call_log
write_contacts
write_bookmarks
write_external_storage - not implemented in alpha
account_authenticator
read_sms
write_sms
read_mms
write_mms
network_state

Edit:
Alternative Module : Xprivacy (suggested by @beeshyams)


HTC Desire HD unlocked, cannot connect to 3G I recently bought an unlocked AT&T HTC Desire HD from an E-bay seller in India.
I'm using a Tata Docomo Sim on the device. Although having subscribed to 3G data, I am not able to use it. Can anyone help me with how I can configure and use 3G with my mobile?

I tried all the APN settings available online, of which none worked. I am able to just use the EDGE (2G) network, which is too slow. Hope someone helps me to connect 3G on HTC Desire HD for Tata DoCoMo India.

Regards,
Praveen

AT&T uses 3G frequency bands 850 MHz and 1900 MHz.  From what I can tell from the phones they sell, Tata Docomo uses the 900 MHz and 2100 MHz 3G bands.  They're not intercompatible.  Most often when you buy a US phone for use outside the country you'll want the T-Mobile version. Or a quad-band or 5-band phone which would eliminate the problem altogether.


Set default mail application on Samsung Continuum? I recently picked up the Samsung Continuum (love the phone!). The ticker is awesome except that it launches the default mail application when I click the mail icon. I don't mind the mail application but I much prefer the Gmail application.

I've noticed that it will launch whatever default application is set. The problem is I can't seem to change the default mail application. The Mail app is not listed in the Applications list, so I can't use it to "Clear Defaults". I've also tried the DefaultApp application and that doesn't list the application either.

Any ideas? Many thanks in advance!

If it doesn't allow you to clear defaults, you may be out of luck as that more than likely means Samsung hardcoded what is used to open the message.


Unable to upgrade ROM [status 7] and Failed to verify whole-life package i am having an issue upgrading my Serioux S800TAB to android 4.2.2: i get an error: status 7. I have googled the error, and done what the tutorial said, but now i have the error "Failed to verify whole-life package". Any tips on how can i make the ROM work?

You can't just download any ROM and remove the asserts from the manifest. That is a sure fire way to brick your device. You need to find a ROM that is compatible with your device.

The status 7 error is there because you are installing a package that doesn't match the hardware you are trying to install it on. It is a safety measure. The guide for deleting the asserts from the manifest is only meant to allow flashing the file in an older recovery that doesn't recognize the asserts in the manifest. When doing this you have to be absolutely sure that you are installing on the proper device.  If you delete the asserts and install on an incompatible device, it may fail still or it could flash, rendering your device useless.

Find a proper ROM for your device and install that. Don't just pick one unless you want to brick your device.


Log into WiFi network on Android Wear Android Wear has a new feature where you can connect to WiFi and get notifications even while away from your phone.  If the WiFi network is secure, then it uses the login credentials last used on your phone. However, some WiFi networks aren't secure, but before you use the network, you must log in from a browser, such as at public places like cafes or hotels.

How can I do this from my watch, since these credentials are not saved for use on wear?

This limitation has been discussed in reviews, and is mentioned directly in Google's Help page about it

  Note: Your watch cannot connect to Wi-Fi networks that take you to a page before you can connect (for example, Wi-Fi networks at places like hotels or coffee shops).

It is simply not possible at this time with standard Android Wear.

XDA Developers does detail a way that they claim works, if rooted, to achieve this, but it's a lot of extra steps, and won't work for devices such as the Moto 360 that don't give you access to ADB. Presumably custom ROMs could build something in to support this as well, but I've seen none at this time.


What do the numbers and letters in the Samsung Firmware mean? There are three sets of numbers and letters in the Samsung firmware zip names I'm seeing,

G930FXXU2EREM_G930FOJV2ERE8_TUR.zip

What do the different sets mean,

G930FXXU2EREM
G930FOJV2ERE8
TUR

For older Samsung ROMs which used a shorter convention see this question.

The info of this exact firmware is shown on this page.

As written, G930FXXU2EREM is the PDA version, and G930FOJV2ERE8 is the CSC version. PDA represents the "core" OS build, while CSC - "Consumer Software Customisation" or "Country Specific Code" (didn't find an official explanation of the acronym) - represents the region-specific customizations. The two, along with "Phone" (baseband), provide tailored experience for the region (TUR) such as available language, preloaded apps, optimized cellular performance and battery consumption, etc.

As for the naming convention of the string itself, I've explained that in a previous answer of mine, but it needs to be expanded to cover new fields in modern Samsung devices. Let's take your string G930FXXU2EREM for example:

G930F is obviously the model number;
XX is for country/region (XX itself means Europe or international);
U2E is the bootloader version, which you should never attempt to downgrade (this is in turn explained here);
REM are the release date and version (within same month): R for year (Q for 2017, R for 2018, etc.), E for month (A for January, E for May, etc.), and M for within-month revision.


what is the advantage of using the GPU rendering options in Android? Here is a screenshot:

Will it speed up my device to enable the two GPU options?

Force GPU rendering and Disable HW overlays are discussed in Can anyone explain all these Developer Options?, which see. The former basically makes no difference unless you have a very old phone, because all the 2D canvas rendering is done on the GPU on most phones anyway.

The latter won't make any difference in speed but will probably use more battery power if you turn it on. Many phones have a hardware overlay built into the display controller. This is a simpler piece of hardware than the GPU, but it can only do simpler operations. In the simple screen composition cases, the hardware overlay is used, and this uses less power than doing these simple operations on the GPU. Only in more complex cases (such as while window animations are happening) does the full power of the GPU need to be used. Turning this option on will make the phone use the GPU all the time, even in easy cases, which burns more battery power. It's only useful for system integrators to debug Android on their hardware.

Show GPU view updates and Profile GPU rendering are useful for app developers to learn how efficiently their apps are using the GPU. They make extra information available, which costs a little power (but probably not enough for you to notice). They won't make anything go faster.


How do I prevent connections? When on my home WiFi network (or really any open network), when the WiFi drops or lags my phone automatically connects to my sister's phone (or that oepn network's 4G/5G alternative).

For example:

Our WiFi name is NetGear77. When it kicks me off NetGear77 due to instability or not loading fast enough, it forces me to connect to NetGear77-5G, which is my sister's phone.

My question is, how can I stop my phone from connecting to the other network when the WiFi lags or drops? It is weird when I can see my sister is searching up stupid crap like Twilight. I already have mobile data turned off, but I don't think it does anything.

Remove your sister's WiFi network from your list of APs.

Settings-> WiFi
Long press the network name, which should be "NetGear77-5G"
Select "Forget Network".

Also your sister probably should not be running a WiFi access point all the time. This will reduce her battery life, among other security issues.


WhatsApp not prompting to restore from Google Drive backup Transferring WhatsApp from a Samsung S7 to a Samsung 10e.
Backedup to Google Drive as per instructions, 174mb of backup exists

Setup WhatsApp on the new phone (same number, SIM swapped over etc) and it doesn't prompt me to restore the backup.

Backup exists, I can see details if I go to Settings>Chats>Chat Backup, but I can't see any way to make it use that backup.  (I'm assuming if I click Backup, it will backup current state, not restore??)

How do I get it to use the backup it knows exists?

I'm assuming if I click Backup, it will backup current state, not restore??

Yes, don't tap backup. You will lose your entire backed up data. Also disable auto backup until the problem is solved.

Try reinstalling the app. This often helps.


How to zoom in and out using bluetooth mouse? We zoom in and out using two fingers in an android app such as PDF viewer or map. If I use a bluetooth mouse, how can I do this?
The wheel does not seem to work for this purpose.

In many apps, if you click with the left button once and then click again and hold it down, you should be able to zoom in and out while dragging the mouse up and down.


Weird folder keeps appearing in the internal memory I have a Redmi Note 3 Pro handset (2 years old) in which I am using AOSP Custom ROM (Android 8.1). For last 1 year, a weird empty folder is getting created randomly on my internal memory. I generally delete it if I notice it, but it again appears after few days. It does not do any visible harm in my device, but I want to know who is creating this folder and find out if their is any harmful process running all the time.

Throughout the last year, I have wiped my system, data, cache, delvik-cache partition several times for flashing different Custom Rom. But this folder never left me. Is their any way to monitor the internal memory to find out who (which app) is creating this folder when it will do the same next time? Or is there any system-log where I can find it out ? I have Root-access on my mobile and I can confirm that I have never given a suspicious app root-access. Most importantly, this folder is popping up from the time when I used to have my Stock MIUI Rom and no root access.

Here is a Screenshot with the concerned folder marked.

It looks like the folder which many developers use to store the image cache while parsing a json.

As can be seen from the folder name, the folder was introduced in some sort of tutorial or demo given to the developers who are trying to parse json in their apps. However, the takers of the tutorial continued to use the same code in their apps.

There's nothing to worry about this folder. It is just for caching the images and I believe it makes room in a number of Android apps.


Jelly Bean OTA Update failing on Nexus S ("assert failed") I've got a Nexus S phone. It was never rooted or modified. It currently runs the most recent version of Ice Cream Sandwich (that was installed as an Over The Air update, without any issues).

Couple of days ago I received a notification from my phone about Jelly Bean upgrade being available. Unfortunately every time I try to install it there is a problem. The phone reboots and starts the upgrade process, but after about 30 seconds it stops and displays an image of a red triangle with an exclamation mark. When I press power+volume up to see what happened, this is the message it displays:

  Finding update package...

