How to fix a ruined recovery mode of an Android device? It seems like I ruined the recovery mode of my Android tablet. It's a HP Pro Slate 12 tablet with Android 5.1.1 on it. It's rooted. I wanted to install CWM Recovery to backup everything, but my device wasn't listed as a supported device. My friend told me I can install the LG G3 recovery instead because it's compatible. I installed that. Since then recovery mode completely disappeared. The device still boots in normal mode and works, but I cannot boot into recovery mode anymore. I really need it because the device boots normally but sometimes acting strange since I rooted it. I'd like to try unrooting it by going into recovery mode or doing a factory reset, but both options disappeared.

I tried holding down volume up+power buttons while turning it on, but didn't work.
Tried holding down volume down+power. Nope.
Tried rebooting inside Android into recovery mode with Quick boot app. It rebooted my device but again it went into normal mode instead.
Tried to reboot into recovery mode with ADP and FastBoot in Windows. Same stuff happened. The device rebooted into normal mode.
Tried to make a factory reset. DIDN'T work! Rebooted into normal mode once more. The factory reset hasn't deleted anything.

Any ideas? Did I lose the possibility of recovery forever with a single click?

Qualcomm devices usually have a workaround to flash entire internal partitions like with Oneplus 3 http://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-3/how-to/guide-mega-unbrick-guide-hard-bricked-t3405700

Similarly search if Unbrick Guides are available for HP Pro Slate 12. Good luck..


How to set default download location to ext SD card in Galaxy Grand I already tried to change the download and install location to SD card using ADB but it hasn't worked. All the games and other stuff are being downloaded and installed to phone memory itself.

I don't want to root my phone. I have a 16gb card. Using Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos. Please help.

Without Root access, there is no way possible to change the default install location of apps. You need to have root access in order to make such changes.


How to enable "double tap to wake up" in any android device? I've heard about the feature "double tap to wake up". How to enable this option on my device
My device details:
Gionee P3 Lollipop Cyanogenmod 12.1
Kernel Version 3.4.67

It can be enabled only if your ROM/ kernel support that feature. To check if it is enabled download 3C Toolbox from Play Store , go to System Manager → Miscellaneous  and you will have an option that shows up to enable double tap feature, IF it is supported. Figure shows it is not supported on my device

I am not aware if CM supports enabling this feature using the inbuilt settings


Is it possible to run ADB on multiple devices using Hyper-V? What I would like to do is use Hyper-V to set up N number of VM's, each one being used to run a different set of tests on a different Android device. It seems like Hyper-V doesn't accept the input of the USB device.

My question is: Is it possible to run ADB on multiple devices using Hyper-V? If so, how?

See the USB access from guest in Hyper-V question on ServerFault — in short, Hyper-V does not provide any way to access host USB ports from guests. There are some workarounds — mostly “USB over Ethernet” solutions.

Another option which could work for some use cases is to enable Wireless ADB on the devices, and then access them via the network.


How to fully backup non-rooted devices? I know I'm asking for the close-to-impossible -- as a real full-backup certainly requires root permissions. But still there are many folks around not wanting to root their devices -- afraid of voiding their warranties or bricking their devices, or just not having their devices supported by any rooting method.

I also know there were a lot of questions asked already on this topic, and I checked all of them having the backup tag -- none covers the entire topic, all just have pieces, and especially people new to Android (but other non-power-users as well) would have a hard time figuring out the best way.

So I want a detailed canonical answer to the question:

Not involving root-solutions, how to achieve a backup as close as possible to a full backup?

Please do not give simple one-liner answers like "Use app xyz [full-stop]." If mentioning an app (and I doubt a single app would be the answer here), include what parts are covered by it -- as well as ideas on how to fill the gaps it leaves. (And to make it absolutely clear: I know the first thing coming to mind is Titanium Backup -- I use it myself, but this does not apply here: This question is strictly about methods for non-rooted devices!) Moreover, the answer should be as generic as possible in terms of applying to a wide range of devices (i.e. it should not be restricted to one device or manufacturer).

I already mentioned having investigated all questions here tagged backup. These will certainly be helpful providing details for answers here, so I will list up the topmost ones concerning my question:

How to backup an Android device?
How do I perform a full pre-rooting backup of an Android phone?
What info does Google backup?
How can data on an unrooted phone be backed up?
Could a non-root Android 4.0.3 smartphone's rom be backup?
How do I back up (and restore) my phone before installing a custom ROM?
Backup my Android without my Apps, Settings, Config's, etc.

All these provide some details for my question (so feel free to get inspired by them) -- but I feel there are still details missing. Also it would be helpful to have a summary -- say, an answer including the full description of "the maximum possible".

A last criterium: While I'd consider cloud-based solutions legit, I'd favour local solutions. If you can provide both: all the better. But some people value privacy quite high (I'm one of them), and thus would not trust their data to some cloud service.

Thanks to Ryan, we now have a solution for a really complete backup of all apps and their data -- which I didn't dare to hope for! The only disadvantage: His solution only works for less than 10% of all Android users; namely those whose devices are running at least with Android 4.x.

So again, I ask the close-to-impossible: Any solutions applicable at least on Gingerbread (2.3.x) or, better, even Froyo (2.2.x) -- so they cover the majority of current devices? These solutions may involve multiple tools (try to keep it as simple as possible though; think of your mother to follow your instructions ;)

And keep in mind: NO ROOT!

To further motivate high-quality answers (and hopefully avoid low-quality ones), I will be a harsh one here: As I rarely do, I will down-vote answers not fitting the mentioned criteria on one end -- but on the other end, I will setup a bounty for the best answer (which cannot be done immediately, but earliest after 2 days).

Solution Available for 4.0+ Devices:
For 4.0+ devices there is a solution called "adb backup".
Note: This only works for apps that do not disallow backup!
Apps that disallow backup are simply ignored when creating a backup using this way.
This makes use of adb so you have to have the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) installed on your computer (on some Linux distributions: just packages android-tools-adb and android-tools-adbd).
NOTE: This solution will not back up and restore contact, SMS or calendar information
The options for the adb command are:
adb backup [-f <file>] [-apk|-noapk] [-obb|-noobb] [-shared|-noshared] [-all] [-system|nosystem] [-keyvalue|-nokeyvalue] [<packages...>]

-f : the path of the *.ab file that will be saved on your computer. This file is a compressed file that contains an archive of the data/apks from your device.
-apk|-noapk : indicates if the *.apk files should be backed up (default is -noapk)
-obb|-noobb : enable/disable backup of any installed apk expansion (aka .obb) files associated with each application (default is -noobb)
-shared|-noshared: enable/disable backup of the device's shared storage / SD card contents (default is -noshared)
-all : indicates that you want the entire system backed up. you can use the packages filter to just backup specific packages, or use -all for a full system backup.
-system|-nosystem: indicates if all the system applications and data are included when backing up. (default is -system)
-keyvalue|-nokeyvalue: include apps that perform key/value backups. (default -nokeyvalue)
<packages> : this is where you can list specific packages to backup. Use these if you want to back up only specific applications. If using -all, you do not need to specify packages.

How to backup your device:
First, you need to enable "USB debugging" on you Android device:

Go to "About device" (or "About phone" or "About tablet") section in Settings
Tap 7 times on "Build number" row (usually the last row). After that "Developer options" section will appear in Settings

Go to "Developer options" section in Settings
Tap the "USB Debugging" checkbox

Second, on your PC from the command prompt you will need to be able to locate both the adb command and your backup file. The easiest way to do this is to run the adb command from the directory where adb is located.
In Windows Explorer navigate to where you installed the Android SDK and SHIFT+RIGHT CLICK on the platform-tools folder.

This will open a command prompt (your window will look different than mine).
In Mac's Terminal you can type cd  and then drag the folder platform-tools folder from finder to the terminal window and the path will be inserted. Hit  and you will be in the right place.
In Linux, I hope you know how to locate and cd to the parent directory of the adb command. You are using Linux after all.
From here type the following command:
Windows:
adb backup -apk -shared -all -nosystem -f backup08262012.ab

Linux & Mac
./adb backup -apk -shared -all -nosystem -f backup08262012.ab
## Notice that -all doesn't mean ALL. See the big bold NOTE at the top of this answer.
## You can also include -system and -keyvalue to be able to backup and restore *some* system settings.
# drop the `./` in the command if you are using `android-tools-adb` package

(if you want to store the backup in a different directory, include a path for the ".ab" file as shown in the screenshot below.)

You will then be prompted on your device for a password (this is used to encrypt the backup):

To restore, it works almost the same way.
Windows:
adb restore backup08262012.ab

Linux & Mac
./adb restore backup08262012.ab

Then you will be prompted for your password to restore on the device:

Now for the shameless self promotion:
Droid Explorer (v0.8.8.7+) will be able to handle this for 4.0+ devices. While Droid Explorer is currently optimized for Rooted devices, this functionality will work for non-rooted devices as well.
Droid Explorer will do full backups of the device and save them in %USERPROFILE%\Android Backups</code>. Within that folder is a folder named for the device, and inside that folder are the backups.

Double clicking on the Android Backup file will allow you to restore your device from the backup file.


moto G having problems I bought Moto G(2nd gen)and received it yesterday from flipkart and problems started with it since day one. sometimes when I receive a call, I am not able to hear the voice on the other side, and I even do not hear any voice when I dial a number. I have to restart my phone to set it right.  In addition to it, I am not even able to call someone. Whenever I tried to call, ''call ended'' shows up.

It has been noticed that moto g had this problem where voice is not clear, or similar issues.

So, In case you are using two sim slots try removing the other one , and then restart it because sometimes it conflicts when using two SIM card. If the problem still stays them go for replacement of device.


Strange Android bug - layout reversed I was doing some debugging on my device, and when I pulled out my lead, my whole phones layout has now been reversed.

So for example usually the clock, wifi battery symbol etc, on the top right, but now it is on the top left. The screens on my home screen have also been reversed, e.g.

At present I have

screen with some apps
weather widget
Main screen
screen full of apps

But now it is the other way round. That is 4 and 1 have been reversed.

Also notice the buttons at the bottom have also been reversed, the back button is on the right side now instead of the left

When I drag down from top of the screen, to see notifications, the icons are on the wrong side.

