Determine which app is drawing on top of other apps? Is there a way to determine which application is drawing on top of other applications?

For example, Facebook Messenger app can draw the chat bubbles on top of everything, but how do I know which app is doing this?

My problem:

I have an app which is drawing ads on top of everything and I wanna know which app is doing this. Not just to uninstall it, but to warn everyone that uses this app. (I didn't install any application recently and I already verified the recent updates.)

I tried to use the Dump View Hierarchy for UI Automator from the Android Studio, but it seems that the applications that draw on top can't be selected this way.

(Click image to enlarge)

Note:

adb should already be setup in PC.
For Android earlier than version 4.4.x, root access may be required.
Some commands would not work on Android earlier than version 5.1.
Jump to heading "Apps for apps" if you're unfamiliar or uncomfortable with command-line and/or the command-line fails to solve your issue.

Edit: cut the chase in the earlier solution and follow this edited section only.
Setup adb and run this command:
adb shell "dumpsys window windows | toybox grep -i system_alert_window"

You would get the output of all the active overlays on the screen. Example of an output with DU Screen Recorder, Tasker and AZ Screen Recorder showing active overlays on screen:

bash-4.3# adb shell "dumpsys window windows| toybox grep -i system_alert_window"
    mOwnerUid=10087 mShowToOwnerOnly=true package=net.dinglisch.android.tasker appop=SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW
    mOwnerUid=10604 mShowToOwnerOnly=true package=com.hecorat.screenrecorder.free appop=SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW
    mOwnerUid=10604 mShowToOwnerOnly=true package=com.hecorat.screenrecorder.free appop=SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW
    mOwnerUid=10649 mShowToOwnerOnly=true package=com.duapps.recorder appop=SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW
    mOwnerUid=10649 mShowToOwnerOnly=true package=com.duapps.recorder appop=SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW
    mOwnerUid=10604 mShowToOwnerOnly=true package=com.hecorat.screenrecorder.free appop=SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW
    mOwnerUid=10604 mShowToOwnerOnly=true package=com.hecorat.screenrecorder.free appop=SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW
    mOwnerUid=10638 mShowToOwnerOnly=true package=ninja.sesame.app.edge appop=SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW

The highlighted text next to package= and before appop is the package name(s) of the app(s) currently drawing overlay on the screen. In your case, the output including the package name(s) would differ.
Note down the package name(s) (henceforth as PKG) and execute this command:
adb shell am force-stop PKG

Replace PKG with the package name you noted down. If you had multiple package names, repeat the command with one package name at a time.
The command would forcefully stop the app and thereby discard the overlay. This should work. You may alternatively strip the permission of "Draw over other apps" (screen overlay in short) from the apps using this command:
adb shell appops set PKG SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW ignore

Again, replace PKG with package name as necessary. Furthermore, you may have to repeat the force-stop command for the PKG. If you decide to revert the changes, replace ignore with allow in aforesaid command.
You may alternatively use App Ops to manage the permissions from GUI.
To know which package name corresponds to which app you could try an open source app like Applications Info. Search by package name and you would get the App's name.
Edit finished
You really need not to read anymore now. I'm leaving the earlier solution (i.e. following section)  intact because 21 people who voted it did find that helpful and I don't want to mess up anymore.

A simple way would be to find out all the apps having the permission "draw over other apps" and then single out them from the ones currently active on the screen. Afterwards, engage in force-stopping those common apps until you pin-point the app responsible for the active overlay.
Enumerate apps having permission for overlay
The permission required by an app to create an overlay is android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW (draw over other apps).
We need to find out all the installed apps having the said permission. It is up to you to find out a method for this. My answer here may aid you.
Note that we need the apps' package names and not their labels.
Cherry-pick from active windows
Execute the command
adb shell dumpsys window windows

This would give you details on whatsoever causing something to be displayed on the screen, including the component name of an app causing it.
How you would extract the name is up to you. You may try this command however
adb shell 'dumpsys window windows | grep "Window #"'

If you receive the error: 'grep' is not recognized as an internal or external command, on Windows try this alternative command:
adb shell "dumpsys window windows | grep 'Window #'"

Demo output

Window #4 Window{42065d50 u0 com.android.phone/com.mediatek.phone.UssdAlertActivity}:
Window #5 Window{42197468 u0 ginlemon.flowerpro/ginlemon.flower.HomeScreen}:
Window #6 Window{420fdb58 u0 com.android.systemui.ImageWallpaper}:
Window #7 Window{421e3b88 u0 com.android.contacts/com.android.contacts.activities.DialtactsActivity}:

In the above output, anything succeeding  u0  and preceding / is the package name of an app. An app can have multiple components displaying something on the screen.
You've to create a list of those package names. If you have BusyBox installed, you can do
adb shell 'dumpsys window windows | grep "Window #" | sed -e "s/.*u0 //g" -e "s/\/.*//g" -e "s/}://g"'

Anyhow, now you would be having two lists:

First list contains all the apps having the permission android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW.
Second list contains all the apps actively displaying something on the screen.

Compare these two lists and single out apps which are common in both the lists. This third list would constitute of apps having the permission to draw overlay and are currently drawing an active overlay on screen.
Time to kill
Kill each of the apps from the third list one by one and notice the state of overlay. You can use am force-stop PACKAGE_NAME --user 0 or any other method that suits you. PACKAGE_NAME is the package name of the app.
EDIT: It is not necessary to kill an app. You can consider denying the app the permission to draw over other apps. Use this command:
adb shell 'appops set PACKAGE SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW deny'   # replace PACKAGE with package name of the app

To revert the changes, replace deny with allow in the said command and execute it.
If you're running Android Marshmallow, this answer by Andrew T. can be used.
Note: The aforesaid command is successfully tested on Android 5.1.1 and 6.0.1 (CM builds). It is also possible that the command works on Android 5.0.x but I can't guarantee. Execution of that command on Android version released prior to Lollipop would cause failure.
Since often the overlay is perceivable, it would instantly disappear the moment the app causing it is killed, hence, you would know which app was causing that overlay.
Apps for apps
Originally suggested by Izzy, you can use an app which has the functionality of listing permissions granted to installed apps, to single out the apps having the permission  "draw over other apps". You can either search such an app on your own or use the the list Permission checker maintained by Izzy on his website.
You would also need a process/app manager to force-stop/kill some processes. I recommend OS Monitor but you're at liberty to use any competent app. See related apps under System Info.
For demonstration purposes only
I tried Advanced Permission Manager to list apps with permission to "draw over other apps". Afterwards, I switched to OS Monitor to see the apps running in foreground and background. I matched the output from both the apps and individually force-stopped the apps common in both. You can kill a process from inside the OS Monitor, so no need to switch to App settings.
(Click image to enlarge)


How can I manually add memory to the Android emulator? I'm planning to buy an Android phone, but I want to try the applications in the Android Market using Android Emulator. I have downloaded many applications and reached the maximum apps I can download because of low memory. My questions is how can I manually add memory to the emulator?

When you create a new AVD (Android Virtual Device).

Under Hardware, click New:

From the drop down list of Property, select Device ram size.  Click OK.

