Remove Galexy edge s7 system update notification I want to remove system update notification and never update it's system.
it's force stop is inactive. what can I do?

Many Thanks in Advance

Almost all options require root.

The most clean and safe option is to edit build.prop file. Use any file manager which provides access to root filesystem.
You can learn about build.prop here.

The setting which is of interest to us is ro.build.version.release.

  ro.build.id=JSS15J ro.build.display.id=JSS15J.I9505XXUEML1
  ro.build.version.incremental=I9505XXUEML1 ro.build.version.sdk=18
  ro.build.version.codename=REL ro.build.version.release=4.3
  ro.build.date=Tue Dec 10 14:28:08 KST 2013
  ro.build.date.utc=1386653288 ro.build.type=user ro.build.user=se.infra
  ro.build.host=R0210-09 ro.build.tags=release-keys
  ro.product.model=GT-I9505 ro.product.brand=samsung
  ro.product.name=jfltexx ro.product.device=jflte
  ro.product.board=MSM8960 ro.product.cpu.abi=armeabi-v7a
  ro.product.cpu.abi2=armeabi ro.product.manufacturer=samsung

Just change it to 7.0 and Android will be fooled and think that you already on Nougat. For 100% fooling you can also change ro.build.id, ro.build.display.id and ro.build.version.incremental properties to NRD90M, NRD90M.G955FXXU1AQDG and G955FXXU1AQDG values correspondingly (aka Nougat values).

Reboot after the applying changes.

If you lack root, you still can try Titanium Backup. But this way can also require root though.


Does 'Battery Protection Mode' turn on automatically? I'm the founder of a company that deploys Android tablets into a hospital
Making sure our tablets are plugged in is really important to us. When devices get unplugged we alert hospital staff to plug them back in.
Devices are showing up unplugged when they’re plugged in, reducing staff confidence in us.
What we know..

Patients occasionally unplug cords to charge their phones
We had a bunch of low quality cords that were falling out. We replaced most of them yesterday
We’ve observed devices not charging when plugged in: the charging light flicks on, then immediately off after being plugged in
We have not changed any default battery settings
The problems have been mostly limited to a couple of devices
Our MDM solution (Esper) shows us battery level graphs that level off at 60%

.. we suspect that like ‘battery protection mode’ is being enabled automatically somehow
Some (potentially) useful context

Devices: Lenovo M8s running Android 9
Devices are in kiosk mode running our single (low battery use) app with screens

I got a response from our support contact at Esper. This is apparently a Lenovo feature.

Lenovo "Battery Protection Mode" will be automatically enabled if the device is continually charging for around 7 days.
This is a feature designed by Lenovo to reduce excessive battery heat and degradation.
While plugged in the device will stay at a charge level of about 60%, and will slightly vary at times but should dip no lower than 50%.


Remove GO Keyboard language notification icon I am using the latest version of GO Keyboard from the Play Store on a Nexus 5.

Whenever the keyboard is active, there is a notification icon on the right side that says the language selected, in my case 'En' over a green leaf icon.

Is there any way to remove this?

Yes. Long press on the notification and check 'hide app's notification icon'.


Endless spinning circle while "Listening" for "OK Google" voice training I have both a Samsung Galaxy S4 and an S5, as well as a Samsung Galaxy Note II and an Acer Iconia tablet, and I'm having the same issue on ALL FOUR DEVICES: whether I click the cue card "Set up Voice Match" via the Google Home app, or whether I go to the Google Now app's Settings | Voice menu and click on "OK Google detection" and choose "From any screen", either way, when the next screen appears to train the phone to recognize my voice it just sits there spinning a little circular progress icon with the words "Listening..." and never quite progressing past that even though I repeat the words "OK Google" loud and clear!

Something else I've noticed is that at times I get a small toast notification near the bottom of the screen saying, "Trouble with the microphone, please try again in a few seconds."

Has anyone had this issue and resolved it successfully?

Here's what I've already tried:

Rebooting
Disabling Samsung S-Voice (both via its settings and also freezing it using Titanium Backup)
Switching from WIFI to mobile data
Updating both Google Now and Google Home

None of the above has helped the situation any. There was a time where this worked just fine, but I can't tell when it stopped because it's been a while since I went back to it. Please help! Thanks.

What ultimately cleared this issue for me was turning OFF the Accessibility Service (in Android Settings) for my Samsung Level U Pro Bluetooth headset. I learned this after resetting my phone back to factory settings and seeing that voice retraining for Google Home and the Google app all worked fine initially after the reset, and then stopped working after I had set the Samsung Level app to give me voice notifications over my Bluetooth headset. That last act apparently set an Accessibility Service for the app to ON, which seems to conflict with Google's ability to hear my voice when I'm training it to respond to, "OK Google".


htc m7 can't update it to lollipop Whenever I try to download my software update. The download completes but at the end it gives a notification that my phone has already been modified. I don't know what it is but I can't update my phone's software. HELP ME WITH IT...

Did you root your phone or have you installed custom recovery and such on it? Like the notification says, it throws such errors when the phone is detected to have been modified.

If you really haven't touched the phone in aforementioned ways, then you might have to resort to manually upgrading by using OTA zips, which has some prerequisites and is more complicated to do.


How can I turn off the 3G connection? I'd like to be able to turn the 3G connection on and off without navigating the "Settings -> Wireless and networks -> Mobile Networks" menus each time.

Is there a widget (or some other way) of turning 3G on and off from the home screen or the "Dashboard"?

I use the Power Control Widget. Allows you to toggle Data, wifi and various other settings from your home screen.


Can I use ODIN to just back up my phone's data? The goal here is to be able to quickly get all my settings and apps back when moving from ROM to ROM, but do so without overwriting the kernel, themes, etc., in the new ROM.  I know I can use Titanium Backup, but ODIN would definitely be faster (and half the time with my Droid Charge, it's what I'm using to flash the new ROM anyway).

No, Odin is just for flashing.  The Dump command doesn't seem to work, at least not as of Odin3 v1.85; see Can I make a full backup of my phone with Odin and without root?


How dumb is it to try to remount /proc as w? I'm trying to run a little python code that check some files in my phone's /proc/pid

the thing is the program won't run properly because /proc is read only. Because I know proc has a special filesystem I want to know if there is a way to remount it as writeable without screwing up the system

/proc is a pseudo-filesystem supplied by the Linux kernel, so as to provide an interface to applications to learn about system runtime information (running processes, mounts, memory, etc.). Therefore there's no way to "mount" it as R/W since that's meaningless.

Some entry points (NOT files), however, are writable by themselves, for example most entries under /proc/sys. Do note that by writing to these entries you're not writing any files, but actually changing system parameters.

If your program is trying to write to another non-writable entry in /proc, it's probably malformed and should be tweaked. Again, /proc is not a real filesystem and everything inside are interfaces from the Linux kernel.

Read more (related or similar):

deleting a 'file' under /proc or /dev
Which files are writable under /proc and why?
(programming-related)

Documentations (usually very long and complete and unsuitable for casual read):

proc(5)


Is root ownership inherited in shell scripts? (rsync via ssh permission denied) I am running Android Revolution HD 52.0 custom ROM (Android 4.3) with Koush's superuser 1.0.3.0 on a Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-I9300.

In the hope of using some native shell applications on my phone for the purpose of backup and synchronization it with my GNU/Linux computers, I installed opkg from here: http://dan.drown.org/android/, and went on to install openssh and rsync. All of the new binaries are in /data/local/bin, and my own scripts are also in /data/local.

Using Jack Palevich's Android Terminal I am able to use rsync via ssh to push files onto my computers from my phone, but only when not logged in as root (ie when I haven't used the 'su' command).

When I run the scripts as root (after running su in the terminal emulator), I get the following error:

rsync: failed to exec ssh: Permission denied (13)

I get the same error message using adb shell + su.

The relevant line from the script is:

/data/local/bin/rsync --itemize-changes --verbose --human-readable \
--log-file=$local_path/log/nbbak-$(date +%F-%H-%M-%S).log \
--recursive --update --times --modify-window=1 \
--rsh="/data/local/bin/ssh -i $keyfile -p $port" \
$local_path/ $remote_path/

local_path is currently /storage/extSdCard. I have added the \ here for readability.

As I said, this operation (rsync put) works when using the script from Palevich's Terminal without su.

My questions are:

What is the problem? Is it about how Android assigns userids to processes? (As I understand it, new processes all run with their own userid. Is this what is happening here - is rsync not actually running as root, so it is not able to launch the ssh process as root either.) Or is something else going on? How could I troubleshoot this? I have tried running logcat, but don't know what I'm looking for.

What might the solution be with my current configuration?

I would like to run rysnc via ssh as root, as although it works in the terminal emulator without su, I am only able to push, not pull files that way, whereas I would hope as root that I could pull files too.

I'm going to attempt a self-answer although it is something of a Frame Challenge / XY problem situation.

I never found out what exactly was the problem with the configuration I had, however I was able to get what I wanted, ie fully integrated command-line ssh / rsync / bash scripting etc. by installing CyanogenMod 11 on my Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-I9300, as these and more command-line tools come as standard and are evidently properly set up so as to avoid the odd problems I experienced on my previous configuration.


How do I cleanup all information backed up from my phone? i.e. I want to remove all information, that was backed up from my phone to the Google servers (sync data, etc). How can I do that?

Go to Google Dashboard and sign in with the same Google account you used on your phone. Click the arrow next to Android to see a list of all your devices with backup data. At the bottom is a button, Delete backup data. This button deletes the backed-up data from all devices. There's no way to delete the data from a specific device.

If you want to delete not only the data backed up using the "Back up my data to Google servers" option, but also other synced data like Gmail, contacts, calendars, Google Docs documents, you'll find them listed in their own sections on the same dashboard page.


Know if my phone has IR blaster How do I know if my android has a built-in IR blaster for remote control? It isn't a high-end phone, but was built in June 2014

my own is a Huawei ascend g610, but I'd like to know the procedure for every phone.