Click image for larger version

I have seen this type of bug before and have no idea what has caused it. Anyone know a solution? I really don't want to have to do a factory reset. And Yes I have tried turning it off and on.

Any suggestions would be helpful!!

In the developer options, look for a checkbox that says "Force RTL layout direction" and turn it off.

It's a developer feature that helps with testing how apps will look on a device that uses a right-to-left language (such as Arabic) without having to actually change the device's language.


Updating to N from custom ROM I'm currently rooted and have PureNexus 6.0.1 install on my N5X. If I want to update to N, can I download the OTA file and just sideload it? I've looked at instructions on websites and they don't mention anything about a custom ROM, so I don't know if it is safe.

Of course not. PureNexus is not on N yet.

If you mean the official one, the only way in for you now is back things up and flash it with fastboot. That will also update bootloader, radio and other components to match.


Can't find music I downloaded from Google play music I just downloaded the Google play music subscription and downloaded a bunch of music that is supposed to download to my SD card but cannot find any of my music and its also not downloading to my SD card. Almost any app or music I try downloading or moving to my SD card says it's downloaded or moved but doesn't move it stays on the phones memory. Don't want to keep paying for this music subscription if I can't access my music I downloaded, and need to figure out why my phone memory doesn't free up space when I move to my SD card. I have the SD card and another external memory device that says I can transfer my media and most times it says I did move them but I don't get any free space on my phone afterwards. I also cannot find anything in downloading mainly music I'm worried about now since I'm paying for this subscription, if you can please help me out that would be great.  Thank-you for your time only got this phone less then a month ago and I'm having a lot of problems already, cannot receive texts or phone calls when I'm online or in a game. Pretty much of anything is running on the phone nothing will come through and phone won't even ring, only way I know I have a missed call is if a message is left and that takes awhile to come through.

Google Play Music app is storing music files in your phone's internal memory, which means that you can't access them without root access.
They are located in /data/data/com.google.android.music/files/music folder. To access them you need to root your phone.

But if your phone is not rooted, going to this folder will show your downloaded files named something like 1123.mp3 / 1234.mp3 and etc.
You will have all your files, but name of artists, tracks and everything else is erased from mp3 file's metadata.

I hope this helps!


What can I do to make only the active app use Internet? I know there are few apps that can restrict apps from access internet, but I just want a simple app or a solution so that only the active app say WhatsApp uses the Internet and the rest apps don't access the Internet at all?

I am using MotoG3 with Marshmellow (6.0.1)

There usually is no need to install some 3rd party app to do the blocking part. These apps mostly require root access, even after granting root access to them, I found that the very app that was supposed to restrict background data usage was secretly consuming large amounts of data in the background.

Not many know this, but, android devices actually have the ability to restrict background data usage built-in.

Just go to "Settings/Data Usage" and then select the options menu (the three-dots on top right corner) and just check the box saying 'Restrict BackGround Data'. And now you're good to go.

You can monitor the data yourself, it worked pretty well for me, but, then you would have to manually open WhatsApp every minute to check if you have any new messages, this feature does not allow any exceptions!!


My GKeyboard keeps crashing It crashes every time I open my phone. I'm locked out of my device and I cannot even try to factory reset it.

it was a worldwide problem, latest update for gboard will fix it. if your device is standard configuration it will auto-update apps, in this case just enable Wi-Fi and wait for update.

if your device support usb otg connect a keyboard or mouse with usb-otg-adapter to unlock.

if you already unlocked you can speech-to-text in case you need enter text.

if you can't unlock your device, login to your google account and try to remote update gboard from pc by clicking this link. you can also remote install any other keyboard like swiftkey.

if nothing works you can adb sideload any official signed apk from recovery mode


Starting an app when the screen is locked? Is there any easy way to start an app when you press the button to lock your screen? I've seen custom lock screens before so I know it's possible even if I have to make my own app for it. I have an app that I want to pop up every time the screen is unlocked, but it doesn't do it on it's own. I've seen/used other apps that could do this so if necessary I would code my own app to do this, but I'd prefer an already existing, preferably free option.

There might be multiple solutions to this. One I can think of involves the use of Tasker, the most flexible automation tool for Android. You could create a profile that triggers on "Screen Unlock", and have it start an app.

However: though there's a free 7 day trial available on the projects homepage, after that the app costs about 5 Euro. There are many other automation apps available on the playstore which might be able to achieve the same. As a long-time Tasker user I no longer try the others, so I cannot tell for sure.

Condition: Event → Display → Display Unlocked
Task: App → Load App → (select your app here)


How can I root my 4.4.2 Razr Maxx HD Verizon I've tried everything that I can think of to try and root my Razr Droid Maxx HD Verizon phone, running 4.4.2.
Towel root, sunshine and I can't even remember all of the others I tried. Nothing works!

Successfully used the Hydrogen Peroxide method as outlined at this link.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/droid-razr-hd/general/root-droid-razr-hd-xt926-183-46-15-t3062040

Had to reflash stock firmware a priori though. Others had success without flashing, only factory reset prior to attempt.

Newest Kingroot or KingoRoot would be worth trying 1st.


My phone turned off while i was recording audio. How do I recover the file? I recently was recording audio (an interview) by using the native Voice app on my Samsung Galaxy S6. I paused the recording without having the time to save it. My phone turned off automatically and then restarted (it happens sometimes).
When I tried to go back into the app, the file was missing. I searched in the audio files folder, to no avail. I'm under the impression that the file must be somewhere even though it was not saved, because I see that there is a difference between the remaining space on my hdd before and after the recording (which corresponds to approximately 150Mb).
I downloaded several recovery apps off of the Google Store, but I wasn't lucky.
Has anyone experienced something similar and if yes, did you find a solution?
Thanks!

Can you find a LOST.DIR folder in your internal storage? Corrupted or orphaned files are often stored in that folder..
There's a problem though..  they’re renamed with seemingly random strings of numbers and any file suffixes are stripped. Download a lost.dir file viewer or something and you're good to go..
HOPE IT HELPSSS...


Unable to encrypt my Note 5 anymore (data partition is corrupt) It all started with a factory reset on the stock Samsung ROM (Android 7.0).
After I booted into the factory reset system I couldn't get the phone encryption to work: it failed with the message saying that the data partition is corrupt which effectively factory reset my phone again (forcefully).

Reflashing the official Samsung ROM didn't help, the phone kept showing me the same message about the corruption of the data partition.
Reformatting the partition in the TWRP didn't help either.

Any ideas how to fix it? It could also be a hardware failure.

I posted the same question on XDA but unfortunately got no response so far.

Flashing complete stock ROM including stock recovery will fix encryption, if you factory reset from stock recovery.

To make your ROM boot along with TWRP you need to flash no-verity-opt-encrypt or universal disable dm-verity.

Due some bug in TWRP, decryption dialog fails to open because EFS is not mounted at the time that TWRP checks for device encryption. TWRP is working along with stock ROM encryption if you swap entries in /etc/recovery.fstab and one of these flags for USERDATA:

flags=encryptable=footer
flags=encryptable=footer,length=-16384
flags=encryptable=footer,length=-20480
flags=encryptable=/efs/metadata
flags=encryptable=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/metadata
flags=encryptable=/dev/block/platform/15570000.ufs/by-name/EFS/metadata
flags=fileencryption=aes-256-xts:aes-256-cts
flags=fileencryption=ice:aes-256-cts
flags=fileencryption=ice:aes-256-cts;keydirectory=/metadata/vold/metadata_encryption

source: source.android.com/security/encryption


Getting Android error message "App not installed" I'm having trouble installing some APKs on my ASUS tablet.  To avoid confusion with other posts, and to help clarify the specific problem, let me eliminate some things right away.

I do have the Security setting to accept apps from "Unknown sources".  I can install many APKs without a problem; I have hundreds on the tablet.  I do not have a rooted device, and have never made any system-level changes to my software.  And the very same apps that fail on my tablet will install on my Galaxy S4 phone, as well as a different (older) tablet.

It would appear that there is something "intervening" during the install process.  When I tap on the APK file (which I have tried from both the internal, as well as external, storage), it begins as normal:  I see the Installer come up, I am presented with the Privacy and Device Access parameters, and I tap on "Install".  Within a second or two, I get a pop-up saying "App not installed", and the only option is "Done".

The APKs that fail do not come from a single source.  Some have come from my Amazon Android library; some have come from well-known Android game sites (e.g., the Humble Bundle site).  I am not able to nail down which will, and which won't, install (the list would be too long).  However, whenever there is one that will not install on the ASUS tablet, it will NEVER install.  (I.e., the error is reproducible.)

And to avoid a few other rabbit trails, I am not re-installing any of these apps; they are all new, with no naming conflicts with existing apps.  Some of the apps are installed by sideloading (i.e., copying the APK to the device and clicking on it); the Amazon apps that fail have used the standard Amazon Install process (i.e., the Amazon app on my tablet).  I use Lookout to scan my apps, and there are no problems.  And all of my devices are running Android 4 -- they range from 4.1 to 4.4.4.  All are kept as up-to-date as possible.

Can someone give me an idea of what is happening, what causes the "App not installed" message, and why all of my other devices will install the same app?

Thanks.

Please unmount your SD card and attempt the reinstall.

On newer versions of Android, some SD card permissions weirdness started and unmounting on these newer versions seems to fix the install issue on all of my devices.


Enabling ART on android How much time it takes to enable android run time on Nexus 4.4.2 kitkat.
I have near 90 apps installed.

I start it and screen comes that displays optimizing 1 of 90 apps.
After it got completed (all 90), screen with 4 colored circles revolving appears(i think that's the boot screen or something same when the phone is switched on), but keeps on for more than 1 hour.

Sounds like you are in a bootloop.  If you've enabled android debugging, you can probably use logcat via adb logcat on your computer to read what's happening during the boot and figure out where/why it's crashing.  You'll usually see a crash message, and if you're in a boot loop, you'll frequently see a repeated cycle of text.

If googling samples of the log doesn't help come up with an explanation/solution, you might copy/paste that text, and (after verifying that it has no private information you don't want shared), paste it to a site such as pastebin.com or gist.github.com so that it can be easily shared.

Next, visit IRC (you can do this from the web and try one of the android support channels such as #android to see if you can find someone to help "live".  You can show them the link to your bootloop log, and they will hopefully have a suggestion for you or redirect you to more information.

