Preventing Application Startup Possible Duplicate:
  How can I stop applications and services from running?

I have an LG-P690b and I've rooted the phone and un-installed several applications that I really didn't want. All is well, however, there is one application that I haven't removed because it seems to be started up by the system during boot.

In fact, it always shows that it's re-starting. Ideally, I'd like to remove this app but my fear is that if I do that it will bork the phone because it's been told to startup from somewhere else in the O/S.

My guess is that if the app was not set to start up automatically elsewhere in the O/S I could remove the app. To that end, is my assumption correct and where would the O/S maintain it's list of services to be started so that I could address this app once and for all.

What's the app? It's called GPS Navigator and it seems to be created by Bell. It will not work unless you have a data plan and I tend to use the native Google mapping programs (as they do).

So it's not a necessary application by any means. It's just that the darn thing is set to run as a service and that precludes me from jusr arbitrarily using root explorer to remove it altogether. My specific concern is that if it's set to run as a service, and the program has been removed, then the phone may not start.

How can I remove the auto-startup as a service for this evil app?
Thanks in advance!

As eldarerathis commented: Your explicit question is already answered:

How can I prevent applications from running on startup?
how to identify and change apps which are set as startup items

However, I see an implicit question here as well: As you don't want to use this app at all, you might want to "get rid of it". While starting with ICS (Android 4.0) you can freeze (disable and hide) most system apps even without root, on previous versions that is only possible with root. Several apps are available on the playstore to help you with this (just search for bloatware).

The best known and highest recommended in this area is Titanium Backup which, as the name suggests, as a "side-effect" even manages your backups (and does this really good -- I use the Pro version now for about 2 years). With this app, you can even create yourself a shortcut to freeze/defreeze an app (in case of rarely used ones). Then there are also NoBloat and Root Uninstaller, amongst others.

So if you are rooted, and if you really do not need that app, freezing it is the safest way to ensure it doesn't start. I've heard of apps still auto-starting though they were "disabled" by those anti-autostart solutions. If, on the other hand, your device is not rooted -- you can only use the "simple no-root solutions" described "over there".


Does Google+ to new Photos app "cut & paste," or "copy & paste" archives? Does the new Photos app duplicate photos from Google+, or does it move them completely over?

I pay $1.99/month for my Google Storage and was wondering if current system will delete the copies in "traditional" Storage of photos, when it transitions my media into the new Photos app. I was hoping to avoid duplication.

When you run the Photos app for the first time, it asks you if you want to display your pictures from Google Drive in the gallery.

It also states that the pictures will stay in Google Drive unless you move them.

I haven't (yet) found anywhere in the Settings that lets you change your mind.  If I do, I'll put up a screenshot.


Contacts disappeared after adding new google account I am using a Google Nexus S I9023 mobile phone (Android 4.0.4). For whatever reason my google account was deactivated. So, I registered a new one and added it to the phone.
Afterwards, 80% of the contacts in my contact list, disappeared.
What happened and how can I restore them?

You lost all your contacts as it was tied to the old one, registered a new one, then when ICS sync'd, nothing there... as it was on a newly registered account.

Question is what happened to attribute you to getting your previous Google account closed?


Asus ME302C tablet charging forever and doesn't start My Asus ME302C tablet was giving charging problem lately and is completely dead now and not starting up. Around 5 days back, its charging got stuck at 55% and it never went ahead even after charging for 10 hours. I used it and then charged again and this time it charged few percentages and then stuck at 15%. My son then completely drained it out and the tablet powered off. I charged it overnight (the screen showed the battery symbol suggesting it is charging) but I was not able to start it.

I searched on internet and tried various options like:
- Removing battery connector (by opening up the tablet)
- Tickle charge, charging from PC usb port, phone charger.
- Pressing power on button for long time.

None of it worked. Every time i power on my tablet, it shows initial screen which says "Intel Inside" and then blacks out and shows battery symbol with indicators moving up/down as if it is charging.

I have charged it for long time now around 20-24 hours, but still same issues.

Any idea, whats wrong here:
- Is my battery dead or tablet OS is corrupted?
- Whats are the steps to go to Android recovery screen? Not sure if i can reach that screen considering it is not powering up.

I am out of warranty now as it started giving problem exactly after one year.

Thanks,
Ripan

I had the same problem and discovered the problem is the digitizer board which the USB is attached to. I found one on eBay for $60 dollars and like magic, in twenty minutes it went from 80 to 100 percent while it was in use.

Out of desperation to fix my slow charging problem, I scoured the internet and one solution kept presenting itself, it's a hardware problem with the charging port. So I had planned to buy a new charging port and found them for under $7 on eBay. I don't solder very well, so I was dreading this process and then quite by accident I found the digitizer board which included a charging port.  I was stoked, no soldering. It worked like a charm. You can save yourself some money if you can solder by just buying the port or else get a digitizer board. The part no is CL-2E241819.


My phone keeps getting disconnected from the wifi Everytime I connect my phone to my wifi after a while it disconnects and won't work until I put the password again, reboot the router, or link the device via WPS. I'm desperate I can't even use my own wifi. You people seems the most reliable since every answer I got didn't work, so if the question doesn't belong here please just help me out and I will delete it.

Get a reputable ethernet router (one which can run DD-WRT is a good bet), and connect the WAN interface from your Tim AG combo to it.   You may also need to change the LAN subnet on one of the devices to a different range so as not to have conflict).  Disable WIFI on the Tim AG combo if you can.

Your problem is most probably a combination of compatibility issues between devices - new routers, and routers with a greater number of users typically iron out most of these problems.   (I could be doing it a disservice, but my guess is your provider has rebranded a cheap-as modem/router to keep their prices down, and you are paying the cost - I could not find ANY English references to it, and the pictures don't inspire confidence of a well made product designed for WIFI - for example no decent external aerials)

Otherwise complain to your ISP that there router is not doing the job you are paying for !


Do not auto-mount Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini when USB is connected I had an HTC desire phone, before upgrading to a Galaxy S4 Mini.

I have run into an annoying problem. On my phone (not on the SD Card), I have private data, including an RSA key, which I use to SSH into my different computers and servers. On the Desire S, I had the phone on default "Charge only" so people who nicked my phone didn't just get access to what was on it.

How do I do something similar with the Galaxy S4? I need some way to disable the mount-by-default so people who steal my phone can't just plug-in a USB cable and steal all my data. The phone should still be able to mount as a storage device, but ONLY when it is specifically activated.

In screen-locked mode, it still auto-mounts when plugged in - not exactly a good way to protect the data on the device.

I don't know if this applies to the S4 but on my Nexus devices it shows up on my pc as a 'drive' but I can't access anything until the phone is unlocked (the normal screen lock - pattern/pin). If you have a screen lock set it shouldn't allow access to the device until you unlock it.


Uploaded songs to Google Play don't show up on Android device I'm sure this one is just a PEBKAC error, so please bear with me since I am new to Android.

I've uploaded all of my music to Google Play Music and I can see all of my songs via their web interface.  However, on my Moto X, there's at least one song missing.  I have tried refreshing the Google Play app on the phone to no avail.  I haven't had time yet to go through all of my hundreds of albums to see if any others are missing songs, as well.  Any thoughts?

Did you use the "Refresh" option in the google play music app? You can find it in the  action bar menu. Another possibility is a wrong file type. Here is a list of supported file types: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1100462?hl=en


What happens to the battery during bootloader/recovery? I want to know what happens to the battery (does it charge/discharge/stay constant?) when the device is in bootloader or recovery mode. In both of these modes, a USB may or may not be connected.

If the battery does charge, could that possibly be a feature that could be a result of the installed recovery/bootloader, or could the charging feature be hardware dependant?

Charging control is done via hardware to prevent ruining the battery in case of software errors. That is why (most?) devices charge even when powered off. The status display that is then shown is just a "minimal OS" that queries the current status from the battery charger hardware.


Laptop unable to detect Gionee E6 I wanted to debug an Android app on my Ginonee e6. But when I connect it through USB cable, the device is not detected.
Last time I had faced same issue with Samsung Galaxy Y and installing Kies solved the problem
But for Gionee E6, nothing works, I have google-usb drivers installed; still my phone is not detected. I have switched ON the USB-Debugging option in the settings
Please help.

You need to install the correct drivers for the device. I'm not familiar with the device in question, but it seems that there are two drivers available on the Gionee Mobile India site. Try installing one of the drivers there and then connect your device again.


How do we verify that a phone call is going through WiFi? How do we verify that a phone call is going through WiFi?
I am hoping that there is some special little icon like this one:

Cricket wireless is my provider and my phone is a Motorola moto g7 SUPRA.
My carrier does support WiFi calling. I spent an hour on the phone with them trying to answer the question the above question. The device also supports WiFi calling and reports that WiFi calling has been correctly activated
Our local cell towers went down today so I wanted to have another way to make phone calls that did not depend on an active cell tower. I set up WiFi calling on my phone and it confirmed that it was set up correctly and enabled. The WiFi also indicated that it was connected. It is a very strong connection because it is only ten feet way and direct line-of-sight.
After I did this I still experienced the same issues that I had because of the bad cell tower. This would seem to indicate that the phone calls were not going through WiFi.

I'm using a Pixel 3 XL, I've not "seen" any top menu icon or place to know if my phone is using 802.11 protocols for a call.
The only way I know to easily force a TCP/IP 802.11 protocol is to use Google Hangouts. You can dial any phone number from there for free.
I have 2 "Google Phone Numbers" but I've not seen/dug for the information on how to receive calls on those numbers.


How do I set the Home Time Zone that shows up on the Dual Clock? I'm currently traveling with my phone, and my lock screen shows a dual clock with Roaming and Home times. Which is very useful!  Except the Home time is actually from the timezone I originally registered the clock in, NOT the one where I currently live - I've moved timezones since I bought it. Is there any way to set the Home timezone to where I actually live while keeping the dual clock?

I'm on a Samsung Galaxy S7 with Android 6.0.1

And of course right after I finished writing this question, I figured out the answer. Go to Settings, Lock Screen and Security, Info and App Shortcuts, Dual Clock, and that has a "set home timezone" option. It would've made more sense to put it somewhere in the "Time and Date" Settings section, but oh well.