There should be a small led in the phone if it has got IR Blaster. Also you can look in this List of smartphones that has got IR Blaster http://www.akshatblog.com/list-of-android-smartphones-with-ir-blaster/


Skype is not working on Samsung J5 Recently, I have just installed Samsung J5 firmware manually, because there was a problem in updated Marshmallow. Now, whenever I try to use Skype on device it says something went wrong try again later. I tried many times, but still issue is same. My Skype account works well on PC. Before installing firmware, it was working well on J5. But, now I don't know what happened. Have I lost connection with server network forever? I searched on Google but found nothing useful. What should I do now?

Recently, I have installed Marshmallow firmware. But this time I did it manually. I downloaded firmware from www.sammobile.com web site. Now in new Marshmallow, Skype is working properly. There is no issue at all. Thanks to Sammobile.


I accidently deleted LG home on my LG p500 phone I did a system reset after having deleted LG home on my LG android phone p500. I thought the system app would be restored, but the fact is now. I don't have a "desktop". I cant get to anywhere now on my phone, it is just one big black screen. Anyway that I could fix it? Thanks a million.

Your best bet would be to reflash the ROM, since system reset only clears the user data, it won't restore system apps. A quick google search revealed this tutorial on how to reflash stock ROM: How to flash Original Firmware on the LG Optimus One P500


How can I see what calls were automatically rejected with the "only receive calls from contacts" option? I've been expecting a call back about a job and I just realized I've had my phone on only receive calls from contacts. Is there any way to recover those past calls or see if someone else has called me?

You could contact your phone provider and ask for a list of all received calls in a given time period.

Since your contact list is on your phone, it means your phone still gets the call, checks if the caller is in your contact, and rings if it's in, or disregards it otherwise.

There might be a log somewhere, but checking with your provider may be easier and/or quicker.


Sony Z3 can't transfer files by USB and isn't recognised by PC after update to 6.0.1 My Sony Xperia Z3 Compact was recently updated to android version 6.0.1 ("Marshmallow"?) using the Sony update tool, from version 5. Phone isn't rooted, no custom stuff, only ever updated via Sony updates, etc. UK based.

Before the update, if I connected it by USB to my (Windows 8.1) laptop, the following would happen:

The SD card would appear on the PC as if it was USB pen drive
The phone charges and I'd get a message on the phone asking if I wanted to "install" Sony software on the PC (every time, even if I'd agreed to "install" it last time)
On saying Yes, the SD card would disappear and would be replaced by a Sony icon that let me access both the internal memory and SD card like they were two directories on a USB pen drive

After the update, the following happens. Basically I can never access the SD card or internal memory on the PC no matter what I choose:

The PC doesn't react, nothing appears on the PC
The phone charges and a menu pops up giving me four choices:

  Use USB for

  Charging only Just charge this device
  Transfer files (MTP) Transfer files to Windows or Mac (MTP)
  Mass storage mode (MSC) Transfer data between phone SD card and a computer
  MIDI Use device for musical instrument apps (MIDI input)

Neither "Transfer files (MTP)" nor "Mass storage mode (MSC)" do anything when selected. If I select either of these, the menu disappears, but nothing else happens - nothing appears on the PC (no drives or anything), nothing displays on the phone.

It behaves exactly the same as if I'd selected "Charging only".

How can I investigate why this isn't working? What do I need to do to make file transfer on 6.0.1 with a PC by USB work like it used to? Is there some special Sony-only thing I need to do?

I've looked at Marshmallow USB connection type. Various answers there suggest things like:

  Swipe down the notifications window with the device plugged into the computer, there should be a persistent notification for USB Mode

...there actually isn't any such persistant notification at all for me, no matter which mode I choose. Also, unlike the description of that question:

  Windows detects it, installs the drivers automatically and shows the device in My Computer...

...none of that happens for me. The computer is completely unaware of the phone, although the phone does react to being connected to the computer.

This is bizarre. I connected the phone via a different USB socket on the computer (same cable), and this time it worked fine, in fact better than before:

The Sony icon appeared without needing to "install" anything, and accesses both internal and SD memory like before
The "Install software" Sony message pops up on the phone like before now
The missing persistent notification on the phone appears:

  USB for file transfer Touch for more options

I wasn't aware of the computer having different types of USB socket, but it seems like maybe there are some types of USB socket that an Android 6 phone will think work but actually don't?

I thought it might maybe have been a driver install thing, but the "bad" USB socket still doesn't work even after successfully using the connection to the "good" socket.

To add to the mystery, I have actually used this "bad" USB socket on this computer with this phone before, mere days before the Android update. Somehow the USB socket appears to compatible with Android 5 but not Android 6?

The "bad" USB socket also has no problem working with USB pen drives.

If anyone happens to know how I can find out what the technical difference between the two identical-looking USB sockets on my PC is, please comment!


Link2SD does not select second partition So I partitioned my 32gb micro sdhc card with USB cable, both partitions FAT32, the bigger one set as active, and when I start Link2sd it doesn't ask me to select the file system of the second partition in order to create a script there and use it as install location, even though it shows up in the storages in Link2sd menus...
How can I make it recognize the second partition, do I have to format the sd card with card reader, because I don't have one right now

According Link2SD page, also the second partition should be primary:

  You should have two partitions on SD card and both should be primary.
  The first FAT partition is your standard SD card storage. The second partition is used for application files and can be ext2, ext3, ext4 or FAT32.

Check if the second partition (the first one can not be used to link apps) is primary and not an extended partition.


Samsung GT-I9100 no storage space I have a Samsung GT-I9100 and its permanently telling me I don't have enough storage space., yet there are 11GB on the USB storage available. How do I use the USB storage?

Questions:
1. Do you mean SD storage (SD card) and not USB storage? 2. What action(s) are you trying to perform when it gives you this error message?
3. How much free space do you have on your internal storage?

If you're getting that message when you're trying to install an app, keep in mind that you can't download apps directly to your SD/external storage. You have to first download/install them on your internal storage. Then you can move them to your SD card if that option is available for the app. The same applies to downloading most types of files (documents, music, videos, etc). If your internal storage is full, you have to either delete some files or move them to the SD card to free up space on internal storage. Hope that helps!


Using the GPS instead of Google Location Services in Chrome I do not consent to Google collecting constant background information about my position at all times through their Google Location Service program. So I have got that option disabled.

I can get just about everything to work with just the GPS. Except for the Google Chrome browser. It keeps referring me back to enabling the Google Location Service option. Which does not make sense. The HTML5 GeoLocation API wants latitude and longitude, which the GPS is perfectly capable of providing on it’s own without involving Google’s servers. Is there a way around this?

Use Firefox, no location needed, blocks that nosy one
use duckduckgo search also does not track or sell, true privacy


Google Smart Lock suggestions problem How I can delete old profiles from that list? In my saved passwords I don't have this, only 1 saved for VK. Same problem in tinder app too, always suggested use my old number and couple other apps. It so annoying. How fix it?

Open any web browser and navigate it to https://passwords.google.com/.
Enter your Google sign-in information to sign-in to your Google account as usual.
You will see settings for turning off or on the SmartLock Passwords,
and the Auto Sign-in option for SmartLock.
These options would
be a list of all the saved passwords, whether saved through the
Chrome browser or through the SmartLock feature in Android.
Android Smart Lock Passwords Passwords are masked by default for privacy
reasons. You can reveal the masked passwords by clicking/touching
the small eye graphic.
In order to delete one of these passwords,
you can just click on the small cross shown next to that password.
The passwords are deleted without any confirmation, so be careful
    not to delete some password that you have forgotten about.


Screen Overlay Terror My phone has recently started a glitch with the screen overly prompt coming up whenever I try to access some of my apps.
I can't do anything anymore - there's this floating app I have. I thought it was share it until I deleted it, but the problem persists. It takes me back right where I started over and over and over again.

I had the same issue and I already know the solution, so if you start an app and it shows the the screen overlay text then you will have to open settings and try switching off all the apps which consists screen overlay. And if you won't get me, then you can just dm me the ss of your display screen and I can help you further.


Does Bluetooth tethering not work, or am I doing it wrong? I carry two Android devices: my Nexus S phone, and a Nexus 7 tablet (both running Android 4.1 "Jellybean").  The tablet has Wi-Fi, but no cellular radio; so in order to use the Internet with it when there's no Wi-Fi hotspot nearby, I have the phone set up for Wi-Fi tethering: it effectively becomes a Wi-Fi hotspot, and the tablet uses that for Internet access.  This works perfectly.

However, I recently discovered what appears to be an alternate method of tethering: Bluetooth.  Both devices have menu options that seem to allow it; here's screenshots of how I configured both devices:

Options on Phone and Tablet (click images for larger variants)

I tested this by turning Wi-Fi off on both devices, then opening the browser on the tablet and refreshing the page that happened to be loaded.  I saw a message that said

    Unable to connect to the Internet

I was, of course, hoping to see the page reload.

It's a shame that I cannot get this to work, because it promises one advantage over Wi-Fi tethering: easier security.  I want to prevent other people from stealing my bandwidth; with Wi-Fi, this requires that I set up a WPA password, and then get that password onto the tablet somehow (which is quite tedious).  But with Bluetooth, all that's required is that I "pair" the devices, which I've already done.

So I am wondering if I'm doing something wrong, or if this feature simply doesn't work.

Maybe this is too late for some of you but this is a solution for Android 4.2:

Basically you need TUN module since the standard configuration does not include it:
Google Play - TUN.ko installer

Bluetooth thethering - fix solution


LG Bello II - Block numbers How do I block numbers on LG Bello II?
I get a lot of calls from mr. "Unknown" so I would mostly like to block those. If possible I would prefer not to install extra apps for this.

I tried following a couple of guides I found but my phone doesn't seem to have what's needed. My settings have no tabs and I don't see anything called "Call rejection" or just "Calls".
I recently bought this and have not done major things with it, as in no rooting. I've only installed a task killer and a VPN app.
I'm from the pc world and no mobile expert.

Model number: LG-X150
Software version: V10g-EUR-XXX
Android version: 5.0
Kernel version: 3.10.54+
Build number: LRX21M

Open your phone app, switch to the call log tab. Look for the entry you want to block and tap that. You should see a button/link labeled "more" or "details", tap that. On the next page (which shows details on the call), tap the "overflow menu" on the top-right of the screen (the "3 stapled dots"). Select "Add to block list". Done.