You can now put a value beside of Device ram size of how big you want it to be.

Note: You have to create a new AVD.  You can't edit them as far as I know.


I need to control samsung Duos s 2 phone like my earlier nokia phone using pc suite I need to control samsung Duos s 2(GT 7582) phone with my PC like I am having now with nokia phone using Nokia pc suite

I use AirDroid. It works pretty well for most things like sending messages, transferring files and calling, and you don't have to plug your device into your PC.


All apps installed on my SD card have suddenly disappeared So this is very odd.
Last night my phone rebooted itself. Nothing unusual there - it does it from time to time. However, this morning when I try to read the news I get

"Application is not installed on your phone".

So I check some more apps and lo and behold I get the same message. Any app that was installed on my SD card has gone - but only partially. The icon still exists on the "desktop" and the system name appears on the list of installed apps on the phone, but the Google Play store doesn't think they're installed - which is different to the symptoms described in these questions:

All apps moved onto the SD card have disappeared
My apps status suddenly become "not installed on the phone", even the google play store!

which both state that the applications are still listed as installed in the Play Store.
Also - now I think about this a few apps had gone missing earlier. I have gaps in the icon field where I know there was an application, but because I didn't use it everyday I can't remember which ones :).
I've tried removing and reinserting the SD card, but that's had no effect.
When I reinstall applications that have local data and/or stored account details this information is still present. For example when I opened the Amazon MP3 player it didn't prompt me for my Amazon account details, but just showed the list of albums I've purchased. This implies that it's just the folder that hold the executables on the SD card that's been deleted/corrupted.
I've started reinstalling apps, but I'm concerned that this might happen again.
So does anyone have any ideas why this might be the case?

As Manishearth wrote, this might indicate trouble with the card (and very likely does). The boot you describe might have been "too abrupt", not cleanly unmounting the card and thus corrupting its file system; in which case the "good ol' chkdsk" should help (btw, Android ships with fsck for the very same task, which you could execute via a terminal app or adb shell – see Check and fix SD card errors within Android itself?).

On the other hand, it could also mean hardware trouble with the card, which even could be the reason for those reboots, reversing cause and effect: Not being able to read/write, or encountering too many "corrupt blocks", might have triggered some event (like re-mounting the card read/only). I'm not sure whether such would trigger a reboot (as stuff counted essential by the system usually doesn't reside on the sdcard), but it wouldn't be impossible. Thus trying a new card won't hurt.

PS – A little background on app2sd: As shipped with Android 2.2+, this only moves parts of the app to your card, while other parts remain on internal storage. Especially the app's data remain here (in /data), which is why after a re-installation of your apps they were already (or rather "still") available. For more details, you might wish to take a look at our app2sd tag-wiki.


USB memory stick undetected by Samsung Galaxy G5 Mini According to this video on YouTube, I should be able to connect a USB memory stick directly to my Samsung G5 Mini, and the phone should automatically detect it. But if I try this with a USB 2 memory stick and cable, my phone does not detect it?

Why? Can anyone advise?

My phone runs Android 4.4.2 and is a model SM: G800F.

Sounds like you have an OTG cable, but you also need to download and install an OTG driver.  I think I found mine on the Samsung website, in the phone download section.


How can I access /sdcard/ when I connect to PC (MTP) I'm running a Nexus 5 (Android 6.0.1)

Today I have created a WhatsApp backup file and wanted to copy it to a new device. I can confirm the file existence in ES File Explorer.

(Click image to enlarge)

However, I cannot find the file when I connect my Nexus 5 with a USB (MTP).

After further checking I found the file is stored in /sdcard/WhatsApp, while my PC is connecting to /Internal Storage/WhatsApp

(Click image to enlarge)

But I cannot find /sdcard/ in my PC...

To make things more complicated, when I reboot the N5, the file appears again /Internal Storage/WhatsApp/

I've been a long time Android user since Motorola Milestone. I'm not a dev but luckily I have the experience in tackling such issue. But for a normal user without in-depth computer knowledge, this inconsistent behavior is just weird. There's a long way for Android to catch up with iOS in terms of user friendliness.

/sdcard and /Internal storage are same directory.

As for why the file does not appear instantly is because of a bug in MTP mode as MTP cache is outdated until a phone reboot. If you do not wish to reboot the phone,

Possible Workaround:

Settings → Application Manager → All Apps tab → Media Storage → Clear Data
Install SD Scanner app → Open App →  Click on Start Rescan

Tested and Works on Android 5.0 Lollipop


How do I type a tabulation character on an Xperia? I imported my notes from my Palm Centro into Note Everything and the tab characters in my existing notes show up correctly.

But how do I type a tab character on my Xperia X10?

If you use the Swype keyboard, holding the space key gives you a tab.  Smart Keyboard Pro also has tab, press ?123 twice for it.

Reference: http://androidforums.com/android-applications/151563-softkeyboard-tab-key.html


Stock Android 4.4.2 Stock Messaging App I wanted to see how this other messaging app was going to work on my phone and Gear S.  To make it my default I had to go to default messaging app and turn off my stock message app.  But the new app doesn't allow me to respond to my text messages from my Gear S so I need to turn back on the stock app.  However it's no longer there.  My phone is not rooted I just simply turned it off.  Is there anyway to turn it back on?

This is Android 5.0.2, but the location should be the same on 4.4.2

Go to Setting -> Wireless & Networks -> More

Select Default SMS App
You will be able to select an SMS app to be the default.


Can any rooted Android phone be upgraded to version 2.2? Assuming a given Android phone is root-able, is there any possibility that it cannot be upgraded to Android version 2.2 (or CyanogenMod 6)?

If such an upgrade isn't possible on a certain rooted Android phones, what are the factors that determine that? (hardware specs, other?)

There are more differences between Android devices than between different PC Machines. So you need to know things like which CPU and hardware and version of it you got in the device.  Then look for an Android firmware that supports your phone.  You might be able to compile your own firmware from source for your device, also depending on your devices hardware and how well you can handled fails there.

After an upgrade, your device will end up in different shape with regard to what works and not after the upgrade.  It might even work flawlessly.  You might even get a "bricked" device if you fail the upgrade and are a bit unlucky.

So, it all depends on what hardware you have and how good support Linux and Android has to your device hardware.

That is why the phone manufacturers and your telephone operator test the upgrades in many ways before they push it out to the customers.

But if you know this and are technical skilled and know that you might make your phone usless, you can always try.


Having multiple same numbers in one contact after sync with my google account I synced all my contacts from my Huwai Honor 3c mobile to my gmail account which resulted in all contacts having more then 50-60 entries of one number

  e.g: Contact name "John"

Phone number

  "123","123","123","","","","","'....... upt to 50

You can go to https://contacts.google.com and login.

A popup of "You have x duplicate contacts. Would you like to merge them?" will allow you to view duplicate contacts and merge them.

Hope this helps!


How to push and install APK files from a PC over Internet? I want to push AND INSTALL apk files from PC like Play Store does (when I send install signal from web interface). How to do this?