You can also update this question with a link to the logcat and maybe someone can help you as well.

As a last resort, you can always boot into recovery mode and do a factory wipe (or merely wipe the cache), which may help as well.


su (sudo) command not found Galaxy S Vibrant I was wondering if any of you has seen this behavior:

I have an unrooted Galaxy S Vibrant and I was trying to root it permanently with z4root, unsuccessfully. While I try to do it permantly it seems to do it, but when I try to run Titanium Backup or any app that requires root permissions, it won't gain privileges. So, I installed a terminal app, and when I tried to run the su command it displays a command not found error.

My question is, what is missing from the OS? Any Idea? I know that you must have to be root in order to run certains commands but in that case it should display another error message?

The SU binaries are not included with the original distribution of Android, because they are not used at all by any stock system functions. Obviously, there are those of us that like to be able to do those things ;) Most rooting processes take care of this, but some leave it out. Hence the file @Matthew Read linked to should take care of your problem, if you follow the process he outlined :)

If you'd like to read more about it, you can visit the Superuser website and find more downloads there, although the link posted supports Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich. So it should cover you :)


Google "Play Music" app constantly running! Why is Google Play Music constantly running on my galaxy s4? I don't use any music app.

If you don't use any music app (especially not the one in question), there's an easy cure:

Go to Settings→Apps→Manage Apps
Go to the All tab
Scroll the list until you find Google Play Music
Tap the entry
On the screen which opens on the tap, you'll find a button labeled Disable -- push it.

If the Disable button is grayed out (and cannot be pushed), you might need to first Force Stop the app, and Uninstall updates. If you later decide you want to use the app, and enable it again, updates will be applied once more -- so no worries for that.

Done: You've successfully disabled the Google Play Music app. It will no longer be available in your apps drawer, and should no longer run automatically either. Works fine for me, also for Google Play Books and Movies. Another nice side-effect: Your device will no longer bother you for any updates of those (disabled) apps -- which might even help you saving your data plan for better things :)


correct image orientation from camera I took a few pictures with the camera on my Galaxy S, and when I viewed them on the PC (via USB) they all were on their side - obviously the camera has taken them in portrait orientation, but why would the images appear sideways when copied to the PC? Is it possible to make them save in the orientation they were taken - ie portrait if taken as portrait shots, landscape if taken when the phone is held 'horizontally'?

The problem is that some systems think of different ways to use the exif information. There are several possiblities, but for the motorola milestone (droid in the US) it was that the picture got a "rotated" mark in the EXIF, but it didn't get the height/width set correctly

(example: lets say you have a hxw = 3x4 camera. If you take a landscape shot, you'll get the normal hxw= 3x4 sized shot, and everything is fine. If you take a portrait shot, you STILL get the hxw = 3x4 (but you would want to see hxw = 4x3), and an extra mark that says "this shot was rotated). Some programs could work with this (twitpic for instance), but some coudn't.

Now you might face the same issue. I would look into your shots, and check what the exif says. If the exif has one of these issues, you might need to change (possibly use some sort of automatic process) the exif. Also, another viewer might help here.


Android 4.1.1 system is consuming 4GB of my memory? I bought an Android 4.1.1 tablet, the ad said "comes with 8 GB". But when I go to the system configuration I get:

INTERNAL
1,18 GB total
Apps 0,90 GB
Available 161 MB

NAND FLASH
Total 4,55 GB
Free 4,17 GB

I ask the vendor where is the 8 GB, and they said: "the tablet comes with physical 8GB, but the Android System makes a partition for different purposes (Recovery, Loader, Apps, etc.) letting available for the user only 4 GB. The others partitions are not visible for the user. This is the same for all Android devices".

They are telling me the truth? or just are a bunch of liars and sold me an 4GB tablet ?

Android 4.1.1
Core 3.0.8+
Compilation P758.6.01.01.20
Brand: NOBLEX - Model: T7014AR
(official specification: RAM 1GB - Internal 8GB)
http://www.noblex.com.ar/tablets/T7014AR

Thanks a lot.

EDIT:

u0_a78@android:/ $ df
Filesystem             Size   Used   Free   Blksize
/dev                  443.2M  36.0K  443.2M   4096
/mnt/asec             443.2M  0.0 K  443.2M   4096
/mnt/obb              443.2M  0.0 K  443.2M   4096
/system               607.4M  440.2M  167.2M  1024
/data                 1.2 G   1.0 G  153.8M   4096
/cache                629.9M  16.5M  613.4M   4096
/mnt/external_sd      941.7M  16.0K  941.7M   16384
/mnt/sdcard           4.5 G   382.1M  4.2 G   8192
/mnt/secure/asec: Permission denied
/mnt/asec/com.robotinvader.fooding-1  36.5M  34.8M  1.7 M   4096
/mnt/asec/com.vkcode.SpaceTube-1  14.2M  12.6M  1.6 M   4096
1|u0_a78@android:/ $

Yes, you have an 8GB tablet.  How Android partitioning works is there is a NAND flash chip, and then it's basically split up into system storage (/system) and otherwise, and user accessible storage (/data) and possibly (in some cases), /sdcard (note that I'm talking about the emulated legacy SD Card, not your expansion slot.

So, when they say it's an 8GB tablet, they're correct.

EDIT:

Looking at your df output...  Blksize refers to the maximum length, in bytes, of a file storage block.  You don't have to worry about that column.  What we're focused on is all the other partitions.  Let's start at the top:

/dev contains device nodes.  Don't worry about the reported size - it has no effect on your storage.

/mnt/asec and /mnt/obb are each partitioned with 443.2MB.  With those two partitions (required by the system), you have 886.4MB, rounding up.

/system (where Android lives) is partitioned at 607.4MB, which will bring our total up to 1.5GB.

/data is where all user preferences and settings are stored.  When you do a factory reset, you are wiping the /data partition.  Adding in the 1.2GB from there, we have a total of 2.7GB.

/cache is also required by Android, and with a 629.9MB partition, we're at 3.3GB.

/mnt/external_sd is your external SD card.  Forget about that for now.

/mnt/sdcard is the internal SD card - a partition of user accessible storage in the internal memory.  It's set at 4.5GB - which is what your vendor is reporting.

Add all these partitions together, and we have a total of 7.8GB which is correct for an 8GB tablet.

Storage manufacturers report storage in decimal, meaning 1000MB = 1GB.  However, in binary, 1024MB = GB, so that's why you have a discrepancy.


Why live wallpapers use phone call info When I install any live wallpaper, I am shown a list of items that the app will access. Most of these live wallpapers also access the phone call details. I cannot understand why? Is there any technical reason related to it or something else. Also I think it may cause privacy damage.

So should I allow these apps access my phone call details?
Thank you.

As you don't give any example, we need to guess. I doubt it's for "stopping themselves" for the call dialog like Amit suggests (as a background "live wallpaper", they don't need to do that specially for call dialogs: either they generally need it for any dialog, or not at all). I rather suspect some ad module behind this (see my answer here for details). For ad modules, the combination of INTERNET and READ_PHONE_STATE are quite usual: the former to retrieve the advertisement material, and the latter to access your IMEI for identification (good cop: to know which ads you've already seen so they are not repeated too often; bad cop: to get IMEI, IMSI, your phone number, phone numbers you've been in contact with -- so a profile can be built).

Note that the developer of the app (or live wallpaper in your case) has no control at all what those ad modules do. All he can do is to take care to chose a "good one", and avoid the "more malicious" ad modules.


Where does Google Music store the “offline tracks”? Possible Duplicate:
  Where does Google Music store offline songs?

I have about 8 gigs of music stored within Google Music, and I recently got sick of streaming (and risking data charges), so I painstakingly allowed it to be stored offline. So my fresh 16 gig SD card now only had 8 gigs left. Then, I flashed a new rom, thinking that all my music would still be there cached (or however it works), but I was wrong. When I click "show offline tracks only" within the Google Music app, it shows nothing, yet my SD card still only has 8 gigs of space left.

So, my question is, where are these offline tracks stored on my SD card so I can go in and delete them, to free up space so I can back them all up again?

Thanks!

And also, why won't the app recognize that there is offline music stored on my SD card after a new rom is flashed? I figured that data would be untouched across roms.

Your songs should get saved to /sdcard/Android/data/com.google.android.music/cache/music.

The reason they don't appear when you install a new ROM is because the folder they're stored in contains a .nomedia file, which excludes it from the media scanner. Google Music is able to keep track of them because it puts entries into its database (which is at /data/data/com.google.android.music/databases/music.db) which point to the file. Specifically, anything in the MUSIC table with a LocalCopyType value of 200 is a song on Google's servers which you've downloaded so it will be "available offline". This disappears if you wipe your /data partition when flashing a new ROM. If you have a sqlite3 binary on your device you can use the following to get a list of all songs that are available offline:

# sqlite3 /data/data/com.google.android.music/databases/music.db
sqlite> select * from music where localcopytype = 200;

If you want to have your music stored locally across ROM installs, the easiest thing to do is just to create a folder at the root of your SD card named Music (or similar) and put the files in it. The media scanner will pick it up that way. Alternatively, you can try removing the .nomedia file from the Google Music cache folder. That should allow it be scanned, too, but I don't know if Google Music will try to re-create the file on subsequent launches of the app.


my phone may have virus but my antivirus scans clean that phon is protected A pop up window appeared on my phone ,about some wifi booster simuntaneously an other window got on and told that my phone was infected by an virus ,but my antivirus was active and then i scaned my phone but it was clean . Please explain did my phone really have a virus in it?

A lot of advertisers try to mislead you by saying there is a virus on  your phone. I believe Google banned the use of misleading advertisements such as the one you are speaking of.  So if it was a pop-up ad, I would not worry about anything. Just be aware that some pop-up ads on websites don't have a cancel button, and if you press the back button on your device, it's like you pressed OK.


What options exist when the vendor does not supply an ADB driver for an Android device? I bought an Android phone and the vendor does not offer any drivers whatsoever. The Android SDK and the drivers that come with it don't seem to work with the device, but the device itself reports as Android 2.2.1.

Other users have reported that the drivers of the Nook Color worked for them, but I cannot confirm this, after trying.

What options do I have to connect to the device (and ultimately to root it)?