Note: I've verified that on my device running Lollipop (Android 5.1). Still, this feature might not be available on all devices. According to an article on DigitalTrends:

  There is no universal path for blocking contacts on Android smartphones, and it’s a feature the vanilla versions of Android Lollipop and Marshmallow oddly omit. But some devices allow users to enable a per-number blocking mode through the phone’s settings.

So if that feature does not exist on your device, first cross-check with the linked article for possible other locations. If it really cannot be found, you'll have no choice but to revert to a third-party-app for this feature.

Btw, for LG (as you mention your device is an LG device) the linked article writes:

  LG’s made it relatively simple to build an auto-reject list on its handsets. To start, open the Phone app. Tap the 3-dot menu in the top right corner, and from the dropdown menu that appears select Call Settings > Call reject > Reject calls from. Select the Plus icon, and then add the number you’d like to block from the call log or your contacts. You can also find it by going to Settings > Wireless and networks > Call > Call reject > Reject calls from.


How to pull only newer files with “adb pull”? (Android SDK utility) With the command "adb pull /sdcard/" I can copy all the contents of the internal memory of my Android phone into my current local directory (and "adb pull /mnt/extSdCard/" does the same with the external SD card). But that command always copies everything, even files I already have stored locally.

Is there any way to copy only new and modified files? (files with a newer date)

As described by ss-3-1415926535897932384626433 there is no flag, but you have to get a list of files first and then check if your local files match. I wrote a little script for it:

#!/bin/sh

rfolder=/sdcard/DCIM/Camera
lfolder=Camera

adb shell ls "$rfolder" > android.files

ls -1 "$lfolder" > local.files

rm -f update.files
touch update.files

while IFS=  read -r q; do
  # Remove non-printable characters (are not visible on console)
  l=$(echo ${q} | sed 's/[^[:print:]]//')
  # Populate files to update
  if ! grep -q "$l" local.files; then
    echo "$l" >> update.files
  fi
done < android.files

script_dir=$(pwd)
cd $lfolder

while IFS=  read -r q; do
  # Remove non-printable characters (are not visible on console)
  l=$(echo ${q} | sed 's/[^[:print:]]//')
  echo "Get file: $l"
  adb pull "$rfolder/$l"
done < "${script_dir}"/update.files

Adjust the remote folder rfolder and the local folder lfolder to locations of your own choice.


wiped android OS accedentely in twrp in sm-j700h/ds I was trying to do a factory reset from the twrp recovery, but wiped system partition mistakely.. my device has no system now. i can only access the twrp recovery and download mode. However, i tried to install many firmwares using odin but odin gave me a red Failed every single time. help me plz.
model j7(2015) or (sm-j700h/ds)
region Syria

Have you tried marking also the NAND ERASE option in Odin? Although marking the nand erase option would wipe the whole phone including the twrp and everything...and then try reflashing by going into download mode on your phone and then to Odin, you'll see a green/blue mark on the ICOM or something like that. If you pass on flashing and it gets stuck on bootloop, don't panic, just restart the phone and boot into recovery mode and wipe/reset user data! That should do it c:

There's also another thing you can do, you can extract the .tar.md5 using this guide
There you can find the system.img file and from there, you can flash the system.img using fastboot, needless to say that you must have your bootloader unlocked!

You could also try Samsung kies/smart switch, whichever suits you c:


How to keep adb from connecting to a network device When I run adb devices on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.14.6, I see not only my phone connected by USB but also a network device that I have no interest in. This forces me to manually specify which device I mean when using adb and Android Studio (which I sometimes forget to do). Is there any way to prevent adb from connecting to network devices?

FWIW, here's what I see at the shell (with some digits of my first device's serial number obscured):

$ adb devices
List of devices attached
HT8531AXXXXX    device
192.168.86.223:5555 device

Update: I was able to temporarily get the network device to go away by running adb disconnect, as suggested in an answer, but it keeps reappearing.

The listed device 192.168.86.223:5555 device belongs to an device that has sometime been connected to your PC. adb saves this info until you manually disconnect this device.

To get rid of the entry execute the command

adb disconnect


TF700 boot loop after update to CM10.1.2 The Transformer Pad TF700T worked almost fine with the previous Cyanogenmod10. Today I updated the pad with the CM-Update Manager. It downloaded the cm10.1.2 update package and then booted recovery. After the installation was completed I found the pad stuck at boot loop.

The Cyanogenmod circle circuits but then stucks, waits for a few seconds and then the pad reboots and the same happens again.

I Hope anyone can help me.

Thanks in advance,
mrstrauss

EDIT:
I did a format of the cache partition as well as the dalvik cache. The result is still the same. It boots until the circle stops to circle and then it reboots.

Installing the previous, working version solved the problem. After that an installation of the gapps zip-package may be required.


Will the ''wipe data/factory reset'' in ClockworkMod also remove my backups I have done? I currently have CyanogenMod 10.1 (Android 4.2.1) on my Galaxy SIII. I used ClockworkMod to flash the ROM.

Now, after using the ROM for a while, I want to try some other ROMs, so I made a backup of my current ROM (CyanogenMod 10.1) in ClockworkMod recovery and the backup was saved to: /mnt/shell/emulated/clockworkmod/backup.

Now, if I use the "wipe data/factory reset" option in ClockworkMod recovery, will that remove the backup I made?

Wipe data will wipe everything on your /data partition (hence the name). A factory reset will wipe the same (additionally also cache and Dalvik cache), and put your device back to a virgin state. Usually, this doesn't touch the (external) SDCard, and AFAIK should not touch the internal SDCard either.

I don't know on which partition your mentioned folder resides; but if you want to be on the safe side, back up everything to the external SDCard (or even better off-device, e.g. to your computer).


How do I find out what is causing the app "Google" to use so much background data Even though I have background data turned off, it is using incredibly high amounts of data to the point of being ridiculous. This is starting to cost me money as data is not unlimited in Canada. It's gotten to the point where I can't use data because if I turn it on Google just gobbles it all up. At one point, it was just full tilt downloading/uploading something I have no idea what it would be.

What is causing this and/or how can I turn off background usage for Google for real (obviously the toggle is a placebo)

Screenshots of data usage.

As an update to this: I never figured out the exact problem that caused this. Even after turning off features like google assistant it still continued to use an unusually high bandwidth. The eventual solution was rooting + custom kernel + custom ROMs. I don't have any issues now.


Transfering SD cards to new phone My girlfriend and I both bought "Optimus V" phones at the same time with the same carrier,I have since upgraded but her phone is starting to act possessed by demons. Is it possible to just change out the SD card in my phone with hers and have the carrier transfer my old phone to her number?

You should just be able to swap the SD cards yes and all of the data will be fine, as for changing the number try just moving her SIM card over to your old phone, if the phone's not locked to a network then it should just work.


Soft keys enabled covers shortcuts at Lockscreen in Redmi 1s MIUI 8 [Root] I have rooted my Redmi 1s KitKat version, and enabled soft keys ( by editing build.prop, qemu.hw.mainkeys=0 ). The shortcut keys ( lock screen shortcut, such as contacts and camera on the left and right of screen on bottom respectively ) are not visible at lockscreen, it is covered by black portion of softkeys ( soft keys are also not visible).

How to disable soft keys at lockscreen(black portion)?.
Also, the screen size is reduced (about 0.7 cm is covered by black portion of soft keys),is it possible to change the background of soft keys transparent, and to make android view to fullscreen?

Consider using apps like GMD Full Screen to hide softkeys when not in use (aka Immersive Mode). Or better, just ditch the navbar and use LMT Launcher for the same effect (and more).

As for the lockscreen, since no Xiaomi devices inherently have softkeys, they designed the UI without it in mind, therefore parts of the UI won't adapt to it without undergoing modifications.


Get Internal Storage path for pulling over ADB To clarify, by internal storage I'm referring to the folder that's shown to you on a PC when you connect your device.

I can use adb shell pm list -f -s/-3 to get the paths of system apps and user apps respectively. I don't know how I can find the internal storage path though.

From my 5 minutes of googling I've found it could be at /sdcard/sdcard0, though I've yet to see that in any official documentation and I have no clue if that's consistent across phones/android versions.

Depending on your Android version, there could be a few "canonical" directories:

In old times sdcard and userdata are two separate partitions:

/storage/sdcard0

In modern times (mostly Android 5+), sdcard is part of userdata

/storage/emulated/0
/storage/emulated/legacy

Finally, there's always a convenient way to reach it

/sdcard

Simple, right?


How can I find out what's using all of my internal storage? I'm using CyanogenMod 11 on an i9300. The internal memory of my phone is quite full, but when I tried to find out what was taking this space I found out something really strange.

I installed the program Disk Usage & Storage Analyzer, and as you can see it shows that I actually have 10.25 GB occupied in the internal memory. But when I try to analyse what is taking up this space it seems that I have only 1.61 GB Occupied

Click images for larger version

This problem came up when I tried to install an app and the Play Store app told me that the internal memory was full.

How can I free that space?

There are three questions asked in the garb of one title. I've addressed them below.

First, about the title:

  How can I find out what's using all of my internal storage?

I use an app called DiskUsage to see what's using my Internal/External SD card. The diagrams (hierarchy in size) it shows are extremely helpful. If your device is rooted, then the possibilities to scan directories in / pops up.

It's simple to use as well. Launch the app, choose the storage and see the stuff. You can also choose to see any folder inside your default File Manager by selecting the folder and tapping on Show.

About the question before the end:

  This problem came up when I tried to install an app and the Play Store app told me that the internal memory was full.

This Play Store message is more or less related to the memory available for your apps installation (/data) and not the Internal SD card which you possibly have understood AFAIK. You can see similar questions/answer under the tag insufficient-memory.

The last question:

  How can I free that space?

If the space belongs to Internal SD card, then you have multiple options to delete the unnecessary stuff. You can either use DiskUsage which also gives Delete option under menu, or delete the content using your preferred File Manager, or use PC to delete the stuff.
If the space belongs to /data then you'll have to uninstall the apps.


Audio on my phone while using earphones is sometimes good and sometimes isn't I have Android 10, phone is Umidigi F2

Sometimes when I use my earphones audio is good but sometimes it's bad. I can't find any reason for that, for example I'll use my phone for some time while having earphones plugged in and audio is good, but after a couple hours I'll use my phone again and plug in earphones and audio would be bad and it would garble.

