How to Securely Delete Data from Phone and Card I'm planning on selling my current Android (2.2) device and was wondering what is the best way to remove all of my data from the phone and memory card. Will a factory reset do it? What about formatting the card?

Erasing your phone internal memory

I have not tried it but using Android fastboot or an recovery ROM it should be possible to overwrite each partition on your device. Fastboot also supports an erase command - I assume that this erase can not be considered a secure erase.

Therefore a secure way would be to overwrite to the two partitions userdata and cache (and may be others depending on your device). The image used for overwriting should be as large as the partition.

Erasing the SD-Card

SD-cards can easily be "undelete" using a card reader and a common PC. Therefore it is strongly recommended to wipe it.

Best way would be to use an SD-Card reader on your PC and then use a tool like WipeDisk.


How to remove unneeded icons from the menu? I have a Samsung i9220 with Android 4.1.1. How can I remove the unneeded icons from the android phones menu?

By menu, I'm assuming you are referring to the app drawer. I don't know if the stock Samsung launcher gives you the ability to hide apps, but several 3rd party launchers offer that functionality. Apex and Nova both give you the ability to hide and create custom app groups in the drawer. There are free versions of both in the market with each offering a paid version with expanded functionality.


Remove Most Frequently Used Apps Container from Apps menu In Android 6.0.1 I got this unnecessary feature which displays most frequently used apps on top of all other applications.  I don't need it (You can see on the pic the top 4 apps underlined). Is it possible to disable this feature at all?

Screenshot (click to enlarge)

To remove the most used app bar follow the steps :

Open Google Now ;
Open the sidebar (hamburger menu or slide from the left) ;
Click the "Settings" button ;
Scroll down to the Home screen section
Toggle the option "App Suggestions".

Source : Reddit.


MP3 tags in Hebrew show up in gibberish on my phone I have some songs on my computer with Hebrew files names and Hebrew tags.

When I copy them to my phone, the file names appear OK, but the tags appear in gibberish.  This is true both for the default player (I have a Samsung Galaxy S, so that's the default) and for Winamp.

Is there any way to change the font for the tags so that it appears correctly?

It seems that the problem was the encoding that Windows Media Player used.  It uses the Windows Hebrew code-page (1255).  I used foobar2000 with the Chacon plugin to change it to the Mac Hebrew code-page (10005) which seems to be supported by my phone.


No Google Play Store on Huawei devices, nor within Huawei HiApp store I recently got a Huawei P10, but there is only Huawei HiApp store, not Google Play Store. I want to download the Google Play Store, but I cannot find it in the HiApp store.

How can I install Google Play Store on this Huawei device?

Huawei devices (and other smartphone brands) whose default ROM originates from China, have a certain geo-restriction that prevents accessing most Google apps and services and most (if not all) don't ship with Google Playstore pre-installed.

Instead the OEM based store called HiApp, is the default app store, with which you can download more apps. Fortunately the process of installing Google Play store is not a big hassle at all if you reside outside China (otherwise you might need to install a VPN beforehand).

Using the HiApp store app, you can simply search and install Google Play store in a few taps as shown in the screenshot:

You coud also you the web version of app store here: http://appstore.huawei.com

alternatively you get still get the .apk file on apkmirror and side-load it normally.

PS I have a Huawei tablet with China ROM, that did not have Google playstore preinstalled and I simply used the above process, and it works well  alongside microG.


Using Multiple Devices With the Play Store I've been using a Droid (original model) for a while and recently I bought an Archos 7 Home Tablet at Office Depot (I think it was on clearance, but I don't remember why it was marked down).  I registered the Archos tablet online, then tried to download some apps so I could start using it.

The selection was small, so I went to the Play Store and logged in with my Google ID.  When I tried to download apps, it told me they would not work on my phone -- but I was using a tablet.

This tablet is not the easiest to type on (which shouldn't be a big issue for what I have planned for it), and that's making it frustrating trying to enter data for forms or to deal with anything.  At this point, my understanding is that Archos seems to have their own app store that I was using when I registered my tablet.

But now I want to use the Play Store I linked to above, but when I go there, it always tries to download to my phone, not to my tablet.

How do I tell the Play Store that I have multiple devices and tell it to download apps for the device I'm using?  I tried setting up another Google account, but it wants my email address and when I give it, then Google says it's used by another account.

How can I use the Play Store with both devices?

The first thing you need to do is to check your tablet version. My suspicion is that it isn't running Honeycomb (Android 3.0+ or the tablet version of Android) but actually a heavily modded phone version of Android (i.e Android 2.1-2.3).

Go to settings -> about phone (or something similar. each manufacturer changes how you access this)

If it is indeed running the version of Android meant for phones, then the market might be complaining to your tablet because you might be trying to download apps meant for honeycomb.

The online market automatically updates to include additional devices when you activate them (i.e when you initially do the android setup and sign in to your google account). Make sure you select the drop down and check if there is another option. Also make sure you activated both devices under the same account.

-I know I should have made this a comment but its too long of an answer for one. :P


How can I get the IMEI on Lollipop and upper with ADB? I'm trying to get the IMEI with this command "adb shell dumpsys iphonesubinfo" but is not working. Also I try this: adb shell service call iphonesubinfo 1 but neither

How can I resolve it?

My final solution for that was to create an Android application that subtracts the IMEI because some version also had the same problem.

Therefore, I make a request with the common way adb shell service call iphonesubinfo 1 else I run the sentences that install the android application The plugin, subtract the IMEI then uninstall it


How to know if a custom ROM uses existing swap partition Recently I switched my custom ROM installed on my HTC Desire to a 4.1.2 based ROM (PARANOIDANDROID based).

The ROM works fine but sometimes the device has serious lag of several seconds. I assume that this may be caused by a SWAP partition I created once on my SD-card but that was never used by my previous ROMs.

How can I find out if the SWAP partition is used or not?

Simply get yourself a terminal app (a good choice would be Android Terminal Emulator), start it, and enter the command free. The output then should look like this:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers
Mem:        487344     474312      13032          0      42224
-/+ buffers:           432088      55256
Swap:             0          0         0

This example is from my Motorola Milestone 2, and you can see: it does not use any swap: "total" available swap space is "0". If your device would use swap, at least the numbers for "totals" and one of "used" or "free" should be > 0.


android improve internal storage is it possible to use an sd card as part of a smartphone's internal storage, even rooting the phone?

I have read that google has been on that feature since android M, but what about versions like kitkat?

thank you in advance for any help.

You need to change the layout of the device

You need to build a specific rom  and a specific recovery to adopt the sdcard

  What do the specific rom  and specific recovery means ?

Let me start by how android manages storage

As per kitakat the storage is determined by the fstab and the storage-list.xml

This define what blocks should be used for what purpose more specifically they determine the partition

  To adopt the storage

You need to build a new rom  with modified fstab and
storage-list.xml  (till lollipop because android 6 uses only the
fstab)
Then build twrp (or any other recovery) with modified fstab and
storage-list.xml
Then flash twrp and wipe everything using advanced wipe a word of
caution this will wipe your sdcard

Enjoy


Headphone Buttons and USB-C Adapters I owe a which doesn't have a 3.5mm headphone jack. Instead, it use my headphones with a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter. While the speakers and the mic work, the buttons don't. They're assigned incorrect functions. Play/Pause works, but Vol+ decreases the volume and Vol- selects things on the screen.

I wanna change this behaviour. Using the app "KeyEvent Display", I figured out that

Vol+ triggers "linux key code number" 114
Vol-  triggers "linux key code number" 259
Play/Pause  triggers "linux key code number" 226

Using the android documentation, I figured out that the buttons are all managed by /system/usr/keylayout/Generic.kl. I could get the expected behaviour by changing the following lines:

key 114 VOLUME_UP
key 226 HEADSETHOOK
key 259 VOLUME_DOWN

However, this interfered with the function of other buttons of my phone!

That's why I want to create a device-specific config file. For this, I need either the device name or the vendor and product IDs. (As explained in the android documentation.) However, I don't know to get those. The app "USB Device Info" didn't show any connected device. This is the shortened output of cat /proc/bus/input/devices:

I: Bus=0000 Vendor=0000 Product=0003 Version=2061
I: Bus=0000 Vendor=0000 Product=0000 Version=0000
I: Bus=0000 Vendor=0000 Product=0000 Version=0000
I: Bus=0000 Vendor=0000 Product=0000 Version=0000
I: Bus=0000 Vendor=0000 Product=0000 Version=0000
I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0001 Product=0001 Version=0100
I: Bus=0000 Vendor=0000 Product=0000 Version=0000
I: Bus=0000 Vendor=0000 Product=0000 Version=0000

Full output: here.

Relevant output of "Under the Hood": pastebin.com/kDeBNS0H

I made a file containing the above code and tried giving it the following file names (rebooting every time): Vendor_0000_Product_0003.kl, Vendor_0000_Product_0000.kl, Vendor_0001_Product_0001.kl, but nothing worked.

Can anyone help me?

Using the keytest app, I found out that the device ID of the headphones     (2) differed from the device ID of the regular volume buttons (7 and 3).
Now, I only had to find out the device name corresponding to the device ID. This I did using a terminal emulator:

$ su
$ getevent
add device 1: /dev/input/event7
name: "msm8976-skun-snd-card Headset Jack"
add device 2: /dev/input/event6
name: "msm8976-skun-snd-card Button Jack"
add device 3: /dev/input/event4
name: "qpnp_pon"
add device 4: /dev/input/event3
name: "qwerty"
could not get driver version for /dev/input/mouse1, Not a typewriter
add device 5: /dev/input/event2
name: "hbtp_vm"
add device 6: /dev/input/event1
name: "input_mt_wrapper"
could not get driver version for /dev/input/mice, Not a typewriter
add device 7: /dev/input/event5
name: "gpio-keys"
could not get driver version for /dev/input/mouse0, Not a typewriter
add device 8: /dev/input/event0
name: "synaptics_dsx_s2"

According to the documentation, all characters other than 0-9, a-z, A-Z and - are replaced by _. Thus, I created a new file: /system/usr/keylayout/msm8976-skun-snd-card_Button_Jack.kl with the following content:

# Configuration file for LeEco Le 2 headphone buttons
key 114 VOLUME_UP
key 226 HEADSETHOOK
key 259 VOLUME_DOWN

After a reboot, I got the expected behaviour!


