Why do the system sounds keep turning on? Whenever I record with the voice recorder app on my Galaxy S5, the "system" sounds turn on— that is, the bloop sound whenever I click on something, the typewriter sounds when I type, the lock-click sound when the phone unlocks, etc. I would rather these sounds stay off permanently, and am tired of having to keep turning them off in settings.  How can I get these sounds to stay off?

I reckon this has to do with Samsung Galaxy S5 enhanced audio features typically Wise Voice

According to Samsung:

  Wise Voice, a new feature of the Galaxy S5, lets the volume and
  quality of a voice call remain consistent, no matter how far or near
  you speak from the phone. When you speak too far away from the phone
  or the sound is too low, Wise Voice detects it and turns the volume
  up; when you speak too close to the phone, it automatically lowers the
  volume.

I believe this somewhat have effects on system sounds, as volume is auto-controlled by the system to suit the specific environment.

Additionally the Samsung Galaxy S5 has 2 microphones. As explained from this article:  https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s5/help/microphone-problem-t2807110

  The secondary microphone is used for active (ambient) noise
  cancellation. This can be weighted as well when recording audio.
  Normal mode uses both mics omnidirectionally. Interview mode uses the
  secondary mic only in a directional beam pattern. And conversational
  mode takes directional top and bottom audio.

Your issue could be caused by a number of things from poor audio quality, poorly chosen presets or an obstructed  microphone triggering volume to up.

As a possible fix try adjusting the Samsung "wise voice" feature that adds microphone gain to compensate  audio recorded from a distant place or tweak the notifications or sound mode settings or perhaps automation to auto-off sounds when recording (e.g using Tasker):


Pandigital SuperNova 1080p Output? I ordered a Pandigital SuperNova and I own a 1080p LED TV.

The Pandigital SuperNova has a Micro HDMI port on it. My TV has a regular HDMI port.

If I connect an HDMI cable with regular HDMI on one end to my TV with Micro HDMI on the other into my SuperNova, will I be able to have 1080p output onto my TV?

I've read from this pcmag.com article:

  The SuperNova plays 1080p videos, although it doesn't display them anywhere in 1080p. You get 800-by-600 on the main screen, and 720p HD on a TV, all perfectly smoothly.

But I was hoping for more confirmation on this. (actually hoping the statement to be disproven lol)

I'm not ready to accept it as a fact until more people who have tested this can reply.

I got the tablet and YES! It does have 1080p output. :)


Stop Android Wear Time to Leave Notifications On my Moto 360, I get time to leave notifications repeatedly. Anytime I have an event on my calendar with a location, I'll get multiple alerts from the Google app about when to leave for it.

So, if I have a dinner at 6pm at a certain restaurant, it'll buzz at least 5 times earlier in the day (often much earlier, like at 1pm that day) telling me the estimated time I need to leave at to arrive on time for the dinner. This is incredibly annoying and I can't figure out how to get it to turn off save for blocking the Google app from sending me notifications at all (something I'd rather not do).

I have time to leave notifications off in the Google app on my phone (Google app -> Settings -> Notifications -> Time to leave -> off) and thus don't get such notifications on my phone (but they do show up on my watch).

Here's what the notifications are like on my watch:

How can I stop these notifications from appearing and buzzing my wrist?

I haven't seen similar issue yet. So, I am not sure of the answer but you can:

Make sure you are on the latest Android Wear app update
Make sure you are on the latest Android Wear watch update
Make sure your watch is paired with your phone or tablet
Check that your phone is connected to the Internet
Make sure your watch isn’t in Theater mode
Make sure that you’re getting notifications on your phone (vibrate mode is on)
Make sure that you’re getting notifications on your phone
Make sure app notifications and system notifications on your phone are turned on
Try restarting your watch
If none of this works, then try  unpairing and pairing again

Another tip that some users experiencing this recommended:

Go to the watch -> Settings -> Permissions -> System Permissions -> Google Services Framework -> read instant messages ENABLED.
Restart phone and watch.

If Nothing works at all, wait for future updates!
Hope it helps.


Stable Android version with a gallery for Nexus 7 2013 So I got a Nexus 7 2013 tablet recently for my sister. Upgraded it to Android 6.01 (which is the last OTA upgrade available). My sister didn't like it for the reason that there is no Gallery. She was a heavy Gallery user in her earlier tablet. Other than that it worked fine for a few weeks. Yesterday, it went into the circles loop - https://i.pinimg.com/originals/27/03/92/2703922d465e0d968762093b2c1443df.gif - this animation kept going on & on & on - in between it would say updating app 16 of 16 & then again the animation starts again.

I am thinking of doing a factory reset - I assume factory reset would take it back to the 4.x version it came with. Post that I want to upgrade it again but to some version lower than 6.01.

Which is a good stable version before 6.01 which also has the gallery which I can update to?

Factory reset does NOT take the device back to 4.x - you'll stay on 6.0.1, and you might not even escape the bootloop if it's caused by something wrong in /system.

What you can do right now is to flash any factory image via fastboot (you can arbitrarily downgrade this way). But although this is almost guaranteed to make the device work again (unless the device is broken hardware-wise), an early Android version will render some modern apps compatible, and leave you vulnerable to a great number of security risks.

Although not necessary for your intended purpose, the ultimate way out is to flash a custom recovery then an actively maintained custom ROM. This will bump your Android version to the latest the community has to offer (up to Android 8.0.0 as of now - do note that the latest isn't necessarily stable or bug-free), and by flashing updates to the custom ROM, you will be patched against vulnerabilities in time. Get familiar with the basics and find the resources at XDA-Developers.

As for your purpose - using a gallery app - stock and stock-based ROMs should have Google Photos by default (not sure why yours didn't, you probably simply missed it), while other ROMs usually have an alternative one, which loses the sync-to-cloud feature but brings a cleaner, no-network-needed experience.


Lock yourself out of your phone for a certain amount of time I check my phone (Android) more than I study. Is there any program or way to lock yourself out of your phone for a certain amount of time until you complete a goal? At the same time it should allow phone calls to come through.

Hand it to a roommate?  Or trade phones with a study partner?

Reminds me of the old "how do I stop myself from using my credit cards" scenario:

http://moneyning.com/credit-cards/freeze-your-credit-cards-to-ice-your-spending/


How Do I Keep My Droid X's SD Card from Mounting as a Drive in Windows? Stock Droid X, running 2.1. I have the USB Connection mode set to "Charge Only".

Whenever I connect the phone to my computer to charge, the SD card mounts as a drive in the computer. In the phone's USB Connection settings, it is still listed as "Charge Only", but the SD card is not available to the phone.

They only way to get it back is to:

Change the connection mode to "USB Mass Storage" on the phone
Unmount the SD card within Windows.
Change the connection mode back to "Charge Only"

This works, but it is a pain to do this every time, when I should be able to just set the connection I want and plug it in. Is there anything I'm missing?

Edit: This happens with more than one computer - one running Windows XP, one running Windows 7. Neither have the Android SDK installed.

Update - The upgrade to Froyo seems to have fixed this issue.

Try this (not sure if it's the same for all phones):

Go to Settings -> About phone -> USB Settings
Select 'Ask on connection' (if it's there).

When you connect your phone via usb, it should ask you what to do. There was the option to 'do nothing' for me.


Does enabling sideloading allow applications to be installed or run on the device without consent? I'm concerned that enabling sideloading of applications may allow malware to be installed.  However, I'm aware that Android gives a "Do you want to install this application?" dialog while installing an APK, intended to prevent unauthorized software installations.  I'm wondering if a workaround exists that can defeat this security measure.

Barring unintended behavior such as security vulnerabilities, does enabling sideloading make it possible to install or run applications of any kind on the device without consent?

No. Installing packages is still a privilege reserved to the package manager, which is a system app (i.e. it's inside the ROM), and the package manager doesn't offer an interface to avoid the confirmation dialog. This is by design.

That said, if USB debugging is enabled (in the developer options), you can use adb to install an APK file from a PC, with no user interaction. This possibility exists regardless of whether installing apps from "unknown sources" is enabled. USB debugging is a so-called secure option: only system apps can change it.


"App not installed" when trying to install APK I'm trying to install an apk file on my device, and I'm able to press the Install button, but after a few seconds, I keep receiving this error:

  App not installed.

What is the root cause of this issue and how can I fix it?

I know this StackOverflow question is related, but that question deals more with the development aspect than the consumer installation aspect of the error.

I figured it out myself. The issue was that I had another version of the same application I was trying to install already on my device. After deleting it, the installation worked fine.


Resettng an android device with non-removable battery I'm planning to buy my first android phone which has non-removable battery. But in case the phone hangs what to do ? As in general case we remove the battery from the device and plug it in after a few seconds. But what can be done with non-removable device in cases where the phone just stops to responds and even refuses to restart ?

I had to remove the battery from my O4X several times already, as it didn't respond to anything else – so I can see your concern: What to do if the battery cannot be removed then? As to my experiences, devices with a non-removable battery have a reset hole, which serves exactly this purpose: poking it with a needle (or tooth-stick, or something similar) disconnects the battery, as if you had removed it. So the only disadvantage left is you cannot replace the battery (say, with a backup you took along).


App searches in wrong directory I just installed DroidID3Tagger, however it just searches for my music files in /mnt/sdcard, my music however is in /mnt/emmc.

Is there anything I can do instead of moving the files?

I'm using CM9 Nightly on a SGS1 with Icy Glitch Kernel. (for some reason the Kernel swapped sdcard and emmc)

This app reads files from the device internal storage located at /mnt/sdcard, not from the external storage or any other location.

Since the app was last updated on March 4 2011, I don't think this will get fixed.

However, if you have root on your device, you can create a soft link from one location to another thus tricking the app.

The command is used like this:

ln -sf {target-filename} {symbolic-filename}

So you should execute:

ln -sf /mnt/emmc /mnt/sdcard

When the app accesses the /mnt/sdcard the system will give it the contents of /mnt/emmc.


