Galaxy Nexus restarts non-stop before completely booting I'm aware of the suddenly restarts of the Galaxy Nexus, but in my case it restarts before managing to boot completely and it does that in a non-stop loop. It happened while my phone was on a stand by mode and now I can't do much, so it is basically useless.

Is there anything I can do about it. Is it possible to reset it somehow? I tried to remove the battery, charge it and all that kind of stuff that I could do, but no luck so far.

I bought it through Amazon.com and the model is Samsung I9250 Galaxy Nexus 16GB (Unlocked), but I'm in Europe so warranty is something that would take sometime I guess.

Update: I also tried to follow these instructions but my computer cannot find the device. I'm stack in the ODIN MODE, Do Not Turn Off Target if I do the trick with the volume down button, otherwise it just restarts without completing the initial colorful effect. Any ideas?

I would unlock the bootloader, and flash a new image...

You can find all the information you need on this page:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1392310

Hope you found my answer helpful :)


Where can I find Google Play services? I have a Samsung Galaxy Ace and when I try to use my apps, it says "This app won't run without Google Play services, which are missing from your phone".
Where can I find those Google Play Services as they are not in my menu nor in any of my settings? I had them before but now I can't find them..!

Google Play Services can be Disabled (Turned Off), and it is possible you did so. To find out if this is the case, and to re-enable, use Settings>Application Manager, and find the List of Apps either 'All', or sometimes it is split into 'Disabled' (Turned Off). The 'All' or 'Disabled' lists are to the far right panel of this tabbed interface - scroll far right. If not in a Disabled list, the disabled apps are at the bottom of the 'All' list. Find it alphabetically to re-enable (Turn On).


Turn off radio layer hardware calls to save battery when your broadband hardware is gone With reference to my question here:
IM-A870L Radio Interface Layer broke down

Summary:
My android phone broadband chip is dead. For some reason, its not working anymore. Now I can use the phone for other purposes but the problem is that the phone goes to look for broadband every now and then. Which not only drains battery but also hangs the phone. For e.g. if I press the power button to turn off the screen, I cannot put the screen back on immediately, it takes a couple of minutes before the phone gets back to normal.

My research resulted in this theory that every phone has two operating systems, one is your main operating system (i.e. Android, iOS, etc) and another parallel os is running with the broadband/gsm chip. Now the cells main OS tries to communicate with the gsm os to keep track of calls/sms. This communication is done through RIL (Radio Interface Layer), but if your gsm chip is dead, RILD is dead and thus the main os will not be able to connect to the RILD (RIL Daemon) through the socket associated for it.

Now the solution for this situation would be to tell your main os that it does not have to connect or keep on trying to connect to the RILD because it is not there anymore.

I am sure this can be done, because tablets that do not have any gsm also work with the same OS, which means in case of tablets, the OS is aware that there is no GSM to look for and thus there is no RILD connection attempts.

My question is that how can we tell our device that it does not have to attempt RILD calls? Is there a global setting or flag that tells the device that there is no GSM in this device??

My device is rooted and I can run any shell command or script.

Any help will be highly appreciated...

When you turn on your device, start adb shell and enter stop service rild. This would stop the RILD service and you can then use your phone for other purposes. However, on restart, the service would start again. For that, you need to edit your init.rc file. Just delete the lines that are starting the RILD service and then the RIL would not be a part of the OS anymore. Consequently, there will be no more attempts to the GSM modem.

Hope things are clear now.


Sharing decryption keys from OpenKeychain I want to create keys that I can use to sign & encrypt files, and share the decryption keys so people can read the encrypted files and see my signature.

I've successfully created an encryption/signing key in Alice device, and I'm able to encrypt messages and files with it that I can decrypt in Alice device.

However when I try to share the keys I get an .asc file that when imported on Bob's device, has a orange ? icon, and when try to decrypt the encrypted file, I get "No encrypted data with known secret key found in stream!"

Any idea what I might be doing wrong?

Screenshots (click images for larger variants)

With OpenKeyChain as with any PGP app, you always generate key pairs: one private and one public key. The private key can be used to decrypt data which was encrypted with its public counter-part.

Now, when you share a key, you always share the public part – which can be used for encryption, but not for decryption. Hence, the message encrypted using Bob's key cannot be decrypted with Alice's key: on that device, only Alice's key pair and Bob's public key are present, so only Alice's private key is tried for decryption. Hence you get that error message.


how to back up an app's data manually? I am able to backup my app's data from the root/data/data/you.package.name directory by just moving it to SD card manually. however, when i reverse the process,                                                                                AKA paste the data back to simulate a restore, the app just force closes, i have tried it with a bunch of apps and noticed the same reaction. Where am i wrong?

As there's no more feedback, I'll sum up from the comments for those coming up with a similar issue:

Firelord correctly pointed out this most likely is an issue with file permissions. Internal storage uses a file system supporting granular file permissions1 – which are not supported by the file system used on SD cards2. So the copy of all the contents on your SD card has lost that information, and ownership got lost3. So copying this back to your internal storage, it still has the wrong ownership, so the app cannot access it properly. Not expecting this4, the app will of course misbehave: an exception will occur without being handled, so the app crashes (force-close).

For those who checked with the mount command and now argue you're wrong, SD card doesn't use FAT but FUSE! – True it's FUSE, but in this case it acts like FAT. What file system is FUSE, please? :) It's not a physical file system on its own, but rather a virtual one (FUSE stands for File System in User Space, which opposes the "System Space" aka "kernel space") providing a "bridge" to the actual kernel interfaces. There're several file systems using FUSE: SSHFS, DAVFS and others have FUSE implementations. Again it was Firelord bringing up some backing to my claim: sdcard program does the job of mounting FUSE and in config.jd is mentioned that the sdcard program is used by some devices to expose internal storage through FUSE.

Conclusion: You took a complete wrong approach to backup and restore here. If you really wanted to deal with that on the file system level, you should have used a tool like tar (which is available and usually pre-installed on Android devices) to archive the contents while preserving permissions (the resulting "tarball" can then be copied to SD card, and the contents still be extracted to their original location properly). OTOH, as our backup tag-wiki will tell you, this is exactly what adb backup or apps like Helium - App Sync and Backup and Titanium Backup are for.

1: on older Android versions this often was YAFFS, on newer it's Extfs
2: usually FAT
3: or rather "reset" to the defaults used for content stored on the SD card
4: a normal user cannot do such stuff, as /data/data/<package_name> is not accessible to anyone but its owner and root


Hands-free mode not working on Samsung Galaxy SIII I've activated Hands-free mode from the configurable set of switch-buttons
at the top of the notification panel on my Samsung Galaxy SIII, and such mode
also appears activated under Settings -> My device -> Hands-free mode. Such
entry reads: "Incoming calls and new notifications will be read out automatically".

However, I've tried sending myself e-mail messages and also received some WhatsApp
messages, which triggered the Whistle Default notification sound and made the
front Blue LED blink until I swiped down my notification panel. As I was saying,
however I didn't hear any voice coming from the phone reading out the notifications
aloud, so it seems like this feature is not working for me.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

I've got the same phone running android 4.4.2. My phone does not speak email messages. It only speaks sms text, caller id info, and two other notifications. If you consult the help manual on the phone, the usage is a little clearer.


Deleted .nomedia file but still photos in that folder not visible in gallery Created an .nomedia file in a folder and it worked. But now I've deleted that file but still photos are not visible in gallery app.How to recover from this? Any help?

After photos are added, they need to be scanned by the media-scanner before they'll show up in Gallery and other apps. Normally, the app that creates the photo asks the media scanner directly to add the new photo, but in this case, because you've removed the .nomedia yourself, nothing has yet triggered the file to be scanned.

You can find apps to trigger the rescan on Google Play, but be careful if your phone has KitKat or later: Android changed the way media rescanning works, to save battery, so apps written for earlier Android versions simply won't work on KitKat. Alternatively, if the folder in question is on removable storage, simply remove it and then add it again, and Android will re-scan the whole filesystem.


What's the point of disabling USB HOST? After searching and debuging like an idiot, I found out that my phone has the USB host installed but disabled. Is this the default on Android? If so, is there a security reason behind it – or what is the point here?

My phone has the USB host installed but disabled, what's the point of disabling USB HOST?

USB Host would be required to allow USB On-The-Go, often abbreviated USB OTG.  It is a specification that allows USB devices such as digital audio players or mobile phones to act as a host, allowing other USB devices like a USB flash drive, mouse, or keyboard to be attached to them.

Security - by disabling USB OTG, a device manufacturer may want to limit support calls of third party devices or enhance security by disabling all chances of low-level commands being sent via USB port at the cost of user functionality.

CPU/Memory Performance - when a USB OTG device is plugged in, the device needs to process the new resource.  This can be loading additional kernel modules or cataloging the files for presentation to the user.  On a low-end phone with limited processing power and/or memory, a design decision may have been made that it be better to appear to always be fast rather than risk having more features, but a more laggy user experience; hence disabling the feature altogether.

Battery - a device connected will draw power from the device's battery.  Although this issue can be resolved by using a Y cable to draw the power from a secondary source.

Is this the default on Android?

It is typically common for higher performance Android devices to have USB OTG enabled.

OTG enabled devices

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/landing/otg-compatibility-list

http://www.kingston.com/us/usb/otg

http://usbotghelper.wordpress.com/confirmed-devices/


Xperia Neo V not able to load OS My Sony Xperia Neo V mobile cannot load the desktop screen, menus and all. The mobile gets started and shows the "SONY" and "XPERIA" splash screens. After that, again the phone gets restarted and displays the splash screens again.

Can anyone please tell me if there is any problem occuring in the OS or in the hardware? Before it happens I kept my phone in my pocket which is in slightly wet.