  Opening update package...

  Verifying update package...

  Verifying current system...

  assert failed: apply_patch_check("/system/etc/gps.conf", "[random letters and numbers - probably a hash]", "[different combination of random letters and numbers]")

  E:Error in /cache/9ZGgDXDi.zip

  (Status 7)

  Installation Aborted.

I tried "wipe data / factory reset" and "wipe cache partitions" options, but the issue persists.

Hurrey!

After quite a bit of research I am now able to answer my own question. I was able to clean install Jelly Bean (in opposite to the usual method of upgrading) using official images posted by Google. This obviously solved the issue.

Here are my instructions how to do this.


Where are all the statusbar icons stored so that I can change them? I have a rooted phone and would like to change my ugly status icons to the ICS ones...

I used this app to do so but I could change only the battery icon. When I wrote to the developer, he replied that the icons do get replaced but my phone is still using the old ones from another location where they might be stored too as backup or something I guess.

How do I find this alternate place where they are stored?

Is there a fixed predefined place for it?

Here is a snap of the reply from the developer -

" Changing icons and files in your system is something that Android was never meant to be capable of doing and because of this it makes it difficult to work on every Android device. The themes and icons provided in the app were pre-created and meant to work on the majority of devices. The app searches your system for matching icons and if no icons match in your system it does it’s best to find the best match. You can see what icons will be changed when you go to install a theme or icon pack.

Even after the icons are changed the theme might not work with your system. Many devices have unused icons used in other devices. On many of the problems we hear about the icons actually did change but your system used icons from a different location. If you have the T-Mobile Theme Chooser and are using a theme or your system is using icons from a different location then the theme will not work. Also, if your device isn’t deodexed the theme will not work. "

Edit

I read about odex and deodex from here. Can I install only the deodexed file of the statusbar instead of the complete rom? and how do I deodex it?

The Status bar icons are found in SystemUI.apk  which is placed in /system/app/ folder. Use APK tool guide and decompile the SystemUI.apk file and follow this guide to make some mods as you wish.

I have used this apk to change the signal icons, mobile data icons (H, E etc), Battery 1% Modification etc.


How do I unpair a device? I'm using Android 4.2. I paired with it once and never want to again and it constantly tries to connect with my phone sucking up the power and not allowing my headset to connect.

How do I unpair it?

You just go to Settings, Bluetooth, and delete the device.


Screen resolution on Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 If I understand this answer correctly, then the Nexus 7 (7" screen at 1280x800) should show more of a given webpage (or of anything else) than the Nexus 4 (4.7" screen at 1280x768). This means that a Nexus 7 will not simply look like an enlarged Nexus 4? It will appear to have a higher resolution, because of the "dp" value mentioned in that post?

I have a handset similar to the Nexus 4 and am considering a Nexus 7. However, if the Nexus 7 will appear as a larger version of my current handset (that is, what I see on screen at the moment will still appear on a full screen on the Nexus 7), then the purchase may not be worth it.

How the webpage is displayed depends on your choice of brower and your settings. Chrome on my devices by default displays webpages by width in desktop mode, so I see the same content horizontally on my phone and Nexus 7. But I'd say the web browsing experience on Nexus 7 is much better than on a phone due to the large screen, you can definitely see more on the Nexus 7 (vertically).

Source: I have an original Note (larger screen than Nexus 4) and Nexus 7.


My s6 does not have a USB icon Trying to move a photo album from my S6 phone to my HP computer. I asked computer for help and it told me to go to drop down bar on my phone and hit the USB icon. There isn't one there. I went to settings and could not find it there either. All I really want to do is move some photos from my phone to Shutterfly. Can anyone help me?

First, you need your phone to be connected to your computer
If the icon still doesn't appear, go to settings, storage and after hitting the 3-dot menu you should see a USB mode button


Htc one m7 International not recognized in adb mode I have an htc one m7 running bootloader hboot 1.56.
I unlocked the bootloader via htcdev.com
The bootloader now shows Unlocked
My phone is recognized in adb when the phone is turned on.
But when i go into the bootloader and get into the fastboot mode, the command "adb devices" returns blank in the command prompt.

I have reinstalled the htc drivers thrice already. Twice using the latest version of HTC Sync Manager and once separately from a link on xda.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
Can somebody tell me where I might have gone wrong?

P.s. - Running windows 7 x64

You don't use adb to connect to a device when it's in the bootloader menu: you need to use the fastboot command instead. That's why it's called "fastboot mode"! Not all phones support fastboot: in particular, older HTC phones use a proprietary protocol called HBOOT instead, but I think the newer ones support fastboot.


My phone is going silent every day at 08.00 PM. Can't disable I have Android 4.4.4 and once (or maybe after playing with settings) it started to go silent at 08.00 PM every day. And morning it is going back (usually I am doing it manually earlier). In settings this is disabled.

I can't disable it and it is very annoying, I miss many calls.

Is there any way to disable it, using some terminal commands? Thanks

See below link for "Do Not Disturb" feature on your phone:

https://www.google.com/amp/www.pcworld.com/article/2857736/shhh-3-ways-to-keep-your-pre-lollipop-android-phone-quiet.amp.html


How can I configure an OBD ELM327 cable to work with an ICS tablet? I bought an OBD ELM327 USB cable in order to use it with Torque Pro since Ice Cream Sandwich USB host capabilities and the Torque website claims that it works. The problem is that when I connect the OBD adapter to my tablet it simply doesnt do anything, but I expected the choose application window to pop up. I downloaded a usb device app and I can see that it is connected, but it doesn't recognize it. How can I configure it so when I connect it the choose app window pops up?

I have the kyocera event that also runs Ice Cream Sandwich and in turn is rooted... ...using kernel tuner(very old version) I saw it as well and tired it myself, it did work for about a minute then a portion of the system went bad and restarted. After it restarted the option was no longer visible in the app. In conclusion the option is there but full OTG  support is not. If you still want the support for OTG it may be best to flash a custom kernel.


Will installing CM9 on Xperia PLAY, lose its Playstation power? I want to know that if I install CM9 on my Xperia PLAY will it lose its ability to play Playstation games or the games which uses D-pad controls & X,O controls?
How will it affect performance? What are the advantages and disadvantages of CM9 on Xperia PLAY?

Apparently this post suggests that the proximity sensor and touchpads currently don't work with CM9.  this may be fixed in a later release, but I'd hold off for the moment.


How to connect to multiple devices at the same time using adb? Things I'm using:

PC: MacBook Pro (Late 2013), OS X Yosemite version 10.10.4
USB: ORICO H7928-U2/U3 USB 3.0
Smartphones: LG G4, Samsung Galaxy Note 2
ADB version: 1.0.32

I'm trying to connect multiple devices and run at the same time under Eclipse IDE by using ADB, but when I connect two devices, one device status is offline or not listed.

Connection status:

pc right usb port ---------- usb hub ---------------- LG G4
                            └--------------------- galgaxy note2
Command line in terminal:

nice7285@SJLIMsMacBook13:/Applications/adt-bundle-mac-x86_64-20140702/sdk/platform-tools$ ./adb devices
adb server is out of date.  killing...
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached
LGxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    device

Output when disconnecting all devices from USB hub and reconnecting them:

nice7285@SJLIMsMacBook13:/Applications/adt-bundle-mac-x86_64-20140702/sdk/platform-tools$ ./adb kill-server
nice7285@SJLIMsMacBook13:/Applications/adt-bundle-mac-x86_64-20140702/sdk/platform-tools$ ./adb devices
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached
Galaxyxxxxxxxxxxx    device

or

nice7285@SJLIMsMacBook13:/Applications/adt-bundle-mac-x86_64-20140702/sdk/platform-tools$ ./adb devices
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached
LGxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    offline
Galaxyxxxxxxxxxx    offline

What is best way to connect to multiple devices simultaneously?

This is one example, you have to make the split, it's doesn't seem to be an option,

root@kali:# adb devices
List of devices attached
4fddcdd8054fc421        device
5cf4b0890675d95c        device

root@kali:# export DEVA=4fddcdd8054fc421 && export DEVB=5cf4b0890675d95c

root@kali:# adb -s $DEVA shell uname -a && adb -s $DEVB shell uname -a

Linux localhost 3.4.0-Mina-my-love-53x--gae7828f #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun May 31 00:41:26 EDT 2015 armv7l GNU/Linux
Linux kali 3.4.0-Mina-my-love-33x--gdba1771-dirty #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Aug 6 18:05:16 EDT 2015 armv7l GNU/Linux
root@kali:#

Export a variable for each device serial.
adb -s $VAR1 shell <command> <options> && adb -s $VAR2 shell <command> <options>

Note this is done without a hub. It might be the hub throwing things off?

Also apparently you dont need to && when exporting/echoing variables

root@kali:# export DEVA=4fddcdd8054fc421 DEVB=5cf4b0890675d95c
root@kali:# echo $DEVA $DEVB
4fddcdd8054fc421 5cf4b0890675d95c


Brand new S4 randomly restarting Is there any known reason why my 5 day old S4 would be randomly restarting? It doesn't appear to be a heat problem, its usually around 33 degrees (celcius) and more often than not, its idle. I only know its restarted because I hear the startup tone in my pocket.