Enabling MTP in HTC Desire S My use case scenario is following: push some data from pc to smartphone and have an app there that detects and read that data.
I know that there is MTP protocol that allows both pc and mobile device to access storage simultaneously. In that case I could just drop some files on mobile's sd card and have File Observer set to detect changes in file system and then subsequently read that data.

The problem is enabling MTP on HTC Desire S. I read that HTC Android 4.1+ versions support this protocol. I tried newest official ROM for the phone (4.0.4) but there was only Usb Mass Storage option when connecting to pc. Now I am on Jelly Fire Bean, 4.2.2 and still I can find no trace of MTP support. Might it be that this is a hardware limitation of the phone or have I not tried the correct ROM yet?

Alternatively, is there any other way to fullfil my use case scenario? The constraint is that communication must go through the (USB?)cable.

An alternative would be to use adb push resp. adb pull to initiate a file transfer between computer and Android device. For this, you don't even need the entire Android SDK on your computer, a few files suffice (see: Is there a minimal installation of ADB?). On a Linux system, you could even mount the Android device using adbfs (see here), and thus access it like a "normal drive" from command line (e.g. via cp/mv) as well as from graphical interfaces.


Stop applications that are unnecessary I have a Droid X and this has frustrated me since I got the phone. When I look at the currently running tasks, it seems everything is always running, which is unnecessary.

I know this is a hot topic and most people say, just let it go, it isn't wasting CPU or battery (which is non-sense to a point, if the service is running and constantly updating via wifi or 3G, it is definitely using power).

My bigger problem is that they do, absolutely, use memory, and lots of it, and when I want to use something that is CPU or memory intensive, the program lags because there isn't enough memory available. If I kill everything, the programs runs fine for a few minutes until magically, everything is running again without any intervention.

For instance, why does Maps, Amazon MP3 (which I have never used), YouTube, NHL GameCenter, etc need to run all the time? Is there a way to stop them so they only run when I want to use them?

First, see my relevant answer over here in regards to "killing tasks", especially the use of task killers.

The only way to stop these background tasks is to either:

Turn off any sort of background notifications the app does (check the settings for each app)
Uninstall the app or if you are rooted, you could "freeze" it with Titanium Backup.

Beyond that, you aren't going to be able to do much more. It's up to the programmer to decide when he needs to have a background task run, and a good programmer will let you have to turn these background tasks off (usually it is caused by polling for notifications).


Why does this character ⚫ crash Whatsapp? I received a WhatsApp forward that reads:

If you touch theblack point then your whatsapp will hang
<⚫>           ereh-hcuot-t

Surprisingly on touching the black dot, it crashes WhatsApp (The whole screen hangs and we have to wait till WhatsApp closes). Is there any reason for this crashing behaviour? (Attaching screen shots for reference)

This crashed on my Android (8.1) Phone. My friend who uses an iPhone claims that it doesn't crash on his phone. (I hope this is the right place to post the question)

As others said, there are ~2000 zero-width or 'invisible' unicode characters in that message. These characters are the ones which instruct the text renderer whether to display the text left-to-right or right-to-left. When you tap on the message, the text renderer tries to work out which character you are tapping on. As there are a lot of characters with conflicting instructions, the app hangs up until it can make a decision.
There is this very elegant and informative video by Tom Scott on youtube that explains the problem better than I ever can: https://youtu.be/jC4NNUYIIdM


issues while opening PDF files received on whatsapp directly When I try opening a pdf file that I receive on whatsapp directly by clicking on the whatsapp message, I get the message 'You may not have a proper app for viewing this content'. I already have pdf viewers installed on the phone (google pdf viewer, adobe acrobat reader). I can open the file when I open it via a file manager. How can I open the pdf files by clicking directly on the whatsapp message?

It turns out the trouble was that .PDF was in caps.


Can an encrypted Android phone be unlocked with an USB drive some way? I want a fast way to login to the system without entering difficult credentials. If the usb key is not present there won't be the ability to decrypt the system ... Some 2-factor solution without NFC because the device doesn't have NFC.

Does somebody know how I could do this, because I can't find a way to do it?

No, this is not possible given how full-device encryption is currently implemented in Android. The bootloader needs your credentials to perform decryption well before anything like drivers for NFC or userland code is loaded.


Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 - If I apply the update and install TouchWiz, will it hurt me? I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet. I love it. I think Google's default honeycomb UI is fine, but Samsung wanted to improve upon it with their own UI called "TouchWiz". Following an annoying trend however, they released their device before their software was finished and promised to provide the new UI and software enhancements in a future update.

Well, that update is now available, and my tablet has been nagging me for more than a week to apply it. I keep hitting "postpone". If the update includes bug fixes or improved functionality, then I might be better off applying it. But I'm a bit worried about performance. It seems to me that alternative home screen managers, Windows explorer shells, browser toolbars, and other UI "enhancements" available on the various platforms tend to bog down the system, put their little hooks into everything, and just generally get in the way. I'm also worried that applying this patch might disable something in the vanilla functionality that I need. I haven't heard that that's the case, but it's not unusual for manufacturers to turn off functions that the vanilla Android OS has built in.

So, what I'd like to know is, will applying the software update for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 cause any issues that I'd want to know about? Will it hurt performance? Will it take up tons of system resources? Will it disable features I need? I'd love to see a post-TouchWiz review of the machine from a major tech publication, but I haven't found one yet.

Well, nobody seemed to be able to answer this question, so I went ahead and applied the update.

Overall, I'm glad I did. I haven't noticed any significant change in performance. I could take or leave most of the UI changes included in Touchwiz, but there are a few things in the new UI that are very nice. One is that toggles for things like bluetooth, wifi, and auto-rotation are now immediately accessible in the notifications pop-up when you touch the notification tray. Another nice thing is a dedicated screenshot button that appears next to the regular android buttons in the control bar at the bottom. Press it at any time for an instant screenshot.

I haven't noticed that any features have been disabled. I don't have a 3G-capable tablet, so I don't know if the "portable wi-fi hotspot" functionality would be affected by the update. But everything else I've tried functions as it did before.

Also, an unexpected bonus to the upgrade is that Samsung released a bunch of new apps bundled with the new UI, some of which are very useful. The ebooks app especially is nice for me, it reads EPUB and PDF files, and it formats EPUBs better and performs faster than some of the other apps I've tried (like FBReader). There's also an app for making adjustments to photos, and a few others that I haven't really used.

The new TouchWiz UI also includes a handful of mini-apps that can be launched from the android control bar at any time. These apps appear in small windows that float over whatever other apps you're running, and they can be moved around. None of these apps are really awesome, but some are useful. For example, you can bring up a mini-view of your calendar, a small music player, or a note pad you can type into or draw on, without leaving the app you were using before. It's kind of a neat idea, although I'm glad this isn't a standard android feature or there would be way too many apps written this way, and Android would lose a lot of its ease-of-use.


play store crashing when trying to download apps from it i have Haier w627 mobile (rooted), my play store is not working. Sometime it opens, sometimes it don't , and even if it opens , i can't download apps from it. Whenever i try downloading app or game,play store crashes.

Clear cache and data for the Play Store app and see if it loads up.  Additionally, if you are on Lollipop or higher you may need to grant storage permission to the Play Store Services account to make it able to download and install larger apps.


My phone keeps slowing down and burning battery. How can I debug performance and cpu consumption? (DHD 2.2) I know there are already a lot of threads about suggestions on how to improve performance  and, strongly related, save battery life on your android. I also have tried most of the tools to diagnose problems (eg. WatchDog).

Problem is, my brand new HTC Desire HD will often be snappy and responsive, sometime get a few slow downs, and not-so-rarely start being completely unresponsive, as bad as my previous iPhone 3G which I gave away for exactly that reason.
Also, battery would last less than 24hours even with extremely little use of the display (a huge battery drainer indeed), with background-data and auto-sync on, without GPS and with half of the time WiFi connection and for the rest WiFi off.

WatchDog is usually not seeing anything weird. No process seems taking a huge hit on the CPU even when the phone is acting slowly; just today I got a first warning - HTC Sense Background 99.9%.

So I would like to go a bit deeper in my debug. I /could/ uninstall all applications I installed, but I'd rather understand what is really causing the problem.

So this is the real question: how can I better debug what's going on inside my Android?

Does anybody have some tutorial/tools/suggestions?

I guess going with adb from my PC might provide more information, any hint/feedback?

Some additional information after feedback from DarthNoodles...
NB. I'm not putting it here to 'debug' my own phone on this forum, just to provide comparison information!

standard Battery Consumption info

If i've been using the phone, i get 'Display' to take most of the battery usage - ~60% on average (is that too much?).

If not, it's 'Android OS' which takes on average about 60%, and 'Android System' usually about 10-15%

There usually is no installed application appearing there

hidden debug

hey that's great! I might not have yet learned about everything but i'll try to write down what I see...

Since it has a graphical, not numerical display I'll rate '100' the first, longest bar and make an estimation of the other ones.

CPU usage

(for all time of timing a get a similar distribution)

'init'  has a HUGE blue+red bar; Android System comes 2nd with a tiny 1px blue bar

Partial wake usage

Total Time

'HTC Sense' 100 blue bar
'Android System' 30 blue bar
less for the rest

Since last unplugged

'Android System' 100 blue bar
'HTC Sense' 30 blue bar
'Mail' 5 blue bar
...
'UID 10013' 'partial Wakelock' ~2 blue bar!

Other Usage

Total all time

Running      35.8%
Screen on    11.1%
Phone on      0.8%
Wifi On      41.6%
Wifi Running 41.6%
BlueTooth On  6.6%

Since last unplugged

Running      37.5%
Screen on     3.8%
Phone on      1.8%
Wifi On      45.8%
Wifi Running 45.8%

I am under the impression that it's HTC Sense or some other android process that is taking my resources... but I don't really understand why yet...

WatchDog

Getting some warnings for 'com.htc.bgp' taking too much cpu (~55%)

Thanks!

The adb likely won't be of much help.  The apps need to have debugging enabled to be able to see their thread and relative performance I believe.

I assume you've looked at the battery usage menu in your phone.  What is it telling you?