Battery Drain from Android OS and Android System I've got a Galaxy S5 and recently, Android OS and Android system just seem to be draining my battery.

Not done anything extraordinary regarding rooting or anything, it's all stock.

I can only manage 2 hours screen time - 2 hours 30 if I'm lucky.

Other than running a factory reset. Any ideas?

I've had some success with mine by going to Settings, Battery, and then the Detail button under Save battery power by managing your apps.

I then set pretty much everything to Auto Stop except for "critical" apps like my launcher, SMS, etc. - anything I want to still get notifications on.

This has significantly improved my battery life.


Create a dd image of a Android 4.4.4 for forensics? I'm a little new to the Android file system, I'm doing a project for a digital forensics class and I want to create a bit-for-bit image of my Nexus 5 running 4.4.4 stock, rooted. The normal way I would do this on a Linux system would be with dd like so.

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb

As I have no removable SD card, I was planning on doing this with a terminal emulator and writing to a flash drive over the micro USB port. I need to be able to mount the image and browse the files from the device once the image is created. I'm specifically looking at GPS data and where it is stored, or unknowingly stored, from apps or the system. I'll sort that out myself once I have an image, I have some scripts I've written that will search through all directories and files looking for latitude and longitude strings. Although those probably won't find anything in the databases for android, I'll have to find another way to script/look through those.

Is there a good way to create the type of image I'm describing?

Thanks for any help!

You could do that using dd directly on the device, making sure the output goes to a partition you can afford to be modified. I will not "rank" here from a forensics point of view (where of course it is best to have nothing modified on the device, which is not always possible, etc.), but simply list options. As you are looking for data written by apps, you're most likely after the /data partition, so this is the most important to remain unchanged (though it already is subject to changes with the Android system booted):

attach an external drive via OTG (might apply minor changes to /data for mounting information)
write to an existing internal partition (e.g. the internal SD if you plan to "dump" /data)

Now let's check for an alternative. Assuming you've got a custom recovery installed, you could simply boot into that (something you'd probably check first). In recovery, by default most partitions (especially /data) are not mounted, so no modifications are done. Moreover, a custom recovery offers you the possibility to create a nandroid backup – which basically is a dump of all file systems (usually except the SD card(s)), each in a separate file. These dumps would go to the SD card (here: the internal one, as a Nexus has no external). You could adb pull those images to your computer even while still being in recovery mode.


Cyanogenmod: Encryption unsuccessful I encrypted my phone. That worked fine. Then I installed another version of Cyanogenmod. This cannot decrypt the data (which is OK: There is no important data on the phone). It tells me to perform a factory reset, but even after the factory reset the phone is stuck at the "Encryption unsuccessful".

The error I get is the same as on:
Samsung Galaxy encryption failed

How do I convince Cyanogenmod that all encrypted data is deleted?

I have tried:

Factory reset
Installing the version of Cyanogenmod that encrypted the phone

The factory reset failed to format /data (and thus most likely left the old encryption in place).

Having formatted /data manually, the factory reset finally could complete successfully, and the new version of Cyanogenmod showed up.


Radio and inbound Calls Volumes Can be set separately? On Samsung Galaxy 2 is there a way to set volumes for the radio and incoming calls separately from each other? What's too laud for the radio (for me anything above 3) is not loud enough for the incoming calls, which results in me missing calls.

If everything else fails (and your comment above says you cannot set the volumes separately as needed), you could take a look at Volume Ace, which not only allows you to set all volumes separately1, but even lets you create profiles3 switchable via widgets2:

This enables you to always have the right volume settings according to the situation.


Asus Zenfone 5 phone not turning on after factory reset I received an error message on my phone

  Unfortunately, the process.android.process.acore has stopped.

So I have tried to factory reset it. Now it doesn't turn on at all. It just shows the Intel Inside logo. I am clueless about what to do. Any help?

You have two options, either you can send it to the service center of ASUS as it is still in warranty period, or you can flash the stock rom. But you may have some warranty issues in future if you flash it by your own.

For stock rom and guide visit following.

Asus Support
XDA


T-mobile/Orange HTC Hero - no 3G on Orange My HTC Hero uses both T-mobile and Orange in the UK, since February. However when my phone is connected to an Orange mast instead of a T-mobile mast I don't get 3G as it says that I am roaming.

If I switch on the option to allow data roaming, will I get any additional charges?

See the FAQ, particularly the billing section.  You won't get charged for turning on data roaming and connecting to an Orange network, but you need to remember to turn it back off before roaming on any other networks to avoid charges.

Also, the FAQ mentions that it's only for calls and text messages right now, but it's not clear why they would also mention the data roaming setting if that's the case, so YMMV.  Regardless, you'll likely be limited to 2G since 3G is typically on a carrier specific frequency.

And of course, all of this may change if AT&T completes their acquisition.


How can I automatically clear my browsing data when I exit Chrome? I don't like having my searches and web history hanging around forever. Therefore, I wonder: Is it possible to automatically clear browsing data on exit in Google Chrome? If it cannot be done with Chrome, do you know of any other good web browsers with this capability?

P.S. I am not willing to root my device just for this purpose. Therefore, I'm looking for a solution which does not require root access.

I would use firefox. It has an option to clear on exit. You do have to go to the menu (which you can access by tapping the menu icon) and hit quit every time, but seeming as there is no way I know of in chrome, It's better than nothing. Firefox does take some getting used to though, so switch with caution.


How to increase the internal memory of HTC desire GSM? I have S-offed my phone installed the rom oxygen with HBOOT oxygen_r2. My internal phone storage was almost doubled from 115 MB left before installing HBOOT and now it is 298 MB left after installing oxygen_r2 HBOOT with oxygen 2.3.2 rom.

After that, I have flashed the new recovery from Clockworkmod 5.2 .. or something to with 4EXT recovery but now there is no increase in memory after I have flashed the new recovery. I still left with 298 MB Internal Memory.

Can someone please tell me how to increase more internal Memory other than using ext partition? Does changing recovery image will increase memory as just I did ??

300MB are the absolute maximum you can get without having an EXT4 partition on the sd card as a replacement.
Having a look at http://alpharev.nl/ you see that there's only a 330MB partition left, however none of my preferred ROMs fit that. It's made for some special ROM called Oxygen which I didn't like.

With custom CM9/CM10 builds however I had to switch back to Bravo Stock again and I set up an external EXT4 1GB partition on my SD card. Those 1024MB are far better than having 30MB more (330MB instead of close to 300MB).


How much difference does the camera app make for photo's quality? I have just bought a Moto X Play, which comes with the proprietary Motorola camera app. I am wondering, how much difference does the camera app make for the basic photo quality like:

automatic determining of exposure
automatic white balance
automatic ISO settings
noise correction for low-light shots

I understand that some 3rd party apps give the users a lot more manual control over the settings, apply some post-processing, make sharing of the photos easier, etc. I am, however, mostly interested in using the phone as a point-and-shoot simple camera, so I would like to get the best quality out of the box in different conditions (especially in low-light).

So the question is, how many of the aspects I listed above and controlled by the hardware/lower level drivers, and how much is controlled by the camera application?

Base on my experience with my Samsung Galaxy J7, the best camera app is build-in camera app you can adjust any parameter manually. Then you can modify your photo by other apps like Photo wonder , etc..

Some selfie app will take your photo with the small size (960x500) and you cannot adjust any setting.


Play store does not list any installed apps After installing CM11 and corresponding gapps I no longer see any installed apps listed in the Play Store. Is there any way to have them relisted without re-installing all the apps? I have tried clearing the Play Store data and cache.

This problem does not seem to be limited to Cyanogenmod devices. I experienced it on most new devices: Pre-installed apps are not recognized by Google Playstore.

The only way I found to make Google Playstore recognize that an app is installed is to search for the app in the Playstore. Usually the Playstore has an update for the pre-installed app and if you install this update manually the app will afterwards be listed as installed app in Google Playstore.


Samsung Galaxy Tab P-1000 no longer recognised by the computer I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab P-1000. I tried to add a language to it using some software, but it stopped working and now my computer can not recognize it. Signs of computer and mobile appear in the black screen only. What shall I do?

Try starting your Galaxy Tab in Download mode.  This is done by completely shutting it off, and then holding both Power and Volume Down buttons together until a big yellow sign with a droid holding a shovel appears, with "Downloading, do not turn off target" message underneath.  If so, you can try flashing the stock ROM via Odin or Heimdal utilities.

You can find the detailed instructions on the Development section of XDA-Developers forum.


Internet slow connection after connecting to a custom VPN I have a custom VPN made at home, and after connecting to it on a computer and access a samba to copy a file, it works and copies the file with ~5MB/s.(WIRED)

But when i do the same operation on an android phone it copies with ~50KB/s.(WIRELESS)

my settings are pretty usual: i have a vpn with:
type: PPTP
server address: MY HOME IP
activated PPP encryption (MPPE)

and that's it, no other settings.

am i missing something? any ideas? thanks a lot!

The transfer speed via a wired connection will always be more than the wireless connection. Additionally few other factors that can affect your throughput are:

Interferences from other devices in the wireless routers vicinity. You could tweak the channel settings in your router to select a less crowded channel.
The ability of your phone's wireless chip to support high throughput. Here is some info on wireless transfer from Intel.


Access dropbox on phone instead of installing PC client I have the Dropbox app installed on an Android phone. I connected the phone to a PC via the USB cable. I'd like to use dropbox through the phone so I don't have to install the client on the PC.

How do I easily push and pull files from dropbox through the phone using my computer?

The android dropbox app does not support automatic file syncing.
There are two ways to do what you described.

Copy over the files to the Sdcard than manually upload each file from the app.
Use an app like foldersync . You can pick a folder both on your phone and in you Dropbox and the app will sync them.


Protecting Android Phone Is there a way like how Apple has icloud but for Android where if you lose your phone someone is not able to wipe it and then resell/reuse it?

And does Android also have builtin tracking like how iCloud does too?

Android does have similar tracking/security features that you can access remotely if you lose your phone. They call it Android Device Manager. I do not know which Android phones have this built in. If it is not built in to your phone, you can download the app.

To locate your phone, simply visit this link and log into your Google account.

