How can I mirror broken Samsung S4 GT I9505 unlocked screen onto Laptop or TV? How can I project broken Samsung S4 GT I9505 unlocked screen onto Laptop or TV?

Fortunately with multiple trials the pattern worked out on BLACK display screen and phone got unlocked and I took Data Backup using Samsung Kies 3.2 version.

But the phone is sensitive to get locked automatically in 10 to 15 seconds. Somehow managed the phone in active without getting locked.

How can I permanently remove lock on BLACK Broken screen by any means of mirroring the phone UI on to TV or Laptop to get UI control and can remove the lock by going into the phone settings?

Please Help!

If USB debugging was enabled before you broke the screen, you could install Vysor in your PC. You would also need to setup ADB in your PC. Once you start Vysor and connect your phone, it will automatically push the android app for Vysor into your phone and display your screen.


Media silence during do not disturb When i turn my phone to silent now it goes to do not disturb mode and it silence media also
How can i make my phone silent and also be able to listen to media on my phone??

With android 7 the do not disturb mode has changed. I do not know of anyway (at this time) to change the behaviour of the dnd mode.
You can, however, instead of turning on dnd simply switch to the priority mode. If you have not configured any priority contacts or anything like that it does behave exactly like the pre-android-7 dnd mode including normal media playback.


Automatically toggle background data for a given app I have one app that "misbehaves" when on mobile data – ie. it takes quite big bites out of my battery. I don't want to cut it off from mobile data completely, though – as I need it from time to time and also want to get information on data incoming to it.

I know I could use Greenify and Tasker (see: Hibernate apps, but have them wake up periodically for a short time), but that approach is a bit heavy-handed: Each time when I bring the app to foreground, it populates the screen fresh as if I had just started it.

  What I'd very much like is something along the lines of using Tasker to periodically cut off background data just for this app (note the approach to Automatically restrict apps background data using Tasker is different, as it disables background data for all apps which is not what I want).

Are there any options I'm not aware of – like some "system call" (aka "shell exec") I could perform from Tasker?

In case it's relevant: root available, also Magisk, Xposed, and of course Tasker.

Tasker now has this inbuilt!

Actions->Net->Network access

It allows per-app or global settings.


Galaxy S3 Active Sync is not working, any help? I cant sync my business email on my Android mobile (a Galaxy S3 with Android 4.0.4).

I tried to set up a business email account but all I get is unable to connect to server after I'm done with the set up. I'm pretty sure server and configuration details are correct.

I'm trying to connect to Microsoft exchange 2010.

Any idea how I can fix this issue?

I had the same problem and downloaded Touchdown for Smartphones, which worked.  Will Send the phone back as clearly the bundled app that came with the phone isn't working but another program with the same settings worked.  Only bought the S3 a week ago, first phone the WIFI and the Bluetooth wouldn't switch on, 2nd phone no exchange e-mail, third time lucky?


Howto downgrade any app to the previous version without losing data on android oreo? Howto downgrade any app to the previous version without losing data on android 8.1 ?

EDIT 0 : Nota Bene : Here, Fairemail is given as an example, my question is not app specific but Android specific. I'm actually asking how to downgrade any app to it's previous release having already downloaded the apk.

Here is the information of the package eu.faircode.email I want to push to downgrade :

$ du -h eu.faircode.email_1036.apk
13M eu.faircode.email_1036.apk
$ aapt2 dump badging eu.faircode.email_1036.apk | egrep '^$|package|[s]dkVersion:|application-label:|native-code:'
package: name='eu.faircode.email' versionCode='1036' versionName='1.1036' platformBuildVersionName='' platformBuildVersionCode='' compileSdkVersion='29' compileSdkVersionCodename='10'
sdkVersion:'21'
application-label:'FairEmail'
native-code: 'arm64-v8a' 'armeabi-v7a' 'x86' 'x86_64'

I tried to reinstall this app without data-loss :

$ adb install -r -d eu.faircode.email_1036.apk
Performing Streamed Install
adb: failed to install eu.faircode.email_1036.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_VERSION_DOWNGRADE]

but it didn't work, so I tried the un-installation of this app without data loss and it worked :

$ adb uninstall -k eu.faircode.email
The -k option uninstalls the application while retaining the data/cache.
At the moment, there is no way to remove the remaining data.
You will have to reinstall the application with the same signature, and fully uninstall it.
If you truly wish to continue, execute 'adb shell cmd package uninstall -k'.
$ adb shell cmd package uninstall -k eu.faircode.email
Success

But then the installation of eu.faircode.email_1036.apk didn't :

$ adb install eu.faircode.email_1036.apk
Performing Streamed Install
adb: failed to install eu.faircode.email_1036.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_VERSION_DOWNGRADE]
$ adb install -d eu.faircode.email_1036.apk
Performing Streamed Install
adb: failed to install eu.faircode.email_1036.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_VERSION_DOWNGRADE]
$ echo $?
1

It seems adb install -d is only use-able with debuggable packages only according to this :

$ adb | grep downgrade
      -d: allow version code downgrade (debuggable packages only)

Can you help me ?

What you want is not possible and for a good reason: updated data structures (files, database, etc) are often incompatible with old app versions. This is why you can downgrade debuggable packages (for development purposes) only.

If you have a problem with FairEmail, please report it in this forum:

https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/apps-games/source-email-t3824168


If an app is downloaded and never opened, is it considered Active? What makes an app 'Active' in the Android marketplace reporting?

Is it when it is simply downloaded and on a device, or is it when it is downloaded, installed and opened?

According to this Market support page, Active installs are installs that haven't been uninstalled.  It doesn't mention anything about the app having to be opened.


no incoming messages shown on my mail box My phone shows no incoming messages on my mail box icon.

the mailbox icon on my home screen, doesn't show incoming messages ( in the red circle)
please help.

You don't indicate a specific version or email type (Gmail has a distinct solution), so I will recommend this article from Abhinaya Prabhu at Gadgets To Use.

Enabling Unread email Count Display


Backup boot.img via terminal one-line command I am trying to make an image backup of boot. The script must work on any android. I think on any Android the boot location is

/dev/block/platform/???/by-name/boot

My command line

find /dev/block/platform -name boot -exec dd={} of=/sdcard/boot.img \;

doesn't work: {} no such file or directory

Fortunately, there's a static path available for you:

/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/boot
           ^^^^^^^^^^

Problem solved

dd if=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/boot of=boot.img

Stay away from /dev/block/platform, it'll only make things harder.


Older messages in my WhatsApp are deleting automatically Older messages in my WhatsApp are deleting automatically. I'm not deleting them. I thought maybe someone is using my WhatsApp account, so I deleted my account 3 times, but still the same thing is happening. Can anyone tell me what's happening with my WhatsApp, and how to fix it?

How exactly is the deletion happening? WhatsApp has an option wherein the sender can unsend (or delete) a message he has sent within a limited period of time. So, if you are referring to that, then it is a WhatsApp feature.

However, if even your own messages are getting deleted, then it is something else.WhatsApp does not have any option to automatically delete the older messages. So, we can rule out the fact that it is happening automatically.

Next, it is possible that someone else has access to your WhatsApp messages via WhatsApp Web. You should check the WhatsApp Web option on your phone and ensure that there are no authorized devices which you do not know. If you do not know what WhatsApp Web is, then you should not have any connected computers on your WhatsApp Web.


How can I stop Android from synchronizing videos while still synchronizing photos? I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 which is great for watching movies. I move them from my computer via USB to the "Movies" folder and it just works fine.

But one thing that I don't like is that the movie is synchronized. It gets automatically uploaded. I can see it on https://plus.google.com/photos/yourphotos. And I don't like that. How can I prevent Android from doing this?

I have Samsung Galaxy Note II. In my phone I can configure the content synchronization in:
Settings / Cloud / Contents sync
There is independent sync setting for Pictures and Videos.


Flashing ROMs: Am I "Doing it Wrong?" I'm a software developer and systems administrator, so my technological knowledge is moderately high. I'll just leave that here as a preface.

I've ran custom Android mods since my very first Android phone, the Nexus One. From the beginning, it seemed like the idea of changing/upgrading ROMs involves the following process:

Backup. Backup. Backup.

Titanium Backup the phone from inside the operating system.
Nandroid the phone from the bootloader.

If it's a significant difference between the source ROM and the destination ROM, a factory reset is necessary.
Flash the ROM.
Wipe the cache and Dalvik Cache.
Boot and restore from Titanium Backup.

However, when changing between ROMs, things take me a ridiculously long time to do. I generally have to put aside at least 3 hours to a day when changing my phone's ROM.

Here's what my actual process looks like:

Backup.
Factory reset.
Sometimes wipe the system partition too. (Should I be doing this? I only do it from paranoia.)
Flash the ROM and the Gapps.
Clear the cache and Dalvik cache.
Boot into the OS.
Get through the setup as quickly as possible.
Titanium Backup: Your phone ID has changed, want to restore it?
Me: Yes. *reboot*
Titanium Backup: Restore all the apps.
Setup my Google Account.
Shoot, Dropbox isn't working, manually have to login again.
Shoot, Evernote isn't working, manually have to login again.
...etc.
(15 hours later) Cool, done.

Am I doing this wrong? I really feel that it shouldn't take this much time to switch ROMs. What can I do to speed up this process? Am I restoring from TB improperly? I'd love to be able to restore all apps, their settings, my Dropbox and Evernote accounts, my home screen, etc. without having to go through this painstaking process.

You should be careful when restoring apps from titanium. That software not only backups the apk itself. It backups the data of the app too. That's all it does. If the app you backup is programmed to run different accordingly to Android version and you change it with another rom and then in your new version you restore the app initialized to work with previous version, wel... errors will popup. For the rest, I do exactly the same as you except for the titanium backup. I only backup the Wi-Fi saved networks and their passwords. Not even Whatsapp databases because they're saved into SD card and the factory reset (and the dalvik cache and data format) doesn't erase it, so when I reinstall Whatsapp then the app finds magically those databases. I also backup saved words of Swype and messages (but not the messages app and its data like titanium does! ) But those things are for commodity. The rest I just delete all! New rom means new air. I ever loose little things, but saving contacts and notes in the cloud its far enough.