You could the hidden debug menu in your HD.  It may provide more info.  Open your phone dialer and dial *#*#4636#*#*.  Give that a try.


How do I encrypt a new SD card? I'm on Android Nougat with an encrypted phone. I added a new SD card but cannot find an option to encrypt it too.

How do I go about encrypting the new SD card?

On my Moto G4 running Android 7.0:

Settings -> Storage; select the SD card (OK to mount the SD card if prompted to do that).  This shows the contents of the SD card.
From the drop-down menu in the top-right corner (3 vertical dots):  choose "Storage Settings".
Choose "Format as internal"


How can I make my android device think I am somewhere else in the world I want my android device to think my phone is in The U.K so I can buy stuff in U.K pounds cheaper.

I have set up my google wallet for the U.K. And sure enough the prices display in U.K pounds,  I've installed Amazon underground and the prices in Amazon underground display in pounds, but when I download apps and open them the prices are still in U.S dollars.

Or I have a "you are not eligible to purchase this app due to geographical restrictions".

I have all gps location sharing off, using wifi, and my google wallet is set up to the U.K

Any help out there?

Go to settings> About Phone.
Click on build number seven times to activate developer options.
Go to Settings>Developer Options.
Enable Mock Location.
Download any mock location app such as "Fake GPS" from the play store.
Go to the developer options again.
Select Mock location app and choose the app you downloaded.
turn off GPS. Open the app and select your new location.

If it does not work, probably the content provider is using your IP address to check your location. In that case, use a VPN service to spoof your location.


Factory reset (including USB storage) prompts for password after I already typed it in I went into Settings->Privacy->Factory reset and checked "Format USB Storage". Then I pressed the button to continue and it prompted for my PIN (just numbers) as usual. Then it said it was formatting the USB storage as I told it to. And then it just shut off. So I started it back up and it prompted for a password (full keyboard; any characters you want).

I don't know what I had set that password to (I haven't used that kind of a password in a while) so now I'm stuck. Going into recovery mode does the same thing. Download mode works just fine.

So now what do I do? Is there some way I can format /data manually from my computer?

Here's some more info about my device:
Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0
Samsung Galaxy S build.prop
Rooted
Stock Gingerbread ROM, stock kernel, stock recovery

If your Recovery Mode is also password protected, you are out of luck with GUI interface from device.

Go to Download Mode and flash the ROM. This is the only solution if you don't have password.


Get iPhone contacts into Gmail I have an Android phone and imported all my contacts from Gmail. Most of my old contacts weren't in Gmail, but on the iPhone 3GS.  Now getting the iPhone contacts into Gmail is proving to be a huge pain, there is a ton of information about this on the web but a lot of it must be outdated and none of the methods have worked for me yet.

How can I get contacts of iOS 5 iphone 3GS, and into Gmail so that they can be visible on my new Android phone (Galaxy Nexus)?

I've been trying for 4 hours and it's very frustrating.

Load the IDrive app on your iphone and your android. Contacts transfered within seconds. Then sync with gmail.


ADB/Fastboot not detecting Android stuck in bootloader I tried to flash the most recent android pie update to my pixel 2 only for it to fail writing partitions even though I followed a recent guide to my best ability. Now, the phone is stuck in the bootloader with no way to boot into android or any way to access the recovery options (throws an error and takes me back to the bootloader info page)

Neither fastboot nor ADB can recognize the phone, I think this is because the USB debugging must have turned off somehow even though I turned it on, as before I WAS able to access it through fastboot. But now I can not, plugging it into the Windows machine, windows doesn't see any change in Device Manager when the phone is plugged in and out.

I reached out to a google supports rep and they told me since there is no way to access the recovery options, the phone needs to go through warranty, but is this really the only way? Is there some driver I am missing?

Thank you.

before we go any further, please make sure your usb cable is working correctly, and try using different ones if it is not the case. If not, please try again as it the most annoying device I've had for getting into recovery. You basically need to hold power and then press volume up and immediately release both of them. It's very picky.


Foreign phone won't connect to mobile data I got a Moto G (2nd gen) in an asian country. I have brought it to the US now and use a AT&T sim card, that has a 300MB monthly mobile data plan. I'm not able to use the internet although I keep mobile data switched on all  the time. How can I fix this?

Yes, I tried turning the phone off and back on.

Your phone may not have the correct APN settings in it in order to connect and use the data properly. Check and add these settings if necessary.

Access the Settings menu.
Locate and select Wireless & Networks or More Networks.
Select Mobile Networks.
Select Access Point Names.
Locate and select the option to add a new APN. This is usually accessed by a + symbol on the screen or by tapping the menu button.

Under name, You may write what you choose. I would probably write "ATT" or similar
Under MMSC, write http://mmsc.mobile.att.net
Under MMS Proxy, Write proxy.mobile.att.net
Under MMS Port, Write 80
Under MCC, Write 310
Under MNC, Write 410
The rest of the settings remain unchanged.
After these settings have been entered, Turn off the phone, take out the battery and SIM and allow 5 Minutes to rest. After this, Turn the phone back on and see if you have data.

The settings I used can be found under "Correct Data Settings" at: http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB424489&cv=820.

My knowledge comes from years of experience with many different devices and Operating Systems.

Have an awesome day and Thank you! xD


How do i reset my frozen phone without losing all my data My Lg g4 shut off on me and won't turn on. It freezes on the lg screen. I know i can reset it but i have over 1000 pictures that weren't backed up and i cant afford to lose them. The past year of my life is on the phone.I need a way to turn on my phone without losing everything. There has to be a way

Well, unfortunately you can't really recover your photos. If they were on a SD card it would be a lot more easier but it seems like the photos are in the internal storage.

There is still 1 thing you can try:

Your recovery! Find a way to boot your phone into the recovery. I assume your phone is still startable (not bootable). In most recoveries is an option for browsing the storage. If that's the case you just need to copy your photos to an external storage.

But what if your recovery doesn't support such a feature?
But you must have tried the first option first because this option is more risky:

Download TWRP (twrp.me) <- You will love that thing ;D (EDIT: This will only work if your bootloader is unlocked!!!)
Copy the TWRP zip to your external storage
Boot in your recovery and flash the zip
Reboot into your recovery (should be TWRP now) and now I believe there is a way to open the doors to your internal storage for your computer. Otherwise there is an option for browsing your phones internal storage (on the phone)
Last step! Copy the whole thing over there ;D

Hope I helped ya! ;D


No keyboard in lock screen I really want to avoid factory resetting the phone since I know the password but just cant type it in.
Things I tried and failed:

rebooting my phone
adb since no usb debugging

Phone: Huawei Honor V10 on EMUI 9

Try to connect a simple USB keyboard (best no integrated USB hub, card reader, RGB lights,... ) via USB OTG adapter. Most phones support OTG which should allow you to enter the password/PIN

This works! Thanks!


where can I find man page for top I have a bugreport file containing output from (as it says)

top -n 1 -d 1 -m 30 -t

The -m option is not known on my ubuntu linux, wo where can I find the android man page for the top command? I don't have root access to my android device.

By browsing the source code (for example here) you can see the usage help:

static void usage(char *cmd) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s [ -m max_procs ] [ -n iterations ] [ -d delay ] [ -s sort_column ] [ -t ] [ -h ]\n"
                    "    -m num  Maximum number of processes to display.\n"
                    "    -n num  Updates to show before exiting.\n"
                    "    -d num  Seconds to wait between updates.\n"
                    "    -s col  Column to sort by (cpu,vss,rss,thr).\n"
                    "    -t      Show threads instead of processes.\n"
                    "    -h      Display this help screen.\n",
        cmd);
}

As you can see, the -m option specifies the maximum number of processes to display.


How to format a flash drive to fat32 So I'm kinda stranded after accidentally wiping out my whole internal storage.

I'm trying to install a temporary ROM e.g CM on it via USB OTG on TWRP.

My phone doesn't have an OS on it. I have no PC with me since I'm on holiday.

I tried downloading the 200 meg CM and found a flash disk lying around.

However it has the Xbox fuse file system on it, which TWRP is not picking up. All I have access to is my Android tablet.

So I'm trying to find some sort of file manager that allows the disk to be formatted. Any leads?

I would suggest you to try this tool -- Paragon exFAT, NTFS & HFS+ . It is available as .apk files on the net or you can download from Google play as well.

But i would seriously suggest waiting it out and doing formatting throiugh tried and tested methods via PC (just to negate any slight chances of renedering your drive useless which does happen when making file system changes using smartphones)

here are the links

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paragon.mounter


Turning on USB mode in Galaxy Grand I have 2 mobile phones, a Samsung Galaxy S II and a Galaxy Grand. The Galaxy S2 has Android 2.3.6 and the Galaxy Grand has Android 4.2. When I am trying to connect the Grand to my PC, it gives me 2 options: MTP and Camera. MTP is media Transfer mode, and when I select it, restricts speed. On the other hand, the S2 has USB mode which works fine for me.

So is there any way that I can connect the Galaxy Grand with USB mode?

If your phone is rooted, try installing one of the "mass storage enabler" apps from the Play Store.


How to delete Alcatel File Manager? I have an Alcatel One Touch Idol 3 model 60451 running Android 6.0.1 and it updated a few days ago turning File Manager into adware that would reinstall itself no matter what I did. I tried everything I could find on the internet, including from Is this "Boost" / File Manager app a true system app or malware?.

I did as suggested and stopped auto-updates in Google Play. The only difference was that Google Play wasn't showing any apps when I clicked there. But I still was able to select no auto-updates in settings in Google Play. It hasn't reinstalled again for a while, but it's back. It's beginning to look like a factory reset is in order and then doesn't allow any more updates.

Finally, I did a full factory reset after stopping all updates on Google Play and the automatic restore on the phone and it not only appears again, it has another toolbar with it. Actually I did this 4 different times, all the while stopping everything that could be stopped. Finally, I closed down my Google account entirely and then did a factory reset. The result, it's back. File Manager comes with the phone but until an update last week it was unobtrusive.