I know that the application supports:

Locate Android devices associated with your Google account
Reset/Enable your device's screen lock PIN
Erase all data on the phone
Ring the phone for 5 minutes if you've misplaced it


Android x86: remounting /system : /dev/loop1 is read only I try to remove google apps from android x86 dowloaded from here and I managed to make it run over virtualbox, afterwards in installed it to a virtual hard disk.

But I want on it to remove any google-based apps and run with free-software alternatives. So I installed via fdroid the /system/app mover but when I try to move any app I get the error:

  Could not remount /system

So using the onboard terminal I followed the instructions provided.

I managed to become root and run the command:

mount -o rw,remount system

But I got the error:

'/dev/loop1' is read-only

How I can fix that.

My guess is that you installed the androidx86 using fast install from advanced options. Please reinstall the Android x84 and select the /system to get mounted as rw as you can see in the image bellow:

PS: Even if the image is rather old it still stays the same during installation.


"Android is upgrading... Starting Apps" on boot I have a Galaxy S3 phone with android version 4.1.2.  I have not upgraded my phone recently nor have I rooted the phone.

This afternoon when I turned on my phone, I got a message saying "Android is Upgrading... Starting Apps" for a few seconds, then gave me my lock screen and a few seconds after I unlocked my phone, it automatically restarted.  Since then, every time I restart my phone, I get that message for a few seconds before I get my lock screen, but it does not automatically restart my phone any more.

I currently do not have a photograph of the message nor can I find one online.

Most of the references that I have seen refer to rooting and dalvik cache, but I do not think this is the case since I have not rooted my phone and using the stock 4.1.2 for the Galaxy S3.

The most recent app that I installed was Cartwheel yesterday.

The only other problem I had was that a week or two ago, my phone seemed to have gone into 'Factory Mode' (see picture in the first post of the linked thread (not my actually phone).  I seemed to have solved the issue by inputting *#87976633# into the Dialer. You could see the solution (and an example picture in the first post in the thread) HERE.

I thank you in advance for any suggestions.

I seem to have found the solution for my issue.

After posting the initial question I started noticing every so often I was getting a message saying that Aces Bubble Popper has stopped responding.

I have not used this game in a very long time and haven't updated it in an even longer time.

Apparently this app has permission to run at start-up (why a game needs that permission, I do not know and wish I could disable).

After updating the app, I am no longer getting the messages that the app stopped responding, and I am no longer getting the "Android is Upgrading... Starting Apps" when my phone boots.


Root in Android is connecting to SoftLayer Technologies! I was reviewing what programs are connecting to the internet on my Android Nexus 5, and I saw that Root had already disconnected from the connection to SoftLayer Technologies, inc (IP 108.168.176.245 Port 5222 insecurely over http - status: TCP_Close_Wait).

Why does Root connect to SoftLayer? Is this normal?

So for anyone who sees suspicious internet activity on his phone, here's how I figured it out:

I monitor my phone on random occasions (several times a day) using this amazing app called: SockStat (no conflict of interest).

When I just found this IP yesterday 108.168.176.245, I blocked everything on AFWall+ (Android open source firewall), this way, any app that tries to connect remotely will be logged (turn logging on if it's off).

In my case, I saw that WhatsApp+ tried to connect to the same IP that I'm investigating. Looked up the WhatsApp+ IP and yes, it's on SoftLayer network. Waited a bit, and finally captured what caused Root to connect! Same IP but this time, "(Kernel) - Linux kernel" is trying to connect to that IP.

From here, I'll email the developer* and ask how he got Root without requesting Root from Superuser app.

I still haven't figured out what is trying to connect to Baidu (180.76.3.151), but you get the idea from the first suspicious IP.

Hope this helps.

*WhatsApp+ is a third-party WhatsApp client. Not sure how it works under the hood though.


How toolbox symlinks work On my Android emulator, the /system/bin folder contains several symlinks that point to the toolbox binary:

# ls -l /system/bin
ls -l /system/bin
[SNIP]
lrwxr-xr-x root     shell             2012-08-23 07:01 ls -> toolbox
lrwxr-xr-x root     shell             2012-08-23 07:01 lsmod -> toolbox
lrwxr-xr-x root     shell             2012-08-23 07:01 lsof -> toolbox
[SNIP]
-rwxr-xr-x root     shell      181002 2012-08-23 07:01 toolbox
[SNIP]
#

My understanding is that 'toolbox' is a binary that is able to do everything that ls, lsmod, lsof etc... can do, and that calling 'ls -l' ends up calling 'toolbox ls -l'.

But what I don't understand is how this works: if 'ls' is indeed a symlink to 'toolbox', then 'ls -l' would become 'toolbox -l', which of course doesn't work.

What am I missing ? (or said differently: what makes 'ls -l' become 'toolbox ls -l' ?)

What you're missing is: The application (in your case toolbox) can evaluate how it was called. To make an easy Linux-example: Say you have a script called myscript, and call it with the parameters para1 para2 (i.e. myscript para1 para2), and the script has a line:

echo $0 $1 $1

It would output exactly what you called it: myscript para1 para2. Now make a symlink: ln -s myscript mylink, call mylink para1 para2, and guess what it will "echo": the command line you called. So parsing the command line, based on the symlink your toolbox was called by, it can determine which functionality you were pointing at.


Disable history syncing on Chrome for Android How can I disable Chrome syncing its history on my Android phone? I looked in settings, but I cannot see an option there.

In the

Main Android settings > Accounts > Google (related account) > Browser Sync

remove the tick should work


Corrupt files in microSD - How to know if files are damaged? I have a Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 with a 4GB Kingston microSD.

This microSD has only a few files (that I can remember) - visible both in PC and in file manager (default app) in the smartphone:

Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force 5.iso (1.6 GB - for PPSSPP Emulator).
Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force 5.cso (1.5 GB - for PPSSPP Emulator).
Folder "DIR" - 0 files in it.
Folder "Music" - 73 .mp3 files.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories.iso (495 mb - for ePSXe Emulator).

Background

In previous ocassions, the PPSSPP emulator didn't read the .ISO file (and I though it was the .ISO file), so, I compress the .ISO file in a .CSO file which I read in formus that is recongized by the PPSSPP emulator, however, the .CSO file was also not recognized and the app freezes.

Trying discarging both files, I used the emulator in my PC and all works well, so, I decided to move all my Music "73 .mp3 files" to the "microSD". After the music files where there, I use the default music player, but most of the files (when trying to play "random") says: not supported and skips until it finds a .mp3 file "apparentely" not corrupted or ends playing abruptly.

Even some .mp3 files plays for a few minutes, ends abruptly and search other random .mp3 file.

What have I tried?

Scan for viruses the microSD.
Download from other sites the ISO files.
Format the microSD "via the available option in the Samsung Galaxy and vía PC (right click > Format device)".
Following this answer I downloaded (SD Card Formatter 5.0.1), but the formatting process failed for both format options (quick and overwrite).

For me, it this weird how this microSD can corrupt files (most of them) and not others. Also, my goal is use the microSD for storage games that I can use with the PPSSPP emulator "mostly, Yu-Gi-Oh! games".

I'll replace my microSD, but, before to do that, I want to know:

Is there a way to activate a log file in Android for check wheter are files corrupted or missing?
What resources or what else can I do for save the 4GB microSD for use as I intend to do?

Few things you can try:

Use fsck to check and repair bad blocks How do I check bad sector on my android with ADB recovery mode?

(alternatively follow this guide for FAT formatted cards)
Obviously, both need root, you could also try to run it from a regular Linux box.

And finally, how to run scripts on boot and use logcat perhaps to view the results. I would think that Android already does this check automatically, but...


Maintaing a list of "must install" apps for new Android phones Is there a option to maintain a list of must have apps which would always install on my phone when I loggin with that accounts email.
For example when you factory reset a phone or by a new one, it is really time consuming to remember and install all the needed apps by hand. How can I just say "hey phone, install this list of apps for me please".
edit : this apps need to be installed from google play not sd card

I read now that android 5.0 will support profiles akka list of apps that you want to install from the store automatically. This was the thing I needed!


Disable "Unkown sources" setting in Android Oreo In previous versions of Android one could go to Personal > Security and there disable the Unknown sources setting in order to install freely APKs from unknown origins. In Androi Oreo this was changed and this field is no longer in the Settings. I looked everywhere and was unable to find it. So now, when my app tries to install another APK from an unreliable source, I get a Popup saying "Allow Google to regularly check device activity for security problems..." with a Decline and Accept options.

My question: imagine that I factory reset my Android Oreo device, is there a setting that I can set or a system property to modify that will prevent this anoying popup to appear? Does someone know how to disable its appereance?

PS: Please don't answer "just hit decline". That is not the answer I am looking for, nor a viable option.

In previous versions of Android, one could control the system-wide app installation from unknown sources, which saved time but was risky. Having refined control over settings makes your device more secure.
Moreover, the mechanism has now been shifted to app-specific instead of system-wide, that is you can now control app installation from particular apps. In order to modify that, head to settings and search for 'Unknown Sources', and you'll find Special App Permissions. In order to always allow a specific app to install apps, toggle it 'allowed'.


My WinXP Pro Doesn't See Galaxy S7 I've changed cables and USB ports, but it hasn't fixed the problem.

The My Computer/Hardware profile doesn't see the S7 at all.

The Galaxy S7 uses MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) which is not natively supported in Windows XP. You need to install Microsoft's Media Transfer Protocol Porting Kit to enable Windows XP to use MPT.


Move to SD Card doesn't move everything I have noticed that when I move apps to the SD card, it doesn't move everything. Is this a bug or a known behaviour or something weird going on with my phone?

Here's an example:

Start point: Phone free space: 18MB
Install Skype app: Phone free space: 3MB, Skype is apparently using 15MB for the App
Move Skype to SD Card: Phone free space: 8MB, Skype is now apparently using just 5MB for the App.

What appears to have happened is it's only moved some of the App, not the whole thing. It's a real pain for me as I have an HTC Desire, which doesn't have much internal memory (I live on the balance of the low memory warning). It's running the official HTC Gingerbread install...

