Can someone describe how publishing an Adobe Air file on Android works? I'm familiar with Adobe Air and I noticed it is on the Market. Does it accept .AIR files for install? If so, how does Air make adjustments for the small screen? Does air have access to all the neat features of Android? Such as access the contacts or the SD card? Need some help understanding how my Air application will perform on Droid. Should I still develop Android specif apps, or is Air ready for prime time?

You still need to develop Android-specific apps, but you should be able to reuse most of your code if you a rewriting a desktop Air app for Android.  So users can't just grab a regular Air app and run it on their phone, unfortunately.


How to display javascript console on Chrome (or a different browser)? I want to quickly try some Javascript code on Android phone.

I cannot find how to open console or something similar on either Chrome or default browser. about:debug doesn't do anything, and I don't want "remote debugging".

I can download another app if necessary (but I don't want to root my device).

That feature seems to be unavailable for all major android browsers.
You could try Opera-mini instead:

Reset the console output by opening a new tab with the address debug:resetconsole

Open a tab on the page on which you want to do the inspection:

Run JavaScript code on the page by replacing the address in the address bar with the following address javascript:var%20n%3Ddocument.firstChild%3Bwhile%28n%20%26%26%20n.nodeType%21%3DNode.ELEMENT_NODE%29%20n%3Dn.nextSibling%3Bconsole.log%28n.outerHTML%29%3B
Retrieve the output by opening a new tab with the address debug:console


is there a reliable source of charging current? I am testing several chargers and cables to find the optimal combinations for a fast charge.

I was so far using CurrentWidget and was getting just a few values, (independently of how much the battery is charged, for several cables and the same charger, as if there was no losses, etc.). I then tried Charging Report which was giving the same value, but also a "Max" and "Avg" one.

I finally discovered that these values most probably come from

/sys/class/power_supply/battery/current_*

Since in my case Current > Max (1698 vs. 500) and the max current I get is always 1698 mA (and it is always that for a given charger) I have some doubts about the accuracy of the reported values.

Should I trust them?

Please consider these facts before jumping to conclusions:

The latest Fast Charge uses 3 voltages, 5, 9 and 12V. A higher voltage means a lower current thus a lower drop in voltage and losses, hence the whole point of increasing the voltage. If you have a standard 5V USB charger then all of the above has a sense (measuring just the current). However, if you are using a fast charge system, you need to consider the voltage also (if at 9 or even 12V) and not just the current when measuring externally.

Long USB leads for 5V charging are a no-no. Good quality copper wire is a must for power hungry devices (1600mAH+ devices). Samsung non-fast charge adapters are bundled with short cables (2 feet max) for this reason. The device does not control the remote charge current, it just is limited to what the cable can handle due to resistive losses. This means that to charge the phone correctly you need at least 5.1-5.2V ON THE PHONE SIDE. The charge circuit in the phone and battery are responsible for providing the correct amount of current depending on the battery and limit the voltage on the battery (max 4.3V with HV Li-Po or Li-Ion cells) and cut off the charge when full.

Charge reporting applications are only as good as the hardware used to monitor it. Different phone manufacturers use different vendor charge control circuits or make their own. This means that if this circuit is not provided with a SHUNT where you can physically SENSE the voltage drop across the calibrated shunt thus calculate a precise current, the current is only estimated based on some voltage drop sampling in time and may vary greatly. What you access through the android power supply class is what this hardware reports, and you cannot know if it is a precise value or not based on the above assumptions. You must know what kind of hardware is used in the device you are monitoring else you are walking in the dark. HTC and some other manufacturers use shunt based current detection while Samsung does not (at least not on its S4 S5 and S6 series), the current reported is based on an estimate that is calculated based on a prior measured voltage and its drop in a certain amount of time (usually a sample per second). This is greatly dependent on the battery state (new, old, defective) but it does give a rough estimate of what the current use is, however, it is NO WAY near the precision of a shunt meter. So please be aware of this fact and know that power reporting applications can only handle the data that is given to them by this hardware, there are no exceptions.

Having said this, the only way to be sure of current usage (current, not power) is using a shunt based meter in series with the charging device. If you want to know if your USB cable is good quality or not, you can easily test this by connecting a source Power supply and voltmeter on the output and see what the voltage drop is on the phone side. The higher the voltage drop the worse the cable. An alternative and easy method is using a sensitive Ohm Meter and measuring pin by pin (just the 2 external pins suffice) what the resistance is.
    5V 1A/h = 5Watts. If your cable measures more than 600-800milliOhms (0.6Ohms) it is a very bad cable. This is equivalent to a 0.2Volt drop when charging 1Amp, hence the phone will revert to 500mAH which is fine for standard USB plugs but half of what a 1Amp charger can charge.

Additional note: a 5V 2Amp charger will charge any phone or device fine if the device requires less or equal to that current. If the device needs a more powerful charger (3+Amps) and it is still a phone or tablet, the charge limiting system will limit that current to what the charger can handle (2Amps) as it will reduce current until the voltage stays at around 5.2V so it will charge but not as fast as it should. For ex. use an old 5V 700mAmp charger with an S7 will work, but it will take much longer to fill up the 3600mAH battery than with its original Fast Charge charger.

Fast Charge note: Fast Charging is only beneficial when the battery is under 60% charge (50% on some models). When the battery is over 60% it won't be charged at or near its Capacity rating (less if its over the Charge rating) as this will limit the battery life (this has been discovered over years of testing with Lithium Ion technology). The last 10% of charge (so 90% SOC) is well under the rated capacity current as keeping a cell charged too much for too much time will eventually lead it to dehydrate its Hydrogen and expand (bulge). It is best not to discharge Lithium Ion batteries under 40% and not keep them charged for too long over 90-95%. This explains why in recent phones the charge of the battery is sometimes reported 100 but can drop quickly to 95 after disconnecting it, it is merely a safety precaution to prevent overcharging and no defect.

All these things may not appear straightforward, and in fact, they are not for the not privy. Suffice to say that it is a long studied and rather intricate discussion. Charging phones is much more to what meets the eye as there are several components involved and not just the battery itself. It depends mostly on the hardware (phone brand) type of battery (Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer), charging circuit (phone side and battery) and lastly USB cable used and charger quality and type. Keep all these things in mind when you want the best from your phone's battery life and safety. There is also a difference with sealed phones and user replaceable/removable battery types. This is part of legislation for safety precautions - but this is another story.


Can I install Android on my non-Android device? Many people want to try/use Android without buying a new Android phone.  How can I install Android on my current phone or device running Nokia Symbian, Maemo, or MeeGo; Microsoft Windows Mobile or Windows Phone 7/8/10; Apple iOS (iPhone); RIM's BlackBerry OS; Palm's WebOS; Samsung's Bada; HP's WebOS; Mozilla's Firefox OS; or other phone / operating system?

The Short Answer

Theoretically, all devices that meet Android's minimum requirements can run Android, it's just a matter of customizing Android for the device.

The Long Answer

While Android is open source and can be modified to suit many devices, firmware and hardware drivers are most often not made readily available -- especially not the source code.  Android won't run on a device without drivers for that specific device, so this means that you can't simply compile the code for Android and run it on your phone.

Android is a very different operating system than other phone platforms; Android and Windows Phone 7, for example, are just as different as Ubuntu and Windows 7 for the PC.  This means that even if you have WP7 drivers for your device, those drivers won't work on Android.  You'll have to modify those drivers to be compatible with Android, and you may need to reverse-engineer a lot of code.  This is very difficult and time-consuming, and sometimes even a team of people have little success with it.  Even getting a new version of Android to run on an Android phone can be hard.

The upside is that many phone manufacturers are now putting out versions of the same device with different operating systems.  One example is the HTC HD2, which runs Windows Mobile 6 but is very similar to the Android HTC Desire Z.  The Desire Z ROM only requires slight modification to run on the HD2.

Android ROMs/projects for non-Android Phones

Various developers have gone through the effort of creating an Android ROM that can be installed on other devices, or have started to do so.  The following statuses will be used to describe each project/ROM:

Pre-alpha: Concept stage.  You cannot use Android at all yet.
Alpha: Android is technically usable, but many major features are missing.
Beta: Most major Android features are usable, but it's fairly buggy.
Complete: This is almost as good as "real" Android!
Unknown: It's, well ... unknown.

Apple iOS Devices

There used to be a project iDroid for porting Android 2.3 to a jailbroken iPhone (2G or 3G), but the project died in 2014 without ever becoming stable. Nobody seems to be working on a port for iPhone or iPad any more.

Bada devices

badaDroid (German site)
Android on Bada (XDA; based on cyanogenmod; also see here)
Android porting @BadaForums

LG Devices (Proprietary OS)

LG Arena / KM900

See the Arenoid project.  Pre-alpha.

WebOS (HP) Devices

HP Touchpad

Android 4.4: Touchpad Toolbox.  Beta.

Windows Mobile 6 Devices

HTC

Gene / P340x

Android 1.5: See this XDA thread (Wing Linux).  Alpha.

Leo / HD2

Android 2.2: See XDA's guide to running Android on the HD2.  Complete.
Android 2.3: See various 2.3 ROMs available on XDA. Unknown.
Android 4.0: NexusHD2. Complete.

Tilt / Kaiser / TyTN II / MDA Vario III

Android 2.1: See this XDA thread (CM5).  Beta.
Android 2.2: See this XDA thread.  Beta.

Touch CDMA / Vogue 100 / P3050

Android 2.2: See XDA's Touch CDMA - Android Development subforum.  Beta (most ROMs).
Android 2.3: Same subforum.  Alpha.

Touch Cruise / Polaris / P3650

Android 2.1: See this XDA thread (CM5).  Beta.
Android 2.2: Apparently "Fresh Froyo" may work, which is a Touch CMDA ROM.  See XDA's Touch CDMA - Android Development subforum.  Unknown.

Touch Diamond / MDA Compact IV / P3051 / P370x

Android 2.2: See this XDA thread.  Beta.

Touch Diamond 2 / Pure / Topaz / MDA Compact V / T5388

Android 1.6-2.2: See this XDA thread.  Beta.