SPECS:

Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo V (MT11i)
Build number / version - Android 4.1.B.0.587
OS - ICS

A boot-loop can have different reasons. Though in most cases this happens after flashing a new ROM, other things might affect it as well: e.g. some system related apps which have services or the like started quite early. But those special cases usually rather result in a force-close-loop than in a boot-loop.
Things you can try:
Safe mode
See whether you can boot your device into safe mode (according to an XDA post, this should be achieved by keeping Vol- and Power pressed simultaneously until the phone is booted up, and shows the string "safe mode" in the lower left corner). If that works, it is one of the apps you lately installed which causes this problem. Go and remove the app (via Settings→Apps→Manage Apps), reboot, and you should be fine. In case you get problems leaving safe mode: Power down, take out the battery for 30s, insert it again, power up.
Recovery mode
If safe mode is not reachable either, you can try booting to recovery mode (should be Vol++Vol-+Power). In the menu appearing there, select to "Wipe Cache". Reboot.
If the problem still persists, and you have no custom recovery, all that's left to you to try is a factory reset. This will wipe all your data and the apps you've installed. You can do so from the very same recovery menu by chosing "Wipe data" or "Factory reset" (it is labeled either the one or the other).
In case you have a custom recovery, you can try first to only "Wipe Dalvik Cache".


Power saving tips for Galaxy S2 that don't involve turning it into a dumbphone My Galaxy S2 has always shown not more than 8 hours of battery life.
This is with the stock ROM, as well as the recent 2.3.5 update and a rooted kernel.
All the battery saving tips I've seen essentially boil down to 'turn off everything that made you buy the damn phone in the first place and use it only for voice calls like a dumbphone.' - i.e. disable 3g/EDGE/wifi/gps/bluetooth/screen brightness.
Of the lot, I've done the following:

Screen permanently set to 10% brightness, i.e. the lowest.
Bluetooth/Wifi/GPS only on when needed, which isn't much (Couple of Foursquare checkins everyday).
Sync disabled.
Haptic feedback/vibrations disabled.
The 2 capacitative buttons are set to only glow in the dark, so during the day they are never on.

Yet my battery goes down like crazy, and if I don't carry my charger with me the phone can't even make it through the day. Is there a way to find out what apps hog the battery?

The battery usage graph and list of apps by battery usage doesn't really help; it only shows me the apps that I've run myself recently.

So is there anything else one can do to improve battery life, or am I resigned to carrying around a charger always?

I usually get by the day by carrying a USB charger since I always have my laptop or other computers around me. Some people get through by buying a second battery pack or a thick extended battery.

Any apps that syncs every 15 minutes is battery sucker, since it prevents the phone from sleeping. Syncing every hour or so shouldn't affect battery by much. If possible you should prefer apps that uses C2DM (i.e. push instead of poll). Many apps that polls for data have configurable polling frequency, try to have the same polling frequency for all apps or integer multiples.

For mailboxes that need to receive occasional urgent emails, don't use the stock Email client, instead use Gmail client or Exchange which uses push. If your email server supports IMAP IDLE extension (a push extension for IMAP protocol), you should use third party IMAP client, e.g. K9 Mail. However, don't use push for low priority high-traffic mailbox. You might be able to find a sweet spot for yourself by using two or more mailboxes for your high urgency and high traffic mailbox.

If you're rooted, underclock. Most phones have much more CPU than is needed for daily usage; underclocking will curb the phone to not go full power state unexpectedly, remember to restore the clock before doing CPU intensive activities (e.g. games) and to underclock it again afterwards.

I hope you know to disable Live Wallpaper. They're good for showing off, but not if you want your phone to last the day.

Secure the phone in your pocket. I found that my phone drains battery faster when in a tight pocket since the hardware button are often accidentally pressed which activates the screen and prevents the phone from sleeping.

In some custom ROM, e.g. CyanogenMod, the notification bar have power widget, which is handy for quickly enabling/disabling battery sucking features, e.g. GPS, 3G, etc.

However, remember that in the end it's all a tradeoff:


Isolating pocket casts from scrobble for last.fm When I play a podcasts on my android phone using pocket cast 4.2.3 I notice that the details are scrobbled to last.fm. It is happening because I have set my last.fm app to scrobble. I want to scrobble every music playing app I have but I do not really view pocket cast as a music app. How can I stop scrobbling from pocket cast?

In last.fm scrobble settings I see that there are various categories of apps to scrobble from

Scrobble Android Player: Scrobble the built-in Android music player
SLS support: Scrobble apps that use the simple Last.fm scrobbler API
ScrobbleDroid support: Scrobble apps that use the ScrobbleDroid API

Where does Pocket Cast fit into those options?

Last.fm picks up the intents apps like Pocket Casts and Google Music send to bluetooth devices, and hacks that into their scrobble implementation. I guess they figured Google were never going to support them explicitly so that was their only way in. To stop Pocket Casts from scrobbling you'd un-tick the Google Music option in last.fm.

The fine people of Pocket Casts (read: us) are planning to put in a setting that turns off that bluetooth data, which would also turn off scrobbling. We looked into the last.fm API and there's nothing extra we can send to tell them to ignore us, which would be a better solution, since it would mean keeping the blue tooth meta data as well.


Nexus 7 came with Superuser & ROM Manager pre-installed I just received my Nexus 7 from Google and I was surprised to see superuser and ROM Manager apps already installed. How normal is this? Does this mean my tablet is rooted out of the box? Does it mean it was used before? Does it void the warranty?

Did you purchased it directly from Google? Very likely you simply got a returned tablet, i.e. a tablet that already had a previous owner, which installed these apps. I doubt that Google pre-installs SuperUser and ROM Manager.


How to synchronize Chrome web history on different Android devices? In Chrome, I can find options to synchronize bookmarks, passwords, web search (nice feature) but nothing about my web history synchronization.

Am I missing an obvious option ? Is there an external application that could do that or should I try to synchronize manually my history ?

This is particulary annoying when doing a search in my desktop Chrome, looking for some results, trying one website, another... then later doing the same research on one of my Android device and re-trying the same websites and discover after loading that I already visited this site with no luck.

Google Chrome Application for Android

The Google Chrome Application for Android comes with some sync features as to allow users to keep their web-experience mirrored to other devices or desktop computers.

You need to be signed in on the services screen:

  If you're not on the sign-in services screen, touch Menu > Settings > your email address to manage your sign-in options.

You can adjust your sync settings from the Services screen:

  touch Sync to adjust your settings.

You can either set the sync to affect all data or specify each data is intend to be synced:

Enable the service:

  Use the blue slider at the top of the screen to enable or disable the service.

Define what's to be synced:

  If you don't want to sync everything, deselect the Sync everything checkbox and choose the data you'd like to sync.

Encrypt your data:

  Touch Encryption to choose whether to use your Google Account password or a custom passphrase to protect your data.

Rest the sync service:

  Touch Reset sync to remove synced data from your account. If you've forgotten your sync passphrase, use this option to reset the passphrase.

Note:

  To fully take advantage of this feature, make sure you're signed in to Chrome on other devices, such as your computer or tablet.

Additional documentation about this can be found at Google Chrome Support page for sync data.

Google Web History

Google takes care of this for you as long as you've logged yourself into your Google Account on every browser and/or device you use.

Additionally, using history.google.com, you can manage the information stored:

What I most enjoy with this is the fact that all my searches are synced between Mobile, Desktop and Laptop, saving me precious time.


Unable to move apps to SD card after Gingerbread upgrade I upgraded my HTC Desire to Gingerbread via the official update yesterday. It wipes all settings, so I've been working through re-installing all the apps that I previously had on the phone. They all install fine and some move to the SD card fine too, but some just say "unable to move to SD card" when I select them. I suspect it's because they were on the SD card before and it's getting an error when trying to overwrite the existing files/directory. Where do these get stored and how can I work around this?

Hmm, actually just tried again a few hours later and it works now... Odd!


Android - I modified vold.fstab and lost access to my SD card I have samsung galaxy ace GT-S5830, it has very low internal memory (181 MB).
I have an external micro SD card of 16 GB, but still couldn't install many apps due to insufficient internal memory.
I read in internet that if i modify vold.fstab and replace the word sdcard with sdcard2 in it, then my external sd card
will act as internal memory.

So I rooted my phone and got superuser app (which can allow root access to various user apps)
But I haven't installed clockworkmod recovery or any other custom ROM yet.

I installed ES File explorer on SD card and allowed root access to it via superuser app.
I then went to /system/etc/ from ES file explorer , edited vold.fstab and replaced the word sdcard with sdcard2
Now i restarted my phone and the external SD is no more accessible. My "ES File Explorer" is also no more there for me to able
to undo the change that i did.
I tried intalling ES file explorer again from my data connection, but the installation fails (and phone reboots immediately).
I am not able to install any new apps.

I am unable to access my external SD card, so I can't put anything there via PC or via recovery.

I tried pressing the power button + home button to go into system recovery mode. I see only these options

Androd system recovery <3e>

reboot system now
apply sdcard:update.zip
wipe data/factory reset
wipe cache partition

When i try to select the second option, it says installation aborted as the SD card is no more accessible

I tried to select 3rd and 4th options, but that didn't help either - I think factory reset will not reset vold.fstab :-(

I only have the default apps + superuser app now

I somehow need to find a way to get write permission to /system/etc or to /system/etc/vold.fstab

Luckily I found "Android Commander". Installing it on my windows PC and I am able to connect my android phone
and I am able to access root folder. But I am not able to push a modified vold.fstab to /system/etc because
Android Commander says "no Root Access" - It is seeing it as read only :-(

can someone let me know how i can edit this file again ? I have a original vold.fstab in my PC, but I am not able to push
it to my phone via Android Commander as Android Commander is seeing it as Read Only.

Is there a way to give root access (aka read-write access) to Android Commander via superuser app on my android ?

Is there any other way to get write permission to /system/etc/vold.fstab so that i can modify it or replace it ?

I don't know about Android Commander, but a simpler way (in my opinion) would be to use ADB. You may have already installed the Android SDK (if not, go here). I assume that you don't have modified your System Path.

Move your vold.fstab to C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools or C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools
Go to the android-sdk folder, shift+right click on platform-tools and choose "Open command prompt here"
If your device is 4.0 or above, type adb root
adb remount (this will make /system writable)
adb push vold.fstab /system
adb reboot

This should do the trick.