Indeed, Android's native "Move to SD Card" does not move the entire app to the card.  Things like app's data, cache and dalvik-cache (optimized bytecode) are left on the device's internal memory.  You can try to mitigate this by regularly clearing out the cache of apps you use most often (e.g. Browser, etc.) by going to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> All, then selecting the app, and tapping the Clear cache button.  However, you will just be delaying the inevitable.

Also, the fact that not all apps support being moved to SD does not help the situation.  For example, widgets and sync adapters may not be moved to SD Card due to a limitation of Android.  Other apps simply have not been updated to support this functionality.

If your phone is rooted, you have more choice to mitigate this shortcoming.  First, some custom ROMs (e.g. CyanogenMod) allow you to move all non-system apps to the SD Card, even if they don't explicitly support this functionality (even Widgets can be moved, but will stop working after a reboot.)

There are also alternative "Apps to SD" solutions that can move all non-system apps to the SD Card on a rooted phone.  For example, the S2E app works wonders on CM ROM, and is very easy to install and use.  The DarkTremor A2SD script is a lot more difficult to set up and configure, but works on different custom ROMs.


Can I use my cell phone's internet connection as a VPN? I'm still learning about VPNs so forgive me if this sounds horribly mistaken, but if I understand it correctly a VPN is an encrypted internet connection between two computers that can also be used as proxy. My question is: supposing I am ON MY LAPTOP at a library/work/school and the WiFi has a filter that prevents access to some websites, in theory would I be able use the unfiltered 4G data connection from my Android tablet or phone to gain access to those sites remotely?

I know I could just tether the device and use the connection that way but I'm curious if it'd possible to use the data plan on the tablet that I leave at home (it has perfect 4G data service there) that way, should I ever need to use an encrypted connection to get around some web filters, I could always have that available to me. I currently don't have a home computer that I can leave running all day, otherwise I'd run something like Hamachi.

Thanks for reading and sorry if this is a noobish question!

You can use VPN applications to access restricted websites on any android tablet/phone.
Here are a few of them
Flash VPN
Hot spot shield

But i think you will not get exact 4G speeds while using VPN.


How the f*&% to stop voice-to-text from censoring profanity? The voice-to-text feature is very useful, but every once in a while when sending an SMS or email message to a friend, I want to really let loose.

However, Google, in their defense of my virginal eyes, replaces such words with hashes (####) if it recognizes the word at all.

How do I turn off this ####### "feature"?

There is a checkable/uncheckable option called Block offensive words under Settings → Voice input & output → Voice recognizer settings.
In Android 8.1, that setting is in Settings → System → Languages & input → Virtual keyboard → Google voice typing → Block offensive words
For Samsung phones, the settings are named slightly differently: from the Settings app, try Language & input → Voice search settings → Block offensive words. This of course only works with the integrated Google voice recognition.
You also have to go to the gboard where the virtual keyboard is and also turn off that block for offensive words
For Android 4.3 (and possibly earlier versions):
Settings → Language & input → Google voice typing (settings) → Block offensive words
For Samsung S8+: Settings → General management → Language and input → On screen keyboard → Google voice typing → Block offensive words


Why is my phone carrier-branded and how to remove it? I have purchased my HTC One mini for a full price from an independent store. I have connected it to MegaFon (Russian cellphone operator) and now there is a carrier's app on a phone and it is recognized as "MegaFon HTC HTC One mini".

I don't want my phone to be carrier-branded. How did it happen and how do I remove it?

SIM card subsystem is more complex than most people realise.

SIM cards can store applets, which can be run silently (without user acknowledgement) when a phone is booted with a sim installed. It would in theory have privileges to perform system actions like install an app or boot animation.

If the branding is being initiated by the SIM card, then you have no way of stopping it other than using a different network, or rooting and overwriting the customizations.

Having said that, while it is possible, it is uncommon and unlikely that is what happened.

It is also possible that the ROMs in the Russian market contain code which checks your sim card and performs some carrier-specific device customization.

It does seem more likely that the store sold you a branded device from the outset, but which only became activated once the SIM was installed.

It would be great to know what happens if you do a factory reset and install a sim from another network!


Phone Reboots on Installing/Launching Certain Apps So i'm having this really baffling issue. I was using CM13 before and now using CM12 and both of them are facing the same issue.

I am using Galaxy Mega i9152.

There are certain applications, that have been causing my phone to reboot upon install or launch. Previously, it was Yahoo Mail (which i have not used since), then it was some other games (names of which i don't remember) and now it is WhatsApp messenger.

I thought the problem was with the CM13 rom, so i did a clean flash ( wiped data, cache, basically everything other than internal/external storage) of CM12 (hoping to get the 'move to SD card' feature as a bonus).

But, it did not resolve the issue. I just tried to install WhatsApp on my new ROM and it restarted as soon as WhatsApp finished Installing.

This has me thinking that the issue is not with Apps, but something to do with a deeper level. I'm not an expert in Kernels or such.

So please, can someone help me out here? Any insight i can get into the issue ?

WhatsApp is really important for managing day-to-day affairs, so please help me out.

This could solve the problem temporarily. I had the same problem with my own phone and it appears to be a material problems, many recent updates are incompatible with some phones (it is the case for wiko phones).
Bypassig the play store and installing a previous update can work. For whatsapp you will need a previous version than the actual one (2.18.64), but that will be older than the 2.18.0, otherwise whatsapp won't let you start the app.

For example downloading this version and manually install worked for me: https://apkpure.com/whatsapp-business/com.whatsapp.w4b/download/164-APK

EDIT:

Now this version is considered obsolete by whatsapp too. The only way to continue using it for me was to set the date of my phone to a previous date that the date showed on whatsapp saying "This version of whatsapp is obsolete since date".

I hope this problem will be fixed later because it is unsafe to install previous versions, generally updates include bug and security fixes.


How to accept SSL certificate using selenium on an emulated Android I'm using selenium (with python) to test a website on an emulated android device (Android version 6 and Android version 5.1) on Sauce Labs.

Selenium tries to access a website using the native browser. Unfortunately the SSL certificate pops up when I try to access the website which stops the test. I want selenium to automatically click accept. The box that pops up looks like this:

Simply creating a certificate for the site isn't an option. I want Selenium to automatically click on the accept button. This is possible for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE, and mobile Safari (i.e. iOS), so it must also be possible for Android. Please let me know if you have any ideas! Thanks :)

I found that it is indeed possible to get selenium to automatically accept the SSL certificate for the native Android browser.

The code normally looks like:

from selenium import webdriver

caps = {'browserName': 'Android Browser'}
caps['platform'] = 'Linux'
caps['version'] = '6'
caps['deviceName'] = 'Android Emulator'
caps['deviceOrientation'] = 'portrait'
sauce_settings = 'http://{0}:{1}@ondemand.saucelabs.com:80/wd/hub'.format(
    SAUCE_USER, SAUCE_KEY,
)
driver = webdriver.Remote(
    command_executor=sauce_settings,
    desired_capabilities=caps,
)

The missing option, that needs to be added to automatically accept the ssl certificate, is this:

caps['acceptSslCerts'] = True


reset a unknown Google acct how do I reset a google acct if the info is unknown. I was given a Samsung G7 phone. but I don't know the google email or password. Im wanting to reset it & add my google information to it.

If you are able to open the mobile

To remove old Account

Go to settings -> Accounts -> Google or settings -> sync -> Google depending on your system
Tap on the account you want to remove
Tap more -> remove account

To Add New Account

Go to settings -> Accounts or settings -> sync depending on your system
Click Add Account
Select Google and add your google account.

You can also add new google account from gmail app.

Hope this helps.


How to configure Push Notifications for CloudMagic with out Google Play Services enabled? I am using Nokia XL.

I used to use AquaMail in Nokia XL with push notifications.

But for CloudMagic, it asks google play services for push notifications.

What's the alternative to use push notifications in CloudMagic?

Thank you!

According to an XDA post by one of the CloudMagic developers:

  ... CloudMagic rely on Google play services for notifications

Since they built CloudMagic on top of Google's frameworks, trying to bypass it will at best result in loss of push notification functionality, but would more likely cause the app to crash, since it almost certainly assumes Play Services will be available while running. AquaMail must be receiving notifications through some other means.

You'll have to either install Google Play Services somehow or find a different mail client.


Locale app & export settings Is there any solution to backup Locale settings? I've defined couple of rules and I don't want to lose them while I reinstall some custom ROM.

Quoting from the Locale's feedback forum regarding the Backup/Restore functionality:

  AUTOMATIC BACKUP/RESTORE
  Locale has
  automatic backup and restore using
  Android 2.2's cloud-based backup
  mechanism. There are no configuration
  options within Locale--it just works!

  To use this feature, simply make sure
  that backup/restore is enabled by
  going to the Android Settings ->
  Privacy and verifying that the
  checkboxes for Backup and Restore are
  both checked. Whenever Locale is
  uninstalled and reinstalled, the
  device is factory reset, or you
  upgrade to a new device, the
  situations will be automatically
  restored as long as Android is set up
  with the same Google account.

  Locale's backup and restore is
  designed to work correctly across
  different devices with different
  hardware and software capabilities.
  For example, let's say a backup was
  made on a device with Wi-Fi and
  restored to a device without Wi-Fi.
  Locale will properly handle that
  transition.

  Automatic backup and restore requires
  Android 2.2 or later, as well as a
  handset supporting Google's backup
  manager. If there are no options for
  Backup and Restore under Android
  Settings -> Privacy, then the device
  does not support backup and restore.

  Since backups are tried to a Google
  account, be sure to always use the
  same Google account when setting up
  your Android devices.

  MANUAL BACKUP/RESTORE
  In addition,
  there is a beta manual backup/restore
  feature to create a manual backup to
  the SD card. This feature is disabled
  by default, and must be manually
  enabled. After backups are enabled, a
  new Backup menu item will appear under
  the menu of the Locale home screen.
  From that menu item, you can create a
  backup to the phone's SD card. When
  Locale is re-installed, it will
  automatically detect any existing
  backups and ask whether you'd like to
  restore them. Because manual backups
  are a beta feature, we are unable to
  offer any support. To enable manual
  backups, please follow these
  instructions:

  Allow installing apps outside of the Android Market
  a. Go to the Android Settings
  b. Tap on Applications
  c. Tap on Unknown sources
  Install Backup Enabler
  a. Open the web browser on your phone
  b. Go to this address: www.twofortyfouram.com/backup.apk
  c. Once the download completes, tap on the download
  d. Follow the instructions to install
  Perform backup
  a. Open Locale
  b. Choose Menu -> Backup


How do I make my Nexus 5 work with ADB on my Windows 7 desktop? I am attempting to develop on the Nexus 5 using the Android SDK on eclipse.