Any help would be appreciated! :)

First thing first, you should know that there a few basic solutions you can try, just to make sure that it’s not a hardware issue causing this:

Check the phone’s volume: Simply press the volume rocker up, in order to increase the volume. Maybe the phone was on silent, which affected the media volume as well.

Restart your phone: A simple reboot can be the solution for many problems.

Clean the headphone jack: If you’re having this issue only when the headphones are plugged in, try cleaning the jack. Also, try another pair of headphones, since it could be them causing the problem.

Clean the speakers: There some smartphones which have some pretty unusual grills for the speakers and they tend to accumulate a lot of stuff which eventually blocks the speakers from emitting sound. However, don’t use a needle or a toothpick, since this can instantly damage the speaker. Instead, rely on a Q-tip for this.

Clean the cache of your music app: Go to Settings > Apps and look for your default music app, then tap on it. Look for the Clean cache button and tap on it.

Check for any moisture or water-inflicted damage: Turn off the phone, remove the battery, as well as the SIM and memory card, and see if there’s any moisture or residue inside the phone, which can affect its normal functionality. Eventually, by using the dryer on low heat, keep it for a few seconds over the phone.


App to share a calendar Possible Duplicate:
  Two phones — Two separate contact lists (me / wife) want to use same account for calendar

Hey does Anyone know of an app that my wife and i could both download, and it would allow us to share and edit one calendar. So that as my schedule and hers changes we would know????

All you need is an Android with Google Calendar and two Google accounts for you and your wife (if you don't have those already). The Google Calendar supports sharing of calendars. You can create an calendar that you both can edit and that will show up on both of your phones.


How does factory reset work? I have 2 Samsung tablets, one serves as my main device, and I would like to factory reset the other one. I don't want to lose any of my data.
What happens if I reset one of them? Do they both lose their data? How can I prevent that from happening? What can get lost?

You have luck, you can safely factory reset the secondary tablet. All the data on it will be deleted, but your main tablet will remain unaffected.
Factory reset is a device-only thing.
Androids are no different than ordinary computers, only the most important apps have the habit that they automatically backup everything to the network (typically into the cloud service of the developer company). They also like to make cloudy the border between the files on your device, and the files backed up to them.
Backup all the important data on your secondary tablet and you can make the factory reset safely.
In general, it is very useful to have backup all of your important data. Most apps does it (for example, most androids automatically uploads the photos into the google cloud), but not all of them.


How to share a Google+ public post outside of the Google+ app? Most apps share their content out to other apps based on intents on the phone. The Google+ app's share feature only seems to generate another Google+ post. How can I share a  Google+ public post outside of the app from the app itself? For example, to send a link of the post to Twitter, Messenger, Facebook, etc.

I can't believe Google would cauterize sharing from a service as important to them as Google+ when most other popular social apps can share freely among each other. Copy & paste of the URL is dated and onerous on Android.

Tap the post you want to share
Open the overflow menu (three vertical dots)
Tap "Link"

You'll receive a message: "Post link copied to clipboard."

You can now paste that link to whatever sharing mechanism you'd like

Not the same as using the Android Share function, but, again, Google+ is not alone in doing this. I don't know when this function was added to the G+ app.

Of course, it only works for Public posts.


What is Google's Stance on Keeping the Android Market Open to the General Public (And by "General Public" I mean, people who aren't paying $30 a month for data transfers, and just using wifi instead.)

You can download applications over a wifi connection without any phone plan.  For example, I recently removed an HTC Hero from my phone plan and was able to download applications to the phone over Wifi with no problem.... even though I could not make calls.

Since Android is not limited to phones or devices with wireless data plans, requiring a phone plan would not be possible for all Android devices.

Additionally, with competion in the works like Amazon's upcoming Android applications market, there will be too much disincentive for Google to require a monthly fee for market access.


Can't get passed Setup Wizard after Factory Reset cause Google Play Services keeps stopping! after Factory Resetting my Lenovo Tab 2 A8-50F Tablet with Android 5.1 i can't get passed the Setup Wizard after selecting the WIFI you want to connect it.. After Checking the Connection then it's doing a Software Update then Google Play Services keeps stopping every time, then revert me back to the WIFI selection screen and loops again and again. What can i do to fix this?
i tried Resetting it again but no luck and there is no option to Clear the Cache from the Boot Menu!!!

Well, this is probably a corrupted system files resulted from the reset. Flashing the firmware should solve  this.

Depending on the hardware platform, you'll need tools to flash the device. This phone comes with two variants: the one with Qualcomm chipset and the other with Mediatek chipset.

For your case the chip is a Mediatek MT6735 , you need SP Flash tool and ROM file for the phone exact model. Don't forget to install Mediatek USB and Preloader drivers otherwise the device won't be determined by the computer. Then follow the flashing process.


Why app updates download entire app instead of only "updates"? I find it rather strange that for updating an app in Android (or even iOS) the entire app is downloaded instead of only the actual "Updates".

The reason I find this strange is because in Windows while updating an app, only the update files are downloaded -- not the entire app -- which is more practical as it saves both time and data usage.

This would seem trivial to most, but when you need to download a huge app just for a tiny feature addition/bug fix it becomes a real PITA.

Does anyone have an explanation as to why this model was implemented?

As far as I know it does download just the updates (referred to as the "delta") on Jellybean 4.1 and above. Obviously the initial install is the full app but updates only download the data that has changed from the current installed version (i.e. the "delta" of it).
You won't see anything different when updating most app, it will still look like it's downloading the full app but on some larger apps you will see if 'jump' parts of the download which indicates that it is just getting the delta.

Engadget and AndroidCentral both have articles indicating that the Play store does provide delta updates


Lenovo PHAB 2 automatically activate user data when wifi is switched off I enabled (turning on user data when wifi is turned off) feature and can not disable it again from Device settings after a lot of search.

The only solution I have now is to restore my device to factory, but this is my last choice.Please, any one help me to avoid this.

My device is Lenovo Phab 2 ?

Go to Settings → Apps settings → Storage → Clear Data. This worked for me.


How do you test the disk integrity of your Android tablet's file system? My Lenovo ThinkPad tablet is rather new (only a few months old), but I'm worried that it might be starting to contain some disk errors.

I just got a "Cannot read page from file system trouble ahead" error message from the LectureNotes application and I'm not sure what it means, especially since a Google for the error produced no results.

Anyways, is there a chkdisk, Hard Disk Sentinel, or something for the tablet's SSD drive that I can use?

Tools like fsck would only check the file system. However, internal memory uses NAND-Flash, which should handle bad blocks itself with internal "bad block tables".

For file system checks, you would find a corresponding article on XDA: "[HOW TO] Check your filesystem (a la 'fsck')". Fortunately, there's also an article on the NAND-Flash level: "Is there a tool for checking the nand memory for bad blocks?".

As this is a very special thing (and most likely not interesting for too many of our readers), I permit myself to not elaborating the details, and just linking the relevant sources ;)


How to view device kernel information (verbose)? I need to view my device kernel info, in particular the architectures.  The device is not rooted, therefore uname command isn't available in local terminal, but cat /proc/version doesn't have an option to increase verbosity (that I'm aware of) like -a for uname.  Is there any other method I can use to see this information?

If it's the architecture that you are looking in particular, then from the terminal you can type arch command.

You can also try CPU-Z to check the kernel architecture on its System tab.

Note : The assumption that uname is only found on rooted devices is unfounded. I have a device not rooted on Android 8.1 that has uname thanks to toybox.


OUYA Custom ROM support OUYA has been one of the largest backed products on Kickstarter.

Unfortunately it runs a custom version of Android which does not provide Google Play Store support.  At the same time by design it is supposed to hackable so I wanted to explore the available options in terms of custom ROMs.

Are the any custom ROMs available (or planned/in development) for OUYA?

It looks like the crew over at XDA are already on it:

XDA OUYA
Main Page

Ouya General
Discussion about the Ouya Android game console (general, tips & tricks, etc)

Ouya Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting
For all of your questions relating to the Ouya Android game console

Ouya Android Development
Android development for the Ouya game console


Process "irq/288-wcd9xxx" draining battery, how to stop it? I'm using a Fairphone 2 with Fairphone open OS, under Android 7, (build-number: fp2_sibon-userdebug 7.1.2 19.11.2 sibon-24df0be9), up to date. My battery loses systematically 50% to 90% overnight, and after having tried all sorts of things to stop it, my brother checked in a terminal (using Termux) with the top command which processes were using the CPU. A process named irq/288-wcd9xxx uses 15-20% of the CPU permanently, which could explain why my battery simply dies in 12 hours. Here's a screenshot of what I get.

As kill or kill -9 has absolutely no effect on it (it seems to work when running the command, but the process is still there afterwards), does anyone have any idea about what it is, and how to kill it, or stop it?

EDIT:

Thank you Irfan Latif for your detailed answer, my brother and me started having a look into this, and for the moment, not much improvement:

The command grep -rI $(readlink /proc/$(pgrep -f irq/288-wcd9xxx)/exe) /*/etc/init/ /init.*.rc indeed doesn't yield any output, and ppid is 2, so as you thought, it appears to be a kernel thread.
(We still had a look at the getprop | grep init.svc. list, and tried stopping audiod just to see, but it didn't change anything.)

As this phone is a Fairphone (modular phone), we can remove the suspect hardware and reboot to see if it changes anything (suggestion by this fairphone thread I posted too, actually already saying it's a "kernel process", hadn't understood the implications: It's hardware interrupts coming from the audio codec).
But removing hardware didn't appear to change anything either, maybe swapping will work (my brother has the same phone ‒with a different android version‒, we'll try next time we meet), but at this stage we doubt it.

Last, we will try soon your suggestions to control the CPU usage of the process, maybe it will be a temporary fix, but this now seems to my brother to need a full system re-installation, as from the moment we did the installation (the standard fairphone open OS install), the battery always appeared to be excessively draining.

P.S. Another process, irq/195-ngd_sli, seems to be eating up as well 5 to 7% permanently. We hadn't paid much attention to it, but it seems now just as abnormal; we'll dig this too.

irq looks something about hardware interrupts and wcd9xxx is a series of Qualcomm Aqstic audio codecs. So apparently irq/288-wcd9xxx process is running to support audio functionality on your device. The executable must be closed source binary blob, so there's nothing you can do to fix it, except (if already fixed by somebody, or) upgrading / downgrading the ROM or stopping the service.