How can I enable debugging on LG G Stylo smart phone? I looked through all the options and did not see any thing for developeer settings.  I cannot figure out how to turn on the usb debugging for my LG G stylo phone, I imagin it is something pretty simple.

Since android version 4.2.* and up the "Developer options" menu is hidden.

To enable Developer options you have to go to About Phone (or About phone > Software info) and tap Build number 7 times

Now you should have Developer options in the options menu as usually


Unable to send and receive calls in Galaxy Grand 2 after kitkat update Last week I updated my grand 2 to Kitkat 4.4.2 and now I am not able to send or receive any calls from my device when I dial any number it gives me the message "not registered on network", I have searched many solutions on internet but they are not helping me because after making 1 or 2 calls may device again stops making calls. If any one knows how to resolve this issue kindly help me, I am frustrated because of this issue as I am not able to do the basic tasks from my device.

when you say you "updated your phone" I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. If you got an OTA (over-the-air) update from the settings menu in your phone (direct update from your mobile carrier), then you'll need to call the customer support for your carrier. They can usually reset your network settings remotely or walk you through troubleshooting the issue. If you updated it by rooting your phone and flashing a custom rom (you'll know if you did because it's a complex process that takes at least an hour) then you should try to flash a different rom. I've personally had problems with several roms not being able to place calls. Hope this helps!


Cant remount /system as rw because "read only filesystem" (selinux problem) Hello i tried to replace kingroot with Supersu, since in the newer versions of kingroot you cant block all of its connections, I had some problems, supersu always failed to install the newer binaries, kingroot didnt fully uninstalled and sometimes i lost root.

After being unable to install Supersu since it always failed to install the binaries not even as a system app, i gave up and decided to keep using an old version of kingroot (4.85) but since then i cant write on /system, i tried to remount /system as rw but it always get "Mount: Read only file system"

I tried "mount -o rw,remount /system" "adb remount" and also through root explorer, total commander and with "mount system RO/RW" but none of them worked.

I think it is because Selinux mode somehow changed to enforcing while i was trying to install Supersu, i tried with SelinuxModeChanger to change it back to permissive but i still cant remount, i cant even uninstall kingroot either.

What can i do? im using a rooted 4.4.4 Huawei phone with kingroot, it has root but it cant write to /system Please help.
Thanks for reading.

Edit:Problem solved.

Nevermind i fixed it by unlocking the bootloader since doing a factory reset did not solved the problem of the read only filesystem.


Temporarily protect email/sms when giving device to others? Say my cousin wants to play with my phone/tablet for a while. Let's pretend I'm really nice and pleased to let him play with it as long as he wants, but deep inside I'm a little worry about him reading my emails and sms out of curiosity. And I have other things to do so I can't stay around and watch.

If the current GMail or SMS applications don't have a 'temporary lock' feature, is it possible to write a separate application that controls access to existing applications on the device? For example, something like "com.google.android.gmail.Main is temporarily protected, draw the correct pattern to open".

Give this application a try App Lock you sound be able to lock the application you want to keep private.


How a boot loop prevents access to TWRP? I found an old Samsung Note 4 of mine which I flashed a few years ago (Lineage OS if memory serves me right) and which I wanted to reuse for my son.

It is unfortunately stuck in a boot loop:

If booted normally, it goes though the "Samsung Galaxy Note 4" initial screen (black and white and then after some time there is a vibration and it reboots (in a loop)
If booted with HomePowerVolume-Up, a blue `RECOVERY BOOTING...." appears together with the Samsung Note 4 screen above, then it reboots (in a loop)
If booted with HomePowerVolume-Down it goes into Download Mode

I tried to flashed the latest TWRP  (3.2.3) via Odin - no changes

What is the reason of such a boot loop? Is there a bootloader missing? (I found a bootlader and flashed it, the flash was successful but the problem is still the same)

My main goal is to boot into TWRP in order to wipe and reinstall a new Lineage OS

Note: Following up on the comments and answer, I wanted to clarify a few things:

the Note worked fine with Lineage OS installed
it was then left aside
it was then (not sure here) probably wiped via TWRP (the only thing sure is that at most the wipe functionality of TWRP was used, to do a factory reset). This is new information obtained after the one who had the phone in hands told exactly what she has done.
and then the problems started

This is to make it clear that it used to have a functional TWRP and a functional Lineage OS, then a wipe in TWRP occured, and then it cannot boot to TWRP (or Lineage)

A boot loop can be caused by several reasons.
• Incompatible Boot and Recovery Image's.
• System Modifications
• File Permission Errors
• File Owner Errors
• Incorrect Formatting Of Files
• Knox
And the last one i can think of is incorrect settings ( build.prop edits etc.. )

Yours seems to be the first one, or the last, Incompatible Recovery and Knox

Obviously you have had a working TWRP on that device before, so maybe you still have it from flashing the device years ago.
Custom firmware like Lineage OS can also require it's own recovery image, that is dependent on the corresponding Kernel version.

If your Lineage OS installation was for an UPGRADED Android version like 4.4 to 5.1, then a new kernel for 5.1 will have overwritten your 4.4 kernel, and now that possible working TWRP is useless... This became a huge problem with people trying to downgrade device's, as it requires a factory level flash. Odin may have the ability the downgrade the devices boot image ( kernel ). and TWRP will work again, but Knox will stay triggered.


Flashing TWRP to MTK device with SP Flash tool not working I need to root a custom MTK Android device. This device does not have volume keys at all so unlocking bootloader is impossible.(If anyone knows differently please educate me)

What I did previously that worked was use SP Flash Tool to flash over just the custom recovery. Then I would 'adb reboot recovery' and boom... there's my TWRP and I can easily root. We recently got some software upgrades so I flashed them over (complete ROM), device works great. But now, when I flash over my custom recovery and boot to it I get the native android recovery. It flashes successfully, it's definitely the right recovery.img... how is this possible. Any advice would be MOST appreciated.

When you boot directly into TWRP after flashing TWRP patches the stock system recovery-from-boot.p file by renaming (modifying) it:

rename"/system/recovery-from-boot.p", "/system/recovery-from-boot.bak"h

This prevents the system from replacing twrp with stock recovery.

Simplifying the process there are a couple of files involved. First, the install-recovery.sh is called by the init.rc at boot. If there is an update to recovery or an issue then the install-recovery.sh calls for the recovery-from-boot.p (the patch) to patch the recovery and boot.img.


Setting up Play Store on a Samsung phone from China? My mum received a Chinese Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 as a gift from a friend.

Since google is banned in China, there're no google-related apps. Since I don't have the play store, I'm unable to get any apps on it.

The browser version of the play store doesn't work either.

When I try to search for it on google, I never got an official link.

Is there any way I can get it without rooting?

Find a Play Store APK
You can Google play store apk or something similar, find a suitable (trustworthy!) source like this one and sideload the APK.
This does not require you to be rooted, or your bootloader to be unlocked, but it does require you to allow installation of apps from unknown sources (check your Security settings or equivalent)
Flash Google Apps
There are Google App zips for different Android versions you can flash. You can find these by Googling (again!) on reputable websites such as the CyanogenMod wiki page. Pick the correct version that corresponds to your version of Android and flash it over your existing ROM. This will install the entire suite of Google Apps depending on which version you flash. Micro for the minimal amount of apps and full zip for everything Google.
However, this requires you to be rooted and have a custom recovery installed, so the first option might be preferable.


How to change Android default-natural orientation? I have my device running android Jellybean 4.2.2 with Landscape as the default/natural orientation.

How can I change the default/natural orientation of the same to portrait?

Here is what I have tried till now,

1) Added setprop ro.sf.hwrotation 90  to build.prop and it did nothing.

2) changed user_rotation value in /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db and it changed the orientation of apps only. the orientation of Home screen and launcher are still landscape.

3) Modified PhoneWindowManager.java similar to the one given in link : changing phonewindowmanager to change natural orientation

The third option works. But it still shows the bootanimation in landscape and after the animation is finished, the display rotates(with rotate animation) to portrait. How can I avoid this rotation and change the default/natural orientation before boot animation?

Is it something related to SurfaceFlinger? I would also like to point to this article in android website. pre rotation in hardware composer

The boot animation wont change since the boot animation where a series of images. In  /system/media you will find the bootanimation.zip if you open the zip you will find the images replace the zip with your own boot animation of portrait images. There are plenty of tutorial on how to make your own boot animation.


CyanogenMod delete WhisperPush account This question is about the new WhisperPush-feature in CyanogenMod-ROMs:
http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/whisperpush-secure-messaging-integration
Prerequisite:

Me and a friend of mine have both enabled the new WhisperPush-feature on our CyanogenMod-phones.
Our mobile plan allows us to send unlimited SMS without extra cost.
We don't have a constant internet connection (no mobile-data plan)

Scenario:

I currently have an internet connection (via WiFi) and send a SMS to my friend
WhisperPush sees, that we're both using WhisperPush/TextSecure and sends my message (encrypted) via TextSecure.
My friend does not have an internet connection right now.

As far as I understand the system, my message will not be delivered until he gets online somehow. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Since this is not what we want, we both want to disable WhisperPush.
Question:
How do we do this?
If we just uninstall the WhisperPush-App, wouldn't that mean:

That our accounts remain active (and the data remains on the servers)?
If a third person using WhisperPush sends me a message, it will be send via TextSecure, but never received by me, because I disabled the app?

Since the App does not offer any option to delete my Account, how am I able to effecively disable my account and delete the app without any further consequences?

I have an answer for you.
Cyanogenmod should implement a simple solution!
The fix can be found on the final post of this page:

http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/87482-critical-flaw-in-whisperpush/

You'll need android studio installed on your PC to use "adb" in terminal/command-line.

