Motorola Atrix 2 native camera app failing I use the native camera app and many of my recent pictures either have a large grey area with no information:

or noise in the picture made of bits of another picture:

Is this a known problem?  It was happening again last night with great frequency, so I  restarted the phone and the next picture was fine.

Edit:  I have since removed all 752 pictures. I shot a few more, and still had at least one shot with each of the problems presented here.  I believe I will try a 3rd-party camera.

As it turns out, my SD card was failing.  I have since replaced it and all pictures are fine thus far.


Insufficient Storage Available During Update Preface (TL;DR)
I know the issue of insufficient space has been discussed in various contexts but I have not found anything that specifically addresses the circumstances and issues that I am facing, so I am hoping to get some feedback that would help me better understand what is going on.
I have an HTC EVO 4g from Sprint running Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread) which has been unlocked using the Dev patch provided by HTC. Although it is rooted and I can apply a custom ROM to it, I have not done so yet for several reasons I won't get into but my issue should be independent of that. This phone is by far (in my humble opinion) one of the best and most stable piece of hardware that HTC has produced to date and I couldn't be happier with the phone, hence why I have not upgraded to a newer device. I know the older OS is a turn off to many and I agree that I wish I was running a higher version but most of them don't honor the latest drivers available which means you lose 4G functionality among other things. So I have stuck with it for now until such time as an updated drivers are released (doubtful but one can hope).
I have an 8 GB SD card (7.39 GB usable) and 4.05 GB free - since I move anything that has the option to run off the SD card to external storage. I have 500 MB internal storage (427 MB usable) and a little over 60 MB free. I have never had issues updating anything since the space present has always been enough to install or update before moving stuff to free more space.
The problem
Recently when updating apps it often gives me the insufficient storage available message – but it makes no sense to me.
Storage facts:

external SD with 8 GB (4 GB free)
internal storage with 500 MB (60 MB free)
example problematic app: apk size ~6 MB / installed size 11.46 MB

Detailed problem (again: TL;DR)
Specifically the app that is giving the problem recently is Lookout Security & Antivirus which has never been an issue and is only 6 MB and change but it will download it and when attempting to install pops that error. I don't get how a 6 MB file that has never had issue updating on less than 40 MB space is now giving me problems with over 60 MB free? The baffling part is that occasionally it WILL actually update just fine without issue and I have checked my cache and stuff, nothing there, no other apps running that would hog space or anything, so what's wrong? How can I mitigate this? Another bizarre thing that started to happen is that internal apps like Facebook which are bloated on there whether I like it or not and I use rarely are giving me problems too by issuing the invalid page file error. I mean what?
So what's going on here? What is wrong or what can I do to make it right so it stops being stupid like this? As I said, NEVER had a single issue with this phone, EVER, but in the past month it has driven me absolutely NUTS. I have even uninstalled applications that don't provide the move to SD option to free up nominal space and it stabilizes for like 2 days and then bam, back to square one even though it has more space now. I am at my wits end and I would appreciate the help; especially not being a novice this is even more mind boggling to me.
UPDATE: 10/26/13 @7:45 AM
The application updated normally without giving the error and it did so while the internal storage had only 43 MB (as opposed to the 60 MB when it failed numerously). This lends itself to even more confusion as to what is going on. The ONLY thing that was done in the meantime was that I rebooted the phone (actually more like I was low on power, shut it down and when I connected it to the charger, turned it on)

Same kind of a situation happened to my SAMSUNG GALAXY S2 and I could solve it by following these steps:

Open the phone app and switch to keypad.
Dial *#9900#
On the screen that appears, click on the button labeled "Delete dumpstate/logcat".


Just how secure is a pattern lock? I recently had a phone stolen. It's been replaced, I've changed my passwords, the phone company has shut down connectivity for the stolen one... I think I'm pretty much as safe as I can be.

However, it did get me wondering. How secure is the pattern lock? My phone had a pattern lock, so I assume that means that the casual user can't pick it up and do anything.

But if one had all the time in the world and some technical know-how, could they circumvent it?

Or is the phone only useable if the person wipes it and starts over?

Note 1: I know the data on the SD card is a separate issue, I'm just wondering about the phone and it's internally stored data.

Note 2: I've seen other questions about recovery of the password via one's Google account, but the person who has taken my phone (presumeably) doesn't have the ability to reset my pattern that way, so I believe this question is a separate issue.

You don't even need much technical know how to crack most touch screen phones. There was a white-paper written recently about the security of touch screen lock mechanisms (and pattern locks in particular) and breaking into these devices using purely the greasy smudges on the screen to get the unlock code.

  8 Conclusion In this paper we explored smudge attacks using residual oils on touch screen devices. We investigated the feasibility
  of capturing such smudges, focusing on its effect on the password
  pattern of Android smartphones. Using photographs taken under a
  variety of lighting and camera positions, we showed that in many
  situations full or partial pattern recovery is possible, even with
  smudge “noise” from simulated application usage or distortion caused
  by incidental clothing contact. We have also outlined how an attacker
  could use the information gained from a smudge attack to improve the
  likelihood of guessing a user’s patterns.
  ...

Smudge Attacks on Smartphone Touch Screens (PDF)

The rest of the paper is well worth a read too.


Overcoming softlock when creating /system/xbin on Android 9 Hoo roo,
Installing Linux Deploy (Linux chroot with root) on Android 9 requires that you install a custom version of busybox. However, due to system-as-root limitations on Android 9, you can encounter problems when attempting to run the custom busybox installer. The community has found a solution to overcome this, but I can't seem to get it to work.
My tablet is a rooted Onyx Boox Max 3 that has TWRP installed without a custom ROM, with dm-verity disabled.
Running ls -l `which su`  from a terminal emulator returns  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 1970-02-11 19:10 /sbin/su -> ./magisk so confirms that I am using the root busybox.
mkdir /system/xbinafter mounting /system as per instructions softlocks the tablet. Have also tried running mount -o rw,remount /sbin/magisk/mirror/system_root which also softlocks.
Are there any other options that I can try? Would really love a chroot of Arch on my eink tablet instead of just a proot. Would make for a much smoother experience.
Cannot emphasise how desperate I am, my failsafe is a proot using nix-on-droid, but reckon that performance will suffer. Does anyone have any ideas?

actually all you need is place 3 files, no need to install anything
/data/adb/modules/busybox-ndk/module.prop
id=busybox-ndk
name=Busybox for Android NDK
version=1.31.1
versionCode=13115
author=osm0sis @ xda-developers
description=Static busybox binary for all Android architectures built with the NDK
support=https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2239421

/data/adb/modules/busybox-ndk/service.sh
#!/system/bin/sh
/system/xbin/busybox --install -s /system/xbin

/data/adb/modules/busybox-ndk/system/xbin/busybox


How to play 5.1 audio direct to speakers I have an audio file recorded in 5.1 surround sound. I'd like to play this from my Android Device.

The issue I have is the various Android devices I have (tablets/phones) all contain the standard 3.5mm jack, which I think means stereo only! I'm not after a simulated surround sound, I need access to the outputs! Maybe it's possible via the USB?

My exact requirement (if it helps) is to end up with 4 outputs. Front left and Front right as a stereo pair and Back left and Back right as a stereo pair (I don't need the sub channel). However, being able to some how split the signal so each goes it's own speaker is also fine, I can worry about the rest. The focus is how the Android device can provide this signal(s).

The device I want to connect to is http://www.myxlshop.co.uk/j-s-external-sound-card-with-usb-51.html?id=50345220&gclid=CjwKEAjw1qHABRDU9qaXs4rtiS0SJADNzJis52lt2Cd65VkwFDc-wj4r9nsE6FUmd-g0prtGSYITjRoCz3fw_wcB (note it's USB input). Maybe with the new USB DAC input?

There are many ways you can get the audio out.

Through wire:

Head phone jack - you clearly said it can deliver only two channel audio.
USB - You can use an OTG adapter and plug in a 5 channel USB sound card and get the 5 channel audio out.
USB Type C may have this support native.

Wireless:

Bluetooth - if the A2DP profile is supported (will be supported from v2.0 onwards) you can stream audio in stereo - again not good enough for you.
Screencast protocols like Miracast or DLNA might support as it can be considered as a HDMI connection over Wi-Fi. These should support 5 channel audio.

Of course for all these you have to have a player which has appropriate codec support (usually AC3).


Android OS update - Directly or step-by-step? I'm about to buy my first smartphone ( I've chosen Nexus 5 ), and I don't really know much about Android.
Nexus 5 comes with Android KitKat 4.4, and from what I read, the newest version is 4.4.3.
Now my question : do I have to first update to 4.4.1, then 4.4.2, and then finally 4.4.3 , or can I just directly update to 4.4.3 ?

Also, though a bit unrelated, is the mm-qcamera-daemon issue present in all versions, or just in the latest versions ?

Thanks.

The update is cumulative , it will directly be upgraded to 4.4.3
Unfortunately the latest update doesn't address that bug.Source


Jellybean on Motorola Defy What is the procedure to install Android 4.1 or 4.2 on a Motorola Defy (MB525)? My phone is currently rooted and running Cyanogenmod 9.

Go to quarx2k.ru, and select one of the 2nd-boot folders. These work for both MB525 and MB526. Simply download and flash, making sure to wipe the system, data, and cache first. If you want google apps, go to goo.im and select 4.2 or 4.1, depending on what version works.

If you want a really stable version, select 4.0 or 4.1.
4.2 was not developed on very much, but 4.3 works, I use it daily.
It's not completely stable, but certainly usable.
4.4 works, but I really don't recommend it as of yet.

Hope this helps, message me if you want more information.


GS5 heart rate monitor coming on all the time Since the Lollipop upgrade I've noticed that every time my Samsung GS5 is awake when anything (finger, table, etc.) comes near the heart rate monitor it activates the red led. How do I disable this battery drainer?

I realized my wife's GS5 did not have this issue until she installed Google Fit. I uninstalled Google Fit from my phone and restarted it, problem fixed.