Is it truly just the .inf file that I need to manipulate in order to make the device ID known to Windows? After all there are tools to figure out those strings while the device is connected (although "unknown") ...

The model in question is a Simvalley SP-60 GPS.

Note:
The OS I need drivers for is either Windows 7 x64 or, if anyone has successfully done that, Windows XP 32bit (under VMware with the USB device connected to it).

I would try editing extras\google\usb_driver\android_winusb.inf in the Android SDK so that it recognizes your device.

The file should have a section like this that you can extend:

[Google.NTamd64]
; HTC Dream
%SingleAdbInterface%        = USB_Install, USB\VID_0BB4&PID_0C01
%CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_0BB4&PID_0C02&MI_01
%SingleBootLoaderInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_0BB4&PID_0FFF

If you go into the Windows Device Manager and view the properties for your device, you should see the ID you need.  For example, my Vibrant says USB\VID_04E8&PID_681C under Device IDs and has 3 entries with that and &MI_00, &MI_02, and &MI_03 appended under Bus Relations.  I would therefore add this to the .inf file:

; Samsung Vibrant
%SingleAdbInterface%        = USB_Install, USB\VID_04E8&PID_681C
%CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_04E8&PID_681C&MI_00
%CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_04E8&PID_681C&MI_02
%CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_04E8&PID_681C&MI_03

You should also reboot into the bootloader, recovery mode, etc. and see if that provides more IDs.  I know my Vibrant installs new drivers the first time it's connected in each mode, so likely there are more entries needed.

Then just update the driver and select this .inf file.  It will probably give you an error about Driver Signature Verification. Depending on your version of Windows there are different ways to temporarily disable that; here is a good guide for Windows 8 and 10. Once it's disabled, install the .inf file and you should be good to go.

I think once you've done that then the USB Mass Storage drivers and so on will be auto-installed when you mount the device to the PC, but if not you could probably extend this process for that.


How to transmit calls only (not the rest of the device's audio) to a bluetooth receiver? When my phone is connected via bluetooth in my car, I'd like the Phone app to be the only one to output through the car's sound system, and let the rest going through the phone's speaker.
Right now the whole phone's audio goes through the car's sound system which prevents me from, for instance, listening to music from a USB key (plugged in the car) and listening to Google maps (running on my phone) instructions at the same time.  I have to chose between the bluetooth and the USB media.

Devices infos:

Phone: Android 5.0.1 on Nexus 4
Receiver: Volvo Sensus Connect (I think)

As far as I know, the sound protocol is A2DP and the phone is HFP, therefore, they are different. It should be possible to connect only one of them to the Bluetooth device (in this case, your car).
In the Bluetooth devices list, you should have a settings icon next to your car's name where you can disable audio. It should be possible to disable one without disabling the other. I'm not sure of that because I have never tested it and the labeling is quite poor in this place.

If the problem is Google Play Music auto-start, it is possible to force Google Play Music to disconnect from the Bluetooth by clicking on the "Cast" icon in the app itself.


How do I install one Android phone's apps to another Android phone without rooting? How do I install one Android phone's apps to another Android phone without rooting ? I need to install the Samsung Galaxy S Duos Internal Music Player on a HTC Desire 620G. Please help me, and thanks in advance.

To your problem, you cannot do so, unless you root both your phones.

Samsung Galaxy S Duos's music player is a System App, if I remember correctly. System Apps can't be copied like normal Application Packages unless you are rooted. You have mentioned that you need a way to do so without rooting, and it is not possible.
If it is a User App i.e. if you have installed them yourself, then you can just copy the APK file present in the data folder and install them onto another phone.

Instead of doing so, I would recommend you to use the Shuttle music player. It has many features, and can be used as a replacement for any device's music player.

If you prefer rooting by any chance, then you can do so (there will be a few bugs, because of porting System Apps from a Samsung TouchWiz UI based ROM to a HTC Sense UI based ROM) by using the Link2SD app and the following procedure :

Open the Link2SD App
Convert your specific app into a User App
Get the APK file of that app, using an APP backup tool or any similar one which converts installed apps into installable APKs
Copy the APK to your other device (in this case, your HTC Desire 620G
Install it as a System App using the Link2SD App.
Use it.

Note that the App might have a possibility of crashing when being converted into a User App, and because of the dependencies of the app on the specific frameworks of the specific devices, it might not work at all, and might even brick your device. Do so with caution.


Samsung Galaxy S4 will not boot, turns off after 2 seconds My Samsung S4 does not fully boot. It turns off after two seconds after the Samsung screen and before the Cyanogen boot screen. How do I resolve this issue?

I can't boot into recovery -- it never gets that fair. I also can't reflash as the phone turns itself off shortly after it gets to the flash screen. The phone also randomly restarts. I've tried swapping the battery too.

This is the infamous power button problem. I had this too. There are some guides that speak of cleaning the power button, but for me I found this rather rough solution to be effective.

SOLUTION: Galaxy S3/S4,S5, Note, Tabs ALL Samsungs (not Booting Up? Keeps Rebooting? Not turning on? (just hit the phone HARD on the power button)

UPDATE

Alright guys, so I'm back -- it's 2016/04/25. My S5 just broke so I'm downgrading until it comes in the mail. Googling for the same problem and I found my own answer. This time hitting it hard didn't work. So I sprayed the button liberally with DeoxIT D5 and violla, back in business. Hold the phone button side up and just soak it!


Link2sd gives "Mount script error" Im using a rooted Samsung Galaxy ACE with 2.3.4.
I installed link2sd and I have a 1Gb ext2 (I tried with fat32 also with the same result) partition. After starting the app and selecting the partition I get this error:

MOUNT SCRIPT ERROR
Mount Script cannot be created
Mount: Invalid argument

Any ideas?

do you have busybox installed? Open up terminal emulator and type busybox if a load of stuff comes up on the screen, then you have busybox installed.

Next, type mount into terminal emulator, if a load of crap comes up then you do have mount installed.

Otherwise, download the BusyBox Installer app on market, and download an older version of busybox. The same if you already have it installed, as the newer versions have loads of errors.

If that doesn't work, then I suggest emaailing the developer with a bug report.


Android app identifier? Is there such a thing as a searchable database or a website anywhere online where someone can type in the name of an app or a package name and see a summary of what the app is for, if it is a system app, if it is just Android or iOS, list of permissions needed, etc?

I guess sort of an app dictionary/encyclopedia with more in depth info than what searching Google Play will give me.

Unlikely such a site exists and is complete. See the two links in this answer: The first currently covers 1718 apps, the second ~7,350 apps. My own site currently covers ~13,000+ apps (from multiple sources: GPlay, F-Droid, Aptoide "Apps", Xposed Repo).

Google Play covers >1 Mio apps, and I have a lot of apps not covered there (so do F-Droid (~1,800 apps) and Aptoide (~90,000 apps in their main repo, plus tons more in other "user-repos"). Then there are those apps offered outside of stores at all, e.g. only on the website of some company.

All that's left is typing the package name (surrounded by quotes) into a search box (Google, DuckDuckGo, whatever) and see what pops up. As you're specifically after malware: those results sometimes include links to scan details by several known anti-X companies, which are interesting (but not easy to read).


Does Google Play balance expire? I have a credit on Google Play that is from a gift card and not a promotion. Do I have to use it by a certain date?

From the Google Play Gift Card Terms of Service:

  No Fees or Expiration. No fees or expiration dates apply to this Gift Card. Any refunded Google Play amounts, if applicable, will be
  credited back to your Google Play balance for future use under the
  same terms, unless otherwise required by law.

This is partially because of laws around gift cards:

  In 2009, Congress passed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility
  and Disclosure (CARD) Act, which set consumer protections for gift
  cards based on many state laws. The law provides that gift cards
  cannot expire within five years from the date they were activated and
  generally limits inactivity fee on gift cards except in certain
  circumstances, such as if there has been no transaction for at least
  12 months. The federal law creates a floor for regulation and leaves
  room for state regulation on redeeming gift cards for cash and
  unclaimed property provisions.


Proximity Sensor is mocked to 5cm, screen still goes dark After replacing the display of my Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite, my proximity sensor is giving me wrong values (saying, my phone is always covered).
I mocked my sensors using the XPosed Sensor Disable App, and the various sensor test apps tell me, that the distance is 5cm (the maximum). Still, my phone's screen goes black when playing audios or making a call. Am I missing something? Maybe another sensor's setting?
The way I mocked my Sensors was the following:
LTR579 ALSPS: 5cm, LTR579 ALSPS-Non Wakeup Secondary: 0cm
I'm really out of ideas, it would be great if someone could help me! I'd hate having to open my phone again, and I'll happily do without the screen going black feature. I honestly have no idea why the test says "5cm", but the phone still decides to go dark. >:(
Thanks alot for any ideas!

Well, I thought I had tried all possible combinations, but seems like I forgot to save the mocked values. With LTR579 ALSPS: 0cm and LTR579 ALSPS-Non Wakeup Secondary: 5cm, it now works as I want it to. I have no idea why the sensor testing app gave me wrong values.
EDIT: Turns out that the app i used to calibrate the sensor with at the very beginning was the reason for the unwated behaviour after all. Just uninstalling it was not enough, I had to reinstall it, choose the option to reset the calibration, uninstall it, reboot the phone, and THEN override the sensors in the XPosed app.


How to upgrade rooted Lava Iris 354E running Jelly Bean to Kitkat My phone is rooted, has a 1GHz dual core processor and 215MB ram, and I want to upgrade it to KitKat from its Jelly Bean OS. Can I upgrade it?

This device doesn't meet the minimum hardware requirement to run Android Kitkat. Google has mentioned here:

Device implementation MUST have at least 340MB of memory available to the kernel and userspace. The 340MB must be in addition to any memory dedicated to hardware components such as radio, video, and so on that is not under the kernel's control.
...
[The] /data partition MUST be at least 1GB.

In short, you should stick with your current OS, or buy a new device with better hardware specifications. Even if a hack is available out there to somehow run Kitkat, it's not worth considering the severe limitations on the hardware end.


View WordPress images in Android Gallery With my Android tablet, the Gallery shows images from an old Blogger blog that I used to use (the blog belongs to my Google account, obviously).