These are the steps that are suggested on that site:

  You could try to unregister manually:

pc:$ adb shell
phone:$ su # (enable root for ADB first)
phone:$ cat /data/user/0/org.whispersystems.whisperpush/shared_prefs org.whispersystems.whisperpush_preferences.xml
# take note of pref_push_password and pref_registered_number
pc:$ curl -v -X DELETE --basic --user $pref_registered_number:$pref_push_password https://whisperpush.cyanogenmod.org/v1/accounts/gcm/
# add -k to skip the certificate warning

  The HTTP response code should be 204.

Source: http://forum.cyanogenmod.com/topic/87169-disabling-whisperpush/#entry448596


Comprehensive list of Android apps that detect and don't work with rooted phones I've been trying to determine if there is a comprehensive list of Android apps that have root detection built in and do not run if root is detected. Examples would be Good for Enterprise, Fox Digital Copy, Barclays Mobile Banking, and DIRECTV GenieGO.

Is there such a list?

The most comprehensive list I've seen its available on the RootCloak website, towards the bottom...

http://repo.xposed.info/module/com.devadvance.rootcloak


Mounting and Unmounting of Memory Card just by touch? I am using a Samsung Galaxy Y mobile phone. In my mobile's settings, I see an option to "Unmount the Memory Card for Safe Removal", so it is possible to unmount the memory card without actually removing the card or connecting the mobile with a computer.

I was wondering whether it is possible to Mount the Memory Card back again without actually removing the unmounted card and inserting it again?

A situation in which it may be useful:

I have an Android phone and there is a lot of personal stuff that I cannot let anyone see. I store all the apps containing the personal data in my memory card. Many of my friends and/or Girlfriend ask me my mobile to "check it out"/"play games" etc... At that point of time, I unmount my memory card with just a touch, give it to them and when I get it back I mount the memory card again with just a touch. I do it right in front of them and they have no idea.

NOTE: I am on Samsung Galaxy S2, Android 4.0.3

Elixir for Android has an "sd mount toggle" feature. It could unmount a removable card (/mnt/sdcard/external_sd), but not (/mnt/sdcard). I could not get it to mount by clicking the toggle again, but a restart [toggle also available] will mount the removable card. This is probably a bug with Elixir; and I will try to contact the developer.


Xperia XA2: Stuck on "Sending 'boot.img'" I unlocked my bootloader, and did:

sudo adb reboot bootloader
sudo ./fastboot boot ~/Downloads/twrp-3.2.2-0-pioneer.img

But it gets stuck on sending:

creating boot image...
creating boot image - 10240 bytes
Sending 'boot.img' (10 KB)

I'm doing this on Linux and using the latest platform tools.

Apparently the XA2 doesn't play well with Linux and USB 3 so I solved it by using an old laptop with USB 2.0
https://together.jolla.com/question/193348/xa2-flashing-issues/


What is hard reset and what is factory reset? It is mentioned at XDA Developers that one should do Factory reset or hard reset. I'm a bit confused about what is hard reset?
Factory reset I suppose is using the option in settings to reset phone to the factory state i.e. when it was unboxed.

A hard reset is traditionally when you kill all power to the device and then boot it up from that state.  Normally you remove the battery, then put it back in and boot up.  You're right about factory reset — it erases all your settings and data, leaving the OS.  Unfortunately, some people use "hard reset" when they really mean "factory reset".


Can't unlock LG Optimus P500 I have an LG Optimus P500 phone with Gingerbread.

Suddenly I am not able to unlock it by drawing the pattern. I remember the exact pattern, but its not showing what I draw there. It's not even turning its light on when I draw it.

Removed battery, re-inserted, and done every primary thing.

Strangely I can receive phone call by swiping to answer.

Tried turning it on by pressing power button + home button, but it went to some fast reboot mode and nothing happened.

Can anybody help me in repairing my phone?

All you have to do is HARD RESET Your Device.

Before it,try wrong  pattern continuously for 10-15 times .It will show some option where u can unlock your screen with your Google play account.

If it doesn't work try hard reset.

For hard reset

Switch off your phone.
press power button+volume up/down(try both separately) for 10-12 seconds.
It will show several option .
choose the appropriate one (don't choose options which you don't understand)

for selecting the menu press 'menu' button or try some other buttons if it doesn't work.
the menu choice depends on the different versions of Android phone.


Gingerbread has drastically reduced my battery life I have a Nexus One, and since upgrading to 2.3.3, my phone lasts several hours less compared to 2.2.x. I've swapped out to a new battery, which didn't make a difference. In about 14 hours (of nothing more than texting), my phone is at less than 15%. When I check the Battery use under Settings, Android OS is always the top battery consumer.

What can I do about this? Every other update besides this one has been great, but Gingerbread is a total disappointment.

Update: This is 100% an issue with wifi. After disabling it, the battery usage of Android OS has dropped from 40% to 2%.  After 16 hours on battery, it's still more than half charged. I'll keep investigating...or revert, because I think Gingerbread just looks fugly.

Revert?  If the OS itself is not sleeping properly, you can't do much else besides install a kernel or ROM that behaves better.


Samsung Galaxy S3 does not appear on Windows computer or Mac? I'm trying to unlock a Samsung Galaxy S3 Gt-i9305 on EE running Android 4.3. I know how to unlock the phone however, when I connect the phone to my computer it does not appear at all. Usually, Android  phones have a notification saying the phone is connected as a media device or something but it doesn't appear.

I've tried this on Windows 10 technical preview and Mac Yosemite. I've tried the following:

Installing new drivers (however I don't know if they were the correct drivers I tried    several though)
Installing Kies and updating to the latest version on both Mac and Windows
Putting my phone in download mode to download drivers (no drivers downloaded)
Restarting the phone and taking out the sim

Is there anything else I can possibly do? Is it a hardware problem? I don't have USB debugging on either. Thank you for your help.

EDIT

I've tried different USB ports, they work with my S4 but not my S3

I had the same problem of not having my device appear on my Mac running OSX Yosemite. The only difference is that I am using a Galaxy Note 3. What made it work for me was to change the USB port. I think it may have to do with the COM port not automatically selecting or something similar.


Why does my phone say I am roaming when connected to my "home" network? I recently got a new phone, the Elephone P7000 and it runs stock android 5.0. Everything seems to work perfectly apart from the fact that most of the time the top status bar says I am roaming.
When I check which network I am connected to, it says I am connected to my actual provider network, so why does it say I'm roaming. The only partial fix to this issue is manually selecting the cellular network, and this only works for around 10 minutes with no roaming shown in the status bar, after that it switches (? – I don't know if it actually does since I still seem to be connected to the same network) by itself when I am not moving and I get the roaming indication again.
So far, this does not seem to affect my ability to make calls or receive messages, but I find the roaming indicator in the status bar to be very unsettling.

Edit to clarify:
On my network operator selection screen, I see the same operator name multiple times and only upon selecting one specific (the topmost) option I get no roaming indication.

Any help or clarification would be appreciated.

Let me guess, you're on EE? Or a network that uses EE for it's coverage? (like Virgin or Asda). These swap between the Orange and T-mobile masts depending on which has the strongest signal, and when that happens the phone thinks it's then "roaming".

When you see 2 versions of the same network operator, you'll often see different capitalisation, e.g. "virgin" and "Virgin". One of these is actually Orange and the other is T-Mobile.

It doesn't have any negative effects.


How do you get the EmotionSoiD app to load the BIOS? I downloaded an app called EmotionSoiD which is supposed to be a PS2 emulator for Android here:

https://app.box.com/emotionsoid

I got it and it installed and runs and stuff, but a black screen pops up that says to load the EmotionSoiD BIOS, but it doesn't give an option to do so within the app...

I read another forum and it said that you might have to possibly put the file in the /data folder, but you can't access that without root and I can't risk rooting my phone.

I tried contacting the developer but I can't find any email/etc. What else can I do now????!!!

The app is most likely asking you for PS2's original BIOS files. Usually BIOS files are copyrighted by the manufacturer, and are illegal to distribute.  You will have to do your own research on how to obtain them.

Your best bet of getting developer's support is over at their SourceForge site, which seems to be the origin of the app.


Deleting a picture being sent by whatsapp How do delete a picture that has started sending on whats app  but hasn't completed

When sending whatsapp image there will be cancel symbol only till file is not uploaded to Whatsapp servers, Here is the cancel symbol for reference.

If Image gets uploaded you have to use Delete for everyone feature for removing the Image.


How can I create a second instagram account? I want to create a second instagram account. I already have my personal instagram, and I want to create a second one for an art project.

For the art project, I'm not necessarily planning on using my phone to upload the pictures, instead I'd use a web browser based client like Gramfeed.

However for that I'll still need the existing account. How can I do that?

I'm not sure if multiple account signup is currently supported in Instagram mobile app and sign up is not available except through the website. There was once single phone can create only single account restriction. If you are unable to create a new account from your mobile app and if you dont have two phones, then the only way to create a new instagram account in a computer is to

Install Bluestacks or Andy Emulator for computer -> Install Instagram App -> Create a new account.

And access the created account in a browser or in the emulator itself.

If you have a Lollipop OS you don't need two phone nor need to setup Bluestacks. You can install Instagram app under two different User Accounts and both Instagram apps share a different appdata and therefore different username to login with.


Intentionally deleted Android system - how do I fix this? Right now I own a Sony Ericsson Xperia x10 mini and I rooted it. I had this program installed from Android Marketplace that allows you to delete applications.

So guess what... I deleted several applications for testing purposes and I knew that if I uninstall Android System it would break everything.

I did that epic "mistake" for testing purposes (don't try this).

The thing is how do I fix this? I have spent some time reading through forums and installed Flashtool and downloaded the ftf file (X10a_v2.1.update-1_2.1.A.0.435_Generic.ftf) in C:\Flashtool\firmwares directory.