Touch Dual / Nike / MDA Touch Plus / P5500

Android 2.2: See this XDA thread.  Alpha.

Touch GSM / Elf / P345x

Android 1.5: See this XDA thread (Wing Linux).  Alpha.

Touch HD / Blackstone

Android 2.2: See this XDA thread.  Alpha.

Touch Pro / Fuze / Raphael

Android 2.2: See this XDA thread.  Beta.

Touch Pro 2 / Tilt 2 / Rhodium

Android 2.2: See this XDA thread.  Beta.
Android 2.3: See this XDA thread.  Alpha.

Samsung

Omnia II / i8000 (See also: MoDaCo thread)

Android 2.1: See Omnia2Droid.  Beta.
Android 2.2: See Omnia2Droid.  Beta.

You may be able to boot Android from an SD card on your WinMo device as well, leaving WinMo intact on your device.  This guide shows how to do so, and it works on many WinMo devices.

Windows Phone 7 Devices

None yet.

Maemo and MeeGo (Harmattan) Devices

Nokia N900

Android 2.3: See NITDroid for N900. Alpha.

Nokia N9/N950

Android 4.1: See NITDroid for N9. Alpha.

Symbian Devices (Nokia and Sony Ericsson)

There aren't currently any known successful attempts to port Android to devices originally designed for Symbian.

Nokia N95

Android Port for Symbian phones blog (Gizmodo mention of that project). Unknown

Other Proprietary OS Devices

Samsung Jet S8000 / S8003

Android 2.3: See JetDroid.  Beta.
Android 4.0: See CM9.  Alpha

x86 Tablets/PCs

The Android-x86 project develops distributions of Android for x86-based systems, such as Apple Macs, most Windows PCs and tablets. Some Android devices already have x86 SoCs, such as the Dell Venue series and the HP Slate series.

Android-x86 comes with the GRUB bootloader, which allows it to be dual-booted with Windows/Linux/OS X. It can be installed to a hard drive/SSD partition during initial setup.

There is no LiveCD functionality in Android-x86. It is regularly updated with the latest Android version.

For more information about Android-x86 and more specific help, look at our frequently asked android-x86 questions.

Feel free to add to this answer as new ROMs come out for more devices!


How does the safe/fastboot/recovery mode differ from the normal as seen from windows pc? This is a related question to:

How to install fastboot drivers?

I have trouble using the command line fastboot program. I think that I don't have the correct drivers installed. How can I verify this? What there should be on device manager -> driver details when you are in fastboot mode?

What is the correct term for this mode?

The Motorola USB drivers can be found at http://developer.motorola.com/tools/resources/

On Motorola devices, it enumerates as "Mot Single ADB Interface"


How to restore GBWA backup on new phone to GBWA app I'm simultaneously running Whatsapp & GBwhatsapp on my phone for both of my numbers.

For me it's easy to just transfer Whatsapp data to new phone. However, when its come to GBWhatsapp i feel like there is no one how can actually help to transfer GBWhatsapp data to new phone on GBWhatsapp application.

I have purchased a new phone, now trying all effort to get the GBWhatsapp data to be restore on new phone on GBWA app.

I tried compressing GBWA data using ES file explorer and moved to new phone and verified my number with GBWA. However, after verifying the account i do not get any option to restore even-though backup folder already exist on new phone.

As I don't wanted to loose my data, i again verified my account on old phone and removed GBWA from new phone. I have read multiple articles and checked many videos but didn't find them useful in my case.

Could you please help me to get my issue resolved.

if you do the following it must work:

go to gbwhatsapp on your old phone choose GB Settings
--> other MODS
-->6.7 Backup data (i do for secority reasons also the following, go to gbwhatsapp--> settings--> chats-- make backup)
then transfer the    whole GBWHatsapp map to sdcard, and take it out of your old phone.
install GBWhatsapp on your new phone and DONT OPEN IT YET
now put in your sdcard with the backup of GBWHatsapp in your new phone
--> copy GBWhatsapp map to internal memory
--> then open GBwhastapp and choose for restore


What folder does cyanogenmod store its updates? I reverted to an older version of Cyanongenmod today. Now my phone reboots continuously. I want to try flashing on of the images that cyanogenmod downloaded in the past. What folder are they stored in?

You can find it under:

/storage/emulated/0/cmupdater


Clockwork Mod. To flash or not to flash? Running: Verizon HTC Eris (No service) with the recommended Cyanogenmod for the device + Amon RA recovery as prescribed by the gscript lite method of rooting found in the "Universal Eris root for dummies" guide (the one with step by step pictures)

When i got the CM7 rom up and running i was looking through the preinstalled apps and found the rom manager. inside was the option "Flash ClockworkMod Recovery". From what iv gathered online (CWM > AmonRA)... Is this so? Should i use this option? I fear that by breaking my current recovery in an attempt to upgrade i will brick my device... Should i do this?

This is entirely up to you, and your personal preference.

There is one thing I would suggest though: do not use ROM Manager! It has a nasty history of damaged devices.

I would suggest that you go with either CWM or TWRP, if it is available for your device. I would suggest you flash it using fastboot, if it is available on your device.

If it isn't, then you should see forums such as xda-developers for info on how to flash recovery images.


How do I change my Google Account in Beyondpod? How do I change my Google Account in Beyondpod, the podcatcher? The one used to synchronize with Google Reader I mean.

From the feeds screen click menu > more > import and export feeds.  Once you are in there you should see the option to change the email.


Is it possible to activate an android device using a 'google apps' account I'm using Google Apps for my personal domain and email.

Is it possible to use such an account (e.g. "name@mydomain.com") to activate an android device?

Yes.

Few years ago, Google Apps services were separate from normal Google services. Even cookies were different & compatible to each other. From last year, all Google Apps accounts are normal Google account (You'll have to sign out from normal Google account if you want to sign in with Google Apps account in a web browser).

And, it supports Android too. I've tested it.


Problem opening VCF files on tf300 I am trying to help my Father debug an issue he has on the TF300 since it upgraded to Jelly Bean.  We are both unable to open a vCard file from email or from Astro file explorer. It appears to the user that nothing happens when he hits view in Gmail. He receives vCard emails all of the time from his work.  I can save it, open "people" and then import it, but I cannot import it from Gmail view it.  We can open it from Gmail on Jelly Bean on both my Galaxy Nexus and my Nexus 7.

This sounds like a file association issue, but there are no defaults under Contacts.  Does anyone have any ideas on how to debug this?  Is there an easy  way without USB debugging to determine what program gets called?

Edit:
   What is the easiest way to log every process opened after a file is clicked on?  I am happy to use USB debugging at this point.

In this case an OS upgrade solved the issue.

For someone in a similar situation without an OS upgrade (or other fix) in sight, it might be worth taking a look at VCard Manager (which claims to be able to open all types of VCards) or Contacts VCF, which says to open any .vcf file:

VCard Manager and Contacts VCF (source: Google Play; click images for larger variants)


Unexpected reboot during app install has left phone with no space My wife recently went to install a game on her phone (Sims Freeplay) from Google Play. She tells me the phone had enough memory for the install (~15MB free for a 13MB app), which is why she tried.

(As an aside, I'm assuming it downloads the package, then installs from that, so you need at least twice the final space to unpack the thing correctly.)

It downloaded successfully, but when the phone tried to install the app the phone unexpectedly self-rebooted.

After booting, the game wasn't installed and the phone is reporting low memory, with <1MB of phone memory free. She's using an app to check this usage (called DiskUsage), which is reporting "System Data" as using 28MB - she's sure it was much smaller when she checked the space before attempting the installation.

Assuming she's right, I'm thinking maybe the downloaded package is still sitting around somewhere consuming space. Is this possible (given it crashed mid-install)? If so how can we get rid of it?

You can delete the cache for Play store and download provider.

Settings - > Applications - > All (tab) - > app name - > Clear Cache

The space requirements vary app by app but all of them take up more than they package size.


Unlocking SIM card Huawei Ascend Y530 I recently bought Huawei Ascend Y530 which is SIM-locked in a swiss provider, swisscom that is. I checked through the web to find how can a sim-locked phone be used with any sim, but surprisingly I couldn't find something usefull.

There are a lot of entries, about companies that give you an unlocking code, by providing them, the device's IMEI. Unfortunately this doesn't come free of charge let alone the questionable reability.

I contacted Huawei to provide me with the code, but they couldn't.

The most relevant information I could find was from xda-developers forum, where someone can find a lot of information about rooting or unlocking bootloader but not on how to unlock the sim.

Another interesting question was Is there a free way of unlocking an Android phone from a particular network?. There, someone can unlock the phone just by giving the IMEI number. Rather sadly however, this app can only be used for a certain provider and a specific device.

I don't know if I factory-reset the phone will be unlocked or even rooting it.

Does anyone know how to unlock the phone, so as to use any sim card? Is there a way to get access to the SIM-unlocking code, just like it can happen with a lot of Samsung devices?

It's nothing to do with Huawei. You need to contact the carrier who you got the phone from.


How can I debug my application while USB tethering is enabled? I want to debug my application on the phone and at the same time I want to enable USB tethering so that I can access Internet on my PC.

Is there any way so that I can connect my phone then enable USB Tethering and USB Debugging at the same time? Are there any applications exist?

If you have root, once USB tethering is enabled, go to your terminal on Android and run

su (or su root)
adbd start (or sudo adbd start without previous su line)

That will start the daemon while your USB is in Ethernet mode and allow you to connect from your PC.


Can I make the browser stop autmatically refreshing pages that haven't been displayed for a while? If I surf to a page and then leave the browser for a while, when I open up the browser again it still shows the content of the page - but after a second or so it initiates a refresh. Is there a way to stop this behavior?

I have experienced the same behavior in Dolphin Browser, fwiw.

I've noticed this with Dolphin as well, but in my findings it is not actually refreshing the page, rather I think it is reloading the cached content of the page. I'm pretty sure this is whats going on because at work we have a guest wireless system that requires authentication. When I connect my phone to it and browse I have to login with credentials at a landing page. This page doesn't come up right away after opening Dolphin browser, even though I sit and wait for Dolphin to load up the page. I have to hit refresh and then I am redirected to the landing page to login.