I have never downloaded it deliberately or rooted my phone or downloaded an APK file or anything other than Google Play apps. I have been working on this for the past several days (obsession) and don't find any way to get rid of this.

Is it possible to delete Alcatel File Manager completely?

In Settings - Apps - File Manager delete the updates of this app. This will revert the app to the initial version.

If you don't want to use the app anymore (which would be my advise since Alcatel File Manager is not so great), disable it completely.


Which disk encryption standard is used in Honeycomb? Does anyone posses an official or un-official information on which encryption standard is used in Honeycomb "encrypt tablet" option? Is there an information on any hacks or backdoors, placed for law enforcement and such?

Basically, the question is: if someone loses a tablet with confidential information in it, how probable it is, that the data could be extracted from it despite encryption?

The current encryption scheme is outlined on the Android website's "Notes on the implementation of encryption in Android 3.0" page. From that page, the specific algorithm used is noted as such:

  The actual encryption used for the filesystem for first release is 128
  AES with CBC and ESSIV:SHA256

That's the only official documentation I've seen for it at this point, but it is fairly lengthy and informative.


Use device as Bluetooth receiver I recently got a new phone and would like to use my old device as a bluetooth receiver for my stereo. I'd like for it to work like a bluetooth receiver such as this one. (Pairs as speaker and offers 3.5mm output) Being able to control playback (pause/play, backwards, forwards) would be a bonus, but not necessary.

Please note the device is running Android 2.3. (Yes, I know that's very old)

Quick answer: NO. Doing a quick Google search to confirm my assumption, it does not look like there is any (easy) way to use the phone as a Bluetooth receiver. One problem is that the device should disable the headphone jack when Bluetooth is connected.

I personally have old Android devices (phones and tablets) connected to pretty much every audio appliance in my house (like stereos and powered speakers) using either the headphone jack or Bluetooth (using the device as a transmitter with a separate receiver). I just use the actual connected device to play the audio. One option is to connect to the audio device normally and use an app where you can "remote control" one Android device with another.

Alternatively, it looks like you can stream from one Android device to another using Wi-Fi. An app like SoundSeeder on Google Play makes this possible.

Hope this helps!


How long does the Android browser keep its history files for? I'm one of those people who actually likes to keep all my old history files, since I like to see what sites I was browsing 6 months ago.

So does anyone know how long the Android browser stores data for? Or is there a maximum file size of the history file that it collects? Are there also any Android history archival utilities available?

To my knowledge-- all Android stock browsers will keep the history forever.
Until the cache is manually wiped or wiped because of an OTA update -- since I'm pretty sure the updates wipe the cache before booting-- Even still, I'm pretty sure the browser's cache isn't touched in that process.

I'm quite certain you have nothing to worry about in terms of losing history.

If you are running 4.0.x (I think it's exclusive to that version- you could check), you can get the Chrome Beta browser, which keeps your history in sync with your Google account-- along with your bookmarks, and of course the history from any other machines you run Chrome on.

Pretty neat.


My phone's power button has gone bad. Can I use my computer to send a USB command to start the phone up? I got an old phone: an HTC WildFire S. Everything works fine, except that the power button has gone bad. Can I start the phone from my computer over a USB connection somehow?

Probably not

Many PCs can be woken from sleep mode via a keypress. Some, if configured to allow "wake on LAN", can even be woken via a specially-composed Ethernet packet.

I'm unaware of any way to force an Android device to power on using a special USB command.

What to try

You can try removing and reinstalling the battery.
Or you can try connecting the phone to a charger; there might be a slim chance that this will force it to power on.
If that doesn't work, you can try a Google search for [ how to power up Android phone without power button ]. You'll find lots of results, including an article on the AddictiveTips website and many others. These articles have additional suggestions which I haven't mentioned. Maybe one of the articles has a tip which can help you.

What next

If none of the aforementioned ideas help, you can then either:

Attempt to repair the phone yourself.
Pay a technician to repair it.
Or try to sell it (at a discount) to a local shop, which can then try to fix it.


Charge and USB keyboard through 1 USB port I have a Samsung Tab E that only has one USB port.

Can I charge the tablet and have a USB keyboard attached at the same time?

I've tried a 3-way cable ( link to Amazon ) but it supplies power to the keyboard, not the tablet.

I've also tried using a USB hub I had lying around, but I couldn't get that to work either.

The most likely way to use a keyboard while charging on a single port device is to use a Bluetooth keyboard.

Failing that, you may need a different 3-way cable.  The keyboard certainly needs power to operate (unless it has internal battery power), but a correctly wired 3-way cable should be able to both power the keyboard and charge the device.  You can verify that there's voltage on the charge pins of the two USB connectors on the 3-way cable, with a meter and suitable fine probes -- though it's very possible that the device will refuse to accept charge if there's a data attachment on the USB port.  You'd have to contact Samsung to verify that.


Popup links inside apps When I try to open links inside apps, eg Inbox AliExpress Whatsapp, instead of opening up them in chrome,  it pops up some windows without javascript, and I cannot use it, how can I disable it?

Try clearing the data of those apps.

Does this happen in every app? If so, then it might be a sign of malware infection.

If clearing app data doesn't help, try installing some antivirus software and do a full system scan.

Also, try switching off Internet or mobile data and opening whatsapp. If problem continues, it indicates a malware or virus. If it stops, it might be either a malware or adware. Try this:

Clear cache from settings. Turn off mobile data. Switch off phone and switch it on again. Keeping mobile data off, and open the app, or whatsapp specifically, and then all other such apps.

If pop up continues even after this, then it's a malware or virus problem. If it stops, but starts once you turn on mobile data, it's probably an adware.

In any case, a good antivirus like QuickHeal will get you rid of both of these.


Why is my phone detecting two taps instead of one on the screen? I'm observing a strange behaviour on my phone out of the blue. Yesterday, the left side of my screen stopped working properly. I started having a hard time clicking anything next to the left edge, typing the keyboard or pressing buttons on the left.

I enabled Developer Options > Input > Show touches, and I was able to observe that when I try to tap the left side of the screen, the screen appears to detect two taps on opposing sides of a column, as if the whole column of pixels were damaged. The phone hasn't suffered any hits or gotten wet. This is just out of nowhere.

I've uploaded a video of this to make it clearer here.

This is an Xperia Z3, D6603, running Android 5.1.1.

Has anyone encountered something like this? I've tried restarting the phone to no avail.

This is a hardware problem. The screen sensor is faulty. The actions most likely to solve the problem:

Factory reset
Cleaning of the screen ribbon cable
Replacement of the screen.


The SU binary must be updated Xiaomi redmi 2 runs MIUI 6.2.4.0(KHJCNBK)

I ran a zip file in CWM, and had a success done!:

Then installed SuperSU from google play, it wanted to update binary, so I clicked normal. It said failed and wanted me to reboot. I did, tried the second option (CWM). It says SuperSu will attempt to reboot. I click ok and nothing happens. What's the way out?

Reboot into recovery after copying this file into root of your SD card. Flash this file using a custom recovery like CWM . Reboot phone. Check for SuperSu in your app drawer.

SuperSu 2.46


Email App: How to select a subset of IMAP folders to subscribe to? I would like to set up my email client to subscribe to only a couple of the tens of folders in my work IMAP account. I can't seem to find an option to subscribe/unsubscribe folders in the Android email app on my Samsung Galaxy S2. Am I just not finding it? Or is there another Android email app that provides this (in my opinion rudimentary) functionality?

There are some additional options available in K-9 Mail, but it offers only the following choices: "All", "Only 1st Class folders", "1st and 2nd Class folders", "All except 2nd Class folders", "None". Not sure if this helps in your case, depends on your folder structure.


Access phone from computer without passcode I just shattered the screen of my Nexus 4 (sigh...) and am unable to use the touch screen. However getting it fixed costs more than just buying a new phone so I would like to access my data, transfer it on my PC and get a new phone.

There's just a problem: when I plug in the phone to my computer it requires me to unlock it and I can't because of the broken screen.

Does anyone know about software I can use to access it or any solution that will allow me to copy my data?

You can try few links I am giving you here and if you are really worried much about all your data,then go to data recovery specialist and get data recovered.

http://computersaremylife.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/broken-android-touch-screen-cant-unlock-solution/
http://android-commander.en.lo4d.com/
http://www.fosshub.com/MyPhoneExplorer.html
https://code.google.com/p/androidscreencast/

Most of these required 'adb and USB connection' enabled.


How to enter a URL into a smartphone without doing a search? Scenario: I'm talking in-person with someone and during the course of conversation I think of a website whose URL I know from memory, and I want them to type the URL into their smartphone and access the website directly without performing a web search (just like you could do on a traditional computer web browser in the address bar).

To be clear: I don't want it to do "search as you type", I don't want it to create suggestions based on partial matches, and I don't want it to do any kind of search that delivers search results. I don't want the entered string to be sent to a search engine to do any processing of any kind. I just want it to open a connection to the indicated website (i.e., go directly to DNS lookup followed by HTTP or HTTPS connection to the entered URL). Also, in this scenario, I have no way to generate a QR code for them (I don't own a smartphone, and might not be carrying my computer with me).

Do smartphones have that facility (i.e., a field to enter a URL without passing it to a search engine, exactly like the old browsers used to do with the address bar)? If so, how do I instruct the Android user (and/or iOS user) to find the field where they can type in the URL and not have it be processed by a search engine?

These days, browsers on mobile devices, use one bar for searching with an search engine and inserting a specific URL request of web site.
What you need to do is simple tell them "Touch top bar/address bar and insert this specific URL" or "Insert this URL in the bar and send".
You need to know that if the inserted text is a correctly formatted URL (protocol://domainOrIPAddress:port/path/filename) then the browser will show you directly the web page, otherwise it will use the default search engine for retrieving a possible list of sites that you maybe want to see for the inserted keyword.

In summary, you don't need something special, everything should work without you doing anything on browser settings. However I think there is an option to deactivate the bar for searching cases and only use it for inserting URL, but it's more convenient how it works normally, so by default is one bar for searching and URL request in all browsers.