Note: The PC and Android device may not be in same Wi-Fi network. So, I am asking for solution over Internet.
I am rooted..

Setup a VPN! Having your phone rooted will let you install OpenVPN . You should setup a server (and connect it too to the VPN) and your phone will be your client.

Then you'll have a server and a client in the same network so you can use adb commands! Push, pull, install...


Touchscreen not working at the center in Asus Zenfone 2 It's been a week, and I've been facing a touch related issue in my Asus Zenfone 2 running Android 5.0. My smartphone's touch is not working at the center. Touch test showed blank area at the center. How to solve this problem? Is it a software or a hardware specific problem?
This happened after my phone got wet in rain: I used Screen Touch Test to test touchscreen:
(Click image to enlarge)

My device is neither rooted, nor is under warranty. I did factory reset but it didn't help.

Your touchscreen hardware is broken. You need to take it to your local repair shop and have the touchscreen replaced.

If it were new (and therefore faulty when sold) or still under warranty, the manufacturer would be more than happy to replace it: I have friends who've experienced the same kind of problems and got replacements, even on cheap unbranded tablets.


Is there a way to enable Qi Wireless charging for Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X? Is there a way to enable Qi Wireless charging for Nexus 6P or Nexus 5X? They had wireless charging in all the previous Nexus models and I'm sure it's a hidden feature in there somewhere.

No, out of the box it won't. The reason is that wireless charging requires specific hardware to work. Indeed it is possible thanks to electromagnetic induction; in simple terms: there is a coil inside both charger and phone, connected to the battery. The charger generates an alternating elecromagnetic field in the coil, with which the phone's coil pairs, generating current which charges the battery. It will be possible, although, if some firm produces specific covers with the necessary hardware embedded, which already exist for some flagship phones, so there will be a workaround.


Odin not working - Samsung S3 Mini GT-I8200 I tried to flash I8200XXUAPB1_I8200OXXAPC1_I8200XXUAPC1_HOME.tar.md 5 from Sammobile on Odin latest version and it failed... I also tried to reinstall the drivers, reboot PC and I also tried other odin versions like : 3.7 3.9 , 3.10 but still... no luck.
So I need help here
Screenshot :

It looks like you only tried the md5 file ... An md5 is a calculation of the size the rom is, This is so you can check if you have downloaded the full rom or just half of it..

I suggest you try to flash the actual TAR file, Then the program will read the md5 to see if it's a complete rom ...

If it calculated that the md5 is "lets say" 500001 and the md5 file you downloaded says the md5 is 500002 ..

it can see that the rom is not complete or either it's not an original rom with the value of 500001


Do I need a smartphone with more RAM or one with a higher processor in order to load a big excel file faster? As the title says, do I need a smartphone with more RAM or one with a higher processor in order to load a big excel file faster ?

For instance : Snapdragon 835 with 8GB RAM vs Snapdragon 845 with 6GB RAM, which is faster to load a big excel file ?

RAM should not be an issue with smartphones that have 6GB or 8GB of it (I have 1GB
 and Excel workbooks load fine - not really large ones) . So, in that case, it would be the processor. Also, a factor not mentioned in your question: the RAM speed. A lot of smartphones have RAM at 1033Mhz or 1.6Ghz, making a really fast processor pointless without RAM that can support those speeds.


Installing custom ROMs: since most Android systems don't have a ROM, isn't this a misnomer? My Samsung Galaxy SIII seems to have an internal SD card as internal memory,
and no ROM (Read-Only Memory).
As far as I know, ROM refers to a type of memory which can be only modified by attaching a cable from it to a special device and flashing; once the ROM is flashed, it is for all purposes read-only from the point of view of the users logging into the OS. Many sites report that one of the benefits of rooting is installing custom ROMs.
So why is installing an alternative system UI such as CyanogenMod still referred to as installing a custom ROM? Isn't it just replacing some files in the /system directory with some other files, i.e., deleting or backing up some old files and copying the replacement files to that directory?

Thanks.

Old things tend to stick around. In everyday things (toasters, microwaves etc) there is some kind of software to control the device. That software is installed by the manufacturer and is usually hard to change, in practice read-only. While you can flash the system partition on android, with some electronic devices you needed to and still need to plug in some specific pins to some manufacturer application on a pc.

Nowadays ROM refers to the software by the manufacturer that drives the device, such as the /boot and /system partitions.


Google App "search pending" notification stuck on Marshmallow "1 search pending" notification from Google App is stuck on my Marshmallow phone since yesterday. Based on other answered questions about stuck notifications, I tried:

To Cancel the pending search
Rebooting my phone
Turning off and turning back on the notifications for Google App
Forcing the Google app to close
Turning off the notifications for Google App, rebooting the phone, and turning notifications back on.
Trying to search the same thing again

None of the above "solutions" worked.

I had applied the June 2016 security updates from Google last week. Not sure if this had something to do with it.

Any help in this regards is appreciated.

When you try to uninstall the Google app, it would ask you if you want to replace the app with the factory version. Select yes. That should do it, worked for me. :)


Cannot Re-enable developer settings after ROM re-install For.... Various reasons, I had to remove /system and replace it, I.e. fresh install my ROM. Now, however, I cannot do the build number trick to open developer options, and going through the dev tool menu states "Developer mode not available for you. You did enable it, right?". I doubt it is a kernel issue, since that copes fine, and the ROM is stable. I'm not gonna re-flash again today (Again, for various reasons). So, does anyone know how I can force it open?

Root methods will not work. Due to how the ROM is built, rooting and unrooting is done by flick of a switch... In the developers options.-NOW OUTDATED INFO, SEE EDITS BELOW

Edits

Root Works now! I managed to trip it on in SuperSU.

Some ROMs move settings around. For example, on Ressurection Remix a lot of options are moved to new entry "Customisation" in Settings. Check your Settings app.

You can also use ADB or Terminal Emulator and run following command (taken from there):

am start -n com.android.settings/.DevelopmentSettings

You can also check your ROM's forum thread to see if anyone else also had problems with enabling Developer Settings.


Does Downgrading from Android Marshmallow to Lollipop wipes data? After an OTA upgrade to Marshmallow, Android Locksceen is no longer accepting my 4 digit PIN, I have been using this PIN for the past 7 months without any problems. So, I know for sure that I haven't forgotten the PIN. Nobody else has accessed my device & changed the pin.

I had 2 other backups of my Data, one on a SD Card in my Canon EEOS 700D DSLR(I am a Professional Photographer) & second one on My Laptop, both of them were stolen from the hotel I was staying at. My phones Internal Storage is now the only other place that has my work. I don't care about recovering music, videos, contacts, messages. I am only interested in recovering my clients pictures (Wedding Photographs). I just can't afford to lose this, please do not suggest Factory Reset. If it wasn't that important to me, I would have done Factory Reset.

Device Information

Samsung Galaxy SM-J700F

Android 6.0.1/MMB29K/J700FXXU2BPG3

Security Patch Level - 2016-07-01

No Root

No USB Debugging

No Custom Recovery

Boot Loader Locked

No Full Disk Encryption, Only Lockscreen

Samsung Find My Mobile Not Registered (Even if it was, it wouldn't work without WiFi or Mobile Data turned on)

Can't turn on WiFi or Mobile Data from Lock Screen, so Google Android Device Manager also not working.