I hunted for a cache setting that may improve this annoyance, but didn't find one. We might have to wait for an update to the app.

Update:

This should HELP solve the problem for root users, I say help because there still may be some refreshing that occurs.

The problem:

Android is set to offload the browser cache from memory to the local partition (where apps are stored) when you leave the browser. This is because most android phones still don't have much space in the partition where apps and such are installed. My Evo only has 400mb of space.

My best guess is that Android was set to work this way because originally phones didn't have much space to work with. No that is becoming less of an issue.

Possible Solutions:

For rooted users only: Download Swapper2. From what I have read in other forums, this makes a huge difference in how often the browser offloads cache to the local partition. And users have reported it makes a big difference.
Set Dolphin browser to store cache on the SD card. Maybe if the browser doesn't have to wait for cache to be shuffled around it wont refresh as much, or if it does still refresh, maybe it will take less time.

What did I do? I installed Swapper2 and wow. It really works. Now I can open Dolphin and not have to wait for refresh. Finally!!


Activating and upgrading HTC G1 w/o a data plan or a sim? So I got myself a used G1 from a local guy. The main reason for purchasing this phone was that I needed a quad-band GSM phone for my visits abroad. Then, I thought why not put a few more $$ and get a smartphone that I can use as a PDA when in the US (as I don't have/want a cell phone nor an active voice or data plans).

The 1st problem I encountered was that in order to turn on the phone, I had to activate it by registering my Gmail account. But, in order to get to that point, I had to overcome the "No SIM card" screen, and to activate the WiFi connection. I was able to use my foreign Sim to pass the first screen, and found instructions on the web for activating WiFi before registering Gmail. The problem is (or at least was at the time - a couple of months ago) that this method required the installation of the RC29 system version.

So, my question is - is there a readable walk through or tutorial that explains, step-by-step, what is required in order to upgrade my system to something more modern - without a local voice or data plans?

Most updates won't erase your data. The kernel and /system partition can usually be updated without the filesystem needing to be wiped, so your data folders aren't damaged.  If the WiFi network data isn't erased, then your phone should connect to WiFi after the upgrade, and you're good to go. I can't find any info on what happens when upgrading to RC33, for example, but official updates usually don't wipe data. The update might also eliminate the No-SIM-so-you-can't-do-anything problem.


Motorola Xoom bricked? A while ago I had my Motorola Xoom (1) charging on the dock.

It got stuck at the Motorola logo screen, the first screen that appears when the tablet is turned on.

Recovery puts me at the screen showing the android lying down on its back with an exclamation mark above.

Is this solvable? Can I get the device to function again?

Note: Before this happening the tablet used to occasionally reset on its own. I think it was also heating up when not in use.

I need some more details, like whether you are using stock ROM or custom ROM, stock kernel, etc. If you have ClockWorkMod, that will come in very handy. Devices do not usually brick without having root access first. If you have ClockWorkMod, restore your backup. If you don't, try and find your stock ROM from the Internet, although when you carry out the second method, you will lose all data on your phone (not SD card though, if it's one you plugged in manually to expand the memory).

Kind Regards,

Indraj Gandham


HOW MUCH android OS TAKE MEMORY IN DEVICES I need answer that how much memory would take any android os on devices.

can i root device and install kitkat os which device have already gingerbread .

There's no one answer to this question: each device has its own build of Android, so Android takes a different amount of storage on different devices. Whether you can install KitKat on your device depends only on whether there is a KitKat ROM for it. See When will my device get the Android 4.4 update (KitKat)? and Where can I find stock or custom ROMs for my Android device?

Rooting the device is completely unrelated. You don't need to root the device to install a new ROM, but to install an unofficial ROM you will need to unlock the bootloader. Usually you do this with the fastboot utility, but details are different for different phones. See bootloader-lock to learn more about bootloader unlocking.


What do Online and Offline mean in Viber? If my bf's viber shows he's online and then in the middle of the night it changes to offline, what does this mean? Does it mean that when he's at home and within reach of the internet it shows him to be online if his Viber app is active? And does it mean that he has gone out of range of the internet if his Viber states he's offline? (He has a Samsung Galaxy Fame.)

"Online" means that Viber is running in the foreground or background (the user is available for calls or messages). When the phone has no internet connection, or the user manually used the "Exit" option inside Viber, this changes their status to "Last online at..."

In some cases, depending on the mobile kernel and software, the user uses something like Power Saving Mode, so after the idle time, the Wifi is turned off or some background application is turn off ... so Viber is turned off, your bf's viber state is also offline.


How to re-lock Android bootloader? I've unlocked my Nexus 5 by using CF-Auto-Root. I want to undo my actions and return the device to its original state: unrooted and locked.

How can I do this?

You'll need to use fastboot, which is provided in the CF-Auto-Root zip file, and also available standalone and packaged with lots of other software. It's part of the Android SDK Tools / Platform Tools, which can be installed on Windows, OSX, or Linux.

Note: If you've installed a custom ROM or kernel on top of rooting, you'll want to flash the necessary stock versions from the Nexus 5 stock image with fastboot or possibly through TWRP/ClockWorkMod Recovery.

In order to re-lock the bootloader:

Reboot your phone to Bootloader Mode
Connect the USB Cable to your computer.
Open a Command Prompt (Terminal on Linux or OSX)
Navigate to the platform-tools directory inside the unzipped CF-Auto-Root directory.
Use the following command, depending on your OS.

Linux: ./fastboot-linux oem lock
OSX: ./fastboot-mac oem lock
Windows: fastboot-windows.exe oem lock


Tasker profile that enables/disables wi-fi How can make it so wi-fi gets disabled automatically when screen gets locked, if possible after 1 minute or so? Then enabled automatically when screen gets unlocked.
My screen is set to lock after 30 seconds or so

also, is it possible to turn off wifi when there's no network in range? I think it takes a lot of battery searching for networks. Or maybe increase the search interval somehow

So I combined what you asked for into a single task. You'll first create a profile which triggers when a state changes. You'll select Display State and chose off. Tasker can't actually able to tell if your screen is locked, only on or off but we can get around that as long as we know the time it take for the screen to lock.The task is as follows:

Wait Until
    Seconds: 60
    Until: %SCREEN Matches ON
IF
    %SCREEN Matches ON
Wifi
    Set: ON
STOP
END IF
IF
    %SCREEN Matches OFF
Wifi
    Set: OFF
GOTO
    TYPE: ACTION NUMBER
    NUMBER: 1
END IF

Explanation of Task:
1. This causes the task to wait before continuing unless the condition is met. The total wait time should be the screen time until lock plus the time you want to wait until the wifi turns off
2. If the screen Turns on goto 3
3. Turn on wifi
4. Stops task
5. Ends if Statement
6. If the screen is off on goto 7
7. Turn off wifi
8. Cause a loop to keep checking the screen status.

Note 1: This task assumes that wifi is already on to start with.

Note 2: As the task stands now it will check every minute. If after the first min you want to change the time it waits to reduce battery usage you'll add this take to beginning.

1.SET VARIABLE
    NAME:%DUR
    VALUE: 60
2.WAIT UNTIL
    SECONDS: %DUR
    Until: %SCREEN Matches ON

And add in between 7 & 8:

SET VARIABLE
    NAME:%DUR
    VALUE: WHATEVER TIME

LAST NOTE: If you don't want to wait seconds every time you can use a variable for mins or hours like with seconds. You'll set the variables for min or hour as zero  at the beginning and then change them before you start the loop. To use variables instead of static numbers you touch the symbol of 2 arrows crossing opposite of Min/Hr/Sec.

If you have any question please feel free to ask. Also since I'm new please don't forget to mark mine as the answer if it solves your problem and to upvote the answer


Samsung GT-i9000 (Galaxy S), Android 2.3.6, MTP and Linux Is it possible to connect this device to Linux workstation over USB using MTP mode? I've tried a few times using different tools but no success. GMTP just don't work, mtp-tools don't work reliably, etc.

Finally  found an answer: it's not possible. Samsung implementation of MTP works incorrectly so device cannot be used in standard tools like GMTP.

Moreover, MTP application on the phone crashes sometimes during data transfer.


Kindle Fire query - snapchat and Google Play I would like to know how to get my snapchat working. Everytime I go to sign in to my snap chat it says "This app won't run without Google Play services, which are missing from your phone." so therefor I went onto the Kindle App Store to try get this but once I installed it, whenever I tried to launch the app it crashed.This means my snapchat still isn't working I would love to know if anyone knows a solution for this please?

If your Kindle Fire is rooted, install the Xposed Framework and install this mod to allow you to use SnapChat without Google Play Services. If you don't have your Kindle Fire rooted, please specify which Kindle Fire model you own, and search for tutorials on how to root your phone. However, this WILL void your warranty so please root at your own risk. I am not responsible for any damage caused on your device. Anyhow, good luck trying to get SnapChat working!


Is there a way to install Cyanogenmod 7 on the Samsung Infuse 4G? I'm in the market for a new phone (from my faithful Nexus One), and the Infuse 4G looks like a good candidate. I'm shopping for hardware, of course, as software is never the issue with Android. Is there a way to install Cyanogenmod on the Infuse 4G yet? I've always used that ROM in the past as it's by far the best, and I don't want to upgrade the hardware in order to downgrade the software to AT&T bloatware. Is there a way?

Although Infuse 4G is not officially supported by CyanogenMod yet, there are quite a few Gingerbread (Android 2.3.x) based ROMs for it available on XDA Developers forums.

An unofficial port of CM7 is currently under development for Infuse 4G.  If you are feeling adventurous, and are somewhat knowledgeable in Linux, you can compile your own version of it from latest sources, as described here.


uninstall app that was installed under another account I have an android with an app installed. The app was installed with one account that I have no access to. I removed the account but now I can't uninstall the app. Does that make sense? What can be done?

I just ran into a very similar issue, where I was trying to update an app owned by a different account. The fix was simple: I logged into the play store with the desired account on the web from my desktop, then installed the app from there. The app updated successfully and its ownership switched to the desired account


My phone won't send icmp/ping unless WiiFi connected. Can this be fixed? I have local terminal access and ping command works when WiFi connected, but not when connected via cellular service. I get same results using ping within other apps.