However, for not letting search engines look on your search/request you need to uncheck some settings on browsers like "Suggestions by Search Engine/Bookmarks".


Why does Pandora advance songs randomly? I use Pandora a lot. Unfortunately, I've noticed that when using headphones at work it randomly skips songs very often. It might jump to the next track after just 30-90 seconds, etc.

It's very, very annoying. What is going on?

I'm usually on solid 3G when this happens but not exclusively.

This solution seems to help--not too sure yet. My phone might think I'm intentionally skipping songs by way of headphone buttons I don't even have. The solution seems pretty simple and effective: install the Headset Blocker widget (free in the Market).

Note: you might need to restart pandora after enabling the block for it to kick in (not sure).

I'll know in the next few hours if this helps or not...

OK, three skips in the last 10 minutes...this isn't helping at all! I'll leave it here as an failed option for future browsers.


Installing USB driver for XIAOMI Android Studio I read the Using Hardware Devices page that describes how to connect your device to Android Studio that allows you to install and run your apps on your device. But I have a Xiaomi RedMi 2, and the link that they provide that allows you to download the OEM USB Driver for my device is all in Chinese. How do I install the required driver?

Below is the google translation: hope it works for you.

  [Abstract] to install the driver, is the beginning of our wire brush,
  brush machine process is a very important step, but also a lot of
  local friends easily qualify problem areas. Just use a USB cable can
  not be achieved mobile phone and computer information exchange, but
  also need to drive.

  Click here to download the millet phone drivers:
  http://bigota.d.miui.com/tools/xiaomi_usb_driver.rar

  Install the driver, is the beginning of our wire brush, brush machine
  process is a very important step, but also a lot of local friends
  easily qualify problem areas. Just use a USB cable can not be achieved
  mobile phone and computer information exchange, but also need to
  drive.

  First of all, I do not recommend to install the phone drivers to use
  wizard-driven software or pea pods, millet has provided official
  drivers, in my opinion, this driver should be the most secure, but
  with other software to install, simply by hardware identification to
  select the drive, and the identification is correct or not can not be
  100% sure, this process is not artificially controlled, equivalent to
  drive right to choose to install a mindless software, I think it is
  not so reliable .

  Driver installation is a wire brush and turn on USB debugging to
  operate the first step of the phone, very important, the situation is
  a lot of brush machine failures are caused by improper installation of
  the drive, I hope you pay attention to drive installation. I trust
  that, in the Device Manager under the windows of the hardware manager
  millet choose to install the official driver.

  [Recognizes three modes] In the boot state, after off USB debugging
  connect the phone to a computer, mobile phone should be recognized as
  a portable device, and the USB debugging turned on, is recognized as
  androidphone and portable devices in fastboot mode is identified as
  fastbootinterface.

  Under fastboot mode USB Debugging on mode USB Debugging OFF mode

  [Specific installation steps] To turn on USB debugging mode, win7
  system installation drive, for example, the installation steps as
  follows:

  USB debugging turned on the phone, connected to a computer, but right-click "Computer" (XP is "My Computer") → "Management" → Device
  Manager
  Right "android" → "Update Driver Software" → "Browse my computer for driver"
  millet phone to find driving compressed file, right -
  "pressure to the current folder", select millet phone drivers extract
  the folder "xiaomi_usb_driver", the next step
  jumped a security warning, click "Install this driver software"
  and then is done [Driver information] Driver installation, in fact, is
  to copy the driver files to the system folder, determine whether the
  driver is installed properly, you can view the information. Driver
  information fastboot mode Driver information open USB debugging mode.
  Close driver information USB debugging mode So far, my experience
  sharing driver installation is over, we want to help the old and new
  rice.

  Click here to download the millet phone drivers:
  http://bigota.d.miui.com/tools/xiaomi_usb_driver.rar


Install multiple apps from Play Store with single click The requirement goes like this.

Requirement 1:

Install parent app from Play Store with 2 or 3 feature buttons.
Once clicked, it should download and install corresponding apps from Play Store. (Catch here: it should not go to Play Store and ask to install)

Or requirement 2:

Install parent app from Play Store with single clickable button.
Once clicked, it should cumulatively install 2 or 3 apps from Play Store.

Is it possible?

Unless you're from Google, you can't, and for good reasons why Google prohibits it.

I assume you want to do this for better user-experience, in which they can conveniently install what they need with their consent. However, let's put aside that idea and think another possibility: a seemingly-safe app can install rogue apps from Play Store automatically without user's consent!

There's a more detailed explanation on an answer by ozbek on Stack Overflow, in which you can only request Play Store to install an app silently if your app is signed by Google.


"Unknonwn Artist" only on Google Music with corred ID3 tags So, before you dismiss this question please continue reading for all the details.
I have my music collection on an SD card on my phone. All my music is very well organized, I'm almost OCD about it. All my music is properly named: AlbumArtist/Album/track# - title.mp3
All my files are mp3s, all of them are using only ID3v2.4.0 with no ID3v1 (some people use both [itunes?] ID3v2.x and ID3v1, not me). Every single tag field is using UTF8 encoding. All my music has an Artist and an Album Artist field, genre, track number, album art (properly encoded), date, and album, strictly no other field. None of my file-names contain special characters either.
I've gone even to the extreme of creating scripts on my computer to make sure that every single mp3 file on my collection is stored with the previous parameters.

Now, there are a couple of songs the Google Music keeps showing as "Unknown Artist", no track-number, no album art, etc. even after all the previous efforts. Other music apps (i.e. Rocket Player) show the correct info without a problem.
I've clear Google Music data, reinstall it, reboot phone, but nothing fixes this issue.

I've searched online and this forum. There are two other questions related:

'Unknown Artist' in Music Player.
Google Music 'Unknown Artist' only in Android App

The first is totally the opposite of me, where I'm very knowledgable of the ID3 tag standard, how to edit it (I've created Python scripts to automate the process) its version, encoding, and fields.
The second is related to FLAC and none of my files use any other format besides MP3 (with ID3v2.4.0 and UTF8)

Does anybody have any idea of what's going on? Why doesn't Google Music want to read the ID3 from the files? It feels like it's getting its info from an old database and not the files themselves.

PS: I'm using Android 7.0 and latest version of Google Music at the time of writing (v7.10.5022-1.T4178353)

Bit late, but maybe I can help someone else who finds this.

I also had this apparent problem and in my case it seemed to be related to album art. I managed to fix the relevant files by re-saving the album art in GIMP (without changing it) and embedding it back into the MP3 file. I had to do this for four files in my library (all of which used jpeg for the album art).

Files with these particular images embedded in them seemed to completely break ID3v2 parsing. Could also be a file size thing, more testing required. Here is one image that gave me some trouble.

The music apps could however, read an ID3v1 tag if it was present, regardless of the image.

This was a problem across the built in Xperia music app and Google Play Music (I'm guessing they use the Android API to enumerate music?), however Poweramp and Rocket Player didn't seem to care, nor did anything on my desktop.

Hope this is of help to someone.

Cheers.


Can files be renamed within Droid Explorer I want to rename otacerts.zip in a KitKat install on an LG G2 LS980 ZVD and can see no way to do this within Droid Explorer.  Is there a way to do this?

As the Developer of Droid Explorer:

If the file lives in a location on the file system that is mounted as readonly you will not be able to rename a file. This is for security reasons. The same thing goes for deleting a file. This is something I look to address in the future, but have not found the best solution to allow this safely yet.

Otherwise; you can select the file, and click F2 to rename. Or select the file and click it a second time. There is not a menu item to do this action, which there probably should be, I will get that into the work items and prioritized.


Android software updates: How can I tell if I can update a device? I keep seeing Android devices in shops that state what version of Android is installed. Thence I conclude that not all Android devices can be updated to a current version of Android.

How can I tell before I buy (or even after I buy) if a device can be updated to the newest release or not?

Can Samsung's Android devices usually be updated?

Update: Note that I am not refering to abandoned devices but to current devices available in stores now.

There's no guarantee that any device will ever see an Android OS update.

A Nexus device will probably see two, maybe three, updates (if the past is any guide).

Devices from big-name manufacturers will probably, eventually, see one Android upgrade. However, considering the resources needed to modify the Android source to fit with their customizations as well as to do all that testing, which will result in exactly no incremental income for them, it's in their interest to get you to buy a new phone.

Lower-end/older devices from the big names or devices from OEMs you've never heard of will probably never get an OS upgrade.

Fortunately, a lot of core functionality is being pulled out of the OS into the Google Play Services framework. That'll leave things like hardware APIs in the OS level, which probably wouldn't benefit from an OS upgrade anyway. (I mean, you can't install a bigger sensor for your camera, so OS support for bigger sensors won't help you.)


Is editing build.prop enough to change model name? I am trying to change the model name on my Android device by editing build.prop.

Code:

ro.product.model=Nexus S

My code:

ro.product.model=Nexus One

Settings still shows Nexus S.

Edit: I edited the fields @GokulNC suggested, but screen still shows Nexus S.

can someone help?

Thanks in advance.

As it turned out, I was using a homemade device and was not editing as root.

I also had to completely shut the device down, then turn it on.


Does Android have support for IPv6? I wonder if Android has support for IPv6? I have heard that the phone company I use has support for IPv6 and I have a IPv6 address if I visit http://ipv6.whatismyipv6.net.ipv4.sixxs.org/.

But I can not visit IPv6-only sites like http://ipv6.google.com, why is that? Does Android have support for IPv6?

As of Android 6.0, the majority of the IPv6 protocol seems to be supported with significant parts missing such as DHCPv6.
Check Issue #36908577 Support IPv6 for more info, specifically the issues listed in comment #105:

Enhancement: Support for DHCPv6 (RFC 3315) Won't Fix (Intended behavior)
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=32621
Enhancement: Support for Recursive DNS Server Option in ICMPv6 Router Advertisements (RFC 6106) Fixed
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=32629
Enhancement: Support connecting to IPv6-only wireless networks Fixed
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=32630
Defect: APN Protocol ignored when roaming Fixed
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=32631
Enhancement: Automatic fallback from IPv4/IPv6 APN Protocol to parallel IPv4 + IPv6 Won't Fix (Obsolete)
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=32632
Defect: Frequently ignores ICMPv6 RAs and other multicast traffic Won't Fix (Obsolete)
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=32662

(Consider reading the issues and their comments carefully, because while some of them have their status updated to "fixed", some users were reporting they still have the same issues.)