No signal on custom roms (SGS2+) I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 plus and rooted it via Odin and put CWM on it, with which I installed the unofficial Cyanogenmod ROM and later P.A.C.
Unfortunately I had massive issues with the signal: Despite the fact that the sim gets unlocked when entering the right sim pin at start, there were always only emergency calls available. When trying to manually select the mobile service provider and selecting the available networks (Wireless & network->More->Mobile Networks->Mobile Service Provider), there is an error while searching, and when telling the phone to automatically select a network, it says registered in network, but there is still no connection.
Really odd is the fact that when activating the option '2g networks only', the phone is registered in the network of my mobile service provider, but quits after a few seconds.
I got the phone from my MSP, so it's branded. May that be the cause of my problem?
I also noticed that both the Cyanogenmod and the Pacman ROM use the same kernel: 3.0.31/skullface@Ubuntu_13.04#1. This one is from Cyanogenmod.
Any help is appreciated.

P.S.: Some terms I used may be incorrect because the language on my phone isn't english.

EDIT: I found out that the problem has something to do with a possible netlock on my device, because it askes, when there is the pin code validation disabled, for a code to unlock the sim network. At least that was what some forum threads were suggesting (in german, so I won't post them here).
Normally, this behaviour thus shouldn't occur, because I use the same sim card I used with the stock rom. May it be that my EFS directory is corrupt? (the one which contains the IMEI and stuff)

EDIT: I think one needs to flash the modem, which is possible for example with ODIN. Haven't tried it although.

FYI, I found out what the problem was: The stock rom needs to be updated to 4.2 (you can get the official rom here if there is no update available), I think because of the bootloader.


Multiple SMS Threads I have been having a problem with the default SMS client recently and haven't found a solution yet. The problem is that when I am texting with certain friends, there will be two threads going: one thread for texts I receive from them, and one thread for texts I send. The problem has always occurred when I first text someone but it is the wrong number (I type the wrong area code by mistake). The person obviously does not receive the text, but when I change the contact's number and text to the correct phone I get all of their replies from the number I originally typed in, which causes two threads for the same person.

I was hoping that somebody might be able to provide an answer for essentially merging the two threads. I have a Samsung Galaxy Slide and it runs on Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread). Thanks in advance for your responses!

Have an entry in 'Contacts' for each one of your friends (Contact -> Add new contact, then enter their number and details) and then enter SMS chat with them any time by entering into their respective 'Contacts' profile and clicking on the 'Send Message' icon to begin SMS chat.

Or just use an Chatting app like WhatsApp which has native support for all modern mobile OS's (Android, Blackberry, iOS..) so you could avoid retyping the same number again and again.

Or just stop mistyping those area codes.


Is WebView localStorage stored in the app cache? I am writing a hybrid app (Cordova 6.5, Angular 1.5, Ionic 1.3, HTML5) that will run on Android. This kind of app works in WebView.

My app has a few images bundled with the app and most of the data will be called via HTTP and some of it will be stored in localStorage for offline mode.

I have seen that it's possible to manually write images etc. into the app cache (https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/data-storage.html), but I am not doing this myself in my app.

I am wondering what kind of data does the Android OS store in the app cache by default. I hope this does not include the html5 localStorage.

The app cache helps the app run faster. Every time an app loads some data (like images and so on) it gets stored in the app cache. If the user opens the app again, this data is not reloaded. It is taken from the app cache instead. This makes the app faster. App cache though does not persist and is erased every time you restart your phone.

In the localStorage though, you store things that the app will need to remember even when the phone restarts. For example what is your progress in a game, some app parameters etc.

See more about app cache here.


What is actually Move To SD Card? I recently moved  Dead Trigger 2 to my SD storage, but when I open my file explorer it still shows that Dead Trigger 2 is in my internal storage. When I checked my storage details it is showing only a 10MB difference, so I'm totally confused about the 'Move To SD storage' concept. I thought moving a 486MB game to SD storage is actually moving a 486MB game to SD storage, but my recent experience proves that I'm wrong. What is really meant by "Move To SD"?

There are different approaches to App2SD, which are briefly explained in our app2sd tag-wiki. The App2SD built-in to Android only moves parts of the app to SDCard, while other parts (e.g. the app's data and its dalvik cache) remain on internal storage. How much (or what percentage) gets moved varies from app to app – which is what you experience in the described case. Moreover, an app needs to explicitly support this mechanism.

There are different other approaches pre-installed with some custom ROMs (such as App2SD+), or separately installable on rooted devices (such as link2sd or Data2SD) trying to fill this gap; to completely move an app out of internal storage, one often has to use combinations of at least two of those tools.

Please see the linked tag-wiki for closer details.


Does Android 2.1+ support the ARM9 processor? Possible Duplicate:
  What are the minimum specifications for Android?

I want to load Android 2+ (i.e 2.1 or 2.2) on an ARM9 processor, is it possible?  If I could have a comparative chart of which ARM processors are supported by which versions of Android it would be helpful.

Android does not have a fixed minimum processor requirement, it's just recommended that the device be "fast enough".  See http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/source.android.com/en//compatibility/android-2.1-cdd.pdf


Samsung Galaxy S3 wi-fi connection problems When I try to connect to wi-fi on my Samsung Galaxy S4 a message comes up, checking the quality of your internet connection and then network disabled because internet connection is slow.  This happens at home and when out and about when other devices connect straight away.  This has only been happening in the past 4 to 6 weeks.

First, please make the Question match your description (in description you wrote S3, in question S4).

To your question:

I think it can be disabled in WIFI menu. Press the Hardware "Menu" button, then go to settings.


Huge unexplained data transfer - investigating I have a Samsung Galaxy S3, and I do normal usage with it (web, reddit, mail, texts no netflix some youtube clips and not much streaming overall). Have been using it for about 2.5 year, without ever being near of busting data limits or reaching what could be considered heavy user (ex: from my records, 300 mb 4G  and 1.5 Gb wifi a month would be typical). wifi and 4G providers are distinct.

Never had a problem with the device. Device is rooted and unlocked. No bogus app on it (I try to be serious about this - and manage applications permissions with this registered XPrivacy module ) Device memory is 16 Gb (internal) and SD card 32 Gb - overall 2/3 full

then this week I check my provider account for wifi as I do each month before being billed to see if I need any adjustment. And I see this:

We see by looking at this figure that between the third and the sixth of March 2015 - there was a lot of data transfer - that I cannot explain. 25 Gb the 3rd, 49 Gb the 4th, 38 Gb the 5th and 8 Gb the sixth and then a return to something normal after.

Quickly I start investigating my various devices and found this on my mobile: (sorry for the weird colors it is not on purpose - but data is still exact)

The right section show 113 Gb of traffic between the 3rd and the 7th which concurs with the previous figure showing the usage (provider report). And to the left we see a peak in traffic for the same period, this one on 4G. I have no space on my phone to accomodate this transfers - and I still have about 15 Gb /48 Gb free space on it.

So since I am using a VPN service Private Internet Access showing in the left and right part of the figure as the top traffic application, I cannot tell which specific application triggered the traffic, as all traffic is redirected to the vpn interface. So for example, if I start a movie on Netflix, the Netflix application usage won't grow, but Private Internet Access will.

I tried to investigate - a bit more to not avail, using various shell utils (logcat, netstat, ps/top for processes) but I realized the problem way to late and connections were dropped and/or no relevant info was obvious to me.

I was wondering :

if anyone would have a hint as to how I should continue this investigation.

thanks

I have a few suggestions. I had my phone go over my monthly average by only about 5GB and just about threw my phone in a lake.

The VPN app claiming all the data transferred as its own is a problem, but I think you can get around that with third party data management apps like 3G Watchdog and My Data Manager. Based on my research on several sites this seems to just... kind of... happen to people randomly across many different configurations. For me the Android OS service was reporting huge spikes, but My Data Manager broke that out into a different service that was running.

In Apps, clear data and cache for Google Play Services, Google Play Store, Google Services Framework, and Google Backup Transport.
Go to Settings -> Storage, Cached data, reset. Restart your phone.
Until you've figured it out, try to not be on data but wifi instead. That will minimize overages.
If you're feeling proactive, download one of those data management apps, or both. Then wait.

If it never happens again, I bet you'd be happy.


Remove all contacts in phone that don't have a phone number My mother just upgraded from a simple flip phone to a android motorola atrix 2.  It's her first smart phone and she is having a very hard time adjusting.  She added her email and Facebook accounts onto the phone, as soon as she did so, however, it added all the contact information from both into her phone contacts.  She already had the contacts imported in from her last phone and is now dealing with duplicate contacts (such as "Mike Smith and "Micheal Smith").  The worst problem is, she is having a hard time finding a contact that actually has a phone number.  She'll search for "Jane Doe" in the phone when trying to call her and only find her email there.

My Questions:

Why does the phone (app?) show contacts that don't contain a phone number?
How can I delete the duplicates (or merge them)?
What is the best way to make this work as smoothly as possible?

Most Phone/Contacts apps list all contacts, from all added accounts by default. There are several system and application options that could resolve this confusion:

From the Home screen, press the Menu key and go to Settings -> Accounts & Sync.
Under the Manage account section go through each account (by tapping on them,) and verify that the Sync Contacts option is only checked for accounts that you really want to have synchronized with the phone.
Open the Phone app and go to the "Contacts" tab. press the Menu button and tap the Display options button.
Check the box next to Only contacts with phones option to hide any contacts that don't have a phone number associated with them.
Under the Choose contacts to display section, expand any accounts that you've chosen to keep in sync in step 2, and select the groups you wish displayed in the Phone app by marking their check-box.

Keep in mind that some manufacturers have their own versions of Phone and Contacts apps, so the menu choices might be slightly different (or even missing altogether.)


How to safely unroot my Lenovo K3 Note? I've rooted my Lenovo K3 Note using SuperSU, now due to some reasons I need to unroot my cellphone. How do I do that?