Will the WWE region RUU version work for my region? The HTC Desire S RUU for Android 4.0 is now available in the HTCdev website (htcdev.com/devcenter/downloads).

Unfortunately (or is it?), region is set to (WWE - World Wide English)

My region is "038 - HTC India"

Will the WWE be compatible with my device or do I have to wait for a separate release for my region ?

I read somewhere that

  WWE - World Wide English, this tells us it is meant for devices all
  over the world and is a generic update.

Is this true?

Yes it is true. It also removes all the crap the carriers put on there as well.


Tap here to sign in to network Asus ROG 2 Phone
17.0240.2009.49
Not Rooted
Happens All the time
Wifi Connection in my home

Ever since updating to 17.0240.2009.49, my phone has been listing one of my wifi connections as "Limited"
But today, it now prompts to "Sign in to Wi-Fi network"
I have no captive portal on this network.
My laptop (windows 10 pro) connects without any problems or prompt.
My tablet (Nexus 9) connects without any problems or prompt.
If I tap to sign in, I am shown a blank page.
If I select "Use this network as-is" in the 3 dots menu, it works for a few minutes and then puts an X on the Wifi Icon saying "no connection" - even though I was browsing web pages before then.
After that, I can't access anything.
I have tried:
static/dhcp - no change
Treat as Unmetered - no change
Rebooted - no change
Reset Wifi - no change
Dynamic/Static Mac address - no change
Rebooted the router - no change
looked through pfSense logs - no information

Any ideas?

Update:
After selecting "Use this network as-is", it shows connected for a bit, then shows disconnected with an X in the Wifi Icon. At that point, I can't access anything.
But after waiting a few minutes, I can access everything just fine again - even though it still shows an X on the Wifi Icon and says 'No Internet' when I pull down the status bar. However, that is only with Mobile Network Data turned OFF or I turn off "Switch to Mobile data when WiFi has no Internet"
So, for some stupid reason, the phone thinks I have no Internet on this Wifi SSID, so it tries over Network Data and fails - so nothing works.
There must be a Ping Test or something for Wifi that is failing and so it reports no Internet and borks everything up.
What the HECK is going on and how do I get this back to a sensible state?

After dicking around in ADB with Captive Portal setting, changing URLs and crap, I finally just gave up and set :
adb shell settings put global captive_portal_mode 0

now it doesn't check, doesn't prompt to login to a non-existent portal, or show "No Internet" on the wifi - and the wifi does work.
Don't know WTF was going on, but I wasted an entire day screwing around with this stupid phone.


Use photo file instead front camera image Instead of using the real camera, I would like to simulate the camera input as a static image file.

I need to use it in one program, where I can't use 3rd party "fake camera apps" because program asks me only "Do I permit this application to take photos and record videos" and after "Allow" my front camera turns on. I can't even choose the 3rd party fake camera app.

Any suggestions on how to deal with that?

As a developer, I don't think that's possible without changing the program you are trying to use.

If that specific program(I suppose it's actually an application) was built to use only the images taken by the integrated front camera, you have to first "teach" it who to use images from other sources. But that's the job of the program developers. You can probably contact them and request this new feature.


My dialler app is severely lagging I have a HTC Sensation running Android 4.0.3 (HTC Sense 3.6, 3.33.401.53).  Of late I've been having increasing problems with global lag, however this is really most noticeable on the dialler/phone app itself.  By more noticeable, I mean several times worse compared to anything else.

I can open the contacts menu in the dialler without difficulty and filter by name to get the number I want up, however I get no response when I click the name (aside from a green flash of it to indicate I've pressed sucessfully).  There's then a pause of I would say up to a minute in the worst cases before it actually dials.  Usually I've pressed it multiple times in the hope of it working, whereupon it calls the person multiple times and I end up with several calls to the same person 'on hold'.

Is there any known cause for this or even better any likely way to fix it?  I could do a factory reset if this doesn't get resolved as it makes the phone close to unusable.

The effect isn't really on answering calls, though there is a lag on that too (but not to anywhere near the degree).

Having had no better suggestions I did try a factory reset and it seems to have resolved the problem entirely, indeed the phone 'feels' new.  Whilst it is annoying, it's been over a year since having the phone and it only took about an hour to factory reset and restore important files, so it's not the worst solution out there.


How to startd the AVD manager without starting android studio Use AVD Manager without Starting Android Studio this question is the same as mine, but the answer does nt work for me. There's no executable to launchd AVD manager on my SDK directory (I'm on ubuntu). Could it be that things changed? The only thing I can find is /home/lz/Android/Sdk/tools/bin/avdmanager which is just a command line script, not the GUI that I want to launchd

It is just the android avd command, where the android shell script is in the tools/ directory of your SDK installation.

Or go to the directory and

cd ~/Android/Sdk/tools/bin/
./avdmanager

Documentation can be found (deprecated) but it works for me
https://developer.android.com/studio/tools/help/android.html

I hope it will be useful


Is there a way to tell when the battery is actually at 100% I recently acquired an HTC Desire Z / G2, and installed Cyanogenmod 7 onto it. Something I've noticed though is that sometimes the battery drains very quickly, and sometimes it does not. Since I have a tendency to charge the battery very often, even when it has not discharged much, I get the feeling that the battery stats are not correct.

As I recall, before resetting battery stats, I should make sure the battery is at 100%. My question to that is, how can I tell if my battery is at 100%? Is it when the LED power indicator is constantly green? When Android reports as 100%?

"100%" isn't as straightforward a concept as you might think on Android. Have a read of this:

http://phandroid.com/2010/12/25/your-smartphones-battery-gauge-is-lying-to-you-and-its-not-such-a-bad-thing/


How to make stock browser stop asking which browser I want to use? I know almost this exact question title was asked, but the original asker stated that he had not set any browser as a default. I, on the other hand, ALWAYS select the stock web browser as the default.

Nonetheless, every time I open the browser and every time I click a link I am asked to select a default web browser. I had dolphin and opera mini installed, but deleted dolphin in hopes that would help the issue since Opera was not always showing as an option.

However, now Opera shows up every time as an alternate and the problem persists as it always has. I do not know of any catalyst that could have caused this behaviour. I updated to Gingerbread (using T-Mobile G2) some time ago (like July 2011) and this problem has only been around for maybe a month or so.

Any help with this?

As I said, I already select that the stock browser be the default. If I check the settings, Opera mini is not set for any defaults. This is seriously irritating.

You can try this:

Tap your device "home" button;

Tap your device "menu" button;

Tap "Settings";

Tap "Applications";

Tap "Manage Applications":
Look for the browsers in question, notice "Launch by default", with the caption stating "No defaults set", make sure the button "Clear defaults" is tapped, if it's disabled, it means its the only one in use. i.e. no other alternative app that handles the browser.
Repeat that for other browsers you may have.

Next time you launch the browser, a pop-up will appear with a choice, there's a check-box underneath, "Make default", tap that, and next time, the default browser of your choosing is used.
This applies to other apps also that handles the flow of actions as well, such as an alternative to messaging, email, music etc.


MMS vCard displaying as playable media file I am having difficulty viewing a vcard received via text message.  My phone recognizes it's an  MMS but views it as a Multimedia file and tries to play it.

My phone is rooted running Cyanogen 7.0.1.2 and I'm using the builtin messaging app

I have taken a screenshot of what I'm experiencing
http://dumpt.com/img/files/hz9oupxkp9g5myy9tu5z.jpg

One solution is to long-press and save the .vcard to your SD card, then open it in a file manager, like File Expert. If you still cannot read the file after viewing it from one of these channels, then your system can probably not view files in this format and i would try downloading a .vcard viewer, if such a thing exists.


How can I turn off Facebook IM permanently? Since I got a new google phone (G2) the facebook app has been running constantly. I turn it off and it still is running for some reason. Not a problem except that it always looks like I'm screwing around on Facebook and people send me IMs like "go to bed" or "hello? you aren't replying" etc. I don't like that people can just IM me any time they want and that my phone says I'm available on Facebook when I'm asleep or at work or whatever the case may be. (it looks like I'm unproductive)

There doesn't seem to be a way to turn off Facebook IM from my mobile device. Does anyone have any suggestions

The newest version of the Facebook app does not include chat.  You can uninstall or disable the Facebook Messenger application to keep IM from running.

In the older official Facebook for Android app, you can shut off chat via the following:

Start up Facebook
Make sure you're in the main menu (press Back if it shows the news feed)
Click "Chat"
Press the Menu button and hit "Go Offline"


Single SMS won't delete from Messaging app I have a phone (HUAWEI Y6 2018) that recently received a text message claiming to be from a postal company (AusPost). However, the subject for the message simply says '(No subject)', and when I try to open the message, it just won't open. With this in mind, I tried to delete the text, only to see it not delete and stay on the page. I've tried a few things to delete this text, such as:

Clearing both data and the cache for the messaging app
Trying to locate the folder where the messages are stored (I can't seem to find it)
Downloading apps such as Handcent and Backup & Restore to use their delete SMS features
Installing the latest system update and trying again
Adding a contact called "AusPost" and deleting the message

All to no prevail... the SMS just seems to be stuck in the inbox.
So what do I do now? I don't want to root my phone and I want this message gone.

You can install MyPhoneExplorer for PC and remote administrate your messages


Why do we need emulated sdcard? Why is there an "emulated sdcard" in Android? I suppose it is located on the same internal flash memory (there is only on physical default memory, right? (excluding separate physical sdcards of course)) as Android itself, so why do I need to "emulate" it? Could we not just write to the "internal" storage?

Historically virtually all the early Android phones had a removable SD card and a very small amount of internal storage (by modern standards).  Apps were written expecting to be able to get access to the external storage and use it for data storage.  Then phones started shipping with more internal storage but no sd card and to keep these older apps working had to emulate external storage.  We now had the ridicules situation of real external storage with an sd card and emulated external storage being quite a common setup and some older apps not being able to use the actual real sd card.

If you were starting from scratch now and could ignore all the old software then things could be tided up but as it is it's a confusing mess for the consumer and the developers.