Can only access Emergancy Dialer & Camera from Lockscreen

Since the problem appeared right after the OTA upgrade to Marshmallow, would downgrading back to the previous version using ODIN Flash Tool fix the problem? Now, with a locked bootloader, you can't flash anything other than official Firmware signed by Samsung, so, if I download Official Samsung ROM Android 5.1.1 Version from www.sammobile.com , and flashed it using Samsung ODIN Flash tool, would it wipe all the data in internal storage? or would it stay intact? Help Please!

The problem is not just whether it will wipe your data.

Many phones have a mechanism that prevents a downgrade in bootloader version, which you're attempting to trigger.
Older version of an app might not recognize the data created by the newer version of the same app. Although user apps are rarely affected, crucial system apps might be, and on error might constantly throw "*** has stopped" dialogs that effectively prevents you from using the phone.

So no, just don't think about downgrading as a means of restoring data. Instead, focus on dealing or working around the PIN, which you could check out the locked-out tag for a head start.


Dead phone and lost data Few weeks ago,my phone has suddenly dead and entered in an endless restart loop.
All data saved in the phone is gone. What I care for the most is  WhatsApp chats and attachments.
I remember I have backed up my WhatsApp chats few months ago ,but I do fail to remember what e mail I have used as I installed WhatsApp on my “late” phone 4 years ago and have changed my emails several times since then.
Is there any method to know the email on which I have backed up the info.
Or is there any method to retrieve the lost data ,escpecially Whatsapp Chats to my PC for instance ?
Another question : Can I find the messages sent through this period.
Note: I don’t  know if my problem resides within the speciality of this website

Try replacing the sim to a different phone and downloading whatsapp in it. Log into the whatsapp with your phone number. It will prompt to retrieve saved data. Make sure you retrieve it otherwise it will be difficult. Whatsapp automatically backs-up the chats.


How do I download an app from the market that is restricted in my location? Possible Duplicate:
  How can I use the Android Paid Market from a region where it's not available yet?

I want to download the Kindle for Android app, but it is not available in my region. I tried to mock my GPS location to be inside the United States, but I still cannot find the Kindle app in the Android market.

How do I download an app form the market that is restricted in my locatioon?   Also, how does the android market know where I am? Does it using the GPS location?

Well what you might be looking for is an app called, MarketEnabler, it changes somenthing like the location of the market so you can access other countries markets.

MarketEnabler: https://market.android.com/details?id=ch.racic.android.marketenabler

With that you could change your locale and get access to market apps in another country, If I'm correct if also includes a list with countries.


How can I NOT Save Contacts to Google? Due to privacy concerns, I'm moving gradually away from Google. I now need to know some options to save my contacts locally like Android used to allow. I'm mostly concerned with new contacts currently to not complicate this question. I'll move my existing contacts to local storage at a later time.

Info

Android: 4.4.4

Device: Nexus 5

Excluded option: No-GAPPS ROM (this is a valid option, but I need to achieve gradual transition before fully switching to No-GAPPS system.

This is controlled by your Contacts (or People) application, not by the underlying OS itself. The app that ships with the stock Nexus builds is made by Google, and designed to sync everything to cloud systems. It is a result of using a phone made and sold by Google; pretty much all of the stock applications are the Google versions.

You'll want to find a replacement app for managing your contacts. Most third-party ones will allow you to create "phone only" contacts that do not sync to anywhere. There are quite a few options to choose from.

In the longer-term, if you install a custom ROM built directly off of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code, and do not install Google Apps, then you'll have the AOSP contacts application instead of the Google one. You should be able to save local contacts using that (I have no tested this myself in a while, however, so it's possible things have changed).

Izzy has also pointed to an app that may allow you to create local contacts regardless of the frontend you choose: MyLocalAccount. It appears to work by creating a sort of mock network account, which you can then "sync" contacts to. In actuality, it's just a local store that is not synced anywhere else.


What do the 2 pins on the back of the Nexus S do? I'm really frustrated with a Nexus S turning off while in my pocket. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the pin positions, or these 2 strange back pins and contacts on the cover that don't seem to do anything:

I guess those tell the phone "the back cover is on", which must mean something to the phone.  When I put a piece of paper between those pins and the back cover, the phone at least doesn't seem to do the (literal 5 minute) "flash disk check" when the phone comes on.

Is blocking these pins from contacting a bad thing? Will it help to stop the phone from turning off in my pocket?

This is for the NFC functionality. Those contacts are used to transmit the info to and from the receiver/transmitter on the back cover (seen below outlined in green, though you probably guessed it :) ). They have to put it on the back cover because NFC only works for usually no more than a few centimetres, and they need a way to feed the information back to the phone system itself.

It is discussed more in this post on another Android forum.


Do Android Stock Browser, Firefox Mobile and Opera Mobile use proxy server to perform rendering It is quite interesting to know that, Opera Mini is using Proxy Server to perform all the rendering work, instead of relying the phone itself to do it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_Mini#Functionality) This will help to reduce required processing work, especially in lower end phone.

Do Android Stock Browser, Firefox Mobile and Opera Mobile also employ the same technique? Current Android Phone is having powerful processing capability. Does the above technique will bring more harm than good?

Will request having to go through an additional will slow down the whole process, compared to letting the rendering work done by phone itself?

In Opera Mobile, you can enable Opera Turbo to use the same proxying technology as used by Opera Mini.

Android Stock Browser does not use compressing proxy at all and I believe neither does Firefox Mobile (though given that Firefox Mobile has plugins system there might be a plugin for that).

Several lesser known browsers in the Market does use similar proxying technique, but I can't recall off the top of my head which ones though.


fastboot not working Hey i just wanna ask about.. What to do if i typed in cmd where i have my fastboot.exe ,,fastboot devices'' And it didnt type anything.. No (waiting for device) no error... Just nothing.. thx for help. (im using xperia m) and i did install adb turn on usb debugging turn off my mobile, then hold volume up button and connected the usb.. The light on my mobile i blue like it has to be but it just not typing anything... Again thx for help.

Have you installed Google USB Driver? Try reconnecting your phone then.

Make sure you are following every step of this guide, especially:

making backup of IMEI and DRM keys
running fastboot.exe -i 0x0fce getvar version command


LG G2 - No SIM and network also after hard reset I have a problem with my LG G2 (D802).
It shows, without reasons, no network signal and no SIM.
I do an hard reset but nothing changed.
What's the problem?

There could be different causes:

The SIM card has no connection to your device. Maybe it has moved or would not be inserted correctly. It is best to remove the card and reinsert them.
The SIM card is broken. It is best to test another sim card or to check the own card function in another device.
The smartphone has a defect. It needs to be repaired.

There may be other sources of error and better investigation methods.


how to install android untivirus and instert an external SD card for storage purposes My android has been hit by a virus and I can't recover my space even if I delete some files it still says I have 0 B and when I insert an 8 GB memory card its not reading what should I do

Ok first, antivirus in the classical sense is almost useless on android. Due to the strong security sandboxing, antivirus apps can only detect malicious apps based on signatures but cannot stop or remove them. So you need to take care yourself to get rid of the malware.