I'm developing on Windows 7, have the Helios version of Eclipse, and have kept my SDK up to date. I have previously been developing on a Samsung Galaxy S2 fine - but now the SDK is having trouble detecting the Nexus 5.

I have developer options, usb debugging, and third party apk's all enabled on the phone. When connecting the phone it appears as an eject-able USB device, appears as "Nexus 5" under Unspecified in devices and printers, and appears as "Android Composite ADB Interface" under "SAMSUNG Android Phone" in device manager.

I have tried uninstalling the usb drivers I was using with the galaxy (including kies - its additional software) and then reinstalling drivers through the SDK manager, I have tried modifying the drivers as suggested here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19838016/what-usb-driver-should-we-use-for-the-nexus-5 and I have tried to install the generic driver here: http://adbdriver.com/downloads/ (but this failed as it could not find the nexus 5 as a connected android device). I've also tried simple things such as restarting eclipse, the phone, and my machine, and trying different USB ports. None of this has helped, I am unable to browse the nexus 5 as removable storage and when running projects in eclipse it does not appear as a running android device.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Figured it out myself. While I had uninstalled the previous drivers through the control panel, and uninstalled through the device manager what I needed to do was uninstall through the device manager and check the delete check box before reinstalling. All works fine now.


I can't get any of the Android Virtual Devices started I copied the ADT in C:\Program Files, updated the SDK path, deleted the .android folder in my user's folder, but that didn't solve my problem. When I start a virtual device, it shows the load bar, but after that, nothing happens.

What else should I try?

user3262360,

Try the following:

Configure the AVD to have 512k RAM
Assign 8 GB to SD space.
Keep internal storage at 200MiB.
Uncheck the box for GPU accelaration.

Start the AVD and wait at least five minutes to give enough time for the new AVD device to load and display the Android unlock screen.


Selectively restrict sync for some applications to wifi only I know it's been asked here how to prevent applications from using data connections. But that is not my intent. I have a Galaxy Nexus running Jelly Bean 4.1.1 and I would like to restrict most of applications to use my data connection. But would allow some to use it.

For instance I would like to restrict Currents, Google+, Facebook, Maps and Google Now from using my data connection. But I would like GMail and Talk to use it.

How can I do this? And is it also possible to set sync frequency when wither on Wifi or Data connection?

Go into Settings | Data usage. Then in the Mobile tab, you'll find a list of the applications that have recently used data.

Click on any of these applications and there will be a checkbox to restrict background data while the phone is using a mobile connection (as opposed to wifi).

I'm not aware of a way to control the sync frequency.


Where to get com.android.calendar for Android 4.0.3 from? I accidentally deleted the package com.android.calendar.

Now it refuses to sync my Google Calendar.

Where can I get this specific package to install it back to /system using Link2SD?

Model specifications:

HUAWEI U8666E
4.0.3
Baseband version: 2030
Kernel version: 3.0.8-perf-00271-g4fdddbe
Build number: U8666E-1V100R001C40B935

Russians over at 4PDA have a thread dedicated to the phone, which hosts a number of firmwares, including stock-based ones. Here is the Calendar app extracted from the "Stock+" one, uploaded to my AndroidFileHost for your convenience. You can also get other files from the package in case you need them.
As validation, the version number of the ROM as extracted from build.prop:

ro.build.version.incremental=C40B935
ro.build.tags=release-keys
ro.build.description=U8666E-user 4.0.3 GRJ90 C40B935 release-keys
ro.build.fingerprint=Huawei/U8666E/hwu8666e:4.0.3/HuaweiU8666E/C40B935:user/ota-rel-keys,release-keys
ro.confg.hw_appsbootversion=U8666E-1V100R001C40B935_APPSBOOT
ro.confg.hw_appversion=U8666E-1V100R001C40B935_KERNEL
ro.confg.hw_appfsversion=U8666E-1V100R001C40B935_SYSIMG

"B935" - matches your current ROM exactly.


Microsoft user authentication on OneNote app? Everything on my Galaxy Note4 is up to date and working fine. No dice in attempting to troubleshoot so far with a few of the usual suspects - update OS and app software, clear app data & cache.

It seems Microsoft has OneNote integration with the OneDrive app. In my case, authenticating through OneDrive before attempt to authenticate in OneNote worked, as suggested in page 3 here.


What are the meaning of each category under WIPE menu in TWRP? I'm new in using TWRP (version 3.0.0-0 to be specific), there are some menu or operation that confuses me.

Under WIPE menu and inside Advanced Options there are many choices to wipe, which are:

Dalvik / ART Cache,
Cache,
System,
Data,
Internal Storage,
MicroSD,
USB OTG

Can you explain what are each of those means one by one?

and also can you elaborate one by one the effect of wiping each of those 7 categories, for example IF let say I ONLY wipe Data, THEN it will only delete app data not the app itself nor any music, videos, pictures, downloads.

and also what will Factory Reset do? will it wipe all of those 7 categories? or will it only wipe some of them? if only some of them deleted, which of those 7 categories will be deleted under Factory Reset?

Lastly I notice that under Home > Advanced > Partition SD Card > on MicroSD I saw that the value stated there around ~5000MB while my external SD Card (removable MicroSD) is much more than that, which is 16GB, so it occurred to me that word "MicroSD" inside TWRP is not the same as the physical removable disk (SD Card / MicroSD), am I right? If yes, then what is the meaning of MicroSD inside TWRP?

Thank You.

I am not sure how much more self explanatory this can be...

Dalvik / ART Cache - This is the runtime cache, where executable binaries are stored (after APK files are "optimized"). It is a unique partition of the system
Cache - /cache partition, where temporary data is stored.
These (numbers 1&2) are wiped on any clean or dirty flash of a ROM, or if problems occur in a running system. Wiping these is usually done together and do not effect actual user information or data.
System - the /system partition, basically the operating system.
This is only wiped when changing ROMs and a clean flash is required, it should never be done on a "stock" system in most cases other than already stated.
Data - the /data partition EXCLUDING /data/media (Internal Storage).
This is how to perform a "factory reset", this will wipe all applications and user data, but not user's file (picture, music, documents, etc). When doing this, both cache and Dalvik/Art cache should be wiped as well.
Internal Storage - This is your /data/media folder, or user files.
If you want a TRUE factory reset, you need to wipe this as well... be aware this will wipe all user file such as pictures, music, documents, and ROM images if you downloaded them there.
MicroSD - self explanatory
USB OTG - An external USB OTG storage device (often a USB stick) - self explanatory

I would suggest reading the TWRP FAQ too.

As far as the partitioning of the MicroSD card, that is for very specific applications or uses, typically stuff like Link2SD or App2SD, where a ext2/3/4 partition is required to use symbolic links to artificially increase the space available on internal storage by moving the actual files to a special partition of the microSD card and using symbolic links to those files on the actual internal storage or data partition. By itself it has little use or meaning for most people except in conjunction with special applications. This is a rarely used feature in modern device and I wouldn't be surprised if it is depreciated in future versions of TWRP.

Basically, if you don't know what you are doing in TWRP, don't do it. It does have the potential to damage your device, sometimes irreparably.


If I encrypt my phone will I still be able to load custom ROMs? Are there any issues with enabling full encryption and loading custom ROMs or will it be seamless?

Encryption is done on the /data partition (where all app-data is stored).
However, /sdcard is sometimes encrypted too (if the sdcard is actually internal memory of the phone i.e. not removable).

If the sdcard is also encrypted,then you will be unable to flash ROM's from within Recovery (recovery can't read encrypted sdcard).


Issue with CWM recovery mode I have flashed CWM onto my phone by using Odin as I'm trying to root, but when I boot into recovery mode, it just takes me to the stock recovery mode, and not the CWM version, so I can't install the ZIP. How do I get around this, or boot directly into CWM recovery mode?

I am running a Samsung Galaxy J3 2016 Edition running Android 5.1.1

The bootloader is most likely still locked, detects a recovery tamper then reflashes the stock recovery.
Try flashing CF-Auto-Root for your device and then flash TWRP and boot into it right as the device is rebooting after Odin's flash. Flash whatever ROM you're looking to install while you're in recovery and it should keep the recovery you have just flashed.


Are there cases where Android would start an app/service other than due to Intents or explicit user start? I'm trying to understand how/why some of the processes that are running on my phone (DroidX, stock 2.2 ROM).

It's obvious that 2 likely reasons for a process to start are:

A direct action by the user/another program to start it (e.g. click on the icon of an app, or another process launches the .apk explicitly)
An Intent is registered by the app, and the event associated with that intent happens.

The question is, are there other reasons/causes/mechanisms by which a process could be started in Android? (aside from Intents or direct launch).

P.S. As a plausible theory, something could be started off of init.rc (being how Android is based off of Linux) but I don't know enough about Android internals to judge if it launches any apps via init.rc

A raw native process can be created by any of the usual unix-like mechanisms.

An android activity or service is usually forked off by zygote (in response to an intent), but I think there's an obscure way to start a vm by hand using app_process.


How to record videos with LG G2 Mini with a lower quality or resolution? Is there a way to force the camera app of the LG G2 Mini to record videos that don't take up a large number of mb for just a few seconds of video? I think it's recording at 1080p, or some other high number. I can't record pass 1 minute it seems, or it'll take up near 1gb of memory (or maybe 500mb, I can't remember).

I looked at the settings of the camera, and apparently there's no other resolutions available, aside from the one that allows for records of .3gp (I think?), but it has a 30 second limit.

Is there an app that allows one to record videos at a lower resolution?

I believe I tried months ago to follow some tutorial where you'll have to edit a system file, but it doesn't work.