What I have to deal with right now: - My mobile phone switched off when deleted Android System so I decided to boot it to see if any error messages comes up. - Now my phone won't power off due to the lack of Android System. So I have to use a torx screwdriver to remove the screws and take off the battery (because Flashtool requires the phone to be switched off) but unfortunately the Torx I have is one size bigger than the required one for Xperia's screws. - I guess I have to wait until the battery is dead or I should just get a proper Torx screwdriver.

The thing is that I have another Xperia x10 mini as well (works for now - didn't try any uninstall) and connected it to FlashTool and followed the instructions to flash it but I keep getting this error message:

  ERROR - ERR_SEVERITY="MAJOR";ERR_CLASS="SECURITY_CLASS";ER R_DYNAMIC="SIN header verification failed"

I tried to figure out what's causing this and I end up with the "locked bootloader solution". I tried the instructions read here: http://unlockbootloader.sonymobile.com/instructions but when I typed ##7378423## no service menu was available...

That happened to the working Xperia phone. How would I possible do that on a broken Xperia?

Any suggestions would be highly appreciated!

We're all learning through our mistakes after all.

If you didn't already have your bootloader unlocked and tools in place to reload the Android operating system (ie, ROMs or disk images), I strongly suspected you are completely screwed.


Moving app between _three_ possibilities for storage? My son has an Android phone, and when he bought it the storage space was divided thus:

System Memory: 157MB

Internal Memory: 1024MB

When this was essentially full we put in an SD card to give him more storage. So now we also have

SD card: 1.84GB

When he fires up something called "App Manager" and clicks on "storage" he sees these three possibilities -- System memory, Internal memory and SD card.

OK now here's the problem. If he downloads an app from the app store, by default it will typically install onto the Internal memory. He wants to put it on the SD card, but the only option available when he tries to move it with his app manager is "Move to phone". If he moves an app to the phone, which presumably is the system memory, then the only option now available is "move to internal memory". Furthermore, try as we might we cannot move any app onto the SD card. Is this expected behaviour? Is there a way of installing apps on his SD card (without rooting the phone, ideally)?

The phone is an LG-E400, running Android version 2.3.6 .

System memory, internal memory is a mis-leading thing, its actually referring to storage space which is a very different thing to the meaning RAM often referred as memory!
The reference to storage - system as in /system would be more accurate.
When you download an app from the Play Store, it must be installed into the /data.
From there you can actually move the app to the sd-card. On stock vanilla android, the option is there 'Move to SD card'.
Now by the sound of it, its as if it is indeed moving the app to the SDCard, but its not really a SDCard, its how an internal storage space (think of USB flash drives), is treated as an /sdcard but in reality, you have internal and external storage, the latter being the actual micro SD card slotted in place.
Its a bit confusing how it works, from a developer's perspective, when a check is carried out for an SD card, Android seemingly "tells" the developer that the internal storage is treated as an /sdcard.
Also, to compound confusion even more, there's also a symbolic link to the real sdcard, /external/sdcard as well - this bit is dependent on what device/manufacturer is in question.
Yes, this is the expected behaviour, whichever storage (from a view point of Android and the hardware device's file-system priority, is treated as "sdcard").
In short, nothing you can do, apart from using App 2 SD, but then again, that could fall into the same trap as I mentioned previously about the developer's perspective.
Edit
After the OP has edited their question to include the device, after looking at GSMArena
MEMORY      Card slot microSD, up to 32GB
Internal    1 GB storage, 384 MB RAM

Yup, it looks definitely like as if the internal storage is treated in this fashion as an "SDCard"...
The naming is misleading. What is really meant, is: internal (phone) storage 157MB, internal SD-Card (eMMC) 1024MB


My moto 4G play treats incoming messages as if they are group messages For some reason the messenger app that came installed with my Moto 4G Play is treating some messages as if they are group messages.  Even though these messages were sent from a friend to only me when I receive them on my phone they show as a group message, with myself, the friend, and 1 other phone numbers not contained in my address book all showing.  If I try to reply back it sends the message to all those in the group message, including resending the message to me.

I have noticed this effect occurs when different people message me.  When someone messages me it may come in as a standard message or the odd group message, with no apparent indication for why some are converted to group messages and other's aren't.  The very first text I got was a group message like this, before I installed any apps other then those preinstalled by Amazon.

Has anyone seen this behavior before or know how I can prevent it from happening?

I'm running Android Marshmallow 6.0.1

Try uninstalling any updates, disabling and re-enabling the stock
app. To do this go to settings > Apps > (your default messenger
app).  Then press disable/uninstall updates.
Try using an alternative messenger such as WhatsApp , BlackBerry
Messenger or Telegram. All  of these are available for free on the
Google Play store.
Try resetting your phone by doing a "Soft-Reset". To do this go to
settings > Backup and Reset > Factory Data Reset.  Be sure to backup
all your data, app data, documents and media  on your phone before
doing this.
If a soft reset doesn't work, try resetting your phone using a "Hard
Reset". This completely reinstalls your Android system. Like before,
be sure to backup all your data before doing this. Here's a link
with instructions to do so Motorola G 4G Factory Reset
Instructions


What's the difference between com.android.chrome and com.google.android.gms.chromesync? I'm trying to understand what is the difference & the purpose of two lines in /data/system/sync/accounts.xml which relate to Chrome app.
<authority id="101" user="0" enabled="true" account="email@gmail.com" type="com.google" authority="com.android.chrome" syncable="true" />

<authority id="202" user="0" enabled="true" account="email@gmail.com" type="com.google" authority="com.google.android.gms.chromesync" syncable="true">

When I turn off sync in device, Chrome app will (only) switch the boolean flag sync_switch inside  /data/data/com.android.chrome/shared_prefs/com.android.chrome_preferences.xml which also has the lines:

<string name="sync_acct_type">com.google</string> which means I logged in to a Google account

<string name="sync_acct_name">my_gmail@gmail.com</string> represents my email to sync with

Questions:

Why do I have two lines related to Chrome; com.google.android.gms.chromesync & com.android.chrome?
Assuming com.android.chrome is the Chrome app, what is chromesync?
What will happen for multiple users?
I have two accounts (my work & my personal) but in Chrome I'm logged to my personal, will it sync both?

Related references

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/lkcr/chrome/android/java/src/org/chromium/chrome/browser/sync/ui/SyncCustomizationFragment.java#189

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/lkcr/chrome/android/java/src/org/chromium/chrome/browser/sync/ui/SyncCustomizationFragment.java#325

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/lkcr/chrome/android/java/src/org/chromium/chrome/browser/sync/ui/SyncCustomizationFragment.java#351

com.android.chrome is Google Chrome's package name.

com.google.android.gms.chromesync is part of Google Play Services used to sync Chrome's bookmarks, history and password. It's part of Chrome Sync that was made available for use via Google Play Service a few years back as stated in this article:

If you've ever used Google Chrome on Android –let's be honest, you probably have– then you've probably signed into your account and activated Chrome Sync to have things like bookmarks, history, and passwords in constant harmony across all of your devices. While this works really well, the setup process gets a little redundant for users that install all three variants of Chrome (Stable, Beta, and Dev). However, it looks like Chrome Sync is going to move, or at least become available directly through Google Play Services. Several activities and providers have been added, along with some of the necessary strings to implement the same functionality in the GMS package.

What will happen for multiple users? I have two accounts (my work & my personal) but in Chrome I'm logged to my personal, will it sync both?

If you are logged to Chrome with only your personal account, then only your personal account should be synced.


Application to batch-move all applications to SD card? I'm looking for an app that will allow me to move most (if not all) of my applications to the SD card really easily. The actual Android application manager takes too much work to go to each application and manually move it.

Take a look at SD Move and SD Watch. They don't automate the process for you (I don't think automation is possible), but SD Move will give you a color coded list of what applications you can move over, and SD Watch will alert you when you install a new app whether or not it can be moved to the SD card.


App installing takes a long time in a Work Profile Having MIUI optimization enabled on a MIUI device (for me: Mi Max 2) makes it to take a long time (exactly 10 minutes) for each new app to be installed. Although I have not seen such behavior in the main profile/user, in a Work Profile (i.e. managed profile) with MIUI optimization enabled, each installing process takes exactly 10 minutes.

However after turning off the MIUI optimization (under Developer options), this behavior does not happen. Has anyone notified of this behavior? What is wrong with the MIUI optimization? Can I get rid of this optimization without getting into trouble in other parts of system?

There won't be any real damage when you  turn off MIUI optimisation.

This post describes the effects of having MIUI optimisation turned on/off as reported by MIUIers.

The optimisation offers some MIUI based settings & optimizations set by developers with aim of giving a fast user experience but of late has offered more disadvantages especially in new ROMs.

It has been reported to cause some some incompatibility issues with Google based apps and sync services and also non functionality of Greenify hibernate feature in non-root mode (MIUI 9.xx) althought it doesn't affect MIUI 8.

Therefore, you can safely turn it off, if it is causing lag issues With work Profile, as much as it is recommended to be off when using Greenify (MIUI 9). Besides the changes described in the linked post (as a MIUI user) I don't see any detrimental effects when you disable it.


How to Remove Super SU I have tried to root my Galaxy S3. Installed Super SU through flashing. Due to KNOX, I am not able to root my phone. However, the Super SU app remains in my ROM, and I would like to remove it. Help?

There is an option in SuperSU in the settings tab, called Full Unroot, use that and it will remove root from your device.


Any way to auto close Chrome when closing the last tab? I have been using the stock Android browser for several years and I am trying to make the switch over to Chrome.  The one major annoyance I have with Chrome is that the browser doesn't automatically close when I close the last tab like it does in the stock Android browser.  This may not seem like a big deal, but I tend to use a lot of apps that open web pages.  With the stock Android browser, closing the last web page will auto close the browser and return me back to the app I was using.  With Chrome, I have to manually close the browser or manually switch back to the app I was using.

Does anyone know how to make Chrome automatically close down when I close the last tab?  If not, is there another good browser that works this way?