Ability to monitor sound volume when headphones are used? I am curious if there is a way to log sound volume when headphones are used to play music.

I am doing a research project to quantify hearing loss resulting from listening to music on phones and need a way for people to provide stats about how loud and how long people are listening to music with their headphones on an android phone.

Is this something I would need to root the phone to do?

No, you do not need root to monitor the volume.

If you're looking to develop an app for this project, you're in the lucky place because you do not need to know Android programming to deploy this.

There's an app called Tasker, which allows you to automate your device, but also allows you to export apk's (Android applications)!

Screenshot:

With Tasker, you can set up a profile to detect "volume changed" and send it to your webserver (or store it locally).

The navigation is Profiles Tab > "+" on bottom right > Event > Variable Set > Media Volume: %VOLM and create a new task to send it to your webserver via Action > Net > HTTP Post.

After that, download Tasker App Factory (separate app), and move your profile into a new project by long-pressing on the home icon, clicking "New Project", and naming it. You'll have to drag your profile and task to the new project, and set an icon for your project. Finally, you'll be able to long-press on your project, hit Export, and hit "As App".

Good luck with your project!


Restoring purchase of premium features after reinstall I was searching for a nice-looking Android app that can keep track of my expenses and I found Expense Manager. The app itself is free and it looks like it suits my needs, but it also has some premium features that I want. They can be unlocked through an in-app purchase. Before I pay money for them, I wanted to figure out how I can restore this purchase in case I ever have to reinstall the app after a factory reset.

Is there a standard procedure to restore this in-app purchase? Does it happen automatically? Do I have to do it manually through Google Play?

Applications often have a Restore In-App Purchase option in the settings.

Other applications may ask you to "buy again" the item, but you're not actually spending any money again.

It is often mentioned how you can restore your purchases in the application's description on Google Play or in the help category of the application (if any). You can always contact the developer for more information.

(Note that we are talking about Non-consumables purchases, it means purchases that are permanently associated with one's google account. More Information.)


Lost access to drawer icon for center button on CyanogenMod 7 I am running CyanogenMod 7 on my HTC Thunderbolt and somehow I inadvertently removed the function for the center button on my home screen between the phone and web browser icons.  This middle button used to bring me to the drawer where every installed application is listed, not just the ones on my home screen.

How can I restore the middle button functionality to get access to applications in my drawer?

It sounds like you just dragged the tray shortcut off the action bar accidentally. Try doing the following:

Long press on an empty space on any home screen
Select "Launcher Actions" from the menu that appears
Select "Open/Close App Drawer"
Drag the new shortcut back onto middle button of the Action Bar


How do I export all contacts (names and phone numbers) to a text file on SD card offline? How do I export all contacts (phone, SIM) with phone numbers to a text file on SD card? Without Google, without connected computer, without network. Just save everything to a text file.

It is function integrated into build-in Contacts app.

Open Contacts
Switch to "Contacts" tab
Press the tree-dots button at the bottom
"Import/Export"
Export to storage
Check all checkboxes
Check file like 00002.vcf

This is a vCard file. One can manually open it in a text editor and search for contact names and phone numbers even if no special program for vCard is installed.


Where Can I Find The Bootanimation.zip For A ROM On GitHub I'm looking for a bootanimation.zip from the latest Dirty Unicorns ROM.
However, I don't want to download the ROM, TWRP backup, wipe, install, extract bootanimation.zip, wipe, TWRP restore just to get it.

I was hoping to download it directly from GitHub. However, the ROM source code is split into loads of repos and I don't know where to look.

Where in the source tree and in which repo is the bootanimation.zip typically stored?

The bootanimation.zip will not be present in the Android Source Code or the kernel source code..

It's gets included from the vendor blobs while building the system.img ..

So, you'll have to check the corresponding ROM's vendor repository..

For CyanogenMod, it's here: https://github.com/CyanogenMod/android_vendor_cyanogen/tree/master/prebuilt

For Dirty Unicorns, it's here: https://github.com/DirtyUnicorns/android_vendor_du/tree/m/prebuilt/common/media

For Paranoid Android, it's here: https://github.com/AOSPA/android_vendor_pa/tree/nougat/prebuilt/bootanimation

For Pac ROM: https://github.com/PAC-ROM/android_vendor_pac/tree/pac-6.0/prebuilt/common/media

(These links are subject to change, please edit if there's any change or to add any other ROM's link)


Sending Video to iPhone user What is the best way to send a video that is over the MMS allowed size to an iPhone user?  I really don't see any good way to do it besides uploading to some sort of 3rd party (youtube, gdrive, etc..) and then sharing it to them?  Even using non-mms with hangouts doesn't seem to allow me to send video that I have previously taken.

Any suggestions would be wonderful.

Previously I have used Sizable Send to transfer very large videos from my phone to my boss's. You can send them the download link via email or text.

Alternatively, if the video isn't very large you could use Dropbox in the same way

Depending on the file size it might take a while to transfer.


Screen turns black after a telephone call on a Samsung i9220 The phone is fine. But. If... after I had a phone call on my Samsung i9220 then the screen turns black. If I press the button on the top right on the phones side I can see the "Desktop" for about ~0.5 seconds, but the screen turn black again. What could be the problem? The phone had been reseted several times and I can't find a setting for this in the "Settings". It has Android 4.1.1 and I think there is no update for the Samsung i9220 Android version yet, so it's up-to-date.

The problem could be your proximity sensor, which is located on top of the front of your phone. Basically the way it works is if you're on a call and you put your phone to your ear, the screen will go out to avoid your ear messing with the touch screen. If you are under warranty, have it checked on your nearest service center. I had this problem once, told my service center that I think the proximity sensor is the problem, then they fixed it in under 30 minutes.

Check out this question and install the apps from the top answer and see for yourself:

How do I test that proximity sensor on Galaxy Nexus works as expected


How to deal with dm-verity on a Samsung S7 Edge when installing a custom recovery like TWRP I'm just starting to explore how to customize my Samsung S7 Edge and I'm interested in moving an application over to the system partition. It's currently running Android 8.0. I've been doing a lot of research on the process before I just dive in and I feel like I have a good understanding of the process using ODIN, installing TWRP for my particular device, and using TWRP to move the installed app into the system partition.

However, what I'm struggling to find detailed information on is dm-verity and if/how it would impact what I want to do. I know my device utilizes it, but the sources I'm reading boil things down to "download and install this file using ODIN" and provide a handy link to the file without talking about the file at all or otherwise explaining what is being changed. I struggle to find those sources trustworthy since the file details are completely unknown.

I'm assuming I'll need to circumvent dm-verity in order to utilize TWRP. Is this assumption correct and, if yes, what are the detailed steps to do so?

For a Galaxy S7 Edge it is possible to root Android 7, and 8. It just apparently takes an engineering bootloader to do so. And I don't even think it is a REAL ENG Bootloader.

I agree with you however, most people in the XDA community that releases anything for a newer-ish samsung device gives little to zero information about what it is their files are even doing to your device.

Like seriously. Chainfire quitted working on Samsung Devices, and now all the big whig samsung devs, WILL NOT divulge their information to other devs.

Because some of the big devs will never own my device, but I can't work on my device because other devs won't share their knowledge, "because if they aren't going to do it, then no one is", apparently.

I had a real eng firmware for the Galaxy Note 5. The same thing they used on the Galaxy S8, but all those same devs laughed at me, and then stole my idea.

I will say JRKRUSE has some good, legit files for you to use on XDA, just don't expect him to explain anything at all. He keeps all his information to himself. Kind of like the S8 devs. Always general information, nothing specific.

But so far TWRP hasn't been officially flashed to a USA Galaxy S7/Edge device. And I think it is because of TWRP itself being so configured for default AOSP Android and not Samsung Android.


Change auto-brightness levels without rooting On my Android 4.4 device, is there a way to change the auto-brightness values without rooting the device, e.g. by writing a tiny application?

It is perfectly possible or you can use one of existing solutions on Google Play (for example Lux)

EDIT: OFC it works with 4.4, using it myself.


LineageOS encryption not working dispite being told it is I used to use cyanogenmod 13 on my nexus 5, i had the encryption enabled and it would ask me for my passcode at boot and i could not access any data from anything until i did this.

I've now updated to latest version of liniageOS and  recently noticed i am not having to enter this passcode at all, and that while the UI in the setting says i am encrypted, this is false information as i can access any data on my device either from recovery or from adb via usb.
I try to tap on the area where it says encrypted so i can re-encrypt it and it just does nothing.

I have herd about the massive bug/back door google have caused relating to accessibility features, however under accessibility i have the accessibility services for lastpass and comodo etc turned OFF, the only option on this page enabled is screen auto-rotate.

How can i encrypt my phone with this ROM, or can i not and i should ditch it ASAP and get a more security centric one? If so what would be recommended?

Most probably, you have default encryption where the password is default_password. You need root privilege for ADB.

Issue command in shell:

adb root
adb shell vdc cryptfs verifypw default

to check that.

You can always change the encryption password from UI and require that password at boot (preboot authentication) or much secure, define different lock screen && encryption passwords


How does the Android 7.0 Nougat Easter Egg work? I just installed the newest version of Android (Nougat) for my Sony Xperia Z5 and I know that in each version of this OS there is an easter egg in the options menu, so I tried to activate it by tapping on the right menu items, it shows the Nougat logo but after that nothing happens.
Does anyone know how it works?

