5.1 update downloaded to my Nexus 7, incorrect version number I got a notification today on my Nexus 7 (2013 version) that an Android update has been downloaded.

It's currently running Android 5.1, build LMY470.

The update screen says:

  This software will upgrade your Nexus 7 to Android 5.1
  ...
  Update size: 18.0 MB

I read an article indicating that the 5.1.1 update is coming out soon. Is the downloaded update really for 5.1.1, and the "5.1" in the notification is just an error, or is something else going on?

This article says that the 5.1.1 update is 18MB, which is consistent with what I have.

UPDATE 2015-07-08:

Something very similar has happened again. My Nexus 7 (the same one) is currently running Android 5.1.1, build LMY47V. I've received a notification for an update to Android 5.1.1, the same version. The update size is 18.0 MB. I applied the update; it now says it's running Android 5.1.1 build LMY48G. A Google search for "LMY48G" gets a number of hits, but few if any details about what's in it.

After a couple of days, I decided to go ahead and apply the update. It completed normally and the tablet is now running Android 5.1.1, build LMY47V, which is what's expected for the 5.1.1 update.

It looks like the only problem was that the version number was displayed incorrectly. I'm still curious about why that happened, and why I haven't been able to find any other reports of the same problem.

UPDATE 2015-05-26: I've received the update on my Nexus 4; it correctly shows the version number as 5.1.1. The update size is 18.1 MB.


How to get mobile site in Firefox to be displayed as in Chrome for Android if spoofing doesn't help? On my Android device, while using Internet, Dolphin, and Firefox (left), I see the same version of http://m.chase.com that my desktop browser (right) sees:

On Chrome for Android (left), it's different, being similar to what opens iOS browser (right):

I want to understand why/how, and then see if I can get Mobile Firefox to load the blue version. I don't think it's the user agent string - I've tried spoofing it already.

Note that both iOS browser (safari) and Chrome (desktop or for Android) are based on WebKit engine. That's why they are so similar in what they render.

Firefox browser uses a much different engine: Gecko.

As an answer for what you want to do, I think that given the CSS and javascript the mobile site loads is different depending on the rendering engine, currently it is not possible to an end user to achieve that. A better design must be done by web developers who made the website, in order to avoid this kind of awkward situations.

If what you need is to open that mobile site with a browser different to Chrome for Android, but that it be rendered the same way as Chrome for Android does, I recommend you to use Opera Mobile or Opera Mini (based on Presto engine), here is a screenshot of how it looks there:


Device wants desperately to install a package (com.google.system.s) on its own I have in my hands a Mpie M8 device (Android 5), The previous owner said it wasn't working properly and I suspected it had a virus. I factory reset it and now the phone wants desperately to install com.google.system.s every 5 seconds even though I press cancel and even though I have WiFi off. I install it and it said that it is about locking. The phone started restarting all the time. I downloaded 360 Security and it said this is malware.

I tried to uninstall it and it said that this app is deep in my phone. I finally uninstall it (with a lots of sweat). And I have the same problem again, every 5 seconds. What is this file? What should I do?

From experience, flashing in any conventionally accepted way instantaneously bricks this Mpie M8. It takes a lot of efforts to unbrick it, too. So work with what you have, root it first so that the malware can be managed. When the auto-installation-without-permission starts, pull down notification and click on app info to see which system process is being hijacked and disable it immediately. As an example, mine shows Launcher and Android Service are involved. Have used a different launcher instead just to be on the safe side. Android Service, hiding in /system/priv-app as android_service_800000_0923_outsea.apk, appears the true culprit. Once deleted, the phone runs flawlessly. Of course your phone may have different malware in it depending on which malicious websites that you have visited. Good luck.


How to expands sd-card formatted as internal storage? In Android 6 I formatted my 32GB sd card as internal storage.
What I now see with GParted on my desktop is this:

As you see there is still an unencrypted, readable FAT32 partition.
I assume it was created when formatting this sd card, because there I still had some large ZIPs (previously used for flashing) on my sd card.
I am a bit surprised to see that the data is still there - especially as the guide when formatting the sd card clearly states all data will be removed.
Possibly the files are also added afterwards as I used TWRP to copy some files to /external_sd even after I did this.

So I deleted the unnecessary ZIPs on my PC and now I obviously have unused space on my sd card. So: How can I expand my sd card?

It is also interesting what Nemo shows me:

The yellow parts are the used space (98,3 kB) and the blue on is empty (31,4 GB). It also claims the file system would be msdos...

Just FYI: Besides my ZIPs there are also empty folders called "Android" and "LOST.DIR".

Not knowing exactly I believe that Android 5.0 and newer has gone and caused protection on orphaned memory space.  I would like to know more about situations like this.


Flashing update.zip signed with OEM keys return "failed to verify whole-file signature" I have an update.zip which include an APK in the system/priv-app/ folder, a boot and shutdown animations and an SSH server among other things. I have the private and public keys of the OEM who sold me tablet so I used sigapk.jar to sign the update.zip file. The command I used is the following:

java -jar signapk.jar -w certificate.x509.pem key.pk8 update.zip update-signed.zip

Then after trying to flash this file via stock recovery using sideload (adb sideload update-signed.zip) I get the following error:

Verifying update package...
E:failed to verify whole-file signature
E:signature verification failed
Restarting adbd...
Installation aborted.

Previously, I was trying to flash the update.zip without signing it and the result was the following:

Verifying update package...
E:footer is wrong
E:signature verification failed
Restarting adbd...
Installation aborted.

Actually I do not know if the difference in the error (footer is wrong --> failed to verify whole-file signature) is because the keys are working or not, or maybe because the file didn't have any signature at all. Can someone help me with this and tell my why is it not working if I am using the OEM's .pem and .pk8 keys?

EDIT:

I also tried adding the certificate.x509.pem file inside the META-INF/com/android/otacert folder inside the update.zip file and then sign it, but that also didn't work.

You are on the right track.
The message "failed to verify whole-file signature", means that the file could not be deemed valid for the provided certificate.
The missing error message indicates that this is the case as the signature could not be matched to the trusted certificate store:
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/bootable/recovery/+/2c6c23f651abb3d215134dfba463eb72a5e9f8eb/verifier.cpp#258
The Android application which runs while sideloading uses a different certificate store than the recovery:
https://source.android.com/devices/tech/ota/sign_builds#signatures-sideloading
Assuming the keys you have are valid for the recovery, you might get away with directly booting into recovery using fastboot, then selecting your signed ZIP from there.


Automatic adjust brightness through out the day It does not seem that automatic brightness works well on my Nexus S.

Basically, I want my phone's brightness to adjust throughout the day. Either that, or something that automatically adjusts brightness based on the ambient light sensor.

Anyone have any suggestions?

An application like Locale ($9.99USD) will let you do that. At say 9 am you can adjust the brightness to one setting, then add another condition to adjust the brightness to a different setting at a different time.

Tasker should be able to do it as well. It does a lot of what Locale does, plus more. It also supports all the Locale plug-ins. It is also about $5.99USD.


Can you actually determine the mAh of a battery? You can skip the story part but for better reference, please read it:

A Little Story

My phone claims it has a battery of 4000 mAh that lasts for 3 days. I got the phone, really psyched because of the battery. When I bought it it has 50% left on the battery. I did some texts and some first time testing on the phone, but no heavy usage. The phone lasted 19 hours before saying it was now low on battery (5%).

The next day, I charged it for six hours, turned on the 3G and used the Facebook app, Opera Mini, and Google Play for four hours before I removed the 3G. The battery read 29%. I was disappointed. Most of the people who bought this phone reported that it should last 10 hours with 3G on and heavy usage. Most people even say that with heavy usage their phone lasts 2 days, using the internet, apps that require it, and gaming with the phone.

Now I'm on the process of claiming the warranty and I called some service centers to determine where I will take it to. The first service center claimed that all Android phones last for only one day, the second one claimed that even if only a Messaging app is on, if I leave it open even if my screen is off the battery will be drained quickly. The third one basically told me to go to the Play Store and download a Task Killer. The last one I called told me to bring the phone to the service center so they could "observe it". That doesn't sound good to me.

Question

My question is can technicians actually tell if the battery has the capacity it claims it has and if the battery is healthy? I want to go prepared to that service center if the observation they'll be doing will be to look at my "Battery" setting only and asking me what I've been doing only for them to say that's what been draining my battery.

Also can 3G drain a battery within 4 hours if a battery has 4000 mAh?

Note: My phone is a rebranded Innos D9, it's a Cloudfone Thrill 430x.

Multiple things with your issue:

I would never trust a tech who recommends a Task-Killer for this problem. Disqualified 100%.
Same for the one claiming all Android phones last for only one day. That's bogus. It always depends on usage. I have one lasting 7 days (well, no SIM card inserted, not WiFi activated -- it's rather used as a stand-by computing device for some apps -- but it's a phone, and it runs longer than 10h ;), and my "standard phone" ends up at ~75-80% after 14h usage.
tech #2 and #4 sound more reasonable: any app (especially if "consuming push services") can be the cause for such a problem (see below), and monitoring battery usage is a generally good idea (that tech I would trust most from the ones you mentioned)
Different kind of usage causes different battery drain.
Sometimes processes go havoc and drain the battery quite fast. I had that "big surprise" multiple times already, last time yesterday: went down from ~80% to 5% and "emergency shutdown" within ~2h while in my pocket -- I only noticed that by the "beep" on shutdown. But this should not be a regular (daily) issue; I experienced this maybe 4-5 times in a year with my current device.

recommendation: Take a look at the battery statistics (usually found in Settings → About Phone) to determine which app(s) are causing the most battery drain. Maybe you've got some "bad egg" on your device, if this happens regularly.
second recommendation: Take a look at How to deal with (orphaned) WakeLocks? -- maybe that's what affects you. Again, this could be a mal-functioning app.

battery only lasting for ~10h is nothing rare with heavy usage. Remember these are no longer "dumb-phones", but rather "pocket-computers which also can make phone calls".

Useful resources also include:

How can I tell what is really draining my battery?
How to debug a battery issue?
How can I find out what causes “Android OS” to consume battery?
Follow the tag battery-life


application to restore/download all market applications after new rom is installed Possible Duplicate:
  How to recover apps from a factory reset?

the AndyX Rom has a wonderful feature that grabs all applications previously installed from the market once you do all wipes and new rom setup.