For Dolphin browser, use the phone MENU button and chose EXIT

For Firefox, install the Quit Now add-on and use the new QUIT button in the menu.

For any other TAB browser, close all TABs prior to push BACK in order to exit.

For any persistently running browser, use the task manager to kill it.


Obtrusive notifications If I'm playing a game or watching something in full screen, why does the notifications come over it? I've noticed especially whatsapp notifications fill up the screen.

I need to be able to only stop the heads up notifications when in game mode or full screen watching video, not totally turn it off. is there a way to do that?

Answer to first question: Because Google wanted a new notification system that was more visible and obvious, much the way iOS handles their notifications. A lot of defectors from iOS actually missed that.

Answer to second question: this is done on a per-app basis, for those that support it. Most apps don't even use the feature, but for those that do, some allow you to disable the pop-ups, or heads up notifications. But that's the only real way to do so without potentially disabling notifications in general.


Rockscout and Vanilla music On my Galaxy S5 Android 6.0.1 I've installed Rockscout and Vanilla music to play music with my mirrorlink car infotainment. If I run Vanilla Music, it reads all files on the internal memory and the external microsd, but inside Rockscout, it "sees" only audio files on the internal memory.
How can I play all music with with Vanilla inside Rockscout?
Thanks

I've resolved myself: you have to select the target directory to add to the media library, TAP on that directory and THEN click "save".  Selecting only the directory and click "Save" is not sufficient (no action is done).


./flash-all.sh: line 16: fastboot: command not found I'm trying to "Get Started" with Setting Up the Preview SDK | Android Developers to Install the L Preview System Image Android L Developer Preview | Android Developers on my Nexus 7 (Wifi) "razor".

I'm getting following error:

mbp:razor-lpv79 alexus$ ./flash-all.sh
./flash-all.sh: line 17: fastboot: command not found
./flash-all.sh: line 18: fastboot: command not found
^C
mbp:razor-lpv79 alexus$

here is my fastboot, it's in /Applications/Android Developer Tools/sdk/platform-tools/ folder:

mbp:razor-lpv79 alexus$ ls /Applications/Android\ Developer\ Tools/sdk/platform-tools/fastboot
/Applications/Android Developer Tools/sdk/platform-tools/fastboot
mbp:razor-lpv79 alexus$

What can I do? I do NOT wish to modify flash-all.sh script (if possible).

This isn't an Android problem at all. You can simply run the commands from flash-all.sh by hand, changing each one to name fastboot by its full path, or you can set the $PATH in your shell.

PATH="$PATH:/Applications/Android Developer Tools/sdk/platform-tools/"
./flash-all.sh

You should also check that the fastboot executable is executable. This probably won't be the case if you've extracted the files onto a non-ext partition. The following output is a correct example: note the x in the fourth column, and that the files are owned by the user I'm running as.

z1@foyle platform-tools% ls -l
total 3292
-rwxr-xr-x 1 z1 z1 1355536 1105 27 Jun 14 adb
drwxr-xr-x 2 z1 z1    4096 1105 27 Jun 14 api
-rwxr-xr-x 1 z1 z1   47828 1105 27 Jun 14 dmtracedump
-rwxr-xr-x 1 z1 z1  225253 1105 27 Jun 14 etc1tool
-rwxr-xr-x 1 z1 z1  201380 1105 27 Jun 14 fastboot
-rwxr-xr-x 1 z1 z1   10071 1105 27 Jun 14 hprof-conv
-rw-r--r-- 1 z1 z1  720629 1105 27 Jun 14 NOTICE.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 z1 z1   16520 1105 27 Jun 14 source.properties
-rwxr-xr-x 1 z1 z1  771959 1105 27 Jun 14 sqlite3
drwxr-xr-x 2 z1 z1    4096 1105 27 Jun 14 systrace


How to change encryption password - Android 5.0 My encryption password is too simple and was wondering how I could change it without having to reset the whole phone?

I know there is an app for Android 4, but what would be the procedure on an Android 5 device?

Device: Nexus 5

OS: Android 5.0

Your encryption password is the same as the pattern/PIN/password you use to lock your screen. So simply go to Settings > Security > Screen lock and change it. Note that when you do this Android will ask you whether to also enter the pattern/PIN/password when you start the device in order to make your encrypted device's data unreadable without it.

In Android versions before Lollipop, it was good practice to change your encryption PIN/password to be different from your unlock PIN/password and make it longer/stronger as the encryption key was fully based on this PIN/password. So if you kept it short and easy (which most people do in order to quickly unlock the phone) your device could be brute-forced seconds/minutes (by making an image of your device and circumventing the 5x wrong password time-outs).

Since Android 5.0, the encryption key is only partly based on your pattern/PIN/password, the other part is based on a Trusted Execution Environment’s (TEE) key stored on your device in a separate hardware component (at least for high-end devices, including the Nexus 5 AFAIK), making the previous brute-force method impossible. Still, only using a 4-digit PIN can be brute-forced within a minimum of 17 hours (including the 30 second timeout after 5 incorrect tries)! Using a 6-digit PIN will take nearly 70 days. On the other hand, a 5 character password (using only the characters from the alphabet) will take 825 days minimum :).

So this info will tell you whether your current 'too simple' password is indeed too simple. If this is the case then change it as described above.

Sources:

Kaspersky Lab blog: Android 5.0 Data Better Protected with New Crypto System
Android Explorations (Nikolay Elenkov): Changing Android's disk encryption password (does not include info about Android 5.0)
Android Explorations (Nikolay Elenkov): Revisiting Android disk encryption (includes Android 5.0)
Android encryption @ android.com


How to post a link to an android market app? You can post a link to an android market application by useing a link that looks like:

  market://search?q=pname:package

While browsing the market, is it possible to find an app's package name? Or is there a convenient way to get or share a link to a market app?
Is there any way to post a link to a market app that normal (non-android) browsers can make use of?

This isn't possible, simply for the fact that except for the few apps that are featured on the  Android Market site, there isn't a way to browse the catalog of apps from anything but an Android device. You can link to the app if it's on the site, and if it's not your best bet is to see if the author has set up a web page for the app.

Google did say in their IO keynote (31:08) that they're working on a web interface for the market and demoed buying an app in the browser and having it pushed to the device instantly. It's likely that that interface will have the ability to link to specific apps, but until then it's not possible.


Is it possible to preemptively block an app's permissions to certain things before installation? I just bought an Osmo Mobile (a gimbal for smartphones). It uses an app called DJI GO to communicate with the phone via bluetooth. The problem is, the permission list the app requests before installing is extensive. In addition to the expected permissions like camera and microphone, it wants:

Device & app history

Location

Phone

Wi-Fi connection information

Device ID & call information

I'd be happy to completely avoid the DJI GO app but the gimbal won't work until it's activated by the app. So I'm wondering if there's a way to both accept to allow installation to proceed and preemptively block it's access to the above list of permissions?

This is how I eventually got around it. Put phone into airplane mode, side load the apk for DJI Go. Go to Settings -> Apps and select DJI Go. Select Permissions. Disable any permissions you find onerous. I did this and the app didn't crash and I was able to activate and use the gimbal.


How do I unlock my Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 I just got a new Galaxy Tab S4 I did not set a password IN THE SET UP AS I did not want one The tablet timed out and now it wants a pass word which I don't have.I have tried all the reset options I can find on google but none will take me to the rest screen what do I do now?

Boot into recovery mode and make a complete wipe of the phone. This will remove any password. WARNING: All your data will be removed too.


Show whole of image on screen in any orientation I'm using Firefox version 44.0.2 on the Galaxy Note 4. I cannot zoom out enough to view the whole of images on the screen - so I have to scroll to get a glimpse.

It seems the image is zoomed to fit the height of the phone in portrait mode and zoomed to the width with the phone in landscape mode. End result is I cannot ever see the whole image at once.

For testing I used this image.

Attempted solutions:

I have tried to change a few of the zoom-settings such as browser.zoom.full, toolkit.zoomManager.zoomValues, and zoom.minPercent in about:config, to no avail.
I have also tried disabling all add-ons.
With an image (example) with 16/9 aspect ratio and the add-on "Full screen mobile", I can actually see the whole image.

So how to make it show the whole image on the screen, no matter how you hold the phone?

In general it would be nice to have kind of indefinite zoom in and zoom out on all content on the web - both images and web pages.

Looking to do this?
(Click image to enlarge)

Perhaps this?

Turned out that the config browser.enable_automatic_image_resizing controls the behavior you want to change.

True: When viewing an image not in a web page, the image will be resized to fit in the browser window if it is too large for the browser window.
False (default in Firefox for Android): Images are always shown in their real size.

Toggle that setting to true in config editor.
For users new to the Firefox config entries: type about:config in URL bar, agree for whatever it asks for, type browser.enable_automatic_image_resizing in search field and toggle the entry to true.
There is more here. You can search for the config entry browser.enable_click_image_resizing. Toggle it. Now, the effects are identical to previous config entry except that whenever you would single tap on the image, its original size would load. When you tap on original size, the image will be re-sized to fit the page width. Convenient, I suppose.
One more. The config entry layout.css.devPixelsPerPx can also achieve what the first config entry can, but it requires efforts to pin pinpoint the value specific to your device and it would mess up with view of your pages. Nonetheless, it can do the job.
Note: Tested on Firefox for Android v44.0.2


Transferring a specific app from one Android device to another I use an application called time card for Android every time I switch to a new phone I never seem to be able to transfer that app and the data on it which is extremely important to me can anyone help me figure out how to do this as I need to send the old device back as it was a warranty situation

You'll need to do a full backup of that app, i.e. including its data. That usually requires root, but there are some solutions for this specific case to make it work without root – see Full Backup of non-rooted devices. The two candidates you should look at:

adb backup -f <appname>.backup -apk <package_name>
Helium Backup (an app which does this on-device, but will need to be initialized via ADB)

Basically, there's no way around adb for this. For details, see the linked question with its answers, and our adb tag-wiki.