What is persist.security.ams.enforcing? I have a galaxy s6 and was looking to install custom roms. Unfortunately, when I successfully install a custom Rom, it doesn't boot up. So I looked online and one website said something about Seandroid enforcing issues. So when I went to default prop.l, I found that line of code. The value is set to 1. What happens if I disable it and is it interfering with the kernel or Rom flashing? I also got rid of all the Knox apps too.

So what exactly is persist.security.ams.enforcing?

persist.security.ams.enforcing

It's the bane of existence. While this is Set to 1, your SELinux state is enforcing(Click here for a snippet of info)

Changing that to 0 switches SELinux to permissive.

In layman terms, this means that, when set to Enforcing, Android is looking at your attempts to install a ROM, and is denying them. Set it to permissive, and it can't do anything(well, not much).

SELinux does more than this too. Its a good read, that question I linked has some good info, as well as the link in that one.


Can't scan QR code for WhatsApp web due to camera inverted or tilted on Galaxy Y Duos First of all, I already read the other posts about problems reading the QR Code, and my problem is different.

I have a Galaxy Y Duos, so my screen is bigger than 4 inches.
I do get the "Ok, got it" message, and can successfully press it.
I'm using Google Chrome.
My WhatsApp is up to date (re-installed it several times trying to solve the problem)

What is happening is that the display for the camera inside WhatsApp is inverted (or tilted sideways). When I move the phone up and down, the image goes left and right, and vice-versa. It is like that both for taking pictures to send someone, and for scanning the QR code.

So, since the QR code depends on orientation of the image, the app cannot read the inverted image. I tried inverting the PC screen itself to correct the issue, but it seems that there's no screen orientation that gives the proper reading of the code. Plus it's really annoying trying to focus the code, as the image doesn't behave as expected.

The camera works fine outside WhatsApp and other QR readers (I have QR Droid installed) works perfectly.

The problem is also independent of screen auto-rotation, I turned it on and off, and tried to manually rotate the screen, but the camera image stays tilted.

I had the very same issue with my Galaxy Y Duos. Rotating the phone or laptop screen through screen preferences didn't help me. Finally the solution was to use 'Flip This' chrome extension and rotate the QR code by 90 degrees. The WhatsApp logo at the center of the QR code would not change its orientation on the camera (as it is a different image) but the QR code would be rotated and your phone would be able to scan it.


Notification icon that looks like 'b' with 3 dots Does anyone know what this symbol is in my notification bar? I'm guessing it's from a 3rd party app. Please excuse my poor attempt to recreate it. :)

This question has been answered by wickdaman on Android Forums,

MunstersRebel said:
It's beam some proggie that works like a virtual loyalty card holder

It is! To be exact, it's Beaming Service for Samsung which works with this app, Beep'nGo (made by the same folks, Mobeam).
So you can use loyalty cards from shops (e.g. Starbucks). Quite a handy app if you ever wanted it and less crap to have in your wallet...


Permanently remove stock from Google Feed I'm using Google Feed (formerly known as the Google Now screen) and one of the cards I have is for stocks.

For some reason, some fund keeps getting added to the stocks card. ProShares UltraPro QQQ ETF (ticker: TQQQ) keeps appearing. I have neither added it, nor to my knowledge, ever searched for it. (At least, until just know, when I was looking for the full name.)

I've been in to the settings for the stocks card multiple times, each time to confirm that the stocks/funds I want are there (GOOG, FB, TWTR, DJIA, NASDAQ Composite) and TQQQ is not listed.

I have swiped away the listing on the stocks card I can't tell you how many times, and while it seems to stay away for the rest of the day, within a day or two it's back.

I don't want it. How can I make it go away forever?

Motorola Moto X (1st edition), Android 5.1.

Apparently I'm not the only one with this issue.

Lifehacker has an article about it.

  Open the Google feed.
  Swipe out the left-hand navigation panel.
  Tap Customize.
  Tap Stocks.
  Add the symbol for the stock you want to block.
  Tap the symbol you just added to your list.
  When it asks if you’re interested in the stock, tap No.

  It’s very confusing that you have to add a symbol to a list of stocks you do care about in order to block it, but for reasons that are unclear, Google doesn’t give you another option.

It is confusing. And dumb. But barring other options this is what I'll do.


How to turn off check-ins? I have an Android 4.1 phablet. I'd like to turn off the check-in feature. The only way I've found so far is to disable the whole Google Now, but I don't want to do that.

I want to turn-off only check-ins feature.

I want to do this because it's extremely annoying, even when I stay in my apartment for hours and don't move my phone. It proposes to check-in to thousands of places around every few minutes. (I live in city center)

I think you need to adjust the settings in the Google Maps application that control this. Launch Maps and press the overflow menu icon (the three dots in the bottom right on Vanilla Android; you may need to access your settings slightly differently on other devices with custom UI skins), then go to Settings => Location settings and scroll down. You should see a subsection labeled "Check-ins":

If you also want the cards for nearby places to be hidden then you can do that in Google Now's settings. Select Settings => Google Now => Places and turn those cards off.


I want to execute shell commands on my pc from my android via USB I have a linux box, without any network interface, only usb. I have my andorid phone, and the USB cable. I would like to connect from my android device to the linux box,and execute shell commands on the linux box, via usb. there is not wifi, ethernet, oer any other interfaces.

Any idea? I tried ConnectBot, but could not make it work over USB.

Reverse USB Tethering

adb shell netcfg usb0 up
adb shell netcfg usb0 dhcp
adb shell route add default gw X.X.X.X dev usb0
adb shell setprop ro.kernel.android.ndns 2
adb shell setprop net.dns1 4.2.2.2
adb shell setprop net.dns2 8.8.8.8
adb shell setprop "net.gprs.http-proxy" ""
adb shell setprop net.usb0.dns1 4.2.2.2
adb shell setprop net.usb0.dns2 8.8.8.8

Do not copy and paste these commands.  Read them and see if you can understand what they are accomplishing and modify them to suit your needs. You are routing over USB.

ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0
ifconfig usb0 0.0.0.0
brctl addbr br0
brctl addif br0 eth0
brctl addif br0 usb0
ifconfig br0 up
dhclient br0

Do not copy and paste these commands.  Since you don't have network access on your PC, you will not need to make a bridge, but if you ever add a NIC, then you may want to create a bridge.


Whatsapp backup for new and old chats I recently accidentally deleted a chat in Whatsapp for Android 7.0 "Nougat". I know if you uninstall and reinstall the app, you can download the backup containing these old messages. Now my problem is, this certain contact messaged me again after deleting the chat, so if I use the uninstall method, I lose all the chats from after the deleted ones. If I say "backup now" as to keep the new messages, it will delete the old backed up messages and only keep the new ones. Is there any way I can have my bread buttered on both sides and get my old messages back while still keeping the new ones?
Thanks in advance.

If these messages are important, you can root your phone in order to restore them.
There are many methods to root Android 7 to use at your own risk.
WhatsApp make a backup of the messages database each day at 2:00 AM, these databases are stored encrypted in /sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases/. The key used to encrypt the backup is stored in /data/data/com.whatsapp/files/key which can be accessed only if you have root privileges.
To restore your previous messages:

root your phone
enable USB debugging
dump the encrypted databases

adb shell pull /sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases/

dump the key

adb shell pull /data/data/com.whatsapp/files/key

use this python script to decrypt the encrypted databases:


Why does the Ebay application automatically startup at boot? I can't find a good reason that this application must always be running on my phone. However, it starts at boot and I'm constantly getting error traces in Logcat about the Ebay application.

Why does this application start at boot?

Well it starts because that's how dev coded it.

You can try programs like startup manager that will kill the program once it starts.


Installing Play Store on Chinese Samsung Note 3 I have a Chinese Note 3 running Android 4.3. It doesn't have the Play Store which defeats everything that made Samsung dominate the smartphone space. I can't download GMail; I am stuck with a browser that uses Baidu for search; there is no Facebook and Twitter. It could almost be just one big feature phone outside China.

I would like to ask how do I install the Play Store and get the other Google services on the device. I searched the internet and it always tells me to root the device.

Could anyone enlighten me on how does rooting the device be able to get the play store running again?

Could anyone provide the steps in installing it after you rooted the device?

Upon searching at XDA, few had success in rooting Galaxy Note 3 (Chinese version) SM-N9006 and installing Google PlayStore via CWM. Nobody there has mentioned why root is required to flash CWM via ODIN. My guess is it is required to flash CWM by ODIN. CWM is required to flash GApps.

Please follow the instuctions in this thread at XDA where users have reported success with CWM and PlayStore functionality.

There is another thread which uses a safe method for rooting without disturbing Knox. I would recommend trying it out before following the first link for flashing GApps.

Disclaimer: I do not own this device and any answer provided by me is found from internet search and the rate of success may vary. Please read thoroughly before proceeding to avoid bricking your device.


Can't get adb on Macbook to see Pixel C I'm trying to connect my 2014 Macbook pro to a Pixel C tablet. The tablet  has developer settings enabled, usb debugging enabled and unknown sources enabled. 'adb devices' shows nothing and there is no debug icon shown on the tablet.

I'm using a usb 3 type C connector that works Perfectly from my Macbook to my Nexus 5x

I've tried resetting the PRAM/NVRAM and the SMC to no avail.

The strangest thing is that we have 3 developers here with 2 ports per macbook. It does work on ONLY 1 port on one macbook, a 2015. We have a second exact same macbook bought on the same day that this tablet doesn't work on either.

Since it works on 1 port on one macbook, we know that the tablet is configured correctly for debugging. But why can't we connect it to the second port on the same machine or to another macbook??

We've never had any issues connecting any other Android device to any of these macbooks before.