Samsung Galaxy Exhibit 4G T679 I have wiped the OS off of my Samsung Galaxy Exhibit 4G T679. Now all I get is the flash screen. How can I install a new OS at this point?

All credit goes to stubbakatt over HERE for the files and original instructions. I simply walked through it myself and re-wrote out the instructions in a way that caters to my brain.

Disclaimer: This has been tested on two machines - one running Windows 7 32 bit, and one running Windows 7 64 bit. This has not been tested on an XP machine (though it should work the same) or on a Mac. And of course, I'm not responsible if you brick your device, proceed with caution, etc. etc.

FILES NEEDED:

Drivers: click here (Google Docs automatically pulls up the content of the .zip - simply go to the top left and choose File then
Download to download the .zip) - if you're rooted/rommed, you
probably already have these, but just in case these are the drivers I
used
"Back to Stock" - Odin, ops, factory image, etc: click here (Google Docs automatically pulls up the content of the .zip - simply
go to the top left and choose File then Download to download the
.zip) - this is the main stuff that Odin will use to flash your phone
back to it's factory state

STEPS:

Make sure the computer recognizes your phone with the drivers above (again, this is probably already the case if you're having to do this!)
Unzip the "back to stock" .zip file to wherever you want - preferably somewhere easy to get to (desktop?).
Power down your phone. Once it's off, hold down the volume-down button and press power. Hold both down until you see the "Warning!!" message with the yellow triangle at the bottom. Once you see that, hit the volume-up button. This puts you into Odin/download mode.
Plug your phone into your computer.
Among the files you unzipped from the "back to stock" .zip file, open "Odin Multi Downloader v4.43.exe". Once it opens, the Message window at the bottom left should read "Added!!!" and "Detected!!!".
Make sure all four of the Options are checked (One Package, Auto Reboot, Protect OPS, Reset Time [mine's set to 300 seconds]). I don't know if this is all necessary, but at the very least One Package and Auto Reboot appear to be.
On the right side, click the "OPS" button, and select/open the Ancora.ops file.
At the bottom, click the "One Package" button, and select/open the "T679UVKJ1_T679TMBKJ1_T679UVKJ1_HOME.tar.md5" file.
The Message window should do an md5 check and end with "Check MD5... ok". If it doesn't, try redownloading again - don't want to flash a corrupt file!
If all of that is good to go, then select the "Start" button.
Your mileage will vary, but for me it took about 5 minutes, then the phone reboots itself into recovery mode (the little white box with the progress bar), then about 30 seconds after that and the phone fully reboots. Don't unplug it yet. After a few minutes (actually, the 300 seconds set in the "reset time" in Odin), it will say Pass!!! and you're good to go and unplug the phone.
However, we're not quite done yet. Our goal is to get back to a factory state. You'll notice a lot of your stuff is still in place - apps, etc. That's because this process doesn't touch the /data partition of the phone. In addition, it's possible you COULD still be seeing the Superuser app. If that's the case, simply go into your application settings (settings > applications > manage applications), find Superuser, uninstall it. It will say uninstall not successful, but it should disappear.
The last thing to do is simply a factory reset - this will wipe out the /data partition, back to stock, and you'll be done. This could also take care of Superuser, but I've never tested it to see since it's easy enough to do it before the factory reset.

So there you go - hopefully you're now sitting on an "out of the box" Exhibit II 4G to do with whatever you please.

Original post


When sending a text message to multiple recipients, how does one see the other recipients? I sent a text message through MightyText to 5 recipients. One of them showed me on his phone it indicates the other people the message was sent to. How is this possible? Does SMS include each recipient in each message?

This is called group messaging. In short, everyone in the group gets replies from all the other group members. You can choose to remove people from the message or isolate specific people to message separately, and for that reason it will list all "participants" in the message.

I am not sure how to view them in your app as I have not used it, but in most messaging apps, when you are in the message thread, there will be an option to view group participants. It may be hidden behind the menu key (3 dots often in upper or lower right, or hardware menu key, if your phone has one). Or it may have its own button. (Tip: in many apps you can find out the purpose of a button by pressing and holding the button)


S3 not booting up after being flashed with a stock ROM I had an S3 with Cynogenmod and I'm flashing a stock rom from here:

http://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/database/GT-I9300/#firmware

The process of flashing, with Odin3, works and in another S3 it worked without any issues, but in this particular one, when it boots, it goes through the process of applying some upgrades, then reboots and shows this:

Any ideas what's going on and/or what to do?

Found the solution. I guess Cyanogenmod left something in /data that was interfering with the boot up process, maybe settings for a newer version of some app. Starting by pressing volume-up and home at the same time dropped me in the menu with the factory reset. Doing the factory reset allowed the phone to boot up properly.


AnkiDroid - How to Left Align Text? On AnkiDroid, all text in the flash cards is center aligned. Is there a way to make it left aligned? I'm looking for a solution that does not involve editing each card. For example, is there a setting to make the text left aligned?

Yes, you can align text to the left.

For now there is no WYSIWYG editor, but you can do what you want with some simple HTML:

If you don't want to do it for each card, modify the card template using Anki Desktop.


Malware has corrupted SD card I have android phone with SD card. Malware has moved all files to other folder. Then I copied it to previous place. But now it doesn't show applications placed in menu. It shows it in settings. What to do? How does android application in SD card must be placed?

Connect your SD card to your PC and execute one of the 2 programs you prefer to recover your data:

http://www.recovermyfiles.com/data-recovery-software-download.php

http://www.piriform.com/recuva


Are all Magisk Modules Open Source? I noticed the main place to download modules is here

https://github.com/Magisk-Modules-Repo

some in the links section link the source which just loops back to the same page. So are all the modules hosted on github itself open source? as i see what looks like the contents of each module there.

I suppose some modules might be posted on XDA that aren't on github and i know not all Xposed modules on Xda or repo.xposed.info aren't open source.

Appreciate all help.

Github does not equal open source. Because a Magisk module is on Github it does not mean it is open source

You can have both open and closed projects hosted on Github and Magisk is no exception as you can see from this XDA post by Magisk developer (though instructions pertaining to Magisk are outdated)

There are projects hosted on Github with a portion of the code which is closed source and is offered as paid or pro version, for example code of
FairEmail is available on Github but the pro version features are not open source. Though I am not aware of any such Magisk module with pro component

Though this SO question is old, it gives pointers to better understand


ultra stamina mode in Sony Xperia Z3+ Can not turn off ultra stamina mode in my z3+
no application could be started
can not access the phone from the computer
help please

Ultra STAMINA mode extends battery lifetime significantly. You can use this mode when you know you won't be able to charge your device for a long time. Only a few basic functions, such as Phone and Messaging, are available

To deactivate Ultra STAMINA mode

Drag down the status bar to open the Notification panel.
Tap Deactivate Ultra STAMINA mode


Why the music player stop playing music when taking photo? May I know what is the reason why Android phone's music player will stop playing music when I switch to camera mode?

I find it logical if the music player stop playing music when taking a movie but stopping playing music when taking photo seems to be quite illogical since the photo taken will not save any sound.

This is an old question, but I think that some people might find it useful since I came it across using Google search.
The camera app has a permission called TAKE_AUDIO_FOCUS which it is granted by default to it. The camera app uses this to pause the music while you open the viewfinder on your phone.
To fix this issue, you can simply disable the TAKE_AUDIO_FOCUS permission from your phone. The problem here is that you can't do it via the UI since the toggle for it isn't there.
The simplest way to not allow the camera app on your phone to pause your music is to take off this permission using the adb shell.

Download your OEM USB drivers from your phone's manufacturer's website. A simple Google search should give you the link.

Download Minimal ADB portable and extract it to a folder on your desktop.

Connect your phone to your PC and enable USB Debugging. For that, Go to Settings > About Phone > Tap on the Build Number 7 times. This will unlock the Developer options on your phone. Now, Go to the Developer mode from Settings. Enable USB Debugging.

Now, open the folder where you extracted the Minimal ADB and Shift + Right-click on an empty space. From the context menu, select Open Command Window Here.

In the command window type adb devices.

Press OK on your Android phone when it asks you to give the permission for USB Debugging.

Now, type adb shell to open the command line interpreter on Android.

Type the following command to remove the TAKE_AUDIO_FOCUS permission from your Camera app:
appops set app.package.name TAKE_AUDIO_FOCUS ignore

You will need to replace the app.package.name with the app's package name of the camera app in your Android phone. Since most manufacturers don't follow a single standard for naming their camera apps, you'll need to use a package info app from the Play Store to know the package name. Use App inspector for this.
Suppose your phone is a Moto G. You can type the following command to remove the TAKE_AUDIO_FOCUS permission
appops set com.motorola.cameraone TAKE_AUDIO_FOCUS ignore

That should be it.
Source: my own article here.


Hidden sms message sent at every startup My Samsung GT-I8150 is sending a text message after every reboot witch is not appearing at all in the sms area of the phone. The phone is rooted and has cyanogen mod 9 installed.

I think someone at work/at home got into my phone and installed some hidden tracker. How can I detect this and also prevent this?

Thanks

Sounds more like a virus. The only guarenteed way is to flash a fresh ROM and start over. Malware is getting smarter and smarter and may be able to hide itself on the OS unless you start fresh.


Galaxy Tab S2 is psuedo-bricked; will not get past activation process I have a Galaxy Tab S2, 8.0", Wi-Fi (SM-T713). I have flashed it with stock firmware (flashed SYSTEM, CACHE, HIDDEN, BOOT, and RECOVERY), and wiped /data ("Factory reset" in recovery). However, it is stuck in a "psuedo-brick".

I call it this because while it may not be "bricked", it can't get past the initial setup process, and therefore can't be used for anything useful.

The specific issue is after the "Welcome!" screen. I select "English (United States)", and then it asks to set up Wi-Fi. It is off, so I turn it on. I wait a few seconds, and it turns itself off, without detecting any networks.

It seems to make me select a Wi-Fi network to proceed, which of course I can't do.

The FRP lock is enabled, so I cannot boot into anything custom.

How can I get my device to stop turning its Wi-Fi off?

The issue seems to be an incomplete flashing. The method I did used heimdall to flash the system.img.ext4, cache.img.ext4, hidden.img.ext4, recovery.img, and boot.img files. While this allowed for a bootable system, it did not have Wi-Fi capabilities.