I'm not sure how to even begin to troubleshoot this.

Thanks,

Christian

As you didn't root or install any custom Rom, this leaves one the apps you've installed as a possible cause. If you contacted Samsung support, they probably would recommend a factory-reset to rule out software issues as well, so this is a working approach.

Yes, a factory-reset would delete all data and the apps you've installed. You might wish to take a look at our factory-reset tag-wiki and its most frequented questions for details. If a factory-reset indeed solves your issue, start re-installing your apps one-by-one with enough time to check in between.

See also our backuptag-wiki for hints on how to save your data. Helium - App Sync and Backup might come in handy here, as it allows you to backup apps and their data, and even restore them separately (one-by-one) in an easy way.

Of course, if you can live with the current state a little longer, you might want to wait for alternative answers first, so maybe a factory-reset is avoidable after all. If you want to use this approach, you find an appropriate item in your device's settings, as well as in the recovery menu. Again, you'll find more dtails via the mentioned tag-wiki.


Play Store icons and downloaded app icons, same or different I have a quick question regarding app icons. My question is are the icons that are displayed in the play store (the icons you see or click to go to the description of the app before you download) different then the app icons that appear on my home screen after I download and install the app? Or can the two icons, Play Store icon and phone (after download and installation) icon be different? So basically what I'm asking is can the developer use two different icon images, one for Play Store and one as the app image that appears on my phone after I have downloaded and installed the app?

Icons are also provided by your icon theme. But for convenience both kept nearly similar.
Yes, it is possible to keep two different icons. But, that will create confusion to your user. I can cite you an example of an app. This app is SuperSu. It can change up to 7 icons ( including 1 invisible ) if a user opts.
You can also change app icons by using some app that replaces icon from the app and from your system. For an example see this app.
You can also follow this tutorial to change the icon.


HTC Dream - Upgrade Android OS and driver for 64-bit Windows 7 Home I have just bought an unlocked HTC Dream G1 android cell phone. It has Android 1.5 installed. Can someone guide me as to how to upgrade to Android 2.X series? Also, which android 2.X OS would be the best choice? I have heard Android 2.2 is best for this cell phone compared to Android 2.3 or 3.0.

Also, I have been unable to find drivers for this cell phone to connect my micro-SD memory card in cell phone to my Windows 7 Home 64-bit OS. I believe the problem is because I have a 64-bit OS. Where can I find the drivers?

Thanks in advance.

The Google USB Drivers that come with the android SDK will work for that device. Your best bet is to install a version of CyanogenMod 5 or 6.x. But keep in mind, that device is a dinosaur. It does not run android 2.x well at all, especially compared to the specs of current devices.

I had CyanogemMod 6 on my ADP1 (HTC Dream/G1) and, while it worked, it was extremely slow. Also, the CyanogenMod team no longer even officially supports that device. The "old" CyanogenMod thread on XDA is here. I am not sure if it still has download links or not.


What does "Service google play" application actually do? First of all "Service google play" (in Russian "Сервисы google play") is not play market appication which is used to download and install applications from play market. So what is the problem with it? I spot that "Service google play" (in Russian "Сервисы google play") took about 100Mb (for strange searching data) and cleanuping application data does not help - after several minutes they are magically restored. I wonder - can  it be safely removed (or disabled) from phone? Or it is a system important process?

Note

It probably good to provided a link to google play, but I can not find that service (may be english name is different) in play market.

Added to the exaggerated "Apps may not work if you uninstall Google Play services" from the app's description (see e.g. the answer of SuperThomasLab):

Many apps found on Google Play depend on this, but by far not all. Apps e.g. from F-Droid mostly can live without it. One can think of Google Play Services as kind of "shared library" for "many things Google".

When using a custom ROM without GApps, it can e.g. be substituted by migroG GmsCore – I've just done that on one of my devices :) microG GmsCore, as the name-part "Core" suggests, offers the essential services many apps rely on – but without all the overhead Google's app ships with. So it should be much less aggressive towards the device's resources. Please see the linked XDA thread for details and up-to-date information – which also gives you ideas on what Google Play Services does:

Ads/Analytics API: will not be covered by microG
Auth API: authentication with Google's services. Covered by microG
Cast API: in the works (microG is still young :)
Drive API: Google Drive stuff (not yet in microG)
Fitness API: not (yet) in microG
Games API: not (yet) in microG
Cloud Messaging API: fully functional in microG
Location Provider API: fully functional in microG
Geofencing API: not yet supported in microG
Maps API: partly implemented in microG (work in progress)
Plus API: minimal support with microG
Wearable API: work on this has just started in microG

From this list you can get an idea what Google Play Services include. And from the "state" mentioned toward them for microG, you should see why it's more lightweight. I for one hope that, if implemented at all, Fitness + Games at least go to a separate app which one only need to install when needed; I don't need that, so for me it would be bloatware :)


Battery settings seem to be missing in Cyanogenmod 13 I use Cyanogenmod 13 on my Oneplus One. When I try to access my battery settings to view the usage graph, the settings app crashes with

[CRASH] com.android.settings threw android.content.res.Resources$NotFoundException

Since I don't find many results for this on the web, I assume I'm alone with that problem. How can I further debug and ideally fix this? Is there any possibility to re-upload the missing resource through ADB?

I encountered the same problem. Turned out it was caused by the theme I was currently using.
You can try resetting to the default Hexo theme from the Themes app.


SuperSu doesnt show up on TWRP I installed TWRP successfully. On my phone i downloaded the SuperSu Zip. When i click install on TWRP it doesnt show up. Can Anyone tell me what to do to make it show up.

Info:
-Phone = J7 (2016) j700T
-NETWORK T-Mobile

You are probably using the wrong version of TWRP. Many links for the J700T are posted in the forums and it took me a while to get a developer to give me the correct link.

For Twrp, flash TWRP-3.0.2.0-J700T with ODIN.
Put SuperSu on the internal SD if you have to, but TWRP should be able to read the external SD.

My source is this thread on XDA Developers. Afterwards, go to page 1 for detailed instructions on installing SuperSu and enabling Data partition backups in TWRP. (Hint: you need to backup your apps with Titanium Backup before formatting your Data!)


Can contact information from my lock screen be available without a password on startup? I just got a Samsung Galaxy S9 with Android 10. In my current configuration, I have observed this rough state machine as it starts up.

The Settings > Lock screen > Contact information is a great feature. However, I see no way to ever see that message in any of the grey states without the password. Is it possible to configure Android so that the contact information is accessible from any state, or at least from powered-off or out-of-battery, without disabling all security features?

The July 1, 2020 security update also adds the contact info in the state "Your phone is encryted . . . " Simply downloading and installing this 1GB update makes all of the state machine blue.


Acer liquid e600 won't start after rooting I have a problem with my smart phone Acer Liquid e600.

I followed a procedure to gain root access in my phone, during the procedure, the phone was restarting twice, then it shut down and couldn't start, and my PC doesn't recognize my phone anymore.

I tried to press both volume and the on/off button simultaneously for 10 seconds to start the safe mode but I failed to do that as well.

Can you show me how to do a flash or a recovery to restore my phone?

Try pressing Volume up and power button at the same time for 15 seconds.


Photos/Media/Files and Full Network Access Does anything stop an application with Photos/Media/Files and Other ("full network access" and "run at startup") permissions from simply uploading ALL of your photos and videos to some stupid server they control?

Is it access to store and read their own photos/files, or total access to everything on the phone? Does it matter if it's on an SD card or internal storage?

If an app has access to your data and the Internet, there's actually nothing to keep it from doing such things indeed. But if it did, it probably won't go unnoticed (as it would use bandwidth for that, someone surely would have noticed). Which is one reason one should prefer apps already used by many people, and from a trustworthy source.


How can I unroot OG Droid Gingerbread to latest stock firmware I want to unroot my Motorola Droid from CyanogenMod 7 RC (Gingerbread 2.3.3) to the latest version of stock Froyo.

I've been told there's some complications that can happen because of the new file system used (ext4 instead of yaffs).

Are there any instructions on the internet on how to do this? Reading all these unroot instructions are confusing. So many different ways and some don't seem to work.

I was going to post a complete answer, but this XDA thread has everything I was going to say and it would take me too long to reproduce it :P.  This post is basically a shortened version of the other, if you prefer that, but it seems you'd prefer more detail.


Whatsapp: Continous loop of messages backup and no text box to type in Samsung S10 Gentlemen,

Two problems I'm facing in WhatsApp in Samsung S10 (fully updated)

1- Whenever I open WhatsApp settings, a message appears "backing up your messages" once it is completed and I try to go back to chats and starts again and again for 3 to 4 times then I can come back. (Backup settings: Never and not able to link it to any google account)

2- In any chat, the text box at the bottom is hidden and I cannot type anything, the only way around is to reply to someone then hold the phone horizontally and then I can type and send.

This is really disappointing especially that I just switched from iOS to barnd new Samsung S10 to find these issues!

(Note: I used a WazzapMigrator to get all my WhatsApp data from my iPhone).