  As kill or kill -9 has absolutely no effect on it (it seems to work when running the command, but the process is still there afterwards), does anyone have any idea about what it is, and how to kill it, or stop it?

The process must be running as a native service defined by hardware / SoC vendor in some init's .rc file. So it will keep on restarting if killed. In order to properly stop the service you need to find its name. First get executable path from PID and then find service by searching through all .rc files:

~# grep -rI $(readlink /proc/$(pgrep -f irq/288-wcd9xxx)/exe) /*/etc/init/ /init.*.rc

You can confirm the same service name by looking at running status in getprop | grep init.svc. command. To stop the service use any of these commands:

~# stop <service_name>
~# setprop ctl.stop <service_name>

This needs to be repeated on every reboot. Or you may edit the related .rc file to remove the service.

If it results in something not working, another possibility is to try controlling its CPU usage by applying some limitation e.g. cgroups (if kernel supports).

EDIT:

I just noticed that a file name cannot have a slash (/). So irq/288-wcd9xxx must be a kernel thread for interrupt handling. It's not evident but you can check its parent PID (ppid must be 2) and also no memory allocation (0K) indicates that it's not a userspace process. So the problem is with your audio hardware or in-kernel driver (see this answer). In latter case again an updated kernel from OEM would fix the problem.

A workaround can be to control CPU usage of real-time process using chrt: chrt -r -p 1 $(pgrep -f irq/288-wcd9xxx) or chrt -f -p 1 $(pgrep -f irq/288-wcd9xxx) or renice or cgroups (if kernel supports): cpu or cpuset.


No OS installed, stock recovery OnePlus 2 I was trying to restore my Oneplus two to stock it failed. using the toolbox allowed me flash and boot into stock recovery.

From here, I've tried sideloading the stock Rom which completes but won't actually boot. Flashing TWRP also returns an "okay" but I cant actually boot into TWRP recovery.
There is no OS installed.

I can get into stock recovery
I can get into fastboot
I can get into qualcomm mode
Bootloader is unlocked
I can't boot into custom recovery
I can't boot into system after sideloading "success"

Can anyone help me? Thanks in advance.

I'm so stupid, I had not placed the files within the platform-tools folder, that did the trick. the system.img was too big to be flashed directly and needed to be compressed into several sparse files, performing the operation withing platform-tools will do this automatically.


Google Now and pronouncing/recognising contact names One of my contacts has an unusual name which Google Now has never been able to understand.

How can I get around this (apart from asking the person to change their name)?

I'm using "send sms to [person's name]".

Without changing the person's name in their contacts, adding a "phonetic" name appears to work.


Tethering not working on rooted phone (both WiFi and USB), free third-party apps also fail I recently rooted my Huawei GL07S and switched to an operator which explicitly allows tethering (I inserted the new SIM card into the GL07S).

When I go to Settings>Wireless&Networks>Tethering&Pocket WiFi I get this screen:

"Pocket WiFi" is a term used by my previous operator to describe tethering, I suspect them of having modified it to work only on their network. I can't use CyanogenMod/similar as they don't support the GL07S, which is a rare phone.

Default USB Tethering

When I press "USB tethering", the white circle becomes green with a check, and Pocket WiFi active or Tethering appears in the notification bar, but the connected Ubuntu does not see any connection:

Default WiFi Tethering

Alternatively, when I press "Pocket WiFi", the item becomes grey, the caption becomes Turning Wi-Fi on…, and it stays like this forever:

Meanwhile adb logcat keeps outputting things like forever (longer log):

E/WifiStateMachine(  341): DefaultState: cannot get Soft AP current connected stations list
D/WifiService(  341): getApLinkedStaList
I/TetherSettings(17288): set PROPERTY_USBTETHERING_ON: false
I/WifiApEnabler(17288): set iswifihotspoton = true

To get it back from its grey state, the only solution is to restart the phone.

Barnacle Wifi Tether

When I press Start, I get:

Open Garden WiFi Tethering

When I press Start Open Garden Tethering I get this crash:

... and logcat says:

D/TETHER -> TetherApplication( 4591): Reporting stats: {fbon=false, ffox=false, nflt=true, fbok=0, root=true, phon=true, fbau=false, aid=e2a4f1ff707f9812, inst=1433847285, ertm=false, coac=0, sfap=true, c2dm=false, aver=4.1.2, side=1, mno=NTT DOCOMO, blth=true, setu=default, tver=47, rssc=0, bdwn=0, devi=default, asdk=16, imei=869065010878620, fbcr=0, pkg=og.android.tether, dtyp=generic, loc=35.6653574,139.733107, fbco=0, widg=0, fber=0, stat=1, comc=0, bup=0, mfr=HUAWEI, idrv=wext, temp=360, bin=true, uuid=E2A4F1FF-707F-9812-021X-XR2136017743, actl=true, tpow=true, mdl=GL07S}
D/TETHER -> TetherService( 4591): Service started: true, state: 1
D/TETHER -> TetherApplication( 4591): onlyEncryptionOrNothingFailed()
E/AndroidRuntime( 4591):        at og.android.tether.TetherApplication.displayToastMessage(TetherApplication.java:1341)
E/AndroidRuntime( 4591):        at og.android.tether.TetherApplication.readLogfile(TetherApplication.java:1421)
E/AndroidRuntime( 4591):        at og.android.tether.TetherApplication.onlyEncryptionOrNothingFailed(TetherApplication.java:1438)
E/AndroidRuntime( 4591):        at og.android.tether.TetherService$1.run(TetherService.java:256)
D/TETHER -> ServiceReceiver( 4591): onReceive:Intent { act=og.android.tether.intent.STATE flg=0x10 cmp=og.android.tether/.TetherServiceReceiver (has extras) } state:1
D/TETHER -> TetherApplication( 4591): Reporting of stats complete
W/ActivityManager(  349): Scheduling restart of crashed service og.android.tether/.TetherService in 5000ms

[ClockworkMod][8]

ClockworkMod is the only tethering app that works reliably (over USB). It is not free, though, so I would like to make it work with the built-in solution or with the open source Barnacle.

EasyTether

It has worked the first time I tried it. Since then, no way to use it anymore, it always says cannot claim USB interface: Device or resource busy.

FoxFi

When I push Activate WiFi Hotspot, it says WiFi Hotspot Ready, I can connect to the WiFi network from Ubuntu, but unfortunately all HTTP and HTTPS requests fail:

$ ping 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 192.168.43.1 icmp_seq=1 Destination Net Unreachable

Actually, the phone itself also loses Internet connectivity:

Question

What is going wrong?
How can I use Internet on my Ubuntu using my phone's LTE data connection? (preferably without having to install a computer-side agent)

It always says cannot claim USB interface: Device or resource busy

This is because you have adb running in your system. ADB opens USB interface so no other app can access it. Stop adb either with killall adb or using adb kill-server (assuming the adb binary is in your PATH).


Backup/dump kernel image without root or twrp/cwm Is there any way to backup/dump kernel image without root or twrp/cwm ?

It is possible to dump device partitions without root or custom recovery - if your device has "fastboot" mode and is boot unlocked. I'm not going to describe unlocking the boot loader, but with a fastboot device it is usually pretty easy - search the internet for instructions for your specific device.

You will need a TWRP recovery image for your device, but you don't need to actually install it on the device - we'd just temporarily boot into it to get access to the raw boot partition. Look at https://twrp.me/Devices/ and download the image for your device.

Preparations:

You need to find out which partition you want to backup from the device's storage. Usually there is a by-name directory somewhere under the devices tree that lists all the operating system's partitions with names and physical partition identifiers.

Install ADB and Fastbook command line tools.
On your device, enable "Developer Mode" and then go into the developer settings and enable "USB debugging".
Connect your device to your computer.
On your computer run adb devices and verify your device is listed. You may need to authorize access on the device itself in a popup that will appear.
Run adb shell to go into the device's command line shell
Run find /dev -name 'by-name' 2>/dev/null to find the by-name directory. It should list one, though if there are a couple, it shouldn't be a problem and both should work.
Take the directory name and run ls -la <by-name-directory> (replacing the place holder with the actual directory name)
Find the name of the partition you are interested in - if you want just the kernel, the name is boot, or if your device has multiple slots, it is probably boot_a - and record the physical partition path listed for it. It should be something like /dev/block/mmcblk0p22 (this is on my Mi A1 device - if you have a different one, the number after "p" will be different and possibly even the number before "p").

If you do not have a by-name directory on your device, you might want to search the internet for the correct device name, though there are ways to detect the correct partition from within the device - comment if you need help.

Steps to Backup

Reboot your device to the fastboot boot loader. There's usually a boot time key combination for this, on my Xiaomi Mi A1 its POWER + VOLUME-DOWN, but you can also use ADB to do that: execute adb reboot-bootloader to go directly to fastboot mode.
Use fastboot to boot into the TWRP image you downloaded, without installing it on the device: fastboot boot recovery-3.2.1-1.img . It will take a couple of minutes for the device to boot into TWRP, so be patient.
On your computer, run adb pull /dev/block/mmcblk0p22 boot.img, replacing "mmcblk0p22" with the correct boot device path you found in the preparations stage, and "boot.img" with where you actually want to save the kernel boot image.

If your device has multiple boot slots, its probably a good idea to backup both (on my device, for some reason, after a clean install and update, they are not identical).

Good luck.


Why can't I boot into recovery mode? I think I'm actually missing something here still. Everything I read suggests I need to boot into recovery mode as a first step, and that I ought to be able to do that by holding down the "home" key while I'm starting up. Instead I get a bang (!) in a triangle icon with a phone next to it.

Have I skipped a step or is there something wrong with my phone? I know there's something wrong with my phone ... that's why I embarked on this project to begin with. But could that be some how preventing me from booting to recovery mode? Or is the problem a skipped step?

Edit: Apparently download and recovery modes are merged for the G1.  Just press Alt-L on your physical keyboard while in Download mode, and Recovery will show up.