The solution was to get the device's PIT file via heimdall download-pit --output pit.file, then view the PIT via heimdall print-pit --file pit.file | less. You'd then have to go through each entry (my tablet had 42), and flash the file specified to the partition specified. (If the entry has no file name or the file doesn't exist, skip it.)

I do not recall which partition did the trick (I rebooted only after flashing all of them), but Wi-Fi capabilities were brought back.


Sensitive information in the About screen Which of the following information from the About screen (Settings -> System -> About) is considered sensitive and shouldn't be shared publicly?

IMEI
IP address
Wi-Fi MAC address
Bluetooth address
Build number

I am no security expert, but here are what I have gathered. I urges you to read the source links and visit our sister site Information Security to get more detailed information.
I have listed them from the higest to lowest risk.
IP
From Can your IP address give away your identity to hackers, stalkers and cybercrooks?:

Andrew Lee, CEO of London Trust Media, Inc./PrivateInternetAccess.com (a VPN service that protects users' privacy and identity), says linking users to their IP address is not simple, but it can be done. Many email providers, some IRC networks, extreme tracking sites, poorly configured forums and design flaws in applications such as Skype and AOL (among others) have disclosed users' identities along with their IP addresses.
He adds that email providers have been known to leak IP addresses to advertisers, market researchers, and other such agencies and some emails (like those from mailing lists) are indexed by Google. "Thus, the IP becomes searchable," Lee says. "Programs such as skypegrab.info (now inactive), which reveals users' personal data are developed every day by programmers across the globe. Extreme tracking sites link IPs to Google searches and make them public. And business websites including, but not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. — in addition to ad targeting companies — already have your personal info linked to your IP address in their databases. Anyone with access to those databases, including those with legitimate or illegitimate access (such as hackers), can obtain any and all of that information."

IMEI
About the IMEI, this answer states that:

Knowledge of the IMEI and/or IMSI of some user does not give extra ways to break into the communications of that user; they are not secret values.
However...
There may be a slight privacy concern about IMEI and IMSI, in that they allow to "track" user habits:

An application could generate a random unique identifier each time it is installed on a phone. However, by using the IMEI, the application can tell whether it is re-installed on a given phone; it can also be used to cross-reference the table of known installed application instances with cell phone locations obtained through passive radio listening from some base station.

MAC Address
From this answer:

Disclosing the MAC address in itself shouldn't be a problem. MAC addresses are already quite predictable, easily sniffable, and any form of authentication dependent on them is inherently weak and shouldn't be relied upon.
MAC addresses are almost always only used "internally" (between you and your immediate gateway). They really don't make it to the outside world and thus cannot be used to connect back to you, locate you, or otherwise cause you any direct harm.
The disclosure can be linked to your real identity since it might be possible to track you using data collected from WiFi networks, or it can be used to falsify a device's MAC address to gain access to some service (mostly some networks) on which your MAC address is white-listed.
Personally, I wouldn't really worry about it. However, when it's not inconvenient, I usually try to redact any irrelevant information when asking for help or sharing anything.

The Bluetooth address and build number are low on the list of risks.
Sources:
Can your IP address give away your identity to hackers, stalkers and cybercrooks?
What is the risk of leaking IMEI / IMSI numbers over a network
Is it dangerous to post my MAC address publicly?


Where do I store my files such that they can be found? I'm trying to install an app from an apk file, and I've moved it to my phone via USB; however, I cannot locate it.  What would be an easy location to which I could move the apk file such that it would be simple to find via a file browser?
This is what I'm looking at in USB on my PC.

I search for the directories shown in my file browsers, like acct, cache, config, d, data, dev, etc, mnt, proc, ...  None of these can be found on my PC.  I search for the PC directories on the phone, and I can't find them.  So, where can I find an overlapping directory?
I'm on 4.2.1 HM2013002 (China Unicom).  China Mobile MIMU, model 2013022.
Alternatively, as a workaround, might somebody be able to post an Android Enthusiast-local tutorial describing how to remotely install an app?

First a description. The path that contains acct, cache, config, d, data, dev, mnt, proc, etc is the device's root directory. The root directory is the root of all filesystem hierarchy in an Android device.

When you connect an Android device via USB to a computer, usually via MTP in newer devices or USB Mass Storage in older devices, the root directory of Android is never exposed to the computer. But rather only a small number of directories are exposed to the computer. The directories that are exposed to computer connected to USB is the external storage.

The path to the external storage, unfortunately, varies by device. The external storage of many Android devices points to the SD Card storage; this is not necessarily always the case, such as with devices that doesn't have SD Card, the external storage actually points to a regular folder. These are some of the locations that external storage may be in:

/mnt/extSdCard/
/mnt/external_sd
/mnt/sdcard/
/storage/emulated/0/

Many Android file browser application generally have at least two specially programmed location to open, one showing the device root and the other the external storage. Look if your file browser application shows the external storage. If your file manager don't show you your external storage by default, try downloading OI File Manager, this file manager shows your external storage by default.

Once you saved your apk there, you should be able to just tap on the APK to install it in most file manager worth its salt.


Connected to wifi, but no internet access first question here. I was using wifi normally on my phone. Then I turned it off and after some time turned it back again. Since then I can not access the internet. It's showing Connected(no internet access).

I tried to set the IP static. It did not work for DNS 192.168.200.1. No matter what IP I set with this DNS it does not work. Then used the 8.8.8.8 as DNS, now it's connected. But it is really slow, and the connection does not seem stable. Every time I have to reload google.com several times just to get the page.

The problem is specific to this device only. Other devices connected to the same network are perfect.

I tried

Restarting the router
Resetting network settings
Clearing network cache from maintenance mode
Rebooting the device with and without airplane mode

My phone is Huawei Y9 2018 with Android 9.

Can someone suggest me what should I do? Is this a router issue? Or is this my device problem?

I'm new in this area. So my knowledge is not so deep and you might have to explain things a bit more in detail for me to grasp the concept.

I believe you are going wrong here.

Why would you want to select 192.168.200.1 as DNS? It looks like a private IPv4 address, not a DNS address. Doing so, I believe you will fail to connect to internet.

In my experience DNS addresses have looked like 8.8.8.8 - like you mentioned, and 8.8.4.4.

You can try to use custom IP addresses like 192.168.200.1 keeping the DNS 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4 only.


How do you force Google Search App to keep Safe Search Filtering on My son just got a Nexus 4. I installed K9 Web Protection which does things like blocking other browsers, forces Safe Search to be on, but it also blocks Google Now by default. He really wants Google Now, but I do not want to allow Safe Search to be turned off.

At the moment, I see no way to keep Safe Search enabled on Google Now. Does anybody know how I can do this? Thanks.

Oh, this is on Nexus 4, Android 4.2.

After quite a bit of searching and testing I don't think it's possible to do. Even locking SafeSearch on your Google account on the PC doesn't change it for the phone.

Regardless of this I would imagine that if your son can turn SafeSearch off even if you did lock it he would probably try getting around K9. This isn't too hard, there's even a suggested method in the product reviews, it apparently doesn't stop you from browsing within another app.


Any Android keyboards that operate & feel like you're using an iPhone iOS keyboard? I've been using iOS since iPhone 1 and now am on iPhone 5.

Hence, at times I find bunch of Android things confusing and unfamiliar.

So, in addition to launcher's that work well for iPhone users, I'd like to find suitable way to make the keyboard comfy/ match an iPhone user.

Is there any launcher app that behave like Iphone?

One of the primary interactions one has with the phone is its keyboard which comes into play with every app i.e. messaging, notes and so on.

Few times I considered moving to Android and just felt out of place using Android keyboard.

I do not like the Swype keyboards etc as well.

Given that Android supports variety of custom keyboards, I was hoping that someone replicated the exact "typing feel, interaction & look" of iPhone iOS keyboard on Android for people who are coming in from the other side.

I do not really care for the "look" but would like to have "it feel" as if I am wearing the iPhone "glove" that fits well.

I'm not just looking for color and shape, but "behavior" & "responsiveness" and full emulation/ copying of iPhone keyboard behaviors E.g. How the iphone letters of "pop up above the key" around when pressed.

I'm sure there are other intricate behaviors that someone with a fine eye or UI/UX insight would be able to observe and then maybe replicate/ hack towards Android.

Admittedly, I haven't tried this one, but I found it by doing a quick Google search. The screenshots look decent and it appears as though it will do the job.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sixgreen.android.softkeyboard

If you're after the newer style, this one also seems alright:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.arvin.applekeyboard


How to turn off voice dialler Huawei Honor 7 I looked over all settings and couldn't find any way to turn off automatic voice dialler. How do I do it? My phone calls people on its own.

It is possible to turn this off if you switch off "voice wakeup" completely.


What is involved in upgrading Android to a later version, if the manufacturer no longer supports the device? I recently acquired an Android-based tablet which is now running a rooted version 2.2; however, the manufacturer no longer supports or sells this particular tablet.

I'm interested in seeing if I can install Android 4.0 onto it by keeping the Linux kernel from 2.2 and just replacing everything else. Despite the GPL, the manufacturer never released any source code for their custom modifications so I can't, for example, compile a new kernel. So my basic plan is to replace the software stack with the stock Android 4.0, copy any custom applications over from 2.2 that came with the device, and see what happens.

Has anyone here tried anything like this before and can advise on any potential pitfalls before I go ahead and inadvertently brick my device? Thanks in advance!

You might want to look for a "Custom ROM". For many devices, the community provides custom-built ROMs which bring newer Android versions to their devices -- often even improved over the manufacturers version (better optimized, no bloatware), and even covering newer versions where the manufacturer stopped.

A good source to find out if there are any custom ROMs available for your device and which is TheUnlockr, where everything is nicely grouped by manufacturer and device. Also, it seems to be the most complete source. Alternatively, there also is CommunityRelease (you can filter by device, Android version and developer) plus PDADB (no filters at all: over 800 pages to check, and not restricted to Android devices -- so it will be hard to find things here. Though, it may serve as a kind of "last ressort").

As you report your device to be rooted, the most important pre-condition to install a custom ROM is already met ;)


Android Market not working after factory data reset I am using an HTC Wildfire S with Android 2.3.5. Recently my Android Market got automatically updated to the Google Play Store. I had to factory data reset due to some problem, Now I can see Android Market in phone and Android Market isn't updating to Google Play thus I am unable to access Google Play. I have already logged into Google Account in my device.