But here I'll do the work for you.
A simple Google search: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/138312-how-to-access-android-n-nougat-easter-egg

Your first step, as already mentioned head to the settings menu, scroll all the way down until you reach "About Phone", tap that and find "Android version". If you press this option multiple times repeatedly, you'll get to a screen showing the Android N logo on your wallpaper.
Repeatedly tap the "N" a few times then press and hold on it and you should see a tiny cat emoji appear near the bottom of the screen.
Swipe down from the top of the screen to reveal your quick settings toggles and hit "edit". You should now see a cat face icon with the label, "???? Android Easter egg". Drag and drop this icon to to the main quick settings options and place it where you want it. Now, the fun can begin.
Hit your home button and then drag down the quick settings shade from the top of the screen again. This time you should see an "empty plate" option. Tap it and you'll see an overlay with four food choices: Bits, Fish, Chicken and Treat. Select one, then continue using your phone as normal, and wait.
Eventually, you'll get a notification telling you that a cat has snagged one of the treats. But it doesn't always work, which is kind of the point of the game. You have to keep trying, using different treats to bait a cat.
When it does work, you'll get a notification saying "a cat is here" with the number of the cat listed underneath. Tapping on the notification reveals a new screen with a cat icon which you tap once to rename, or long-press to reveal sharing options. You can save a full resolution version of the cat's picture to your device, or share it to all your social media accounts like every other crazy cat owner.


Change the sound profile automatically when starting and ending charging When my phone isn't plugged into the charger, it's in my pocket, so vibration suffices for notifying me of a phone call or text message. But unlike my previous phone, it doesn't vibrate loudly enough for me to reliably hear it when it's not in my pocket. So I'd like to automatically change the sound profile to "Sound" when I plug in the phone, and "Vibrate only" when I unplug it. How can I do that?

I have experience in administering Linux PCs and servers, but I'm unfamiliar with Android internals, so I wouldn't know where to begin to write a shell script for this.

This needs automation or using an app (if available) , i former is preferred option for me -Macrodroid is a versatile automation app:

You would need two macros

Trigger : Power disconnected/ connected → connected

Actions: : Volume Change → set Ringer to your desired level as also others as you wish

Constraints: None (Run always) or set up your Constraints under which macro runs

For the second macro, Trigger would be power disconnected and action would be Vibrate Enable


Battery drops 20% after reboot! Battery on Samsung Galaxy S2 on ICS likes to drop after reboot. Actually it happened when I was on Gingerbread as well. Anyone can help me fix this? Screenshots:

There is no easy way in finding which process consumes your battery. The battery monitoring tool in Android is not active during boot, so anyone wanting to know what's happening will have to make deep hackings in the Linux kernel and Android init scripts. I don't even believe you have a rooted phone or have a Android AOSP sources snapshot somewhere to hack into.

Also I believe that the battery estimation mechanism is somehow fooled at startup. Because it has no previous data to compare to (N is estimated depending on the value of N-1). So the level you see right after bootup is probably wrong. That's why you see the level strangely increasing although no power source was connected in the meantime. To what extent is this level wrong? Question without answer I think.

I have an easy solution though: stop installing apps that make your Android crash or need (stupid) reboot :-)


How to open SD cards as a drive in Windows 7? I have a rooted Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini with CyanogenMod 10 and I would like to connect its SD cards (internal and external) to my Windows 7 x64 machine as a harddisk drives via USB cable.

Now when I connect S4 to PC it shows as portable device, but a lot of applications cannot work with that (i.e. Total Commander synchronize dirs).

I tried uninstalling the devices drive from Device Manager, (I also checked "
"delete the driver") but it always uninstalls and again reinstalls the same version of the driver.

This app should help.

Since you've rooted your device, it should work fine.


How to copy folder and website shortcuts from device to device (on many devices) I work for a company that purchases 100+ customized tablets, that are then given to a client when he buys a product. Instead of a brochure, the client walks away with this customized (cheap) tablet, preloaded with some material.

What I have to do is to install PDF reader and EZ File Explorer.

EX File Explorer allows me to put folder shortcut to the home screen, and Chrome allows me to add website shortcuts to the home screen.

Doing this on all 150 tablets (once in 3 months) takes forever!

Would anybody know any solution how to copy and paste the shortcuts from one to the other?

So far I have not come up with any solution. The Chrome shortcuts cannot be copied (as far as I know) and I did not find a way to put on the screen shortcuts that could be copied. Similar with the folders.

Any help would save HOURS!!!

Thanks

A possible way to export the shortcuts is to first install another launcher for example Nova Launcher, then create the shortcuts. Open Nova Launcher settings, go to "Backup & import settings" click on "Backup". Save your configuration to an SD card.

Install Nova Launcher on another tablet, open its settings -> "Backup & import settings", click on "Restore or manage backups", select the backup from the SD card. The shortcuts will be recreated.


Samsung galaxy 3 says charging paused. Battery temperature too low I plugged in my S3 when it said 1% battery life and the red charging indicator light never came on, when i checked it a few minutes later it was at 0% and powered off. Immediately after that I tried to power it up and the power button did not work.  The next day it powered up but always says Charging paused battery temp too low and will not charge. I took it to a Sprint Service Center and the lady put a new battery in it and same thing. She said I need a new phone. It is only 5 months old and i dont see how this cant be fixed!

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Get yourself a heating pad, set it to low and slowly increment the temperature until it begins charging again. If this works, your easiest fix is to buy a battery charger and interchange batteries.

If your battery is dead, below operational then get it recharged for free at a battery store near you.

If you want to resolve the problem, then inspect the charging ports for corrosion or damage. If you have a soldering kit you may want to replace this part, if damaged, at your nearest radio shack or electrical parts store.

If the problem goes beyond that then call Samsung tech support higher levels and pick there brain of what parts on the motherboard controls the battery temperature and if they can give you a replacement part number you can order. This may be a lengthily process but would help others with this same problem.

Always recycle, your trash is another person's investment.


Will Security apps work even after flashing new rom? Assume that I have turned on Android Device manager to locate my phone in case of theft,  and I also installed some security apps which can send message when someone tries to change the SIM card.

Now suppose I lost my phone. The one who finds it is tech savvy. Firstly, (s)he does a factory reset after booting into Recovery mode, followed by flashing a new custom ROM, and then (s)he starts using my phone.

Will Android Device Manager still  work?

The Android Device Manager will probably still work, provided the new ROM contains the GApps. But it won't listen to you any longer.

If, as you describe in your question, the "new holder" is from the tech field, and did a thorough wipe plus installs a new ROM, nothing from your installation survives. It simply can't, with really all storage wiped/overwritten.

What some of those security apps offer is to be integrated with the ROM (on rooted devices only, of course). That helps to survice a factory-reset, as that doesn't touch the ROM (or, more precisely: /system, where those apps are installed then). But with the entire ROM and recovery replaced, plus all data wiped, where should they "stay"?


How does Asus PC Link work? I am using Asus PC Link with my Asus Zenfone 5. It allows my to remotely connect to my Zenfone, in a way similar to RDP, but it only supports Windows Vista or higher, not Windows XP, Mac, or Linux.

I am wondering how Asus PC Link works and if there is a similar program/apps that can be used with Linux and other Android devices.

As per this link Asus PC does the following:

ASUS PC Link lets you mirror your mobile device on your PC. It also allows you to control your Android device from your PC with the mouse and keyboard.

I know of one app named WebKey(libre software) which can remotely share your Android's screen to a computer (any platform). All you need to do is install this app, launch it (follow the instructions there) and once the service is started it will give you a URL. Type this URL into your browser (PC) and you're good to go.
Note that this app hasn't been updated since Dec 2013, and so, recent Android versions might not support it.

There is another method (I didn't try) called Live Screencasting. The instructions are mentioned at https://developer.chrome.com or you can click here. Note that this option is supported for devices with Android 4.4.3 and above. (Alternative link for easy instructions.)


How to safely root Samsung Galaxy Core Prime? In a nut shell I would like to safely root my Samsung Galaxy Core Prime or install another capable custom OS, because I really am unimpressed to the point I may return to T-mobile for the $30 LG Leon.

Last time I tried, I bricked it and had to swap for new one but they run like crap without root access.

I have rooted a few I am also trying to learn about coding and building Android apps... but I really just need help figuring out how to fix a soft bricked Android and/or how to save my info to SD  before I root so that I can get it back.

I suggest you search on Google on how to safely root your device.  You should choose the one that is appropriate for your device (it should have the same model number).

Also, install a Custom Recovery (CWM or TWRP) and please do a NANDROID Backup first, so you can easily restore your phone if something bad happens ...

UPDATE:

  Disclaimer:  I am not responsible for rooting your Android device in any way.  Before performing any of these steps make sure you back up your Android device completely ...

  Please proceed at your own risk!

There are a number of ways on how to root a specific device, so you should know your Model Number, because they vary on the Model Number.

Model Number

To find your model number, (I'm assuming that your device is Android 4.4-kitkat):

Open Settings, scroll down and tap on About Phone.
The Model Number should be there.

Custom Recovery

Your phone must be rooted, in order to install a Custom Recovery.

To install a Custom Recovery:

Enable USB Debugging on your phone:

Open Settings, scroll down, and tap on About Phone.
Tap on the Build Number 7 times.
Go back to the Main Settings Screen, and tap on Developer Options.
Scroll down, and find USB Debugging.  Enable it.

Download the recovery you want for your device (CWM or TWRP)

The recovery that you will download should be compatible with your device.

Download and install Odin on your computer, as well as USB Drivers.
Extract the downloaded recovery file.
On your Android device, go to Download Mode.

I suggest that you search on Google on how to boot into Download Mode on your specific device, but usually, the combination is this:

Power off your phone.
Hold Volume Down, Home, and Power buttons at the same time.
Press Volume Up to continue.

Connect your device to your computer, and make sure it detects your device.
On Odin, tap AP and locate the extracted recovery file.
Click Start.
Just wait a minute or less, and the Custom Recovery should be installed on your device.

NOTE: To check if the Custom Recovery is successfully installed, go to Recovery Mode:

Power off your phone.
Hold Volume Up, Home, and Power Buttons at the same time.
Release your fingers on the buttons when the Manufacturer Logo (the first screen that appears during boot, usually Samsung ...) appears.

NANDROID Backup

To perform a nandroid Backup of your phone, you must have a Custom Recovery installed on your phone (which you have done earlier).

Boot into Recovery Mode.
Go to Backup and Restore for CWM, or Backup for TWRP.
Follow the instructions on how to make a NANDROID Backup of your phone.