Note: As Death Mask Salesman correctly pointed out, apps can opt out of ADB backups (developers can include a flag in their apps' Manifests advising the system to not permit ADB to back it up). So if your app falls into that category: bad luck without root.


android x86 - play AgeOfZ - app exits on launch I'm running android x86, in kvm (virtual machine manager) VM, installed from the iso. It loads great, and i have the playstore.

When i install a game "Age of Z" it exits everytime when i launch it ?

How can i debug this further, or is there things that i could try to resolve this.
I am not sure if it requires the screen to be portrait, as that is how the game normally runs on a mobile phone.

Goto "Settings" > "Android-x86 Options" and enable "Enable native Bridge"


Can't send mms with Hangouts I have a Galaxy Note 4, running Android 6.0.1 and I can't send MMS with Hangouts. I can receive and send MMS with the stock SMS app, but only receive MMS with Hangouts and I can't find whats is going wrong because it worked perfeclty fine before.

Hangouts is my default SMS app.

I deinstalled/reinstalled Hangouts, no changes.

I can sens MMS with other apps, I tried Textra, but now my battery drains really fast.

On many devices, messaging apps (even those with full access to SMS) are unable to send MMS messages unless they are set as the default SMS app.

This same issue affects to me on my Nexus 6P: my default SMS app is the Messenger app, and even though other messaging apps on my phone (Textra and Pulse) have access to SMS & MMS, neither can send MMS without being set as the default SMS app in Settings. Both of those apps prompt me to set them as the default SMS app when attempting to send MMS, I'm surprised that Hangouts does not.

So, to fix the issue: go to Settings -> Apps -> gear icon in the top-left -> SMS app -> Hangouts. Or, alternatively, search through Settings for "Default apps" or "SMS app".

tl;dr: Setting Hangouts as your default SMS app will fix the issue.


Insufficient Storage Available I have a Nexus 4. Whenever I try to install any app, no matter how small, it says "Insufficient Storage Available".

I have aggressively deleted photos, uninstalled apps, cleared the app cache, and now I have 315 MB free (according to Settings > Storage).

But it still says "Insufficient Storage Available" when installing from the Play store. (For any app; I have tried with dozens.)

I cannot even install the apps that I removed two minutes before. (WTF?) I have restarted several times.

What can I do to fix this erroneous error?

(Note: I don't have any SD card.)

You didn't mentioned it's a rooted device or not.

When I face similar issues I manage to fix this issue in this way. This is a permission related issue. I guess you face this issue when you're trying to update or install previously uninstalled apps.

When you are uninstalling app, it remain some leftovers in "data/app-lib" directory. Therefore, carefully check app that you wish to install leftovers are in this folder and delete those folders.

Go to "/data/app-lib/APP-PATH(that has this error)/lib" and delete its all the sub folders. Then delete APP-PATH folder.

If its not work you can factory rest your device to fix this issue.


Mounted SD card not working I recently mounted an SD card to my phone. But when I tried to download an application from the play store, a message popped up saying my phone didn't have any storage on it, saying my internal storage was low, but my SD card had 28.2 GB on it left, which my phone had recognized. Yet applications weren't being installed using the SD card, whilst any photos taken are stored using the SD card.

Any advice of what to do or how to fix this problem?

APPS CANNOT BE PLACED ON SD CARD. It's possible with app like link2sd (need root) or adopting sd card (android 6+ feature, see adoptable storage).

Some phones including Huawei have 'Move to SD' option but this option move files in internal SD (if /data and /sdcard are separated partitions) or move very small amount of data. For details, also take look at app2sd wiki and link2sd wiki.


Battery Boost?Drain? I recently updated my Note 2 to 4.3 and it has been working quite well. But today in the train I was using it and the battery level drained to 20%, Since the battery was low, I switched it off and came home. When I put it on charge and turned it on- the battery level said 67%. How come it got such a boost? When I took it to work today, it had only about 56%
and I come home with 20 and all of a sudden its 67%
How?

This is  a sign that you overuse your battery,frequently leaving your apps on....your battery is damaged and might need to be replaced...but till you can do that...you can always:
1.avoid charging overnight
2.use the correct charger
3.if you aren't using your data or wifi turn it off,to preserve battery life


How to downgrade an HTC Desire to stock version? I know the first thing you gonna say is to google it, there is plenty of tutorials for it, but I tried at least 5 of them (including some in XDA), and every time I didn't succeed.

First of all, here's my HTC Desire status :

BRAVO PVT-1 SHIP S-ON
HBOOT-0.93.0001
MICROP-031d
TOUCH PANEL-SYNTH0101
RADIO-5.11.05.27
Aug 10 2010,17:52:18

At the beginning, I tried to reinstall the original rom from the links in the XDA : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=695667

I choosed RUU_Bravo_HTC_Europe_1.15.405.3_Radio_32.30.00.28U _4.05.00.11_release_121865.exe because I'm in France (and it seems it was the most recent version for european).

But when I execute the installer, it works a bit, but then, it fails with this error :

  ERROR 140: Bootloader version error (I got it in french : "Erreur de version bootloader")

So after, I tried to get directly the rom.zip by going into the %temp% folder (windows), I put it on the mounted disk of my android, and renamed it to PB99IMG.zip.

I boot with VOL DOWN pressed, and it extract the archive but fails with a :

  Main version is older!

So, I must have a newer HBOOT, but I can't find how to downgrade it, and most importantly, to which version ? 0.92 ? 0.90 ? 0.83 ? 0.80 ?

I tried some tutorials, like :

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=768256 => The link for the downgrader (2.1 or 2.3) doesn't exists anymore, or contains viruses ... great

http://www.mikesouthby.co.uk/2010/08/htc-desire-downgrading-hboot-and-installing-custom-froyo-rom/ => The PB99IMG.zip for downgrading the HTC Desire doesn't work, it result in the same error message "Main version is older!".

In order to sum up, I'm looking for help to make my HTC Desire go back to the ROM I had when I purchased it. For that, I need a link to a tutorial or an app for downgrading to the correct HBoot, and I need to know to which version.

Thank you very much for your help, I really appreciate! I spent 5hours trying to make this work without any luck.

I finally succeeded !! (YOUHOU!! You can't believe how proud I am !)

First of all, I want to indicate that links on XDA (those that goes in multiupload.com, that redirect to lnx.lu), SUCKS! I can't believe it. You have to download a "download manager", with so many related ads and apps you must install. It's a shame. (I am very angry agains't them (lnx.lu) for wasting my time just because they are greedy).

Now, the real answer !

You need to downgrade your hboot version before running the RUU rom, for that, it's quite easy :

First, you choose your ROM on that page, and notice the ROM version

Then, you go here (if the link is down, you can download the source code here!) and define the CID and the ROM version.

For the CID, if you don't know it, just set to 11111111 or HTC__022.
If you want to try something more precise, you can try the one related to your carrier from this link.

Keep the download file to a specific directory (for this case, it will be /tmp/mtd0.img).

Now you need the flash_image tool, if you can't find one, here's a link. Download it to /tmp/flash_image

Now some command line. For that, you'll need the Android SDK and a correct USB driver (adb should return a device when connected, with debug on).

Do these commands :

// go to the sdk/platform-tools/ dir
adb push /tmp/flash_image /data/flash_image
adb push /tmp/mtd0.img /data/mtd0.img

// Make sure those files were updated with :
adb shell ls /data

// Then run
adb shell

// You will be in your terminal's shell, now do these commands :

chmod 755 /data/flash_image
/data/flash_image misc /data/mtd0.img

CTRL+C // To quit the terminal's shell and go back to your computer shell

// Now reboot to RUU mode
adb reboot oem-78

Once the phone is on RUU mode (showing a grey HTC logo), run the .exe rom you downloaded previously, wait for it to finish, and voilà! You're done ! :)

Here's the doc I followed for the commands.


How do I track a GPS device that has no connectivity with an internet or cellular network? Are there any GPS devices that can be tracked in real-time WITHOUT the use of a SIM card ?
Or is there any possibility to track a GPS device which has lost the network signal ?
Assuming they can both send and receive sms and mine has internet connection ?
Something like every minute it checks, not need for a real time hard track but as good to know where to find her if she gets attacked.
I want to develop an app for it

That's a little confusing: No SIM = no SMS. No network = no connection = no communication. GPS is only a receiver, it does not send. That leaves binoculars as only tracking method then – which, besides, even works with devices not featuring GPS. As long as visual contact is possible, at least ;)

Apart from that, I guess we've got an XY problem here: "good to know where to find her if she gets attacked" › How do you know she's attacked? GPS alone won't tell you.

Maybe you're rather after Personal Protection solutions. There are some featuring an "emergency button" – and others with a "dead man's switch": the former sends out an alert when pushed, the latter sends one if not pushed within a given interval. If such an app is good, it figures what means of communication is available – and can broadcast an distress signal by all of them: Sending out SMS and mails including the coordinates (GPS or network based, whatever is available), posting on Twitter/Facebook, and even initiating calls to 911 (or whatever number you tell it to use).

One such app would be Watch Over Me, including most of those features: Track-Me function, Dead-Man-Switch; Real-Time recording; Email/Facebook, and more (on subscription even more again). For alternatives, simply follow the link to my list :)


How to export a large WhatsApp chat with media exactly as it appears on my phone? I want to export a huge WhatsApp conversation (346,000 messages) along with the media (photos, videos and voice notes) to my computer exactly as it appears on WhatsApp.

There is a Chrome extension that does exactly what I want by downloading the conversation from WhatsApp Web as HTML. However, it crashes at around 100,000 texts. Is there any other way?

I can't export it directly through WhatsApp because it's limited to 40,000 texts. Also, my phone is not rooted so extracting the SQLite files is not an option.

(Technical answers are highly encouraged)

So, I managed to figure it out myself. Note that this answer has been written for non-rooted devices.