This happened to me previously. All I did was just wait and it eventually updated to Play Store.


Do android phones have hardware chips for encryption? If it's software only, then what is the performance/battery impact? Do android phones have hardware support for the OOTB full phone encryption or is it entirely done in software?

If there are phones which have hardware support for encryption then where could I find a list?

In case if it is purely software then what how much degradation I can expect in terms of performance and battery life?

This and this articles claim that encryption comes at a significant performance price.

And this XDA thread suggests that samsung phones might have dedicated encryption chips as part of their proprietary(?) On-Device Encryption. Is there a clear answer available as to which devices have what support?

Update

I have found a thorough explanation on the state of android hardware encryption support in this article, which says that google failed to introduce proper hardware support in Android 5.x, and then, for android 6.x they decided to go with 'software acceleration' whatever that means.

The article quotes Dave Burke, Google’s engineering lead as saying that:

  “Encryption is software accelerated. Specifically the ARMv8 as part of 64-bit support has a number of instructions that provides better performance than the AES hardware options on the SoC.”

Yet, on the practical side: full disk encryption on android 7.x is faster than on 6.x but the performance hit can still be between 2x to 4x slower compared to an unencrypted phone.

The Android Open Source Project has a entire section on Security:

https://source.android.com/security/

As you asking about encryption the minimum standard for devices with Google Play services is defined by the Android Compatibility Definition Document:

https://source.android.com/compatibility/8.0/android-8.0-cdd#9_9_data_storage_encryption

While there doesn't appear to be any hardware mandates there, once you get to Keystore related items:

https://source.android.com/compatibility/8.0/android-8.0-cdd#9_11_keys_and_credentials

Provided solutions include Trusty which a separate microprocessor or virtualized instance separated from the rest of the Android OS and only accessible via a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL).

With regards to Full Disk/File Encryption, see:

https://source.android.com/security/encryption/full-disk


Can't sync appointments from server to phone Verizon HTC Rezound, ICS 4.0.3.

This seems to be a common problem, especially with ICS, but I have yet to find a definitive solution that works for me.

I just got my new phone, and have gone through the basic setup including syncing the phone to my workplace Exchange account. Mail's fine (up and down), contacts are fine (down at least, not sure about up), and events created on my phone are pushed up to the server and then to my office desktop, but events already on the server do not sync down to the phone.

I found one potential solution for another HTC ICS device; delete all Calendar-based data and then remove and reinstall the Exchange account. Did that, still not working. My last phone was relatively ancient (Sony XPeria X10, Android Eclair), used TouchDown for its mail program, and had a number of problems, but appointment synchronization wasn't one of them. What's the deal?

As a quick fix that got the meetings I have now onto my phone, I pulled up all forthcoming meetings and appointments that hadn't synced using Outlook, forwarded them to myself, and then pulled up the e-mails on my phone and accepted each invite. This worked and didn't create any dupes on either the phone or Outlook.

That works for now, and it seems that appointments I have created in Outlook since I set up the phone to sync are syncing correctly, if a bit delayed. We'll see about meeting invites I accept from others.

Now, this solution only works because most of my schedule is regular recurring meetings, so I only had to resend a few invites. If there is a solution that doesn't require re-accepting every invite for every meeting for the foreseeable future, I'm sure it would be helpful to those of us that have a fuller, more free-form appointment schedule.


How to clear a Folder (e.g. Downloads) automatically on a regular/scheduled basis? There is a folder on an Android phone that continually fills with junk.

Instead of clearing that folder manually on a regular basis, how can I setup up a way to have that folder be automatically cleared (e.g. all its contents deleted) on a regular basis (e.g. daily) to free up space?

Or is there a (free) App that does that?

It's a very simple task, but I can't seem to find a way or an App that allows one to select a specific folder (e.g. other than cache) and have it automatically clear that specific folder on a regular basis set by the user.

MacroDroid (free up to five macros) can do the job.

The macro would be:

Trigger: Day/Time Trigger → select all the days and choose the time for trigger activation
Action: File Operation → Delete → select the folder that needs to be cleared → All Files

Edit: { There is a catch here. Unless the device is rooted, only the files at the top-level would be deleted i.e. the deletion wouldn't be recursive so any sub-directory would remain untouched.

The only option I found to nuke recursively is to delete the top-level folder itself. So instead of choosing All Files select Folder. }
Constraint: none

Done!

I prefer to use Tasker (paid; 7 day free trial) though.

Profile: Time

From: choose the time for trigger
Repeat: 24 Hours
To: uncheck it

Task: File

Delete Directory: choose or enter the directory's path
Select Recurse

Alternatively, the action can be Code → Run Shell →  Command: rm -rf <DIR_PATH>/*

Replace <DIR_PATH> with the path of the directory, such as for DCIM folder under sdcard the whole command would be rm -rf /sdcard/DCIM/*

That should do the cleaning for every 24 hours.


Samsung Galaxy S problem :WiFi doesn't reconnect with SSID broadcast disabled Hi
I have a problem with my Wifi connection.
My Samsung Galaxy S does not connect to my Linksys wrt54g router after I'm disabling the SSID broadcast.

The connection is automatically returned when I enable the SSID Broadcast.
Why is it like that and how can I fix it?
Thanks.

This is because Android by default (manufactures could of added something ) connect using only the SSID, not the BSSID.

See this issue : http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1041

This app here might help: https://market.android.com/details?id=jp.sourceforge.soopy.hidden.ssid.enabler&feature=search_result

This is the design to connect by SSID instead of BSSID for mesh networks, this becomes helpful.

Also if your router and phone support WPS button, try that.


Cannot install from market applications I used to have I changed my ROM to cyangenmod 7, and I cannot install some of the applications I used to have (like skype for instance).

Here's what I got so far:

When I'm downloading it from the market it starts to download and than it disappears, and thats it.

When I am using root explorer, looking for files with the name "skype" in them I find a skype classes.dex file in sd-ext/dalvik-cache/.

So here are the questions:

Does anyone know this problem and has any idea how to fix it?
I'm thinking that deleting the dalvik-cache will fix it, but I'm not sure, and I don't know what it means (its consequences on the device and other apps).

Thanks a lot for your help! :-)

Fixed it.

I'm writing my fix if other people will encounter the same problem.
Also, that I must stress that this fix will work only for Cyangenmod users!

The problem is that there is not enough space in /cache/, so when the market wants to download a "too large app", it throws an exception saying "there is not enough free space".
You can see that error if you have the android SDK and you run "adb logcat", and try to download an app (you will get "not enough free space in internal download storage").

So how to fix it?
The easiest way I found is to download an app called "S2E". You can try to download it from the market. If you can't, look for the APK, and install it from the SDCard.

Once you installed it, you can choose directories that will be moved to the sd-ext instead of the phone's internal memory. Check "Download cache Location: /sd-ext/download". Than click on "menu" and than "Reboot".

That is it! :-)


Disable alarms for all day events in google calendar When I have an all-day event in my calendar (a friend's birthday perhaps) I find that my phone will notify me to the start of the event at 11:50pm the previous day and every few minutes after that.

Generally I don't need a notification for all day events, but find notifications for events with a specific time to be useful.

Is there a way to disable notifications for all-day events?

Or is there a way to disable calendar notifications between say 11pm and 8am (I'd be happy if the alerts sounded after I woke up) but I imagine that's harder to set up.

I suspect that the events for which you get notifications have a reminder set in them. So the easiest way to get rid of the notifications is to turn off the reminders in the events themselves. Typically, you would not have a reminder in the birthday event but if the event came from somewhere else (like Outlook or other phone) then the reminder might get added to it. I had this problem on some phones...
however, it could be very tedious to remove reminders individually if you have many events with unwanted reminders.

The second part of the question: I'd use Tasker app for that. However, you have to pay for it. I am aware of a free automation app AutomateIt (sorry can't add a link because I don't have enough rep here) and from description it looks like it can also kill sound based on a rule but I have not used it myself so will not comment.
For Tasker there are instructions on how to implement "Sleep mode" with which the phone with "shut up" at night. If you go down this path I can assist more since I have set this up on my phone and it works quite well.


Cannot turn on Wifi or Bluetooth I have a Galaxy Tab 4 SM-T230, but for some reason it will not turn on WiFi or Bluetooth. The slider goes green for 2 seconds then turns itself off.

I have Googled this problem and it would appear it is a common problem, but for the life of me I can not find a solution.

I have:

done a full hard reset
performed a restore from files saved in December
started tablet up in safe mode
I have removed the 32 GB memory card and powered down the device then started the device up without the memory card

Despite all this, the Wifi and Bluetooth do not work. I am beginning to think this is a hardware problem rather than a software issue and assistance appreciated.

As an update I contacted Samsung, as the tablet is in warranty, and they told me that the only solution is to take the tablet into their repair centre in the city. As it needs to be flashed with new firmware.

Having done that, they have now told me that the tablet requires some parts as there is an issue with this model. Unsure what parts are needed but will post a reply once I collect the tablet and get the repair report from Samsung. There is no damage to the tablet as it is only 8 weeks old


"This app won't run without Google Play Services which are missing from your phone" on Samsung Galaxy S2 I recently rooted my Galaxy S2 GT I9100 phone.

I search some of the video on YouTube about how to upgrade OS from Jelly Bean 4.1 to Lollipop 5.02. I did the same and succeed in it.

The problem I'm facing right now that my phone has been updated to CyanogenMod Lollipop 5.1, but I'm not able to use any Google services Apps e.g. WhatsApp, Gmail, Google Maps, Youtube

I'm able to use pre-installed apps like Music Player, Dialer etc.

When I clicking on Play Store or any Google apps it is showing This app won't run without Google Play Services which are missing from your phone.

And 2nd Problem I'm facing is although it is updated to Lollipop, the phone is not starting like a Lollipop. When rebooting a blue Android appear and it is blinking and a yellow error sign or logo appears just below the Samsung Logo when the phone starts.

What should I do to use all the Google apps and phone work as it work in any other Lollipop Android phone?

You can do this the easy way by just (re)installing your Google Apps. Download the right GApps package from CyanogenMod / XDA / Goo.im and flash it in recovery.