Can this be "fixed?"

Phone is Verizon, brand Samsng J7 V, software build M1AJQ.J727VVRU2BSA1

Mobile network operaters block outbound ICMP echo sometimes, and inbound ICMP echo most of the times. You can use nping to use TCP or UDP for pinging if you know some open port on destination. Or you can use a third party service like https://ping.eu/ping. But be sure your endpoint is responsive to echo requests, some routers and PCs are also configured not to respond. E.g. on Linux or Android to block echo requests:

echo 1 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_all


Is there a way to bypass the PIN on Galaxy Tab a without deleting anything on it? I've had a Galaxy Tab a for about a year now, and I recently went out of town. When I came home and entered the security PIN, it wasn't working and then I realized that I changed it. I tried entering what I remember changing it to, but none worked. Is there a way to bypass the PIN without deleting anything on the tablet?

There should be a way to reset the PIN by using your email. If your device is rooted, there are quite a lot of flashable zips for you to bypass the lockscreen on XDA.


Galaxy A5: How to set power button to reject calls (no root) I've found in Settings/Answering and ending calls how to answer by pressing Home key and how to end a call by pressing the Power key. Is there any other possibility to assign the power key in order to reject calls?
Galaxy A5 (2016) Lollipop 5.1.1

Thanks,

No sorry. If you're looking to assign another use to the power button other than what's available in the settings, you'll most likely need to root it.


What is the regular Nexus 5X autonomy? I bought a Google Nexus 5X a week ago, and I'm surprised by the autonomy. Being 100% charged at 9:00 AM, at ~7:00 PM the battery is empty. I use about an hour of Spotify a day and Facebook & Messenger are installed.

I run on a Android 6.0.1 that seems to be fully updated.

I can give it back to my reseller, but it is really an anomaly ?

OH Facebook and messenger theirs your battery killers. plus anything using the net will kill it. i charge my 5X and im good for 3 days. I dont play games but i use it for some web browsing well away from home. also i listen to music on the device which dont eat the battery as bad


Disappearing/deleted .pls files I am making application that is using .pls files to read shoutcasts' adresses from them. At one moment I noticed, that sometimes .pls file I was reading data from is disappearing after I have used it.

After lots of testing, I noticed, that if I rename file to .txt, it won't get deleted.

A little more testing, a voila - sometimes, if I read data from one .pls file (pathname provided in String), ALL .pls files on sdcard get deleted! And my doing anything with any of them - they just all get deleted.

I am using HTC Desire Z, Android 2.3.3, not rooted, and I don't remember installing any applications that could be deleting files, especially without my knowledge.

Any ideas? I can provide you with the app code I am using, but I don't really think it is connected in anyway to this problem.

Now, I am not 100% that this is the exact issue, as I do know that this is the case with .m3u playlists, but I have not tried using .pls files for a playlist.

The problem sounds like it is with the Media Scanner. When it scans the directory that the .pls file is in, it sees the playlist file (the .pls) but if the directory does not have any other media files in there (like .mp3 for example) then it automatically assumes that the playlist is empty so it deletes it.

You can create a file in the directory called .nomedia and the Media Scanner will not even scan the directory, leaving your .pls files alone.

To test this, you could just drop some type of media file in the directory with the .pls and see if it is still deleted (or add the .nomedia file). If it is not deleted, then it is 100% the Media Scanner causing the files to delete. If it is still deleted, then I would check if in your application you are deleting them some how.


Is there any Android TV that could act as a Bluetooth center? I'd like to develop an app for Android TV that can control BLuetooth devices.

Is there any Android TV that could do that ?

Alternatively, could a TV box such as the Xiaomi Mi TV do that ?
http://www.mi.com/en/mibox/

The official Google Android TV support page has instructions for connecting devices via Bluetooth. This page (written in January 2018) specifies these steps for connecting Bluetooth speakers:

Find and select Settings from the app menu
Select 'Bluetooth' (may be under Wireless and Networks or Remote & accessories)
Use the Pair button on your speaker (or other device) to start the pairing process
Follow the dialog on the screen to complete pairing.

According to this answer on Stack Overflow, you should be able to connect up to 7 devices as long as they are above Bluetooth 4.0. The MiBox you linked to does have Bluetooth 4.0/3.0.

All this considered, yes, controlling Bluetooth devices via an Android TV is possible.

However, in relation developing an app to control Bluetooth devices, there are several in the Play Store now, but development questions are best handled on StackOvervlow.


What is the status icon that looks like a house? There is a strange icon that shows up in my status bar only when I'm at a certain restaurant. It looks like a cross between a house and wifi.

I suspect it might be a free wifi hotspot or something related to a nearby phone store, but I can't find any information about it in manual for my phone.

See the following screenshot:

This is the icon that symbolises that the Verizon Network Extender is in use - could it be possible that the restaurant you visit has had one installed/set up?

Source


Open Source Email Application Does anyone here know of an open source email application for Android?
Thanks in advance

K-9 Mail is open-sourced and is equipped with features like search, push email, multi-folder sync, flagging, filing, signatures, bcc-self and more

Project Hosted on Google Code


Recent apps window doesn't show up when using Google Now Launcher but works well for stock launcher I have a Oppo Find 7 phone running Lollipop.

Since I don't really like ColorOS launcher, I decided to download Google Now Launcher from Play Store and set it as default launcher.

It works perfectly, except for the fact that neither of the hardware keys (not even while long-pressing) shows the recent apps window (i.e. where to close recently opened apps).

Is it normal? Is there any workaround?

It seems there's a bug in ColorOS. Updating to latest beta (2.1.4i) solved it.  Betas can be downloaded from the OPPO forums and flashed like any other ROM package.


Change keyboard laylout for Android on VMWare I have successfully installed Android 7.1 on my VMWare Workstation Player 15 but I want to change the keyboard layout to a german layout. Does anyone know which config file needs to be changed to achieve this? Is there a way to to this while the OS is running or does one have to do it over the console in a debug mode?
Best regards

My host system has a german keyboard layout. When I changed the android keyboard layout to english the keyboard input of my guest system became german. I hope this helps someone.
Best regards


edit : battery drain *MYSTERY* UPDATE 06/02/2015

i have a Galaxy Grand Duos and i constantly faced battery drain issues. after MANY ideas to what the problem could be, (even by samsung service), i decided to root the phone and flash custom ROM. Tried some, problem persisted.
Finally i installed CM 11.0 without any apps, not even GAPPS just to narrow down what is wrong..

After some time i can tell you that there is something like a (maybe hardware related) BUG that for no apparent reason KICKS OFF and starts draining the battery (30degree slope drop in battery application) CONSTANTLY. I mean no matter what i do, if the phone is sleeping or w/e, that is the LEAST background battery consumption. Of course if i also use the device, the battery drops more vertical in the graph for that period of time.

Then, at some point, for no reason that i can spot until now, [maybe turning on and off the airplane mode, WiFi, Screen Rotation, or somth else] the BUG stops! And from that point forward (until it starts again) the battery drop is totally HORIZONTAL when I'm not using the device, as it is supposed to be! Note that this normal behavior can last for even 2-3 days.

What will be useful : Find what triggers the bug. Find a way to stop it if has triggered.

(*edit 11/2/15- i think i've narrowed it down to how i can turn off this "bug" after it kicks in. The way to do it, might be turning on and off airplane mode and WiFi for some times. The way to see if this worked, is to leave the phone at standby for some time (1-2hr) and check the battery graph. If the graph has become HORIZONTAL for that period of time, then voila i have stopped the drain)

Note #1 : please help..!

It isn't airplane mode.... airplane mode only stops certain hardware from running, making it physically impossible for that to be the reason

You probably have a bunch of other applications running when you go to sleep. but it will always say that Android OS used the most battery, because the operating system handles everything...

try installing cleanmaster or some other application cleaner, it will save a lot of battery.


How much free storage should I keep? I have a Huwaei mate 10 lite and it has internal 64 GB, I don't use memory card because I use two sims.

How much free storage should I keep? Is 10% enough? Or 20%?

Use as much as you need – but keep free as much as possible:

At about 10% you'll start to receive warnings about storage space running low, so you shouldn't go below that.
Plus, the more free space is available, the better the controller can handle wear leveling – which will prolong the life-span of your storage.


Why do write attempts to /system/priv-app cause /system to switch to read-only? I'm trying to write files to the /system/priv-app directory. I boot into recovery (TWRP) and run adb shell.

~ # mount /system
~ # mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw,seclabel)
...
/dev/block/mmcblkXXXX on /system type ext4 (rw,seclabel,relatime,data=ordered)

I can then run:

~ # mkdir /system/tmp
~ # touch /system/tmp/test

This works fine: I have no problem modifying /system. (I can also delete things from /system/priv-app.) But if I then try to write to /system/priv-app I get the following:

~ # mkdir /system/priv-app/test
mkdir: can't create directory '/system/priv-app/test': Read-only file system
~ # mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw,seclabel)
...
/dev/block/mmcblkXXXX on /system type ext4 (ro,seclabel,relatime,data=ordered)

Now /system is suddenly mounted read-only! Permissions and ownership are identical in /system and /system/priv-app and I'm running as root.

~ # ls -al /
...
drwxr-xr-x   18 root     root          4096 Nov 25 07:32 system
~ # ls -al /system
...
drwxr-xr-x   59 root     root          4096 Aug  5  1972 priv-app

While in TWRP, SELinux is set to permissive:

~ # getenforce
Permissive

I'm running Lineage OS 14.1 (Android Nougat) on a Moto G 2015 (aka Moto G3). It's rooted with the official Lineage su addon. I also tried Magisk and get the same result.

I've run out of ideas, and I can't figure out the right search terms, because I've tried a ton of things and have not turned anything up.

How can I enable writing to /system/priv-app?