ONLINE AndyX ROM™ v6.0 - XXLPH - Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 | forum.xda-developers.com

unfortunately any other custom rom I used does not have this feature so I have to go to the market again and download all app one by one like skype, whatsapp and so on.

is there an app that would work on all the roms which I could use to grab all what I had installed before regardless in which rom I installed the apps? Thanks !

You can use AppBrain to sync the list of your apps to the service, flash, reinstall AppBrain and sync your device again to reinstall your apps.

The only downside is that when you resync your device you have to accept every app install separately. Or at least this was the case when I last used it (ages ago).


is there a way to know what CPU, GPU, RAM my phone / tablet has? Possible Duplicate:
  How to get hardware specs of Android device?

I have a generic "cheap" tablet, running ICS; but I'd like to know what GPU does it have.

The box says it has an Allwiner A10, Cortex-A8 1.1 Ghz CPU, but doesn't mention anything about GPU.

I think (not sure) that most of the time, GPUs are "associated" with CPUs, since they are SOCs, but i am not sure. Either way, i do not know is those A10 have an specific GPU.

The same goes for the RAM, I'm not sure the OS can tells us directly. I want to know it other than the specs in the box (or manufacturer website, etc).

So is there a way to know within the operating system? Maybe somewhere in the settings, or with an app, or even a command somewhere? Something like in windows, where you can directly know what specs the computer has with simple steps.

In my case, it is an ICS tablet, but I'd like to know if i could find out the specs of any phone or tablet, on any version of Android. Mainly because it would be extremely useful when playing around with the devices in stores, or to find out the specs of friends' androids without even knowing the brand / model but having access to it.

Googling the keywords Allwiner A10 yielded this answer by way of this linky. To quote, under the features heading:

  Features of the Allwinner A10 include:

  1.2ghz Cortex A8 ARM Core
  MALI400MP OpenGL ES 2.0 GPU
  DDR3 Controller 800MHz 1GB
  max 2160p Hardware-accelerated Video playback (4x the resolution of    1080p)
  a NAND Flash Controller that is capable of 8-way concurrent DMA (8    NAND ICs)
  4 SDIO interfaces (SD 3.0, UHI class)
  USB 2.0 Host as well as a 2nd USB-OTG Interface (USB-OTG can be    reconfigured as USB 2.0 Host, automatically)
  24-pin RGB/TTL as well as simultaneous HDMI out
  SATA-II 3gb/sec 10/100 Ethernet (MII compatible)
  a 2nd 24-pin RGB/TTL interface that is multiplexed (shared) on the    same pins for a standard IDE (PATA) interface
  GPIO, I2C, PWM, Keyboard Matrix (8x8), built-in Resistive Touchscreen    Controller, and much more.

So it seems, MALI400MP is what's needed to google, yielded this linky
directly on ARM's site. Quoting the first paragraph:

  The world's first OpenGL ES 2.0 conformant multi-core GPU provides 2D
  and 3D acceleration with performance scalable up to 1080p resolutions,
  while maintaining ARM® leadership on power and bandwidth efficiency.


Where does android store the missed/incoming/outgoing calls? I am looking for the database where android actually stores its call lists. My dialer currently does not store any call there and I want to debug the problem.

I already looked in com.android.dialer/databases/dialer.db but it does not seem to be the database I am looking for. In /data/data the only thing with call in the name is callbackup. I looked into the data of the contacts apps as well, but this seems to be the wrong place, too.

It's stored in /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/calllog.db, under the "calls" table, in reverse time order (i.e. the last item in the table is the latest call in the log as displayed in the dialer).


Android L 5.0.1 wont unlink my exchange account from GMail I updated my Nexus 5  to L5.0.1. No problems except my Outlook exchange account is now linked to GMail which I really do not want. There seems to be no way to unlink it either despite deleting the exchange account!

In the Help section it says Goto Settings/Accounts and look under POP3 or IMAP but neither of these are visible.

Any suggestions??

In the new Android 5.0 update, GMail was made to be available as the only e-mail app you would need.  Instead of having to have 2 different email apps for gmail and exchange, it would do everything for you.  Now remember, your exchange email is completely separate from your gmail, so there is nothing happening to your e-mail, it's not being hijacked by Google or anything, the app is just a place where it is getting delivered.  If you still don't want them in the same app, then you can always install a different email app to handle your exchange e-mail.

Download an e-mail app, such as Nine that will handle your exchange e-mail in a separate app.  First you are going to have to delete the exchange e-mail from your GMail app, then install the new email application, then add it to the new application.


Use a USB Controller with Xoom without adapter I would like to use an X-Box 360 Controller with my Motorola Xoom tablet, however the Controller uses USB to connect and I do not have the required USB OTG adapter to plug it directly into the tablet.

I've searched this site and Google but cannot find information on an alternative method of connecting the controller to the Xoom.

I'm hoping for a solution to pair these devices that involves either connecting both into my computer and bridging them somehow with adb or pairing my Xoom to my laptop using Bluetooth and sending the controller signal over this connection.

I've tried poking around the properties of the tablet and controller while they're plugged in but I haven't had any luck combining the two.  Does anyone have experience/know any techniques for doing either of these things?  Is there some other way for my Xoom to recognize the controller?

I could use either Windows 7 or Linux to make this work.

Can you not use a USB OTG (On The Go) Cable. It will have a connection (microusb) at one end to fit to your tablet and a USB connection at the other (for many peripherals). This should surely connect your X Box Controller to your tablet. They are very cheap as well.

Alternatively, and maybe to be used in conjunction with see the following article from Pocketables entitled "Guide to Game Controllers on Android" written by A. Odegard on May 9th 2012

http://www.pocketables.com/2012/05/guide-to-game-controllers-on-android.html

Its is an excellent read


Remove Phh's superuser? I have TCL Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) 5010D phone that i bought and decided to root it. I was kinda new to this kind of rooting (a bit complex) because i used kingroot before and it worked just fine till i got this phone and no app for rooting helped me which lead me to rooting using my computer.

I've searched on google and found one thread on XDA by kirito9, showing his tutorial on rooting Alcatel pixi phones and i've found mine there. Multiple choices occured and i couldn't decide which one is easier for me. So i went on to try phh's superuser method. Everything went fine, i've got TWRP installed on my phone and flashed phh's superuser onto my phone, rebooted and... well it booted fine. Installed the required superuser and Titanium Backup. Superuser worked fine and so did Titanium Backup.

Later i decided to uninstall some system apps that i didn't need and were wasting space so i downloaded system app remover and allowed root access.. as soon as i tried to uninstall the app, my device rebooted. I thought that was a normal process but i saw that the app did not uninstall. Tried again, same thing. After doing some research, found out that i don't have access to rewriting /system and files in it at all. I tried downloading an app again to make /system rewritable, but no access. Then tried it through ADB but didn't work as well.

So not sure but i think that's half root which i don't want, i wanted full root but i didn't get it. Now i wish to remove this phh's superuser and trying to get root another way if i can without bricking my device and of course, making /system rewritable so i can uninstall useless apps. Can't even install busybox because of this. Would appreciate help on both uninstalling phh's superuser and getting another method of safely rooting my phone.

You should try this using es file explorer.
In the dash board of es file explorer, go to tools then turn on  the switch for root explorer. After that consider turning recycle bin on for later restores. Next tap on root explorer and a subwindow should open . Select Mount R/W. That's rewrite permission. Still there, you can select uninstall system apps. It should work well. Proceed with caution and at your own risk


Forgot screen lock PIN on Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Logged in to device manager using gmail account. Over internet locked the phone and reset the password. Received the message on the phone that it is locked using android device manager. But when I try unlocking the screen using new pin it says 'wrong pin'. I do not want to loose data by resetting to factory setting. Can anyone help please.

Follow this simple steps to unlock forgotten password/pattern lock on android

It is mostly seen that when you type wrong password few times, your phone will give you message “Try Again in 30 Seconds”. Apart from this it will also gives you an option: Forgot Password or Pattern.

Step #1: Tap on this option.

Step #2: When you click on Forgot Password option, you will get two options: Unlock with security question OR Unlock with Google account.

Step #3: Tap on Google account option.

Step #4: Login with Google account to get connected.

Step #5: Now you can select a new pattern or type in a new password.

Step #6: Type new password and access your android device easily without losing any data.

Disclosure: I'm the author of the linked article.


Android Force Stop Button Not Working Samsung Captivate (A Galaxy S) Settings -> Manage Applications -> Third Party App -> Force Stop is not working.  On clicking, the Force Stop Button does not change.  No Messages either. I can however uninstall the app.  What could be wrong?   This is with a Samsung Captivate on AT&T. Thanks

The Force Stop button is only applicable to apps which are currently actually running. In general, Android apps will stay in an idle state on the assumption that you might want to switch back to them soon, but the OS will kill apps you haven't used for a while as it gets short on memory. Some apps also have an actual "exit" option, of course.

So, are you sure the app you're trying to Force Stop is actually running? In your applications settings, there should be a "Running" tab, which should show all of the apps currently running on your device. Alternatively there are apps in the Market that can show you what's currently going on on your device. I use "OS Monitor" but I'm sure there are others.


HTC Desire HD vibrating constantly My girlfriend plugged her phone in to charge and it started vibrating, and never stopped. The only way to stop it is to power off the phone, and take the battery out. Even if the phone is off, it still vibrates if the battery is in.

She recently installed the eBay application, and tried removing that but nothing.

Running standard HTC/Telus (Alberta, Canada) 2.2.1. Phone has not been rooted or anything else. Phone is only 3 weeks old.

I have same phone, with no problems.

How do we make it stop?

Part 2:

Sometimes, after removing and replacing the battery it stops. But you just have to push on the back in a spot or two and it cranks up again. Seems like a hardware problem that we can't fix. Will probably end up going back to the Telus store to see what they say, and will most likely have to warranty it.

Still open to ideas though.

Part 3:

We can adjust the volume up and down, and it will go all the way up to full volume, make the little 'bing' noise to let you know the volume is turned up, all while still vibrating. Going up/down, changing the ring mode in settings, changing vibration settings in keyboard and other areas have no effect.

Nobody posted it as an answer, so I'm going to: It's definitely a hardware issue.  There's no way that both the simple firmware for battery charging while the phone is off has the exact same bug as the software running when the phone is on.  Mark Wain's (deleted) answer indicates that he had a similar issue that, again, is best explained by bad hardware.


Enabling WIFI hotspot from a computer without usb debugging Is it possible to enable WIFI hotspot from a computer without usb debugging being enabled?