OR you can also use the APKs linked on the site in your comment. This method is not recommended and may dump your phone into a bootloop!

You probably want to download this one. Install it by connecting your phone to PC (make sure USB debugging is enabled and that you have ADB installed on your PC) and typing these commands in a terminal:

adb push <path to downloaded APK> /sdcard/GmsCore.apk
adb shell
$ su
# mount -o rw,remount /system
# cp /sdcard/GmsCore.apk /system/app/GmsCore.apk
# chmod 0644 /system/app/GmsCore.apk
# rm /sdcard/GmsCore.apk
# mount -o ro,remount /system
# exit
$ exit

Then reboot your phone.


Setting the CPU governor in CM13? Anyone know what happened to this setting? I can't seem to find it any more. Has it been removed?

Well, regardless if it was removed you can alway use apps like kernel adiutor: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grarak.kerneladiutor&hl=en
This app and similar ones will let you control CPU/GPU governors and much more, presumably you have root access and have compatible SoC that can be controlled by the app.


is it possible to restore back to an earlier date on my samsung tablet 2? My app crashed. So I uninstalled and reinstalled it thinking that the progress would still be saved on the game, but it wasn't. Is there a way of going back to an earlier date like you can do on a normal PC?

You mean like a Windows Restore Point that is created automatically? Android doesn't have this feature. What is normally done for Android devices is to create a manual backup that can be done using nandroid or a third-party application like Titanium Backup. Then, you restore those back-ups.


What is ProwlerAgent? Like the asker of this SO question, I'm receiving crash reports that mention something called ProwlerAgent.  Whatever ProwlerAgent is, it appears to have insinuated itself into my app's classpath:

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.myapp.BootReceiver in loader dalvik.system.PathClassLoader@/system/framework/com.google.android.maps.jar:/system/app/ProwlerAgent234.apk:/data/app/com.myapp-1.apk

I'm not asking how to fix the crash.  I'm sure it's a problem with my app's manifest.  I'm just curious if anyone knows what ProwlerAgent is, because it seems suspicious.

Well prowleragant application is a norton symantec application. Haven't seen it myself and couldn't find a download link of it. This app was removed from market, and the word market suggests that it was an old application. But a part of norton it may be present in the norton antivirus for android, haven't decompiled it will do later, as soon as my pc gets in a working state. And yes you answered it correctly, and it's not a personal or other antivirus or sandbox agent. And and antivirus can implement it's structure to get activity data of the app, that suggests for the application to be checked for it's reputation, it's internet activity and data structure, so as to recognize a potential malware or a virus. Here check some links about it :

http://www.bestappsmarket.com/p/app?appId=961494&title=com-symantec-starmobile-prowler-sample

https://plus.google.com/+LitrikDeRoy/posts/cfsKZC1oCa4

https://github.com/codlab/cypherapp/issues/20


Move apps to internal SD card My phone has 3 storage spaces available:

Internal storage - Internal storage for the OS and non-movable apps (1GB)
Phone storage - Integrated SD card (~1GB)
SD card - Removable SD card

When I got to Settings > Apps > [any movable app], I only see the "Move to SD Card" button (even if I change the default write disk) but I'd like to be able to move apps to the "Phone storage" so that I can save space on my external SD card and be able to remove it without crashing everything.

Is there a way to do this, possibly without changing the default write disk?

(My phone is rooted so I have no problem using root hacks)

From what I understand, you have three storage devices. You don't want to change your default storage disk, but you want to take the applications off of your SD Card and onto your phone to conserve SD Card storage -- is this right? If so, you can use something like All-In-One Toolbox which will allow you to move apps to different storage devices. I use this on my Android device as well.


How do I view source in the Android browser? Is there a way to view the source HTML in the Android web browser?

In Firefox or Chrome on Android it's possible to view source by prefixing the URL in the address bar with "view-source:", i.e. "view-source:http://google.com".


Galaxy Note3 is not recognized by Odin ("SeAndroid not enforcing: set Kernel") My Galaxy Note3 is not recognized by Odin because its stuck in recovery with SeAndroid not enforcing: set Kernel. When I reboot into TWRP recovery, it's recognized by the computer but still fails to acknowledge on Odin.

Device: SM-N9005T Samsung Galaxy Note3.
Odin Downloader: 3.10 (I also have version 3.07)
Computer: desktop running Windows 7 Ultimate

i think you are mixing up things

Odin requires your device to be booted in download mode, not recovery mode. if you are in twrp you must leave revovery mode, you can reboot into bootloader from twrp menu. other method to boot into download mode is button combination Volume Down + Home + Power. then select Continue with Volume Up

SeAndroid not enforcing is just a info message which tells you everything is all right. for full access to partitions TWRP requires kernel which allow setting selinux permissive. if SeAndroid is enforcing it would prevent TWRP from working properly

side note: whatever you want to flash from Odin, you could do from twrp command line, too. twrp has full access to all partitions and skilled user can raw write partition images with adb push or dd


Can I make my apps update automatically once a week? (4.1 Jelly Bean) I was updating my apps automatically but every time they update my anti-virus would scan the installed app and make the whole system freeze, which is quite annoying. So is there any way to make them all update once a week, let's say, every Sunday morning? Or, is there any app to do that? Thanks in advance.

You could disable the auto update from Play Store settings and update manually every week. Or you could disable the app scanning of your antivirus and instead set a scan of all your apps every week, I think the probability that an app update and the scan to collide will be very low. This way you wouldn't have to do the manual update. Also, you could try some of the Play Store alternatives in this article, but I don't know if they have an update scheduling function.


How much internal memory is available for APPs on a 32GB tablet It is my understanding that 8 GB on a TABLET has 748mb available for apps and the rest dedicated for movies, music, documents etc. Of course there will be the boot, system OS stuff.
Optionally there can be preloaded system apps which will count against the 748mb.

So I assume 32 GB would have 748mb X 4 or almost 3GB for applications. Is this correct ?

This is not exactly correct.
You only need to subtract the space required for the system once.
If you are on Android 4.4 you should have everything minus the system available for any purpose as apps, data and private files share the same storage.
Otherwise I assume around half of the available space can be used for apps and the rest for private data.


Google Voice "Call With..." I love the Call With... feature in the Google Voice webapp and use it often. It allows you to initiate a call from your Google Voice number by first dialing one of your linked phones then patching you through to the number you want to dial:

This would be perfect for my Nexus 7 - I'm often at home on my couch next to my land line phone wanting to make a call. I don't want a VOIP solution for the tablet, I'd rather tell GV to call my land line and patch me through to the number I want to dial (the call quality is much better on the land line). I can't find this feature in the Google Voice Android app. I've used the webapp, via Chrome, on the N7 but that's kind of clunky. Does anyone know of more finger-friendly way to initiate a GV call like this from an Android device?

There's an app I used to use specifically for this. It's called Voice+. You dial a number, it asks you which of your google voice connected numbers to call.

However, this app catches the intent from when you dial a phone number. The Nexus 7 doesn't have the Phone app installed. You could try installing another dialer app like Go Contacts Ex and see if dialing a number from their interface brings up Voice+.


SMS messages from one contact displayed as "null" My daughter has a stock Motorola Atrix on Bell in Canada. When she receives a text from one particular friend (on a Telus phone), rather than displaying the text, the phone just displays "null". All other texts work fine. She can receive from other people on the Telus network as well.

When the problem contact sends an MMS message with a picture, any text in the picture message comes through fine.

I have tried multiple SMS apps to see if they made a difference but they all behave the same way as the default text app.

Any ideas??

Related to : SMS messages just have "null"
Try this,

delete their contact

then

Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Select the Messaging App
Choose 'Clear Data' and also 'Clear Cache'.

N.B. you will lose all data / txt msg's in your phone
(don't forget to write their number down to save as new afterwards!)


Issue with flashing gapps in CM13 for OnePlusOne (bacon) I am having issues with flashing gapps using cyanogenmod recovery. I installed cyanogenmod nightly (with recovery) from http://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=bacon dated 14/12/2015.

It installed perfectly. I installed few apks. Works fine. The problem is that when i try to flash the open_gapps-arm-6.0-nano-20151216 from here from  dated 20151216 , it fails.

I get the following stacktrace in /tmp/recovery.log -

[   11.520607] Now send the package you want to apply
[   11.520618] to the device with "adb sideload <filename>"...
[   12.521723] unknown fuse request opcode 22
[   12.531326] Finding update package...
[   12.539084] I:Update location: /sideload/package.zip
[   12.539130] Opening update package...
[   12.539486] I:read key e=3 hash=20
[   12.539674] I:read key e=65537 hash=20
[   12.539862] I:read key e=65537 hash=20
[   12.540054] I:read key e=65537 hash=20
[   12.540095] I:4 key(s) loaded from /res/keys
[   12.540130] Verifying update package...
[   12.557402] I:comment is 1357 bytes; signature 1339 bytes from end
[   23.136467] I:whole-file signature verified against RSA key 0
[   23.136519] I:verify_file returned 0
[   23.136588] Installing update...
[   23.137612] E:Can't run /tmp/update_binary (No such file or directory)
[   23.138304] E:Installation error in /sideload/package.zip
[   23.138317] (Status 255)
[   23.138355]
[   25.195878] sideload-host file size 67337561 block size 65536
[   25.195904] sideload_host finished
[   25.196913] I:sideload thread finished
[   25.197182] Restarting adbd...
[   25.197603] Installation aborted.

But I can verify that /tmp/update_binary exists.

executing ls -la /tmp/update_binary returns -

__bionic_open_tzdata: couldn't find any tzdata when looking for localtime!
__bionic_open_tzdata: couldn't find any tzdata when looking for GMT!
__bionic_open_tzdata: couldn't find any tzdata when looking for posixrules!
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 60190 1970-04-26 13:02 /tmp/update_binary

du -hs /tmp/update_binary  returns --

60K /tmp/update_binary

I have no clue on how to proceed next. Does anybody here have a fix? I want gapps installed on my device.

You could try replacing the CM recovery with TRWP and flash open_gapps with that. My OnePlusOne has TWRP and flashing open_gapps worked fine.
The disadvantage is that you have to reboot into recovery to flash the CM updates.