What you're seeing is Download Mode.  The key combination is usually subtly different.  In the case of my phone, it's just a matter of having the phone connected to USB or not.  You should try it with and without USB, as well as removing the battery and doing a fresh boot.  (You can also remove the battery, plug into USB, and reinsert the battery and try).  Also try other keys -- you already know using Back instead gets you to that device info screen.


Can't open Google Assistant settings I cannot open the Google Assistant settings on my Huawei P10. Whenever I try, it shortly looks like it goes to a new window, but then immediately goes back to the previous window...

I have tried restarting the device. Google Assistant has been enabled on the device for a long time.

Any ideas?

I had the same problem on multiple Huawei phones. The only thing I have found to work is a factory reset. You can back up your phone first if you have anything you want to save, but I've only gotten it to work with a full reset of all data. When I restore the backup, sometimes it stops working again, sometimes it doesn't. I think it's a problem with the EMUI skin, because I have had no problems with it on custom ROM's on Huawei devices. Hope you get it working!


Disable IPv4 entirely I have an HTC on Verizon. I can see that when on cellular, I get both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses. Is there a way to disable v4 and use v6 ONLY?

First, you cannot disable IPv4 in stock Android (without root). The good news is, you don't need to.

You can set up a v6-only network with a router (needed!) which send RAs (router advertisements), and bridge this network to a wifi access point. The RAs need to signal a default router,  so the default lifetime should be unequal zero. While not strictly necessary, this avoids issues with the Chrome browser (which has same peculiar ideas about what constitutes proper IPv6 connectivity).

In addition, the RAs need to contain a GUA prefix, with A and L flags being set; the A flag needs to be set in order to trigger SLAAC. L switched on is the usual on-link setting, where devices attached to the same link are allowed to talk to each other directly (such as on Ethernet). Finally, the RA has to contain an RDNSS option also, with the GUA (!!) of a DNS server.

With this setup, you can leave out any DHCPv4 server. Android 5.x and 6.x will connect successfully, even without an IPv4 address, as long as they can SLAAC an IPv6 ULA or GUA. Yet, don't use ULAs, at least not for the DNS server, as Android 6.x doesn't accept them.

Another thing to know: if you kill the router and its RAs, with neither an IPv6 nor an IPv4 address, Android considers this network to be dead and disconnects. This can be really annoying!

Finally, please note that Android does not support DHCPv6. :)

Another way is to set up a "Brouter" that only bridges IPv6 and neither bridges nor routes IPv4. Can be done using a Raspberry Pi (even a Zero W). This is "Bridging Bad" with respect to IPv4 but passes on IPv4. Great to experiment with Android and other OSes in an IPv6-only LAN.


Twitter app with pic.twitter.com upload The official Twitter app uses an external service for image upload instead of its own image service. I want a app which uses the official twitter image upload service. The reason is that I don't want to show my uploaded images the whole world.

Any suggestions?

You can use Twicca with the plugin "Multi Image".


Resize data partition I have a Lenovo K30-W, and I installed a ROM designed for Lenovo A6000, which is virtually identical except for the smaller internal storage (16GB vs 8GB). I am happy with the ROM, but my partitions were resized, so now I have 8GB of unused space on internal storage. I am currently on Cyanogenmod 12.1 (Lollipop). As I understand, internal sdcard is no longer a separate partition, but merely a folder in data partition. Is there a way to increase data partition, without reinstalling (or alternatively, with reinstalling)?

I've seen similar questions, but the answers are mostly "don't do it, you'll screw things up". However, in this case I am sure I have unused space on the phone storage.

It turns out this particular modification isn't so difficult or dangerous. Data is the last partition (30th in this case), so it it merely needs to be deleted and recreated with new size. Just be careful with the starting block. Print the existing partition table beforehand.

reboot into recovery
make backup of data partition
copy parted utility to phone using adb push
enter adb shell and execute following code

chmod a+x parted
./parted /dev/block/mmcblk0
unit b
rm 30
mkpart primary ext4 2617245696 15634251263
name 30 userdata
quit

restore data from recovery


Swype keyboard not swyping Yesterday I installed Swype Keyboard to replace SlideIT. At first Swype was working but today it only lets me press the keys and not drag my finger. I think I briefly saw a message saying "dragging is not allowed in this mode" but it went away fast. I've tried disabling and enabling and selecting Swype again but not good. How can I fix this?

This happens when you use Link2SD or Apps2SD and move either the Swype App or the Swype installer App to your SD card. To fix it, move the installer and Swype back to the phone and reboot.

I found some of this information on http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1042241 the rest I figured out by trying things.


How can I autoconnect to miracast/chromecast (screen cast) device? I've seen it in a friends OS though not in most and not in any of the roms I have/am using.

What lets this happen for some but not others? They are all kitkat or later.

Is there any setting or app that lets me do this?

Tasker integration would be a huge plus.

What I've done that has worked is use tasker to launch the wireless display settings app, then use AutoInput to click on the adapter once it shows up. I was using this in my car, so I had the app trigger as soon as the phone connected to the car's bluetooth.


Forward console output to computer Is there a way to forward the console output of your phone (I'm assuming there is some because Linux) to your computer, maybe using ADB? I'm especially interested in how to get the boot time messages, because I suspect there are quite some errors going on.

If it matters, I have a Samsung Galaxy GIO.

Running adb logcat and rebooting my phone worked for me. Requires the Android SDK though.


Where is the 'sleep' low power option in cyanogenmod 10.1? I used to have the Android that came installed on my Verizon Motorola Razr Maxx. When I wanted the phone to be doing nothing (in a movie theater, or at night) I would hold the power button, and then select "Sleep" from the options, which also included "Power Off", "Airplane Mode", and icons to select ringing or vibrating.

Now, I've installed Cyanogenmod 10.1, and when I hold that button I get similar options but no "Sleep" option. There are "Profiles", but none of them seem to be as low power as sleep was. Is there no sleep function, or is it hiding somewhere? If there is none, maybe I can replace it with a profile that turns on "airplane mode", which seems like the only way to turn off the cellular antenna?

You are right. Sleep mode is something from Motorola, not from Android. So, CyanogenMod (based on the stock rom) does not have this option. It has several other options, and you just need to find something close to it. You could try airplane mode, which turns off all connections (wifi, bluetooth, cellular, NFC, etc..)


Installing Lollipop in unlocked Moto G 1st gen If I have an unlocked Moto G 1st gen, is there any other way to get Lollipop on it beside waiting for it to show up? My carrier apparently won't update this device in particular.

If you have a custom recovery installed, you can wipe your device and install CyanogenMod. The latest nightlies are 5.0+. We won't be able to give you a link however, because you didn't let us know where you are located. Which model of the first gen do you have?


Why would a tablet not have Google Play? I have a Polaroid tablet.  It does not have Google Play. I called Cust. Svc, they don't know why.  I know that Play is closed source, but still free.  Other Polaroid tablets do have Play. Why on Earth would a company make a tablet that does not feature Google Play?

The answer is most likely that your Polaroid tablet isn't licensed to use Google Play. There are a number of requirements that must be met before Google licenses its app store for use on a tablet. Some of it has to do with software compatibility tests that pass or fail for the device.

This is from the Polaroid tablet FAQ:

http://www.polaroid.com/faqs/tablet-faqs/i-cannot-use-google-play-store-why

It says: "Our tablets are not licenced with GooglePlay store as of yet..."

I'm not sure how old that FAQ message is, though, as it goes on to suggest that tablets don't need Google Play but smart phones do. Weird. It also says that you can use Amazon's app store.

There's also this link which goes over how to install Google Play on a Polaroid tablet. I don't know how good it is, but it might work for you...

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2012/04/07/how-to-install-google-apps-gplay-etc-on-polaroi-pmid701

I'm not sure why any Android device manufacturer wouldn't include Google Play. My guess is it requires a fee to license it from Google. But supposedly it costs nothing to run their open source compatibility test to prove their devices are compatible with Google Play. There may also be other legal issues, especially with regards to different regions, content distribution and encryption.


What can cause "Android OS" process to use high percentage of battery? I've read a bunch of forum posts about the Android OS battery drain bug. This is where the 'Android OS' process is showing large percentages in the battery statistics.

For me, I'm running 2.3 Gingerbread. I don't use bluetooth or GPS. I'm on 2G most of the time. Some days I get 40 hours out of a battery. On these days in the battery usage settings, the 'Android OS' process uses about 3% of battery. However other days I get about 8 hours with similar use. On these days the 'Android OS' process uses about 35% of the battery. I really want to find out what causes this.

The fixes suggested so far are:

Reboot (Temporary).
Turn off and remove battery for a couple of minutes.
Reset battery stats.
Change WIFI sleep policy.
Use a task manager
Flash stuff to the phone.
Revert to older versions of the OS (not really a fix).

Does anyone know the definitive cause of this problem and the correct fix? Or is it possible there are multiple issues that cause this so different things will work for different people?

Here are some of the threads:

FIX and INVESTIGATION: Android OS (battery drain) problem on Gingerbread
Fix- Battery drain 2.3.3 - high android OS
S2 Battery Drain Problem - solved for now
Issue 16721:     Android OS 2.3.3 Battery Drain

I believe, there is at least one bug related to "Android OS" and battery drain. I'll outline how to reproduce the issue: (Tested with Motorola Flipout, Blur_Version.0.28.9_MB511.Retail.en.DE (stock ROM the phone was sold with), Android 2.1.)

Start with a fully charged phone.
Download the Audiobooks (free) app and launch it.
Choose a book from the free library and listen.
Send Audiobooks to the background, e.g. by clicking home button.
Go back to the Audiobooks app by the same operation you used to start it, e.g. click the icon in the app drawer. (This is the only way I am aware of to get the app in the foreground again.)
Do whatever it takes to stop the audiobook playback. (There is a "shutdown player" button, but I never get to use it, because the player just stops/disappears before I can navigate to the player screen.)
Leave the phone idle. After 8 hours the battery will be almost flat (<15%). Android's battery usage monitor attributes 33% of the batter consumption to "Android OS". The remainder is split between "cell standby", "phone idle".
Shut down the phone. Switch it on. Recharge.
Leave phone idle.
After 8 hours, check the battery status (>50%). "Android OS" does not show up as draining battery.

Whether this is a bug in the Audiobooks player or Android or both is not clear. However, this does not appear to be normal behaviour.