Download Supersu app from playstore

Launch the SuperSu APP that you just installed on your device.

Goto the settings and find Unroot option . Tap on it .

you have unrooted your phone congrats.


Any way to remotely turn on location services without root so I lost my phone this morning and I tried to use the standard android device manager to track it but it's useless without location services, which I turn off due to it draining too much battery power.

Is there any way to turn it on so I can used ADM or is there another method which can track my phone without location services, maybe using something like wifi hotspots?

I'm not sure which exact android firmware I have but it's above 5.0.0 if that's of any help and it's a xperia z1

No, there is no hope to activate location service remotely without root access or without a system app. Change in the state of location service requires editing secure settings which cannot be done without root access or without system UI (user consent) or without a system app having the permission android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS. Since your Android doesn't meet any criteria I suggest you do not invest your time anymore in this direction.

As for any other method: I do not know but a local law enforcement agency may be able to assist you with common mobile tracking techniques.

Related: Is it possible to enable Location Services via Shell?


Google Assistant not showing messages The image above shows the problem. I hear the voice, but no text shows up showing the response. This goes for any input: I hear the voice, but what the assistant says doesn't show up on the screen as text. It used to in earlier versions. Any ideas on how I can solve this?

I had the exact same problem running 7.0 android on the Samsung Galaxy s7 edge. I clicked on settings then  applications found the Google app clicked on it then I cleared all data and that erased all of the updates taking it back to the stock installed version from their I  updated the app restarted my phone and  my Google assistant works fine .hope this helps


Is it possible to somehow understand from the logs what happened to the phone a month ago? Are there such logs? I didn’t have access to my phone for a month, I’m afraid that I could have installed any software or hardware spyware. Is it possible to check it somehow by logs? Does the Android system keep logs for all operations in the system?

Here is some ADB commands that can help:
Dump each app and it data usage
for package in $(pm list packages | cut -f2 -d":"); do echo $package; pm dump $package | grep  "Mobile network"; done;

Monitor Application
for package in $(dumpsys package | grep "Package \[" | cut -d "\[" -f2 | cut -d "\]" -f1); do
    echo $package $(dumpsys package $package | grep firstInstallTime)
done;

That will list install date of all the applications on the device.
You can replace "firstInstallTime" with "lastUpdateTime" to get last update time.
Some applications monitor and store the phone state in a database or a log file, you can also backup the apps in the device and try to find some useful information in these backups.
Hope it can help!


Symbolic link to Dropbox So I had this crazy idea: I could play GBA games on my computer AND phone, using Dropbox to sync the save files, and a symbolic link to get the emulator app on my phone to find the save file. However, I neglected to consider that the way Dropbox works on my phone is significantly different than the synchronized folder on my PC. So, is it possible to keep an actively synced copy of a file (perhaps using favorites) from Dropbox in the filesystem on the phone? Where would that file end up?

TL;DR: Can I symbolic link to a file in Dropbox on my phone?

Instead of symbolic link, you may use DropSync (Pro) which allows you to define the Dropbox (cloud) directory and also the file (local) directory in your device.


Battery charging indicator and USB has, sort of, stopped working on my Samsung Google Nexus I9250 I know the battery is still being charged because
1) when I power off the phone while the phone is plugged into a USB connector the screen shows the battery symbol with a lightning bolt and then a battery with a animated fill.
2) When I power on the phone the battery charge status screen now displays an expected and much higher value than before the phone was rebooted.

The indicator is now not showing that it's plugged in when I've tried three different chargers and cables which worked just fine in the last few days.   The battery percentage slowly drops even though it's still plugged into the USB cable.

This started happening shortly after I installed the Lock Screen app.   It has since been uninstalled but the problem persists.    I don't quite see how it could've mucked up the settings but the author does have a related Battery Saver app so I suppose there could be some code in there.  I tried installing the Battery Saver app which didn't make a difference.  I've uninstalled it.   I've emailed the author but haven't heard back from them yet.

Added later:
Further testing shows that after I power cycle the smart phone the USB connection is recognized once per connection cycle.  That is the AC USB cord works once indicating that the device is being charged via the AC.  And once the AC USB cord is pulled and plugged back in it no longer changes the status.   The same thing happens with a USB cable connected to my laptpo for data interchange.

However this doesn't always work.  Just most of the time.

Did you try a different battery? Is this one the factory one? It may be faulty and possibly not charging reliably.
If worst comes to worst, you can try reflashing your GNexus with the default google 4.3 yakju images (after backing up all your data of course) to see if the problem goes away. If it does not then the battery needs to be replaced.

Here is a link: https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#yakju
and information on how to do it: tutorial
You will need to have fastboot and adb installed.
There is a way to flash the images without erasing the userdata/sdcard partition if you don't want to backup. (it involves editing the flashall.sh to remove the -w option before running it)


TWRP and CWM unable to mount Nexus 7 filesystem I'm trying to root an unlocked Nexus 2013 Wifi. TWRP and CWM are unable to mount /data, /cache, or /system in recovery mode. TWRP reports internal storage of 0 MB. The system boots normally outside of recovery mode.

A soft-bricked restore with WUG didn't fix it. I've tried manually flashing TWRP and CWM with fastboot in VMWare Ubuntu, WUG in VMWare Windows 7, and in OS X, but the issue persists.

On TWRP (not sure bout CWM), only Data is mounted by default. You have to mount it with the mount option. Be sure to enable MTP (mount point) just in case


How can I rename my Android device? Possible Duplicate:
  How do I change the name of my Android device?

It has a really long cryptic name. I want to rename it to something shorter.

If you are talking about when you do:

  abd -s device-serial-number command

Then you can do this if it is the only device connected via USB:

  adb -d command

But that will only work if you have just one device connected via USB, if there are more than one android devices connected via USB, it will return the "multiple devices" error.


Google Drive - Android - upload image but don't convert to PDF I have just installed Google Drive latest Android application and notice that there is not a direct way to upload a camera image...

The only option I see is 'Scan', but after taking a picture I notice this is converted to a PDF. Is there any option to directly upload a camera image to Google Drive?

Thanks!

From the gallery app , click the share option and you will see Google Drive appear - highlighted in pic below

If you want to automatically back up and sync

  Open the Google Photos app on your mobile device
  At the top left, tap Menu
  Select Settings > Back up & sync
  At the top, switch it on or off.


Transfer contacts icloud to android How to transfer contacts from icloud to lg escape 2 via usb and laptop. FYI,I forgot 4 digit passcode on iphone 4 if that's game changer. Thanks, Pamh

There may be better ways, but here's mine:

In iCloud contacts select all (or all you want to transfer), then "Export vCard"
On Google Contacts (logged in with the same user you use on your Android device) you import the vCard file (More -> Import)
The Android device should automatically synchronize the freshly imported contacts (this might take a few minutes)
If synchronization doesn't work, look at the Settings app -> Accounts -> your Google account -> tap on the part with your E-Mail address -> make sure Contacts is active -> select "Synchronize now" from the menu)

Please note that this way, you should now organize your contacts with Google and forget about iCloud Contacts. To synchronize your Apple devices with Google Contacts, have a look at this page.


Why does my EVO 3D think I am talking to it? Occasionally when biking or walking, something must be going on in my pocketses because my HTC EVO 3D keeps thinking my standard headphones are evolving into headphones with an inline mic.

Normally I will be listening to music (Winamp) and the track will start skipping around; this is long after I have locked the screen and it has gone to black. I pull out the device and the headphones icon in the notification bar now have a mouth piece sticking out of them in the icon. I look at my headphones, they certainly haven't morphed in any way. I don't have bluetooth on, no other devices are connected to cause interference.

What is going on with my phone and how can I keep it from happening? I don't mind forcing it to never be an inline mic'ed set of headphones if that option is available somehow; it's incredibly annoying 45 minutes into a ride and I would love to get this locked down.

The connector must be a bit loose (or incorrectly sized) and as it wiggles around in the socket, it hits the connectors in a way that makes the phone think it's equipped with a mic (that is, a TRRS plug instead of TRS). Try another pair of headphones or try twisting and aligning the plug/cord so that there no pull or twist in the root of the cord.


How can I retrieve data from an Epic 4G without a working screen? My epic 4g served me well for 10 months before the screen died out on me. I bought a new one and would like to transfer data from my old phone to my new phone, however, it seems impossible when the old phone has no screen to work with.

Any suggestions on how to retrieve this data and get it on a computer?

onik's right that ADB is your best bet for retrieving your apps, data, etc.  But to get it all, you need to be rooted.  XDA has an extremely simple guide for rooting that fortunately doesn't require the use of the screen, it just requires USB Debugging.

Once you root and start adb shell, try entering su before anything else.  If the prompt changes from $ to # then you have root privileges.  If it fails, adb probably gained root privileges automatically.  Now you can access the full contents of the data partition and other areas normally off-limits.


Personalized Mass Text tool (app)? I want to: Send massive personlized text messages.
Example of what I want to do: Send the same template to George & Juan

Hey Juan, how are you doing?
Hey George, how are you doing?

without having to type the same text twice, if not more.

What I have found so far:

Group SMS: a far from finished and polished App.
Mass Text Personalizer: a relatively finished but not polished app. It is
very buggy indeed.

Why I need it: When mass messages are personalized, there is a bigger chance of people replying back.

I need you to: Give me other alternatives to these apps... if there are... better ones.

Thank you.

One nice alternative to the ones you already have is Group SMS by Tur Han available from Google Play Store.

It allows you to compose the message and:

add first and/or last name to the message text;
select the recipients individually.

Works pretty good, it's a free app (small publicity banner), with no bugs on my end. Shows the progress of each message being sent.

If you go to the PRO version, things just keep getting better and better:

  create groups of contacts for quick sending (friends, family, work...)
  History keeping & management
  enhance search bar
  select/deselect all your contacts with 1 touch
  template management
  history track of all messages with statistics
  add Free


Marshmallow Heads-up Notifications Gone? My Galaxy S6 edge recently updated to Android 6.0.1.