Resetting an application usually solves such random issues.
Long Click on Whatsapp -> App info -> Storage -> Clear Data.
It will reset Whatsapp. Now you will have to use WazzapMigrator again to transfer your data. Hope it helps


Problem to uninstall AirDroid: Unfortunately, Settings has stopped When I try to uninstall the app I got this message:

Can't uninstall because this package is an active device administrator.
In the same window I have a button: MANAGE DEVICE ADMINISTRATORS

When I follow this button I'm in Device administration settings. (normally you can reach it when you follow: settings -> Lock screen and security -> Other security settings -> Device administration settings) There are three items each of them have a switch on the side, which is turned on. When I try to unswich AirDroid, I got after some seconds the error message: Unfortunately, Settings has stopped. Also I'm not able to uncheck the other both items, but there is a different behavior.

I try to solve this error by cleaning the cash with no effect.

I like to remove the app because finally I don't need it and it consume a lot of battery even when I don't use it.

I have a Samsung XCover 3
with Android 6.0.1
and Kernel 3.10.9

The disabling Find Phone this has solved the problem! You must disable it within the AirDroid app.


Can I record Google+ Huddle chat messages? I thought they have being saved at Gmail chats like google-talk. But I was wrong.
How can I record Google+ Huddle messages? Saving at gmail will be best option.

There's currently no way to do this. Maybe suggest it on the google forums?


CAN i reinstall the system apps which i have deleteed accidently during rooting? Recently i have rooted my phone .And somehow my media storage has beeen deleted during the rooting process ans i cant play the music and watch photos .My andriod version is 5.1. So can somebody send me the apk file (the apk file of system apps can be created by apk extractor ,you can find it  on play store) of the media storage ,so i can reinstall it.
P.S.I have tried with other versions of andriod and i failed.

PHONE DATAILS:
OBI SJ1.5
RAM 1 GB

You might need to reset your phone to stock rom for that


Wipe data error - Unable to mount '/data' Sorry for my bad English.

I have a "Huawei G610". And i flash wrong rom on it.
Now phone boots up but the "Encryption unsuccessful" page shows. And just has a button "Reset phone".

"TWRP" recovery mod is installed on phone and come up after tapping on Reset phone in prev step.
In TWRP i enter to "Wipe" and select " Wipe data - Factory reset " and i get this error:

Unable to mount '/data'

I back to TWRP main menu and enter to "Mount"
But "Data" is unselectable !

Please help me how to fix this problem

Thanks a lot !

If still necessary:

This will wipe all data on the phone.

Boot into TWRP
Select wipe
Tap Advanced Wipe
Select DATA and press "Repair or Change File System"
Press "Change File System"
Change the file system to the original file system for your phone.


Apps that start on their own Possible Duplicate:
  apps automatically starting?

Hello!

I am using Android 2.2. I've downloaded and installed an application called Advanced Task Manager from ReChild. It always shows lots of applications open, none that appear in the pre-installed Task Manager that came with the phone. Besides a few that I do actually use, there's some, like the Press Reader, that I have never opened, yet today I saw this particular app in the list of applications I could select to stop.

Any idea why this happens? I normally wouldn't care too much if the device wasn't on battery and was plugged in.

Thank you.

ReChild's app is called Advanced Task Killer and there is very little reason for you to use it.  In most cases, using a task killer will hurt the performance of your device.

Android is not like Microsoft Windows.  It is designed to keep the devices memory filled and to manage that memory on demand, killing apps only when more memory is demanded.  If you kill an app, Android will start another one to run in the background and take up that extra memory.  So killing an app which forces Android to start another one and write that to memory is going to use more system resources and drain the battery faster than letting Android go about its business.  It is unnerving to look at what running and see some stupid bloatware app that you never use but don't despair, it is not hurting your performance.

That being said there are exceptions to the rule.  Android in general is designed to manage the memory so you don't have to but, Froyo is much more effective at this that than earlier versions.  I found that even though it wasn't theoretically needed, the task killer was effective in Android 2.1.  Also, poorly coded apps may go rouge and begin to unnecessarily hog resources.  It's appropriate to kill these apps, but you should be uninstalling once you identify a bad app.  As far as a list, I don't know of any.  It would change very frequently as apps are updated and bugs are fixed.

There are a couple programs that ARE going to be more effective in helping you manage you apps and resources...

Watchdog Task Manager: This app watches your apps and will notify you if one starts to behave badly and hog too many resources.  This is a good way to identify problems so you can efficiently address them.

AutoKiller Memory Optimizer (root only) or Auto Memory Manager:  Android watches how you use your device and tries to intelligently prioritize which apps get killed when more memory is needed.  If you want a little more control of this decision making process, these apps let you set the out-of-memory priorities that Android will follow when deciding which apps get to stay running and which apps get killed.

So, to sum it up and answer your question...

  Any idea why this happens?

Because Android was designed to do this, so go with the flow.


How do I auto sync files between my Android device and Windows PC over USB? Is there a software that can auto sync files from certain folders of our choice between Android device and Windows PC(Like the Camera folder or Music folder)? I am tired of manually copying those files using file explorer.

MyPhoneExplorer Look Like It solves your problem it's compatible with syncing over USB and best of all it's now ad free.
http://www.fjsoft.at/en/


Last seen time for Whatsapp contact not showing anymore Is there any reason - other than being blocked - that I wouldn't be able to see a WhatsApp contact's "last seen" time any more?

There are a few apps for Android that allow you to hide your Last Seen status. The iOS version also gives users the option directly in the app.


Looking for an app to update/sync all services on demand The problem: When I goto the toilet at work, there is no signal at all, so my  smart phone isn't particularly useful at the times it should be.

The solution: Run an app via a button/shortcut/widget that forces Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Google+ etc to update before I go so I have some reading material.

Does such an app exist?

Settings -> Accounts and sync -> Sync All (bottom left). This will sync every app that register there, like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and Google+, but not all the apps.


Is there  a way to fix the call answer delay? This is a known Android issue which has been widely reported (example).

I saw a suggestion to use Call Delay Patch from the Android Market, but some report that this helps while others report that it doesn't work.

I have the same issue on my HTC Incredible S (Android 2.3.3) and want to know if this issue has been addressed already or if there is a patch for it or a way to avoid it. Searching the web brings only complaints.

From what I can tell, this issue has been resolved with Gingerbread 2.3.5. I no longer have the issue with my device running Gingerbread 2.3.5 (actually i think CM7 is based on 2.3.7 now). From what I am seeing in the reported issue is other people are saying the same thing about it being fixed. I am not sure if your device has an update available or not though.


Nexus 4 Screen Replacement - Would missing shielding tape or double-sided tape cause issues? I recently swapped the screen assembly (LCD + Glass + Digitiser + Metal Frame) for my Nexus 4. It was done similarly to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzbfeY_xTQ

I swapped one phone out, and it appears to be fine. However, on a second phone, I noticed some issues:
 - Sometimes, when it boots up, the LCD seems fine, but it doesn't register touch inputs. At first, I thought this was a dodgy USB charger I had - when plugged in to that, it would seem to register random touch inputs all over the screen. However, I've also seen it simply not register any touch inputs when it's not plugged in.
 - Wifi reception seems a bit off - it will see WiFi networks, but it didn't connect successfully. I still need to verify this (it may be related to congestion/interference, but I'm not sure yet).
 - Battery seems to drain a bit fast - I also need to verify this, and quantify it.

During this second repair, a few things went funny (I was tired and rushing it...not a good combination)

Firstly, the battery was very hard to get out, due to the adhesive bonding it to the case. I really had to pry it, and the battery flexed a bit during the removal. I did attempt to get it into reasonable shape afterwards, but not sure if this caused any issues?

Secondly, there is some metallic shielding tape over one component, that also wraps around underneath:

I was able to scrape some of it off the top of that connector, and transfer it across, but the tape also wraps around underneath the connector as well, sitting in between the connector, and the metallic part underneath. I didn't replace this tape with anything.

I don't know if this would cause any issues.

Thirdly, there is some silver mesh double-sided tape that sits underneath this component, sticking it to the case:

I wasn't able to transfer all of this across, and so I guess I'm sort of relying on everything fitting together to keep this flex cable in place.

My question is - could any of the issues I've seen be caused by the missing tape (metallic shielding tape and the mesh double-sided stuff)?

If so, does anybody have any specific recommendations for where I can buy tape to replace them?

If I do have to replace the battery, I suppose I'll need to buy some clear double-sided tape as well to stick it back to the case. The replacement screen assembly I bought had some, but that'll be gone now if I remove the battery in there now.

Any other thoughts on the symptoms?

The chip that's missing the shielding is part of the digitizer; it is responsible for interpreting changes in the electric field of the screen and figuring out where your finger currently is, and what location of the display you've touched. Without shielding it won't work properly, or as you've seen.. at all. Get some here.. any decent RF shielding tape ought to work.

The conductive foam stuff is called an EMI gasket, and is used to isolate RF noise sources by "trapping" noise sources in specific regions. It more or less works the same as a traditional gasket, physically blocking the path. Measure the old piece if you can, or just guesstimate the size required.


How can I get an offline version of wikitravel on my Froyo phone? I'm looking for a way to get an offline version of wikitravel on my Froyo phone (Desire if it makes any difference)

I know of wapedia, but I really need an offline copy of the site... Any obvious way to achieve that? Note that the stock browser doesn't even let you save single web pages!

You can use the iTravelFree app to save wikitravel pages and view them offline.