Samsung Note8 wifi issue (connectivity.samsung.com.cn) I captured this screen when using WiFi with web authentication
First it goes to the connectivity.Samsung.com.cn

Then to the  wifi login screen
This is weird, does my wifi info exposing?

*I bought this phone in Hong Kong.

The domain samsung.com.cn is just an alias of samsung.com/cn. It is the Samsung domain for China. The fact that you bought the phone when you were in Hong Kong validates it.

connectivity.samsung.com.cn is a subdomain that your phone checks when you're connected to WiFi or mobile data to know if it is able to "talk" to the mothership (in this case Samsung servers). Type the URL in your browser and you will get Ok if the link is established.

So when you are connected, your phone establishes a link with Samsung servers (just as it does with Google if you have Play services installed). Your phone has not been exposed to hackers but is calling home possibly to check if there are updates from Samsung for your phone.


Help with Photo app / Gallery I deleted the photo app that actually comes pre-installed on Android and have been just using gallery. Is there any way  to download the photo app?

You can try "gallerie pro" from the play store. i assume that this is a branch of "the original google Gallery app" - at least on my android 4.2 it looks nearly the same


Lost my ice cream truck ringtone I have a rzr hd and one of the stock ringtones was an ice cream truck. About a month ago, it disappeared from my phone. Any ideas? I don't know the name of it, but I haven't added any ringtones to my phone or connected it to a USB. The ringtone is just gone from the menu.  Thanks!

I found an Ice Cream Truck ringtone in Mobiles24. Could you check if that's correct?


Galaxy S4 and Motorola CS3070, got paired but NOT connected I am trying to connect my Samsung Galaxy S4 to a Bluetooth scanner Motorola CS3070 unsuccessfully.

Anybody aware of any compatibility issues or fixes?

According to the GS4's specifications, it supports the following Bluetooth profiles only:

PBAP - Phone Book Access Profile
A2DP - Advanced Audio Distribution Profile
AVRCP - Audio/Video Remote Control Profile
HFP - Hands-Free Profile
HSP - Headset Profile
OPP - Object Push Profile
SAP - SIM Access Profile
HID - Human Interface Device Profile
PAN - Personal Area Networking Profile
MAP - Message Access Profile

Your Motorola CS3070 scanner supports the following BT profiles:

HID - keyboard wedge
SPP - Serial Port Profile

I believe the absence of SPP profile support on GS4 could be the reason you cannot properly connect the two devices without additional software.

According to this video, software called "BluePiano" can be used with this scanner model.  In the comments they specifically mention the SPP profile, and that there should be instructions in the scanner's manual on getting it to work with some handsets.


Remove Device from Market Account? Hear me out. I know that this has been asked before, but I am hoping that there might be a workaround or some new information.

My boyfriend has a [Phone X] that has been sent in for replacement twice, and he now has two [Phone X] registered to his google account, and neither one of them is his newest phone.

This is the weird part: somebody has one of his old phones and is using it. He can see everything they download and install onto the phone.

What is going ON here? I know it is possible to "hide" that phone, but it just does not seem good enough, from a security standpoint.  His android market account is connected to a google wallet account.

((I am the one asking because I am more interested in tech and more patient about troubleshooting.))

First, I wouldn't be that worried about 'hiding' the phone. I would be worried that if he can see what they download, his account is still attached to that phone. which means they can see EVERYTHING he downloads, emails, chats, etc.

He needs to change the password on the gmail account. Maybe, for extra security, turn on 2 step verification.

You can't, at this time, remove a device from the market. What you can do is go to your Play settings and you can hide the device so they don't show up in the menus.


Application to slide from area to start application? I had an application before I formatted which would do something awesome: you simply slid from an active area on the screen, no matter what application you're in, and you were presented with about 12 different spots you could fill which would launch applications.

The problem is, I can't remember what this application is called. Can anyone remind me?

SwipePad. Found it: https://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.conduction.swipepad.android


TWRP for new 2020 Samsung device I wanted to buy a new phone, but one that I could install TWRP on. I searched and found that the Galaxy A01 CORE is cheap and good and I almost bought it.  I tried to search for TWRP for the device unsuccessfully.
I have not found any guide or website that explains how to install TWRP on this device. Is it because it's new and only came out on 6/8/20?
The question is basically about new phones and TWRP, since the phone came out it has been about 4 months, how long does it take until a version of TWRP is released that is suitable for the phone? If I want a phone with TWRP I will always have to buy an old one? Because new phones are always released every year, and the problem is that stores are no longer selling phones from 2019, so what can be done?
Is there some way to install TWRP on Galaxy A01 Core?

TWRP is not released by OEMs. It is developed independently by volunteers after the device is marketed and it's kernel and ROM sources are released  (they are legally obliged under GPLv2.0) .

Not all devices have TWRP because they are not suitable for development for technical reasons like bootloader can't be unlocked, SoC not suitable, OEM releasing source late etc. Also, developers make TWRP for devices that are popular and suitable for development. OEMs at times give out free devices to developers to make their devices popular.

If you are keen on buying a device that has TWRP support, keep a tab on the device forums on XDA
and based on the TWRP /kernel /ROM support from developer community, take a decision to buy or not.

This site doesn't give buying recommendations. If you can't find the device in stores, look for alternatives like on line sites etc. Google is your friend.

Or else, learn how to develop (this site doesn't support questions on that) and make your own TWRP. Note that TWRP is specific to the device & device variant (Samsung makes several variants for the same model) and you can't use TWRP meant for some other device, irrespective of similarities in devices.


Set different default browsers for 3G and Wifi I use Opera Mini when on 3G, and Firefox when on WiFi. Is there a way to set them as default? I have a custom 4.3 ROM and Tasker, if it helps.

Actually, Tasker is the key here. You can find a tutorial here: Control which app is the default for an action.

In addition to Tasker, you will need the Secure Settings plug-in. The action involved which can be found there is called Package State, where you can select between disable, enable, and toggle. So basically it is a work-around: You disable Firefox when switching to 3G, so only Opera is available then and will be used. As soon as you switch to WiFi (Tasker condition: WIFI connected), you toggle both package states, so Firefox becomes the default browser as it's the only one available.


How to prevent a folder being backed up in Photos but still seen in a gallery app? I am on Pixel 3 XL. I found that Google Photos recognizes the Facebook photo folder (and some others, such as Screenshots) the same as the "Camera" folder because they are within the DCIM folder. Therefore, we cannot tell Google Photos not to backup these folder within Google Photos settings.

The only option I have come across is to put a .nomedia file in the Facebook folder. That does prevent Google Photos from backing it up, but it also prevent me from seeing that folder in any other app. As you know, the Pixel does not include a traditional photo gallery, as they want you to use the google photos app so I use a photo gallery app from the play store. Either way with the .nomedia file in that folder I cannot see the images in that folder anywhere.

Is there any other way to stop Google Photos from backing up this folder without making the images invisible on my device? Google photos should not be treating all folders within DCIM as "Camera" and instead it should be looking specifically for the camera roll folder.

Related post: Change Facebook (and others) photo saving folder

You're not restricted by Google to use only Photos app as a Gallery app, so why not try a third-party app? I remembered that I used to use Piktures and QuickPic app and both of them (paid feature in Piktures), as I tested now, provides an option to show hidden or .nomedia file containing folders inside their settings. I'm sure some other gallery apps might be having a similar feature.


TWRP cannot find backup Motorola G4 Play, formerly with LineageOS/14.1 + TWRP 3.2
Made the mistake of trying /e/OS but before I did, I copied 2-TWRP full backups and a lot of other pics and data to my Mint 20 laptop. I have formatted an SD card to ext4 and created the .TWRP/BACKUP as suggested on another thread here from 6-years back and also tried the suggestion from another one here today. Cannot restore TWRP Backup because it cannot mount internal storage after reboot and the sdcard is mounted as suggested there.
Running TWRP I can see the sdcard and the TWRP folder (no preceeding dot shown), but nothing beyond that and I am unable to navigate.
How can I get to the backup to restore my phone to LineageOS. Should never have left, ahh, hindsight.

Thanks to you both, but it is fixed. I removed the SD card and copied the 2-backup files to the Root of it and put it back in. I was connected via USB to the phone so I copied the 2-backup files to a bunch of different Folders within the Internal Memory to try and see where TWRP was looking by defualt.
Slapping my forehead moment now!
Straight off, Internal memory, Recovery Folder and TWRP found them there without any Navigation. Did not think of that earlier but patently obvious now. Dang hindsight -- again.


How do you remove flash from Galaxy Tab 10.1? The browser is slow and maybe it's flash but I cant figure out how to get rid of it.

Why don't you try using browsers like Dolphin Browser or Opera which have an option called Flash on Demand, wherein flash objects are loaded only if you want them to.


When installing new ROM through fastboot, which .img files must be flashed, with what arguments, and in what order? I own a Oneplus 7T, which runs Android 10 and therefore has no working TWRP to flash ROMs with. It's bootloader is unlocked and is rooted.

When installing a new ROM, whether it is a custom ROM or an update to the current ROM, I install them by extracting the ROM zip, extracting payload.bin, and flashing certain .img files in fastboot, following the instructions found here under the 'Manual Flash' section.

However, I'd like to understand more about this process. The instructions flash less .img files than were extracted. For example, in the recent Oneplus 7T OOS 10.0.11 update, the the number of .img files extracted (31) is less than what was flashed according to the instructions (19). Furthermore, the instructions passed the arguments --disable-verity when flashing two of the .imgs, but not the others.

Therefore, I'm wondering:

What does each .img file do?
Which files must be flashed and in what order?
Why are certain files flashed with certain arguments?

I own a OnePlus 7 and the same developer has answered a similar question in One Plus 7 device forums

Question

  I just noticed, the script in bat file only flashes 25 .img files, but when I extracted payload.bin in OB2 I saw 32 .img files. Does this mean that the other .img files in payload are not needed? Or can I add the command in bat file to flash other images?