So if someone can direct me to a tutorial to deal with this issue or an app it would be greatly appreciated :D I can literally not use my cellphone for video recording for any normal purpose due to the recordings hogging up a huge amount of memory. It's been months since I last attempted to video record anything.

Note: This is a partial answer to address the issue using an alternative app.

  Is there an app that allows one to record videos at a lower resolution?

In my OnePlus One, I use Cinema FV-5. It shows me following recording resolutions:

4096x2160 8.8 MP 4K UHD
3840x2160 8.3 MP 16:9 4K UHD
1920x1080 2.1 MP 16:9 Full HD
1440x1080 1.6 MP 4:3
1280x720  0.9 MP 16:9 HD
864x480   0.4 MP SD
800x480   0.4 MP 15:9 SD
720x480   0.3 MP 3:2 NTSC SD
640x480   0.3 MP 4:3 SD
480x320   0.2 MP 3:2
384x288   0.1 MP 4:3
352x288   0.1 MP
320x240   0.1 MP 4:3
176x144   0 MP

Google Camera on the other hand allows my device to record at 4K, 1080p and 720p. I'll update my answer if I come to know any other app with varied resolutions capability.

Update 1: Suggested by @Mani, the app is Open Camera(Libre software, free, < 1MB in size). Resolutions are more or less same in variety as Cinema FV-5 has.


How can my Chinavasion TechPad Tablet be put in standby mode My Android Tablet. (TechPad 7" Tablet from Chinavasion, S3C6410 Android 1.6;) has an option to dim the screen after 2-10 minutes of inactivity.  However, there is no option to put it into a "standby" mode, and a full reboot takes 20-30 seconds.

Any ideas how to really put it into a standby / hibernate mode?

Android does not support a standby or hibernate mode.


How to root the Motorola Droid Razr? How do I root my Motorola Droid Razr?

There is an app, called framaroot. You can download it from XDA. It's working with XT919 and XT910 (I installed in a razr D3 XT919).

There is also a video tutorial in youtube here


New battery - any special treatment required? Possible Duplicate:
  How to break in a new cell phone battery?

Admittedly this could be aimed at any mobile device, but I have a new battery for a HTC sensation. To get the best out of it, does it need any special charge/discharge cycling?

Yes, you should wipe your battery stats, charge it up to full without turning it on (or without using it, if you have a model that turns on automatically when charging), turn it on & let it discharge all the way, then charge it back to full again in order to recalibrate battery level readings.

How to wipe your battery stats depends on what device you're using and what ROM you have loaded.


Is speed improvement to be expected from rooting/modding a Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2 YP-GI1 I have an old Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2 YP-GI1 lying around and would like to use it either as a media player or a media center remote. However even after a factory reset the device or the UI reacts like a slug. There is some bloatware on it some of which can apparently not be deactivated.
Will rooting and throwing something like the Ethereal ROM on it (as listed here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1720457 ) considerably improve its performance?

I am asking because I tried SuperOneClick and it does not work. I guess it is not worth the time and effort if I can not expect better performance. What are your thoughts?

Gaining ROOT Access will not impact performance at all...

It is what you do to Tweak the performance After Gaining Root that will have a drastic effect on performance..

But Always Remember that Performance and Power Consumption come Hand in Hand..

The Higher the Performance m, The quicker the power drain ... The Sloweemr the Performance The Slower the Drain...

It is why many people UnderClock their devices, rather than OverClock...

That being said, Yes you can expect some Performance enhancements with the correct Tweaks....

For example,
Using a Popular Benchmark software, i was able to get a performance increase of about 500% ..
 .
The initial device at Factor specifications gave me 1/ 5th of the Benchmark from a Tweaked device...

The most effective twaeks are adding difference props inside the Build.prop file under /system
 .Of course /system is not available to edit without Root Access.

To have a less slugish experience Without using root access, i suggest the following tweaks.

Remove BloatWare

Apps you don't ever plan to use.

Disable Apps that Can not be removed
Open Storage Settings, and Click on Caches

Clear your App Caches

Clear your Browser Cookies

This one is a bit strange, but it works on many device's.

Disable Animations in Development Options

Android displays Animations every single time you open or close something, this can Add up to 4 years of someone's life just waiting for Animations, it takes a lot of resources to load the animations and that drastically effects battery life and performance.

I've added some example screenshots of disabling Animations below.


Cannot connect my Moto X to Windows 7 PC I cannot connect my Moto X to Windows 7, 32-bit PC via USB. After doing some research normal solutions people found were

Enabling MTP in connection settings.
Disabling USB debugging in Dev. settings.
Updating drivers.
Updating windows media player.

I've tried all of this still my PC can't detect Moto X as USB storage device. It shows the device in - Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Devices and Printers, but says this device does not work properly as Windows cannot load its drivers. It gives option to re install drivers in troubleshooting but everytime I do it the device driver is not successfully installed.

If your phone is able to connect in another PC, the problem is in PC and not with the droid. The possible solutions are

Download Motorola driver
Goto Device Manager and right click on the motorola device name and select uninstall
Now right click and select Scan Hardware Change Now select Update Driver Software and click browse and point to the downloaded driver location

If this does not work Try:

connect your phone with computer
go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Motorola Shared\Mobile Drivers\
Run Motorola Driver Installer.exe, choose clean and Reinstall.

or

The problem may be due to windows mtp driver and you can try the fix provided by Microsoft.

or

Unistall driver from device manager
Remove all USB controllers
Disable Windows Media Player (Control Panel - Uninstall a program - Turn Windows features on or off - Expand Media Feature - Uncheck Windows Media Player)
Connect your device and Reboot the pc
Reactivate Windows Media Player(Control Panel - Uninstall a program - Turn Windows features on or off - Expand Media Feature - Check Windows Media Player)


Galaxy S2, 3 year old. Battery went from 55% to 13% in 5 minutes, then phone started restarting this morning going to work I had my battery at 55% was listening to music and chatting in skype. All of the sudden skype started lagging really hard and then phone restarted. When it turned back on, the battery had went down to 13% and phone restarted quite a few times ever since

what could cause this?

Was the battery life decrease sudden, or has it been getting noticeably worse recently? If so, might be time to get a new battery for your device. Regarding the restart, are there any apps that you've installed recently that might have a bug or something leading to restarts? When a phone reaches that age, I would personally root it and flash something like CM or Slimbean, to get some solid battery life back out of the device (I've personally flashed ChameleonOS on my S2 to get the best of both customization and battery).


The RAM total of the apps "Running" never equals the "Used Ram" shown below on the scale I realised after a few days of observation, that the total of the RAM usage of indivisual apps shown in the running process is quite lower than that shown below it on the scale

And as "Cached Background Process" are calculated separately, they are not added in this "RAM Used" part of the scale.

Then what is using it? Coz the OS has its own space. Then what from the userspace is taking it up but not showing up?

Gingerbread 2.3.6

Like when I am writing this, the Total of indivisual values displayed is around 45-50mb while the scale below shows 95mb used!! How? \

Edit

Screen cast -

http://youtu.be/fzkQlZ8CdkU

I think it's because of linux. Linux put some disk cache on ram.
So, you can see cached ram, which is app cached ram, AND disk cached ram.
If you have access to a linux box, run free -m.

cubox@coruscant:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1974       1478        496          0        335        671
-/+ buffers/cache:        471       1503

Here, you can see that my server is using 1478 mo of ram. But, like 1000 mo is used for disk cache. You can't really recover it. If this part of ram is needed by the system, it's will not longer be used for disk cache and released for the app.


Silence and vibration scheduler I used to have Silet Time on Android 4.4 and it worked really well.

The application sets silent mode or vibration at scheduled time of the week.

I now have Android 6 and that application does not work anymore; I also tried Silent Hours and several others.

The Do not disturb mode works but it doesn't allow setting vibration, only full silent mode which is good for sleeping, but not in other occasions (office hours, meetings, etc).

Is there a way to achieve this on Android 6?

Based on your comments, suggest using MacroDroid , since it is free (upto 5 macros) and easy to learn.

Your macro for scheduled priority  mode would look like this

Trigger (when to act ) is 5 days of week at the time and day required - here it is week days. Long press to add constraints, i.e,, schedule

Also, you may need to switch to this mode on demand. You can use this macro for that.
Create this macro and save. Go to widgets of your home screen and drag and drop Macrodroid widget on any screen. Assign this macro to that widget and use it on demand

Edit: Missed (sorry) adding that you would require a second macro in the on demand case where action would be Alarms Only or other options as you wish to get out of priority mode ,say as in the case of meeting at office


Offline Spanish voice recognition: "no connection for speech input (E4)" I am trying to set up a Google Nexus 7 (kitkat) and a Samsung Note 2 (jellybean) for offline English-Spanish Translation using the Google Translate app. Both devices are usually set to UK English. On each device, I have downloaded the offline spanish translation data, and that works fine in the translate app in flight mode. I have also downloaded text-to-speech data in English and Spanish, and that will output audio in both languages from the translate app in flight mode.

I have google voice typing set as a generic input method on each device, and I have downloaded the Espanol (Espana) Offline speech recognition pack for google voice typing. Choose Input languages is set to automatic, although changing it to English and Spanish makes no difference.

In the Google translate app, when I touch to recognise a voice in English, it works fine.

When I touch to recognise a voice in Spanish, in flight mode, on either device, I see the message,

No Connection for speech input (E4)

Spanish voice input works when not in flight mode. Can I make the app recognise Spanish voice offline? Thanks!

Aha! Five minutes later... It's the setting in the Google Translate app. Settings - speech input - Spanish was set to Default Dialect. I set it to Spanish (Spain) and voice input now works on both devices in Spanish in Flight mode.

It would be be nice if Android was a bit less picky when it came to missing language data, like web pages work with fallback fonts. But, it works, quite well, and it's free!


How to connect android phone as portable device? I always use usb cable to transfer data from my laptop(win 7 64 bit) to my android phone(huawei honor 4c) but recently after connecting my phone using usb cable phone isn't showing as a media device.But my phone is getting charge from PC.

Here's what I've done to fix the issue and none of them worked:

Restarted my phone.
Restarted my pc.
changed the cable
changed the pc.
Fatory Reset my phone.
usb debugging on/off
Tried different usb ports.