I got a phone with broken LCD and i'm unable to enable usb debugging.

No. ADB doesn't work without debugging.

However you can try your vendor native app, like LG PC Suite or Samsung Kies. It probably can have phone management capability and enabling/disabling its features.


How long can I reasonably expect security updates to be supported? In light of the recent "stagefright" MMS vulnerability, I understand that while Google may release fixes to security vulnerabilities, it requires co-operation from the handset manufacturer to deliver those fixes to handsets.

As the owner of an aging Samsung Galaxy S2, I'd like to know if I'm ever going to get an update. No-one ever told me that my handset was no longer going to receive updates. Maybe it still is but Samsung are still working it out.

How long after a handset has been made should I reasonably expect security updates to be pushed out? At what point should I seriously consider replacing a handset if these updates are important to me?

Related: https://windowsphone.stackexchange.com/q/10068/13848

It depends on your manufacturer and carrier to deliver the update.  My guess is that it would only be the newest models or this past year's flagships that would be updated in a reasonable amount of time.

If you have the understanding and really want the update, I know many of the custom ROM's will be updated well before any of the carrier stock images. I checked yesterday and my phone received an update in a nightly build about 2 weeks ago.  Check and see if your device is supported by Cyanogenmod.


apps automatically open in my cell phone screen how In my cell phone Micromax canvas L A 108, Apps automaticall open and in my messaging screen "i" text automatically typing continously. is it a software problem or display problem. please give the answer

Try restarting the phone and see whether the problem goes off. If you have the opportunity, enable "Show touches" under developer options. This will show where exactly the phone is simulating the touches and with that you can see whether it is a hardware issue. If you do not see the touches highlighted, but the apps automatically open then it is most likely a software issue. In that case, restart the app in recovery mode and do a factory rest. Also, you can try installing some other compatible ROM.

If you see the touch spots, then it is most likely to be a faulty digitizer. In that case you can either claim warranty or get it replaced.

You can see this video which demonstrates how to enable "Show touches" option.


WhatsApp does not download images during call During a WhatsApp call, if I receive a media element from a WhatsApp contact (does not necessarily has to be the person whom I am talking with), the loading icon rotates, but the download of the element never starts.

First I thought it is due to my internet connection, but regardless of my speed, it is the same for LTE+ or WLAN connections.

Is that intentional? How can I solve this problem?

EDIT: This happens only on Android phones. On iPhones, this does not seem to be an issue.

Apparently this is a bug that still exists. However, I found a workaround. Tap on X to stop downloading the media, and tap again to download it.


Google+ Photo Backup Failed I have an HTC Inspire and I'm trying to use the new Google+ auto backup. All the photos say "Backup Failed". However, it is uploading the videos.  I have checked every setting that I know of and it looks like it is setup right.  Any ideas?

This method seems to work for me: Try deleting Google+ data/cache, then start Google+ app. It will log you in and then you can choose Auto Backup setting. You can then go to Sync settings, untick "Sync Google+ Auto Backup" and then tick it again. You can also go to the Google+ app settings and get it to upload all your photos/videos to start the sync.


My phone stopped remembering wifi passwords! For some reason that completely escaped me, this here Samsung S3 mini stopped connecting automatically to my home network, always requiring me to re-type the wifi password.

Since then, I noticed that it's not just for my home network, but for all wifi networks.

More concretely, here's a sample of what happens:

I try to connect to a WPA-protected wifi.
Android asks for the password.
After I provide it, the phone connects successfully.
I turn off the wifi (on the phone).
I turn it back on.
The phone doesn't auto-connect to the wifi.
I explicitly select the wifi network to connect to.
Android again asks for the password I typed in a minute earlier.

Any idea how that can happen?  What could I have done to deserve this?  What could I do to redeem myself and fix this problem?

More details: "forget"thing ("disconnect"ing from) the network explicitly makes no difference (it still doesn't remember the password next time around), rebooting the phone neither.  This phone is running Android-4.4.2, is not rooted.

There is most likely a problem with the phone's /efs/ss_data file. I think it's basically a key for decryption of your Wi-Fi passwords and other things in secure storage.

Root is required for this fix.

First we need to confirm it's a problem with secure storage.

Install BuildProp Editor from Play Store
Set ro.secure.storage=false
Reboot, setup Wi-Fi & reboot again

WiFi should now remember passwords if there was an issue with secure storage.

Now let's fix the secure storage issue since we know what's broken.

Set ro.secure.storage=true using  BuildProp Editor
Backup EFS using TWRP/CWM recovery
Delete ss_data in /efs using ES File Explorer in root mode
Reboot, setup Wi-Fi and reboot again

Your Wi-Fi passwords should be remembered now on any ROM/kernel, non rooted and without edits to build.props

Tested ON:
Samsung Galaxy S6 SM-G920T1 MetroPCS Variant on 5.1.1 build DOJC

Note:
This may work on other devices that require setting ro.secure.storage=false in build.prop for Wi-Fi to remember passwords. I have seen users with Nexus devices experiencing this issue as well.

SOURCE


Power Efficiency: Network mode 4G LTE vs 3G GSM/WCDMA? Which network mode is more power efficient: LTE 4G or GSM 3G?
I assume using a 4G network uses more power even if you don't use the data connection, as from the little I understand about mobile networks - the frequency/encoding is completely different to 3G.

When I have "LTE/WCDMA/GSM (auto connect)" network mode active on my phone, I typically get 0-1 bars signal. But with "WCDMA/GSM (auto connect)" mode, my phone consistently has 4 bars signal.

Does the way Android handles network connections require less power when there is a stronger network signal - whether the connection is LTE or WCDMA or GSM - (I am thinking something like the network connection refresh rate might be dependant on the signal strength?!), or does the technology behind 4G simply require more power to keep connected and it doesn't matter what OS version you are using?

In case it's relevant, I'm using Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (SM-N910C) on stock Android 5.0.1.

This is a big one which is tough to give a complete definitive answer.

There are a ton of variables involved that could easily change the the end data as per you. A few of things are involved are conditions like theory, optimal, or real world environment:

The carrier and their network, the technology they utilize.
The data type itself and whose definition of what is really needs to be met to be considered truly that type.

To give you an idea in your question about refresh rate, first, whose definition of efficiency should you go by meaning? Is it solely based on an acceptable signal strength? Like, one data type refreshes at an exact unit of time because there's just maybe a chance of a better signal even if it's already at a super strong level, then add the tower hand-offs, oh my. Wow that grew fast.

Check out this excerpt from a book reference by O'Reilly which includes references to reports and papers to go deeper if wanted.


What is Cyanogenmod KANGs? What is Cyanogenmod KANGs? I have read about compiling the most up-to-date source code as a "KANGs" but I can't find out anywhere what it refers to.

CyanogenMod developers coined the term "kang" originally.  It goes back to the beginnings of Android development.  It used to mean having one's development work taken, manipulated, rebranded, and re-released by someone else with no credit to the original developer.

Later this term morphed into having a less malicious meaning, and stands for the process of creating a code based of someone else's code or reapplying code that someone else created into your own code.  A "KANG" therefore is a derivative work, based on the original with some modifications. It usually means an unauthorized version of a custom ROM.


Problem detecting micro SDHC card I recently purchased a Micromax A110 and I tried to use my old Sandisk micro SDHC card which is previously used on a Nokia 5233. The problem here is that the new Android phone is not detecting the micro SDHC card. Why won't it work?

Not all equipment which uses SD cards can use SDHC cards.  It may be that your device doesn't support the sdhc card you are using.


What is the advantage of making f-droid a system app? F-droid (0.7) has two options:

One to grant it "root" powers, and another to give it "system-app" powers.

Just using it as a "root" app will let it install apps without going through the whole "Are you sure you want to install this app" page.

What does System-app give it?

I can't test it as it crashes on my phone

I believe this was/is a planned feature for F-Droid, which would essentially give it features similar to the play store where it can auto-update apps, install them and remove them all by itself, without needing user interaction. See this as an explanation - it's the extension which was meant to give F_Droid these priviledges, but as it says in the description:

  Note: This is still in a testing phase. Current F-Droid versions do not yet interact with this extension.


Tasker: event works, state enter/exit not - Fixed by reinstall FIXED! I reinstalled Tasker (also deleting remaining Tasker folder) and now it works as it should. Not a clue why it didn't work at first.

I made a little program in tasker. Two tasks: activate stamina mode, activate normal mode. The first is activated when the screen is turned of, the other when it's turned back on. For this I used the events "Display off" and "Display on".

Now I tried the 'Display state' state and set it to "off". Then added the 'activate stamina mode' task to its 'enter'. Also added 'activate normal mode' to the exit. Though for some reason this doesn't work.

So my question is, why?

Note: Using Cyanogenmod 10.1 on Xperia Z. Tasker version v4.0u1

Edit: I know it doesn't work because I added a notification & buzz to the task, these don't get fired. I also tried to add an exit and enter to the running of an app, and this DOES work. Very weird :s

Thanks!

Even though I still don't know what was wrong, I did manage to fix it. A reinstall solved the problem, but only if I also deleted the 'Tasker' folder on the sd.

Note: You can export your configuration, and everything will work without any extra work after the reinstall. (menu->data->backup/restore)

Note 2: When using the state stuff, there's no need for an 'active normal mode' task. It'll revert everything back again.


Android still uses old ip when resolving hostname I have a weird problem here.

I use ftp to exchange files between my smartphone (Xperia Z5 compact) and my pc. A while back the pc had a static ip address but now it's assigned one via dhcp. When I try to connect to the pc from the phone by way of the pc's hostname it still uses the old static ip the pc once had.

Any ideas as to what I can do about this?

You can  clear arp cache using this command in terminal:

ip -s -s neigh flush all

(or simply ip neigh flush 192.168.xx.0/yy if you know the network range)

While not necessary, you may need to reboot the device, ping the hostname again and see if its resolved to new IP.

Looking from the other side, you can try resetting winsock entries and TCP/IP stack for the PC and see if it solves the issue.


Is it safe to update my Samsung Galaxy Neo to KitKat? The Samsung Galaxy Neo is officially receiving a KitKat update, which is supposed to bring fixes and performance improvements. Will I experience any problems if I update to the latest version, like lag, shutdown problems or battery issues?

These so called updates are meant to fix bugs, errors etc and improve performance of the devices. So if you update the phone you will experience better performance. There is nothing to worry. Also updates includes a lot of security fixes which keeps you away from online attacks.