Windows 8 does not recognize HUAWEI Y536A1 for debugging The problem: My device (HUAWEI Y536A1) isn't getting detected in Android Studio

The solution: Install the correct usb drivers

The problem that arises to the solution: I am not able to...and here are the details:

I have recently system wiped my computer due to slowness. This brings me back to the tedious task of setting up my computer for Android Studio. I have tried everything to get  the USB drivers to work in Android Studio, but for some reason, I can't update my USB driver:

Now, here is the annoying screen that always pops up when trying to update my usb driver:

My usb driver is installed:

This is pretty pathetic. I have tried everything. I even tried to go into my computers BIOS and disable Intel xHCI. I also checked, and the virtualization (VT-x) is enabled I remember when I first started Android, I had this same problem, and the solution was to do something in the computer's BIOS, but the problem still persists.

By the way, I have done lots of research on this topic, and this is a code 28, which means it doesn't have the correct drivers:

I have been on this for 3 hours now (3 HOURS!) and would really appreciate any help. How can I get my phone recognized on my Windows 8 laptop? I have done it before, so I know my phone is compatible. I remember doing something with the bios before I had system wiped my computer...

First make sure that you have virtualization on in the BIOS.

Next, make sure you have done what I have done in my question.

What I forgot to do was install the android_winusb file in the usb_driver folder. The path should be sdk\extras\google\usb_driver. In my case, C:\Users\Ruchir\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\extras\google\usb_driver

After doing that, go back to device manager and go to the install as path. At the bottom of that should be another option:

  Let me pick from a list of devices on my computer

Select your Android phone; it shouldn't have a yellow exclamation point over it any more. After that, select Composite ADB Interface. THAT'S IT.


Mounting an USB wireless adapter to a Nexus 4 Brief problem

In short I am trying to mount an external USB wireless adapter to my Nexus 4 so that I can put the wireless adapter into monitor mode to use a tool called reaver.

System

I have a Google Nexus 4, running CyanogenMod 11 (11-20140308-SNAPSHOT-M4-mako), (Android 4.4.2) I have also flashed kali nethunter 1.21.

The problem

I can't get the wireless card into monitor mode using airmon-ng. After some searching I discovered that the wireless chip-set does not support monitor mode. So the only way I was going to obtain monitor mode was to use an external wireless adapter.

What I have tried so far

When I plugged the a USB wireless adapter into the Nexus 4, it was not getting picked up. I used the ifconfig command to try to detect it but then realised that the problem must lie with the Nexus 4 not providing the 5V needed to power the adapter. So I bought an otg y cable:

After using this I could see that any device plugged in was receiving power, but it still wasn't working. So I tried mounting a flash drive to see how that would work. It turned out that there was a software limitation preventing me from mounting a flash drive as the OS was missing the OTG components.

After doing some more searching I came across this. I then flashed it in recovery mode, and after rebooting I was able to mount flash-drives. I then plugged the external wireless adapter into the Nexus 4 hoping that it would detect it but still no luck. I also tried an alternative wireless adapter but still nothing.

Wireless adapter

I am using a "wireless 11n usb adapter". I am not certain but I believe it may be a driver problem. If so, I have no idea on how I would go about installing a driver on android. My wireless chip set is RTL8188EE.

The question

How do I mount an external USB wireless adapter to a Nexus 4?

There is a very good chance that you may not have a driver problem.

There is a very important detail everyone seemed to miss about using network connections via USB: they must be plugged in before the phone is powered on! The phone must also have Wifi and Data turned off, and potentially Airplane Mode! All before the device is turned on. Some devices can get away with not needing a reboot sesh, but this is the general rule explained with BobjGear and their Android ethernet adapters.

Secondly, another very important detail, is that sometimes, you need to manually configure the adapter and its ip address through ADB or Terminal Emulator. The commands follow this format, as described in this article:

ifconfig [eth0|eth1|eth2|etc] [IP] netmask [NETMASK]
route add default gw [GATEWAY] dev eth0

ifconfig is not a typo. You will have to figure out which network "slot" your dongle is attached on via netcfg. It will list all network components in use or idle, usually wlan0 is built-in wifi, rmnet listings are mobile data, and p2p0 is VPN. Your dongle will probably fall under eth0 or 1, or wlan1 or 2.

Finally, if all else fails, you may need to find an adapter that either a) has matching (or close to matching--starts with RTL8) chipsets, or b) a (Android/linux-confirmed) truly universal wifi dongle.

If that cannot be done, this XDA post explains how to modify a Nexus CM11 kernel (your lucky day) via modprobe to enable additonal drivers. You may want to contact him for help, as his flashable kernel is specific to a custom CM11 ROM posted on XDA, just to match the checksums.

Good luck!


nexus 4, can't hear ring tone after upgrade to android 5.0 I have upgraded my Nexus 4 to Android 5.0 and now the phone bips on receiving a call but is not using the ring tone that i have chosen.
it is like it was stuck in silent mode but hen i cant find the place to take it out of this mode

Set the Priority mode to All. This can be done via the Volume Up button:

  "For fewer disruptions, turn on Priority mode via your device's volume button so only certain people and notifications get through. Or schedule recurring downtime like 10pm to 8am when only Priority notifications can get through."

  The Priority notifications offers three modes namely - None, Priority, and All. The Priority mode will only allow a few set of notifications to go through and users will see a Star mark in the status bar when in this mode. Meanwhile, the None mode will allow the phone to receive all notifications but will not alert the user. Notably, the None mode in Priority notifications even limits set alarm functionality.

  Motorola has shared a YouTube video to explain the new Priority notifications on the Moto X running the new Android 5.0 Lollipop.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRsCUUW1SrE


Asus Transformer slow charge My ASUS Transformer TF101 charges extremely slowly using the original power adaptor.

I'm trying to figure out the cause.

Here are all my knowns:

The power block (wall to USB adaptor) charges my mobile phone without issues
The power block plus ASUS cable turns on my Transformer if it is off, or wakes it up if it is sleeping (but charges extremely slowly)
The ASUS cable lets me MTP and all that from computer and tablet
I installed ICS when in April and now its running 4.0.3
The charger does charge, but extremely slowly both on Keyboard dock and Tablet (a few days to get to 20%)
It definately has not been near water, dust, direct sunlight or particle accelerators

From this I guage: it's not the power block or the cable, and the only change was ICS a few months back which worked okay (first update was buggy, but the next one fixed this).

Anyone else had this or know why it could be?

Charging via USB can happen at very different rates depending on what the "host" end is plugged into.  Generally the vendor-supplied wall charger is the "fastest" way, but perhaps something has gone bad with your supplied wall adapter.  You should be able to improve charging times by shutting off wifi, GPS, etc, and making sure the screen is off.

See these questions for more details on what to look for on your adapters:

Why is charging from computer using USB slower than using an outlet?
Galaxy Tab is not being charged through USB Cable


Confusing internal memory folder structure - Galaxy S3 (I9300) I am using Samsung Galaxy S3 (I9300) for a while now. I have rooted the device, removed the stock ROM and replaced it with CM11. Of late, I have been having Camera FCs, poor battery back up and slow down in apps (I though it was due to low availability of internal memory - 1 GB out of 11.5 GB). I tried clearing several folders from internal memory. Since the results weren't satisfactory, I decided to re-install the OS by doing a factory reset.

Now that I have done it, to my surprise, the internal memory was still not completely cleared. Android was still reporting as 4.5 GB available, out of 11.5 GB. When digging little deeper, I found that it was due to my old user data folders still residing on the phone. They were available under \emulated\0 and also \emulated\legacy. I initially assumed it would be present in my external SD card and \emulated\0 possibly could be just a symlink to it. To clear up the doubt, I removed the SD card from the phone and rebooted it. But, I still see the files in \emulated\0. I again tried to do a Factory Reset, but nothing has changed.

Though, I can just delete the \emulated\legacy folder and go about installing a different ROM. I am trying to understand what actually has happened (how to correctly fix it) and if it could happen again, or if it could be something due to me fiddling around with any OS level settings. Any explanation as to why/how the duplicate files are created and how to fix it for good, will be much appreciated.

The folders you are referring to are for multi-user purposes: /emulated/legacy is a symlink pointing to the internal SD folder of the "current user", while /emulated/0 is that folder for the owner (the number at the end will be incremented for additional users created thereafter, so e.g. if you created an additional user, his place would be /emulated/1, and logged in with that user /emulated/legacy would point there).

There are sometimes issues when updating from older Android versions, where content gets duplicated from the old single-user place to /emulated/0 during the conversion process (i.e. the content is copied to the new location instead of being moved, and not deleted afterwards). As a factory-reset usually doesn't touch "user storage" (external/internal SD cards), it offers no relief to that, so you'll have to clean that up manually afterwards (if it happens).

As to your question in your comment: If this happens, it does so only when converting from "single user" to "multi-user". So your next upgrade would already start with a "multi-user ROM", which means the same issue will not happen again (as no conversion is required in this context).


Full encryption with Android? I have an LG GT540 Optimus with Android.
How can I encrypt all my filesystems to ensure that if it gets stolen, no one will get my passwords, contacts, etc.. :\ ?
Thank you!

From my post to the link GAThrawn called out; Encrypt the phone's internal storage

Android 3 (Honeycomb) offers full system encryption natively. However, as it's only for tablets at this point I will post some other avenues.