Here's a thing, that another phone is working properly as I wanted in my PC but my phone isn't.

you can go into hisuite by connecting your phone up and then  selecting "connected as a media device" select that notification and then tapping "use as cd-rom" and then it should appear as a cd-rom drive and then install hisuite


Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo shows the logo, then screen turns black So basically today I was going home, started listening to some music and BAM the music stops. The phone "turns on" and shows the Samsung Galaxy S3 neo gt something and then the screen turns black. And that happens in an infinite loop. It also happens when charging and when I remove the battery and put it back in, it automatically boots up, shows the logo and turns black. What do I do?

Probably the battery is dead, try to plug in a new one


How do I send a YouTube video from my desktop to my Android tablet? Apps such as YouTube and Netflix use the X protcol to conect to smart TVs so you can send (a link to) the video you're watching to the TV, and it starts playing on the TV right away. I'm looking for something like the reverse of this: if I've started watching a video on the YouTube website on my Ubuntu PC, I'd like to have that start playing on my tablet (e.g. so I can take it with me to the kitchen as I cook). Ideally, it should start playing on the tablet at the same point I was at on the website.

The simplest workaround I can think of would be to use the "Watch later" playlist to save the video, and then open it on the tablet. That's quite long-winded, and I'm hoping there's something easier.

The Chrome to Phone extension is what you'll be wanting.

To get Chrome to Phone, install the Chrome to Phone extension in your Google Chrome browser and the Android app on your phone, and you’re ready to go.

Chrome to Phone extension adds a button to your Google Chrome browser that instantly sends the current YouTube video, web page, map, or selected phone number or text to your Android device running Froyo (or Android 2.2) or up.

For Firefox users, there's a compatible Firefox addon FoxToPhone, which sends URLs etc. from Firefox on the desktop. It still needs the same app installed on the phone.


Get Windows PC Notifications/Updates on Android Mobile I need a way to get all the desktop taskbar updates/notifications on my Android device.

Example: Someone pings me on my Office Communicator on PC. I need to see that as a notification on my Android Device.

Not looking for screensharing apps such as Teamviewer where I need to connect and check the screen for updates.

What I'm looking for is the exact opposite of Desktop Notifications.

Is there any way to do this? Third-party apps are acceptable.

The implementation of what you are asking is too application-specific to work well for most computer applications, thus the usual (and possibly only) solution you will find is use some screensharing app. All applications handle such notifications differently, so it would be too hard to make it work for all applications correctly.


Make device take power only from charger when the battery is full I made a device that is up and running (screen is on) 24/7 and connected to AC charger. After only 1 year, the batteries of these devices are dead. I don't really understand since the device is directly connected to AC, the battery should be bypassed and never been used.

I made some current measurements and I discovered that the current consumed by the device is sometimes 0 for ~1 minute. So it is obvious that the battery is working because if AC current is 0 while the screen is on, it means the battery is working.

This power management does not make any sense. Is it the expected one? Is there any hack I can do using ADB commands?

thanks

"I don't really understand since the device is directly connected to AC, the battery should be bypassed and never been used.

If you mean li-ion battery, cycle use is recommended
since keeping it fully charged for 24/365 may shorten its life cycle as in your case.

Since you need battery as backup only, use UPS (Pb  gel battery) coming with bypass instead


If all file sharing apps like shareit, xender and SuperBeam uses wifi technology to transfer files, why their transfer speed differs? I've downloaded several file sharing apps  like shareit, xender and SuperBeam. They all use wifi technology to transfer files. Then why does their speed differ too much. I've noticed that shareit takes 3-4 seconds while SendAnywhere takes about 30-35 seconds to transfer a same file on same devices. What makes ShareIt efficient over SendAnywhere?

How reading the file from the file-system can affect performance. Often there are various ways to read a file in a programming language.

The physical transfer that uses everything below OSI layer 6 can't be different, as those apps all use Androids default APIs to achieve that.

Then how saving the file into the receivers file-system also affects performance. There are various ways to save a file in a programming language.


Froyo Proxy settings How do I set (global) proxy settings in Froyo? I want to access market, but my college wifi does not work without proxy.

EDIT:
Is there any way to set proxy without rooting?

Wifi proxy settings were not added until Android 3.0 (here's the issue on the tracker and here is the comment noting its release). If you're willing to root your device you could try something like TransProxy, though.


How to enable task locking in Android 5.0 production devices This StackOverflow question explores how to enable a device owner app, and thus kiosk mode, in the Android L developer preview. As the method requires a userdebug build of Android, rooting the device, and copying an XML file into the root filesystem, it doesn't seem suitable for mass deployment of a single function Android device inside a company.

How are device owner apps going to be installed on production Android L devices?

(Edit: Updated after some more testing)

Check the latest documentation.

This feature seems to be called Screen pinning now, and the App does not have to be the device owner. If the device owner is not set the user will be prompted to accept. But there are issues with this for kiosk use, mentioned below.

  There are two ways to activate screen pinning:

  Manually: Users can enable screen pinning in Settings > Security >
  Screen Pinning, and select the tasks they want to pin by touching the
  green pin icon in the recents screen. Programmatically: To activate
  screen pinning programmatically, call startLockTask() from your app.
  If the requesting app is not a device owner, the user is prompted for
  confirmation. A device owner app can call the setLockTaskPackages()
  method to enable apps to be pinnable without the user confirmation
  step.

If you activate screen pinning programatically (non device owner App) or on the device using the pin in the recents you get the following behaviour:

A dialog appears asking the user if they want to enable screen pinning and if they want to require a password to exit. If they press yes the status bar and notifications disappear, back, home and recents buttons do NOT disappear. Tapping on home or recents makes a toast appear inform the user how to exit screen pinning.

The user can then hold down back and recents to exit screen pinning. If the user selected to require a password, they will get kicked straight to the lock screen. This behaviour means it is not suitable for a kiosk imo. As it is too easy for kiosk users to end up looking at the lock screen.

To get a proper kiosk mode we need to set the device owner. Google's documentation says you need to do this with NFC:

  To deploy and activate a device owner, you must perform an NFC data
  transfer from a programming app to the device while the device is in
  its unprovisioned state.

Using NFC to do this seems a bit complex (what if a device does not have NFC?). I have not investigated this yet so if anyone can provide info how you go about setting the device owner by NFC? Which now becomes the main point of your question. (i.e. setting the device owner on a non rooted device)

But to confirm the behaviour is as expected if you root a device you can set the device owner as per Google's previous instructions (adding a device_owner.xml) as I mentioned here

Now you can properly lock the App, no dialog appears for the user to accept, when enabled the recents and home button disappear and the user cannot leave the App unless your App unlocks itself. A proper kiosk mode. I have tested this on a Nexus 7 2013 with the latest Lollipop build.

The following snippet turns on the lock:

mDPM = (DevicePolicyManager) getSystemService(Context.DEVICE_POLICY_SERVICE);
mDeviceAdminSample = new ComponentName(this, DeviceAdminSample.class);

if (mDPM.isDeviceOwnerApp(this.getPackageName())) {
    Log.d(TAG, "isDeviceOwnerApp: YES");
    String[] packages = {this.getPackageName()};
    mDPM.setLockTaskPackages(mDeviceAdminSample, packages);
} else {
    Log.d(TAG, "isDeviceOwnerApp: NO");
}

if (mDPM.isLockTaskPermitted(this.getPackageName())) {
    Log.d(TAG, "isLockTaskPermitted: ALLOWED");
    startLockTask();
} else {
    Log.d(TAG, "isLockTaskPermitted: NOT ALLOWED");
}


How could I set the default contact store? I have an LG L5 (E610), running Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich MR1).

Recently, I moved all my contacts that were stored as Phone or SIM contacts to Google contacts in order to get them synced.

Now, I have only Google contacts.

But, when I create a new contact, the default store seems to be the Phone store, and I find no option where I can set Google as the default store.

Googling around a bit brought up one solution that sounded reasonable: display only the Google contacts, in the address book, then Google will be the default for a new contact. But, even this doesn't work; if I only display Google contacts, my phone still selects the Phone storage as default and I cannot see my newly created contact.

Any suggestions as to how I can set the default contact store? Or is this impossible?

This worked for me. Try to go to Settings>Apps>All Apps>Contacts (not contact storage) and clear data.
Also try to combine all the suggestions:

cleared data in contacts app as written above
selected the display only contacts from whatever you want
made a dummy contact, selecting the desired store location
reboot

I basically tried all the solutions, so it's a little hard to give the exact way to go about this. Hope this helps.


Whatsapp Databases inside android device Whatsapp is keeping some database files in internal memory, inside the folder /WhatsApp/Databases in the format "msgstore[date].db.crypt8".

Will my chat history be gone if I delete those files? Are these files important?

I am using an unrooted Xiaomi phone.

Please give more information about this.

Whether my chat history is got deleted, if I delete these files?. Is
  this files are important?

These are important files and If you delete these then your backups are gone.

These files are the Local backups of your WhatsApp and this local backup is run automatically every day at 2 AM and save your database in a file on the phone itself.

  Your phone will store up to the last 7 days worth of local backup
  files, hence you are seeing the file names corresponding to the dates
  of last 7-days.

You can back up your chats and media to Google Drive, so if you switch Android phones or get a new one, your chats and media are safe. To use Google Drive, make sure the following is true:

Your device must be synced with Google Drive.
Your Google Drive account must have enough space for all of your WhatsApp data.
Your phone must have enough free space to create the backup.

Check FAQ of WhatsApp for more information.

Additional Note: If you delete these database files, your backups are gone. But the chat history in whatsapp itself remains untouched because the database is in still in use. So any chat data is still available for the user - just the backups are gone.


Reverted Lollipop back to Kitkat - now I can't access the external SDCard I had a Sony Xperia Z2 running CyanogenMod 11 (Kitkat 4.4.4). I got curious about Android 5, which is still only in nightly. Before taking a look, I took a full backup in recovery, then upgraded to CM12.

I decided that for now I want to go back to CM11, so I restored my backup, and that worked fine. But after reboot, it's been unable since then, to read or write the external SDcard.

Diagnostic info so far:

1) Android "knows" the SD card exists, because "Settings -> Storage" can mount and unmount it, and File Explorer can see and navigate to it.