Second, viruses in the classical sense also rarely exist on android, so please provide more infos on what exactly your malware is doing. If I got you right, you have some problem with blocked/filled up storage.

Third, just to exclude something completely independent of malware activity, did you ever use the newly inserted sd card in an android phone?  You may need to format the card before it can be used, see storage settings.

Summary: please check if your sd card is properly formatted and also provide more details on your problem and the malware you assume you have on your phone.


How to enable international (roaming) data, but disable international calls?` While android has some settings as far as disabling roaming completely, I would simply like to disable only calls (due to their expensive nature), and allow MMS/data via roaming - is there any way to do this?

You can block the calls, but I dont know if there's a way to disable them.

Avast has one such built in tool to block calls by pattern i.e. wildcard characters.
e.g. block all calls with +1800* ( i.e. block all calls starting with +1800)


Recovering deleted photos on internal memory I read the tag wiki and about 10 pages deep of questions tagged data-recovery, but it only depressed me.

I deleted a folder of photos off of my phone by accident and need to retrieve them. I haven't done anything on the phone that could potentially overwrite the internal memory where the photos were stored, except for downloading and trying an app recovery tool ("photo recovery"), which of course didn't work.

The phone is an HTC Desire 510 running 4.4.2 (unrooted). My computer is running Ubuntu GNOME 14.04

From what I could find googling, PhotoRec seems to be a good free option. Unfortunately, PhotoRec is not detecting my phone. Apparently it's due to the MTP protocol. I cannot find any way to opt for USB mass storage.

What should I do? I cannot find a single helpful resource online and the longer I wait the worse my chances are (in my mind at least).

I found one thing that gives me hope: https://github.com/IzzySoft/Adebar. Does anyone know if this could be what I need?

The only way to recover your photos is that you will need to root your phone. There is really no other way to restore the data you already deleted. First you will need to root your device and then you can recover your files. Rooting your device will void your warranty. Next time before you accidentally delete your photos, use an online backup tool like Google Plus/Photos, dropbox etc.

This app will restore the photos for you: DiskDigger [ROOT].

Hope my answer helps


How to find missing application? I have a new phone. The old one died. I want to install all application that I had on old phone. I am 100% I miss one application in google play-my apps.

I may be uninstall it on the old phone due to the lack of space but I want to find it back.

I do not remember name and I am not able to find it on the google play (may be it was removed).

It was application for training brain, there was a few categories of games: at least 3 version of memory matrix, some games to match previous, 2 version of the of the follow number sequence. (All brain training application are really similar.) For some unknow reasons I have it associated with cat (It must be in name or there was a cat icon on main screen or something like that).

Please give me a tip how I can find this missing application.

Sign into playstore webversion(https://play.google.com) with the same account that you have configured in the old phone and visit the apps page https://play.google.com/apps. This will list all the apps that you have installed using the old phone. Once you configure your new phone with the same account you device will be listed in the list of devices and you can select the new device and install it to install the app on your new phone. Read More..


Mount sdcard partition as /data I originally wanted to comment here to ask a clarification question. But as I haven't enough reputation and it seems there isn't any private messaging possible, I opened this new question.

The device is a Moto G2 with 8GB storage. I configured it under cm13 to use a 64GB sdcard as adoptable storage.
After a few weeks my sister called, the device disconnects the sdcard very often and wants it to be reinserted.

In the hope that it's only the sdcard giving up, I ordered a new one and copied the whole disk with dd if=/dev/oldCard of=/dev/newCard.
Have to wait, if the problem is gone or not. But I thought about, if the adoptable storage option of Android isn't that brilliant and therefore googled if I could somehow mount an ext4(/or f2fs) partition on the sdcard under /data.

The answer I found here on Android Enthusiasts, sounds interesting, but I can't believe that this works this way, as of my understanding...
So, in the linked answer, it says:

  This is the way to have /data on the SD Card directory:

  Copy all /data to the SD Card directory: /mnt/sdcard/data
  Delete /data
  Create a symlink that points to the SD: ln -s /mnt/sdcard/data /data

So, my problem/confusion with this are the following points:

If I create a symlink in the root dir to something else, this link is gone up on a reboot. So how am I supposed to make the link from /data to some other place persistent?
If I make /data point to /sdcard/data, wouldn't the mount command now mount the partition in which the data is really stored under /sdcard/data? So the data would still be placed in the internal memory, but the point where it's mounted in the system is a different/wrong one, right?

My aim would be, to have a sdcard formatted with ext4/f2fs and get it mounted as /data like mount /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 /data instead of the internal data partition. But can I do that WITHOUT modifying the fstab of the kernel for every update I want to do manually?

L

I have done the exact same thing in the past with a Samsung Galaxy Y DuOS S6102 by replacing all the mount lines concerning the data partition in the init scripts and fstab file.

I couldn't find better solutions (think as future-proof) for the problem because once you look at the boot process for a generic Android device in Wikipedia, you'll notice the kernel runs the init scripts which makeup the directory tree and mount certain stuff that lay the foundations for Dalvik/ART runtimes to kick-in.

So by making a few tweaks to these scripts and partitioning the 8GB SD card into 1GB and 5.6GB, I was able to make it work boot.

Note: The device I used runs on ancient technology with little security features as compared to modern techniques. Hence, you might wanna be careful before making changes.


Is there a way to block permissions for other applications on Jelly Bean? I use LBE Privacy Guard with great pleasure to grant and withdraw permissions to access my contacts, the internet, etc. for each individual application installed in Ice-Cream Sandwich on my Galaxy Nexus. However, it is not compatible with Jelly Bean yet (causes rebooting cycle without fixing, and even then it can only block network access). Considering that the last update was in March of this year, this may take a while.

Is there another application that can do this and that is compatible with Jelly Bean? Applications like Droidwall and Permission Denied and others also don't seem to work on JB. This question asks a similar question, but that was a year ago, and I believe none of those application works on Jelly Bean.

As the "What's New" section says it's been updated for Jelly Bean, this looks promising:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stericson.permissions&hl=en

I've never tried it, but assuming you're rooted, this guy's apps are usually good.


I am trying to move a file from sdcard to another device folder and it fails with error that file is not there, but it is! I am trying to move a file from /sdcard to another device file and I am getting the following:

mv: bad 'xxxxxxxx.0': No such file or directory

while ls -l shows the file in directory.

The device is physical one, not an emulator and it is rooted.
Why is this happening?
file <file> confirms this is an ASCII file. I know cases that this was happening when someone was trying to move 32bit binary to 64bit device, but this is just an ASCII text file.

Answering to my own question, the reason for that error is that I tried to move the file from an absolute path instead of a relative one, /sdcard instead of sdcard.

Using relative path worked.


Does moving apps to SD card make launcher load time longer? I've been experiencing longer and longer times for the launcher to load when removing my phone (Moto Droid, 2.2.1) from the car dock or media dock, or when running the clock application for a long time (overnight).   I understand from other questions on this site that the delay is related to memory management time to re-load the launcher, but the time seems to be getting longer and longer.