Android PandaBoard: Linux terminal output for debugging? My research team is currently considering investing in a PandaBoard for Android b/c we are developing a custom kernel/sys-image and would like Linux terminal output.

Does the Pandaboard give me booting information?  Such as printing kernel messages to the Linux terminal as the board loads up the system image?  So for example, if the phone crashes, I can at least see how far the phone made it in the boot process.

See this link for the general idea.

For verification, do the following steps:

Connect DB9 to your host (PC) <------> Panda board (target). You need to connect with minicom and mini USB for adb shell.
pc$ sudo minicom
You should have adb shell for the Android SDK.
pc$ export PATH=$PATH://android-sdk-linux/platform-tools
Reboot the panda board.
pc$ adb devices # to check the device is connected or not
pc$ adb reboot   # to reboot

On minicom terminal, you will get logs of the reboot. At the end, it will ask you to hit a key to stop auto boot. This will tell you if the device is getting the image or not. If you want to boot manuually by using U-Boot terminal, press key so you will get U-Boot terminal.

 hardware_name# bootm

This will help you a little bit.


How To Change browser font in Chrome For Android? I am a seasoned Linux developer, tinkering with Android.

I want to modify Chrome so that it uses the font I want as default.

So far I've found

/data/data/com.android.chrome/shared_prefs/com.android.chrome_preferences.xml

But it seems to sync settings from Google cloud?

Anyone know markup to specify font?

You can try using Per App fonts -an Xposed module. It requires root though


How to keep downloads from disappearing in standby mode? Large downloads tend to disappear a while after I turn off my screen.

If I keep my screen on while downloading, my downloads finish  normally, however, if I turn my screen off for a while, they completely disappear. I don't recieve an error message, they don't pause, and they don't show up in my history. They're just gone.

I download only using wifi, I don't use 4G.

My phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 running under Android 5.0.

Power saving mode is off, restricting background data is off, Chrome's data saving mode is off, and enable wifi on standby is set to always.

I've tried using Advanced Download Manager instead, and that solved the problem, but it caused a lot of inconvenience as I had to perform multiple difficult steps to start the downloads using that application.

Does anyone know the solution to this problem?

There doesn't seem to be an answer to this question. I've tried many combinations of settings, but in the end, nothing fixed the error. I'm afraid this is a bug in Android, and since Samsung won't be rolling out any other updates for the N9005, we're stuck with it. There are, however, some things you can do to avoid the problem.

You can install a download manager from the Play Store. Those keep your downloads up and running, but they can cause other problems such as battery drainage or damaged files.

Another option that is will work is prohibiting your screen from turning off. There is a setting under developer settings that will keep your screen on when charging. You can also install an app from the Play Store if you want to keep your screen on when you're off the grid.

Lastly, you could install a custom ROM with an higher Android version. For the Note 3, the DarkLord ROM is an option. It comes with Android 5.1.1.

[ROM] [6.0.1] [WIP] DarkLord S7 Edge Full Port (Fastest, Smoothest)

For me, it worked like a charm, but you'll have to decide for yourself wether you want to flash a custom rom or not.


App download from own server shows unknown resource, How to make it trusted one May be I am asking discussion related question, I am sorry if you feel it wrong,
but I am really stuck while deciding what to do.

For first time app Installation I have to give Download link for users from My own server because users don't have access to other Internet (also play store).
I have uploaded app to my own server and gave download link to other users from there.

Now while installing that from that location gives warning that it is from untrusted location and ask to change the setting and tick unknown location. maybe because I haven't signed this app with play store.
Now,
If I sign it with play store key and upload it to app store also, but for first time If I give same app download from my server, will it give same warning ?

Or else what things I can do to remove that warning while downloading from my own server.

Any other ways of dealing with this scenario will be helpful.

Unknown Sources simply means applications that are not downloaded from the Google Play Store. Even if you put your applications on Amazon App Store or other alternative stores, your users will have to enable Unknown Sources.

You can't change this behaviour, except maybe by modifying Android's sources, but I'm sure you don't want to.


Windows 10 and fastboot driver | Nexus 5X I can not use fastboot on my pc with Windows 10 to flash something on my Nexus 5X.

I've installed Ubuntu and adb/fastbook works correctly.
With Ubuntu I've installed TWRP and SuperSU.

On Windows 10:
- Adb works.
- I've Android Studio with the latest platform-tools.
- I've tried with 15 seconds ADB Installer v1.4.3.
- I've tried with this answer.
- I've already removed all usb-driver (as Nexus Root Toolkit suggest) and retry all.

What can I do?

I'm pretty sure there are some 3rd party fastboot installers for Windows that might work in your scenario.  The XDA Developer's website had a few handy installers for Windows 10 fastboot you might want to check out.

Fastboot and ADB Installer for Windows 10


Does the bootloader need to be unlocked to flash my phone I am not able to relate between bootloader unlocking and flashing. From what I understand, when I flash my phone with a custom ROM, it writes to the /boot partition and hence the bootloader has to be unlocked. Is my understanding correct, or can I flash a ROM without unlocked bootloader?

A locked bootloader means that you won't be able to install software updates(or flash recoveries, ROMs) that hasn't been signed by the manufacturer/carrier.

So the answer is "Yes, you can flash an unsigned ROM but it won't get loaded by the locked bootloader".


Step by step guide to build androidx86 with virtual box guest os integrations Androidx86.org says that to use 3d acceleration for my androidx86 virtual machine i have to install Linux guest additions.I would like to know how to do that.
I am using a

ubuntu 20.10 (64bit)
core i5 4th gen(@3.1 ghz)
Nvidia gt 730
Virtualbox 6.1

To use GPU acceleration for android x86 vm it's easier if you use qemu.Check this out(the method i used and this video are not fully same.i used the latest version)
Linux exclusive-Feel free to comment your questions

Install the following build dependencies(no need to build for arch linux read below) usingsudo apt install -y build-essential libepoxy-dev libdrm-dev libgbm-dev libx11-dev libvirglrenderer-dev libpulse-dev libsdl2-dev libgtk-3-dev libsdl1.2-dev ninja-build

cd into directory you want to download and build qemu(if you use arch linux you don't have to build qemu.just use the package in official repository.also it is not necessary to add your user to kvm group.it just works.)
Download latest qemu sources using git clone https://git.qemu.org/git/qemu.git
run cd qemu
run ./configure --enable-sdl --enable-opengl --enable-virglrenderer --enable-system --enable-modules --audio-drv-list=pa --target-list=x86_64-softmmu --enable-kvm --enable-gtk
run make
run sudo adduser yourusername kvm
run sudo chmod 666 /dev/kvm
run sudo touch /lib/udev/rules.d/99-kvm.rules
add line KERNEL=="kvm", GROUP="kvm", MODE="0666" to 99-kvm.rules
you can do that by sudo gedit /lib/udev/rules.d/99-kvm.rules and pasting the line then saving.
run sudo apt install qemu-utils
cd to the directory where you want create the virtual hard disk.
qemu-img create -f qcow2 Android.img 10G
10G refers to size of hard disk drive,in this case 10 Gigabytes.
Download androidx89.(latest kernel version performed better for me or was it just a placebo?)
cd to directory were u git cloned qemu
cd to directory qemu/build/x86_64-softmmu/ ie cd qemu/build/x86_64-softmmu/
run

qemu-system-x86_64 -boot d \
    -enable-kvm \
    -smp 2 \
    -cdrom "/path/to/android/iso" \
    -name linuz \
    -device virtio-vga,virgl=on,xres=1280,yres=720 \
    -cpu host \
    -device AC97 \
    -m 2048 \
    -display sdl,gl=on \
    -drive file=/path/to/android/Android.iso,if=virtio \
    -object rng-random,id=rng0,filename=/dev/urandom \
    -device virtio-rng-pci,rng=rng0 \
    -device virtio-keyboard \
    -boot menu=off \
    -device virtio-tablet \
    -machine type=q35 \
    -serial mon:stdio \
    -net nic -net user,hostfwd=tcp::4444-:5555

smp refers to number of cpu cores given to the virtual machine. -m refers to ram allocated.in this case 2048 megabytes.you can use -display gtk,gl=on also but display gtk does not work nvidia proprietary drivers for some reason.
Use arrow keys to navigate and enter to select.do as follows
Select Installation

Select create/modify partition

dont use gpt

Select new

select primary

press enter

select write and type yes .then select quit

select the partition we just created

select ext4

select yes to format

select yes to install grub

select yes to make /system read write (recommended)

Once all operations are over u can boot into android.
To boot directly to hard disk use

qemu-system-x86_64 -boot c \
    -enable-kvm \
    -smp 2 \
    -name linuz \
    -device virtio-vga,virgl=on,xres=1280,yres=720 \
    -cpu host \
    -device AC97 \
    -m 2048 \
    -display sdl,gl=on \
    -drive file=/path/to/android/Android.iso,if=virtio \
    -object rng-random,id=rng0,filename=/dev/urandom \
    -device virtio-rng-pci,rng=rng0 \
    -device virtio-keyboard \
    -boot menu=off \
    -device virtio-tablet \
    -machine type=q35 \
    -serial mon:stdio \
    -net nic -net user,hostfwd=tcp::4444-:5555

to use adb use adb connect localhost:4444
if arm translator does not install automatically do this

instructions to manually install native bridge

Download this file(http://dl.android-x86.org/houdini.php?v=9_y) in your vm.9 refers to android version if you have a previous version change it accordingly.or you can check it here

change the name of the file according to the version of android in my case houdini9_y.sfs.move that file to system/etc/ it can be done using terminal or root browser.

using terminal type mv /sdcard/Download/houdini9_y.sfs /system/etc if you are not comfortable with this method use a root browser app.

now got to terminal emulator type su (if you get a prompt asking weather to give superuser access say yes forever)
then type system/bin/enable_nativebridge
You might get some errors but they are safe to ignore i suppose.(i got two errors but arm translators worked)
Go to settings androidx86-options enable native bridge

Setting up tap networking
For better guest-host integrations i use a tap network.
sudo ip link add name br0 type bridge
sudo ip addr flush enp3s0
sudo ip link set enp3s0 master br0
sudo ip tuntap add mode tap name tap0 user yourusername
sudo ip link set tap0 master br0
sudo ip link set enp3s0 up
sudo ip link set tap0 up
sudo ip link set br0 up
sudo dhclient -v br0

replace enp3so with your network interface.use the following to command to launch the emulator
qemu-system-x86_64 -boot c \
    -enable-kvm \
    -smp 2 \
    -name linuz \
    -device virtio-vga,virgl=on,xres=1280,yres=720 \
    -cpu host \
    -device AC97 \
    -m 2048 \
    -display sdl,gl=on \
    -drive file=/path/to/imgfile,if=virtio \
    -object rng-random,id=rng0,filename=/dev/urandom \
    -device virtio-rng-pci,rng=rng0 \
    -device virtio-keyboard \
    -boot menu=off \
    -device virtio-tablet \
    -machine type=q35 \
    -serial mon:stdio \
    -netdev tap,id=mynet0,ifname=tap0,script=no,downscript=no \
    -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=mynet0,mac=51:55:00:a1:11:32


Connecting a Galaxy S3 to my MacBook Pro 10.10.5 I am trying to connect my Samsung Galaxy S3 phone to my OS X 10.10.5, with no luck.