Protecting Android from malicious codes has always been a priority of Google, OEMs and SOC vendors. Even the /system write protection has been implemented on kernel level by some OEMs. And by default, Android mounts /system read-only in order to avoid any intentional or accidental changes for AVB/dm-verity to work properly. Only OTA updates can modify system partition.
However if dm-verity is disabled while rooting the device or when flashing custom kernel/ROM, we can mount /system read/write for modifications. But some programs have a built-in code to check if /system is mounted rw, and if so, revert the status to ro. Solid Explorer states:

  If the mount point is mounted in r/o mode it will be temporarily remounted to r/w. After the operation completes (with a success or not), the app mounts the partition back to r/o state.

TWRP has also an option mount_sys_ro_chk and by default it mounts /system read-only.
So the solution is to change the mount point from /system to something else as that won't be checked usually.

Another factor that may force ro mounting of a partition is Linux kernel's mount option errors=remount-ro. This mount option is usually default on a newly created filesystem:

~# tune2fs -l /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/system | grep Error
Errors behavior:          Remount read-only

So filesystem will be mounted as read-only if an error occurs e.g. Max Mount Count is reached and e2fsck isn't run. However this is rarely the case on Android. You can view kernel log for any such errors:

~# dmesg | grep mount

Changing the default behavior is not recommended and can be really harmful:

~# mkdir /system-temp
~# mount -o rw,errors=continue /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/system /system-temp


Wrong id and gid running /system/bin/sdcard I am trying to use my ext4 sdcard properly in Stock rooted Android 4.4.4.
For this, I run

mount -rw -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 /mnt/media_rw/sdcard1

and then

/system/bin/sdcard -u 1023 -g 1023 -w 1023 /mnt/media_rw/sdcard1 /storage/sdcard1

I also tried

/system/bin/sdcard /mnt/media_rw/sdcard1 /storage/sdcard1 1023 1023

The problem is that the ownership of the tree created in /storage/sdcard1 is then 0.1015 instead of 1023.1023 (??), so I have permission problems...

Any idea why the /system/bin/sdcard command is not obeying the ownership flags?

Thanks!

Edit:
The solution is here: https://source.android.com/devices/storage/config.html

  "For Android releases 4.3 and later, the various fstab files used by
  init, vold and recovery were unified in the /fstab. file. For
  external storage volumes that are managed by vold, the entries should
  have the following format:"

 <src> <mnt_point> <type> <mnt_flags> <fs_mgr_flags>

  "...Devices may provide external storage by emulating a
  case-insensitive, permissionless filesystem backed by internal
  storage. One possible implementation is provided by the FUSE daemon in
  system/core/sdcard, which can be added as a device-specific init.rc
  service:"

# virtual sdcard daemon running as media_rw (1023)
service sdcard /system/bin/sdcard <source_path> <dest_path> 1023 1023
    class late_start


Google Now launches when headphones are plugged in I recently got a new LG G2 from T-Mobile and it worked perfectly fine but now When ever I plug in my headphones it randomly opens Google Now. It always says "speak to search" or it turns the music or what ever I am listening to maximum volume. And when my device is locked with my password it just repeats "Please unlock the device". Can someone help me?

Are you using the headphones that came with the phone? If not that could be why.

Even if they're genuine Apple EarPods or Beats - it looks as though the main issue is the middle button in the headphone is stuck while pressed in.


Reset wifi settings without factory reset in Android TV? So I've got a situation where I want to clear all saved networks. How can I do it without a factory reset?

Or, perhaps, do it using the Wifi Manager API?

I am using android box for TV, which is running 6.0

This depends on your version of Android, in Android 4.4 (KitKat) or lower the only option is a factory reset.

With the introduction of Android 5.0, including Lollipop, Marshmallow, Nougat, and Oreo versions of Android, Google added an option that is usually located in Settings - Backup & Reset that is called Network Settings Reset, which will reset all network related settings including all WiFi, Bluetooth, and Cellular Data settings back to their original factory defaults.


Is it possible to use adb backup in order to make a clone of a tablet? Is it possible to use adb backup in order to make a copy of tablet? In fact I want to recover the contents of a tablet using adb backup and then install it on the tablet that have the same type with the same version of Android using adb restore  backup.ab.

We already had this question as part of Restoring an ADB backup onto a different phone of the same model?. It should be possible, at least theoretically, and at least when all devices are of the same brand and model as well as share the same Android version.


In Google Voice, do all SMS messages have to be transmitted via a data connection? If someone is using Google Voice, do they need a data connection (cellular or WiFi) to be on in order to send/receive any SMS messages?

This seems to be a big limitation, as keeping data on all the time can really drain the device's battery (and can get expensive with all of Android's background data).

Also, signal strength for a functional data connection generally has to be stronger than the minimal signal required to send/receive traditional SMS messages.  Inside buildings, it is commonly hard to get a data signal, but SMS messages can often still be transmitted/received.

If you are using the Google Voice or Hangouts app to send or receive messages using your Google Voice number, then yes it must have a working data connection, but it's data usage will be extremely minimal.

In Google Voice you can setup your SMS messages to forward to email or your actual carrier's SMS service if you prefer. You can replay from either email or carrier SMS via both methods as well.


Notifications don't pop up Recently some of my apps have stopped notifying me about messages or any other things. So, I don't receive notifications in time, but then I open an app and see all those messages that were actually received several hours ago without me knowing about it.
If that's not about the notification settings (I've checked that one and everything is OK there), what can it be?
The notification issue is in Whatsapp, telegram, and sometimes Facebook.
Android 9
Thanks for any suggestions!

If they are not being shown it means notifications for the apps are disabled. What you need to do is go to app settings and enable notifications for the individual apps.


How can I make my Samsung Galaxy S9+ install unsigned applications? I have root on my phone, and also Lucky Patcher patched the signature verification stuff (both of them). I have rooted my Galaxy with Magisk and Odin (using PC). I can't patch "dalvik-cache" whatever that means, and I have a suspicion that that is why my unsigned apks install, but crash straight after opening. It's not the app, as I can use them perfectly well on an emulator. Does anyone know how to get past this problem? Thanks!

Check whether apps can support your android OS version.
You can turn on Allow installation of app from unknown sources. Go to setting / security / turn on Unknown sources option.


I just ordered on ebay an HTC incredible 'flashed to cricket,' is android still installed on the phone? I only want to use the phone as a dev tool and I need the android 2.2. What does 'flashed' mean exactly?

In short, the phone will still have the Android OS as 'flashing to cricket' is NOT in reference to the ROM or Operating System.

The seller may be referring to moving the phone off of Verizon as the carrier to Cricket, another CDMA mobile carrier in the US.  This seems to be a normal process as Cricket does not have the expansive collection of Android compared to that of Verizon Wireless.

Here are a few thread topics explaining this -

http://androidforums.com/incredible-all-things-root/82397-flashing-htc-droid-incredible-cricket.html

http://androidforums.com/cricket/232152-flashing-phone-verizon-cricket.html

Hope that helps!


fastboot not finding SPH-L720 on Linux This is with Ubuntu 13.10 on the host and a Sprint Samsung Galaxy S4 SPH-L720.

When in normal mode, 'adb devices' finds my phone.

I do 'adb reboot bootloader' to reboot my phone into bootloader mode.

'fastboot devices' comes back empty. 'sudo fastboot devices' also comes back empty.

I have setup the udev rules file accordingly (replaced my real login with myuser)

~  cat /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="04e8", MODE="0666", GROUP="myuser"

lsusb returns the following (fyi, the device is an S4, not an S2)

Bus 002 Device 006: ID 04e8:685d Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd GT-I9100 Phone [Galaxy S II] (Download mode)

I've read a ton of articles on this and I can't get this working. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Accordingly to the answer to this question, Samsung devices do not support fastboot.
This thread on XDA Forums states the same.


"Signature Verification Failed" when flashing stock ROM When booting into recovery mode and installing a ROM zip from my SDcard, it first says I need to mount my /sdcard (when it is mounted), and then it says "signature verification failed", despite my using a stock ROM zip.

Perhaps this has something to do with my obtaining the stock(?) ROM from a possibly untrustworthy third-party site? What is the official download site for Samsung Galaxy S4 (SGH-M919) phones?

thanks in advance for the help

(cf. my other question for more background information)

I have found sammobile.com a very useful site for finding firmware for samsung devices. I don't think there is an official download site.
Here is the firmware for SGH-M919

I have had the same issue before. Just trying the same process again fixed it for me.
You can try wiping your cache and dalvik cache but I am not sure if that will make a difference. Then retry flashing the ROM.
Also make sure you have downloaded the file correctly. Trying to Install a partially downloaded file will give you a lot of headaches!


What information is available to an application? What information about the phone is available to an app without extra permissions?

E.g., if the app asks for permission to see my contacts, and I agree, it will see all my contacts (obviously).

However, what is available without asking?

MAC address?
MEID/IMEI?
IP address?
model/make?
available storage / number of user photos?
phone number?
provider?
what other apps are installed?

Ideally -- is there an app that would just show everything that is available to it?

Their is plenty of information available to your application without using any permissions whatsoever, it wouldn't be possible to write every single file that your application has access to in this answer but i can give you a rough idea.

Applications usually require some useless permissions like checking for network availability, this can be done in several way without using the permission, let's say that you had a simple WebView that accessed a website, Instead of using the permission to check for an active connection, we could just try to open the website and capture the errors, if the error show's that the page couldn't be loaded because of a DNS issue or a network not available message, then most likely your device isn't connected to the internet and you then have the network status without using the permission.

I made an application that collects partition information for building scatter files without using any root access by reading system configuration files and collecting the information MTK Scatter Builder You should get a good idea on what's available by using the crawl for information button inside the application.

As for your contacts, their is probably a way around using the permission.


How to reply to an ics invitiation without using googlemail I'm using the htc mail widget/app with an email account other than googlemail.com.
When an .ics invitation is attached to an email I can import the event into the phone's calendar but apparently I cannot confirm or reject the appointment.
Is there e.g. an app that you can recommend to send such repsonses - and maybe even display the list of participants (minor issue)?

It looks like this is a known issue. I'm using K9 mail and, while I would swear I've replied to meeting invites in the past,but I just tried sending my non-gmail IMAP self an invite from my google calendar and I get an ICS attachment and K9 Mail complains that it is "Unable to find a viewer for application/ics"

It looks like there are a couple of apps in the market that will handle this, though. Take a look at iscer and ICS Bot -- I haven't tried either but both profess do to do what you need.