There was some work done on this for the G1 using LUKS and Cryptsetup. I think I've seen this on a moto droid rom too, but you'll definitely need root. It is not trivial to do, and there isn't too much interest so popular roms like Cyanogenmod don't provide for this natively.

There are some apps in the market that support encrypted file stores (check out Lock Files. I have no idea how transparent that is on the system however.

To your italicized point on remote wipe. There are MANY solutions for this. If you're using Exchange you can push this with ActiveSync, if not apps like Lookout, and more provide remote wipe and other functions. There are even manual ways w/ dyndns and a listening SSH server.


Flash Android Nougat On Rooted S7 I am wanting to flash nouget onto my device, and at the time this has no documentation about doing so. What should I do to make sure I don't screw my phone and root status up? (I am not near an expert, obviously, but I like learning :P)

ROMs are not universal - you can't just flash one from another device and call it a day.

No one has ported N for S7 yet, and due to the locked-down bootloader on the Snapdragon version / development difficulty for the Exynos version, there likely won't be any until the official one drops.


How can I launch AVD Manager without opening or creating a project in Android Studio? Sometimes I just want to open the AVD Manager GUI that is reachable from Android Studio's Tools menu, but without having to start Android Studio and creating or opening a project.

How can I do this?

While it doesn't seem possible to get around having to start Android Studio, it is possible to start the AVD Manager without creating or opening a project.

On the launch screen that opens when no project is open in Android Studio, the AVD Manager is available under the Configure menu.


how to move photos to sd card on htc desire 310 hi i have a htc desire 310 and my phone memory is full and cant update apps. does anyone know how to move photos from my phone memory to sd card? Thanks

Pretty much any file browser in the play store allows you to move files. Just download one. Find the folder. Long press on it, tell it to move. Then navigate to the folder on the SD card and off you go.


Download offline map packages of OsmAnd Map on PC? I need to download offline map packages that users download from OsmAnd Map application.

Where can I find those packages on phone? or how can I download it online on PC? Similar to how it was answered for Maps.me application here: Download MAPS.ME (MapsWithMe) offline map from PC?.

Country maps can be downloaded here, and Overlay maps of antique/historical cities can be downloaded here.


VNC client with mouse capture Been using Ubuntu over chroot on my Asus sl101 eee pad slider.

Works nice but I would like mouse integration like in virtual box etc.

Any VNC apps out there that will capture/integrate my mouse so that I can do right clicking etc.?

There is a fantastic project underway called Android-VNC-Viewer has several input modes that would capture mouse movements/actions like right click.


Android: How to force an application to display itself as portrait no matter what device orientation I have a rooted device, and the device orientation was in landscape mode but some of the application only designed for portrait screen. Is there a way to force the application to fit inside the landscape screen so the whole application can be visible within my rooted device.

If you can install the Xposed framework, try the module App Settings which allows you to feed each app its own specific settings (including orientation).


What is the purpose of the SD card on an Asus ZenPad I had this issue on the Dell Venue but was never resolved. On an ASUS ZenPad, what is the purpose of the SD card if it can't be accessed? So how does one play movies from the SD card?

4.4 had a change that made all but one folder per app on the sdcard read only, but you could disable that... you should be using 7.1 anyway... why can't you access it? Did you format it as internal storage? If so you are using it, just transparently.

Is this the correct model? https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/P024_Info


Should I buy a HTC Desire or an Nexus One (in Australia) I've done some research and there seem to be advantages and disadvantages to each.  I'm fairly confident that I can physically run both in Australia, however which will give me the best experience given the mobile bands and technology available here?

The main things I'm concerned with:

Reception for phone calls - probably fine in the US, but what about AU?
Data speeds - Are 3G and/or HSDPA available?
Handset speed - specs are similar, but which one actually performs, and will it perform within Australia?

My recommendation would be for you to get the Nexus One. Though the Nexus One and the Desire both have the same 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, the Nexus One now runs Android 2.2 "Froyo" that has a JIT compiler that can execute code up to 6x as fast as the Android 2.1 on the Desire. The fact that the Nexus One is the official Google phone means that it's going to be the first to receive the latest software, while other devices (like the Desire) will lag behind or not get updated at all.

The other big deciding factor is HTC's Sense. Though many people like Sense, there are others, including myself, that prefer the stock Android UI. If you can, try and see if you can play with both UIs before deciding which one you want to buy (stock Android 2.1, which can be found on the Motorola Milestone, is similar to stock 2.2, but lacks a shortcut to the phone dialer at the bottom on the home screen).


Why do phones have default limited user rights (not rooted)? Possible Duplicate:
  I've rooted my phone.  Now what?  What do I gain from rooting?
  What does “to root a phone” mean?

I just spent half a day finding a rooting guide for Nexus S and I was wondering why root accounts aren't available on Android phones from the beginning? Being derived from Linux, why isn't it like on Linux with the root account and other accounts?

I am thinking maybe malware protection, but there are malicious software that can do harm without root account right? What are the major benefits?

why root accounts aren't available on Android phones from the beginning?

Standard android apps are subject to Android permission system, which requires apps to declare the permission they require in a Manifest file. An app that have root access can easily circumvent around this permission system.

  Being derived from Linux, why isn't it like on Linux with the root account and other accounts?

It is just like Linux. Even in desktop Linux distros, notably Ubuntu, the standard root account is disabled by inaccessible password.

  I am thinking maybe malware protection, but there are malicious software that can do harm without root account right?

Yes, for example, there are malware apps that can send your contact lists to a shady server in a third world country. In a phone without root, these malicious apps will have to declare the permission to read your contact database in the Manifest, which is read and displayed before installing an app, giving you the chance to cancel installation. In rooted phones, it is possible for an app to read your contact database without explicitly declaring it in the Manifest, by asking for root permission instead. There are many other potential security breaches that can simply be avoided or minimized by disabling root access.

Also, in some systems, root can modify system files; modifying system files can make it impossible to completely revert to factory default (because those modifications would persist after the revert). Without root, one would have to use the bootloader to flash system file; greatly reducing the risk of malicious apps installing itself in a way that will persist over a factory reset.

Shipping phones without root also reduces the cost of customer support, as the number of ways that a customer may shoot him/herself in the foot are greatly reduced.

"With great power comes great responsibility", The sudo Lecture, also Ben Parker.


Downgrade Nexus 4 from 4.4 to 4.2 I have recently updated  my Nexus from 4.3 to 4.4 . But having an immediate requirement i would like to downgrade back to 4.2 . I originally bought it with 4.2.

Any step by step to downgrade back are highly recommended.
tried factory reset but of no luck. Is rooting mandatory for this? I have read some where that factory images are helpful. Please throw some light on this and a step by step document is needed being a layman on this?

this might helps.
https://android.stackexchange.com/a/50728/39466

Pretty much details process from XDA forums
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2010312


Missing storage space in Android 7.0 Where did all the missing space go? I've deleted most of my apps, but no matter how much I get rid of it keeps saying I'm almost out. The stuff I have accounts for 3.5 GB-ish, but there's lots that seems to have disappeared. The version is Android 7.0; the phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5.

What's going wrong here?

Never seen this before!
Anyways here is the steps i would do:

1. If you are sure that the 15.9/16GB is wrong, e.g you know you haven't got that many apps/videos, then proceed to step 3.

2. If you know you have got like more than 50 apps or really many videos, take some time and delete videos/apps (of course images, otger files too) that take much storage.

3. Go to Setting > Device Mainteance and then clean everything you can (optimize the phone)

4. If that doesn't work go to like a phone reparator and check what they can do.


Unlock device using facial recognition and go to Homescreen I have a Samsung Galaxy S4 running Android 5.0.2 stock, and I'd like to use the facial recognition in addition to drawing an unlock-pattern. This works fine, my face is recognized, but after that, only the dots of the unlock-pattern disappear, meaning I still have to swipe the screen in order to get to the home-screen (where the icons are). I'd like to go to that screen directly when my face is recognized, without the swipe-part. So what's the clue getting rid of that? If I have to swipe, faciol recognition is useless in my opinion, because if I swipe the screen or if I swipe a pattern makes no real difference. So how is this intended to work?

In some of the Samsung devices there is a bug in the stock rom that forces the swipe unlock to prompt even when you have by-passed your lock screen and acts as a double lock screen. This is solved if you switch to a custom ROM instead. In Some cases you want to check the lock screen tab under the settings menu and uncheck something as Use Swipe to unlock. And select the facial recognition under the settings -> Lock screen option.

Hope this helps!!


Editing adb backup files I want to edit the contents of an .adb backup file. I found a command to extract the contents:
dd if=mybackup.adb bs=24 skip=1 | zlib-flate -uncompress | tar xf -
I edited the extracted files as needed but how do I build adb files with the modified files?
I thought of streaming the directory, compressing it with zlib-flate and generating the tar file. Is it possible?

in my opinion the preferred way for extracting such backup archives is Android Backup Extractor (abe) (requires installed Java Runtime).
It allows to convert adb backup archives to tar files and also the reverse way to convert TAR files back to an adb backup files that can be restored via adb.


Moto G Unable to Factory Reset "boot failed" I have a Moto G which spontaneously went to a white screen with a blue "M".  It will only display that screen or a battery level screen.  If an attempt is made to recover or factory reset, it either shows the blue M, or the fastboot program says the boot failed.

What are the tools which are used to recover from this type of a condition, perhaps to load a boot image which will work?