I have tried all sorts of different cables, and have checked USB debugging. The phone successfully charges when plugged in to my computer. But it doesn't show up in Android File Transfer or adb devices.

What should I do? Do I have to install a driver of some sort? I have read mixed reviews of something called Kies, some saying DONT install it, others saying DO install it.

Update: I tried downloading Kies, and not only can I still not see my device, but Kies says that I cannot use Android File Transfer as long as Kies is installed, and that I need to uninstall Kies. WTF Samsung?

I have faced the exact same problem when I first started android development. My One Plus One would simply not show up in Android File Transfer. I would highly recommend that you re-install Android File Transfer.

Install Android File Transfer app.
Reboot your Macbook Pro after installation
Plug in the usb cable into your mac and start android file transfer.

Let me know if this helped or not!


Please help! What should I do before unrooting? I accidentally deleted my Photo Album in Gallery, unfortunately I never backup any of my photos. I tried to recover my photos using Android Recovery Data Software but required rooting.

Not sure what to do, so I rooted my Galaxy Nexus using Kingo Root via computer. I successfully recovered almost 90% of my photos now and I want to get my phone back to its condition before rooting. I'm not sure what to do next as this is my first time doing rooting.

Anyone can help?
What should I do before unrooting my phone using Kingo Root to make sure I get back to the version before rooting, not to lose any data and not damage my phone?
How to safely unroot my phone?

It's a simple answer, but when I used that program, I did not lose data by unrooting. To unroot, go to Settings, and press "Unroot". You will see a "com.kingroot.kinguser has stopped" message, and your phone will reboot with its data still intact.

For more see If I root my Android phone, will I lose all of my data?


Any solutions for disabling the new WhatsApp feature that shows when the message was read? The last seen status can be disabled on WhatsApp at the chat settings. Any way I can disable the two blue ticks that appear on the other person's app  that shows the read time of the message?

You can actually do it now. They rolled out Version 2.11.444 with an option to turn off Read receipts under the privacy settings. The update is not available through the Play Store at the time of me writing this answer, though - you have to download and install the apk from their official website.

For more info check http://codezag.com/disabling-blueticks-whatsapp-turn-off-read-reciepts/


Enabling wireless tools on Android I need to use commands like iwconfig in Android, I know I have to install the wireless tools because they are not in Android by default, The problem is that I have just seen 3 chinesse tutorials that makes no sense when I translate them, and a link that downloads a directory with Android wireless tools, but I don't know what to do to get them into my device and use them.

Any help would be apreciated.

Download wireless_tools.30.pre9.tar.gz.
This version supports non-ASCII char in ESSID.
Unpack it into mydroid/external/wireless-tools directory.
Create Android.mk file with the following content:

LOCAL_PATH:= $(call my-dir)
################## build iwlib ###################
include $(CLEAR_VARS)
LOCAL_SRC_FILES := iwlib.c
LOCAL_CFLAGS += -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wshadow -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-qual -Winline -MMD -fPIC
LOCAL_MODULE:= libiw
LOCAL_STATIC_LIBRARIES := libcutils libc libm
include $(BUILD_STATIC_LIBRARY)
################## build iwconfig #################
include $(CLEAR_VARS)
LOCAL_SRC_FILES := iwconfig.c
LOCAL_CFLAGS += -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wshadow -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-qual -Winline -MMD -fPIC
LOCAL_MODULE:= iwconfig
LOCAL_STATIC_LIBRARIES := libcutils libc libm libiw
#LOCAL_FORCE_STATIC_EXECUTABLE := true
LOCAL_MODULE_PATH := $(TARGET_OUT_OPTIONAL_EXECUTABLES) # install to system/xbin
#LOCAL_UNSTRIPPED_PATH := $(TARGET_ROOT_OUT_UNSTRIPPED)
#LOCAL_MODULE_TAGS := eng user
include $(BUILD_EXECUTABLE)
################## build iwlist ###################
include $(CLEAR_VARS)
LOCAL_SRC_FILES := iwlist.c iwlib.h
LOCAL_CFLAGS += -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wshadow -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-qual -Winline -MMD -fPIC
LOCAL_MODULE:= iwlist
LOCAL_STATIC_LIBRARIES := libcutils libc libm libiw
#LOCAL_FORCE_STATIC_EXECUTABLE := true
LOCAL_MODULE_PATH := $(TARGET_OUT_OPTIONAL_EXECUTABLES) # install to system/xbin
#LOCAL_UNSTRIPPED_PATH := $(TARGET_ROOT_OUT_UNSTRIPPED)
#LOCAL_MODULE_TAGS := eng user
include $(BUILD_EXECUTABLE)

Modify it as follows:

Change wireless.22.h to be wireless.h ;
Modify ifrename.c , add getline() function. You can get the code from external/genext2fs/genext2fs.c ;
Notice that this file uses macro to pass another function to getline() .
Modify iwlib.h ,  change #include to be #include .
[You might need to check the original file to know what the author means]

Compile

~/eclair-21/external/wireless-tools$ . ../../build/envsetup.sh
~/eclair-21/external/wireless-tools/wireless-tools$ mm

Copy files to the system

~/eclair-21/external/wireless-tools$ croot
~/eclair-21$ cp out/target/product/generic/system/xbin/iwconfig /nfs/rootfs/system/xbin/iwconfig
~/eclair-21$ cp out/target/product/generic/system/xbin/iwlist /nfs/rootfs/system/xbin/

Test
After starting Android:

# modprobe libertas
# modprobe libertas_sdio
libertas_sdio: Libertas SDIO driver
libertas_sdio: Copyright Pierre Ossman
model=0xb
sd8686_helper.bin sd8686.bin
init: untracked pid 853 exited
init: untracked pid 856 exited
libertas: eth1: Marvell WLAN 802.11 adapter
# iwconfig eth1
eth1      IEEE 802.11b/g  ESSID:"Antrose-11g"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:15:E9:0C:87:7C
          Bit Rate:1 Mb/s   Tx-Power=13 dBm
          Retry limit:8   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr=2346 B
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=83/100  Signal level=-60 dBm  Noise level=-93 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:1441
          Tx excessive retries:44  Invalid misc:11220   Missed beacon:0
# iwlist scan
eth1      Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:22:6B:8C:5D:3A
                    ESSID:"Antrose-11g"
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
                    Quality=65/100  Signal level=-78 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
                    Encryption key:off
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                              24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                              12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
# iwconfig eth1 essid Antrose-11g
# iwconfig eth1
eth1      IEEE 802.11b/g  ESSID:"Antrose-11g"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:15:E9:0C:87:7C
          Bit Rate:1 Mb/s   Tx-Power=13 dBm
          Retry limit:8   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr=2346 B
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=83/100  Signal level=-60 dBm  Noise level=-93 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:1441
          Tx excessive retries:44  Invalid misc:11220   Missed beacon:0

Done.

Ref:
http://anemospring.blogspot.com.es/2011/03/android-wireless-tools.html


Google Account with limited permissions I am trying to assess feasibility of an internal initiative at my company.

Management would like to:

Distribute Nexus 7/10s which can have primarily calendar and contacts synced by a single Gmail account
Disable ability to send email from this account, although not from employee's account

This is an effort to keep calendar and contacts in sync.

Is the second requirement possible?

It isn't possible to limit an account to not send emails. The only solution I can think of is to sync the main account (the one for calendar and contacts) and a second account for email. In the gmail application, you have to set it to default to the second account when the application is open. In the calendar, you have to set the application to open the calendar of the main account.


Reason of existence of An App named "-5" I was trying to look at the battery usage of different apps and saw this weird app named "-5" on inspection it takes me to google photos which is weird since why will google photos use its name as "-5". I can't find any reasoning for this and want others to shed some light on this topic. I have also reported this weird behavior to google as well.

I did a search in Play Store for "-5" with no results, also on YEE ole great god Google.  Not much returned.
I would start with your phone service provider.  They are suppose to give you a level of device support.  I've personally stumped the US Cellular chumps before.  Give it a try.  They do keep a knowledge base of customer calls. Who knows, you might be lucky.  Else download "HouseCall" from the Play Store, it is a TrendMicro manual scan for nasty things.  It is very powerful.  Free, only runs's when you run it.  TrendMicro has a variety of very good pay products for Android and web safe stuff.   Good luck.


How do you disable autoplay in the youtube app when you are watching a playlist? I have set autoplay to off in settings, but when I enter a playlist video, the next video still starts when the one I am on ends.

No, you can't set Autoplay to OFF for playlist.
Since it is a playlist, so the concept of Autoplay doesn't lies here as you are playing a list and not a single video.


How do I open a text file of any extension in Android? I have several types of file on my Google Drive and on my SD card (.C, .ASM, .H, .INC, .LOG) which are all just text files. But I just can't view them on my Android phone because it says that there are no programs assigned to that file type. Dropbox would do fine if I could just assign it to open these extensions. So, my questions are:

Is there a way to assign any extension I want to Dropbox?
Is there a text viewer that will let me do that?

I tried so many, but none seem to do it. Only this HEX editor https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tuba.tools seem to do it, but it won't allow me to view as a text file. Only in a split HEX/TEXT screen.

A programming editor might solve your issue. Take a look at e.g. 920 Text Editor or DroidEdit:

920 Text Editor and DroidEdit (Source: Google Play; click images for larger variants)

Both support at least syntax highlighting for several programming languages, and from the screenshot at least DroidEdit seems to be able to directly work with Dropbox (see the headline).