Go to Internal Storage/WhatsApp and rename the Databases directory to Databases.old
Open WhatsApp, go to Settings > Chats > Chat backup and set Back up to Google Drive as Never.
Tap the BACK UP button and wait for the backup process to complete.
Go to Internal Storage/WhatsApp and zip the Databases and Backups directories.
Arrange a spare device. Personally, I set up an AVD with Android Marshmallow x86 and increased the storage (partition size) to 8GB.
Root your spare device. If you're using an AVD, use this guide.
Create a new folder named WhatsApp on your spare device.
Copy the zip file to your spare device and extract it inside the WhatsApp directory such that the Internal Storage/WhatsApp/Backups and Internal Storage/WhatsApp/Databases directories exist. We won't be needing your non-rooted device in the coming steps.
Install WhatsApp on your spare device, log in using your original phone number, and restore the backup when prompted to do so.
On your rooted device, open WhatsApp and go to Settings > Chats > Chat backup.
Tap the BACK UP button.
Install any root browser and copy the file /data/data/com.whatsapp/files/key to the Internal Storage. This is your WhatsApp decryption key.
Install this app, go to Settings inside the app and set the Whats key file to the WhatsApp decryption key you just copied.
Go back to the previous screen, select the File type to your preferred file type and hit Export to storage.
You'll find the exported chat files in Internal Storage/BackupTextForWhatsApp.

To reactivate WhatsApp on your original, non-rooted device, just open
WhatsApp on your original device and verify your number again. Your chats will still be there.


CWM Superuser on HTC Droid Incredible I am trying to install ClockworkMod's Superuser on an HTC Droid Incredible running an older leaked Gingerbread build from Verizon labled TMartin GingerInc. I keep getting the following error:There was an error installing Superuser. Please send a log of the error to the developer..I cannot, however, find a log to send. ChainsDD Superuser and SuperSU lock up often.

Well, after accidentaly deleting my su binary, I downloaded and flashed the zip from http://download.clockworkmod.com/superuser/superuser.zip.


How can I group duplicate contacts from different sources (Google, WhatsApp, etc)? I have installed an ICS ROM (Virtuous Inquisition 4.0) on my phone. In my address book I am syncronizing all contacts from my Gmail, Google+ and WhatsApp accounts with the consequence that some contacts have THREE entries! Is the ICS address book not able to group them together by default? I know this question is similar: How do I remove duplicate contacts from Google+?, but the proposed solutions don't seem to work or are not really adequate.

Please try the following:

Select the duplicate contact Edit the contact
Access the menu for the edit contact page, and select the Join action
Select the contact you want to merge with from the suggested list, or search for
the appropriate one.

Doing this will link the contacts.


Is it possible to run android without a screen on plain phone mainboard? I use Android phone as "brain" of my DIY robot in connection with Arduino Mega board. It is generally low-cost solution, because cheapest Android phone costs about $30 and Arduino Mega clone costs $7. So it is cheaper than most of single-board computers and have more i/o pins than all of them and have all needed possibilities: wifi, camera, GSM, GPS, gyroscope etc.
But I want to decrease price of the solution and decrease it's weight. So I could buy only mainboard of a smartphone without excess LCD screen, box and battery. And run it.

But I don't know, whether it is possible to run mainboard without a screen. Is it possible to run it and also reinstall Android via USB if I need it?

I know that most of single board computers allow to install Android. But I mean indeed a mainboard of ordinary phone.

If you can prepare the phone before removing the screen with Tasker (or similar tool) and plugins like Autoinput and test it well, I think you can obtain the results you are looking for.

Run and install android from USB it is going to be (if possible) a very tricky mess.

Nonetheless, if you are able to put the phone in download mode you could be able to work on this topic too.


What happened to the pop-up alternatives in Google Android Keyboard? Up until recently, the stock Google Android Keyboard app had an excellent alternatives pop-up.  Long-press a word with an ellipses underneath it and you get a box with many variations.  I used it typically to obtain a plural, past tense, or other variant without having to tediously type almost the entire word before word completion finally offers the choice.

In some recent update, however, those variations have disappeared and been replaced with vaguely related spellings, as shown in the attached screen shot (note the differences between the old one and the newer one).

I find this change almost useless for speed typing and now it takes a lot more effort to enter words.  There is no setting to fix this that I can find.

Does anyone know why they changed this behavior, and is there any way to revert back to it other than to go back to some older version of Android or the keyboard app?

This is the old way:

This is the new way:

The workaround I found was to go to Settings->Apps->All->Google Keyboard and tap "Uninstall updates".  This reverted the keyboard app to the initial version of 4.021003 that was installed to my Nexus 5 when it updated to Lollipop.

Apparently the feature I am describing was broken/changed some time between 4.021003 and 4.1.22123. I'm going to report this as a regression and see what they say.


Why I cant scan the the Whatsapp QR code? I have tryed to scan the QR code using whatsapp for web, also I see the: ok, I got it, then a green line start to scan but noting happened, I just downloaded the app yesterday night and also Im in the right position of the phone and monitor.

Please can you help me? I have a: Samsung Galaxy Pro B7510.

Thanks a lot!

Personally I noticed that if I move the device further back from the screen it seems to help.Try moving it a bit from the screen.


Nexus 4 download issue I own a nexus 4 and since then i am unable to download anything via 2g/3g.
I am able to download content only through wi-fi.
The same applies for PlayStore. I have even tried in safe mode.
I have tried to clear data of Download Manager and even Playstore but in vain
Please help.

I finally solved the issue. It was related to my APN. My Access Point allowed only browsing. I changed it to another access point, and it worked!


HTC Sensation XE, Mobile data OFF when GPS ON When any app on my android device started to read GPS (with GPS icon ON at notification area), my mobile data connection is OFF right away and then ON again after about 10-20 seconds. It happens in every app and that's really annoys me.

I've tried to uncheck the "Google's Location Service" at "Location" settings menu, but it affects nothing.

Anyone has same problem with me? What's the solutions?

I've found the solution !!! It's an old bug that some people are trailing since Android 1.6, and wich is always not actualy corrected !

The solution : you must have only one APN set in your mobile network configuration.


Install built-in system languages I open Settings->Language and keyboard->Samsung Keypad->Input languages and there is a very limited range of languages there.

In my friend's phone there are more locales I'd like to support in my phone, is this possible (not via installing an external keyboard like MultiLing Keyboard etc.), in my friend's phone, my native language appears there and is integrated in the system.

Note: I've just rooted my phone.

If your question is about global language support, you might want to check How do I add a new language?

If you however simply refer to keyboard layouts: This very much depends on the keyboard/IME used. There is e.g. TouchPal Keyboard available on the playstore -- and also a lot of language packs for e.g. Hebrew, Spanish, Russian, or even handwriting. Same applies to some other keyboard apps, like e.g. AnySoftKeyboard (which even offers a pack for BB-Codes used in forums), Ice Cream Sandwich Keyboard, Perfect Keyboard, and others.

Though your question says you are probably rather looking for the former: If it is just for the keyboard, the latter is the easier approach. While installing a complete language pack may provide you with support for your language in other apps, you should be aware the language must also be explicitly supported by that app itself.


Is SIM network unlocking using app normal if phone simply expects a code? I bought a rare version of Galaxy S10 which was out-of-stock in my country so the distributor got it for me from another country. But by mistake the phone is locked to original network operator in the country of origin. I was offered to send the phone back for unlocking/change but it can take a few weeks. So I decided to try online unlocking service. All looks good except of the requirement to do the unlocking via side-loaded app instead of entering the code directly. Is it normal that the 8-digit unlock code does not work directly in unlock screen but it needs a helper app?

Their e-mail after purchase of unlocking code contained instructions similar to these:

  Please make sure that your phone is on the stock factory firmware. Unlock code will work correctly only on the stock factory firmware.

  Connect your phone to Wi-Fi network and download and install  official Unlocker tool:
  https://www.htconlineunlock.net/---path-was-removed---
  Power off the phone by long pressing power button and then Power off icon.
  Remove the sim card from the phone and switch on the phone.
  Run the Unlocker tool you installed.
  Tap 'Proceed' button. Wait until your phone communicates with servers.
  The phone will ask you to enter SIM Network Unlock Pin. Enter the code, tap 'Unlock' button and wait for result.
  Message "Your device is now unlocked" appears. Long press the power button, choose 'Restart' and confirm.

They claim they bought the code directly from the operator. So why direct unlock does not work (I made one attempt) but I am instructed to run an app?

Such unlock apps aren't official.

They employ various methods of unlocking based on the information they gather from the app installed and querying from supposedly authentic database of unlock codes.

I have personally used an unlock service for an iPhone which was locked to a carrier. I needed to supply device information and within a few hours they reverted with the code, which worked. All at a pittance of $10. I chatted with them and they revealed their modus operandi. Official unlock codes are obtained (read stolen) from the carrier database and these operators pay to obtain these. Payment is done only after unlocking is successful.

Bottom line is that there is nothing official or expected in such methods. If it works, good, else ask for refund


Sudden loss of contacts on my Samsung Galaxy S - running Gingerbread I have recently experienced that all my phone contacts suddenly disappeared from my internal phone memory.

I could still see the 2 contacts that were on my SIM-card, and I have no contacts on my external SD-card.

I have looked through the different contact display options under settings, and they were all on.

The contacts disappeared without me installing or deleting anything, or any other provocation. And while I was browsing through my call log, I could see the contact names being replaced by the underlying phone no, like a slow delete, very frustrating.

I tried to Google it, and found that this has happened to many other Android users (and not just Samsung phones), but I couldn't find a suitable solution to the problem anywhere.

It's not catastrophic since I have all my contacts synchronized with Outlook, although, I will be losing the contacts added after my last sync.

But I would really like to avoid to have this happen again in the future, and if possible recover my lost contacts.

Does anyone have an idea of what has happened, what to do about it and how to avoid it in the future...?