App for sharing words between PC web browser and Anroid device I often surf www on my PC. For foreign language pages I use Firefox add-on gTranslate 0.9. It's quite convenient, just highlight a word in browser, right click, translate.

But I'd like to remember those words (along with its translation) in cloud and then have an application on my Android device which shows those words so I can learn my vocabulary.

Is there any similar application somewhere?

Eventually it can be only bare foreign word without translation, as it could be translated down in the Android application.

You could use something like Anki. It's a flashcard program using spaced-repetition to help you learn vocabulary and other similar things. There's a free desktop app, as well as a compatible free Android app called AnkiDroid. The two apps can sync to each other through "the cloud", so you could use it to add cards on your PC when you find a new word, then learn those flashcards on your Android device.

Anki supports non-Latin characters and scripts, and you can add images too (if you want to learn to recognise a sign, for instance). You can even download decks of cards made by other users.


How Do I Turn Off Google Now Card Notifications? How do I turn off Google Card notifications?

Let's say I search for an address - Google will then show me a card in the notification area with driving directions to that location.  I don't want the notification.  Is there a way to prevent them from showing up?

According to this help, Google Now notifications can be limited or turned off.Most notifications for Google Now cards can be turned off or set to low or standard priority. Low priority notifications appear at the bottom of the notifications shade without any additional signal.From the lower right corner of the Google Now screen, touch Menu > Settings > Google Now > card name > and adjust the settings under Notifications.


How to pay for my kids apps? Here is the story. I have two kids (5-7 years), they have their Android tablets... and I have the credit card. I have created two google accounts, each for one tablet. I want to buy apps for them, but I don't want to enter any details of my credit card to their google accounts, because the theory is that they will be using these accounts in future to communicate, browse etc. I don't want them charging my card without my knowledge.

A while ago, when buying something in the google play store, I was able to select between one of the tablet accounts and my own account. I then had to enter the password to my own account and was able to install the given app. Now this seems no longer to be possible.

I am lost. I am a 40+ year old Un*x user and I am confused and frustrated by Android. Is there a way of buying apps for my kids that is safe?

There's a much easier way, but it may not be supported in all countries: Buy them each a Google Play Gift Card, and attach it to their accounts. They come in different "sizes", so you can limit the amount they can pay. No identification stuff connected to the cards, and once they're used up there's no more use for them (of course, you can buy the next one).

Another positive aspect: you might decide to let your kids use them themselves. The danger is just as high as the value of the card (though content might pose a risk). So it's like "pocket money" for learning "monetary responsibility" :)


Does a minor software update effect rooting method? I'm a newcomer to Android, so I'm not very familiar with how rooting works on Android. In IOS minor updates such as going from 9.0 to 9.1 can sometimes result in a jailbreak method not working, I was wondering would that be the same if a Samsung S7 edge is updated with a minor security update from Samsung.

This ultimately depends on the manufacturer. Samsung is not at all friendly to the rooting of it's stock ROMs, and does lots of modification to it's Android ROMs, so I'd say it is a real possibility. If it were me, I would install Cynaogenmod instead if I were to root but still wanted OTA updates.

Google itself, which is where the baseline Android comes from, usually doesn't care all that much if people want to root their devices, and usually doesn't plug holes that allow rooting unless customer data is at risk as a result.


Increasing my phone's charging rate while tethered I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 and a laptop with 2 USB 3 ports.  When tethered to my laptop (to provide Internet access via GSM/HSPA data), the phone charges very slowly, especially if I am using it for anything else in addition to data tethering.  While connected to a USB 3 port using the OEM cable, it took about 5 hours to charge while tethered but not otherwise being used.  Given the 2100 mAh battery, this works out to a bit under 500mA¹.  It has a micro-USB 2 port as its sole means of power input.

The S3's USB-to-AC Adaptor indicates that it provides 5.0 V at 1.0 A.

The Battery HD app, when running on my phone, tells me that an S3 will charge just under twice as fast via AC power as via USB.

I haven't found any apps which indicate, or any other way to determine, the phone's current draw from the power supply.

If I'm reading wikipedia correctly:

Maximum current draw for a normal USB 2 port is 500mA.
Maximum current draw for a normal USB 3 port is 900mA.
Dedicated Charging Ports (which I gather is what the Samsung USB-to-AC adaptor has) can provide over 500mA but do not support data transfer.  I didn't see any indication in the article of a maximum current.
Charging Downstream Ports can also provide over 500mA along with high-speed data transfer.  It sounds like the maximum current was originally 900mA in the 2007 spec but was upped to 1500mA when version 1.2 was published in 2010.

¹: Wikipedia gives battery specs for the S3 as "2,100 mAh, 7.98 Wh, 3.8 V". The rate of charge of the battery over 5 hours works out to 420mA at 3.8V.  At USB voltage of 5V, this is only 320mA.  I'm not sure what the efficiency ratio for charging a Li-Ion battery is—80% perhaps?

How can I increase my phone's charging rate when connected to my computer?  Is it possible for a USB 2 device to draw 900mA from a USB 3 port?  Is it possible (and safe) to connect my phone to two ports at once to increase the total current?

Charging rate is set by hardware and software, and can't be modified by software only.

Charging rate depends on the following:

resistance between D+ and D- (determines is it a official, unofficial or USB charging)
hardware technology and limitations (QuickCharge 2.0, 3.0)
cable length and quality (bad cables usually have more resistance)

For the S3, as far as I know, you can charge slow (USB, 5V 500mA) or fast (wall charger, 5V 900mA).

The charging type is set depending on the resistance, which is different for wall chargers (fixed to activate fast charging functionality in phones chip) and standard USB charging. If you want to charge quickly while tethering, the only valid option is to have your phone connected to an official Samsung wall charger which will ensure a higher charging current. There may be an option to set the USB connection to "Charge only" but that doesn't guarantee that the fast charging will be turned on.


Google Calendar sync back from Android phone? I deleted all events in Google Calendar thought I didn't need them anymore some day, but I regret it now, fortunately I have all of them in the Google Calendar app of my phone (Android Jellybean), my phone is not synced with my Google account at this time, the problem is how do I sync them back? I'm worried about losing the events in my phone too if I enable sync.

Download iCal Import Export 2.2 from the play store and you can backup the calendar on your phone. Move the file to your pc and follow the instructions here: https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37118?hl=en to upload to your Google calendar online.

Or maybe you can just turn sync on? That I don't know. But create the backup first if you try it!

Good luck


Boot amination off center In using cm 10.1.3 for the Samsung galaxy tab 2 p3110 I noticed the boot animation was off center. How could I fix this?

EDIT
As discussed in comments, rotation failed. Link to unedited boot animation here

It turns out the issue was Samsung's loveable kernel. Changing to a supported custom kernel fixed this.


Is there a way to switch between radio modes without the phone radio completely shutting down? Is it possible to have the radio switch between WCDMA Preferred mode, GSM mode, and WCDMA only, for example, without the radio switching off and on again? The radio completely loses signal during the, which isn't ideal.

It seems like it must be possible theoretically, as the phone doesn't lose signal when in WCDMA preferred mode, when it downgrades to GSM because of poor signal.

If it matters, I'm using an HTC Desire Z running Cyanogen 10.1 (Android 4.2 based). This problem also occurred on all previous versions of CM that I've tried, and on stock JellyBean 4.2.

This also occurs on a Nexus 4 on JellyBean 4.2.

You are right in that it theoretically should be possible to make the switch without dropping the signal, but unfortunately we users and even CM developers can do very little to change that. The only thing the ROM does is tell the radio to switch from one mode to another, it's up to the radio's firmware to decide how to make the change. These firmwares are not something you can change, since giving the users the power to change how the radio works is just asking for trouble.

The reason why the firmwares lose the signal probably has to do with the fact that when you change the mode, you actually turn off part of the radio that handles the now unused network mode. But when the switch happens because of bad reception the radio that lost signal stays on and continues to search for a signal (so you can get 3G back after you return to civilization).


Unbrick Lenovo ZUK Z1, after every partition was formatted Bricked my phone trying to install Cyanogenmod on it. Formatted every partition, including /boot and /recovery.

The phone can't:

Boot into home screen.
Be reached by ADB.
Have it's bootloader rebooted.
Flash a new recovery.

The phone can:

Get stuck in a boot loop.
Enter ZUK Recovery.
Enter Download Mode.

Additionally, using adb to look for devices while the phone is in Download Mode returns this:

????????????    no permissions

Any idea on how to solve this? Or am I stuck with a brick from now on?

Yesterday we ended up in the same state after trying to flash CyanogenMod 13 on the phone: loop trying to boot CyanogenMod 13 (cyan robot head with circle waves) and no way to get the phone to put itself into adb or fastboot mode.

Here's how we solved the issue and got the phone working again, just if it's useful for somebody in the future:

Reboot to the (factory) Zuk recovery firmware: press VolumeUp+VolumeDown+Power continuously. The phone will reboot (keep pressing). Unplug the phone USB cable. Choose "English" and then "Power off". Let it power off.
Get TWRP from twrp.me. Try to flash it using fastboot with the USB cable disconnected (it will wait until you connect the cable, don't do it yet, let it wait):

fastboot -i 0x2b4c flash recovery twrp-3.0.2-0-Z1.img

With the phone switched off, press VolumeUp+VolumeDown (not Power) and plug the phone to the computer with the buttons pressed. This was the magic required to put the phone in fastboot mode. Fastboot will do its job and TWRP will be flashed. It worked for us, but this flashing step might fail for you. Only if it failed, what I would do would be to return to step 1 and try to boot directly from TWRP like this, and then go to step 5:

fastboot -i 0x2b4c boot twrp-3.0.2-0-Z1.img

To boot the phone into TWRP, press VolumeUp+Power until the phone reboots (keep pressing until TWRP boots).
To get the phone to a working state, flash CyanoGen OS 12 (this archive) once TWRP is loaded:

adb push cm-12.1-YOG4PAS7DF-ham-signed-c4eecafcd7.zip /sdcard/

On TWRP: "update", select the zip file you copied with the previous command.