2) If I go back into Kitkat, Settings -> storage" lists it as mounted but capacity = 0, and ls -l /storage seems to be saying it has the usual drwxrwx--x permissions.

3) The SD card is listed as having no contents and no size. Log entries in both recovery and logcat suggest some kind of error has occurred during mounting.

The logcat errors are: status changed from unmounted->checking->mounted, but then that cutils "Failed to mkdirat"(/storage/sdcard1/Android), that Vold returned a failed operation (not specified what the operation was) with unhandled error 30, that "VoldConnector NDC Command took too long", and that mkdirat failed because of being a "Read-only file system".

The recovery (CWM 6.0.5.1) errors are that if I unmount and remount the SDcard, CWM log says it "cannot load volume /misc", that the card's status changed from unmounted -> checking -> checked, it reports "/storage/sdcard1 mounted", then "200 0 volume operation succeeded", and then again "cannot load volume /misc" followed by "can't partition non mmcblk device /devices/msm_sdcc.2/mmc_host".

CWM can't list or read any files on the card either, perhaps making it likely to be a filing system issue rather than a hardware issue (odds of a sudden card fault exactly upon reverting OS seems small, card also a "known good" brand, Samsung)

Help really appreciated to fix this!

The permissions structures are dramatically different between Jelly Bean and KitKat, and KitKat and Lollipop. Upgrading allows it to recognize the older structure and alter it appropriately for the new needs. Going backwards affords no such ability, as the older version knows nothing of the newer one. Your best bet's likely going to be to copy all the data off of that card, format it in the phone, and then copy it back.


VPN doesn't work on HTC Desire over WiFi My phone is HTC desire, Android 2.2.

It seems to connect to the VPN server while using WiFi, but the browser and other applications can't be access the Internet any more.  The connection is disconnected after minutes automatically. However, the same VPN settings work well while using 3G.

Update: The router allows VPN connections -- My PC and a Milestone 2 can use the same VPN over the WiFi network.

Update 2: It doesn't work over all WiFi connection! My phone could access the Internet when connecting the same VPN over the WiFi network of my office. It looks like the VPN only doesn't work over the WiFi network of my home.

Update 3 - solution After updating my phone to HTC official desire 2.3.3 dev ROM, it works. So it looks like there is a bug fixed by Android or HTC rom in 2.3.3.

Does anyone know how to resolve or diagnose this issue?

A complete article on VPN on HTC Desire is present on the HTC Europe portal. Hope this will help you out.

  Connecting to a virtual private network (VPN) From your phone, you can add, set up, and manage virtual private networks (VPNs) that allow you to connect and access resources inside a secured local network, such as your corporate network.

  Depending on the type of VPN you are using at work, you may be required to enter your login credentials and/or install security certificates before you can connect to your company’s local network. You can get this information from your network administrator.

  Also, your phone must first establish a Wi-Fi or data connection before you can initiate a VPN connection. For information about setting up and using these connections on your phone, see Data connection and Wi-Fi.

  Setting up secure credential storage

  If your network administrator instructs you to download and install security certificates, you must first set up the phone’s secure credential storage.

  From the Home screen, press MENU, tap Settings > Security, and then tap Set password.
  Enter a new password for the credential storage (at least 8 characters without any spaces).
  Scroll down and confirm the password, and then tap OK.
  Select the Use secure credentials check box.

  You can then download and install the certificates needed to access your local network Your network administrator can tell you how to do this.

  Adding a VPN connection

  From the Home screen, press MENU, tap Settings > Wireless & networks > VPN settings.
  Tap Add VPN, and then tap the type of VPN you want to add.
  Tap the VPN settings and set them up according to the security details you obtained from your network administrator.
  Press MENU, and then tap Save.

  The VPN is then added to the VPNs section of the VPN settings screen.

  Connecting to a VPN

  From the Home screen, press MENU, tap Settings > Wireless & networks > VPN settings.
  In the VPNs section, tap the VPN that you want to connect to.
  When prompted, enter your log in credentials, and then tap Connect.

  When you are connected, the VPN connected icon  appears in the notification area of the title bar.

  You can then open the web browser to access resources such as intranet sites on your corporate network.

  Disconnecting from a VPN

  Press and hold the title bar, and then slide down your finger to open the Notifications panel.
  Tap the VPN connection to return to the VPN settings screen, and then tap the VPN connection to disconnect from it.
  When your phone has disconnected from the VPN, the VPN disconnected icon  is displayed in the notification area of the title bar.


Possible to restore phone-only contacts from PC backup? I have a Samsung S4 which I did factory reset on, after backing up my data to my PC via USB.  I grabbed everything off the "phone" and "card" directories and backed up to an external drive on my PC.  I assumed that this would be enough to protect my data, but it looks like the phone-only contacts (not the ones synced with Google) are no longer available. (I didn't have Verizon backup assistant turned on lately enough to catch the contacts.) I've read that there should have been a db file in one of the directories, but I don't see anything like that in what I backed up.  Someone else wrote that I needed "root" to get to those files, but wouldn't those files have come through the USB backup?  Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Well its possible to restore any contact present on the Personal Computer provided your method of backup was done using a dedicated software like Samsung Kies.
For Samsung Kies follow the below Steps

In Samsung kies it provides two kinds of restore phone only restore
or complete (SIM+ phone).At first after installation of Samsung
kies3
Samsung  kies has currently two versions Samsung kies and Samsung kies 3.Samsung Kies is for basic mobiles as well as smart phones with Android version upto Android 4.1 As yours is Android 4.2 above device kies 3 is suitable for you.
After installation all your backup is to be taken and stored
So whenever you lose data or do a firmware upgrade you will have
your data always with you safely


How can I play an .flv file on Android 2.1? I would like to play an .flv movie file on Android 2.1. How can I do this?

There are a few FLV players available on Android, try among these: 13 Great Video Players for Android. The Mobo Player seems promising among them.

Here's a link for Mobo Player as well, just in case. :)


App for gmail video chat I just bought HTC incredible S. It has front camera.
How can begin gmail video chat?

The service is not available yet for Android devices:

  Voice and video in Gmail only works with the newer version of Gmail in supported browsers: FF 2.0+, IE 6.0+, Safari 3.0+, and Google Chrome.

However, it's likely they have something in the works. In the meantime, there are alternative services like Fring and QiK.


How to install the stock Browser app on Nexus 7 (2013)? I would like to run the stock Android Browser app on a Nexus 7 (2013) tablet to make sure that websites that I develop will work properly in the stock Browser. However, a Nexus 7 (2013) tablet comes with Chrome pre-installed and not the stock Browser.

Is there a way to install the stock Browser app onto a Nexus 7 (2013) tablet without unlocking or rooting it?

Link to stock browser apk

The link contains the apk for the stock browser. Alternatively, as you have chosen you can build the stock browser from source also.

How to build stock browser from source code, stackoverflow

Generally you can also use the avd for testing the browser, but not if you need multi touch and other 'phone' related functionality.

Chrome is now the stock browser for nexus devices, and most OEMs (manufacturers) include their own version of the browser.


How to avoid expensive roaming fees when going abroad with my Android? Usually I like to bring my Android phone with me when going abroad. But I use it very carefully because I know that it is very expensive to consume data traffic and roaming fees, when I'm abroad.

How do I best use my Android without getting expensive bills when coming home again?

Is there any specific settings that I should do? Any good applications or other tips that can be useful when going abroad?

Go to: Settings > Wireless & networks > Mobile networks.

Make sure the "Data roaming" checkbox is unchecked. That will keep you from roaming accidentally, since you will have to enable it.

If you want to enable it and use roaming lightly, there are some apps in the Market that will track your data usage for you.

However, in my experience roaming abroad has been so expensive that even roaming for a few minutes of data is not worth it. I usually either try to find a public hotspot or get a prepaid SIM card with data.


Droid-2 stuck at boot When I woke up this morning, I found my good old Milestone² (aka Droid 2) in what first seemed a boot-loop: Google logo, CM boot animation, off, repeat – with the "off" state lasting a couple of minutes (turned out it already had depleted the battery, and that took a while to recharge). I finally managed getting into recovery, and wiped cache+Dalvik (Android 4.3 on the device).

After letting it charge up to 100%, I tried booting up again, it got stuck in the CM boot animation. Luckily, adb logcat already responded – and I could see the line

D/WifiStateMachine( 1620): VerifyingLinkState what=131155 NOT_HANDLED

repeated every 1..2s for several minutes (stopped watching it then). To get out of that, I tried to turn off Wifi via ADB – but the svc wifi disable command never returned (waited several minutes again, then aborted it with Ctrl-C).

As the above shows, I can get as far as invoking adb shell and getting root access. But I've got no idea what I could do to break through that hanging process. As the GUI is not loaded, I obviously cannot interact with it (neither via keyevents on the shell I assume), so turning airplane mode on via ADB wouldn't do that way.

I cannot tell what might have caused this state: when I put the device in its cradle yesterday, it was working fine. Last thing I did was updating 2 user-apps from Playstore, but they shouldn't have caused network trouble (Password Safe Lite should not be loaded at that stage, and neither should AlarmDroid). Before that, I've replaced BlankStore (a GooglePlayStore alternative for devices not running Google Apps). Though that being a system app, I very much doubt this was the cause – as I see no connection to the logs.

I've put all errors/warnings from Logcat on pastebin, just skipping irrelevant things like PackageManager skipping unknown permissions. Where that pastebin ends, the last message is repeated eternally.

Apart from a factory-reset: Any ideas what I could try to get the system up again?

Edit: last logcat with wpa_supplicant.conf "made virgin" (i.e. no APNs anymore, just the fresh file from the ROM), no other changes made. The "eternally repeating error" is gone, I'm still stuck in the CM boot logo. The initially wiped Dalvik cache has been rebuild on the previous boot already.

Not a satisfying answer: nothing tried lead to success, so I ended up performing a factory-reset after having removed the replaced system app. It isn't sure that app caused the issue, but that was the only change to the system itself applied shortly before – so better play it safe.

That brought the device "back to live" (checked for several weeks to make sure – before updating to the latest CM available for it, which brought it up to 4.4.4 Kitkat).