This is one of two conditions... either the ROM has been corrupted, or most likely (since recovery won't start) is that the internal emmc chip (internal storage) is defective.

You need to attempt to reflash your device with it's specific factory firmware image. Since you didn't state which model specifically, it is hard to tell you where to go for the answer. (If you update the original question with your specific model and comment on this answer, I can update it to specific links for your device).

To be honest, there is only a 50/50 chance of recovery at this point. The symptoms you describe are most likely a defective internal storage chip.


Samsung working extremely slow I unrooted my tab then did a factory reset, I then rooted my tab with Kingo Root, after rooting was successful my tab's performance became very slow. So I decided to boot into recovery mode then wipe data and cache. After that I noticed that the Samsung logo is slow. After booting my tab's performance is extremely slow, it takes time to go to the settings. So I went to look at CPU usage then I saw 98% of my RAM is being used. But the're only a few process on the list using a bit of RAM but they keep restarting. So I removed the root of my tab to see if that works, but it didn't.
After rebooting my tab it says "process system isn't responding"

Can anyone help me?

Ya one click root apps can have funny side effects like that. since you can root i'd assume your bootloader is unlocked id suggest you use a program called odin on your pc and flash Chain fires auto root https://autoroot.chainfire.eu/
first do a hard reset deleting everything from the device. then flash the appropriate version on your device. i've used chainfire for a long time with no issues.

good luck


Why would a free app be in the top grossing section? I was just browsing through the play store and noticed that there are a few free apps in the top grossing section and that's a little puzzling. This might not be the best place to put up this question but I didn't know where else to go .

As per Oxford: top grossing means earning more money than other similar things or people.

But as per google app store it may refer to :

Top-Grossing = Sum of all revenue generated from the purchase of the app + sum of all in-app purchases

It also means that app listed in top grossing lists holds people's attention for the most time. So even if an app is free but still if it is getting downloaded the most then it will feature in this list.

Also many of the free versions apps like angry birds, cut the rope etc. provide in app purchase ability i.e you don't need to bye a paid version but to access more features you have to pay some amounts which ultimately boost's apps revenue and ranks app higher in list.


What are ways of contracting malware/viruses on your Android phone? I'd like to know so I can prevent it from happening.

Downloading and installing an app that contains malware.

That is all. If you don't want malware on your phone, just don't install malware on your phone. That means:-

When you click install on Google Play (or another app store), check the permissions. If the app asks for permissions you weren't expecting, don't install it. It's commonplace for malware authors to upload fake apps that appear to be popular or trendy games or apps, but are in fact imitations that install or contain malware. Google is pretty good at taking them down these days, but they still appear for a while. Genuine software vendors are happy to explain why they need each permission they ask for, so if you're not sure, check if the app description has a plausible explanation, and/or contact the vendor.
If you're visiting a website and it unexpectedly downloads an APK (an Android app package), don't install it. Just delete the file.
Don't install apps from warez sites. There used to be a lot of 'reputable' warez on Windows, that actually were the software they claimed to be, but on Android most of the warez sites are just viruses with different names.
If you're not expecting to install apps from APK files you got elsewhere, go into the settings, in the Security section, and turn off installing APK files from Unknown sources. You can always turn it on again when you need to.

Apart from that, on Android you still need to apply the usual security precautions you'd take with websites and emails to avoid phishing attacks and scams. Check who the sender is, check what domain you're looking at or what domain the link points to. Even if a message appears to be from someone you know or an organisation you trust, it could be malware posing as them, so think about whether you'd expect them to send this message.


Are there any downsides to using a nandroid recovery? A nandroid backup is designed to provide a backup for an Android device.

Are there any downsides to restoring a nandroid backup (besides losing any changes since the nandroid was created)?

In other words, as an experiment, let's say you take a perfectly functioning Android device (yes, a mythical beast, but I digress...), then create a nandroid, and then immediately perform a restore from that nandroid.  After the restore is finished, are you back exactly how things were before you performed the restore?  Or are there subtle internal differences?  Any affect on root?

A nandroid backup is a full device backup – so you could ask the same question about a full backup of your PC: After restoring the backup, you'd be at exactly the state the device was in when you performed that backup – all changes done between making the backup and restoring it are lost.

Reading between the lines of your question, you're rather asking how a Nandroid backup works or what its pros and cons are. There were some changes in the past years, and I don't know to which custom recoveries they apply (I can only speak for clockworkmod for long-term and twrp for, say, the last year. So let me sum up:

In the past …

Nandroid backups were created as partition images
there was one image per partition (relevant partitions only, of course)
those image files were uncompressed 1:1 blockwise copies of the corresponding partitions

2012 example from my Motorola Milestone 2:

-r-xr-xr-x 1    8388608 Apr 29  2012 boot.img
-r-xr-xr-x 1      10560 Apr 29  2012 cache.img
-r-xr-xr-x 1  346287744 Apr 29  2012 data.img
-r--r--r-- 1        288 Apr 30  2012 local.prop
-r-xr-xr-x 1        132 Apr 29  2012 nandroid.md5
-r-xr-xr-x 1  301956864 Apr 29  2012 system.img

2010 example from my "good old" HTC Buzz:

-r-xr-xr-x 1    2883584 Okt 23  2010 boot.img
-r-xr-xr-x 1      12672 Okt 23  2010 cache.img
-r-xr-xr-x 1  112421760 Okt 23  2010 data.img
-r-xr-xr-x 1        222 Okt 23  2010 nandroid.md5
-r-xr-xr-x 1    4325376 Okt 23  2010 recovery.img
-r-xr-xr-x 1  213227520 Okt 23  2010 system.img

These two have been created by CWM. So you see, at least from 2010 to 2012 this was what Nandroid did.

As these were full disk images ("physical copies", 1:1 block-wise), restoring them of course meant all contents on the target lost and replaced by the backup, which was restored block-wise as well. Both above nandroids were created by CWM.

Nowadays …

… things are a little different:

Nandroid backups are mostly created as tarballs, i.e. logical copies of all files of a partition
There's one tarball per (relevant) partition, often with the exception of /boot which remained an image copy
those archives are uncompressed

2015 example from my LG P880, created by CWM as well:

-r-xr-xr-x 1   10485760 Mai 29 22:48 boot.img
-r-xr-xr-x 1          0 Mai 29 22:50 cache.ext4.tar
-r-xr-xr-x 1      23040 Mai 29 22:50 cache.ext4.tar.a
-r-xr-xr-x 1          0 Mai 29 22:49 data.ext4.tar
-r-xr-xr-x 1  650801664 Mai 29 22:50 data.ext4.tar.a
-r-xr-xr-x 1        390 Mai 29 22:52 nandroid.md5
-r-xr-xr-x 1   10485760 Mai 29 22:48 recovery.img
-r-xr-xr-x 1     136590 Mai 29 22:52 recovery.log
-r-xr-xr-x 1          0 Mai 29 22:48 system.ext4.tar
-r-xr-xr-x 1  947858944 Mai 29 22:49 system.ext4.tar.a

2015 example from my Motorola Milestone 2, this time done with TWRP:

-r--r--r-- 1  247035904 Sep  6 23:14 data.ext3.win
-r--r--r-- 1         48 Sep  6 23:14 data.ext3.win.md5
-r--r--r-- 1        104 Sep  6 23:39 _original_dir_name
-r--r--r-- 1     184842 Sep  6 23:14 recovery.log
-r--r--r-- 1  287747072 Sep  6 23:15 system.ext3.win
-r--r--r-- 1         50 Sep  6 23:14 system.ext3.win.md5

In both cases, we now have .tar files for normal partitions (don't ask me why TWRP names them .win), and disk images for /boot and /recovery. Note that TWRP forgot to backup these two partitions; I'd count that a bug, but specific to the build used here (I didn't decide to switch to TWRP, it simply came with the CyanogenMod ROM).

Other notes

The original "physical copies" (aka "disk images") had a big advantage: if you accidentally deleted something from your device, you could use file-carving technologies on the Nandroid images to get it back (see our data-recovery tag-wiki). This no longer works with tarballs. But tarballs can be restored even after partition resizing – while restoring an image file results in the same partition size (and fails if e.g. the partition got smaller). Also, switching to tar made the backups somehow "independent" from the file system – so you could back-up ext3 and restore to ext4 without having the partition put back to ext3.

On the other hand, there's one thing which got easier with tarballs: Looking inside them to retrieve a file or easily evaluate the structure on your PC. Not that I'd count this as a "big pro": with the correct tools (here: TestDisk) one can do the very same with images. It just takes a little longer, as TestDisk needs to investigate the structure (partition type, file system) before contents can be accessed.

As for restore, there should be almost no difference from the "users experience with results":

restoring an image overwrites the entire partition, restoring each block as it was before (including "bad blocks")
just unpacking a tarball wouldn't overwrite "new files", so this could result in a mess; I'm confident Nandroid takes care for this by wiping the target partition first
another minimal pro of the tarballs: restoring such a Nandroid implicitly includes a "defrag", with files being written sequentially and without any delete in between ;)

My personal opinion is: Nandroids are backups. Backups are meant to be restored from in cases of emergency. Thus, while the Tar archieves have their conveniences, disk images are preferable – as one can use file-carving to even restore deleted stuff. But pros and cons are rather subjective.