I don't know why it happened, but a good way to prevent it from happening again is to set your contacts to sync with your Google account. This way whenever you add a new contact, it will be uploaded, and if the phone loses your contacts again, you probably won't even notice it, as they will be automatically downloaded back to your phone.


Is there a way to preserve tabs that were open in Froyo 2.2's stock browser? When my Droid X's Froyo 2.2 browser gets killed for whatever reason (reboot, memory manager killing it), it loses 100% of its open tabs and reopens with Google's home page in a single tab.

If you have 7-8 open tabs, restoring them from History (especially if some were used via Google Mobile URL that all look the same in history tab) is a uber-major pain.

Is there a way to preserve tabs that were open in Froyo 2.2's stock browser, ala saving session state in Firefox, IR or Chrome (at least on desktop)?

NOTE: "Upgrade from Froyo" is not an option, neither is "use FireFox mobile" - for some reason FF and my Droid X don't play well (FF gets completely frozen once an hour usually requiring full battery pull). The question is specifically about Googe's Android Stock browser.

However, if the stock browser from Android 2.3 and on fixes the problem AND can be installed on Froyo 2.2, I'm quite happy with that as an answer.

P.S. Ironically, my problem is the opposite of the one discussed here.

Perhaps Chrome will work on your phone -- it works nicely on mine

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.chrome


wired mic -> bluetooth adapter -> android smartphone for recording possible? I want to record some of my public speaking using a lapel mic while walking away from my android smartphone.  I've done this using a standard bluetooth headset.  However, the audio is pretty poor.  So, I'd like to purchase a better quality microphone (probably a mic that attaches to my shirt).  The reviews on amazon for bluetooth mics are pretty bad.  The best reviews for this type of mic are mics that have 3.5mm output.  I'm wondering if there is a way to convert that into a bluetooth signal that is sent to my phone for recording.  I've seen that bluetooth adapters exist, but those seem to be all about hooking up to bluetooth headphones.  I've been googling trying to figure out how bluetooth works (receivers, transmitters, etc), but I can't find out if this will work... and I can't seem to find if anyone else is doing it successfully.  Any help is much appreciated.

OK, so I have an ANSWER.  I know for sure that the Pryme BTH-300 can accept a microphone plugged in via 3.5mm and sent the external mic's audio to a device via bluetooth (I have one myself).  The only bummer of the Pryme BTH-300 is that the audio output, if you're listening to music, for example, is poor.

I'm going to try
Sony RM-X7BT
which has a microphone input as well as an output that it can send via bluetooth to your phone.  I'll try to post on here my findings, but on Amazon for sure.


Mounting android phone to android tablet I have a Samsung Galaxy Ace, with Android 2.3; and an android tablet with USB host support, running on 4.0.3.

When I connect the phone to the tablet with an OTG cable, tablet says SD card is broken, and that I need to format it.

The tablet is rooted and I have Debian on it, which is run alongside android (With the help of Sven Ola's 'Debian Kit').

Is there a way to mount phone FS on the tablet?

I think that 'broken' means 'unsupported file system'. You can try searching for solution even just in Play Store. I had similar situations what I tried to connect ntfs pendrive to smartphone. This helped me, but I feel like You do not have ntfs file system there.

Hope that it somehow helps.


Which Android phones support MiFare Classic NFC tags? I have to use MiFare Classic NFC tags, which Android phones can read and write to it? Couldn't find it on the internet.

Here's a source for both Mifare Classic and Mifare Ultralight, published last month

Smartphones and Tablets Compatible with NFC Tags


Is there an updated version of Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro that has been released? I went to the Taipei Computer Applications Show 2011 today and bought a Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro from the Sony Ericsson booth there. However, the specs don't seem to match the one on GSM Arena for Xperia X10 at all. Mine shows Android version as 2.3 Gingerbread, a 1 GHz processor, and an HVGA display instead. Is this a legit version or have I just bought a very sophisticated brick?

The Xperia Mini Pro and the Xperia X10 Mini Pro are actually different phones.  Confusing, I know.  The former appears to be a "refreshed" version of the latter with your specs.


Activate alarm, ringtone or audio using ADB? I have misplaced a junker phone (LG G3 running Lineage).  However, it's still on, and ADB is accessible over TCP/IP.  (The phone doesn't have a SIM, so I can't call it.)

Is there a way to turn on the ringer or other audio from ADB?  I've tried a couple of remote-screen apps (adb-remote-control.jar and scrcpy) but although they appear to connect, and scrcpy even gets a screen image that looks correct, neither of them seem to send events correctly, so I can't control the phone.

I suspect there's a way to launch an app (Phone?  Alarm?) with a "Play Ringtone" intent, but I don't know how.

Suggestion of Google find my phone
worked: Google knows where your phone is, even if you don't.

From another user, you can also do it with ADB:

adb push t.mp3 /sdcard/
adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d file:///sdcard/t.mp3 -t audio/mp3

  (Playing a video file the same way or starting youtube (adb shell am
  start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d
  https://www.youtube.com/watch\?v\=oVQqmH4ufCQ)) will not produce any
  sound if the device is locked it seems like)


Android-based remote software to log in to OSX desktop? I have an Android phone that I'd like to use to control an iMac running Snow Leopard.  Like everything else they do, it seems Apple has their own take on how a VNC server should work, so their "remote desktop" does not seem to play nice with e.g. AndroidVNC.

I've tried some other stuff like gPad and gMote, both of which have dedicated server-side software.  They work fine, but I can't run them at boot time, only at login -- so if I'm not logged in to start with, I have to pull out the mouse and keyboard to switch users / log in, which defeats the purpose.  If I can "daemonize" the server software for one of those packages, great, but I'd be surprised since they have a tray icon / UI to control them.  I've looked into launchd a little bit but I'm not sure I can take an arbitrary user-space / GUI-having binary and run it "headless", as a system account.

I don't strictly need the display-back -- this is more for a home theater kind of setup -- but I wouldn't mind.  I guess my questions are either a) can I run something on my phone that will use the built-in remoting service (from boot time!) or b) can I make one of the existing server applications (gPad, gMote, whatever) run at boot time?

ETA: Free is better, obviously, but feel free to mention for-pay stuff, I guess.  And like I said, this is mostly for home-theater stuff, so wifi/LAN-only solutions are not a problem.

You should try LogMeIn - Ignition for Android.  I find it much faster than VNC when accessing my Macbook from my Windows PC.  I'd image it works just as well with Android.


Why does my phone slow down after using internet and installing apps? I have Samsung Galaxy Y. I think that when I use wireless and installing apps, not immediately but after a while the phone slows down considerably.

When it happens I must restart and when it turn on, then continues to operate normally.

I don't know if this is caused by some applications I have installed or some other problem. When it occurs I try to free RAM memory with Samsung's task manager or fast reboot, but it doesn't help.

After I read some of your topics, I don't use task killer anymore. It happens to me two or three times a day!

Why my phone slows down, and only turning it off/on seems to solve the issue?

"Getting slow" can be caused by a couple of different things -- separately or combined. It could be an app hogging your CPU, or the system running low on free RAM. It's even possible that some service runs havoc, blocking resources (though this one would be a bit harder to track).
Easy tracking for beginners (and for free)
There are several possibilities to find out what's going on. The easiest is to install e.g. OS Monitor and, when the device gets slow, starting this app and taking a look at the running processes. First order them by CPU usage: Is there any app constantly using 50% or more CPU? If so, you probably found the evil-doer. Next order them by RAM usage: Any app "eating" extra-ordinarily much?
Don't worry to much about how much RAM is free. There's no such thing as "unused RAM being a good thing" -- neither on Android nor on Linux. Free RAM will be used to speed things up, e.g. by caching files. Of course, if more RAM is used, those caches get freed.
Monitoring the system
If the easy approach does not help, you need heavier armament -- and a little background knowledge to use such. There's e.g. SystemPanel which can monitor your system. More useful is the paid version, which can do so in the background, and also saves its monitored data -- so you could even check after a reboot. An alternative helper-app is System Tuner (here again the paid app is more useful). Also, Tracing Memory might be worth a look (can't hurt, it's free).
Found it?
When you found out the bad app, actions depend on what it is. Is it an app that came pre-installed, or even belongs to the Android system, you e.g. could not simply remove it. Check the app's configuration, contact the developer, or search the web for known trouble with the evil-doer are always good steps to take. Of course, once you found the culprit, you can always come back here and ask a more specific question -- and with the background information you collected, we probably can give you better hints to solve the issue.


What checks should I go through if my laptop can't connect to the internet through tethering? I need to connect my laptop to the Internet by tethering through my smartphone, I'm using a Galaxy GT-S7270 with Android 4.2.2, a laptop with Windows 7 and a tablet with Windows 8.

Whenever I try to use the WIFI hotspot, while I can connect and access the internet with my tablet the laptop gets a limited access after connecting to the smartphone.

This behavior stays the same of I try to tether form another device, like for example my roommate's I-Phone or a WIFI signal coming from it laptop through a certain software (which in fact doesn't work for my tablet either).

If I try to use USB tether, as soon as I activate it from the menu in Android, the file manager of Windows doesn't list my device anymore, if I deactivate the USB tether the device is listed again.

This happens for both MTP and PNP protocols, in addition the PTP protocol trigger a warning saying that there are problems with the drivers of the dev
ice.

The laptop doesn't have a Bluetooth transmitter.

I won't have access to any other access point but the smartphone for a while, what can I do to connect my laptop to the internet?

EDIT: I had success downloading some unofficial drivers from the Internet and using them to make a USB tether.

Still, the same drivers don't work on the tablet and the whole process has been a series of random attempts.

Since I still don't have a "method" and the reasons of a certain connection working on a certain device and others not working, I will leave the question here.

Having a limited connection is a common issue in Windows 7/8/10. The only good method I've seen that works is doing a system restore to a earlier restore point (not a full wipe of the laptop). It'll be under Backup and Restore in Control Panel. Every time Windows updates it creates a backup which you'll want to use to undo any issues that may have caused the limited WiFi bug.