Front speaker extremely quiet on call Is there any way to boost it? It seems to be louder on the rear of the phone.

I have a GT-I9505 Galaxy S4.

Try these:

You can turn up the volume of a call on your phone by pressing the volume buttons while in a call.
Make sure that you are using the "earpiece" speaker setting instead of "speakerphone." (The latter would cause the volume to be louder in the back.)
See if you can find any debris that is obstructing the earpiece speaker and carefully remove it with a small tool of necessary. (This is unlikely to greatly impact the sound/quality of the speaker.)


Can the buying process from the Market be made more secure? I just took advantage of the $0.10 promotion of several apps on the Android Market.

However, I noticed that I can buy apps by just selecting my saved credit card. There is no further verification process (AFAIK).

Can I make this more secure, for instance with some sort of password?

I mean, if I should lose my phone, someone can just buy apps without any further verification.

Don't save your credit card info.  (Edit: Just tried, you can't enter info without it being saved.  Ugh.)  You can set up a PIN in the Market but that's easily worked around by clearing the data.  Google Wallet (Checkout) doesn't appear to have any security settings beyond needing to log in, though obviously saved credentials work on Android.
I think then that your only option (besides using another market) is to use full encryption on the device such as is present in Honeycomb in combination with a lock screen and not being rooted.  Which doesn't rule out exploits, but if there was no risk of your CC being used nefariously then it wouldn't be usable by you either :P.  Of course, if your phone is stolen you could just cancel your cards and/or let your credit card company know about the risk or actuality of unauthorized purchases.
Google will also help you fix it:

Account Hijacking
If you previously created a Google Wallet Account, and an unauthorized person has accessed your account, please contact us immediately. Our fraud protection policy covers you against any unauthorized purchases that were made with your Google Account. If we find that an unauthorized purchase was made, we'll make sure you aren't charged for it.


phone won't connect to wifi after upgrade to Android 5.1 I upgraded yesterday to Android 5.1. Looks awesome but thinks that my home internet wifi is not responding and won't connect to it anymore. (Give me an exclamation mark on wifi.) The new feature (stop trying to connect to networks that aren't responsive) they added to wifi is clearly acting up. I can connect through multiple other devices to the same wifi without issue.

It does get an IP address and my phone is still able to connect to my work wifi. If I go into my saved connections after a minute, that is where it tells me that its not getting connectivity and will no longer try to connect to that network. I did try rebooting the phone.

Any idea's of other things I can try to make it connect to my home network?

I had the same problem, but after upgrading to 5.02 I solved it by removing the network (go to WLAN settings and long click your home WiFi and then select remove) and then reconnecting to it. It will ask you for the password again and after that it should connect normally.

I heard that there are some WLAN bugs in Android 5.


Android power Usage - How to monitor TL;DR: Is there some reasonably time-efficient way to find out what programs cause Android OS Services to drain battery?

On a regular basis I find that some app causes my phone to run hot and drain battery within a few hours while the screen is turned off. While it helps to uninstall all non-essential apps in the worst cases, I still face heavy battery drain after stripping the phone down to those I find most essential - we are speaking here about at least 3 days standby when just lying around at home vs less than 8 hours when used actively for one hour, with active usage draining about 30-40% of the battery life, and background processes draining the rest.

When using builtin battery statistics or any app that reports battery statistics, whether it is by showing details on CPU usage, wakelocks or just some overall battery use estimate, I find the statistics to be pretty much useless: Top of the list is always "Android OS" and, since introduced, Google Services with the next couple of entries, at a fraction of those OS-related listings being apps that I have actually actively used in the foreground for prolonged time.

Basically, the mishaving apps seem to misbehave by delegating to Operating System services and no App I have yet tried (maybe even due to OS limitations) was able to split out what app has been requesting these services to do work, making battery statistics basically useless. And for trying out each app by "uninstalling, running phone for a while, reinstalling"... frankly, who has THAT amount of time?

What's more, being unable to identify battery wasters from among the apps that I need installed, I cannot even file bug reports if they are misbehaving on my device.

Is there some possibility in Android to find out what app is really misbehaving rather than being told "its the OS, give up"?

Not sure if it does what you want to, but I use Quick System Info PRO (free).
In this app, via "Basic Info", you can get to the battery details, and check the "Power Usage". This gives you a break-down on which processes are responsible for power usage in percentages.
I have found it to be the most extensive monitoring application I could find. Also, the Dmesg and Logcat viewer (alos in the app) might give you an indication which messages are exchanged and thus which application/thread is responsible for activity.


Does erasing my lost Google mobile remotely delete my Google cloud data as well? I lost my  phone abroad. I want to use Google's 'find my phone/erase my phone' function to wipe all my Google data (account on my phone) remotely. HOWEVER, I can't figure out how to prevent this from erasing all the data/media in my Google drive/Google Photo's. Obviously I only want the account erased from the phone, and NOT my cloud data...Am I worrying for nothing? I'm quite hesitant to erase my phone now...Anyone with knowledge on this issue?

Thanks in advance!

Your cloud data is safe, so is other data. This can be lost only if you delete your account. See Google help Delete your Google Account - Google Account Help

When you are erasing data as described by you, only the data on the phone is erased. Your account is not deleted

You can get a new device and use the same account to backup and have access to whatever was saved on the cloud


How can you uninstall an app that you didn't install on your Droid? Possible Duplicate:
  How can I uninstall applications that are locked by phone vendor?

I want to uninstall the facebook app, as I don't use facebook. The phone won't let me uninstall that app.

I have a Droid Eris and a Motorola Droid. I want to get rid of it from both these phones.

unfortunately you need root permission to uninstall system apps.  If you are rooted you can use ADB and type

adb uinstall <package name>


Shortcut directly to specific screen There are some apps I that I only ever access for one specific purpose. I’d like to create a shortcut into a specific screen in the app - for example, open the app and navigate to charge history. Alternatively, I'd like to alias a series of actions to one action, so I can open it and navigate to the relevant part of the app quickly. Does anything like this exist? I've read about QCustomShortcut, not sure if it's a) suitable and b) safe.

"Deep inks" into apps have to be supported by the app itself. Each app defines "activities" and you can only open the app if there is an activity for that screen you want and the activity has to be exported.

An app that allows you to list available activities and create shortcuts for them is Activity Launcher just as an example.


PIN screen and PIN have changed on Huawei P8 Lite with Android 7 When I accessed my phone yesterday, the PIN screen had changed (presumably through an automatic software update). I put in my pin and it didn't recognize it.  I have not changed my pin. Luckily, I have fingerprint control set up so I can use my phone.  My worry is that sometimes the fingerprint recognition doesn't work. If this happens, I have lost my phone!
I have searched for info on the PIN changing by itself but Android/Huawei are not admitting to this happening. It is suspicious that the PIN screen has changed at the same time as the PIN changed. Does anyone have any information on this please?

PIN does not change automatically. And to remove pin, you need old pin.
You are able to access phone. So first take backup of the phone and restore phone. This will remove pin from phone. After that you can set pin. If you are not able to access phone then you may loss data.
Some application and software can recover lost pin.


Error 505 when installing Facebook Messenger I have a Sony Z5 Compact running Nougat.

I am unable to install Facebook Messenger. When I try I get the Error Code -505.

I have tried installing using ADB with the following command:

adb install com.facebook.orca_108.0.0.10.70-51197341_minAPI21\(armeabi-v7a\)\(280,360,400,420,480,560,640dpi\)_apkmirror.com.apk

Which seems to be the latest stable version from apkmirror.com.

I get the error message:

  Failed to install com.facebook.orca_108.0.0.10.70-51197341_minAPI21(armeabi-v7a)(280,360,400,420,480,560,640dpi)_apkmirror.com.apk: Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_DUPLICATE_PERMISSION: Package com.facebook.orca attempting to redeclare permission com.facebook.receiver.permission.ACCESS already owned by com.facebook.appmanager]

Is this something I have done? The phone is not rooted, nor have I unlocked the boot loader.

Apart from wiping the phone is there anything I can do to get the app installed? (I'm aware of all the 3rd clients, but I would really like to solve this problem.)

The app was installed before the upgrade to Android 7, but an update would not install.

I have done the usual steps like restarting, empty cache and data of Play Services, etc.

This is not a duplicate of How do I deal with unknown installation error code -505?, which was supposed to be solved with an upgrade to Android 5.0.2. I am running Android 7.

My girlfriend and I both Sony Xperia Z5 Compact have the same problem (Error 505) after we had updatet to Android 7 Nougat. I think for the most people the problem will become public, when the old facebook app gets outdatet and force an update. I was so stupid to deinstall facebook, messanger and sitemanager for a fresh install try and now are only able to use these facebook platforms by browser. I postet the same problem in Sony Support Forum and are also shocked, that such popular app errors on android 7 results only in 1-3 problem topics at this time.

Official answer from sony: Make a factory reset because problem happens with update... not the espacted answer - but seems the only solution, when the company don't want to fix these issue.


Should I get A1 or A2 spec'd Micro SD card for my phone? I'm currently running with Samsung EVO Micro SD card in my phone (GT-i9195 or serranoltexx) in Adoptable storage mode.

I'm looking for a faster card to improve performance. I was about to get Sandisk Extreme A2 card for my phone.

However, I found the official pages about A1 and A2 class by SD Association. According to the official documentation,

A1:

  The Application Performance Class 1 (A1) was defined by SD Physical
  5.1 specification.

A2:

  The Application Performance Class 2 (A2) is defined by SD Physical 6.0
  specification. It makes SD memory card much higher performance than A1
  performance by using functions of Command Queuing and Cache.

Note that A2 uses extra tricks to achieve better performance, especially Command Queuing (A2 spec'd cards have minimum support of 2 for Command Queuing depth).

I'm looking for a card that has as low latency as possible for a single read. Should I get A1 spec'd card instead of A2 because even though A2 has higher random access "minimum" IOPS, it may only get it with QD32 queues? I'm looking for a good random 4K read QD1.

I wish storage manufacturers specified random 4K read QD1 performance. It seems that only storage with manufacturer published numbers is Intel Optane series where those numbers don't look too bad.

Update: more information:

Another document on the official site explains A2 features a bit more:

Command Queue:

  The new CQ mechanism allows the SD memory card to accept several
  commands in a series (without their associated data) and execute them
  (with the data) whenever the memory card is ready. It contributes
  mainly to random read performance.