I've been moving more apps to the SD card over time and was wondering if the launcher is requiring more startup time to fetch icons from the SD card?    If so, would it help to put SD apps in a folder or remove them from the home screens in order to speed up the load time for the launcher?

I have not added any new widgets for quite a while, but I do have a couple Tasker profiles, although I don't think the additional slowdown corresponds to changes in the Tasker setup.

I think the issue is not really with loading the launcherbut remounting the sdcard.  You say it happens when you take it out of the dock?  Does the dock connect to your computer? If so does it put your phone into USB transfer mode?


What are the differences between these adb and fastboot packages? In my Bash shell, I have the packages: adb vs android-tools-adb as well as fastboot vs android-tools-fastboot.

For reference I am trying to root my device, and later use these tools to learn about how Android works etc.

What are the differences between the packages? Is each one a subset of the other?

The shorter named packages, adb and fastboot are part of android-platform-system-core, and are minimal versions. Likewise, their longer named counterparts belong to android-tools, and are the full versions. apt show <package name> doesn't say much about their differences, except that the adb will break android-tools-adb. The same goes for fastboot.

This is the homepage for the longer named versions, but it makes no mention of fastboot.

The shorter versions' homepage is here.


How to automate sending my current battery percentage to PC over the internet every 5 minutes? I'm using Android 9 on my device, there are many times when I'm away from my phone and it is charging in a different room or someone else is using it, is there was a way to send over the battery percentage say bp over to my PC at regular intervals via the internet.

There maybe apps that can do this but I'm interested more in a script or terminal based approach

Ideas I'm thinking of are:

using a script manager on my phone like https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.androidideas.scriptlauncher
crontab with a script that sends out bp to a copy pasta and my PC can have it's own script reading that
using cat /sys/class/power_supply/battery/capacity or dumpsys battery | grep "level:" | awk '{ print $2 }' once my device is rooted as mentioned here : How to get battery status in terminal? and doing that every N minutes using cron

I have Termux installed and my device is not rooted yet how do I proceed.

I'm using gist by Github (which can be done using gem install gist after installing ruby package) for broadcasting my battery percentage first to a private file,  tried using ix.io but pkg install ix didn't work on Android terminal the config.guess threw and error saying unable to guess system type.

Already had Termux installed on my Android with necessary packages and with pkg install termux-battery-status and installing the Playstore api app : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux.api&hl=en_IN using termux-battery-status | grep percentage | grep -oP '\: (.*?)\,' | grep -Eo '[0-9]{1,3}' gave the battery percentage in terminal.

Finally I added permissions using chmod +x bp.sh and set up crontab on Android to do this every minute using crontab -e and adding the line * * * * * ~/bp.sh

EDIT

Have started to make use of jq to parse json ouput, so now the one liner for script is termux-battery-status | jq .percentage | gist -f bp -u gist_id and start the crontab using crond

PS : I've put the entire thing here :  https://github.com/himanshuxd/bp-broadcast


What's next if Super One Click fails? Possible Duplicate:
  How do I root my Kindle Fire?

I want root, but not enough to reflash or do anything that has a significant chance of harming the phone. In the past I've always used Super One Click, but I've found the Kindle fire can't be rooted Super One Click (though it has specific instructions to root) and neither can my Motorola Electrify after the latest update.

Is there anything to try after Super One Click? It's an amazing catch-all solution but I realized I have never found another solution that doesn't require carrier and device specific roms, recovery mode and lots of other scary things.

The kindle fire was just recently updated and the update removed root from the device, and it broke the Super One Click root method used. Once another root method is found (it may have been already) the developer of Super One Click will most likely update the application to support the Kindle Fire again.

Here is an article from Engadget talking about the update.

  Just when you thought it was safe to root your Kindle Fire with a single click, Amazon has clamped down on homebrewing enthusiasts. The company has begun pushing out an update for the $199 tablet that breaks the root, disabling the SuperOneClick utility in the process. If you've rooted your tablet and are still running a version of the Amazon-flavored Gingerbread, you're susceptible to the update any time you're connected to a WiFi network. However, if you've already made the leap to another version of Android, such as CM7, you can bypass this and any future software updates. There are some improvements with 6.2.1 though, as smoother scrolling, password protected WiFi use and the ability to remove recently used items from the home screen carousel are among the upgrades. If you're looking to read up on the issue before taking action, roll up your sleeves and hit the links below.

XDA-Developers Topic

From that thread, if you modify the hosts file and put the amazon update server to point to localhost (127.0.0.1) you will not receive the update, but If you cannot use Super One Click, it sounds like it is too late for you. You seem to already have the update.

Steps to disable the Kindle Automatic Silent Update:

Modify /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1   s3.amazonaws.com
Disable OTASilentInstall
Use an app like Titanium Backup and Freeze the OTASilentInstall apk
Rename OTASilentInstall (Optional)
Another option is to use a tool like RootExplorer and rename OTASilentInstall.apk to OTASilentInstall.bak.

As for your Electrify, I found some steps to root but I don't have the device so I do not know if they still work.

Turn on USB Debugging in Settings -> Applications -> Development -> USB Debugging - check the box.
From the market download and install the Superuser App to your phone. You may be asked to update binaries but you can't till you're rooted. It's OK as is.
Download and install the drivers to your PC from the link in step 9 below.
Download both the ADB package and the torpedo root file to your PC from the link in step 9 below.
Create a folder on your C: drive called Root.
Unzip the ADB package to the Root folder and move the torpedo root file there as well.
Plug your phone into your PC with the USB cable. Set USB Settings to Charge Only.
From your PC click Start:Run: type CMD and click OK.
Enter the prompts shown at How To: Root Motorola Photon 4G


ADB without PC is it possible? Currently I don't have PC but I need to execute some commands via ADB. Is there any way to access ADB from other phone or anyhow without PC?

Limited commands for adb and fastboot are possible according to this XDA post, that too on ARM architecture

Requirements :-

Rooted android Tablet / Phone.
OTG cable [ Make sure that your device supports OTG. (If not search your device's thread for OTG )]
A root browser ( eg:- Root Explorer, ES file explorer)
Terminal emulator

As indicated by OP in comments, this solution doesn't help as there is no OTG support nor is device rooted

Without root, to my limited knowledge, it is not possible


Nova Launcher -Google problem I have  a problem with Nova Launcher. When I go to Google and press "home" , it always asks me to choose between launchers. This  happens only when I use Google, it's really annoying.
Model: Alcatel one touch pop c2
OS: Andorid 4.2.2 jellybean
Nova Launcher version: Nova Launcher Prime 4.2.2
Root access: yes
Launchers: Launcher, Nova Launcher
Here is video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICJSZB0SEso
Screenshot:

Fixed, thanks to XDA thread-Default launcher resets every time i use the google now pointed out beeshyams.