I currently have a WordPress blog hosted on my own web space, and I would really like to have the same functionality--some way to have the images that are hosted on my WordPress blog show up in my Gallery.

Is there any way to do this currently?

No.

The blogger images showed up because they're hosted in Picasa which is integrated into the Android gallery.

But as a workaround you could host your images on Picasa and link to them from your blog.


Downloaded MP3 File Opens Wrong App I downloaded an audio file (a podcast, 41MB, .mp3). After it downloaded, I tried playing the file by selecting the file via the pull-down menu. I also tried by opening up the Downloads app and selecting the file (not long-pressing). Both of these methods opened the .mp3 file in the c:geo Geocaching app, which treated my action as Importing a Geocache map file (Geocaching is a GPS-based scavenger hunt or letter-box game). c:geo opened up its List feature, which is used for storing and sorting Lists of Geocaches, which you would usually store by Location.

I tried to prevent this behavior by looking in the Google Music, Downloads and c:geo application Defaults, to determine whether there was something I could do there (i.e. clear some setting that allowed c:geo to open .mp3 files by default). This may be part of the solution, but I did not succeed.

Does anyone know a straight-forward method to open and play downloaded .mp3 files? The ideal solution would utilize Google Play Music, but that's not a requirement; not deleting the c:geo app would also be preferred.

The device is an LG Nexus 5, but I'm not tagging the question with that info since I doubt it is device-specific.

Although annoying at first, try resetting default apps for everything. You will need to select Always for usual apps like your browser etc.

Settings->Apps in the 3 dot menu should be "Reset App Preferences"


Why are some lollipop notifications able to be swiped away on lockscreen? I have a pin set and privacy set to don't show sensitive content.

Some notifications such as tune in radio telling me about a recommended radio are able to be swiped away from the lockscreen where as some can't such as sky go notifications, texts email etc.

Why is this?

There are two types of notifications: Persistent notifications and swipeable notifications. Persistent notifications won't be swipeable because they are set like that by the app and for good reason (For eg: alarm or Poweramp or system notifications). There may be apps which abuse this. The only way to remove them would be to force close the app. And like you said, swipeable notifications can just be swiped away because it is assumed that they are unimportant.


Android 4.3 autoscreen turn on This issue I noticed,once i updated my android to 4.3.
The issue is after every 1 min the lock screen automatically turns on.
There was no problem before.
Please help,i dont want to degrade to 4.1 again.

Device-Samsung Galaxy Note 2.

I also recently upgraded my Note2 from 4.1 to 4.3 and was having the same problem. I installed the Wakelock Detector by UzumApps and found that the Noom Walk pedometer app was waking the screen. I uninstalled the Noom Walk app and the screen no longer wakes. The Noom developers have posted a test APK which can be found here: http://noom.uservoice.com/forums/207934-feature-requests-noom-walk-/suggestions/4147991-fix-noom-walk-on-the-samsung-galaxy-note-ii
I have not tried it yet. I may post more later if I try installing it.


What is system partition? How its size is fixed? Can it be resized? I have rooted LG P500 (Optimus One) running stock 2.3.3. I recently updated to unofficial CM10 (Android 4.1) and observed few serious issues.

I observed that Google's My Location service was not working. Many apps like My tracks, Endomondo etc which were compatible with other phones with 4.1 were said incompatible. All microphone related apps were not working.

After several hours of breaking my head, I understood that my /system partition was absolutely full. It had only 4kb of free space out of 190MB total capacity. With my investigation I found that few files were not copied to the /system partition during the ROM installation and Gapps installation.  Many troubles are the result of such missing files.

My questions:

/system partition: it is 190MB in total size. Who or how it was fixed as 190MB?
Can the size of partition be increased? I tried a tool but did not help. After all the process completed without any errors, I still see no change in the size.  Are there any other ways to do it?
Hephappy, a ROM developer had commented in XDA page as "No space: P500 has 190MB for system partition." and hence he withdraws the plan of developing JB ROM for P500. Is it then a hardware limitation?

After all these issues, I switched back to my stock 2.3.3 and I still see my /system partition as 190MB but with lot of free space.  Does this mean that 190MB is sort of hardware size/limitation?

If it is so, then this would be one of the serious factors that are to be considered while buying the phone as the hardware in other means can accommodate the needs of JB except the /system partition size, which is a real shame.

Update:
Few screenshots carrying frequently asked info taken in CM10 ROM:

Free internal storage = 47Mb:

/system partition size = 190Mb.
Ext2 partition on SD card created to create symbol link for few apps that cant be moved to SD card:

Who or how it was fixed as 190MB?

The manufacturers decided that. They probably expected that that size would be sufficient during the expected time they will continue official support for the phone.

  Can the size of partition be increased?

If you're rooted and installed custom boot loader, yes partitions can be resized, although not in a way that will satisfy everyone since it takes space away from internal memory and many people also have exhausted their internal space; it involves a lot of work to test and debug and since P500 has very little internal memory as well, at some point developers had to decide that it's just not worth the effort.

  I tried a tool but did not help. After all the process completed without any errors, I still see no change in the size. Are there any other ways to do it?

What did you try?

  Hephappy, a ROM developer had commented in XDA page as "No space: P500 has 190MB for system partition." and hence he withdraws the plan of developing JB ROM for P500. Is it then a hardware limitation?

Pretty much. All newer phones comes with much larger internal memory, you should consider an upgrade if you really wanted JB.


Dell Streak's screen cracked - what are my options? I hope this question is being asked in the right place - it's not a question about the Android OS, but it is about Android hardware. Please move it if it's better off on SuperUser.

I have just dropped my Dell Streak 5", and the screen has cracked.

I have a couple questions:

I have heard amazing things about Gorilla Glass - the machine is under a year old, has anyone else managed to get the screen replaced under the warranty because Gorilla Glass is supposed to be so strong? Then again, it could be that the screen under the Gorilla Glass is cracked...
Is the screen actually replaceable or is this effectively a brick?

Found this on the Dell Forums:

My Dell Streak Gorilla Glass broke today...i was coming back from eating dinner with the family and walking up the stairs the DELL STREAK fell out of my jacket pocket....and bam crash boom..it has  all types of cracks and glass pieces all over the place...
SOLUTION....
I immediately called dell customer care to see what my options where and the CSR...WAS JUST GREAT. She went out of her way to take care of all my issues and she did...before i knew it she had ask for my service tag on my Streak...and some personal info and the next thing you knew it was getting a email confirming that my NEW DELL STREAK was on the way....UPS TRACKING # i was amazed....how quick it was being resolved....THANK YOU DELL

You can also probably get replacement screens off ebay, and I am sure there are youtube video tutorials on how to replace the screen.


Android - Treat external storage as internal storage? I bought a Blu Dash smartphone at frys. It's a nifty little 40$ phone. The biggest problem is that it only comes with - I shit you not - 100 mb of internal space. I can decide to install apps on sdcard and choose it as default write location, but it still installs some data on internal storage, and gives me the "insufficient space" error when installing apps.

So my question is, can I trick my device into thinking my 7gb sdcard is the internal storage so I can install apps?

Edit: Forgot to mention I'm rooted and know my way around ADB and the like, so feel free to suggest some long convoluted process.

Not directly... only Marshmallow can adopt external storage as internal, but assuming this is the Blu Dash 5.0, you can root it, and use an app like Link2SD or App2SD to move apps to the SD card. You way want to consider a larger SD card though, since you have to partition the card and will lose some normal storage space.

The real problem is that you only have 100mb of internal space available, to use these apps you need to install them normally on internal storage, then move them to the SD card. With so little space to work with there may be several apps which cannot be installed so they can be moved.

This is the problem with buying a phone with only 4GB of space, although the price seems right if it is almost unusable for anything besides a basic phone, it may not be the right phone for you. I would suggest getting a phone with a minimum of 8GB of storage and 1GB of RAM.


How do I add a phone number to contacts from the text message app? I have a text message sent from a phone number that is not yet linked in any other method.

Is there a way to use this message's number to create a new contact or modify an existing one directly from the text messaging application?

If it is relevant, I use Gmail for my contacts and have imported from Facebook.

I have Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

What I've tried

This question is vaguely similar, but not quite what I'm looking for.

I know I can copy/paste the number if I open the "modify recipients" dialog, click on the number, and click/hold to open the cut/copy/paste tool.  I can also simply write down the number on paper.  I'm looking for an alternative.

There are no menu options if I select the message at the top-level of the Text app.

The menu options while in the text message thread don't seem relevant:

Insert smiley
Delete
Set priority
Add subject
Modify recipients

The menu options if I click and hold on an individual message don't seem relevant:

Delete message
Forward message
Copy message text
Protect message
View message details
Add to task

On my Android 4.0.4 if I click on the picture of the contact, I get option to save it.


Inconsistent UIDS and wiping a data partition I've inherited my wife's Android phone (GT540) when she got a newer, shining one :-)
We think to  have factory reset it (via the privacy option), and in fact it has finally stopped to refer to her account and all the pics are gone. But I keep getting a warning message, about inconsistent UIDs and the need of wiping the data partition to be sure.
I can click on the only button "I am feeling lucky" to continue, without noticing particular issues.
Obviously, as per Murphy, the message is not popping up right now, so I can't copy it verbatim :-) Will edit the question when it comes out again.

EDIT
The precise message is:

System UIDs inconsistent
UIDs on the system are inconsistent, you need to wipe your data partition or your device will be unstable.

And it is followed by the unexpected crash of the Market application (processocom.android.vending).
So:

what is happening? what data partition is actually worrying it? Wasn't the reset "hard enough"?
what could happen, what UIDs is it referring to?
how can I fix it?

I have a new SD card, which is as far as I can tell empty. I would have liked to format it before using it, but the option is not available: I can only unmount it. Is this (missed) formatting the required wiping to reset the UIDs? Or is it a completely different thing, which I will search/ask in a later question?
Being new to the Android system I don't know if any other info are missing. The kernel is 2.6.29 (but I would be surprised if such basic matters were strongly dependent on the precise kernel version....). Just in case the firmware of the phone is 2.1-update1.

UPDATE
I have asked my wife and she actually did the factory reset suggested. Just in case I did it again, and we still get the error. What now?

I found another solution:

Have a look at /data/system/uiderrors.txt. There you will find the apps that are responsible for the trouble. You can delete them (manualy if necessary) to fix the issue. Reinstalling the apps brings the error back, though.