Verdict

Though there might be "subtle differences" (as e.g. the now "defrag'd" partitions if your Nandroid used tarballs), there are no differences the "normal user" should notice. As Nandroid backups always include the entire partition, everything gets backed up and such restored – including "root and his files".


Is there a widget or setting to allow taking/making a one-press Evernote PAGE CAMERA Evernote has this new feature: Page Camera which is sort of like a camera/scanner.
It crops the photo down to the page you're taking a photo of and adjusts the contrast, etc. Very slick.

But it's buried in the menu.

There is a widget for taking a photo note but I can't find one for quickly (one button) creating a  Page Camera Note.

Yes. Page Camera is now included in the Evernote Widgets.
Add it to your Droid screen just like you would any of the other Evernote Widgets.


Why does MY WhatsApp web take so long to load? If this question does not belong in Android please be kind enough to tell me where it does belong since I did find a whatsapp-messenger tag here and I thought this fits in Android Enthusiasts.

I do not understand why when I open web.whatsapp.com in a browser it takes so long to load and even reload!. I have not seen this problem with any of my friends and I tried myself with a different account it does not take that long.

Here is a video that shows it takes a short time with one account and here is a video that takes a long time with my main account. It takes 15 seconds longer at least!

I thought it might be because my WhatsApp backup files are very big, but I believe many people should then have the same problem. I also tried on many different browsers, deleted my backups and reset them and even reinstalled the app.

I attached a picture of the WhatsApp files on my phone maybe that helps, I use google drive backup on both accounts.

I know, right? The issue of it loading normally and fast and then all of a sudden it takes 15 seconds for all the imagery etc. to load in Whats app Web. The problem most likely is your browser; I test Chrome, Brave & Firefox (I use the last one by default) and turns out that Chrome loads nearly immediate, whereas Firefox loads the longest. Annoying, but nothing can be done as far as I know at the moment.

See link for more information.

https://menafn.com/1098516091/TechBytes-Handy-tips-to-avoid-WhatsApp-Web-loading-issues


How to make an Android smartphone actually go to sleep? When I turn the screen off on an Android smartphone, I want battery life to be conserved.  Thus, I don't want any third-party apps running in the background, and I don't want the device periodically turning on WiFi (or connecting via 2G/3G/4G/5G).

I set up a test Android Samsung smartphone running Android Nougat, and installed just 25 popular apps.  I set all 25 apps to "Always Sleeping" in Settings.  I then let the device sit for 8 hours with the screen turned off.  During those 8 hours, the Android device connected to a WiFi router 59 times and transmitted/received data each time.

I don't want to turn on Airplane Mode, because I still want the device to be able to receive and log incoming phone calls.

Is there a way to accomplish this with Android (on a non-rooted device)?

As discussed in comments

You want to make sure that the device enters doze mode quickly and disconnect wifi / mobile data when the screen is off. Aeroplane mode is not an option because you need to be able to make /receive calls.

You can achieve that by Naptime app:

Naptime lowers your device's power consumption while the display is off by empowering Android's built-in doze power saving functionality.

Faster idle means less power being consumed uneccessarily. By default doze can take a while to kick in so Naptime just speeds-up that process automagically for you.

It can also automatically disable W-iFi, mobile data, location & bluetooth as soon as doze kicks in.

In addition, Naptime  can also help in enabling doze while in motion (phone in your pocket and you are walking).
It requires root but for unrooted devices it works with elevated privileges through adb commands given in app instructions.
This is a one time process and need not be applied on reboot (AFAIR).

In addition, have a look at this question How to tame "Phone Idle" battery drain on unrooted device? for other apps that can help you. I would recommend you try Wakelock Detector [LITE] (XDA thread)  which is handy in detecting apps that keep your device awake. It gives a better metric than the one you mentioned in question (make sure you follow the instructions).

You can identify such apps and decide on suitable alternatives.

As a second line of defense, in case you aren't happy with Naptime, try, Greenify is another useful app that can come in handy to tame troublesome apps. This works with unrooted devices with adb privileged permissions. Alternatively, you have an open source app Brevent that works as well but adb privileged permissions are required after a reboot. IMHO, with improved Android battery management in recent versions, you may not need this line of defense at all.

Also see this for more Disable autostart on boot and restrict background execution


Backup stock HTC Desire ROM with Unrevoked I want to play with different ROM's for HTC Desire (which is still under warranty). Based on my understanding, in order to keep the warranty and still play with custom ROM's, the following steps are required.

Root the Phone with Unrevoked Method
Take a backup of the stock ROM
Restore a custom ROM
And when warranty is required restore the stock ROM from backup

Am I going in the correct direction?. If yes where can I find the guides to perform all of the above mentioned steps.

*NOTE: I don't want to lose the warranty of the phone. I know it will get void once I root it but then there should be options to unroot the device and get it back to factory settings. *

If you root or install a custom ROM you void your warranty.  It doesn't matter if you undo it.  You might be less likely to be caught, but that depends on the carrier/manufacturer.  And if you're running a custom ROM and your phone breaks, you will often not be able to restore the backup (depending on how it broke).  If you want to keep your warranty, don't do anything that is against its terms.


Why is some application not supported by device with Intel processor Pokemon Go is releasing today but sadly I saw somewhere in the Internet stating that Niantic has claimed that the app is not supported by devices with intel processor (in my case asus zenfone 5). So I wonder why the type of processor will be one of the factors determining whether the app is compatible for the device. Any help is appreciated. =)

Note: This answer covers other apps than Pokémon Go, as Pokémon Go has been updated to work with x86 processors

Apps contain multiple architecture dependent and architecture independent parts:

Independent:

Dalvik code
Android resources
the Manifest

Dependent:

Libraries
Special assembly code in the Dalvik executable (rare but possible)

The major things are the libraries.
Those are shared objects (.so files) much like DLLs on Windows that contain bytecode.
They are compiled using the Android NDK (Native Development Kit) and are compiled for a specific architecture (like compiling Linux applications using a cross-compiler, ie. compile ARM code on an x86 machine).
In our example, this library can only be used in an ARM environment were the ARM bytecode is understood.

Some Android x86 devices (commercial phones/tablets, not the emulators) come with a special ARM Translation toolkit, aka. libhoudini. It basically translates ARM instructions to x86 instructions.
Those instructions however, are not optimized to run on x86 hardware and thus result in poor performance and high battery usage (the latter of those is one reason x86 is not primarily used in mobile processors).

The real problems are the developers:
Either:

They do not compile their libraries (often containing proprietary code) for any other architecture, for some reason.
They use specialized bytecode, only available on ARM so that any ARM Translator or libhoudini fails.

Luckily Pokémon Go received an update, allowing users of x86 devices to run the app, but other apps (mostly games) do require a real ARM device.


How can I install Google play services on Android 2.2? I have an unbranded tablet running android 2.2.

I was trying to develop an application using gcm and wanted to test it on the tablet. But somehow SERVICE_NOT_AVAILABLE error was coming. I then came to know that for android devices having version less than 4.2.2 , google play services has to be installed in the device for GCM to work.

Firstly, i tried to search for Google Play Services on PlayStore app. No result was shown. So instead i tried searching for it on phone's browser.
So when i saw the link on browser, a popup appeared asking for whether to open with browser or Playstore. I chose playstore and the link opened.
Which was kinda surprising because no result was shown earlier when searching through Playstore.

Secondly, when i tried to install the app it gave an error saying that Incompatible with other applications(s) using the sameshared user ID.

So, this means i cant test GCM on my device.
Any advice ?

Thanks in advance :)

I've just found the Google Play Services on the Play Store, here. Try opening this link on a desktop webbrowser and login into your Google account, then your tablet must be registered to your account, right? If it has any restrictions, the restriction will be shown to you when you try to hit install.


Completely wiping all contents and storage in SmartQ T10 tablet. No Recovery, no CWM, no ADB I wanna hard reset my SmartQ T10 so memory and internal storage become fully deleted, but my device does not have such option in Settings, nor there is ClockWorkMod Recovery released for it.
I did try:
- Restore firmware.
- Boot pressing volume up, volume down and both (goes to firmware restore).
- ADB: adb reboot recovery (goes to firmware restore too).
- Research at http://www.hard-reset.com/ (no SmartQ models there).
so I was wondering if it exists any generic non-platform-specific trick.

For a real safe and complete wipe, you might want to take a look at Nuke my Device.

If you're just after a factory-reset, this can be find in Settings. But then you shouldn't forget about your other storage (SDcards – internal as well as external – are usually not dealt with by a factory-reset, though some ROMs do so).


Unable to take screenshots, "Couldn't save screenshot, storage may be in use" error I am just trying to take a screenshot of my starbucks rewards card, so I can print it out. Apparently a lot of apps like netflix, hulu, and starbucks recently have been restricting screenshots for obvious reasons. All the screenshot tools I try give me an error (I have root access). The error is always " Couldn't save screenshot. Storage may be in use".

It might probably due to permissions error in KitKat (and Lollipop) running Android phones.

♦ Layman Solution :
The most common way is to reboot your android phone and try taking the screenshot.
If it doesn't cut it, try going into safe mode and come back to normal mode back.

♦ Professional Solution :
Wipe dalvik cache in recovery mode.

♦ For Xiaomi users :
Create a folder called Screenshots in /sdcard/DCIM/
Note: MIUI saves screenshots in /sdcard/DCIM/screenshots/