Usually, you only need to backup System, Data, and Boot.  But, it's up to you if you want to backup all partitions, as long as you have enough Storage Space.


SwiftKey: Keyboard completely gone after update! To all SwiftKey users who stumble accross this post: Do not update your SwirftKey app at the moment!

Hello everyone

Today I updated several apps on my Android 9 Huawei Mate 20 Pro (non-rooted), among them also the SwiftKey application. After this update my keyboard was gone, completely. Unfortunately I had the great idea that this could be solved by restarting my phone. But after the restart, when asked for the password (the entering of the pin worked fine; there was a numpad) there was and is no keyboard to enter anyting. i.e. the password.

This issue renders my whole device useless. In addition I have no clue on how to solve this and even if I did, I wouldn't be able to access my phone in any way (I think? Because even a connection to a computer would be denied without allowing USB debugging... Am I right?) - e.g. update SwiftKey again. SwiftKey is the stock keyboard of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro...

I wrote something very similar on the SwiftKey "Support" Page (here) - which is a community-help-itself-site, i think. (It's incredible that there is absolutly no possibility to contact SwiftKey directly, or am I mistaken?) But I thought the kind people here might be (way) more competent, especially if will I have to access my phone through a USB connection without the possibility to enter my password...

Any help is greatly appreciated. :) Many thanks.

Solution:

Use OTG adapter with an external keyboard. For details see accepted answer and this Reddit thread.

There must be some other issue that caused your SwiftKey app keyboard to be disabled or uninstalled. I just updated mine (deliberately)  to version 7.2.4.22 to test this and the app is working fine. I also restarted the phone and it still works.

Here are some solutions I can think of:

If you had an another keyboard installed, such as Google Keyboard (usually comes with most Android devices that ship Google apps), and provided you didn't disable the keyboard under Available Keyboard settings, you should be able to boot into safe mode and use the device. The stock keyboard app would kick-in automatically. Search internet for safe booting in your device.
Alternatively, since your device supports OTG host you should be able to use an OTG cable with any standard wired keyboard to enter your password/PIN. For a pattern, use a wired mouse.


How to disable Notification Sounds on per-app basis? I have an news app which gives me the option to get informed via push notification. I would like to receive this notification but I don't want it to make a notification sound. However the app doesn't allow me to choose a custom sound. Is there any other way to make it silent?

I do NOT want to disable the notification!

€dit: I'm on Android 4.2.2 ParanoidAndroid on Nexus 4

I do not believe there is a built-in way to do this. I highly recommend the light flow application which let's you customize light, sound and notifications on a per-app basis.


Gboard stopped working on Motorola phone Gboard stopped working on Motorola phone - I cannot type as no keyboard appears  data amd cache say 0.
I have tried various methods suggested, but still no keyboard appears when a cursor appears in a text box.

Ok I have just fixed this on my Motorola phone.  I believe an update has been rolled out to solve the problem so the issue is, how to get your gboard updated if it hasn't happened automatically.

"Gboard stopped working" kept popping up on my screen while following through on the process below, so I had to keep selecting "ok" every time it popped up, giving me small windows in which to perform the necessary actions.

Go to the Play Store, search for Gboard (SEE BELOW) and identify the app (which had its icon next to the word in the search options that came up for me) and select it.  You should then have the option to update the app.  Select update.  After the installation finished everything was working again for me.

IMPORTANT To enter Gboard into the search bar you cannot use the keyboard.  So select the microphone at the right-hand end of the search bar and speak, "Gboard" - i.e. use voice to text.


Monitor data connection based on location constantly I was wondering if there was way to ping google.com (or any other stable site) and record my GPS location. It would then append the result of the ping, GPS position, and the time to a log file on my phone. It would run every 10 seconds or so.

Basically, I just want to get a view of my phone's Internet connection throughout the day and at different times. After a full day running, I could then look at the generated log and figure out all sorts of interesting analytics for my phone.

Is it possible, perhaps using apps, script, or anything?

There are no apps appear to suit to your need. But you could use two separate apps to do what you need to do.

Use Googles My Tracks to record your location data automatically. This app,

Record data of where you are using GPS coordinates.
Allows you to monitor your trip or the places of visits in 3D maps.
Promotes easy sharing of your data.

Use Traffic Counter to monitor your data usage. This app,

Records your data usage details real time
Offer some good in-app analysis tools
Can be used to monitor calls, SMSs, WiFi, apps, etc. as well

With the help of these two, you can achieve your objective. No need to ping a site!


How to secure install untrusted app I need to use of Google Play Store app for my project. This app is prepared by unknown to me Chinese GPS devices' manufacturer and I want to use it to communicate with device.

App is published on Google Play Store but uses old type of privileges. With installation I would agree to share "Device & app history", "Contacts", "Location", "Phone", "Photos/Media/Files", "Camera", "Microphone", "Device ID & call information" and more.

I don't feel comfortable to share all that data with unknown to me manufacturer and with untrusted app (1 star in shop), but I need to use this app (because it connects to my physical device).

Is there secure way to install that app? Can I be sure that for example app won't copy all my contacts to some shady server? (I can't block network for app, because that would also block communication).

How can I mitigate some risks or limit app capabilities? Should I be aware of some other risks (like app accessing Android Pay)?

I have OnePlus 3 with Android Oreo (stock but in open beta).

Available approaches differ depending on multiple criteria:

Are you using a custom ROM such as LineageOS? It might ship with tools for that. LineageOS e.g. includes Privacy Guard, which let's you restrict apps pretty well.
Is your device rooted? Then you could use tools like LBE to achieve the same – which unfortunately is proprietary, so you cannot really say what goes on behind the scenes.
Is your device rooted and has the Xposed Framework installed? Depending on your Android version, this might hold some power here. For example XPrivacy – which unfortunately is no longer maintained and not compatible with Android 7+

What's left if your answer is "No" to all above? What ships with "stock Android" doesn't really let you control much. For example, all permissions marked as "normal" can't be regulated – which e.g. includes network access. So to really limit an app here, you'd need to modify the .apk file before installing it. So called APK Rebuilder¹ can do that. Basically, they let you mark which permissions you do not want the app to have, and remove them from the Manifest declaration. That way the app doesn't get them granted. It might then crash when trying to access related functionality – or even might not work at all if you removed too much. So general advice is first remove as much as you think useful – and if things go wrong, make a second, less restrictive build. Continue until it works for you – or drop the app and find an alternative.

Another approach is using a "manager" that sandboxes things. One such is Parallel Space (see this answer for details²). But that approach always has another draw-back: such a manager app requires almost all permissions available, as it needs to manage them for the apps you want to restrict. Which requires a lot of trust – and such manager app better be open source (AFAIR the one I saw was not) so it can be checked by as many eyes as possible.

¹ disclosure: link goes to my Android site
² and thanks to Morrison Chang for helping my brain with the name!


Backup and restore MMS Is it possible to backup AND restore MMS messages? It seems all the apps I've found on the app store that backup SMS and/or MMS cannot actually restore MMS messages (and similar comments on answers to other questions). Is there a limitation to android which would prevent this?

If your Android is not root, you can try another pc program called Backuptans Android SMS + MMS Transfer. Connected your phone to computer via usb or wifi and then click the backup button to save messages on computer. And yes, MMS restoring from computer to Android is supported. Tested with my Galaxy S3.

PS: It also can work for an Android phone with broken screen. Just make sure your have enabled usb debugging on device first.


Android Settings xml We have exported the Android Settings of a Device running Android 4.4.3
We want to use this settings.apk to make our own default build for my other android devices (same device, same Android Version).
We would like to get deploy customized preferences for all devices and we think that is possible to compile this app again with our new preferences included.

How can we deploy the same customized settings on a fleet of devices?

Device: Motorola TC70

What you want to achieve should be possible using adb backup (no root required):

Enable ADB USB mode on all devices (have to be done manually, AFAIK).
On the pre-configured device perform an adb backup of -all or if you know it only the relevant system settings app (I think it should be com.android.providers.settings?).
(optional) Decrypt and decompress the crated backup using Android Backup Extractor. You can now extract and edit the data in the backup, removing unnecessary/unwanted settings. Afterwards recreate the backup file using the modified data.
On each device perform an adb restore using the created backup from step 2 or 3.


Disabling the notification tray in Android L's (5.0) lock screen I think that this is a rather large security issue that has come with the release of Android L. I've always had a password on my lock screen for as long as I can remember, but in Android L it becomes nearly useless.

After locking my device I noticed that I can still pull down the notification tray from my lock screen with which I could toggle Wi-Fi, bluetooth, and data.

If someone was to steal my phone, they could easily turn off any wireless connection even with the phone locked - preventing me from tracking my phone (I realize that they can just turn off the phone and use fastboot to flash a new ROM onto it, but let's assume they're not that smart).

Am I just missing some magically hidden setting to disable the notification tray in the lock screen?

No, you're not missing a setting. This particular decision seems very unfortunate, and a ticket opened with google to resolve this has already some support : Google code ticket.
We can only hope that this will be reverted to the previous behaviour (allowed only when the lockscreen had no pin/password/gesture) or made into a setting.


Stock email app does not include certain attachments when forwarding email I am trying to forward an email with a powerpoint file attachment to a colleague in the company using the stock email app.

When I click forward , the paper clip shows up as though the attachment is being attached , however the recipient does not get the attachment.

I tried this with attached powerpoints that arrived from another company site over an encrypted email connection and it always fails to attach.

Other powerpoint files that I get from my gmail account always are included when I forward the emails.

So there is something unusual about these attachments that the stock Android email app cannot handle.

The kicker is that the same exact email can be forwarded with the attachment just fine using the iOS email app. I tried with my iOS phone which I also use from time to time.
So it seems to be a OS specific issue .

I'm sorry to tell you that Android's email forwarding function is broekn at least since 2009. Google is closing all bugreports and ignoring thisn problem. This kind of problem is easy to hide so those who don't an Android device won't know about it. And since fixing it won't bring in any money...there's no need to fix it.