Route in-call audio to A2DP headset How can I set up my Nexus 4 to receive Hangouts and phone call audio over a Bluetooth A2DP link? Even though my headphones are connected, in-call audio is routed to the earpiece or speaker and there's no option to send it over BT.

I've got Creative WP-350 headphones that support both A2DP and HSP but the headset profile audio quality is unusably low, leaving no other option but to disable it in Android BT settings.

Unfortunately A2DP supports only stereo audio, it doesn't support two-way audio, i.e. your mic woud be useless if the calls were routed over A2DP. You'll have to enable HSP for call functionality.


Can't remount /system in rw I try desesperately to push an app with adb  on the /system/app folder (to install the PlayStore on my low cost tablet).
So i tried to remount the /system partition with root rights :

mount -o remount,rw /system

But it give me everytimes the same response :

mount: Read-only filesystem

And i tried also with this command :

mount -o remount,rw -t ext4 /dev/block/actc /system

but it's the same thing...
And i don't understand really why, even with the root user, i can't modify this...

So if someone have an idea, it could be save one person in distress :p

The syntax of mount command usually requires you specify the target:

mount -o remount,rw /system /system

This output could be useful for us to better understand your problem:

cat /proc/mounts

As a last resort, as you have root you can try saving raw image of system, mount it on your box and push the app there, then flash it back on your device. To save raw system image:

dd if=<block device mounted on /system> of=<output file>

If you go that way make sure you keep the original system image in case something goes wrong.


dns leak on android emulator I run a VPN on my local pc before running my android emulator (memu), This successfully changes my ip but my dns remains the same as the exact dns on my local pc. I would like to know how I can block or change the dns on my android emulator so it matches the one from my VPN / proxy

Normally you can set the dns server if you configure a static ip. This can easily be done in the wireless settings.

If you don't want to set a static ip you can use third party apps like DNSset.

[edit2]: DNSSet might not be the right app because it will open a separate VPN connection. But Dns Changer might work. Simply enter your dns server in the dns server field and press DNS to accept the change.

[edit]: I don't know how your emulator connects to the network (cellular or wifi). If it's using wifi you can go to wireless and networking options, Wifi settings, More, Advanced and finally Use Static IP. Now you can set your static IP and the dns server. This will not work if your emulator uses a cellular connection.


Android Desk Phone Tablet I have been using VoIP for my landline for years, with an analog telephone connected to internet via an ATA.
Recently, this Grandstream GXV3175 PoE video phone sparked my interest in upgrading and getting rid of the analog phone and ATA, but now I wish to upgrade to an Android system with camera and market.
It could then also serve as a simple always-on portable PC for quick lookups or web browsing, and basic organiser/games/multimedia…

There already are several ideas for using Android systems as a desktop phone:
  - Android desk phones with Power-over-Ethernet
  - Android desk phone tablet+dock, for landlines with xDSL

Budget/specs-wise I like the Archos 80 G9 tablet. And ideally, there would be a Telpad-like dock but with PoE, but since that is not available for the moment, I was thinking about just connecting an external handset to the tablet in order to have proper microphone quality. Here I see 2 possibilities:
  1. via an USB port, e.g. Tiptel or Digitus
  2. via an earphone port, e.g. iPego or Moshi Moshi

However, if I read up correctly, none of the above seems to be supported on Android tablets?!
  - Does the OS (3.x/4?) actually support the USB handsets or are there drivers readily available?
  - Are there Android tablets that have a 4-band or 4-pole earphone port with support for an external headset/handset with microphone?  (Above-mentioned iPego or Moshi Moshi handsets are for iPhone/iPad only…)

How can I do this? Any suggestions/alternatives?

PS: sorry, new users can only post a maximum of two hyperlinks :/

For external headsets you would be better looking at the incredible range of bluetooth enabled headsets for mobiles. I doubt that there will be any support for the current desktop usb based ones anytime soon as its not the focus of Android atm. A hardware vendor would have to write the drivers for them, or an opensource effort.

I was just playing with the new native sip voip on Android 4 and its now deeply integrated. I was using the voip account that my home phone uses so my when someone call my house my mobile also rings and uses the wifi, very cool I wonder if this will pick off.


Difference in GPS hardware I'm currently coding a gps location application, and I have found out, that there is huge difference between hardware and units.

Having tried on the Wildfire S, Galaxy S2, GalaxyTab 10,1, and others, I find that the GPS position update frequency seems to vary from about half a second to half a minute (after getting the initial fix, and having free sight up). The Wildfire S performing worst, and the tablet performing best.

Does there exist a table somewhere that compares the GPS hardware/chipset and CPU, with possible times?

I would be grateful to hear about your experiences.

It is actually not the hardware at all.

There is a special file in the android system called gps.conf. This file specifies the GPS servers that the device will use. Each manufacturer wants to use their own special GPS servers instead of the main ones from Google (some have different values for different devices). This means that different devices connect to different servers for the same goal: GPS tracking.

This means 2 things for lockon time:

The speed and hardware of the GPS servers the manufacturer has specified will determine the lockon time.
The amount of traffic going to those servers will also significantly affect lockon time.

This is why many Samsung phones have notoriously slow GPS lockon times. Additionally, some manufacturers specify gps servers that arent even on the same continent (they specify one set of general servers for everybody). This means that if the servers are in europe, the lockon times will be better for people in europe due to low latency and the people in the US wont be so lucky.

The fix for this is simple (editing the file and replacing them with more region specific gps servers) but this requires root access.


Can I flash Android on device with overwritten mmcblk0? Can Android device with fully overwritten /dev/mmcblk0 (without /dev/mmcblk0p* partitions) be still flashed using fastboot? Is it true that overwriting /dev/mmcblk0 does not remove /dev/mmcblk0boot* partitions?

/dev/mmcblk0 is whole MMC storage chip which includes GUID partition table (GPT) and all partitions. On Android devices some of these eMMC partitions hold bootloaders (like sbl, aboot on Qualcomm devices) which have hard-coded paths in SoC firmware. Fully overwriting (erasing) such partitions means the SoC won't be able to boot device. Since fastboot and other service modes like odin are hosted by bootloaders, so those won't be available and the device is considered hard-bricked.

Exceptions are if the device does have BIOS/OpenBIOS/UEFI/ACPI support and is able to discover hardware without DTB and boot initially without depending on bootloaders.
Or if there is a way to re-create partitions and re-write bootloaders (see MTK example in edit section below). Something at even lower level which can communicate directly to SoC e.g. JTAG protocol can be possibly used to bring device back to life. However that requires special hardware and software and sometimes desoldering/resoldering or even chipping off flash chip. Still after recovering the device that way, you will have to restore device-specific partitions e.g. the one which contains IMEI.

/dev/mmcblk0boot* naming convention is usually used to represent boot area partitions from internal MMC on Linux while /dev/mmcblk0p* represents user area partitions or partitions on external SD card. Android init enumerates eMMC partitions as /dev/block/mmcblk0p* and external SD card partitions as /dev/block/mmcblk1p* (as far as I have seen). But the nomenclature may differ for different vendors. Whatever the case is, overwriting a whole flash memory raw block device would erase all partitions on that.

EDIT:

I just realized you are talking about eMMCs used with development boards, not on Android phones. Latter is somewhat different, it can have 50+ partitions on recent devices. Many of those are vendor-specific closed source signed binary blobs. But the eMMCs used with Linux have a few partitions (not more than 8 per block device by default).

If that's the case, /dev/mmcblk0boot* are most probably separate block devices as per eMMC v4.41 standard. So those might have not been erased with user area partitions. Boot partitions are also write-protected by default (1, 2), while Android devices mostly use user area for booting (though vendors can go other way) which is easily erasable. eMMC v4.41 also defines RPMB partition which is also a separate block device (in fact not a block device and not a partition) and shouldn't be deletable.

On an Android device with Qualcomm SoC (MSM8953) and Samsung eMMC (RX1BMB) and without boot area partitions:

~# mmc extcsd read /dev/block/mmcblk0
  Extended CSD rev 1.8 (MMC 5.1)
...
Boot configuration bytes [PARTITION_CONFIG: 0x38]
 User Area Enabled for boot
 No access to boot partition
...
RPMB Size [RPMB_SIZE_MULT]: 0x20

Another device with MediaTek SoC (MT8127) and Hynix eMMC (H8G1e) does have two boot area partitions and an RPMB. It reports "Boot Partition 1 enabled", so mmcblk0boot0 contains first stage bootloader (preloader or SPL) while actual UBOOT is on user area (mmcblk0p4). mmcblk0boot1 contains device specific information available through idme print like MAC address, serial number, unlock code etc. However another SoC (MSM8610) with same eMMC reports "User area is enabled for boot". So this seems to be a vendor-specific thing.

Again, since fastboot is implemented in U-Boot, it won't be available after erasing mmcblk0. On MTK devices, though, Preloader Download Mode (SP Flash Tool) or the even earlier EDL mode ("On-chip boot ROM for factory flash programming") should still work (if implemented). EDL mode on some MTK (Meta Mode) and Qcom (QDL/9008 mode; implemented in PBL/BootROM) devices requires shortening test points on motherboard (3, 4).

Otherwise the only way to flash partitions is by directly communicating with SoC. i.MX SoCs, for instance, provide SDP protocol over USB or UART which can be used to load U-Boot and use fastboot.

NOTE: Don't confuse Android's fastboot with eMMC Fast Boot.

RELATED:

Bootloader/BIOS, flashing ROM and correlated risks. Why Android devices are more brickable than PCs?
Boot Process: Android vs. Linux


Why Dialer shows contact name and image, when contact is not in my address book? Very often, when some unknown company is calling me, in couple of seconds I see its name and logo on standard Dialer's screen. Where does it take them, if I don't have this contact in my address book, nor do I have it in contacts in any social network, like FB, LinkedIn, etc? Does it search Google right at the moment of the call and shows me the result?

You didn't explicitely mention it, but from the context I assume you're using a device with Android 4.4 (Kitkat). With that, Google "pimped" the dialer. PhoneArena writes on this in an article called Google makes the Dialer awesome again: this is why you want Android 4.4 KitKat:

  I think the best new addition though comes in the changes to Caller ID, because that has been supercharged with Google as well. Now, any time you call a number, or receive a call from a number that can be matched to a Google Maps business record, Google will show you that business name, and possibly a picture (though that part of the feature has been a bit dodgy so far), instead of just the phone number. This means far fewer mystery phone numbers in your call history, and if you're like me, it means even more than that.