As recommended in that thread, I installed an app called Launcher Switcher and I found one app acting like launcher (in addition to Nova and default launcher), in my case that was "MMITest", I just removed that app with System app remover (ROOT)


Getting market error "Sorry there's not enough space to install this item." Android Froyo 2.2 with 3GB available mmcblk0p2 space and over 3GB free space on MicroSD.

Have no idea from when it started. Since then, every time when I try to download/update an APP from Android Market, it prompted the "Sorry, There's not enough space to install this item." message for further action.

Have tried a few hints from Web, but yet no luck:

Format MicroSD.
Clean up Memory and Cache of Android Market.
Repartition the main storage from 4GB to 3GB.
tune2fs -m 1 /dev/block/mmcblk0p2

Any body can give steps to overcome this?

---Update on Debug message gathered from ADB---

When I clicked on Install-->OK to start download from Market, it logged a warning message in logcat:

  14:45:16.928 Warning PackageManager 1948  Couldn't clear application caches

---Storage Structures---

#df -ha

Filesystem               Size    Used    Available    Use%    Mounted on
/dev/root                2.9G    652.8M   2.2G         22%     /
tmpfs                   76.8M     12.0K  76.8M          0%     /dev
tmpfs                   76.8M      0     76.8M          0%     /mnt/asec
tmpfs                    4.0M      0      4.0M          0%     /sqlite_stmt_journals
/dev/block/vold/179:9    3.7G     41.2M   3.6G          1%     /mnt/sdcard
/dev/block/vold/179:9    3.7G     41.2M   3.6G          1%     /mnt/secure/asec
tmpfs                    0         0      0             0%     /mnt/sdcard/.android_secure

====== Update on 2nd Aug 2011 ======

**
After days of research, found a few discussion about the error of calculation on available space in Android 2.2 series.  Someone was mentioned on the maximum partition size which might caused this problem.  Thus I have run a test on this, to repartitioned the system partition from 3GB down to 2GB and the market was back to normal...
Any idea on how to solve this?**

I was getting this error because my Gingerbread update was filling the /cache folder.  Deleted it (this probably requires root) and was able to update apps again.


What tool can I use to measure the volume of .mp3 on my S6 + make the volume all the same? I have powerAmp paid and I have mp3's from different sources. How do I measure the decibel levels of each clip + adjust it to make it the same? I used to use Mp3gain on the desktop. Anything like that for Android on and S6?

PowerAmp can read ReplayGain values written to the mp3 files, but does not do any analysis itself.  The best option would be to apply ReplayGain tags using something like foobar2000 on your desktop, and then copy those files over to your S6.


Unable to connect my Nexus 7 to a PC I searched a lot over the Internet and tried all the advice I found.

I have installed drivers from the ASUS site and changed C:\Windows\inf\wpdmtp.inf so it now contains

; Nexus 7
%GenericMTP.DeviceDesc%=MTP, USB\MS_COMP_MTP
%GenericMTP.DeviceDesc%=MTP, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4E42&MI_00

both in [Generic.NTx86] and [Generic.NTamd64] sections.

My device is in MTP mode.

Computer sees it in PTP mode.

USB debugging is on.

It was said that I need Windows Media Player 11, but I have Windows 7 so it should be included, although I don't know where to check the version.

Here is what I see in device manager after all failed attempts:

For some reason, MTP and ADB are incompatible.  Try turning USB debugging off, I've never been able to get it to connect right with it on.


How to unlock an LG mp260? How do I unlock and root an LG MP260? My LG v30 was stolen and I am trying to use an older phone from Metro PCS on my T-Mobile account until I can replace it.

When I moved my phone from MetroPCS to T-Mobile, I did not need to unlock it. Since MetroPCS is now a T-Mobile brand, it should be easy.


How to reset Battery chart I have an Android tablet (wifi only; no cell service). Sometimes, I want to reset the chart it shows in the battery menu, so that it only shows the last few min instead of the last who knows how many hours.  I know it can be done because I did it once before, though I wasn't paying attention to how it happened that time. Thus, I no longer remember what I did that time. So how can I do it again?

By clearing that Chart you mean that you have to reset the "batterystats.bin" file in your system. For that few apps are available on the Playstore but unfortunately you need to ROOT your device since those are system files.
One such app is here

Hope that helps!


Can't factory reset my Galaxy S20 I'm trying to factory reset a Galaxy S20 because I've forgotten to add MDM in the intial setup and as far as I know you can't add this later.
To do the factory reset I've done Settings > General Management > Reset > Factory data reset. Then tap Reset and Delete all. But it then asks me to confirm my Samsung Account which it somehow can't do, because I always get a loading icon which fails after some time. Then it asks me for the password of my Samsung Account and again goes into a loading icon which also just stops after some time. I don't get any error message.
There's also the option to send a confirmation e-mail, but this also leads to the loading screen but after some time I get a little pop-up telling me there is a network error. The screen here stays white and I need to use the back button to go the confirmation screen of my Samsung Account.
I do have internet access on my phone, because I can open websites with Chrome. I'm using my home Wlan Network to connect to the internet.
I didn't find any solution to this problem with Google, just the normal documentation from Samsung of how to factory reset a phone, which doesn't work for me.

The solution to my problem was that somehow my phone couldn't access the Samsung Account site over my home network. I've switched to a hotspot of my other phone, and now everything is working as it should. I was lead to this solution because I've seen other people having problems with accessing the Samsung Account site. Perhaps some providers have problems with this.


How to turn Android phone into an USB gamepad for PC? Is it possible to turn an Android phone into a USB gamepad for the PC? If yes, how?

Have you tried searching for gamepad in Google Play?

Here are some of the results:

Ultimate Gamepad

  Connect through wifi or bluetooth in the most simple way. Install the
  Ultimate Control Receiver program on your computer (PC, Mac or Linux)
  and select it from the list displayed on your phone.

DroidPad

  DroidPad lets you use your phone as a PC joystick or mouse.


Is it possible to exclude apps from the "open with" dialog? I have two browsers on my device, Chrome and Opera, but generally always want to use Chrome. But even if I select Chrome for opening weblinks and press the "Always" button, it might still ask me again which browser I want to use for some other links.

My phone is rooted (it's a Fairphone). Is it possible to just exclude Opera once and for all from being suggested? I only want it to appear when I deliberately start it via the drawer.

Unfortunately, I think not. The code that tells whether the app will appear in that list is in the app itself: Documentation.

However, you state that you are rooted, so maybe you could use Titanium Backup (Pro) to "freeze" Opera.


Can apps be controlled through adb? Can an installed application be completely controlled via adb?

For example:
Consider I need to to export my Contacts to SD Card. So here there are basically 5 Steps involved

1)Open Contacts application

2)Press Menu Key

3)Select Import/Export option

4)Select Export to SD card

5)Confirm Export

Can any/all of them be performed via adb?

This can be useful when you have an unrooted phone with a bricked display and all access you have is via adb.

Yes and no. You can issue intents with adb but that's it. So the steps you described can't be achieved with adb.

Edit: ce4 showed a blog post which mentions the input binary which is able to simulate key events.

adb shell input keyevent <keycode>


Titanium Backup: Describe error: There is a problem parsing the package I recently backed up all of my stuff to my Galaxy S5's SD card using Titanium Backup. I decided to test the backup using factory reset (I'm using the stock ROM) and trying to restore the backup afterwards. However, every time I try to do this, I get an error message saying "There is a problem parsing the package."