Reboot, and you have a working phone again.

Thanks a lot to Gonzaman for the "Poweroff your device hold vol+ and vol- and connect it to pc" trick. You saved our day! :-)


How To Stop Annoying "Cellular Network Not Found" Popup Prompt? I am annoyed by this popup because if my cellular network service provider is unavailable, i don't want to use any others available. I just want to stop this popup interrupting my activity and only use my cellular network service provider.

How to turn off this popup?

Thanks.

HTC Desire S
Android 2.3.3
Don't know my device's firmware

The popup you're referring to exists as to alert the device user that the cellular service as become unavailable. If you wish to stick to a specific network, there's nothing you can do.

Options for Mobile Networks are located at:

Settings → Wireless & networks → Mobile Networks

And there's no option to prevent the system from warning you about the lost of network connectivity.

From the above location, under "Network operators", you have an option "Select Automatically", that will allow your device to select another network without disturbing you.

But by your question contents, you don't want this.


Data recovery on boot-looped Samsung Galaxy S II GT-i9100 I have a boot-looped Samsung Galaxy S II GT-i9100, running the Android 2.3 Gingerbread it came with, unrooted and unmodified (although Optus-branded).
The phone's battery depleted while the phone was running; now, any attempt to boot the phone results in the boot sequence looping indefinitely.
I wish to recover data from this device (before attempting to solve the boot-loop problem later via factory reset or other method).

I read the boot-loop tag information but the instructions have not been helpful for me: I have tried to boot into Safe Mode, but my attempts also trigger the indefinite boot-loop; I wiped the cache via stock recovery but that had no effect; and, the last recommendation was a factory reset which I won't follow until I have recovered the data.

I believe USB Debugging is already enabled. I have an 8GB external SD card and I have Linux Mint 13 as my desktop operating system.

This answer indicated that it should be possible to root the phone and recover data via the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) for a different Samsung Galaxy S version, but I need instructions for the Samsung Galaxy S II GT-i9100 if this avenue is worth pursuing.
This seems related to this question but could be a different variant and issue. It's not the same as this question because I need to recover data.

Firstly it may be useful to merge this with your other question as they are very related.

I have already explained to you how to root your S2 so I won't repeat those instructions.
And yes it is possible to recover the /data.
What you need to do from here is to first complete what I said about rooting it. From there, you should get a new rooted recovery (CWM). Within that recovery you will find options to backup the phone and to mount it over USB. It should be simple enough to just backup the /data partition from the rooted recovery and copy it over to your computer.

Not sure if you know this but you can easily navigate the backups to recover whatever there is of value to yourself, there are various programs that do this but first things first get that phone rooted and get into the CWM recovery and make that backup. The options to do so should be very clear in the recovery. You can also create backups from the stock recovery but I wouldn't recommend this as you still need to be able to mount the phone via USB.


What can I do to stop the Lollipop update prompts if I don't want to update my KitKat? I have some bad experience with my 1st gen Nexus 7, after updating to Lollipop. It made everything so slow, as to be completely useless as a device. I had to factory reset it.

My Moto G is less than a year old, and I have no desire to see it go through the same process. It is already a little slow on KitKat right now. However, the system update prompts shows up as many as 5 times within 1 continuous hour of usage. It says that it will ask me to set a time for future update prompts if I select 'No, thanks', but it doesn't.

How can I stop the update prompts from showing up all the time?

Go into your device Setting--> Apps--> All (tab)--> Open 'Motorola
Update Services' & Disable it!
If 'Disable' Option is not available
in your device then you will have to root your device and then
install SD Maid app, And grant that application root permission so
that you can freeze system apps.
And I think so 2nd method will work 100%.


Does APNdroid eat battery? Someone suggested that APNdroid will cause your battery to drain because your phone is continually attempting to connect to the disabled APN. Makes sense, but I wonder if there's something I'm missing? Does APNdroid burn battery any faster than having a good APN and using data?

I confirm it will attempt to connect all the time and drain battery in half a day in my case. To solve it you should untick the data in the network settings and check that GPRS/EDGE/HSPDA icon is not visible on top next to the signal strength bars. But at least APNdroid (or manually modify the APN name) will prevent any connection and any extra charge during roaming session.


While listening to music on head set: How to avoid sound playing from phone speakers when push event occurs? I use my Android phone to listen to music at work with standard headset. Yet once an event occurs, e.g. e-mail recieved, the phone switches to standard speakers and plays the music and event sound over it, and then returns back to headset.

I want all my sounds to only play over the headset. How do configure my Huawei Honor to do so?

While not 100% the desired solution (I don't know if there's any way to force Android playing sounds to a specific output device), as a work-around it is possible to silence undesired sources.
Background
As you mioght have noticed, Android has multiple "channels" for different kind of sounds, where you can adjust volume independently -- such as alarms, notifications, ringer tone, etc. So this can be used in the way of turning down unwanted types to zero, while keeping the once you want turned up. Of course, doing so manually can be a hazzle (and one might forget to reverse changes afterwards, especially when in a hurry). So let's look for an...
Automation
There are several "automation apps" on the playstore which might handle this, such as Llama - Location Profiles or Tasker. Using the latter, I can for sure say it can handle this in the following way:
Condition: App running (select apps you want to match)
Task: (Volume adjust: chose which ones you want to change to zero here, but keep media volume on)
What will happen now? Once an app from your selection comes to foreground, the rule will match and the volumes will be adjusted accordingly. As soon as none of the apps you chose is running in foreground any longer, volume settings are reverted to what they have been before.


Recovering files in Android phone, phone stuck in boot loop My phone is currently stuck in a boot loop. I tried using minimal adb and fastboot but I can't seem to do it. I have also read in some forums that usb debugging should be enable and the phone should be rooted. Is there a way to use adb commands without enabling the usb debugging('coz I can't). I tried all the choices in the recovery mode except the factory reset. Can somebody help me?  I really need to recover the memos that I have saved. I have a Samsung galaxy V duos. Thanks. I'm also new to adb :(

Is there a way to use adb commands without enabling the [USB] debugging[?]

There is no point pondering about this once you understand the concept. In order to communicate with device using adb you need to have adb daemon running at Android's end. Additionally, for successful communication, you may also be required to authorize debugging at Android's end.

Android starts the adb daemon only when it finds the USB debugging setting under Developer options enabled. If it was enabled but was explicitly disabled by a user, the daemon would be stopped. It would be started again by Android should the setting be toggled.

If you've an another device with a terminal app installed and USB debugging enabled, do

ps | grep "adbd"

You would see an output similar to

shell     161   1     4564   284   ffffffff 00000000 S /sbin/adbd

(shell is the group name with ID 2000. This is the same ID that you would see when you get a successful shell session using adb shell.)

Disable the debugging option and the daemon would be stopped by Android. Use the same ps command with grep and it would give you nothing.

As for recovering the data in this situation, keep any hope as long as you've a custom recovery installed. They often always run adb daemon without any complexity of authorization from user. Then you can use adb pull to  copy whatsoever data you want.

Related reading: Android Debug Bridge


Where are saved Instagram videos stored on my device? To be clear, these are videos I have taken on the device using Instagram, not other peoples videos. Its videos I have taken then pressed the "save" button before sharing/posting. I have several videos over time I  want to download to my PC.

Seems to be the only way to even find them on the device is in the Instagram app where you go to post on story and it browses all the media on your device, if I scroll down a while I can see the videos, but it is not filtered or organized.

I have browsed the device storage IE

This PC\Pixel 3\Internal shared storage\Android\data\com.instagram.android

To only find a few files there. They have to be on the device because I can search them when posting to timeline/story, but cant seem to find them.

Go into your gallery and find an album called Instagram. It should pop up. If not, what did you save, posts or stories?


Samsung Galaxy Nexus - Add new contacts from call log screen Using the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, How do you add new contacts using a number from the call log screen? According to the manual there should be a +contacts button but I do not see it.

I am going to risk the fact that Samsung probably makes this mechanism similar across systems. On my Samsung Galaxy S3, from the phone log entry, hard press the intended number until the context menu comes up after a second or so. Select 'Add to Contacts', and a contacts template comes up for the intended data, which allows you to add to an existing contact or create a new one.


Access image file from home screen I have Nexus 4 on Android 5.1.1, and I also have an image file with screenshot of my timetable. I'm trying to create a shortcut to it from the home screen.

I've tried 4 separate apps that claim to be able to do this, but all of them crashed.

Is there any way I can create this shortcut?

If you have a Samsung device, go to files and find the picture. Then long press to select it, click more on the bottom, then click add to home screen. :)


How ever does one log off the Kik app on an S3? I downloaded an app called Kik off the Play store and I can't seem to find a way to log out of it so it doesn't drain my battery since it uses push notifications.  Any tips?  So odd that unless you want to uninstall it you can't seem to turn it off.

OS: 4.1

If it uses push notifications, it doesn't drain your battery. That's the whole point of push: the app doesn't need to be running at all. Instead, the app is started by Android (specifically, by the Google Cloud Messaging service) when a message arrives.


How to get Google Photos to recognize External SD drive I have connected an external SD card via a USB connector to my phone in order to have more space for recording video.  However, Google Photos does not seem to recognize it - it does not show up in Device Folders, and I cannot figure out how to make it show up.

In this support thread from last year it is stated that "if the device is running Android 6.0 and above then the external SD card may be merged into internal memory and in this case it will backup all of your photos including your SD card."  I am running Android 9, and 9 > 6, so this should work.

When I check if the SD card is merged with internal it is marked as "Portable storage," meaning that the SD card is set as external storage.  However, it goes on to say that "you should have received a pop-up notification when the external SD card was detected. The notification gives you 2 options: Eject or Setup."  The notification does not give me the option to "Setup", instead it only gives me the option to "Explore". That brings up some kind of file explorer from which I cannot find any options to merge storage.