Note that this clearly uses "random read performance" as average IOPS, not the maximum time for any given read operation.

Cache function:

  In order to overcome the relatively limited write speed operation of
  flash memory, the Cache function allows the card to accumulate the
  data accepted by the host in a high-speed memory (e.g., RAM[)] [...]
  Data loss is allowed if the data is not moved to non-volatile storage.

So... high write IOPS is allowed to be writing to card internal RAM and data loss is acceptable? The OS can already do exactly the same thing with higher performance!

Self-Maintenance:

  Card-initiated operation allows the SD memory card to perform internal
  maintenance operations while the host bus is idle. When a new command
  is received, the card must ensure that new command is serviced without
  violating SD standard timing (Read Command, 100 milliseconds; Write
  Command, 250 milliseconds).

And if card has entered "card initiated self-maintenance" mode (which A2 card is allowed to enter any time no commands are in the queue) the effective read IOPS may go down to 10 and effective write IOPS may go down to 4.

I think A2 spec has way too huge tolerances for bad performance. Calling the above as "minimum 4K read: 4000 IOPS" and "minimum 4K write: 2000 IOPS" is a lie.

(I'm wondering if I should get Sandisk Extreme A1 card when those are still available on the market. Samsung EVO+ cards have nice performance in benchmarks, too, but if I've understood correctly those are meant for non-application usage and have worse wear leveling algorithm than Sandisk Extreme cards. The same thing with Sandisk Ultra cards - they don't last having the same sectors written repeatedly.)

TL;DR: Get an A1 card unless you know for sure that your workload greatly benefits from Command Queuing (CQ) and your host hardware supports CQ.
Long answer:
After looking around a lot it seems that the A2 specification could allow better performance but actual hardware implementations are slow enough that A1 is better choice nowadays (year 2019).
Thomas Kaiser has collected info about A1 and A2 rated SD cards and says

Application Performance Class 1 (A1)
This performance class requires at least 1500/500 read/write IOPS (IO
operations per second) with a 4k blocksize (small data chunks) and at
least 10 MB/s sustained sequential write performance. No special host
requirements are needed, the card simply has to exceed the performance
requirements on its own.

and

Application Performance Class 2 (A2)
A2 promises even better performance with 4000/2000 read/write IOPS
minimum but there's a problem since as outlined by the SD Association
A2 cards show "much higher performance than A1 performance by using
functions of Command Queuing and Cache".
Cache and Command Queuing require host (driver) support since the host
needs to activate those new features first. The cache feature on A2
rated cards makes use of volatile RAM on the card [...] involving the
risk of data losses [...]

Another user wrote about real world performance between Sandisk Extreme A1 and A2 cards:

I did some searching online and found a few other SD card benchmark
results where A2 cards performed worse than A1 cards, so my results
seemed to be what others were finding as well.
[...]
A2 cards not only require special hardware and/or software for maximum
performance, they actually perform WORSE than A1 cards without it
[...]
[Sandisk fine print about A2 cards]: Up to 160MB/s read speeds,
engineered with proprietary technology to reach speeds
beyond UHS-I 104MB/s, requires compatible
devices capable of reaching such speeds
[...]
As far as I can find, the only "compatible device" is the SanDisk
Mobilemate USB 3.0 micro SD card reader

James A. Chambers has tested A1 and A2 cards with Raspberry Pi:

A2 is not supported by Raspberry Pi yet (or almost anything else
really) so A1 is the important mark to hit.

So the current status seems to be that A1 is strictly about card hardware speed and A2 is about card + host hardware/firmware/software solution. The only bit about A2 which in fact could improve performance is Command Queuing (CQ) which allows card to process some requests slower and still allow higher average troughput even for small I/O operations. And if you care about worst case latency (QD1) then any queuing is never worth it so you do not even want this feature.
However, it seems that with current hardware (year 2019) of A2 cards the latency for any single request has been increased from A1 cards. I guess this is caused by too slow embedded processors inside the cards that try to do a bit too much. The firmware is probably optimized for benchmark throughput (the card can handle lots of requests in paraller but execute each request a bit slower) and as a result, the latency for any single request has gone up. As a result, if your host device doesn't support CQ feature of A2 cards, you get the worst of two worlds: the latency will go up and overall throughput will suffer.
In the end, if your host does not support A2 feature, get an A1 card. And if you care about QD1 performance, get an A1 card even if your host hardware/firmware + software does support all the A2 features.
According to latest benchmarks I would recommend either SanDisk Extreme A1 cards or A-Data Premier A1 cards. According to StorageReview benchmark, the A-Data Premier A1 card has highest random 4K performance: 2971 IOPS for 4K read, 1190 IOPS for 4K write. The SanDisk Extreme A1 cards is better known, though, so it may be a safer bet. The SanDisk Extreme A1 is already hard to find because SanDisk prefers to sell A2 variants now especially for bigger flash sizes.
I wouldn't be surprised if current crop of A2 cards were cheaper to manufacture than A1 cards because the manufacturers can use lesser spec'd internal processor to achieve the A2 minimum random access performance thanks to more buffering and queuing. I can only wish more benchmarking sites would focus on request latency over throughput.


Micromax Unite 2 A106, app installation error When I'm installing an app it show internal storage insufficient space. But the internal SD memory has lots of space, approx 5gb free.

Please give me a solution.

In micromax Unite 2 out of 8 GB internal memory only 1 GB is allotted for installing Applications. With default applications and their updates it takes around 700 MB so you must have already exhausted the allotted 1 GB for applications.

Try uninstalling some unnecessary updates or try rooting.


How to hide my Google Play downloads from my friends? I am new to android and just by going into Google Play I can see every app my friends downloaded. I am really feeling uncomfortable about this since I don't like to feel exposed.

Does anyone knows how to block this "feature"?

I don't think that there is any trick available which you can use to hide the apps downloaded from your friends until or unless you unfriend your friends over your G+ account.

But I have got another trick for you which is going to work for you like whenever you download app, try getting the .apk file downloaded from third party sites say I want to download whatsapp and don't want my friends to see. I will download whatsapp.apk file directly from the Whatsapp website and then I can install the apk file independently and my friends will never know that I have downloaded whatsapp, just make sure you don't get the apps from PlayStore and it will not be shown!


Activating wifi hotspot tethering on a Verizon Droid with Froyo 2.2 I rooted my Droid and got Froyo working on it (Bugless Beast).

What is the best way to enable Wifi Hotspot on this thing?

I tried an app "Wireless Tether" which allows me to connect my Mac via Wifi, but it doesn't assign a valid IP address to it.

That app is really your best (and maybe only) choice. Try resetting (or maybe reinstalling) the Wireless Tether app and try again.

If that doesn't work, you may need to set a manual IP on your Mac.


How to free up more storage (upgrading to 4.2 made me lose 6GB)? So this morning, I bought a new game and it required a large file download. I went to download it and a message told me that I had 0mb of space remaining.  This seemed odd to me because last time I checked I had plenty of space.

I looked at my storage and saw a little over 6GB in Apps and a little over 6GB in Misc.  I uninstalled 2 games which both had large files (around 2GB each).  After uninstalling, my App storage updated to what is shown in the image (1.82GB). The Misc storage did not change at all after uninstalling the apps.

I understand that Android now has a /sdcard and a /sdcard/0 for the multi-user feature. There are many duplicate directories in these two locations. For example, there exists both /sdcard/Downloads and /sdcard/0/Downloads. The /sdcard/0/downloads has all the downloads from before I updated to 4.2, and /sdcard/downloads has all the downloads since I updated to 4.2. This makes me think that /sdcard/0 is like a backup, but from the research I've done, it seems like the multi-user support effects more than just this sdcard stuff that I'm seeing (something about emulated storage). Right now, I am trying to free up as much storage as I can, but I get so confused when going into the file system now.

Questions:

What is this Misc stuff? More specifically, what is the obb and 0 that is taking up all my storage?
What can I delete to simplify this mess and free up storage?

No, it will not duplicate your files. However, there are some files that will not be deleted, like system files and some other software data.


How to enable USB debug on Note 2? No matter what setting I change, my Samsung Note 2 is always entering "USB media mode" instead of "debug mode".

I have the USB debug option set and the Google USB driver from the SDK installed, but adb devices shows nothing.

Enabling USB debug on my Nexus and plugging it in gives the debug mode just fine and adb devices shows it.
If I plug the USB in the Note 2 with USB debug enabled, the notification shows "Connected as media device".

If relevant my device is running Android v4.1.2.

I had to download Samsung's USB drivers for this device from their support page.

After you have the driver installed, when you plug in the device, Windows search windows.com for updates and finds:

Samsung mobile usb composite device
Samsung-sgh-i317
Samsung mobile usb modem
Samsung Android ADB Interface

Now, the interface still shows the "Connected as a media device" message, but adb devices list can see it.


Have had to reflash CM 11 on my Nook HD+ several times So I have Cyanogenmod 11 on my Nook HD+ and after just a month or so it starts performing awfully!
To the point I can't use it and have to reflash CM 11. I've had to do it several times in the last 5 or 6 months.

It will reboot itself randomly. It's also so laggy sometimes I can't even unlock it because when I swipe to unlock it, it either won't register the touch or the animation will seem to be so slow it turns the screen off before it gets to the lock symbol and I won't be able to give it anymore input.

I guess my question is: have I done something wrong with the flash or is this my HD+ dying?

On a side note after I flashed CM 11 for the first time if I let the battery die, I won't be able to turn it back on for days until it decides I can use it. I avoid this but just not letting it die.
Also the screen will sometimes turn to "snow"...? I'm not sure how else to describe it, it happens quickly but it looks like noise/snow on an old TV, and it usually happens on the lock screen.

CM is a very interesting mod. I have had the same issues. One of the options you can try is when it gets laggy is to change the theme from the Hex to the Holo (android default) and it can help with the lag and lack of response.

That is what I did and I have not had issues.

Source: My OnePlus One and my past


Where does LineageOs store stock browser bookmarks? How could I export or backup my bookmarks in the LineageOS 14.1 default browser?

Several apps failed to retrieve bookmarks
The name of the browser doesn't appear anywhere in the browser itself
find /data/data | grep browser through adb doesn't give anything interesting
find /data/fata | grep "db$" does neither
Google doesn't help

It's a shame there isn't an "Export" option in the settings

The stock browser is named Jelly and its bookmarks are stored in:
/data/data/org.lineageos.jelly/databases/FavoriteDatabase

The bookmarks can then be exported to CSV with SQLite parsers like this one.