How use call a local server by name rather than IP? I've started MAMP on my computer and I'd like to make a GET call from Android app. I'd like to access the computer by it's name(e.g. computer.local:8888) rather than the computer's ip.

On the computer if I open Chrome and type computer.local:8888 it works as expected. On the phone this fails, but typing it's local ip (192.168.1.141) works.

So, is it possible to access a local http server by a name rather than ip ?
If so, how ?

Go to Settings→Network, tap WiFi, and watch out for your WiFi AP here. Tap it, select to edit it. Toggle the "advanced settings" to be shown.

By default, WiFi is configured via DHCP -- but for some reason unknown to me (and escaping my understanding), Android doesn't pick the name servers via DHCP, and instead sticks to Google's hardcoded ones (e.g. 8.8.8.8). So in this place, you need to switch to a static IP, set the default gateway correspondingly, and put your own name server's address (most likely again your router's IP) into the field for DNS1.

Save the changes, and you should be able to use your local hostnames. You could even try switching back to DHCP, and see whether it keeps your DNS1 settings.

To calm down upcoming worries: This only affects the WiFi AP you edited, no system-wide changes for all WiFi APs. In the worst case, you always can delete the AP and re-create it.


Can I uninstall security updates for rooting? I want to root my Samsung device, but previously, I have installed some updates. From what I know, successful rooting depends on security bugs in the firmware:

  The process of rooting varies widely by device, but usually includes
  exploiting one or more security bugs in the firmware of (i.e., in the
  version of the Android OS installed on) the device.

But security updates are intended to fix security bugs and thus can prevent rooting or make it harder to perform. Is there a way to uninstall security updates to increase the probability of successful rooting?

Update:
Some information about my device:

Android Version: 5.1.1
Device Name: Samsung Galaxy J1 (2016)
Kernel Version: 3.10.9

What Updates did you previously install ?
What Android Version are you on ?
What Device are you using ?

Samsung has a feature called Knox that is literally the fort knox of Androids, Root abilities on Samsung device's are rare.

For your device, someone may have a specific method of unlocking the bootloader or even using ODIN to flash a pre-rooted firmware.

For a successful root, it mainly comes down to...

Android Version
Device Lock Status
CPU Model
OTA Updates installed

Each area can stop you from getting a successful root.

The usual method for Samsung device's is to use Odin and flash a custom recovery, then from that you would install SuperSU or Magisk.zip files.

I need more information to help you any further.

  Notes :
     Samsung devices will not allow you to use some feature's on a rooted device... It is why many Samsung owners end up using custom firmware like Lineage ( A.k.a CyanogenMod )


How do I upgrade firmware on my Samsung Galaxy S without using windows? So far Samsung has been rolling updates out using its windows only software Kies, and not over the air like the rest of the android world.

Is there anyway that non windows users can get these updates?

Going through the Galaxy S Flash/Root/ADB/ROM guide on XDA, I just spotted this:

  I'm running Linux/OSX. Can I still flash my firmware? Do I need to
  install windows?

  If you are running
  Linux you do not need to install
  Windows. You can either run Odin in a
  virtual machine or alternatively use
  Heimdall by Benjamin Dobell. Heimdall
  runs natively on Linux and has reached
  a well tested release state.

Which takes us to here Heimdall - Cross-Platform Open-Source Flashing Software:

  What is Heimdall? Heimdall is a
  cross-platform open-source utility to
  flash ROMs onto Samsung Galaxy S
  phones.

  How does it work? Heimdall uses the
  same protocol as Odin to interact with
  a device in download mode. USB
  communication in Heimdall is handled
  by the popular open-source USB
  library, libusb-1.0.

  What platforms does Heimdall run on?
  Linux, OS X and Windows (XP, Vista, 7
  etc.)

  What Galaxy S variants has Heimdall
  been tested with? I've tested Heimdall
  with a Galaxy S GT-I9000 (8 GB) from
  the United Kingdom and Galaxy S
  GT-I9000 (16 GB) from Australia. I
  don't have access to any other devices
  to test with at present, but community
  members have confirmed it to also
  function correctly for the AT&T
  Captivate.

Hopefully this will help us all out!

Though obviously as this is effectively a replacement for Samsung's Odin software it's more designed towards people who are happy grabbing their ROMs from various places across the internet and flashing them on in a fairly custom way, as opposed to Kies which is (supposed to be) pretty much plug and play.


Offline initial setup from previous phone What's the best way to copy everything (apps and their data, contacts, sms, phone settings if possible...) from a nexus 5 to nexus 5x, both using android 6.x, in offline mode, ie without using any google account or similar ?

There won't be an easy way covering everything, but the best approach most likely is:

using adb backup / adb restore to cover 95% of the stuff (see Full Backup of non-rooted devices for details)
catching the remains (SMS, probably also contacts) with a specialised app (as for contacts, you can also use the contacts app itself: Menu › Export/Import allows to export to/import from SD card)

Alternatively, you could also take a look at Titanium Backup. This would also be a good idea for later "daily use", to always have an up-to-date backup ready just in case. To use it reasonably on a daily base (and unleash its full power), you'd have to buy the license, though – which is a few bucks, but definitely worth it (this one one of the first Android apps I've obtained, and I'm still using it happily). But in this case, be careful with restoring "system stuff" to a different device/ROM (make sure at least you've activated migration mode), or you might mess up things (which I did once when restoring SMS, as the database structure had changed).


Bluetooth Peripheral Device Driver? - Droid X I'm trying to transfer a picture via bluetooth from my Motorola Droid X - Android 2.2 to my Windows 7 32bit machine.

When I do the normal troubleshooting steps it tells me "No Device Driver found."

Does anyone know where I can find the driver, or what I can do to solve this issue?

I updated my phone to Motorola System Version 2.3.340 and it took care of this issue.

Steps to update:

Press the menu button from the home screen.
Touch `Settings`
Touch `About Phone`
Touch `System Updates`


How to "fastboot flashing unlock" when device has no volume rocker? I have a android tablet that has no volume buttons, but has an unlocked OEM bootloader. I'm trying to flash a new rom, and after I run fastboot flashing unlock I am presented with a prompt that asks for me to press volume up.

Is there anyway to override this prompt? like -y or something?

I'm asking for a general solution as this problem happens to a lot of people from time-to-time. Whether it be from a broken rocker or from a device that has no volume buttons.

Edit: I didn't think to add the type of tablet, since none of you all would have heard of it. It is an eewrite e-pad pro by Wisky (sold by novadealshop) running Android 7.1.1. Any additional information about its specs can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/e_pad/comments/drmi5s/full_device_info_for_eewriter_epad_by_wisky/

When a device has no volume rocker it is usually flashed using an external tool and not via traditional fastboot methods.
In this case, the device is a MediaTek Android smartphone (MTK based), and nearly every smartphone with this chipset can be flashed not using fastboot, but with the SP Flash Tool.
The latest version SPFlash Tool v5.1924 can be downloaded at:
spflashtool.com or androidmtk.com
This tool allows the flashing of Scatter Based Stock Firmware on devices powered by Mediatek Chipsets. All you need is the correct Scatter based Stock Firmware of your Device.


Kaspersky fails to load I have Kaspersky installed on my Samsung Galaxy S2. Since the last update it doesn't work anymore. I get a startup screen that asks for my email address for an anti-theft account. When I fill this in (or leave it blank) and click the next bottom, the app crashes and that's it. I've tried this numerous times. I've rebooted, nothing helps.

Do you have any suggestions on how to get this working? I mailed Kaspersky about this, but am afraid that they will not offer much help.

This may sound odd, but there are not very many Android viruses. My Android system still has never caught a virus and I spend a lot of time on the Internet. You may be better not having Android anti-virus applications.


How do I force my MHL to DVI adapter to send 1080p video to my HD computer monitor? I bought this adapter: www.delock.de/produkte/F_697_MHL_65337/merkmale.html in the hope that it would send native 1080p video from my HTC One (M7) running CyanogenMod 12.1 to my Benq GW2265, which is a full HD monitor. But it won't. Somehow the adapter or the phone seem to get the impression that the monitor only supports 640x480@60Hz, so that's all I'm getting. I've also tried it with two different models of HP Compaq HD monitors - same result.

Now if I plug the same phone and the same adapter + a DVI-to-HDMI adapter into an HD TV, I get 1080p@25Hz output, so I know the phone and the MHL adapter can both reach that resolution just fine. It's just that these computer monitors for some reason aren't being seen as devices capable of displaying resolutions that high.

From what I've read online, one possibility would've been that the monitors were not reporting superior MHL-compatible resolutions like 720p@60 or 1080p@25/30 as being supported via their EDID blocks. But as it turns out, my Benq really is reporting 720p@60 as an available standard resolution in its EDID block (though not 1080p@25 or 30 Hz because computer monitor refresh rates don't go that low). So I still don't understand why the phone won't send 720p@60 to the monitor rather than 640x480@60.

Per some instructions found online, I've tried reflashing my monitor's EDID - figured maybe if I moved the 720p@60 value up the list so it gets reported as the first standard mode it might register at the MHL end. No dice, though: the monitor's EDID ROM is write-protected and I don't know how to disable the protection.

Then I found out the Android files/devices having to do with MHL output were sitting in /sys/devices/virtual/graphics/fb1/ and that some people had gotten results by sticking a value of 4 (corresponding to the 720p mode) in the video_mode file after connecting the adapter and monitor. Again no dice - the file seems to get immediately reverted to containing a "2" and there is no change in the image I'm seeing on the monitor.

I'm almost giving up here. Can this even be done? Would there be any use in getting an additional DVI-to-VGA converter to try to go through the monitor's other input? Or is there something else I can try?

That idea of adding another converter and going digital-to-analog seems to be one of the ways of getting this kind of setup to work. I added a simple passive DVI-to-HDMI adapter after the above MHL converter (e.g. http://naplestech.com/images/dvi-to-hdmi-adapter.jpg) and then continued with an active HDMI-to-VGA converter, namely this: http://www.sandberg.it/product/HDMI-to-VGA-Converter

Plugged the whole converter-adapter-converter chain into my phone at one end and into the VGA input of the monitor at the other and presto: 720p@60Hz right away.