(emphasis mine)

Also see Android 4.4 KitKat dialer will add Google+ Caller ID and enhanced search options for a second source, and AndroidPolice's Google Does Caller ID: KitKat 4.4 Matches Numbers Against Google Places, And Starting In 2014, Google Personal Accounts for a third.

If it's not that, you most likely have a CallerID app (pre-) installed which does the same: matching numbers of incoming calls against some online database.


does Cyanogenmod 7.2 Madteam release 16/6 on Vodafone 858 support USB host? I've a Huawei u8160 which is running Cyanogenmod 7.2.
I saw in the change log that it has better support for USB mouse and keyboard and it was written beside it COMMON.
Quoted from the Cyanogenmod github CHANGELOG.mkdn:

...
Common: Better support for mouse and usb keyboards - Emilio Lopez, Tanguy Pruvot
...

So I was wondering if it supports USB host so I can connect it with a USB mouse and keyboard ?

The Common: Better support for mouse and usb keyboards found at the changelog refers to all devices supported, meaning that there was an overall improvement on the USB support for mouse and keyboard devices.
But take into account that the words "better support" means that there was an improvement, but it may still be buggy on certain devices under specific situations.
As a side note:
To your particular case, you are referring that you have a Huawei U8160, but on the changelog, the support goes for Huawei U8150. So, it may not be fully supported with or device.

Relevant Links:
The changelog can be found at: github - CyanogenMod
CyanogenMod Forums: CyanogenMod 7.2 Released! (2012-Jun-16)
Wikipedia: List of devices supported by CyanogenMod


View content of android screen from linux PC Is it possible to view content of Android screen from PC running Linux over LAN?
VNC should works here, but I'm looking for something more real-time, so that video content can be viewed smoothly from linux PC.

I found an miracast protocol which can possibly fits into my scenaro, but it requires wireless connection from both ends, where in my deployment, android device (TV box) is connected via LAN.

Any suggestion?

Scrcpy is your best option. There is a CLI & GUI version.


Motorola Defy in a reboot loop I bought a new Motorola Defy today. The phone switches on then asks to be connected to a Google account, I try to type in my login details and it reboots.

The battery shows 100% but when in switch off it moves from 0-20 and then stays at 60%.

And the phone doesn't work when not connected to a charger. Is it a battery issue?

Since it's a day, return it back and get another one is the best solution, AFAIK.

Update

It's a battery issue and AFAIK, nobody in this forum is going to put fixes on battery issues. And if I were in your shoes, then I would definitely return that phone and bring back a new one from the seller.


How to install recovery after rooting Xperia M (stock ROM 4.3) to install custom ROM? I have a rooted Xperia M Dual (C2004) with stock ROM 15.5.A.1.5 (4.3 Jelly Bean). Bootloader unlocking is allowed and I also have the unlock code already.

Since Sony decided to stop giving updates I wanted to install a custom ROM. So went ahead and rooted it but now I'm stuck.
I am still on stock ROM because I don't know how to proceed now.

Some threads say to unlock bootloader and flash the ROM, some say to flash the stock ROM first then recovery.

I found this app called TWRP Manager on my device's twrp page( https://twrp.me/devices/sonyxperiam.html ) which has an option to install TWRP.
But since my bootloader is still locked I don't know if it's safe.

A guide on XDA has instructions but it says after unlocking bootloader flash the custom ROM which is a huge 700 megabytes download and I at the moment don't have the bandwidth.

So is it possible for me to install TWRP via that app and flash the custom ROM directly?
Or what else should I do?

You have to unlock your bootloader to fiddle around with your phone. Without unlocking you really CANNOT do anything. Unlocking bootloader is straight. You won't mess up anything there. It's the installing of custom recovery which will bug you. Careful.


How to sync Picasa photos to Android 4.2.2? My phone system is Android 4.2.2, CM10.1. I have installed the GAPPS and Google+, but I still cannot sync photos from Picasa. Some people says syncing from Picasa is removed in 4.2+...really?

With the big Google Plus push this past year, Google have been slowly moving to retire Picasa Web Albums entirely.  First, they made it so that all of your Picasa albums are available via Google+ Photos, then they've set Picasa 3 desktop application's sharing options to Google+ as the default, then they even started redirecting https://picasaweb.google.com/home address to Google+ Photo Albums, and Android Gallery Sync options are indeed gone in 4.2.2 version.  As of this writing, the latest gapps package includes the following change log:

  All apps updated to 4.2.2 versions

  Google Play Store updated to 3.10.14

  Google Play Services updated to 3.0.25

  Gmail2.apk (Gmail) and GoogleEars.apk (Sound Search for Google Play)
  removed since they are available in the Google Play Store
  --May require uninstalling and reinstalling Gmail and Sound Search after flashing.

  Keeps previous version's Photosphere/Picasa sync install on Mako,
  Manta, and Tuna.

The last line means that the Gallery, which is no longer a stand-alone app, and instead integrated with the Camera app, is an older version in order to preserve the Picasa Sync functionality, while keeping the newer Camera features such as Pohtosphere.  Unfortunately this is only available on very few devices such as Nexus 4 (code name "mako"), Nexus 10 (code name "manta"), and the Galaxy Nexus family (code name "tuna").  This is due to the Camera apps not being open source on either Google's Android core apps, or every other manufacturer's UI overlay.  It is therefore impossible to get the Picasa sync code working on other devices.

If you are willing to experiment a bit, there is an older version of an add-on to the main gapps package here which may help you get Picasa Sync back.  You should flash this gapps-jb-picasa-20121011-signed.zip file after flashing the latest gapps.zip package.  However, keep in mind that this add-on was designed for Android 4.1 (not 4.2.x)/CyanogenMod 10 (not 10.1,) and will therefore remove any newer Camera features.  It may also cause other unforeseen issues and instabilities, so make sure to take a NANDroid backup of your current ROM before flashing that file.


updater-script for flashing raw partition image I created the image with the following commands

dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p1 of=/mnt/sdcard/modem.img
dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p5 of=/mnt/sdcard/aboot.img

Now I want to create a flashable zip to flash these images to another copy of device.

1) Do I need to format partition before I write raw image at first place?

2) Is this script okay if I assume no formatting needed?

ui_print("Updating modem.img ...");
write_raw_image("aboot.img", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p5");
write_raw_image("modem.img", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p1");
ui_print("Finished!");
ui_print();

If it needs formating, I use Parittion Table app to identify the partitions.
It shows for /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 mount point and filesystem type ("vfat") but for /dev/block/mmcblk0p5 this info is absent.

3) How to I know the filesystem type "EMMC" or "MTD" or what?

Thanks.

Seems like write_raw_image works only from filesystem and does what dd does.
Proper way would be to just extract the images

package_extract_file("aboot.img", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p5");
package_extract_file("modem.img", "/dev/block/mmcblk0p1");


installing apk in /system/app with android 5.1 or higher (simple adb push doesn't work anynore) maybe this is a newbie question, but I'm struggling to find an answer...

I need to install some apk as system apps.
In past (up to android 5.01) I was used to just adb push to /system/app and everything was working fine.

I found out today that since Android 5.1 this doesn't work anymore as apps in that directory are not anymore simple apks but they are folders with an arm directory with actual apk and other files.

How can I now install as system apps the apks that I have?

I have sources only for 1 of them.

thanks in advance for your support

regards,
blackdir

In Android API Level 21+ (5.1+) modifications in /system/app will not be recognized by the package manager automatically. Insteadyou should try /system/priv-app.
Assume your app is called Foo.apk, create a folder in /system/priv-app/Foo and set chmod 755 & chown 0.0 to it. Then put your apk file in it (the path should be /system/priv-app/Foo/Foo.apk) and chmod 644 & chown 0.0 to it. It will be recognized by the package manager then, or if not just reboot you device and the app is there.
In some ROMs mods in /system/app WILL be recognized automatically but it depends.


Does restricting background data for an app turn off notifications too? Does restricting background data also stop my phone from receiving notifications from restricted apps?

For example: I go to Settings > Data usage > Cellular data usage > Facebook, then I turn off 'Background data'.

Will I still receive notifications from Facebook?

Note* I am on Android: 7.1.2 and Device: Pixel

Thank you,

Dan

If you're still connected to WIFI you should still receive those notifications. It sounds like you're just turning off the mobile data(as stated on my Galaxy S5), but not the WIFI data.

If you're not connected to WIFI you shouldn't receive notifications because it takes data to check for updates with the Facebook app.


Android mobile internet not working On my phone I'm not able to access the internet. I have signal and data coverage. I still can't browse. But as soon as Mobile Hotspot is turned on, other devices can connect to the Internet and my device can connect to the Internet. It's a strange issue but it occurs often for me.

Is this an Android issue, a cell carrier issue, or a device issue? Thanks

Follow these instructions:

Try a reboot and check the option in Phone Settings.
Check if data roaming option is enabled.
Mostly, access point settings are provided by the ISP. Still, crosscheck them.

(Click image to enlarge)

Following is the code to access detailed information about your phone and its network:

*#*#4636#*#*


Turn off cell broadcast messages in my Xolo Q500 I just unselected all the options in the Settings menu but afterwards it still shows the notification. What can I do now?

Put your SIM in another mobile. Select the channels in Cell Broadcast in other mobile and delete all of them. If channels are not enabled, then first enable them and then delete. Put the SIM back in your Xolo Q500. Your problem will now be resolved.


How do I backup media, game data (internal storage) using TWRP? It is known that TWRP does not back up /data/media as you can read
here and on other posts on this site, also on TWRP FAQ
How can one bypass this?

There's an app that's just been released (tested on Moto X Play) that bridges the gap between Nandroid and full backup and backs up photos, videos, game data etc, which wasn't possible earlier
Tipatch (Play Store) and quoting from developers XDA thread

Tipatch patches TWRP to backup contents of internal storage (emulated SD card) as part of Data, thus preventing data loss. Internal storage typically includes items such as photos, videos, downloads, game data, and other assorted files.
A side effect is that wiping "Data" will also wipe internal storage. This cannot be fixed.