How to install kali linux on android I want to install Kali Linux or similar (I.e. backbox backtrack) on my android. I'm using a one plus one and I wana be able to penttest on the fly.
Any suggestions or info like what r the fallbacks from having this OS running on my device if there r any. Any advice like that would be really appreciated.
Thank you

Generally in order to do this, a perquisite is to root the device. There are actually dedicated apps on the play-store (Kali-Linux) (Backtrack is out of date)... that are an all in one process. Try a search and the application will guide you through the process. Be careful, you can end up bricking the device. I would recommend using an old one or ensuring backup data is on standby to reinstall via usb.


Prevent dark mode from activating during battery saver I just updated my OG Pixel 1 to Android 10. I normally use light mode (not dark mode), but my phone just hit the threshold to turn on battery saver mode, and now it has forced my phone into dark mode. I can't toggle this in settings while battery saver is on, and I don't see any settings in battery saver to prevent this force theme change. I find it incomprehensible that this wouldn't be an option, given that there are plenty of phones (like the OG Pixel) that still use LCD screens, and thus whose screen colors don't affect the battery usage.

Are there any settings, hidden or otherwise, that prevent dark mode from activating during battery saver on Android 10?

According to the source code file

frameworks/base/core/java/android/provider/Settings.java

there is a global setting in the user profile called battery_saver_constants, which can hold several comma separated parameters. These parameters are applied when battery saver is on. Here's the list:
/**
 * Battery Saver specific settings
 * This is encoded as a key=value list, separated by commas. Ex:
 *
 * "vibration_disabled=true,adjust_brightness_factor=0.5"
 *
 * The following keys are supported:
 *
 * <pre>
 * advertise_is_enabled              (boolean)
 * datasaver_disabled                (boolean)
 * enable_night_mode                 (boolean)
 * launch_boost_disabled             (boolean)
 * vibration_disabled                (boolean)
 * animation_disabled                (boolean)
 * soundtrigger_disabled             (boolean)
 * fullbackup_deferred               (boolean)
 * keyvaluebackup_deferred           (boolean)
 * firewall_disabled                 (boolean)
 * gps_mode                          (int)
 * adjust_brightness_disabled        (boolean)
 * adjust_brightness_factor          (float)
 * force_all_apps_standby            (boolean)
 * force_background_check            (boolean)
 * optional_sensors_disabled         (boolean)
 * aod_disabled                      (boolean)
 * quick_doze_enabled                (boolean)
 * </pre>
 * @hide
 * @see com.android.server.power.batterysaver.BatterySaverPolicy
 */

On recent Android's, the global settings configuration file has XML format and is located here

/data/system/users/0/settings_global.xml

So you can add this new parameter called battery_saver_constants with its value enable_night_mode=false like this:
<setting id="9999" name="battery_saver_constants" value="enable_night_mode=false" defaultValue="enable_night_mode=false" package="android" defaultSysSet="true" />

Notice the id parameter, it can be any number but should be unique in this configuration file.
P.S. You need root to edit this file.


Turn off cell standby? I have a Droid Charge, but I live overseas and it's not an international phone so I can only use it for wifi. It is constantly searching for a signal that doesn't exist and it's eating my battery up! Is there a way to turn off the cell signal while keeping the wifi on?

I don't know for the Droid Charge in special, but on many phones you can turn off the radio separatly. And even if that doesn't work, in your case it should be fine to simply enter airplane mode, and then activate WiFi again (plus Bluetooth, when needed) -- which eventually has the very same effect.

I remember having used Dazzle Configurable Switcher for this on my old HTC Wildfire (to turn off radio separatly), and it worked like a charm. On my Motorola Milestone 2, however, I was not given that choice -- but could use the work-around described.


How to share photos directly from Dropbox instead of links? Using Dropbox on Android, selecting photos only allows me to share a link to them instead of sharing the photos physically. When I share photos from Dropbox to other apps like Google+ or Facebook, I expect those photos to be physically copied/uploaded to that service so that the images embed in the posts properly. However only the links are shared.

Is there a solution to this?

The Dropbox application on PCs copies files, but on Android it copies links, because of limited memory.

In any case I would expect that links would always be shared, but that certain sites such as G+ and FB import seamlessly.

So, if you're using an app which doesn't do this, you'll have to do it yourself the hard way.


Adoptable storage questions I recently updated to marshmallow with cyanogenmod 13 to use the "adoptable storage" feature. I was disappointed to find out that that only some apps could be put on the adopted storage. I used link2sd in the past as 11gb of internal is insufficient for my 300 apps. However, Link2sd is broken on marshmallow, and I am limited to 11gb once again, so here are my questions:

Is there any way to install all apps on the SD card in android marshmallow? Eg. Method to force all apps to adoptable storage, link2sd fix, Cutsom marshmallow rom, etc. (Or am I just doing things wrong)
What's the point of adopting the SD as internal storage when not all apps can be moved? I really don't understand how adoptable storage helps anything.

Fix for link2sd:

Download Apps2SD: All in One Tool
Use Apps2SD: All in One Tool to create Mount scripts on the second partition.
You can now use link2sd normally. You may need to keep Apps2SD if you have mount problems on boot.
If your linked apps disappear after booting, wait for Apps2SD to initialize. It will prompt you to do a soft boot. Click okay, and the second partition should be mounted after soft booting. Your apps will be restored and you can use link2sd again. (You need to do this every time you reboot)


Android Password Recovery + 2 Step Auth. What happens? I recently enabled two-step auth for my Google account, and I'm happy to say it works fine. However:

Application specific passwords, like for Android are temporary, and the guide makes it obvious that you aren't supposed to write them down or save them anywhere.
When someone fails to unlock a password protected Android phone too many times, it allows the user to connect to a WiFi network and login with his/her Google account.
How does this apply to an account with two-step auth? Has anyone had this sort of an issue before? Is generating a new app-specific password enough?

You can use your normal Google Account password to unlock the phone (as long as you are connected to the internet), even if you have 2-step authentication turned on.

I have tested it on a Galaxy Nexus running ICS and another running Jelly Bean, and on a Nexus 7 running Jelly Bean. There might be a possibility that this was different on Android 2.3 but I don't think so.


How to get notified of new automatically archived emails in Gmail? I am a very organized person, and thus also in the case of my emails. I have taken the time to set various filters and labels to keep my emails organized, some of these filters automatically archive messages, i.e. labels are applied to emails, and they get archived (hence these messages skip the inbox).

These days I am receiving some emails that belong to a specific label, about topics in which I'm working currently, but since they are not reaching the inbox, my smartphone does not notify me when they arrive. However, when I expand the list of recent labels, I find that there are unread messages in the label in which I am interested.

When I open the folder (label), I find the new unread email message.

What do I have to configure in order to get notified of these automatically archived emails in Gmail?

The steps you have to take are the following ones:

Expand the list of recent labels, but this time tap the option Show all labels.

This will take you to the list of all your labels, in whose bottom you'll see the option Manage labels: tap there.

In the list of labels, tap the one you want to be notified about.

By default that label has Label sync and notify disabled. Tap the option Sync messages

It will open a popup dialog with sync options. Choose and tap one different to Sync: None.

The above will enable the notifications, now you can choose its options according the way you want to be notified.

Exit the label options for changes to be applied. From now on, you'll receive notifications about unread messages for that label too (in Jelly Bean, you'll see the extended notification, as with inbox emails). You'll be able to open the email message tapping on that notification.


Contacts and telephone applications crash On my Galaxy Note 4, when I launch the phone and contacts apps, they say "Unfortunately, Phone has stopped" or likewise for "Contacts". I have to go through message program to make a call. What's the problem and how can I fix it?

From your comments on your post I can understand that your phone's system apps are
crashing.I am going to list out some steps by which you might solve your problem.I have faced this kind of problems a lot and these are generally faced by users how are using a low end phone or a high end phone which has been used for many years.

The steps to troubleshoot your phone are:

1)Try restarting your phone.Sometimes the cache files(temporary files) takes up  a bit of your storage.Restarting your phone helps in removing those useless files.

2)Stop temporary background processes which are neither used by the system nor by any of your third part apps which you generally use as they eat up your ram and the app you want to open does not get enough available memory which may be the cause of your phone and message apps getting crashed.

3)If the above steps don't work,take a backup of your important files and try doing a factory reset.

Note:

If the problem still persists feel free to comment down below.


Windows 7 ultimate, unable to detect my nexus 4 5.01 My windows 7 ultimate laptop isn't recognizing my nexus 4 5.01. Tried to reinstall ADB drivers and android universal usb drivers, but no use.

can anyone please let me know how to overcome this problem?

thanks in advance!!!!!!

Download drivers from here

source: XDA forum - Nexus 4 driver for Windows

If this also doesn't work then there is discussion on XDA forum if you are using Universal naked driver.
(OR) Above all, save data on Cloud and Factory reset.


Cannot remove root and Kingroot I installed Kingroot  and rooted my phone. I don't know how it happened but Kingroot became my system application and now it cannt be removed. If I open Kingroot and go to its settings and try to remove root, it says we have a problem removing root. Kingroot has became my system application and now what I can do is only disable it like other system apps

Download Uninstall from Google Play. It's a system apps remover. You'll be able to remove Kingroot app from your phone.


Arabic language for HTC 1 M8 A Syrian guy bought HTC 1 M8, it still new, so I don't know what's the android version but it's the default one. He came to me for help.

He wants the whole system to be translated to Arabic, and that language isn't available. According to this video, if we just force stopped customization settings provider, it will allow us to select the Arabic language from settings.

Is It correct? Is it that simple? Don't I need to root it and stuff? What happens if he restarts the device?

I rooted the phone and installed MoreLocale 2, and gave it root permission from SuperSu. If you want another method, you could try this.


Battery Life of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 with andriod 4.4 Since the update on my Note 3, I have noticed a decrease in battery life. So my questions are, does the 17% increase in performance come in a decrease in battery life? Is it 4.4 using up more processing on my mobile CPU? What can I do to help with the battery life other than reverting back to 4.3?

Note: The Note 3 I posses is the T-Mobile version. Also I thank everybody in advance for the contribution of this post.

I have the same device, and I also had battery-drain issues. The solution was to disable Location Reporting.

Android Menu -> Location > Location Reporting.
Turn them all off (one per account on the phone).

This increased my battery life almost three-fold and solved other issues that I was having with the device.