Before, when I would get a message from Whatsapp, it would show the message at the top of my screen (Lollipop called it Heads-up notification). Now, only the icon shows up at the top of the screen and I have to pull down the screen in order to see who its from.

It's really irritating! Please help me get that feature back or advise me how to return to Lollipop. Many thanks.

The update never removed Heads Up notifications. You just have to select which apps have the permission to display them.

Go into Settings -> Sound & notification -> App notifications to pull up a list of apps.

Once you select Whatsapp in your case, there will be an "Allow Peeking" checkbox, as so:

(source: staticworld.net)

Just tick that back on, and you'll get those notifications.

If WhatsApp doesn't respect those settings, there is an alternative:

You can download a Fully Customizable Heads-up for WhatsApp from Play Store, which works with the latest WhatsApp update.

Hope this helps!


How can I remove the default browser favorites? The default browser on my Galaxy S Vibrant running Froyo has a bunch of favorites pre-loaded -- CNN, Facebook, etc.  The browser tells me they can't be deleted when I try.  How can I delete them?  Is there a folder of them somewhere I can just delete?  I am rooted.

Doing a full Clear Data on the default browser ("Internet" on the Incredible) worked for me. Just make sure you have your other bookmarks backed up (for example, using an app such as Backup Bookmarks could be used to back them up to SD). The steps should look something like this:

Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > All > Internet > Clear Data

EDIT: As mentioned in the comment below, Bookmarks Manager allows users to delete the default browser favorites/bookmarks. Note that the crossed-out portion of this answer would erase things such as history, entered text, etc. however, apparently not the default bookmarks.


Android 6.0.1 parse error while attempting to install Pokemon go apk 0.29.0 I have Android 6.0.1 on my Galaxy S6 edge device and i would like to install the apk, because the google play version doesn't support my region. According to the site, the supported Android versions are:

  Android 4.4 to Android 6.0.1  (Android N will not be supported until the
  official Android release)

but still it doesn't work when I try to install the apk and get the parse error.
This is the link for the apk that I downloaded:
http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/niantic-inc/pokemon-go/pokemon-go-0-29-0-release/pokemon-go-0-29-0-android-apk-download/

By looking in the apk site I can see it is supported until 6.0 version only.
Which is not the same as the google play version.
seems like I'm going to look into downgrading my android version now.
hopefully, this will make things clear for those who got into the same situation as me.


I cant install a application! I'm trying to install a 1-click root app but just the install button is broken. Cancel works, but not the install button.

Also this is the Android dialog box, not the webpage itself.

EDIT: Now I'm trying to test an app that i made but it wont let me install it...
Also I have no filter apps

Check if you activate install from other than market, also check can you reinstall any of app. Also you may use other tools like King (Kingo) root.


Android “fake having a locked phone” - Galaxy SII I have a work-mandatory email-app on my phone that won't work unless it detects that you have a passcode locked phone.

I have a rooted Galaxy S2 Android phone (Cyanogenmod 10) and am wondering if there are any apps or ways of tricking my phone into thinking it has a 4 digit pin code when it doesn't.

Thanks!

CM's profiles may work for you. I use it for circumventing the mandatory lockscreen if a certificate is installed (CaCert's regular SSL root CA here).

To set it up tap disabled in:
settings->profiles->default->lockscreen

For others: This only works with the alternative CyanogenMod aftermarket firmware.


app for typing with your PC keyboard Is there a app or something for android that let's you type through your PC on your device? Pecking on your small android screen seems so painful, I'd really prefer if a hostspot or wifi connected  existed that let you type from your computer's keyboard.

I use a bluetooth keyboard but you can connect any USB keyboard to your phone or tablet with the correct adapter and no app is required.


How to login to Htcsense.com I heard HTC is providing online services via HTCSense.com. I have HTC Desire phone. How do I login to this site. when I open it it asks for authentication :(

Update: The service is live now. I just checked. Currently only two phones are supported: Desire HD and Desire Z. Heck I need for Desire :(

This is how I got it working:

I registered a new account through my Mobile phone (HTC Desire HD, during phone setup).
I got an email from htc sense with a link in it to confirm my account
clicking the link open a page to htc sense, and tries to complete the registration and log you to your account page, but in my case it kept hanging
While in the confirmation page, I clicked on login again and were able to log in even though registration was still ongoing. Apparently the acocunt gets registered even though the page hangs.


Listen to wireless traffic with TCPDump I am trying to sniff traffic from a smartphone on the local WiFi network (in a legal way).
For that purpose I use the command TCPDump on a computer connected to the same wireless network.

I can sniff packets from iPhones, from a Galaxy phone with Android 5, but not from a Galaxy with Android 4.4.2.

With this device I can only sniff ICMP traffic, which is what is used for ping request. Instead of that I have nothing.

How can this be possible ? What can I do to sniff packets as I do with iPhones ? Does not Android used broadcasted messages for establishing a communication with an access point ?

Thank you.

In order to do that, I'd recommend the app Intercepter-NG. It's a bit tricky to use, and is known to generate false positives in anti-virus software, but it seems to be the only choice.
How to use Intercepter-NG
As soon as the app starts up, select "Skip scanning" and, in the newly opened activity, choose the tab with the Wireshark icon. Press the Play/Start button to begin sniffing. The packets will be displayed on the screen, as well as saved to a PCAP file on the SD card.


RFID card reader Samsung galaxy tab I developed an Android app for a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 in Android 4.4. Now I'm trying to connect a RFID card reader through my microUSB port to emulate a keyboard so we can read different tags which contain different info. I'm using the Syris RD200-M1-G reader. I searched a lot in the internet and I read that is compatible with Android. My problem is that I connect it to my tab and the reader is powered off and I can't do anythyng.

Do I need something to power it? or maybe in my program code? Any help will be so appreciated. Thank you very much.

P.S: I'm using a Samsung smt-530 galaxy tab 4

It seems your reader gets it's power through USB and Android devices needs to support usb on-the-go to be able to power other devices through USB. Your tablet apparently doesn't support this.


Does adb backup include contacts? Does the command:

adb backup -all -f backup.ab

include contacts in the backup?

No, it would not backup Contacts. Yes, it would backup Contacts.

Confused, eh!

  Yes, it would backup Contacts.

See this question: Backup/Restore SMS/MMS via ADB on a non-rooted device? The author of it was able to backup contacts. It was later revealed that the device on which the backup was performed ran Android 4.1.2. It was a bizarre revelation for me that the backup succeeded.

  No, it would not backup Contacts.

As per the Manifest mentioned here for default Contacts Provider app in Android versions (in series), for Jelly Bean and above Android versions the ADB backup for Contacts Provider/Storage would be denied by system, and hence your contacts wouldn't be backed up.

It's a mere flag android:allowBackup="false" that's the cause of backup denial. See my answers here and here to know more about that flag.


How can I run touch screen games in non-touch Android PC? I have installed Android ×86 KitKat a few days ago on my Lenovo G580 model-20157 PC. Everything works just fine, but when I installed a game, I could not play it since it was meant for touch screen and my PC doesn't support touch.

You can play it with a trackpad or mouse most of the time.


How to fix an andriod tablet which is frozen on the startup menu The tablet won't go past the allwinner startup menu. A restart was tried but it never worked. This is a Chinese android tablet. It is an allwinner A20. Operating system android 4.2.

You should be able to access the default recovery on your Android tablet and do a factory reset. To do so turn off the tablet and then while holding the Power button press Volume Down and hold for about 10 seconds. If this doesn't work try Volime Up or both. You should be now in the recovery and you can navigate with Volume Up/Down and confirm with Power button. If this doesn't work then your device may need a bit more attention.


no system partition - lost adb connection while updating I was updating my Nexus 10 tablet - had gotten to the system partition - when I lost the ADB connection. I've since learned that's a problem with newer Macs (I was connected to Windows through Parallels). Because of the lost connection, the system partition did not flash and my tablet is bricked. There is no operating system so it can't boot into Android, but it can boot into the Bootloader and Recovery mode. All the other partitions are fine.

I have a custom recovery (TWRP) and an unlocked bootloader, but I'm at a loss to figure out how to flash the system.img file. I can't boot to Android so I can't connect through ADB in Fastboot mode to flash the ordinary way. I am connected through ADB when I'm in Recovery mode, but I can't use the flash command in Recovery mode. Nor can I figure out a way to make TWRP flash the partition by running it as a zip file - mainly because I can't figure out what the update.zip file should consist of.

I tried pushing the system.img file to the Nexus 10 using the Linux dd command, but that doesn't work with the system partition, which uses a special format. The details are explained here, but I don't fully understand it:

http://www.modaco.com/forums/topic/327661-how-to-backup-the-systemimg-bootimg-and-recoveryimg/

I've spent hours and hours trying to figure this out, and I can't. I need help. I hope someone knowledgeable can give me some guidance. I posted in xda, but they ignored me (as usual).

Thanks in advance.

I got the update (with system.img) from the Google site. The problem is fixed now - so much time wasted. First I wrote an update.zip file that formatted the system partition (to fix the corruption) & write out the files in system.img. That seemed to work, but my tablet would only boot to Recovery. I suspect the formatting - perhaps a boot flag was needed. In the end, I discovered that I was wrong about not being able to flash. AUGH!! I could have fixed this so easily. Once in Recovery, if I rebooted into the Bootloader, I was connected. I reflashed the system partition & all is well now.

On the plus side, I learned a lot (trying to see a silver lining from so much wasted time). I know how to write flash updates that run in Recovery mode, and I know a lot more about the features of TWRP. I think I could wake up any soft-bricked device at this point. :)


How can you verify titanium backup is encrypting backups? In Titanium Backup Pro it has the option to encrypt backups. How can this be verified that it's working? It normally outputs a gz file with an apk inside. When I try to open the apk with a text editor it doesn't have any human readable text, so does that mean it's encrypted??

As per this post titanium does not encrypt apps binaries(apk). It just encrypts apps data.