Programs (instead of using app) for all OS's available on Github
I am not affiliated in any way with the app or developer and wanted to share a tip-off from a friend
Edit: Also now tracker free version available in Izzy's F-droid repo
Edit 2 User alecxs who is a regular contributor here has a universal bind mount enabler, for the same functionality. You can download it from XDA. There is also a Magisk module "TWRP helper" that claims to do the same (not tested by me).


Can I see if an installed app has registered a URI scheme? I have an app installed, I'd like to know if I can see if it has registered a custom URI scheme (so it can be opened by other apps and the browser) and if so what the scheme is (e.g. someapp://)

Settings > Apps > Configure Apps (Cog in top right) > Opening Links

YouTube video walkthrough on Android N


Nexus 7 Sleep timelimited to 10 minutes? I just purchased a Nexus 7, and wanted to set it to sleep after 15 or 20 minutes of inactivity.

I don't have this option, as the most I can set is 10 minutes.

When I search about this everything seems to indicate I should have the option up to 30 minutes.

I am on 4.4.4

Am I missing an option or was it removed? Is there a way around it?

The time you can set before the screen locks can be limited by a device policy, just like how a policy can enforce a particular security level for the screen lock (e.g. you must use a password). You might have a device policy if you use a corporate VPN or an Exchange account.

In this case, to increase the timeout or disable the lock screen completely, you'll have to ask your corporate IT to remove the policy, which will also remove your access to the work resources (VPN or Exchange server).


how to make my usb storage or sd card the default instal location My techno g9 device shows internal storage 0.99G Usb storage 12 G and Sd Card 27G. All installed apps go to the .99G which is full. So i cant dowload any new apps. Please how can i change the instal folder to the 12G usb storage or the 27G Sd card.

Settings

Storage

Preferred installed location. Select SD card

In Storage you can also set the SD card to Primary Storage.

Try the steps an see if your device has the function.


Can an Android phone pull contact data from somewhere other than Google Contacts? Is it possible for an Android phone to source contacts data from somewhere other than Google Contacts? If so, does it only do this by syncing, or can it actually connect to some other contact service or provider to source contact details directly?
Or, is Google Contacts literally the only place it will look for contact data?

There are several sources that can be used for contacts. I eg use CardDAV (and CalDAV for calendars) with my own Nextcloud install (an app named DAVx5, formerly called DAVDroid, takes care for the sync). There are more sync apps available, and also other, more light-weight server software (like Baïkal).
You can also use a local contact storage and take care for backups manually (using the Contact app's export/import feature). On-device they all use the same database (which has a field to mark the source, so data added to one does not get accidentally synced to another). If your device does not provide such local storage, apps like MyLocalStorage can provide it.
Should you want to hide contacts from other apps, you'd need to keep them away from the "ContactsStorageProvider" offered by the system. This is possible using apps that provide their own contact storage, such as Contact Book or OpenContacts.


How do I add a link from a Calendar entry to a Contact entry? I have a calendar entry and want to have a link to a specific phone number in my Contacts list.  The Calendar, Contacts and phone apps are the built-in apps.

Specifically I want to have the Calendar alert allow me to click the "reorder" phone number entry for my pharmacy contact and it will dial.  That's the 2nd phone # for that contact and has all the responses and pauses to reorder a script.

Samsung SGH-I927 Captivate Glide
Android 2.3.6
Kernel 2.6.36.3
Build Gingerbread UCKL1

You may need a newer version of Android/device or at least a more capable calendar app that can run on Gingerbread. The modern stock version of the Calendar (I think from 4.0 onward) lets you assign people from your contacts to appointments. Only about 4% of Android users are currently running Gingerbread so you're kind of in a small minority and may not find much help because so few of us are running anything earlier than Android 4.0.


Samsung Galaxy S3 keeps restarting, stuck on Samsung logo Two days ago I got the official update of jelly bean 4.3 to my Samsung Galaxy S3. Last night phone was dropped from a small height. Today morning when I switched on the phone it worked fine. But in the evening, suddenly my phone restarted and goes to Samsung Logo Splash Screen (Samsung galaxy S3 GT-I9300T) and keeps rebooting. I removed the battery and insert it after a few second. After that the phone worked fine and again the same problem happened.

If I remove the battery to switch off the phone and if I insert the battery again, phone switch on by itself (without press power button) and keep restarting.

I try to open the Home + Volume Up+ Power On button option. But is not working. If I plug the phone to charge, gray battery shows and again restarting to charge. (I mean, phone won’t stay in a stage).

If i try Home + Voulme Down + Power On option, phone shows the download mode for 5 seconds and restarts again.

So can you please let me know it’s a software problem or hardware problem?
If it’s a software how to fix it ? ( I tried the emergency firmware recovery through kies, but kies couldn’t fine my phone).

My phone current status video below
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xvq6bd93qjmdt6o/20131012_235047.mp4

Note : I downloaded the video from youtube, because I wanted to show the current situation. ( But my phone is critical than what is shown in the video)

Thank You.

It does look like a stuck power button. (as ridiculous as it may sound)

The behaviour in your phone is exactly as it is when I press and hold on my power button for an extended period.

By right, the device should not turn on by itself when the battery is inserted. It should remain turned off - only a hardware switch can turn it on. As your phone turns on by itself, it clearly shows that the power button is being pressed.

Furthermore, the power menu shows when you turn the phone on without touching the phone at all and again showing the power button being pressed.

I suggest you bring your phone down to someone who knows how to open up your phone to see if there has been any damage to the power button.


Getting Error In installing cwm recovery in Micromax a1(androidOne) from fastboot! I want to install cwm recovery in my canvas a1 for backup my current rom android 4.4.4.
I m going to install lollipop 5.1 I heard about some bug in lollipop so for my safety i want a backup.
I used minimal adb and fastboot for installing cwm.
But when i type the command "fastboot flash recovery recovery.img"
End hit enter
Then it show a error.
"Failed (remote download for partition 'recovery' is not allowed'

What should i do now?

Your recovery partition is locked.

Make yourself a developer (go to Settings -> About Phone -> Tap on Build until developer
In Developer options turn on Enable OEM unlock
Flash the new recovery, don forget to "fastboot oem unlock"
Important: don't allow phone to complete a normal reboot after flash. When rebooting, press Vol Up + Vol Down + Power to enter CWM recovery directly. Otherwise the stock recovery will replace CWM again.


Why does my hotspot stop after a period of time? I use the hotspot feature on my HTC One X alot for connecting to the internet with my laptop.  It's worked fine for months, but all of a sudden the last two days, the hotspot just stops for no reason that I can discern.  I have restarted my phone and haven't installed any news apps recently.  Any ideas?

You most likely have a hotspot timeout setting enabled.

You can disable it by going to your Advanced Hotspot Settings, and editing the timeout value to never.

Note that in some versions of Android in order to access the Advanced Hotspot Settings you need to first access the WiFi Hotspot Settings and then press the phone's Menu button.


How to setup 6in4 tunnel? Say my Android device is on an IPv4-only network and I have a 6in4 tunnel (e.g. from HE/tunnelbroker.net) - how can I configure my device such that IPv6 traffic goes through that tunnel?

Background: on a stock Linux system you can connect to the 6in4 tunnel via issuing 5 iproute2 commands or so.

For that, I suggest you look at this application,isatapd (requires root).
It seems to match your description;

  ISATAP is a IPv6 in IPv4 tunnel mechanism that allows clients to get a
  global routeable IPv6 address over an IPv4 only network. The isatapd
  tool for Linux helps with the automatic configuration of the tunnel
  and the client endpoint and is shipped in this app and run as root.

Alternatively the same developer has a similar app IPv6Config (root required). From description;

  IPv6Config allows to configure some of the IPv6 kernel settings.
  Currently, it allows to automatically enable the "Privacy Extensions
  for Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in IPv6" as specified in IETF
  RFC4941 and implemented by the standard Linux kernel and to establish
  6to4 tunnels for IPv6 connectivity with providers that only provide
  IPv4 addresses so far.

Hope this helps


WhatsApp showing "last online" on certain contacts, but no WhatsApp icon on Address Book app I think my ex has deleted his WhatsApp account. I can still see his last online time in WhatsApp, but the WhatsApp icon does not appear next to his name in my Android address book.

Does this mean he has removed his WhatsApp and cancelled his account?

Possible reasons:

He might have deleted his account permanently (probably changed his number).
He might have blocked you in his account.

There is no need to remove Whatsapp to do above tasks.


Backup app data and restore across ROMs I always use Titanium Backup to backup my apps' data.

However, last time I tried switching to a different ROM, it didn't
work very well.
I let the apps be installed automatically by android, and then tried
restoring their data with TB (user apps only, no system apps), but
this caused most of my apps to always force-close when launched.

I was forced to switch back to the previous ROM to be able to get my
data back.

So I ask: is there an app (other than TB) that's more stable when it
comes to restoring data backed up in a different ROM?

Again, I'm talking about user apps, I know it's unstable to restore
system apps and I don't need that.

Restoring across different ROMs, have you considered the "troubleshooting options" of TB, and e.g. enabled its migration mode, or have it using the system's own SQLite libs instead of TiBus? All those things are especially for cases as described with your question. So making use of those might end your search for an alternative; they've always worked for me – migrating from my HTC Wildfire via Motorola Milestone 2 to finally LG Optimus 4X.

If you insist on alternatives, however, I'd suggest you take a look at the backup tag-wiki, where you find many of them described. With Android 4+, you could e.g. make use of adb backup (or use Helium Backup on your device, which does the same locally). Again: This and more is described in the mentioned tag-wiki.


Email addresses showing next to contact name I moved to a new gmail account. I have set it up on my Samsung S6. However, now when searching through text messages or contacts email addresses are being show next to the contact name. I have tried everything from unsyncing, restarting phone, removing the new gmail account and setting it back up. I have display only phone contacts which does not work since I have everything saved under the gmail. It is very annoying to see email addresses next to contact names when you're sending text. In general it is very annoying to see email address next to the persons name even under contacts. Any help is appreciated

I finally broke down and deleted the contacts that showed email addresses next to the contact name. Re-entered that contact and saved again and that fixed the problem. Not sure why, only after syncing the new gmail, it showed that way.