Uninstall harmful app. 'Mobile tracker' can damage your device.' I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 international i9300 since 2012. I've never rooted it. The last app I've installed was a few months ago. I'm running Android 4.4.4.

Today, for the first time ever, I've gotten this notification. It appeared sometime while I was using the Dolphin browser app.

XDA forum thread seems inconclusive. Some say it's an app that you have to install (obviously I've never installed this app), others say it's a part of Samsungs firmware.

Does anyone know what this might be?

EDIT:

Although I haven't been able to confirm this, this seems to be an official Android or Google Play notification. I've clicked the uninstall button and the (Samsung's pre-installed) app 'Mobile tracker' has been removed from the applications list.

I faced the same notification on my Galaxy S 3 yesterday. It prompted me to uninstall it as the app can be used to spy on me. Here is a picture of the pop up:

I clicked on the OK button and hope that no malware has infiltrated the phone this way.


Whatsapp workaround? What I have:
- I don't want to install Whatsapp on my phone because I don't want it to access my personal data.
- There's an organisation that requires me to use Whatsapp to communicate with them.
- These two statements are mutually exclusive....

What I want:
- Is there any way for me to use Whatsapp without installing it on my phone? (I already have a Whatsapp user account.)
- Alternatively, is there a way to install and use Whatsapp without giving it access to all my data? (Contacts, calendar, camera, photos, etc etc.) I use Android 7.1.2 because there's no newer ROM for my phone.

I realize this might be offensive to some users ("use it or don't!") but please look past that. I'm trying to satisfy competing demands here.

Update:

I had another go at this. Installed the app again, did not give contacts permissions (or any other), and the app starts okay (on iOS it flatly refuses to start, so at least this is better on Android).
I cannot create a new message though. When I touch the "new message" button, I get a popup to share my contacts. No! This is not going to happen.
It won't let me just type in a phone number and send to that user. (This is allowed in Signal, for instance.)

You can disable the permission given to WhatsApp from setting --> Apps and notification --> App info --> Whatsapp --> Permissions and then turn off the permissions which you don't want to share. Whatsapp needs a valid sim card to run which can be used on phone or desktop only. Hence, you can run Whatsapp on desktop having a sim card option.


Unable to sync chrome passwords on Huawei P20: "Android system sync disabled" Recently, my passwords are no longer being synced to my phone, which is a Huawei P20.
When I open Chrome - Settings, it says: "Android system sync disabled". When I click on this, it says:

  Sync isn't working. Open Android settings and re-enable Android system sync to start Chrome sync.

How do I re-enable Android system sync?

I asked Google, but all I could find are answers for Android phones. When I go to Users & Accounts - Google - ***@gmail.com, it says "Auto-sync off, touch to sync" for all items. Moreover, when I touch to sync Chrome, it doesn't do anything. Also in Users & Accounts, when I click the three dots, the option to Auto-sync data is grayed out.

Power saving mode is the problem. Go to Settings > Battery > turn Power saving mode off.

Then go back to Settings > Users & Accounts > check Auto-sync data.

A few minutes later, everything will be synced.

(From https://techandcoolstuff.com/how-to-fix-auto-sync-data-greyed-out-huawei-mate-20-pro-user-accounts-not-synchronizing/)


Storage Space Running Out? I have been getting warnings of storage space running out on my Moto X Play running CM13.

So what I did was go into my storage settings and formatted my 64GB external SD card as internal storage.

I tried going into play store and downloading an app and still I get insufficient storage error and my phone is giving me storage is running out errors.

All the apps are stored in internal memory all external ? If it is internally stored then by moving to SD card can solve your problem.

In case of externally stored I guess you can do these things :

Hard reset your phone
Install a good anti virus app
Clear the junk files from your phone by installing clean master or like that apps.
Check your SD is corrupted or not.
Uninstall system apps ( that are not very useful to you - Google drive, google    music and all). This point need root, so try to root your phone first than only you can do this.

You can get many tutorials on rooting on Google just type your phone model it will give you according result.

Hope it helps!


what backup/sync app is recommended for android phones (without computer)? good software to automatically sync and backup your files without having to connect it to a computer via USB

I heard Dropbox is a good alternative, but I have not tried it myself.


Path for bash in Android termux Regular paths for bash do not work in termux app.
I tried:
/usr/bin/bash
and
/bin/bash
Also 'whereis' command gives the following output:
$ whereis bash bash:
/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/bash
But this path also is not correct. So, I have to run every bash script with the word 'bash' before it. And cannot run bash scripts without it.

In September 2017 the maintainer of Termux released a package termux-exec, which wraps up execve(2) so that files that has a shebang line like #!/bin/sh or #!/usr/bin/env will run correctly in Termux. Just run

pkg install termux-exec

and restart Termux (or open a new session). You'll now be able to run #!/bin/sh scripts.

The previous solution was as following:

  Termux provides a handy utility

termux-fix-shebang

  Whose description reads:

    Rewrite shebangs in specified files for running under Termux,
    which is done by rewriting #!*/bin/binary to #!$PREFIX/bin/binary.

  Just apply it to the scripts you wish to run. It does what its name suggests: fix the shebang line #!/xxx of your script files. It can also fix other scripts like Perl or Python.

Also note that by default your working directory is not in $PATH, so you cannot directly type myscript.sh, but instead

./myscript.sh
^~

... or explicitly specify an interpreter shell (in which case you don't need the directory prefix):

bash myscript.sh
^~~~


Sound from VLC video after locking screen So I'm watching a video talk in VLC on my Samsung I9305 rooted stock 4.4.4 with Xposed Framework, and I want to lock the screen and put the phone in my pocket, but still continue listening to the audio of the talk. Is it possible to do this with VLC, or do I have to switch to another media player?

It turns out this is actually a native function of VLC 1.7.4 (and probably previous versions too) for Android.

Click the three horizontal lines in the top left corner (on the file selection screen, not while a video is playing).
Click on "Preferences".
Tick the "Play videos in background" box.
Play a video.
Lock the screen.
Keep listening to the audio from that video!


How do I merge SMS threads? I sent an SMS to several contacts, so Android put it in one thread as "Alice, Bob, Charlie, Dylan, Ed, and 5 more". Then Bob and Ed replied, each having their own threads.

Can I merge Bob's and Ed's threads with the multi-contact thread? How do I do that?

From http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1227352 :

  I successfully merged SMS threads by creating a backup using SMS Backup & Restore.

  Just open the created .xml file in e.g. Notepad++, then replace your
  contact's old number in the "address" field with the new one. Now load
  the altered backup file back onto your phone, delete your messages
  from within the app, and restore your newly created backup file.
  Although it worked fine for me on the first try, I recommend keeping
  your initial backup file, and save your editing to a copy - just in
  case.

  Using this method, I also fixed some splitted threads, where one
  contact with one number got split up in several threads, because of an
  incorrect number restore from backups when switching phones.

  Hope this helps. :)

Here's SMS Backup & Restore


Hotspot connectivity stops while on phone I have an HTC One M9 (Verizon). I regularly use the hotspot to give my laptop internet while commuting. However, I have noticed that while using hotspot, if I make or receive a phone call, internet connectivity through the hotspot stops (the laptop stays connected to the hotspot, but has no internet access) for the duration of the call, and is instantly restored the moment the call ends.

Why does this happen, and, if possible, how can it be fixed? I would like to be to use hotspot and make a phone call at the same time. My previous HTC One M8 (Verizon) did not suffer from this problem.

I also haven't been able to find much about this while Googling, though I can't tell if it's because my problem is rare or because the search terms are just too general.

(P.S. someone should make an htc-one-m9 tag for the site)

For what ever reason the M9 doesn't support SVLTE(simultaneous voice and LTE). The M8 did.


Is there a SMS to bluetooth router app? I have a bluetooth device that is paired with my phone.  The BT device can receive and send text.

How can I route incoming SMS text messages to the BT device?  And conversely, how can I have the BT device send an SMS via the phone?

There is no standard for this in the Bluetooth protocol stack, so the solution depends highly on the manufacturer of the device. If the manufacturer hasn't created an app for Android, it's probable that you would have to program it yourself or have someone do it for you. This would require that the manufacturer has public protocol definitions available for the communication between the devices.


Can I have Gmail and Inbox by Gmail installed together I am a Gmail user but would like to try Inbox by Gmail. But.. I don't want to have Gmail removed as part of the "upgrade".

Is this possible?

You can indeed! Inbox will give you a pop option to disable notificaitons from Gmail and get them from Inbox, or you can just get the usual Gmail notification. They are completely separate applications, both just happen to link to your emails, which are online so the Gmail app will have the usual layout, and Inbox has its bundles, previews etc. If you wanted you could get notifications from both of them (though that would be more of a pain I'd imagine)

I've been using it for a few weeks now with both installed and I have no conflicts bar one small one: Tesla Unread Plugin. This is an extension for Nova Launcher Prime that shows the number of unread mails/texts/missed calls etc over the icon for an app. On a rare occasion Gmail has a '1' over it after I've read the mail in Inbox. Opening and refreshing Gmail, or just leaving it alone for a few minutes solves it.


Samsung Galaxy S2: Autorotation only in stand-by mode I have the problem with the auto-rotation since the GingerBread 2.3.6 and now with the ICS 4.0.3, now the rotation works only if I put in "stand by" the screen, then I rotate the phone and it rotates...the blue ball in calibration setting does not move...I tried the hard reset, the rooting (in gingerbread), the reflashing (GingerBread and ICS), nothing to do...There is only a strange fact the App GyroDroid when I had gingerbread the "linear acceleration test" did not work, now (ICS) it works...but it seems that my accelerometer works only in that test :-( What can it be? Thanks

Please be aware that home screens DO NOT rotate.

As well as this, developers can request their apps are only to be used in portrait mode - they therefore won't rotate automatically.

If you really want to rotate your screen, you can download the Set Orientation app, which will allow you to force your screen to rotate, based on a default orientation setting, or your sensor.


How to disable Google Apps in Mi Phones I observed in case of Mi phones like Redmi Note 4 & Mi Max2.