Now both active adapters have extra USB inputs allowing them to be powered from some source other than the phone, but surprisingly the whole chain can also be powered by the phone alone and will still work. (Everything I've read online about MHL v1.0 says the MHL adapter itself will not work unless powered from an external source, but somehow it seems that's either not true or was not referring to the adapter and the video output but rather to supplying power to the phone while it works in this way.)

Caveats:

Sometimes while streaming the monitor image goes blank for a second or two and then recovers; this seems to resolve as the adapters heat up or somehow "settle in"
Sometimes at the beginning of a usage session the monitor image turns into white noise whenever starting a video or launching a game and does not recover until some part of the chain is unplugged and plugged back in. Not sure what causes this but again it seems to resolve in time, through some sort of "settling in".


Why do I keep texting myself voice mail transcripts? I am having an issue trying to assess why I am texting transcripts to myself of the voice mails people leave me.

The Problem: I have an HTC EVO 3D on Sprint, and whenever someone leaves a message I get a notification in my gmail inbox of the transcript via Google Voice (ding #1). Shortly thereafter, I then get a notification (ding #2), and then 2-3 text messages (dings #4-5) on the HTC Sense texting app widget, from myself via my carrier's phone number (that is, the non-Google number). As you can imagine, it is incredibly irritating.

Background: Looking into the Voicemail settings on the phone, and the Visual Voicemail settings, I don't have anything enabled to cause this behavior (I am not signed up for the latter service, and the trial hasn't even been configured). Google Voice isn't to blame for these text messages; they are set up to only push to gmail. The texting app itself is of no use in terms of finding out where it is getting these notifications from; it says it's from my carrier's number, but nothing else.

Please let me know any suggestions you have to:
 - diagnose the source of the 2-3 text messages; they are the truly aggravating "feature" of this problem. I am not sure if this is caused at the carrier, hardware, or software level.
 - turn off the notification (sound) for the 2-3 text messages, or to disable the texts from myself entirely. As you might expect, I still want to receive notifications for other text messages, so muting the app wholesale is not an option. I am okay with ditching the HTC app, so if there is one (hopefully with a workspace display) that can selectively mute users (e.g. myself) that might be an option

Google Voice is responsible for these; they are sent by default. See in the settings:

You can uncheck this box and Google Voice will refrain from sending you SMS transcripts of your voicemails from then on.
Also note, unchecking the box above titled Email the message to: only prevents email transcripts, not SMS ones.


Can the Fitbit sync with a Google Nexus 10? I have a Nexus 10 running Android 4.3. Can the Fitbit sync with this device? This compatibility page doesn't explicitly list it, but I'm guessing it may work, based on the bluetooth requirements, which I believe are satisfied by Android 4.3. But before spending a lot of money, I'd like to be sure.

Has anyone used this combination successfully?

I borrowed a friend's Fitbit and tried to sync it with my Nexus 10. I enabled Bluetooth. I then installed the Fitbit app and logged in as him. There is no option anywhere to sync the device.

I then logged out, and created a new account. On a compatible device, once the account is created, it prompts you to sync a Fitbit device. This question is never asked on the Nexus 10.

Circumstantial additional evidence comes from the large number of unhappy reviews citing device compatibility on the Fitbit app page.

So it is confirmed that despite the probable existence of the necessary bluetooth hardware/software, at the time of writing Fitbit devices cannot be synced with the Nexus 10.


Open links in corresponding app instead of browser When I click on a link, it is always opened in browser, even if I had installed corresponding app. For example youtube, reddit, etc.
In Settings -> Apps -> Configure apps -> Opening links -> YouTube there is the option Open supported links set to Open in this app and Supported links are youtu.be, m.youtube.com, youtube.com, www.youtube.com. Nevertheless youtube links are still being opened in browser.
This answer suggests to install Open Link in App, but I think that the system should handle this without any third party app.
I am using phone with Android 7.0.

open your Android settings and search for "default"...this should open App Permissions; near the top, under the Default heading, tap on "Opening links."  near the top of the page should be a toggle for "Open links in apps" - set this to on/yes, and restart both the browser and YouTube to reset with the new setting (you may need to reboot your device, i'm not sure).

basically the option in YouTube tells it to watch for those links so it can open them when it sees you click on one, but the Android system settings are what give it permission to actually open them.  you can scroll down through the list of apps on that screen to the bottom and tap on YouTube to see exactly what links it will look for and open.

[note: these steps are based on a tablet (Lenovo Tab 4 10 Plus) running Android 7, so they may be slightly different on a phone or a different tablet.  you should be able to get to this setting via the Apps menu though in Settings, just it might be kinda buried and hard to find, which is why i use the search function.]


When should I use the SD card to store data? In what situations should I store data on my SD card? When it is best to put data on the internal flash? Is this simply used to expand the storage or are there some situations when using it for separate needs is important?

In general, apps these days are built to put as much as possible on the SD card in order to save internal space.  Some apps require being on the internal card for programming reasons, however.  Generally speaking you can let them manage themselves.

Otherwise you should keep all your own media, etc on your SD card so as to keep the internal one free for things like system caches, etc.


Where are the SIM Lock settings stored on an Android phone? After getting more involved with the "aftermarket" community, I have this question that's been on my mind for a while now. Since rooting and flashing a custom ROM on an Android phone doesn't give one SIM unlock that means that the SIM lock settings must be stored somewhere else in the phone's memory.

My theory goes that the SIM lock information is stored in or along with the baseband. Is this true? And if so, are there any "alternative" or "aftermarket" baseband firmware images? And finally, who makes the baseband firmware - the carrier, or the phone manufacturer?

The SIM lock stuff is in a separate ROM chip that is not part of the normal phone storage, AFAIK.  It's manufacturer/device dependent.  Definitely nothing to do with the baseband (and you can certainly flash other basebands).


How to prove that the bootloader of a device is unlockable when it currently shows as locked? A newly bought Pixel device from a random seller can switch between carriers but the bootloader shows as locked.
Are all pixel devices' bootloaders locked by default? And how to show that it is possible to unlock the bootloader? And how to re-lock it for Pixel 2 XL. Any sources would be appreciated.

This phone is model G011C.

All Pixel's are bootloader locked by default, Google retail models can be unlocked easily while Verizon models cannot.

In the comments, you said "The question is how to PROVE it is not a Verizon variant. This phone is model G011C."

The model G011C is the Google Retail version, the Verizon version has a model of GA00152-US. Also, determining whether it's a Google or Verizon version is not difficult by other methods.

Method 1:

Go to the device Settings Menu, About Phone, and tap the Build Number repeatedly to enable Developer Options and then open that menu. If the OEM Unlocking option grayed out and it says "connect to the internet or contact your carrier" then you have the Verizon model.

Method 2:

Obtain the IMEI number and go to Verizon's BYOD Checker site and enter your IMEI number. If it is NOT a Verizon version, the message will be "PIXEL 2 XL NON-VZW" if it is a Verizon variant the message will be "PIXEL 2 XL VZW" or just "PIXEL 2 XL".

Method 3:

Chat with Google support and give them the IMEI number, they can tell you if the device is a Google Retail variant, or a Verizon variant.

And to answer the second portion of your question, "And how to re-lock it for Pixel 2 XL", this is a simple fastboot command away. Just enter fastboot flashing lock when the device is in the bootloader - Source

All non-Verizon versions can have the bootloader unlocked simply by enabling OEM Unlocking in the Developer Options menu, and using the fastboot command fastboot flashing unlock. No Verizon version of the Pixel 2 can have the bootloader unlocked by any known method.

Also, I don't know if your original question is mis-tagged or not, but you also used the sim-unlocking tag. SIM lock or carrier lock is something else entirely than bootloader lock (related to custom ROMs & TWRP tags). No Pixel device is SIM/carrier locked regardless of where it is purchased originally, or even can be SIM locked to my knowledge. Many people bought the Verizon version of Pixel & Pixel 2 outright from Verizon stores as they had them instock and immediately took them to different carriers with no issue.


How to remove a widget from the home screen on Oreo I used the  Widgets app (press and hold on the home screen) to install the calendar schedule widget. I no longer want it displayed. There must be a simple way of removing it, but I can't seem to do it.

You can remove a widgets by long clicking on it and dragging it to the top of the screen where a text is saying remove.


Error "FAILED (data transfer failure (Value too large for defined data type))" While Flashing Nexus 4 I have a Nexus 4 that was soft bricked during an OTA update. I have tried to flash several factory images to it and every time it gave me the error  "FAILED (data transfer failure (Value too large for defined data type))". When I tried to flash Occam 4.4 it seemed to finish without any problems. Now when I try to boot it up it doesn't get past the Google screen. I have left it on the Google screen for over an hour and tried wiping the cache and factory reseting it but it is still stuck on the Google screen. Also I tried to flash Occam 4.4 again but the same error displayed when I tried. The bootloader on the phone is unlocked. Can anyone help me either with getting past the Google screen or re-installing Occam on it?  I run Windows 7 and Ubuntu 16.04

Note USB De-bugging is not activated

Regarding the message FAILED (data transfer failure (Value too large for defined data type)), in my case the issue was resolved using another USB cable (first one was from a Samsung Galaxy tablet, second one from a Nexus 7 tablet)


How does the Google Play Store get updated? I have a Micromax A110 Canvas 2 device with Android ICS 4.0. A few day ago, the Google Play Store app updated automatically with a new look. After a week I updated my device with Jelly Bean 4.1. So I got the Play Store with an older look (without an update). I was hoping for an auto update. But even after two days, the Play Store remains without an update. So how can I update the Play Store myself?

Usually, Google Play Services will always run in the background and if there is an latest release of the Play Store is available, it would updated automatically.

You may enable Google Auto Sync and check whether it works. If not, there may be some problem with Google Play Services. Alternatively, try installing the apk from XDA.


Play store apps download but don't install On my pixel phone apps will download but once the download completes it doesn't install. Usually if I restart the phone the apps install but if I wait a few hours I have to repeat the process.

Anyone know of a way to fix the issue permanently?

Having the same issue on 7.1, what seemed to help was: going to the play store app info, force stop, clear data, force stop, open back up. All updates went through and even though there still is a delay after download and before start of install it's significantly improved at about 10-15s as opposed to minutes or never happening. I'll probably try to clear data for other related services to see if it helps any further.