Answer

  They can't be flashed using fastboot, that are the criticals partitions, they are needed and it's for that these fastboot roms can't be used to update or downgrade the software you have on your device, because the fastboot roms can't flash all partitions. This fastboot roms should be used if your system cannot be used and if you don't have access to TWRP

They need to be flashed in the order specified. All of them (see next point)
.img files replace the file on the device with the one in fastboot ROM, except for critical partitions
(I am not sure what these are for your device but could be boot loader, OTA, TEE, SoC etc) . This accounts for the difference in number (31 extracted but 19 only flashed). See Irfan's comment
--disable-verity is only applicable for vbmeta header files. For more details, see How to disable dm-verity on Android with "user" build type ROM? where the concept is well explained, in detail.


Showing deciseconds in the homescreen I am interested in a clock app that in addition to seconds also shows deciseconds.

I searched and could not find one yet. Is there any widget for Android that shows deciseconds (like this: 11:51:32.1)?

It's not possible to create a widget that updates that often, because it will suck your battery really quickly. There are many stopwatch apps available in the Play Store. Many of them have millisecond or decisecond accuracy, but I'm not aware of any that have an associated widget.

These kind of high precision timers should only be needed on a case-to-case basis, so it's not worth it for them to be on the homescreen.


Samsung Note II device Driver When I plug my phone (Samsung Note II) into my Laptop only charging takes place. I cannot view my phone in My Computer. When I go to Device Manager, it says the Driver for GT- N7100 not installed. Install the latest driver for the device”.

When I run trouble shooting a window appears saying GT-N7100 does not have a driver.

What should I do to resolve this problem? However, it was working very well during last 3 years.

Installing Samsung Smart Switch or Samsung Kies will definitely give you the drivers you need, without needing to install any drivers from Shady sites.


LG G5 Clear individual app cache when using "Home with app drawer" I recently purchased an LG G5 phone. I am using the "Home with app drawer" home mode because I like having the app drawer.

I need to clear the data cache for an individual app. I know that you normally access this via the App Manager, selecting the desired app, and then clicking the "Clear Cache" button. However, when I go into Settings on my phone, I can't find "App Manager". The closest that I can find in Settings is "Apps". This screen lists all of my apps, but when I select one, there is no "Clear Cache" button.

How am I supposed to do this?

I don't use "Home with app drawer" but I think it's the same.

Go to Settings > Apps as you've already found. Then tap Storage. You'll see a new screen with the various figures and Clear data and Clear cache buttons.


How to create a soft link between root partition and ext3 partition(on SD) I am trying to create symbolic links of /data/sdext2/app/* on /data/app.
This is what I did in adb shell
ln -sf /data/sdext2/app/* /data/app/
But it is telling "link failed No such file or directory".
Note that none of the partitions are of FAT32 format.
And without -f option it says "link failed File exists".

ln only takes 2 arguments at most (not counting options), the ../* wildcard however expands to all filenames in the folder. Just do place an echo before ln to see what happens.

Do it one by one this way:

  cd /data/sdext2/app
  for i in *; do ln -s /data/sdext2/app/"$i" /data/app/;done

or

  for i in /data/sdext2/app/*; do ln -s "$i" /data/app/$(basename "$i");done

EDIT

Ok, this is how it works on my device:

  me@workstation:~$ adb shell
  shell@android:/ $ id
  uid=2000(shell) gid=2000(shell)   groups=1003(graphics),1004(input),1007(log),[...]
  shell@android:/ $ su
  shell@android:/ # id
  uid=0(root) gid=0(root)   groups=1003(graphics),1004(input),1007(log),[...]
  shell@android:/ # cd /data/
  shell@android:/data # ln -s /data/sdext2/app/banana.app /data/app/cucumber.app
  shell@android:/data # ls -l /data/app/cucumber.app
  lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2012-11-06 22:30 /data/app/cucumber.app -> /data/sdext2/app/banana.app


Installing TextSecure, but missing Google Play I am running a custom ROM (Android 4.2.1) and want to install TextSecure from Whisper Systems. To support push messages Google Play is needed for Google Cloud Messages.

How can I install Google Play?

EDIT, installing the google package fails, installation aborted every time.

Install the Google package for your custom ROM. For instance cyanogenmod you flash the ROM then the Google package, ask whoever made the ROM for the correct version you need, most developers would put instructons in the first topic in their thread.


Hotspot problems - LG Phoenix 2 AT & T I bought the LG Phoenix 2 AT & T mobile, with Android 6.0. Trying to use the hotspot, to share Internet with Wi-Fi, it never turns on: it sends a temporary network error message.

I followed what this post says: fastnck and in the system database change the property Tether_entitlement_check_state to value 0. I tried the hotspot again, and this time  it connected. But on third-party devices it says there is no internet connection. That is,  they connect with the phone but do not share the internet data.

Does anyone know how to solve this?

Here are some of the few things you could try if you haven't already tried them out:

Changing the value of global tether_dun_required

Firstly you need to setup adb (or refer to Download Minimal ADB and Fastboot Tool & Setup guide) or install android SDK
Make sure you have installed USB and ADB drivers;
activate  USB Debug mode in developer settings and connect your device  to your pc with USB cable.
Open command prompt/terminal and enter the following: adb shell settings put global tether_dun_required 0. You need to set this value to 0 (= don't notify tethering to provider) after this, reboot your device.

Note:

  Some reddit users have indicated that having "APN TYPE= (EMPTY)" was
  necessary for it to work in network settings.

Disabling the Enhanced LTE services

Other users have also observed that this setting was screws up with with hotspot, so disabling it is another probable workaround;
Go to Settings → Networks → More and disable the Enhanced LTE services.

Acknowledgements

Tethering Hotspot on an unlocked At&t phone on T-mobile


Why do some (many?) Youtube videos not play? Very often when I click on an embedded Youtube video or even access a Youtube video though the Youtube app, I get an error that curtly says "This video cannot be played". What gives?

There is a flag that people can set on their YouTube videos to allow or disallow those videos to be played on a mobile device. What you are seeing when you try to access those videos is that the person has set the flag to 'Disallow'.


Lollipop: secure lock screen menu options This is just an extension of the previously asked question.

I have upgraded Google Nexus 5 with android 5.0.1 Lollipop.

We can toggle wifi, data, flight mode and other options from locked screen.

Is there any way to secure or customize which of these menu options should be displayed?

Short answer: you can't.

There are several bug reports like this one. I'm using Android 5.1.1 right now and this security problem still exists. This "bug" makes the Android Device Manager useless if your device gets stolen.


HTC desire bravo sim card is always ejecting I have to hold the card in place while using the phone otherwise it pushes itself out. When troubleshooting the problem, being as gentle as possible by the way, it clicks into place but doesn't catch and is pushed out by the spring lock.

Sounds like the micro SD card slot is physically broken on your phone. You need to take it to a technician to fix it, or return it if it's new or still under warranty.


Install All Apps on SD card On Micromax Unite 2 Recently i bought Micromax Unite 2, its a good phone but what problem I am facing is that it comes with internal storage of 4 GB and has external storage and I am using 8GB SD Card.

Under storage it shows free Internal storage of 0.90 GB (free 100 MB), External Storage of 7.47 GB (left 6GB free) and Internal SD card of 1.67 GB (left 1.67 GB free). By default it installs apps on Phone/Internal storage and its getting filled and I am left with only 100 MB and it gets hanged.

What is the difference between Internal SD Card and phone storage?
Can I install all apps on Internal Storage (which is 1.67 GB free)?

For 1) you can think of them like different partitions of a disk. Internal SDCard usually is found at /sdcard (though not always directly mounted there), while internal storage (as referred to) usually goes to /data. More details can be found in our tag-wikis on storage, internal-storage, and file-system.

For 2), most likely not all apps. And if you can do so at all also depends on the Android version used.


Will skipping Play Store updates cause problems? I have found that auto-updating apps from the Play Store sometimes causes me an inconenience: A newer versions of an app sometimes doesn't have the features I liked in the older version. Thus, I selectively update my apps

I'm wondering what happens in this scenario: Let's say I download an app today, call it version 1.0, that I do not auto-update. An update to 1.1 is released some time later, then a release to 1.2, then 1.3 etc. So let's say I decide to update when 1.3 comes out. Does updating then cumulatively capture changes from 1.2 and 1.1 as as well? Or have I missed functionality in 1.1 or 1.2?

Put another way, I would assume an update at that time would make that app identical to what is available on the Play Store that day. Is that correct?

Android applications are used to perform a task or a  group of tasks. App updates are additional features that are added to the current version of that app. An application has several states while running on mobile such as start, stop, resume, terminate etc.

Play Store is one of the secured source for downloading and installing android applications. A developer in play store will release two types of app(not for every apps).

Stable :
This version runs stable on most devices and may not have any app close or similar issues.
Beta :
Releases updates under development stages and not upto stable. User need to join beta program from play store.

So, if you have installed an app from play store, then you can run that app without updating for long time, because that is stable. The only thing you've missing will be updated features.  For example, Google phone app(say version 23). It had added new design few months ago, but if you're running version 22, you can use as long as you can. And you'll only miss new design, dark theme like that. And, if you're installing version 29, after skipping 23,24,.. , you'll get features of that versions, after updating to version 29. It's because android apps are developed  incremental basis( as Firelord mentioned below).

Also, there are some apps which requires strict updates. Example, WhatsApp. WhatsApp will check the current version of app and prohibits app usage until app update. This occurs because WhatsApp may stop support specific version after few months(may be yearly, you're redirected to  play store while opening WhatsApp).

System apps may get auto updated during OTA/ security updates released by manufacturer.

If you're installing an app from play store today, you're installing today's latest stable version.


Poor Performance at Low Battery I'm having an issue where my phone gets sluggish and non-responsive when the battery level gets to around 35% or less.  Apps will freeze, it will take the keyboard a long time to appear, and the unlock pattern will sometimes not show up at all when turning the screen on.  Any ideas would be appreciated.

Phone - Galaxy S3

Carrier - Sprint

Android version - 4.3

I guess you are using stock Samsung firmware. If so, probably you enabled Samsung's "power saving mode".

Go to "power saving mode" settings and unchecked "CPU power saving" options.


Google Play Music Playlists So I'm just wondering if there is a way to "mass select" a heap of songs and then add them to a playlist all at once instead of having to select one song, add it to a playlist etc. for every song.

Cheers.

I'm using this apk to play music. To multi select songs, just go to all songs, and tap the button on top right upper corner, and you'll get check boxes by each song where you select them and click play.