We’re not able to disable Google Apps like Chrome, Play Music, Play Movies & TV, etc.

Please let me know, how to disable Google apps?

If you can't disable it normally in settings or the disable button has been greyed out for some reason then I'd suggest you'd follow this procedure given in this MIUI form thread: Disable Google Apps In MIUI 8 (and 9) which I too confirm to be 100% working (tested).

Install Quickshortcutmaker from Playstore
Select normal search - under input box type manage apps and click search

In search results it will show settings click it, you will find "manage apps" under click then click try (or create shortcut by pressing create).

From here a list of installed applications is shown, navigate to the desired google app(s), select the app, and now you can click disable button to disable the app.

NB: No root is required!

Acknowledgements

Disable Google Apps In MIUI 8


Checking for software vs. hardware keyboard problems.? Lenovo A12 YB-Q501F Android 6.0.1 I've got the tablet listed above, and discovered that the built-in keyboard (called the Halo Keyboard) now barely functions.
A few keys on the left side of the keyboard work, but not consistently. None on the right half of the keyboard respond at all.
It all worked fine a few months ago.
The tablet has an attached keyboard and operates almost like a laptop, but the keys are pressure-sensitive buttons rather than physical keys. The keyboard lights up when it's in a configuration to be used.
I use it mostly in tablet-only mode, and the keyboard is on the other side of the device in that mode, not active.
I tried checking for system updates but haven't found anything.
A lot of searching doesn't turn up my problems, and often gather in responses from a Windows version of this same machine. They usually refer to reinstalling drivers but I can't determine if that's applicable from the posts.
One error that I've noticed is after many attempts at hitting keys on the physical board, and then going to use the android keyboard, many of these random presses will show up later. When I start typing in a search bar, I will get hit with a long string of 'aaaaaa' or 'zzzzzz' etc.
I've rebooted the machine twice; I'm also going to try a factory reset, though there is data on the machine I want to get off first.
I'd love to see if I can determine if this is a software problem or if the keyboard itself has become faulty. I'm familiar with Linux but I'm not an expert with Android! Is there any kind of diagnostic that I can do?

In this particular case, I discovered a small hairline crack along the physical keyboard section. (It is touch-based and flat, with no physical keys, just outlined sections for key placement.)
Everything on one side of the hairline crack is not working, and most of the stuff on the other side is, with some errors.
Although my device's problems can't be solved through software, @alecxs had some good advice for listing and monitoring devices, if that is useful for however finds this later!


Android package for accessing 5 GHz wifi information like RSSI? Is there a package file for android that I can access information of WiFi operating at 5 GHz. information like scanning the wifi networks available in 5 GHz bands, accessing RSSI of all the APs operating in 5ghz band?

Wifi Analyzer is a great app for viewing wifi information


How to allow google to save & sync wifi passwords? My Galaxy S7 is not saving wifi passwords. I think the reason behind this is that I refused google to sync wifi passwords with my account. I searched for a way to enable that feature. I'm supposed to open the Settings app, click on "Google" and change the Networking settings. The problem is that there's no "Networking" option in the "Google" section.
I can't root my phone because it's still on a warranty period so most solutions suggested on this question-board don't apply to my case.
I tried to clear the cache of the Google Backup Transport, but it doesn't have any data to clear (0.00B of internal storage used).
Passwords are lost only after disabling and enabling wifi. If the wifi is turned on all the time, I can reconnect to my wireless network without the need to enter a password.

I think the option you are looking for is now in Backup menu in Settings. Try searching for "backup" and "back up". Screenshot:

After enabling it you also need to select your primary backup account (search for "Backup" this time if you don't see it).


Why is a random app being opened when I exit an app with Back button? On my Nexus 7 G1 (4.4.2 KitKat), sometimes, when I press back button to exit an app, a random app is opened instead of Home Launcher (Nova Prime). Sometimes, this random app is opened temporarily (then, Home Launcher becomes visual). And, this random app isn't chosen from my Recent Apps list. Means, this happens even when the app never appeared in Recent Apps list before.

What's going on? How to fix it?

It's most likely related to how the task stack works.

In Android, an application can open an activity in another application, but the task stack still belongs to the first application instead of the second.

For example, if you open a YouTube link from Firefox then the back button will take you back to Firefox. The task stack may often cause apps back button to appear to behave strangely especially if you don't understand how the task stack works; most strange behaviors with the back button is caused by users that don't understand back stack, but sometimes strange back button behaviors may be because of a bug in the application, or because of application developers that don't understand the task stack and tried to work around it rather than with it (causing grief for people that do expect proper back stack behavior).

The task stack is also the reason why the Recent apps list may show an app that belongs to say Firefox but shows a Screenshot that appears to come from the Youtube app, and clicking that app will bring you to a Youtube activity instead of to Firefox.

The recent apps list shows both the app name and a screenshot because both are needed to decide which app to switch to. If you want to go to the Youtube app to start a new task, you should switch to the app that is named Youtube, instead of any apps that have the Youtube app screenshot.  But if you want to return to the video you watched before that email come that interrupted you, then you want to go to the one that shows the right Screenshot, which may actually be named with your browser or newsreader.

I used Firefox and YouTube as an example but this works similarly in any properly written apps.


How to prevent VLC from closing when paused for around 5 hour At the moment, I use the VLC application for my music on my cellphone. Recently, they pushed out an update that moved everyone away from the beta application to the normal one.

Since this update, I'm noticing the fact that the application shuts down after you pause the music for around 4-5 hours.

This behavior ready broke my workflow, where before I only had to plug in my audio cable, I now need to plugin my cable, unlock my phone, open VLC, manually add every audio file in my files, and then turn on shuffle, before I can enjoy my music 2 times a day.

How do I make VLC stay active during periods of inactivity?

I have installed to VLC v3.0.5 on Android 7 and have not had a problem thus far. It could be an Android specific problem or networking if you use streaming media. I only playback music and do not watch videos or internet streams on VLC. Here is how I went about with the updated VLC.

In existing install of VLC. Go to phone's setting and choose App. Choose to clear cache and clear data. Then uninstall.

Install VLC from Play Store. At installation, give it time during parsing media stage (monitor the progress window), if anything interrupts it then you will have to manually add media files. Takes me just over 3 minutes to clear parsing media stage.

Allow permission to

Photos, media and files on your device

Draw Over Other Apps

add device SD card to medialibrary

Hope this helps.
The only permission I did not give it is,
Allow write system settings.


What are apps 10110 & 10109? On my galaxy S2, the mobile data usage shows two applications 10110 and 10109 consuming a lot of data. Does anyone know what these apps are? Or how I can find out?
I am running jellybean 4.1.2 on Samsung Galaxy S2.

That are most likely not app names, but their "user IDs" (and the system is unable to match a name).

On a rooted device, you could find out more on those by executing

ls -l /data/data | grep 10110

(which should show you the data directory of the app owned by that user, together with some more data). Investigating that directory might give you an idea: its name is the package name, which you could even lookup at Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=<package_name>

While that's unlikely to find the app (or your system really is in trouble not being able to match the two), it's at least worth a try. In case nothing is found, you can investigate that directory's content to make a "good guess" what it might be about. Also, the name of the directory itself might already have given you a clue.

I will give you an example (from one of my extracted Nandroid backups). Let's say ls turned up com.motorola.android.fota on a Motorola device. So by the fact it's a Motorola device, and the package name starting with com.motorola.android one can deduce it's a system app build by the manufacturer. Assuming one doesn't connect the fota with anything, in the subdirectory databases one finds two SQLite files. I checked the config.db and saw it has two tables, at least one of them seemingly all about updates (auto_update_interval, auto_update_enable, and more). The second one is fumo.db and seems to hold information about packages. So this is most likely an app responsible for updating apps -- and if you not already know, "FOTA" stands for "Firmware Over The Air update".

However, to do that your device must be rooted (users other than root it won't permit to browse the /data/data directory).


How To Create A New Gmail Contact Or A Yahoo Mail Contact From Android Device I would like to create a new Gmail contact or Yahoo mail contact from my Android device.  It's a Samsung Galaxy S4 running Android 4.4.2.  I've tried looking in the Yahoo mail app, the Gmail app, and the Google+ app on my phone, but I can't find any options to create a new contact.  I would prefer not to create the contact on my phone, since I've been having trouble exporting all of the device contact information to my Gmail and Yahoo mail accounts (specifically, it doesn't seem to send the groups that the contact is a member of).  Any help would be much appreciated, even if only to say that this is not possible or that it requires a 3rd party app.

I know you can tap the icon next to their name in Gmail and it'll ask if you want them to added to your contact list, although not extensive, I'm sure can be edited further. I can't help with Yahoo!'s service though as I don't use them primarily. Someone else may be able to answer you on that point.


Several general questions about Sony Ericsson Live View First does it have an acceleration, compass, or "gyroscope".

Second can it make noises?

Third does it work for HTC Sensation?

Thanks ahead of time.

From the Sony Ericsson website, the Live View specs page has no mention of a compass, gyroscope, accelerometer or similar. It doesn't mention anything about speakers either but does mention controlling phone calls and music playback on your phone, which would suggest its not designed to make noise itself but to control the music/sound on a phone (or other compatible device) that it's connected to.

The compatible phones page (other brands) lists a number of HTC phones, but not the Sensation. It does however say:

  Compatible with most other brands on Android 2.0 and up that are
  equipped with Bluetooth™ 2.1.

According to HTC's Specs page for the Sensation it has Bluetooth v3.0 compatibility, so it is likely that it will work with the Live View.


Warning message after doing backup in TWRP on Honor 8 (FRD-L09) When I do a backup in TWRP on my Honor 8 (FRD-L09), it invariably end with a message saying that it failed to unmount /system due to device or resource being busy. The header still says that the backup is complete, and that it was successful.

In case it makes a difference, I'm running FRD-L09C432B131, which is EMUI 4.1, Android 6.0. Kernel is 3.10.94 from 11 October 2016. This is what was installed on the phone when I got it. I got the bootloader unlock code from Huawei, by registering and applying for it. TWRP is 3.0.2-0 downloaded from here and flashed using fastboot on Windows 10.