Android 6: connect as camera per default When I connect an Android 6 phone with my pc via USB, it always connects as "USB for charging". I have to set it to "connect as camera" (PTP) manually (for ADB to work) every time.

Can I set a default option somewhere and haven't found it yet?

While there may be a hack around somewhere (I don't have Android M yet), Google, in the changelog of Android 6.0 has noted:

  Device connections through the USB port are now set to charge-only mode by default. To access the device and its content over a USB connection, users must explicitly grant permission for such interactions.

Well, the answer is no for now, officially, that is.


Unrooted Samsung Galaxy S5 running Lollipop 5.0 randomly reboots Since I installed Lollipop on my Galaxy S5, my phone is trying to reboot itself randomly approximately once a week. But it gets stuck on the boot-up logo screen then, only showing the word SAMSUNG there.

If I don't do anything about it, the display is lit up with the logo, until the battery is completely emptied (the battery-graph will show a gap for that time later, not telling me what could have happened). This is especially very annoying at night, since I use my phone as an alarm-clock ;)

Does anyone have suggestions about it? Anything to disable that may cause these spontaneous reboot-attempts?

The phone is not branded
I did not root it
I already tried to 'factory-reset' my device
Everything worked fine prior the Lollipop-Upgrade

After several weeks of trial and error, I might have found a workaround or possible solution:

If you can get on without certain compulsory-apps, that came to your phone with Samsung's Edition of Android, you should consider disabling the following services in Android application manager:

S Health
S Voice
Samsung Account
Samsung Galaxy
Samsung Link Platform
Samsung Link Platform Connectivity
Samsung Push Service
Unified Daemon

  Note, that if you disable 'Unified Daemon' and 'Samsung Push Service', 'Samsung-Account' and other Samsung-features also won't work properly any more. Keep in mind, that 'Geo News' also depends on the 'Unified Daemon'! Samsung's backup-/restore-features are negatively affected, if you disable one of the 'Link Platform'-services, but Android's features still work as expected!

The list above contains apps/services, that (for me) are highly suspicious of causing the described problem, but for the sake of completeness, here's the complete list of apps/services, I have disabled (not uninstalled - since this would require root-access):

ANT Radio Service
ANT+ Plugins Service
b2b.hrs.android.lib
BlurbCheckout
ChatON
de.pizza.lib
Group Play
S Beam
S Health
S Planner
S Voice
Samsung Account
Samsung Apps
Samsung Billing
Samsung Galaxy (I don't actually know, what this one does, but the phone does not need it to work properly)
Samsung GALAXY Apps Widget
Samsung Link Platform
Samsung Link Platform Connectivity
Samsung Print Service Plugin
Samsung Push Service
Smart Remote
TalkBack
Unified Daemon

In the last 3 weeks, the problem never occurred again - and I'm not missing any of the features above. As a positive side-effect, there are no more lags or hangs on my phone any more...


Turn off annoying notification/clock screen When i turn on my Samsung S4 it often come a black clock/notification screen.  How to turn it off?

Sounds like a lockscreen widget, anyway try this:

Drag down the screen from where the message and
clock is.
Delete text and uncheck clock then press save (just needs to be edited from the lock screen).

You may need to disable your lock
security while editing.
Then tap save in the top right and your lock screen will be clear


How to downgrade, root, and install CM 12.1 on 5th gen Kindle Fire I just got an Amazon Kindle Fire 5th generation 7 inch tablet. I want to install CyanogenMod but during setup the tablet updated to 5.1.4 and root methods and therefore flash methods are not working.

If you plan on rooting a new Fire, it is advisable to not connect to the internet during setup to avoid forced updates. 5.1.2 is required to install CM. Note that 5.1.2.1 does not work but is displayed as just 5.1.2 in settings.

Enable debugging

From the Settings app open Device Options. Enable developer options by tapping on the serial number several times.
In Developer Options turn "Enable ADB" on.

Your tablet should ask to authorize your computer when it is plugged into the computer.

Downgrading

5.1.4 can be downgraded to 5.1.2. Needs Android platform-tools (adb) and the 5.1.2 firmware.

I retrieved the SuperTool and 5.1.2 firmware from http://rootjunkysdl.com/files/?dir=Amazon%20Fire%205th%20gen. ADB is also hosted there though I used my copy from the Android SDK.

Power off the Fire and connect it to your computer.
Hold volume down and power for about 10 seconds. A menu should appear.
Select "apply update from adb". (press volume up then power)
Run adb sideload fire-OS-5.1.2-update-kindle-global-37.5.4.2_user_542168620.bin
Wait for this to finish. The tablet will return to the boot menu.
Unplug and then press the power button to select the reboot option.
You should now be on firmware 5.1.2.

From here I connected to the internet and was not prompted to update my Fire.

Rooting

I used the RootJunky SuperTool to assist in rooting.

Choose option 6, "Root your Amazon Fire 5th gen" and follow the prompts. This will install RootKing. I had the most trouble here. RootKing may fail several times to gain root. You may want to manually reboot between attempts. When you get root, continue with the SuperTool prompts to install SuperSu.

Prevent 5.1.4 Update

Choose option 3 from SuperTool, "Block OTA Updates from Amazon" and follow the prompts.

Flashing CyanogenMod 12.1

Download from http://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-fire/orig-development/rom-cm-12-1-2015-11-15-t3249416 CM 12.1.
From http://opengapps.org/ download the ARM-5.1-nano package.
Place both these zips on a micro sd card and insert it into your Fire.

With the SuperTool select option 2, "Install Google Play store". Use Google Play to install FlashFire.

Use FlashFire to prepare your device. In the bottom right corner is a red "+" to add actions. The defaults for the commands are fine. You may swipe away the hints in the command queue.

Add "Wipe".
Add "Flash ZIP/OTA" and select the CyanogenMod zip.
Add "Flash ZIP/OTA" and select the Open Gapps zip.
Move "Wipe" to the top of the command list.
Press the "Flash" button.

You should reboot into the CyanogenMod setup.

Extra Notes

CyanogenMod lets you enable root from developer options.

I had to install Google Play Games from APKMirror because the Play Store kept giving me error 505.

Kindle Fire specifications can be found on Amazon.


Galaxy S2 not switching on after being dropped My Galaxy S2 dropped today and will not switch on. I dropped it on a very soft surface when this occurred. It usually happens and I just press the on button continuously and this usually does the trick. This is not helping and at the moment if I try to connect it to the charger an empty battery signal is flashing on the screen continuously. Any ideas on what course of action I should take? Could it possibly be a dead battery?

Problems after dropping the phones typically come from two reasons:

Physical damage
Brown out (unclean voltage drop)

The voltage drop may temporarily lock up the circuit, so you could take out the battery for some time to let it properly reset. Else inspect the connector springs if they're bent and measure the battery voltage, try a spare battery, etc.


Can you use USB OTG and charge at the same time? I have a Google pixel-2.

I like to use a Bluetooth keyboard and wired mouse via the USB-C-OTG canoe that came with the phone... But then I can't charge the phone.

I wanted to buy something... To let me use the USB OTG and charge the phone at the same time.

Can you use USB OTG and charge at the same time?

I was thinking get a gadget that does USB-C to USB-A and USB-C... Where the USB-C would be for charging and the USB-A would be for a hub for the quoted keyboard and mouse.

I've found that that feature depends on the kernel. So wether your phone can charge and use OTG depends on the kernel on your phone. If it doesn't support it out of the box, you can try to find and flash a custom kernel with that functionality. The OTG cable also plays an important factor.

However, similar question was asked about the Nexus 7, which doesn't have support, it is highly likely that your Pixel 2 also doesn't support it.

This should answer your question and give you more insights of how and why.


Google maps shuts down by itself I noticed that the last couple of months Google Maps shuts down while I am using it for directions in my car. When I re-open the app I have to set the route from scratch unlike when the app is working and somebody presses the home button.It used to work perfectly in the past.

I have  2 samsung galaxy pocket plus s5301 devices and they have the same problem with this application. Did google make the app too heavy, for this device to handle(with only 512MB RAM), in the last updates?

Thanks in advance

If the device is unusually slow, or other apps get closed too, I would expect it's a memory shortage problem.

Some other service/app/proces (possibly part of the system), unrelated to Maps, uses so much main memory that that there is not enough memory available at the time you run Maps, and the system needs to kill an app to free memory, and decides to kill Maps.

It this is the case, the problem would be somewhere else, and Maps in itself could run fine.


Battery - do they last longer if recharged when empty? I'm about to buy a Samsung Galaxy Ace (it's not much expensive and I think it's a pretty good phone), however everyone has been complaining with the battery life but admitting that isn't bad compared to all the other smartphones.

I read about how to save battery with tips/tricks, and I'll certainly do it; but I'd like to know whether a battery life would increase recharging it only when completely empty (some old phones used to gain life expectancy from that, I don't know if things are changed now)

Modern phones use Li-ion and Li-poly batteries. So the battery life is  not affected by whether you charge them at 0% or 90%.
It only has a long term effect. Batteries degrade with every charge cycle. A cycle is usually a recharge from below 50%. So charging while the battery capacity is still relatively high has a long term effect of less degradation.

The other frequent pseudoscientific habit that has no roots is a technique many call "formatting", where you leave your battery plugged in for 16 hours or 3 * 8 hours with discharge in between or any other baseless claim by anyone on any forum or phone shop. If they don't have scientific evidence don't believe them.


Block calls without ringing I've a rooted phone (Samsung Grand Prime, without CM, just the STOCK Rom), and what I want to know if it's possible with Android 5.0 phone or newer to block calls without ringing. By default, the Call Rejection List just wait 1 ring before reject the call... All blocking applications has to wait 1 ring too before blocking the call, which is logical. But the main drawback of this is that people could suppose if they're blocked.

I've tried two applications : RBC & Call Master that do this stuff (they need root permissions) but each shutdown the mobile network and don't seem to work well witht Lolipop or newer.

I've read somewhere that since Gingerbread, Google don't allow applications to get the MODIFY_PHONE_STATE, so just only apps that need root could do it.

If you wish to not be annoyed by unknown callers, try the following (Android phone) solution.