Updates:

Got a different usb C cable and still have same issue.
Default USB Configuration (from Dev Options) is MTP, tried other USB config PTP and didn't help
After testing again on the 1 port that it worked in the past, trying 'adb devices' shows the Pixel C about 3 out of 5 times (in the span of 10 seconds). Trying to deploy to the device fails every time, presumably due to the flakey connection...

I have tried a number of USB 3.0 cables with no luck but every high quality USB 2.0 cable I've tried has worked for me. This includes USB 2.0 cables that have a Type C connector (There are many of these on Amazon. I'm currently using an "iOrange" brand cord) as well as traditional micro-usb cables with a Type C adapter ("TechMatte USB-C to Micro USB Adapter").

I'd prefer faster charging and better speeds but this takes care of my debugging needs reliably.


Removing dalvik from Android I have no experience in that so please forgive me if it sounds a bit silly:

Is it possible to remove all "user layer" application and DalvikVM from an Android, just to obtain plain linux-based embedded OS with all libraries and drivers already configured? Does graphical environment requres DalvikVM? Could I get a classic terminal in that case?

Maybe somebody already have done something like this or knows good resources about it?

You can.  Understand that it's running Bionic rather than glibc, and not everything you're used to having on desktop Linux will be available.

The simplest way to experience this is to shut the Android framework down with adb shell stop (while running as root).  At this point, anything you can do on the device is being done without the VM.

You can run native programs, sending stdin/stdout over ADB.  You can interact with HardwareComposer to get access to the display, and use OpenGL ES to render stuff.  (You might want to keep SurfaceFlinger around, but that's entirely native code.)

Having the VM available doesn't stop you from doing anything, so getting rid of it doesn't do anything but free up disk space.

You might be better off with a Raspberry Pi for hobby projects.


Can I use the default music app in ICS without linking it to my google account? I somehow cannot use the music app in android without linking it to my google account first.
So - against my will - I linked it to my google account. I did this because I was hoping to remove that link later from within the app. As it turns out, this is not possible.
I do not use google music and want to avoid granting access to private data when it's not necessary.
Question

Can I use the default music app in ICS without linking it to my google account?

I'd guess this isn't CM9 specific, but based on a quick test on my Kindle Fire you can just hit the Back button on the account select screen the first time you launch Music and it will simply skip it. Also, you can unlink your account by clearing the Music app's data in your settings (Settings->Applications->Music->Clear Data).


Samsung Galaxy S3 keeps losing network connection and need to restart phone to reconnect I've had my S3 for around 6 months and never had a problem. But in the last couple of days it seems to be randomly losing connection to network (T-Mobile): I have to restart my phone to reconnect. Sometimes this only lasts a few minutes before dropping out again.

Anybody else had this problem? I have no idea whats causing it. I have changed nothing on the phone, and the area I am in has good coverage.

I dont get any error msg and all seems fine -- until I try to use it to access Internet; then it tells me "no internet connection" and the internet data signal disappears. If I try to text the text just fails to send, and I cannot receive or make any calls. People who ring say it goes straight to the mailbox.

your sim card needs to be cleaned, also your sim card reader should be cleaned/serviced. Your connection to phone is not completely ok just because of either your sim card is too old and have been used a lot of times in different phones, thus it needs to replaced in this case. if not, then try solution number 1.


how to install play store on samsung galaxy ace? How can I install the google play store app on my Samsung galaxy Ace?

There is a possibility your phone doesn't have any of the framework apps for google like maps, gmail, etc.  If this is the case then the below will not work and you will have to flash the framework.  The is already question here.  If you have a Chinese edition you might be out of luck

Now if your phone is supposed to have gapps or had google maps and the other framwork apps then try this:

All you need to do is download the APK file Here and follow the steps

Place the APK file on your SD card
Install the APK by finding it on your phone where you saved it and clicking it. This can be done by using a file explorer.  There should be one on your phone.
You may need to enable unknown sources by going to Settings ---> privacy and security and toggling the unknown sources setting


Organizing apps not in folders This is a bit hard to explain.. I like having my apps categorized at the home screen (games, Google apps etc.) but I don't like how folders do it.
Placing apps in folders makes them too small to see which makes me just go to the app drawer and search for them individually. Instead I need something to pop out and let me see all of the apps in the folder without having to click it.

I have tried just placing similar apps together but that doesn't give you such a folder-like effect.

Is there a way to have large folders on your home screen which shows every item or even a way to add small dividers to make some apps look like they are grouped?

I am using lollipop with CyanogenMod 12

Thanks in advance!

First, let me suggest that you specify your device, OS, etc.

Second, it sounds like you would benefit from an app (like Circle Launcher or Folder Organizer) or a completely different launcher in order to achieve greater flexibility.


Headphones compatible with phone only after switching the audio cable polarity I recently brought the Marshall Major II headphones, which come with a two-way unprotected 3.5 mm cable.

According to the manual, you plug the straight end into the headphone, and the right-ended end in the smartphone. When I do so, I hear distorted audio.

However, when I reverse the direction of the cable, i.e., plug in the right-ended end in the headphones, the audio sounds amazing.

Why does this happen? Will the headphones get damaged if I keep using the cable reversed?

I suspect it's probably because my current phone (Xperia C2104, CyanogenMod 11.0) probably doesn't support two-way audio playback. Since I'm planning on getting a new Android phone in the coming months, would you please recommend one that supports two-way audio?

EDIT: Two way audio cable looks like image shown below

My guess would be that one of the plugs on the headphone cable is slightly off-spec and isn't making good electrical contact in the socket. Swapping it around means the dodgy connector is in the other socket, and maybe that connection is slightly more forgiving. (Of course, it could just as easily be one of the sockets that's slightly off-spec. The symptoms would be the same either way.)

If this is the case, then having the cable "reversed" is a lot better for it than letting it spark across a poor connection. Sparking damages the metal surface of the plug and socket, so it would get worse over time.

The only reason they recommend having the cable a particular way around is that the right-angle plug sits better against the phone. It's a lot harder to accidentally pull it out of the phone, or knock it (and maybe damage something) against a table edge or your pocket. It also protects the conntector against wear caused by wiggling or pulling on the cable.

Unless there's some inline play/pause buttons on the headphone cable, the only disadvantage of having it reversed is that you lose this mechanical protection from the right-angled connector.


Best Wi-Fi Performance Doesn't Do Anything In wireless options there is such setup, but it does not do anything. It doesn't increase coverage or signal. And i think it does not consume more power.

Why? Because this option does not apply itself in my opinion. Maybe a bug?

Htc Desire S
Android 2.3.3

Your phone settings cannot possibly affect the strength of the signal produced by a wireless router.

I would assume that this option just prevents Wi-Fi "sleep", seemingly confirmed by this discussion.  If that's the case it will consume more power when you're not using your phone.


Samsung Galaxy S5 (SM-G900F / klte) Date/Time Issue I've recently upgraded from a Samsung Galaxy S3 (i9300) to a Samsung Galaxy S5 (SM-G900F / klte). The device seemed to be working as desired so I decided to go ahead, root, and install a custom ROM for enhanced functionality and customisation. Root process went smoothly, just running a simple CF-AutoRoot with Odin3 (voids KNOX, but no other problems), then installing PhilZ Advanced CWM Recovery.

From there I decided to install an unofficial build of 4.4.4 CyanogenMod 11. Flashing worked perfectly (and took rather little time!), but upon installation I noticed a strange problem. If I hard reboot (power off, power on) the device, with Wifi & Mobile Data off, the time and date are reset to incorrect values. Usually 01/01/xxxx and the time offset. Same problem occurs even if when I turned off Network-allocated time and and set time manually. I've even tried applications from the Playstore to attempt to sync the hardware clock.

The same problem occurred with other similar CyanogenMod based builds such as [AICP] and [AOSB]. I decided to restore back to the stock ROM and noticed that the clock and date were set correctly on reboot (and also works normally on custom versions of 4.4.2 such as SpeedROMv7).

I checked with the terminal the value of the 'hwclock' (from BusyBox) and it reported an odd date somewhere in 1970, but different to the ones in found on CyanogenMod and other custom roms etc.

Does anyone have any idea what could cause this kind of problem and how to fix such an issue? If anyone wants any additional information about my device, please don't hesitate on commenting in this post. Would be grateful for any feedback. Thanks!

TL;DR - Time/Date resets on hard reboot, (with no internet/data connection). The issue  only seems to occur on Android versions > 4.2.2. As stated in detail above, custom 4.2.2 ROMS are fine. The issue persists in all of the 4.4.4 and 5.0.0 builds i've tried.

Timezone is correct; it's not a timezone related issue.

*Edit: Problem does not occur with > 4.4.2 ROMs on the Galaxy S3; does anyone have any citation that this could be device-chain related? I would be very grateful if somebody with the same device could test this issue and drop me a line. Thanks.

Alfie.

I conducted serveral months of research and didn't make any considerable progress/findings.

I'd like to report that current-generation 5.0.2 ROMs based on CM-12 appear the have fixed this issue. One can conclude that it was most likely device-chain related.


Can I backup on oxygen OS and restore to lineage OS using adb backup? I have a OnePlus 2 that is running stock Oxygen OS. However, lately, I'm not happy with the phones performance. Therefore, I would like to try lineage. I would like to keep all my data (apps, chat history, photos, contacts, etc.). If I use adb backup, can I restore this backup after installing lineage to achieve the desired effect?

It's possible, but be specially cautious when proceeding.

An ADB backup contains system settings, which is likely to be different across ROMs. Blindly restoring an ADB backup from another ROM may render your device unbootable.

If you restore only the apps and their data, you'll probably succeed.


Can't install skype on android 2.2 I'm using http://www.midoblesim.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=483 and i can't install skype.It says that it's not matching, but still it is downloading it from the market. I gived you that link becouse this isn't an original, android phone, it's some Chinese stuff. But however, how can i solve the problem and install skype and run it correctly ?

According to the web page that you linked, your phone has the following specs:

mtk6516 416 MHz CPU
512 MB ROM
256 MB RAM
Screen HVGA 800 x 480

The Skype FAQ says:

  What do I need to run Skype on my Android phone?