Here's a photo of TWRP after finishing the backup:

Need I worry about this?

To isolate the problem, 1) reboot into Android and see if it does so properly, and 2) reboot back into recovery and do the same operations.

Judging from your response on the 2 points, it seems your recovery is at fault here. Not unmounting /system is usually not a problem: that step is done as a safety precaution to prevent accidental modification to /system when not flashing. As long as you don't do that yourself you should be fine.


Android with mouse, keyboard and touchpad What should I do to be able to use my USB keyboard and mouse with my Android 2.1 tablet?

I like the idea of bluetooth, but my tablet doesn't support bluetooth.

Is there some device similar to touchpad that can be used instead of tapping to screen?

thank you for answer

You cannot use a keyboard and/or mouse with android. This is not supported unless you have android 3.1 or later. That is the first version that supports USB Host Mode.

For "normal" USB devices, if your device does not support them, you will probably need a MicroUSB -> USB adapter, or a MiniUSB -> USB adapter.


How to receive call and force that call to ring indefinitely to the caller but not the receiver My ultimate goal is to handle incoming calls that are obviously robospam, in such a way so that the robocaller cannot detect that this is a valid phone number with a real human at the end (including voicemail). If the robospammer detects that it is a valid number, they will record it for future spams. So I want that number to ring and ring indefinitely, and not go to voicemail.

Most importantly, even if they have prior knowledge that I have picked up and hung up, or they left voice mail in previous attempts at reaching a live human at this phone number, I still want to send the call to the "ring indefinitely" state, and not go to voice mail, such that the caller hears the ringing, but the receiving phone stops ringing. The reason is that eventually the robospam problem has increased to the extent that, by my current practice off simply allowing all of them to go to voicemail (e.g., flipping the phone over to trigger the proximity sensor logic which then pushes it to voicemail), means that I have the ever increasing burden of listening and deleting the voicemails that are obviously spam. And that is a waste of time and distracting.

So, is there a way to configure a Samsung Galaxy Note 8, under the AT&T carrier, to allow me to ring indefinitely, and not go to voicemail, and not be answered with some automated message? I'm not interested in rooting the phone.

Various Contact and Phone Tools - Android App Overview - IzzyOnDroid has a listing of related apps, but none are exactly what I'm after.

What you want is mostly a carrier-specific circumstance, and less of an Android device one.  Though, some OEMs support the ability to turn off call forwarding via Call app settings:

Device > Apps > Phone > More settings > Call forwarding > Voice call.  Then, disable these three things: "Forward When Busy", "Forward When Unanswered" and "Forward When Unreached".  This option may not be available on your device.

If the above option isn't offered on your device, you will have to log onto or call AT&T customer support to turn off voice mail for your account.

See: https://forums.att.com/t5/AT-T-Phone-Features/Turn-Voicemail-On-and-Off/td-p/3606949


How can I check which CPU chipset do I have? I want to check if I have a Snapdragon or Exynos chipset. How could I check this quickly? I need this info because I plan to root my phone, and it matters, exactly which chipset the phone has.
I have tried to find this info inside the phone, but no luck.
Do I need to install some app, or can I get this info without additional software, by reading it somewhere inside the phone?

First you'll need to find your device's Model Number.

You can find this in Settings > About Device, under the field Model Number.

It may look something like: SM-G930F.

If your device is in a state where you cannot navigate to Settings > About Device, please refer to the bottom of my post for alternative methods to lookup your model number.

Once you've found your model number, you can look up its chipset in my source, or in the tables below:

Samsung Galaxy S7 SM-G930

╔══════════════════╦════════════════════╦════════════════════╦════════════════╗
║ Country / Region ║ Cell Phone Carrier ║    Model Number    ║    Chipset     ║
╠══════════════════╬════════════════════╬════════════════════╬════════════════╣
║ Canada           ║ BELL MOBILITY      ║ SM-G930W8          ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ China            ║ ALL                ║ SM-G9300, SM-G9308 ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ Europe           ║ ALL                ║ SM-G930F           ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ Korea            ║ KT                 ║ SM-G930K           ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ Korea            ║ LGT                ║ SM-G930L           ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ Korea            ║ SKT                ║ SM-G930S           ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ Southeast Asia   ║ ALL                ║ SM-G930FD Duos*    ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ US               ║ CRICKET            ║ SM-G930AZ          ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ AT&T               ║ SM-G930A           ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ METROPCS           ║ SM-G930T1          ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ LTE RURAL VERIZON  ║ SM-G930R6          ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ C SPIRE WIRELESS   ║ SM-G930R7          ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ SPRINT PCS         ║ SM-G930P           ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ T-MOBILE           ║ SM-G930T           ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ US CELLULAR        ║ SM-G930R4          ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ VERIZON            ║ SM-G930V           ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ UNLOCKED           ║ SM-G930U           ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
╚══════════════════╩════════════════════╩════════════════════╩════════════════╝
* Dual-sim

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge SM-G935

╔══════════════════╦════════════════════╦═════════════════╦════════════════╗
║ Country / Region ║ Cell Phone Carrier ║  Model Number   ║    Chipset     ║
╠══════════════════╬════════════════════╬═════════════════╬════════════════╣
║ Canada           ║ BELL MOBILITY      ║ SM-G935W8       ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ China            ║ ALL                ║ SM-G9350        ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ Europe           ║ ALL                ║ SM-G935F        ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ Korea            ║ KT                 ║ SM-G935K        ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ Korea            ║ LGT                ║ SM-G935L        ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ Korea            ║ SKT                ║ SM-G935S        ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ Southeast Asia   ║ ALL                ║ SM-G935FD Duos* ║ Exynos 8890    ║
║ US               ║ CRICKET            ║ SM-G935AZ       ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ AT&T               ║ SM-G935A        ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ METROPCS           ║ SM-G935T1       ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ LTE RURAL VERIZON  ║ SM-G935R6       ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ C SPIRE WIRELESS   ║ SM-G935R7       ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ SPRINT PCS         ║ SM-G935P        ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ T-MOBILE           ║ SM-G935T        ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ US CELLULAR        ║ SM-G935R4       ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ VERIZON            ║ SM-G935V        ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
║ US               ║ UNLOCKED           ║ SM-G935U        ║ Snapdragon 820 ║
╚══════════════════╩════════════════════╩═════════════════╩════════════════╝
* Dual-sim

If your device is in a state where you can't get as far as Settings > About Device, then you can resort instead to rebooting into recovery mode or into ODIN mode.

Recovery mode displays the model number SM-G930F like so:

Android Recovery
MMB29K.G930FXXU1BPHJ
samsung/heroltexx/herolte
6.0.1/MMB29K/G930FXXU1BPHJ
user/release-keys

And ODIN mode displays the model number SM-G930F like so:

ODIN MODE
Download speed: fast
Product name: SM-G930F
Current binary: Samsung official
System status: official
FRP lock: ON
Secure download: enabled
Warranty void: 0 (0x0000)
RP SWREV: B:1 K:0 S:0


Without switching on, charger lights turns ON when phone gets connected? It's kinda bad day today as i dropped my phone into a water for 5 sec. Phone turned on & I tried to clean it.

Since the battery gets low, i plugged the charger cable to my phone. Without switching ON the charger, the light turns ON in Charger but the truth is i didn't switched ON.

What issue is this? Is my phone discharges the battery when something gets connected without Turning ON anything? Also, i can't charge the battery. Please help!

Ok, i think answering my own question will be helpful for other to easily to get.Right,the Solution is

  Keeping in an uncooked rice for some hours made phone to work.

As the comments to my question pointed out, definitely …

avoid drying it with heat (e.g. in the sun, on a heater, or with a hairdryer)
keep the battery out of the device during the "drying process" to avoid short-circuiting

Hope it helps others!


My smartphone battery was damaged Can I change battery for my Motor G (Motorola)? My smartphone's battery was damaged. What can I do with it? It say that I shouldn't remove the battery

To expand on @RossC's comment, doing this yourself is quite easy if you are confident and comfortable with device disassembly, and have the correct tools. There are tutorials on how to safely and correctly replace this:

iFixIt: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Motorola+Moto+X+Battery+Replacement/16974
ETradeSupply video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd3AZSXhOf8

From experience, I strongly suggest you watch the entire video and/or read the whole article before ever even starting. That way no surprises creep up on you, and you already have an idea as to everything you'll need to do.

Tools can be found widely online and may be worth the investment ($2 kit on Amazon, $1.35 kit on eBay).

Note that this might void any warranty you have from Motorola or your device's distributor. You could check with them first and see if the repairs might be covered for free or a fee. Motorola can always help but may cost you more money (if you are at fault for the damage) or can take a while to complete due to shipping, service backlog, etc.


Unroot R-Box (Android 4.2.2 device) I've bought an Android TV-Box from ebay - it's called R-BOX. I got the device with Android 4.2.2 and root access. However I don't want root. I tried to reset the system and remove root with SuperSU. None of it worked. The vendor software version is RK3066_R-BOX_ANDROID4.2.2-SDK_V1.0.0_130308.

You could install Titanium Backup and freeze the SuperSU app which provides root access on your device. I wouldn't recommend uninstalling it if you don't know how to get it back.


Usb connection malfunction I had samsung galaxy tab 10.1 gt-p7510 wifi only version.
couple of weeks back, my tab couldn't connect to my pc or any other PC I've tried on.
It says the Usb connection malfunctioned and is not recognized..
whats the problem, how do I solve this...?

Some PCs may not recognize the Galaxy devices; if by PC you mean Windows, you can install the USB drivers by installing Samsung Kies.

One possibility is to try different USB ports, but since you have tried other PCs this seems less likely.

If the drivers are installed, the cable is the next likely culprit. Some cables are only for charging. You could borrow one to try, but data-transfer cables are cheap.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-tab-2/302789-samsung-galaxy-tab-2-7-0-usb-device-not-recognized.html

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1861433


Deleting emails in the online GMail list, does not delete them on my Android 2.2 Samsung Galaxy S, is this normal? This morning I decided to clean up my emails list in my gmail account using the Windows wb browser.