Open Settings
Select Sounds and vibration
Select Ringtone
Select Silent (this will set your default ringtone to silent all incoming calls)
Go to Phone app
Select Contacts
For each Contact that you DO want to receive calls from do the following:

Select the individual
Select the “i” info
Select “Edit” at bottom of screen
Scroll down until you see and select “View more”
Scroll down until you see and select “Ringtone”
Choose a ringtone other than “Default ringtone”
Press the Back button to return to previous Edit screen
Select Save at bottom of screen
Return to Contacts, repeat a thru h for each contact for whom you DO want to receive calls
If you add New Contacts, remember to follow 1 thru 8 to set their ringtone to something other than the default.

This method will allow all callers to leave a voicemail and not know they have basically been screened.  You can always review your calls using steps 1 thru 8 you can those callers you may have inadvertently missed.


My Android phone does not start - how to isolate hardware issue? I use Moto G6 ALI with a custom ROM Pixel Experience running Android 11. So far so good and I was using this setup for almost two weeks as my daily use phone.
Today suddenly the phone froze when opening Whatsapp. No further response on the screen was observed. I had to restart the phone by pressing the power button for more than 5 seconds. Since I have unlocked by bootloader several years ago, I saw the boot locker unlocked warning. This usually stays for 5 seconds and then after I usually the boot animation.  But this time there is no movement beyond the unlock warning.
I had flashed TWRP recovery and tried booting with it by pressing Vol-Down+Power button and then choosing "Recovery".  The phone started the recovery mode but stuck with TWRP logo.
I then restarted to bootloader and gave the command "fastboot devices" and my device was recognised. So I downloaded the 64bit version of the recovery image and temporarily booted with the command "fastboot boot mali.img".  This too stuck at the same point.  Any clues on how to go ahead?

If your device received update recently which was already scheduled waiting on reboot, the instruction is placed in /cache/recovery/command TWRP may stuck on that instruction. this can be cleared by formatting cache partition
TWRP Commandline Guide
If device stuck on TWRP splash screen you still might have command line access via adb. Note daemon has 30 second delay on start, adbd is not ready when TWRP is boot-looping
adb shell format cache

or manually if partition is not in fstab
adb shell
find /dev/block -name by-name
mke2fs /dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/cache

If bootloader is unlocked you can also format from fastboot
fastboot format:ext4 cache

For further analyzing boot-loop usb-debugging is required. On unlocked device you can enable by modifying default.prop

download ROM according to your version
unpack boot.img and extract with AIK
modify ramdisk/default.prop and repack
flash image-new.img into boot partition

(you can read how it works here)
Why "adb root" does nothing?
  ro.adb.secure=0
  ro.secure=0
  ro.debuggable=1
  persist.service.adb.enable=1
  persist.service.debuggable=1
  persist.sys.usb.config=mtp,adb

If your device is booting far enough you should be able to capture some log during boot. For details and more information on debugging refer to the logcat wiki
Reading and Writing Logs


Synchronized video playback across multiple Devices (Samsung Gear VR) Synchronized video playback across multiple Devices (Samsung Gear VR)

Specs:

Samsung Gear VR (SM-323)

Samsung Galaxy S6 (SM-G920F)

OS: Android 6.0.1

The Problem:

I’m searching for a possibility to control one or multiple Gears via a single external device. The key feature I’m looking for is to start/pause/resume a video, while someone else is wearing the gear. (like in a representation) It’s not necessary to be able to start the app from externally, even if being able to do so could become handy. A different player which can be controlled in this way would be satisfying too.

The optimal solution would be to have one external device which acts as controller for multiple Gears at the same time. At least some kind of external controller for each single device would be a step in the right direction.

Here are the solutions I’m currently working on and tried so far:

1)    MilkVR / Samsung VR Apps

https://samsungvr.com/portal/content/gear_vr_synchronization

According to this official website from Samsung this would be the ideal solution to the problem. However, I found some information’s that Samsung renamed this app into “Samsung VR”.

So far, I couldn’t find much information’s about the “Samsung VR” app, like exact functionalities, hardware requirements or at least some official statement from Samsung whether or not this app is supposed to be the successor of MilkVR.

Besides all of this, it seems like MilkVR is only available within the USA. So even if MilkVR is still developed and can therefore be run on the named system, I’d first need to find a method to bypass the region lock.

2)    Controlling via Bluetooth

Another possible solution I’m researching at the moment, is using some kind of Bluetooth controller with build-in multimedia keys, since the official player is supposed to support those. The question in this case would be, whether or not it’s possible to link one of those controllers to multiple devices at the same time.

The first test with one generic Bluetooth-based controller (Hi-Shock PG-9033) was disappointing so far, since I was only able to control the volume, seek and going back and forth in the menus. But I wasn’t able to start/pause/stop the playback independent of the built-in menus.
Of course, the Bluetooth remote could be replaced with a computer or smartphone generated Bluetooth signal for example.

3)    Controlling via other transfer methods

Another thought I had was to send the commands via WLAN or USB, but since I couldn’t find any implementation of that within the built-in appstore I don’t expect this to be a possible solution.

Closing words

If someone has some information’s or experiences whether or not some of these ideas could possible work I would be glad to hear them. Even if there’s another entirely different approach to this problem I would like to hear that too since I’m starting to run out of ideas.

Thanks, in advance

Our company worked with the VRSync solution. Bit hard to find but a great solution for this problem. You can play content to unlimited devices from your desktop.


How to remove everything from an Android device? I would like to remove all files from my android device INCLUDING system files. I have tried

  rm -r *

and other commands but when I switch the phone off the files reappear.

You can't do this from the OS or adb, you would have to do it from fastboot or recovery such as CWM or TWRP.

fastboot erase all - note this will erase EVERYTHING, including your IMEI or MEID and other proprietary settings, the phone will likely be unrecoverable or unusable with most devices. It is blocked in some devices. Use with caution and understand the implications prior to doing this!!!

fastboot erase XXXX - Where XXXX is the partition you want to delete, like system, boot, userdata, etc.

In TWRP or CWM, you could just format the various partitions.

In most devices, these options would require an unlocked bootloader.


Can Android Chrome be linked to an account other than your main Android account? Say that your main Android account is account1@gmail.com. Can you set up Android Chrome to use account2@gmail.com?

(Ideally Chrome would allow multiple users, which will no doubt happen in Android too eventually.)

Launch Chrome

In the overflow menu, choose Settings
Under basics, tap the entry for your account
Disconnect the account; you'll be warned that the data will remain but you'll lose your synchronization
Tap Sign in to Chrome at the bottom of the screen
Choose the account you want to use for synchronizing

Obviously for this to work you will need to have already added the account to your phone.


Scanning barcodes into third party apps I have a third party app for a production system. This is now a legacy application that may not be modified.

There is a text field in this third party app.

I have barcodes that translates into valid inputs for this text field.

I would like to be running this third party app, but somehow be able to use an android device to zap a barcode, translate it into text, and stick it into that text field.

I imagine the following:

User opens third party app
User places focus on text field
User presses button to cause barcode to be scanned
Barcode is translated and placed in the text field that has the focus

Is this feasible with an android phone or tablet?

I am scared that we may have to ditch our legacy app and develop fresh.

It's easy to achieve a similar workflow with an off-the-shelf barcode scanner app such as ZXing's Barcode Scanner. After scanning a barcode in that app, you can press a button to copy the scanned text to the clipboard. After switching to your other app, you simply long-tap the text field to paste the text into it. It's a few more screen taps than you're imagining, but that's the easiest way.

There's also a keyboard app that has a button to scan a barcode and enter the scanned text as if typed in. It's non-free, and requires replacing your soft keyboard, but Barcodescanner Keyboard lets you shorten the workflow by a few taps.

Any better solution would require some kind of bespoke development, whether that's modifying the target app or making a custom ROM.


Do you need to run uninstallers/cleaners on Android to maintain performance levels like on Windows? You'll have to forgive me as I'm not as familiar with the internal workings of Android/Linux as I am with Windows.

I'm curious about performance degrading on an Android device in the absence of, for lack of a better term, maintenance. When I try out a bunch of apps and then uninstall them, do I need to run any sort of cleanup? I know Android doesn't have a registry like Windows but does it have some part of the operating system that gets cluttered up and needs to be tended to/purged over time?

As for uninstalling apps, I don't think so.  Standard apps (ones that don't use root access) have at most three parts:
A single executable file

A .apk archive containing the entire app -- similar to Windows apps that are entirely contained in a .exe file (like most installers: It not only carries all the code it needs but also all pictures, config files it needs, etc.)

It is stored in /data/app usually

A single folder containing all userdata

This is for things like settings storage, or caches

Although this is comparable to yoir appdata folder it doesn't get cluttered because apps are only allowed a single folder here that is managed completely by the system and is easily deleted when uninstalled

Stored in /data/data

Possibly another folder in /sdcard/Android/data

Basically the same as the /data/data folder but if the app needs a lot of space for extra files it puts them here

When an app is uninstalled, all these parts are destroyed by the system, so I can't think of anything that would get cluttered but the fragmentation of the sdcard.  DO NOT download any defrag apps (I haven't found a single one that wasn't some sort of scam).  Instead, get a card reader and defrag it on your PC if need be.
Edit: As suggested by Izzy below, SD Maid is a nice manager/cleaner


will i lose my pictures during a factory reset? I accidentally deleted my app store and cant figure out how to get it back or open it again. I've read that I should do a factory reset. What will I lose if I do that? Im worried about my pictures.

A generic answer can be found in the factory-reset tag-wiki. Basically, it "empties" the /cache and /data partitions of your device, so all the apps you've installed and all your apps' data will be gone for good. This does not necessarily apply to data on your SDcard: while some devices/ROMs offer to "wipe" those along, this is not done in most cases (in my experience) – and when it's done then usually only when the user explicitly specified to do so.