It goes in to say that you can "choose which folders on your phone to back up" by "Select Settings > Back up & sync. Touch "Choose folders to back up..." and select the folders you want to back up."  But in the "Back up & sync" part of Google Photos, there is no "Choose folders to back up..."  The closest I can see if "Back up device folders" which takes me to a list of already discovered folders, which does not include the SD card.

How do I get Photos to recognize the external USB drive?

Sorry, you can't do it the way you intend to.

Google photos can back up to Ext.SD, only if the card is treated as internal storage. In your case the SD card is not treated as a part of device memory (portable) .
Adoptable-storage is applicable only if the card is actually mounted on the device and not when connected via USB connector.

See adoptable-storage wiki
for more details.
See Google help which explains how the adaptable storage can be used for this purpose (read also the linked blog of Android pit)

What you can do, is to use apps like Folder Sync or  Auto Sync for Google drive and set up sync to your Ext.SD in a manner that the selected contents of your Drive are backed up on your SD and deleted from GDrive. This can be set up on schedule or on demand


Droid Explorer is unable to browse device I love the idea of being able to browse root directories on my laptop.

But I can't for the life of me get droid explore to work, I have a note 4 (rooted of course), I am running stock Sammy ROM, I have installed adbd insecure on my device and I can access root via adb, but I cannot do anything with this software.  I also have busybox installed to /xbin.

When I click connect device, my device does show up, but when I click on said device, the application grays out and i cannot click anything other than min/max or close. It is the same with a rooted Samsung nexus that i have, running CM11. Any input would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

EDIT: i am running 64bit win 7 and I have tried reinstalling the software twice.

Disclaimer: I am the developer of Droid Explorer

Without knowing the exact version of the SDK platform-tools you have installed (but I will assume the latest), I think the problem is with the Android SDK platform-tools.

Droid Explorer uses a feature in ADB called 'status-window' to keep track of the connection state of the devices. In the latest version (rev. 23), they removed this feature.

You can manually download an older version of the platform-tools and put them in your SDK directory:

Download rev. 21 of the platform-tools from platform-tools_r21-windows.zip
Rename the platform-tools directory in your SDK to platform-tools-23
Extract the zip file, downloaded previously, to the root of your SDK directory. It contains the platform-tools directory in the zip.

This will be corrected in the next version of Droid Explorer so it will again work with the latest SDK. I have been working on multiple ways to replace the functionality that was removed in the latest revision of the platform-tools. Once I am happy with how it functions and am confident that it is stable, I will release an update.


Chrome for Android, Note 10.1 2014: Where is the share web address button? I'm missing the three-dot button in the right end of the address bar.

I am not sure if it even was there in the first place, but on other Android tablets it is, I just checked at the local Samsung store.

Am I really supposed to share url's by copy-pasting into other apps? If so, is there an extension to bypass this limitation?

On the Note 10.1, and most Samsung devices, you use the physical menu button to bring up the menu instead of the on-screen three-dots icon. You'll find Share... on that menu as usual.


"Application cannot be installed in the default install location" error while updating I have a Galaxy note which was recently updated to ICS (about a month ago)

Today I noticed that some of the applications, that are on auto update, keeping failing to update with this message:

"Application cannot be installed in the default install location"

I have enough storage left so I am not sure what this error means or how to fix it?

That sounds like a known problem updating apps which were moved to the SD-Card using App2SD. It does not always happen -- but if it does, a helpful work-around is:

move the app back to internal memory
run the update (should work now)
move the app to SD again (optional -- if you want it to be on the external SD)


Dismiss voicemail notification when you can't call voicemail I have gotten a notification that I have 1 new voice message. However, I am in a different country right now and would rather not pay an exorbitant amount of money to call my voicemail just to dismiss the notification. Is there a way I can remove it without calling voicemail? I have tried restarting the phone and swiping the notify away, but it's a pretty persistent notification.

Try sliding the notification bar down, then long press on the 'New Voicemail' notification. There should be one option "App Info", go to this and clear cache and data.

If your version of android / device doesn't support the long press notification, go to Settings > Applications > All > Phone  'phone' may be called 'dialler' or similar on varying devices. Clear cache and data.

Warning some devices (very rarely to be honest) tie your contacts to the Dialler application, or your call history, clearing the data may clear some or all of these. Ensure you have backups to be 100% sure that, however unlikely, if something goes wrong you have what's important. It's VERY unlikely and I do this all the time to get rid of that notification, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.


Google Photos app stuck on "Getting ready to back up" I've been using Google Photos backup and sync for years without problem until yesterday. It is stuck on "Getting ready to back up" for a day instead of "Backup complete". Any suggestions how to resolve? I can't tell which photo it's stuck trying to sync, I don't see the "circular arrows" on any of the photos.

I've already tried:

Restarting the phone
Force stop the app
Clear app cache
Clear app data
Free up space (delete device photos that are already in the cloud)
Remove active Google account from Google Photos and re-adding it.
Verified that I am running latest version of Google Photos app.
Verified that I still have 16 GB left in my Google storage.

I am using:

Google Nexus 6P
Android 7.1.2
Google Photos v 3.4.0.167082928 (updated on Sep 1, 2017)
Upload size: Original
Wifi only (does not have SIM card)

First, try all of the steps listed in the original question. If that doesn't resolve the problem, then the issue could be that your device and cloud Google Photos are out of sync in an unrecoverable way, and you will essentially have to do a manual sync.

Confirm that your device is out of sync with cloud:

In Android Google Photos, do Free Up Space. This will delete all the local photos on your device that have already been synced to cloud Google Photos.
Now go to Android Google Photos > Device Folders > Camera to look at your local photos remaining. If Google Photos is synced, there should be no photos here. If you still see photos, that means it is out of sync.

If you have determined that your device is out of sync with cloud, then you need to manually sync your device's photos.

Open cloud Google Photos on a desktop browser: https://photos.google.com/
Compare the Android device's local photos with those on photos.google.com
Connect your Android device to your computer via USB cable (you may need to enable MTP transfer mode)
Copy the photos/videos from DCIM/Camera to your computer.
On the computer, upload the photos/videos to photos.google.com
Confirm that all the Android device photos show up in photos.google.com
On Android device, delete all the photos in Android Google Photos > Device Folders > Camera

Now the Android device and cloud Google Photos should be synced up, and you should not see the "Getting ready to back up" message.


Keep Samsung apps/"features" after rooting? I know that if I root my samsung phone, I will lose a lot of Samsung features (like fingerprint scanner probably, and apps like S Note etc). And I understand that its the base that a rom is created on which determines if it can support things like that (I think?), but is there any way I can use a custom rom and still keep Samsung features, especially things like gestures and the customizations/settings screen from my S5? OR 'import' those features back in onto Cyanogenmod or something similar?

I want the best of both worlds, and can't seem to find any answers

Rooting your phone (standard rooting procedure; not from flashing a custom ROM) will not make you lose Samsung features.

If you flash CyanogenMod (which is a custom ROM that also has root pre-installed), you will no longer be able to use Samsung's features. Samsung is Touchwhiz-based (TW), and CyanogenMod is AOSP-based. Apps developed only for TW-based ROMs are not compatible with AOSP-based ROMs.


Downloaded images/music files not appearing I've been having problems with my gallery and music app on my lg g2.
I recently initiated a factory-rest on my phone and I wanted to download an image to see if it would work appropriately, but it refuses to create a "Download" folder and put it in there.  They still download and I can open them manually by tapping on them, but the gallery itself doesn't create a folder to place it in. I poked around on my computer with the usb connection with my charger, and I don't see anything wrong.  Something notable though, is I did delete the .nomedia folder before I factory-reset, but it appears to have returned.  The files even show up in the folder, but they're not able to be viewed by the gallery app. I'm using the default one that came with the phone, and I have tried many solutions, but to no avail.  If there's a solution anyone can recommend to me, it would be very much appreciated.  Thanks!

It is common "bug", I would like to call, they will appear as soon as the mobile is restarted and files are registered in Media library.

Another trick I use is I copy that downloaded folder to another folder using a file manager, and voila. You should try it too.


3G web browsing problems despite full bars I consistently have problems browsing the web via my 3G connections despite the fact that it shows that I've got a "good" signal. Often I will have the blue bars but they eventually turn grey after the connection fails. If I keep hitting retry on Chrome it will eventually load the page.

Does anyone have any ideas on what is going on here? Is my carrier doing something strange?

(This is on a Galaxy Nexus running Jelly Bean, build number JWR66Y, baseband I9250XXLJ1)

Check the access points(Settings>More>Mobile Network>Access Points) that you have set. In most cases, people have trouble because of the APs they have chosen. Also, try using another SIM card of a different carrier in 3G mode. If all goes well we will know your own phone isn't at fault.


How to install Hebrew on a Samsung galaxy s vibrant We have a Samsung Galaxy S vibrant, bought in the US from T-mobile. It's unable to read text messages in Hebrew, write in Hebrew, or anything else. We tried to install the language through the languages section in the settings, but we couldn't find an option for Hebrew. We tried to install a language pack through the market, but it didn't work.

How can we install full support for Hebrew?

The phone is Samsung Galaxy S vibrant, bought from T mobile in USA (NYC).
firmware version is 2.1 with update 1.

Unfortunately I don't think you can. It looks like Samsung hasn't released a Hebrew version. See this related question: Does Froyo include full Hebrew support for all devices? as well as Is Hebrew support built into Android?


Clearing out most recent emoji / emoticons? Whenever I use an emoji / emoticon from the Google keyboard on Android, it gets added to the recent / most-used list of emoji.

This is generally useful, but there are times when I use an emoji just one time, and I prefer not to have it stored in the "most used" list.

Is there any way to remove just one or a few emojis from the most used list? Or even clear out the entire list and start from scratch?

Go to Settings app > Apps > Google Keyboard
Click "Storage"
Click "Clear Data"

This will remove / reset all your most recently used emojis so you can start from scratch.


How to open Microsoft Excel files? I would like to read my Microsoft Excel files on my Android device. Is there anything built-in natively? Is there an application for viewing and editing Excel files on Android?

You can try Documents To Go. You can create, edit, and view MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and even PDF docs.

As a free alternative, you can upload your Excel docs to Google Docs and use the free GDocs app.