However when I opened the gmail application on my Samsung Galaxy S running Froyo 2.2, the emails I deleted online where still present.

Is this normal behavior or is there a setting which controls this.

I looked around for some setting, but found none. I also looked at the help on Gmail where is explained that you can clear the gmail's application data, but was just wondering whether there wasn't an easier way. All in all, this seems to be a logical operation no?

Aha I have found it : the emails were still in the trash. Once I viewed the trash, highlighted them all, and than choose the 'Delete permanently', than when syncing on the device, the 'deleted' mails were gone too.

GAThrawn was so convincing in his reply that they should have been deleted, I investigated some more ... thanks.

I will keep my answer here, since it might help others in the future.


I rooted my phone and its memory got deleted. Is that normal? Any way to recover= I rooted my phone, a HTC, and its memory got deleted. This was the fourth telephone I rooted and I can not recall it has happened before so I was a little sloppy when I read the warnings displayed during the process (besides, it was necessary since backing up of this phone had stopped working and I needed a backup of the wifi-passwords).

Is it "normal" that the memory is intentionally deleted when rooting?

Any ways to recover? I have put the phone aside and not used it since this happened but the memory was encrypted.

Yes this is the warning you must not have read...

I imagine from my own experience with HTC and unlocking the bootloader that you followed the official process on the HTC Dev site... ( HTC Developer Website ) ... Official page..

Unlock bootloader page - Unlock Bootloader..

It will notify you prior to pressing Up to Accept the process that it will erase the Internal Memory..
 .

Recovery is not possible without specialized software for data analysis, ... I mean a Full ROM Restore...

You can restore Photos and Documents using applications like DiskDigger, as long as you have not Overwritten them.. Try not to put anything on the Data partition like new Apps or even on the Internal storage...

The internal storage is usually Emulated and is actually a folder in the Data partition...

Writing to Either Data or Internal Storage will erase the previous data....

Data usually is not Erased, but Marked as Reusable...

Deletion is a long process for the computer so it just marks the file for replacement..

Even a  " Quick Format " Does the same thing !


Reset the request permission dialog on Marshmallow I am testing my Android application and trying to make sure all permissions (whether granted or denied) are handled correctly. I mistakenly clicked "Never ask again" on a permission and now it never asks me.

I have tried Settings - Apps - Reset App Preferences, but that didn't work.

How can I reset this so that the request permission dialog box comes up again for the permission?

You need to manually allow the permission on that specific app to reset the request permission dialog.

Open the App info (either by dragging from app launcher, or Settings - Apps - [app name])
Select Permissions
Enable the permission you denied with "never ask again"
(Optional) Disable it again from here; note that by this time, your app will request the permission again when needed.


Disable power-off menu when screen is locked I own a Samsung Spica GT-i5700, how can I disable the power-off menu when the phone is locked. I am running CM7.

This feature is in Cerberus Anti Theft and also in some custom android Roms (Such as Exodous). It doesn't require root but like any anti-theft software there is a paid version as the free one is limited to 30 days.
But you could try the Smart Screen Protector App which is also mentioned in one of the other answers.


How to start AVD emulator without device frame When starting avd emulator, there is phone device like border around the emulator. How can I start emulator without that frame? It's taking too much screen space.

The following was implemented on a default configuration.

Open AndroidStudio (AS) AVD Manager, click the "pencil icon" to edit the virtual device settings, uncheck the box next to "Enable Device Frame". Click "

NOTE: you may have to click the "Show Advanced Settings" button and scroll down to Device Frame.


Clash of clans not connecting to google play I have just factory reset my device and tried to load my previous village back. But the game doesn't connect to Google Play. My game loads on my friend's device but not on mine. I am using Samsung Galaxy Star Pro. I have also cleared Google Play Services cache and data before performing a factory reset.

How can I get my Clash of Clans village back on my device?

Do the following things:

Update your Google Play, and delete Clash of Clans
Update your device if possible, then reinstall your Clash of Clans
Load your account using Google+, if you have it, or go to the help, choose "Contact us" and type your request. The Supercell community will tell you what you need to do and you would have your village back.


Is there any good micro USB cable (not loose)? I'm not sure if this could be considered as an Android question, but it's definetely related to Android, since this kind of cable became a standard for mobile devices recently.

The thing is, I have to work plugging and unplugging pretty often (I'm a developer), and I noticed most of the cables (or device/cable pairs) seem to be loose, some of them even lose the connectivity sometimes, and I've been looking for different kind of cables, and I really didn't find anything satisfying.

I feel there isn't much I can do, I just wanted to know if my cables are "bad", or most of micro usb connectors are just that way.

Edited to try to meet the requirements of the FAQ.

The micro USB cables that come with BlackBerries are great, the connection is not loose at all.  (I've tried one with my Android phone).  So I'd have to say that your cables are indeed "bad".


Rooting Stock Firmware - GSII with NFC I have a Galaxy S2 with NFC (GT-I9100P) and I wish to have root access to properly administrate my phone.

I've been looking at various forum posts on different sites and I've just been getting more and more confused as to what I need to do.

From what I understand, I need to flash an unsecure kernel to the phone (with ODIN) to get root access, then I can flash the stock firmware back onto the phone and retain root access. Is this correct?

Further information:
My baseband version is I9100PBVLP7

kernel version: 3.0.15-I9100PBVLPA-CL364024dpi@DELL169 #3

and my operator is Orange UK.

I've managed to obtain the firmware version that is on my phone already through sammobile.com, I just have no idea what I need to do next.

Reward
If anyone can help me to get root access on my stock firmware I will give them as much bounty as I can when the question is eligible for it.

If all you need is root access, try flashing the Siyah kernel via ODIN. Ensure you get the S2 version, as the dev has one for the S3 as well. Also, you will need the TAR version as you will flash it via ODIN (at least for the first time). Later instances, you can get the ZIP format and flash it via CWM (ClockworkMod recovery, which is built into the kernel). Apart from features like more processor steps, you can also overclock/underclock, adjust various parameters and have features like Backlight Notifications.

Since you will flash this kernel, you DO NOT need to flash the firmware. You can keep the stock firmware and your data intact. This kernel automatically installs root access so your primary requirement is also fulfilled.

As with all operations, ensure you have an off-site backup of all your data.

As an aside, once you install the kernel, get the ExTweaks app from the market which is designed especially for this kernel and offers a GUI/frontend to access many under-the-hood features.

Assuming you have all the drivers installed, here's how you go about it:

Download the TAR file of the Siyah kernel. Note that the latest series is for ICS, in case you're running Gingerbread, search for and download the appropriate older version of the kernel.
Start ODIN and connect your phone via the USB cable AFTER you enter DOWNLOAD MODE (Press Vol down + HOME + POWER button simultaneously for a few seconds after completely shutting down phone. At the warning screen hit Vol UP to confirm entry to download mode).
Once connected, you should see a COM port number with a yellow background.
In the ODIN program, press the PDA button and point to the TAR file.
make sure ONLY Auto-reboot is ticked and then click START.

If all goes well, you should see a green box with PASS! shown after which your phone will boot up. It may take a minute or two, so don't panic.

Refer to the FAQ and the respective threads on XDA-Forums for more info.


Google Timeline error - "Can't connect to Maps, try again later" only on certain dates I have been using Google timeline successfully for many months without problem but in the last few days I have getting this error on all my devices (phone, tablet and desktop) but only on some dates

I suspected that it was a data issue as it only affected  some dates so I contacted Google Maps support and they reset something. I can now view all my dates ok. If you get this problem view your timeline for a different date and if the problem only shows on some dates then I suggest you contact Google Maps support - they were very helpful as none of these message boards seems to have a reliable solution.


Live wallpaper selection on Pie? I find the new Wallpaper app on Pie doesn't let you pick live wallpapers. Even when I downloaded the APK and installed it, it says 'cannot install'.

It's not as though 9 doesn't support them, the first time I installed a live wallpaper, I was able to click 'open' on the package installer and set it, but now since it doesn't provide an app icon I can't go back to it if I change to something else. I'm running the LineageOS 16 based Resurrection Remix custom ROM on a OnePlus 3.

You should install a third-party launcher for your Android phone. This will enable you choose Live wallpapers. Your custom ROM launcher doesn't support live wallpapers.

Also, for future references, contact the developers of the custom ROM to include the ability to include live wallpaper option in their next versions.


How to find nearest cell tower location? I need to find the nearest cell tower to my current location. I found my current location using GPS, but I need to get the location of the nearest tower to me.

As Dan insisted in his comment, here as separate answer:

Narayanan already mentioned in his answer that each cell tower can be identified via its "CID" (Cell ID), and there are several apps available at Google Play which make use of this. A few examples include:

OpenSignal and RF Signal Tracker (source: Google Play; click images for larger variant)

OpenSignal (first image). Here the compass gives you the direction to the cell tower. The app has additional features as well, e.g. it can plot cell towers and WiFi APs. My favorite in this area however is RF Signal Tracker, which has comparable features. It can show you on a map in live-mode cell towers you have been recently connected to (including those you are connected to currently) and their coverage (measured while you've been connected to them). You can import your own cell data in CSV format, or export existing ones to edit them and re-import). If you were in logging mode, you can even export a nice KML to see results in Google Maps or Google Earth, or simply re-play the recording. Another nice feature is the list of "neighbors", where this app logs when a connection was handed over from one cell to another.

There are several more apps having comparable features, so you might want to check the "related" sections on their playstore pages to find the app best fitting for your purpose.


Nexus 5 not appearing in fastboot devices menu I'm attempting to flash Android 4.4.4 KitKat onto my old Nexus 5, but when I run the fastboot devices command, it does not show my device's serial number. When I try doing the ADB sideload command though, it works. The "flash-all.bat" file doesn't work either as it says <waiting for device>. I am currently using platform-tools version 31.0.0.

Fixed it. Thought I already had the Google USB Drivers already installed but guess not.