Now for your specific problem: If you really deleted your app store, a factory-reset won't bring it back: gone is gone. If you're unsure on what made it disappear, and your device is not rooted, it's unlikely you've really deleted it; you might rather just have disabled it. So while a factory-reset in that case would bring it back, so would an atomics bomb kill a fly. Before you go to factory-reset your device, try the following:

Go to Settings→Apps
To be on the safe side, select the "All Apps" tab
Scroll to the very end of the list. On some devices/ROMs disabled apps end up there, and on all devices/ROMs I've seen disabled apps are marked "disabled". See if your app store is there.

If it's there: tap the entry to open it, push the "enable" button
If it's not there, scroll through the entire list: it might be ordered alphabetically or by some other criteria, and have the "disabled apps" mixed in. When found: see previous item (open, enable, done)

If you didn't succeed with those steps, you still can try a factory-reset.


Remove Google Apps mini and install another version - LineageOS I have installed LineageOS 14.1 (+TWRP) on Samsung S5 g900f (klte) with Google Apps mini. I followed this guide:
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/klte/install

I also added Google Apps Mini zip during the installation phase.

Question:
Is there a way to remove Google Apps mini and install Google Apps nano (or pico) package? (Without reinstalling from scratch)

Regards

Flashing the LOS package again (to restore /system to a clean state) then flashing the GAPPS you need should be sufficient - no need to do a factory reset. Of course, do a nandroid backup as always just to be safe.


How to disable installing from unknown sources? Is there a way to disable the phone from installing apps from unknown sources?
I know that it is possible by just going to.

settings->security->unchceck "unknown resources"

But when kids install apps, a dialog appears:

By just tapping on settings, they can Enable it again and install the application.

is there a way to disable it and the dialog won't come out or make it grey so it won't be clicked/tap it again? Without putting password on my Settings.

If you have Android OS Lollipop and above, you should create a guest mode for anyone you wish to hand over your cell phone, you can define the rights in the guest mode.


Sending sms from tablet not allowed or not possible? This is more of a meta question, but the best place to ask I'm sure..

Why can't I send an sms from my samsung galaxy tab 10.1 3G tablet? Is it because the hardware does not support it (most likely), or because android 3.1 does not support it (least likely)?

Cheers!

The hardware and software support SMS, but not calling. The most likely explanation is that your contract is a data-only contract and SMS messaging is disabled by your operator.

There is a chance, however, that the problem is your SMS settings. You can check these by opening Messaging, then open Settings from the top right corner and check that the Message center under Text message (SMS) settings is correct. The Message center number is network specific, so check it from another phone that uses the same network or ask your operator.


Device encryption fails, gives no error and just restarts Got a redmi note 5 pro, some time ago and I have been fiddling with it. I tried to encrypt the device when it ran Resurrection Remix OS, for some reason, it appears to be working and then less than 30 seconds later, it just shows me the lockscreen again. It never seems to encrypt.

Is it a problem in the latest oreo build or is it a problem in the ROM?

What might be a viable solution?

Encryption requires that 16KiB remain unused by the filesystem on the userdata partition. You can check if this is the issue by

Do adb logcat > android.log on a computer

enable developer options first
you might need to root, I don't think so though

Start the encryption process in settings

If this is the problem, you'll see the following in the logs:

E Cryptfs : Orig filesystem overlaps crypto footer region.  Cannot encrypt in place.

To fix this issue, you'll need to resize your userdata partition.

If it's ext4, I believe that you can use resize2fs to do this. I'm not sure how to do this though.

If it's f2fs, the process is quite a bit more involved:

Reboot into TWRP. Do adb shell on a computer. fdisk  -l /dev/block/sda to view the partition structure. You'll see something like this:

Logical sector size: 4096
Disk identifier (GUID): 98101b32-bbe2-4bf2-a06e-2bb33d000c20
Partition table holds up to 16 entries
First usable sector is 6, last usable sector is 14145530

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1               6               7        8192   0700  ssd
   2               8            8199       32.0M   0700  persist
   3            8200           73735        256M   0700  cache
   4           73736           73991       1024K   0700  misc
   5           73992           74119        512K   0700  keystore
   6           74120           74151        128K   0700  devcfg
   7           74152           74183        128K   0700  devcfgbak
   8           74184           74311        512K   0700  frp
   9           74312           76871       10.0M   0700  oem_dycnvbk
  10           76872           79431       10.0M   0700  oem_stanvbk
  11           79432           79687       1024K   0700  param
  12           79688           81711       8096K   0700  reserve1
  13           81712           85759       15.8M   0700  reserve2
  14           85760           85887        512K   0700  config
  15           85888        14145530       53.6G   0700  userdata

Make a note of:

the "Logical sector size"
the partition number for userdata
the start sector for userdata
the end sector for userdata

Make a backup of this partition. You will lose the data on it if you don't, it will be explicitly wiped. I believe that TWRP has a function to do this, but I used a tarball & adb pull:

In adb shell:

~ # mount /dev/block/sda15
~ # tar -cpzf /mnt/fs.tar.gz /mnt/
tar: removing leading '/' from member names
tar: /mnt/misc/camera/cam_socket2: socket ignored
...
tar: /mnt/fs.tar.gz: file is the archive; skipping

then adb pull /mnt/fs.tar.gz

Unmount the partition using umount /mnt

Next, wipe part of the existing filesystem to make sure that we don't get any warnings when making the new filesystem: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/block/sda<partition number> bs=1M count=128. This is the point of no return.

Create a new filesystem using the numbers you wrote down from before: calculate partition_size = end_sector - start_sector - (16384 / logical_sector_size) manually, and make a note of that number.

Then run mkfs.f2fs /dev/block/sda<partition number> <partition_size> to create a new partition of the appropriate size.

Mount it, and use adb push fs.tar.gz /mnt/ to send over your backed up data. cd /mnt; tar -xf fs.tar.gz; mv mnt/* .; rm -rf mnt fs.tar.gz to extract, and you're done!

Restart and retry encrypting! Hopefully everything will work.


Exchange and Coperate Account in android What does Exchange and co-operate account means. I have being seeing it in my setings and do not really know how to use it. Also, how do  set up a working email like the microsoft outlook account in my android device. Thanks

Exchange refers to the Microsoft Exchange Server Email/Calendaring system also known as Exchange ActiveSync. Corporate usually is a generic term for business email and also usually referring to Exchange ActiveSync, but also can refer to IMAP or POP3 email access.

As far as setting up your work email on your Android phone, it depends on which way your work is using Outlook. Most likely you can open the "Mail" or "Email" (not Gmail) app and go through the steps of adding your work email. You will need to know either the Exchange server address or the POP3 or IMAP incoming server address and the SMTP outbound server address. In addition to server addresses you will need to know what ports the servers communicate on.

Once you have the server information, open the Email app and do the following:

At the first screen enter your username and password, then click "Next".

At the next screen select the appropriate type of email syncing for your account (Exchange, IMAP, or POP3).

Enter your Exchange server information or POP3 or IMAP server information and click "Next"
If you were setting up Exchange, select t he frequency you want your mail to sync. If you are setting up IMAP/POP3 enter your SMTP server information and click "Next".
Exchange setup should now be complete and IMAP/POP3 setup should now have syncing frequency options and then be complete.


What does "Keep wifi on during sleep" mean? I couldn't find an authoritative reference that explains what this setting does in my Android phone: Wi-Fi -> Advanced -> Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep.

What does this setting do, exactly?

The device goes to sleep when the screen is off and no background services are doing anything (such as checking for mail). When this happens, the Wi-Fi chip in the phone can go into a low-power state. This saves power while the device is asleep, but has some costs:-

Next time the device wakes up it'll take an extra fraction of a second to turn the Wi-Fi back on, making the tablet less response when you turn the screen on.
If the device wakes up to perform a background task (such as checking for mail), that'll take slightly longer too, and use more power. That is, the device uses less power while asleep, but waking it up costs slightly more: like the trade-off between keeping the engine in your car running, or stopping it and using more fuel/battery to restart it later.
Any apps with "push" features (using Google Cloud Messaging or similar) won't work while the device is asleep. That is, you won't get Google Hangouts messages, or notifications from Gmail, while the device is asleep.

If those costs are fine for you, leave the setting off to allow the Wi-Fi chip to go to sleep when the rest of your phone does. Otherwise, turn the setting on to keep the Wi-Fi on all the time.


Samsung 4 left in rain and now black screen - can i recover files? My Samsung S4 (in an otterbox) was left in a downpour for about 10 mins.  I brought it in, shook water out (only a little came out) and then (not knowing) plugged it into USB to try to upload files (I KNOW NOW DUMB) within a few mins, screen went black.  So then I put vacuumed it and put it in a combo of rice and silica gel for two days.   It has power but has a black screen and I was using the lock screen feature and had a password on it.....  Is my data on my SIM Card?  Can I get my SIM card reprogrammed for another phone and try to get to my files that way? I don't care about my phone just want the data recovered...

If you know for sure your phone can be powered on, then there might just be another doable (albeit technical) way. I've extracted photos and contacts from another S4 of my classmate a while ago using this. I'll describe it and let you decide whether you can handle it.

While in the blind, get to Download Mode by using the key combo.
Load a custom recovery onto the phone via Odin. If the phone is recognised in Odin then your blind operation is successful, otherwise reinsert battery and try again.
Immediately boot into recovery by using another key combo.
Connect phone to PC and try adb devices to detect the phone. If the device is listed, you can proceed to extract stuff from the internal storage using adb pull.
If other data from /data/data (e.g. contacts, app data) are needed, navigate to the corresponding recovery menu item to mount /data and then adb pull what you want.

The above steps in practise are much harder than it sounds. You need to know how to use Odin and ADB; you need to get the right custom recovery for your device and Android version; the key combo has to be carried out precisely in time; you also need to know about Android file structure when using adb pull. Even though I'm quite skilled at those, it took me roughly 40 minutes to get the data I wanted for my classmate.

It's up to you to determine if your data is worth all the hurdles and risks above, or if you just want to hand the job to a repair shop.

P.S. The SIM card only holds your cellular details, not your data. Don't even think about it.