  To run Skype on your Android phone, you will need a supported phone
  running Android OS version 2.1 or above with least 27MB of free memory
  space on your handset and 600Mhz or more processing power. The
  supported screen resolutions are 320x240, 240x400, 320x480, 800x480
  and 850x480.

So it looks like the app doesn't support your phone's CPU (which oddly seems to be slower than the very earliest Android phones like the G1).

There is more than one official Skype app, it's possible that the one you're using isn't compatible with your phone, but another one might be. See the links in this question to find the Skype apps Can I install Skype on my xperia?


How practical it is to use an Android phone, bypassing Google completely? One of the first things that I noticed on my Nexus One as I turned it on the first time, was GMail, Talk, Voice, Maps, Google Calendar and many other Google based services.

I know that even on a Windows or Linux PC it's very hard to avoid using Google... but it is possible, as there are alternatives to every service that Google offers.

On the Android, however, things seem to be very tight. You may recall the time in which Internet Explorer owned over 95% of the market share, simply because it was tightly integrated with Windows. Back then, Netscape was available but even if it performed as fast as Internet Explorer, starting it would take considerably longer.

So, my questions are:

(1) What are the non-Google alternatives to GMail, Talk, Voice, Maps, Google Calendar on the Nexus One?

(2) Do they really perform as fast as the "native" Google apps/services?

Android comes with an Email app that lets you use any POP3, IMAP, or Exchange account.
Talk can be replaced by Meebo, eBuddy Messenger, and many others.
Voice is a fairly unique service but some features can be sort of replaced -- you can use a SIP phone number and an app like Sipdroid for calls, or something like Kik Messenger for text-like instant messages (think BlackBerry Messenger).
Searching "Maps" in the Market shows several results that look promising, same with Calendar.

The Email app is very, very buggy and low on features.  I'm confident there are other mail apps that are better though.  On the other hand, Talk is also pretty buggy; I find eBuddy to be much better.  And many people have problems with Calendar.

When it really comes down to it, a quality app is a quality app, whether Google wrote it or not.  Android doesn't seem to be as biased toward Google's apps as Windows was towards Microsoft's apps.  My hodgepodge of Google and non-Google apps works well for me and I'm sure you can get a set of apps that will work at least as well overall as Google's apps do.


Does Android 2.2 log digits dialed during a call, and if so, how can I clear this log? Some voice jails that I call require me to enter a password. Are the digits I type while a call is active logged (as call dialing is), and if so, how can I remove them from the log? As you might guess, I want to keep any passwords out of persistent storage.

As far as I can tell, it's not logged by the default dialer.


How can I turn OFF Google Lens search, permanently I really don't like google lens.  I've been searching for ways to turn it off.  Searching on line usually brings up an answer like this:

On your Android phone, you go into your settings/apps and click on the 3 dots at the top right of the screen. Choose show system. Scroll down to the Lens, Qlens (or both depending on your phone) and then click Force Stop and Disable (if available). This should stop the service from running until you click on it again or it updates.

The problem is, when I do that on my Andriod phone there is no Lens nor Qlens listed among the apps (even after clicking show System Apps).
I did find one thing that says to "Disable" (or Uninstall, but Uninstall is not an available option, but disable more-or-less the same) the Google App, and re-enable it.  This works, but only for about 1 day, after which Google Lens magically re-appears.  For three days now I have Disabled the Google App once a day.
Is there any way to permanently get rid of Google Lens?   It's horrible.

This link shows how to disable the feature.
It's hard to follow at first, just replay it a few times.
Basically type chrome://flags in your chrome browser, which give you a "search flags" prompt, type in lens, then disable each of the items that appear.
https://youtu.be/6PlEuLNPxqY
Good luck.


App not installed error on Huawei Mate 9 I downloaded apk files from Chrome. After the downloads completed, I pressed Install. But after 2~3 seconds, it just said App not installed. For example, I downloaded an app called "TutuApp". It won't install and doesn't give any information on why so I can fix it.

Anyone knows how to fix this?

My phone is Huawei Mate 9 with Android version 8.0.0.
I'm new to Android and a complete noob.

There's 'App not Installed' Error on Android on Stack Overflow.

For my case, Google Protect was on, so I was unable to install app.


Should I be worried about a security breach if Google Maps incorrectly shows that I drove over 650 miles from home? I was shocked to discover that this past month Google Maps shows that I was home one day, drove from a neighboring location over 650 miles to Chicago the next day, and was home the following day.

Could this indicate that someone cloned my phone?

I know that inaccuracies can occur locally, but 650 miles? And Google Maps even shows the route that I allegedly took.

I searched for similar questions. Either they did not address this particular question or they were tagged as having already having been answered. If someone thinks that this question has already been answered, then please have the courtesy of providing a link in the comments.

In my case, the solution was to turn off location services on my Android tablet. Google Maps was using my ISP to guess my location.

Although I was in Alabama, my ISP was reporting my location as Chicago, so Google Maps assumed that since I was in Alabama one day (according to my cell) and in Chicago the next (according to my Android tablet), then I must have driven to Chicago (even though my cell was still in Alabama). Then it produced a likely route that I would have taken. Note that I seldom use my Android tablet and that the Chicago thing occurred when I first turned it on after changing ISPs.

This is the best explanation I can come up with.

So if your location service comes from your ISP rather than your cell provider, make sure that your ISP gives an accurate location for you.


Does LG Optimus G (E-0975) support USB host mode? Device: LG optimus G (E-0975)
Android: 4.1.2

Does LG Optimus G (E-0975) support USB host mode?

If yes, what can I do with that? How do I use it?

According to USB Host Diagnostics, NO.

Related Post:

How can I determine if my device has USB Host Mode (OTG) support?
What is the difference between USB On-The-Go (OTG) and USB Host Mode?


Which music-ID app uses less data? Soundhound or Shazam? I've found Shazam and Soundhound to be pretty much identical in terms of accuracy when identifying music, however I tried monitoring each app's usage with 3G Watchdog but couldn't get a clear winner between the two, so the question remains:

Which app uses less data?

I looked at the answers for this question: [ How can I choose between Shazam and SoundHound? ], which compares the two, but no information .was provided on data usage.

Only one way to find out. Recognize 10 songs with each and compare results. No way the data traffic results are the same. You'll need some population (more than 1 tests and take average) in order to get some results.

Ideally you would test with the same data but that is just impossible. Unless you have 2 devices checking the same sound at the exact same time... Still I guess you would be able to make a good comparison with different fragments of the same song on a single device, alternating soundhound and shazam.

What you really want is an app that stores the recorded sound to analyze later on when you're on a free (or at least much cheaper) wifi network. Only reason for this question is you have to watch your data traffic, no?


Does anyone know how to fix "No SIM card/Emergency calls only" error on Sprint Note 3 CM12.1? I had this smartphone working just a few days ago (on CM12.1) but because I changed the phone number on it I had to flash it back to the stock firmware to run the PRL & Profile update. Now that I've flashed CM12.1 back on it the only thing not working is the phone/mobile data. I read on the XDE website that I need to flash a NH7 modem, but the only link on that page is dead.... I believe I flashed the modem the last time I rooted the phone and installed CM12 but that's been over a year ago and I didn't keep a copy of it on my PC. I briefly looked around on google but haven't been able to find any viable solution. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I had the same issue with my custom Virgin Mobile XT1548 MotoG3 (Osprey). Thing is, CM is more geared for phones that are CDMA. It'll break your SIM card every time you flash if you aren't CDMA. Thankfully, I still have data, but no voice. So I use a VoIP number to make my calls


Is it possible to direct all audio output, including music output, to a Bluetooth headset? I am able to make and receive calls from my Samsung ACE S5830 phone using a  Bluetooth device. However, when I play MP3 songs on my phone, the output does not play through the Bluetooth mono headset; it just directly plays from the phone's speakers.

Is there a way to direct all audio output to the Bluetooth mono headset?

I did some googling and stumbled across this post on androidforums.com which has some suggestions:

There are several apps which appear to provide this functionality.  BTmono is the only free one I found that isn't limited to a certain length of time.  It requires Android 2.2+.  There are several other similar apps that you can also see at that link.
This person posted a trick which looks like it works without the use of an additional app:

  I went to the phone and dialed '**' (2 stars) which creates a 'p' for pause. Then press call. This enables the headset without actually
  placing a call.
  After this I started doggcatcher (or other audio / video player) and it played through the headset. Everything went through the headset
  after this point.
  In order to stop playback to my headset I just called my voicemail and hung up. At that point, audio was routed back to the speaker.

  EDIT: I have found that it only works when my ringer volume is off or
  on vibrate. Also, the media volume needs to be turned up separately --
  Either from the settings control or prior to performing the 'p' call.
  The volume rocker only controls the Bluetooth call volume after the
  bluetooth headset is active.


Two phone numbers (one USA, one Qatari) same phone, calls and text over cell data. Any suggestions on how to accomplish this? I need your advice and ideas. I am moving to Qatar in a couple days for work and I am trying to figure out the best cellphone situation. Currently I have a Google Nexus 5 which is fabulous, on AT&T which is less than fabulous (but that is beside the point).

My goal is to have my Nexus 5 with a US phone number (doesn't need to be the same one I currently have) that my friends here can call and text me on, and a Qatari number that my coworkers can call and text me on.

Here is where I am at:

Ruled out AT&T completely because their international plans are absurd.
Getting a Vodafone or Oreedo sim and using it my Nexus 5 (this wouldn't have any way for US friends to cheaply call/text though, so I don't think it is the best option)
Going with a t-mobile sim (they have unlimited data and text in Qatar). I would need some way to have two numbers (one US, one Qatari) that could make calls and send texts over cell data. Google voice is one option but I think it only supports one number.

Anyways, any advice would be appreciated. I have thought about this a lot and done some research but I can't find a way to easily and cheaply do it.

Also, if this question could be better answered or belongs on a different stackexchange site, please let me know.

Thanks!

Android supports VOIP built in. You could get a US # from someone like callcentric.