I've tried changing the backup location as explained here: https://seo-michael.co.uk/titanium-backup-problem-parsing-package-fix/

I've also tried updating SuperSU and changing the name space option as explained here: I can't restore apps with titanium back up

So far, nothing has worked. And I have to force stop TB to try and restore again (it stays stuck at 0% in the notification bar otherwise).

Have I done something wrong? Am I screwed?

There is one issue not mentioned online. When you disable Google Play Store - you need to untick some setting under security. You need to tick Unknown sources and UN-TICK Verify apps - while Play Store is still installed and actively running.

At least this solved parsing issue for me without the need to do backups again. Somehow google has managed to block Titanium backup ...


Marshmallow, Priority only mode, Viber still rings with sound? I use Android Marshmallow in Nexus 5x. I have an automatic rule for nights where it goes to Do Not Disturb with priority only as set. It works as expected and silences when someone calls me over cell network, but if someone calls in Viber, (an app like WhatsApp) the ring comes in with all it sounds, but I expect it to be silent as well. What I am doing wrong?

There are two possibilities for what's causing Viber calls to ring during Do Not Disturb Priority Mode. Here's how to fix both possible issues:

Priority Only Rules

It could be the fault of your priority only rules. Go to Settings -> Sound -> Do Not Disturb -> Priority Only Allows and set both Calls and Messages to none. This will stop calls and texts from ringing your phone while you're in priority mode (from your stock phone/messages apps and potentially also from Viber).

Override Do Not Disturb

The other possibility is that you're overriding Do Not Disturb restrictions for Viber and letting it sound during priority mode. To turn this off and block Viber calls from sounding during priority mode DND, go to Settings -> Apps -> Viber -> Notifications and turn off Override Do Not Disturb.

tl;dr: Change your priority mode rules or block Viber from overriding priority mode Do Not Disturb to fix your issue.


My phone keeps on giving a whatsapp error message and ask me to restore chats but when I do so all messages are not restored My phone keeps on giving whatsapp error message and asked to restore chats, but when do so not all the messages are restored

what's the error message or is just telling you to restore chats after new install?

Concerning the issue that not all chats are restored, there could be two(2) possible reasons
1. You may have deleted the chats that are "missing" or the backup file is of an earlier date before the "missing" chats
2. Whatsapp encountered 'restore time out' so it just skips them messages.
Hope this helped. Upvotes pls


How To Track My Stolen Phone Without Usin Wifi Possible Duplicate:
  My phone was just stolen an hour or so ago. Are there any options for tracking?

My Phone Is Stolen I Need To Know How To Use It

There are a number of similar questions already:

Is there a way to block access to or wipe my Google data for a lost/stolen phone
My android phone was stolen. How worried should I be with all my google data inside the phone?
My phone was just stolen an hour or so ago. Are there any options for tracking?
Is there any way to erase personal information from my phone that has already been stolen?
Can I locate my android phone?


I want to remove credit card information from Play Store Please let me know how can I change my credit card information that I entered when I set up the Play Store.

Go to payments.google.com, sign in with the same account you used to set up the Play Store, select Payment Methods, click the Edit or Remove link next to the card you want to edit/delete

For more info, refer to the Google Payments Help Center


unable to connect my mobile and computer with usb when I plug the phone in via USB, the phone beeps, I get a lightning bolt on my battery, but that's it. There are no USB options in the pull-down status bar, and the PC does not recognize that a device has been plugged in

try this Methods, may be helpful for you,

Try using different USB-Ports of your system.
Try with different USB-Cable your using to connect your phone and system.
Try to install the Mobile-Device Drivers and then connect to your system.


How can I open a `.rar` file if Solid Explorer fails? I have the app Solid Explorer installed but the .rar file doesn't seem to be opening properly.  Which tool can I use to extract .rar files properly?

OS:  4.1.1
Device: S3

Try B1 Free Archiver, or AndroZip™ File Manager. If the file still doesn't open properly, it might be possible that the archive is corrupt. Try opening the same archive on PC as well, just to be sure.


Starting the Google calendar sync in Samsung Galaxy S Duos I have Samsung Galaxy S Duos and had a issue of calendar sync. While trying to clear data, I mistakenly force-stopped the Google Calendar Sync app. Now, the calendar sync is not working. It gives an error: Sync is currently experiencing problems. It will be back shortly.

How do I start the Google Calendar Sync app again?

Download and install the Google Calendar from the Market.

Source.


Pulling out app and data I incidentally broke the digitizer connector on the motherboard of my Nexus 10 tablet. I can still power on the tablet, but cannot do anything since the touchscreen is not working. I asked around a couple of repair stores, and was told that there is no easy fix for the connector. My question is: buying another connector or soldering the broken one would not be feasible?

If unfixable, I would like to pull the data out of the tablet, and move to another device. Since I can't use TitaniumBackup in this case, how can I extract each specific app and the data associated with that app so that I could transfer to a phone or another tablet via shell command adb? I could run 'adb backup...', but with that I don't know how to transfer the backup to another device.

My Nexus 10 is rooted, so some of apps are rooted and others are non-rooted, and the former seem to be anywhere on the phone. Also with TitaniumBackup, I know how to transfer the app and its data to another device. In this case, after pulling out the data, how do I move to another device? For example, I notice that some apps are stored under /data/data/ with multiple directories such as databases/, lib/, files/, shared_prefs/, etc. Can I directly move the whole directory tree over to another device?

Another question: the rooted apps seem to be installed as /data/app/com../base.apk. I tried to pull out base.apk, but it can't be installed properly on another device.

Thanks in advance!

Install a custom non-touch CWM recovery via the adb, make a full backup in it, pull the created backup out via "adb sideload" function in the recovery. Then, you can play with the total backup of your system, just rename "data.ext4.win000" (internal storage file) to "data.ext4.tar.000" (and other files in similar way) and open it in FTKImager (even lite version is enough).

If you want just to reinstall the apps with their data on a new smartphone use AppExtractor with your backup zip


Persistent techniques used by Android Malware What are the most commonly used persistent techniques by Android malware. That is to survive on device after reboot.
In windows malware they change registry entries to auto start, Android malware should use similar techniques, couldn't find much details when googled.
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks

A malware can use a Broadcast receiver for the event BOOT_COMPLETED and triggers its main activity. Thereby whenever a phone reboots the malware's main activity is invoked. This is an equivalent to adding an entry in the Windows registry for auto-start/Run.

Hope this helps.


What is this icon meaning above my phone? This is about 3 days I see this icon above my phone(at the left of the alarm icon)! I afraid of it's a non-interested installed app! I tried to find it but couldn't! Also bitdefender anti-virus says your phone is safe!

EDIT: I thought it's better to add another question here instead of creating a new question.

How can I find what the icons shown in notification bar are for?

It is the Power saving mode active notification icon on Samsung devices. Find out more at Android Central.

Answer to second question: Just swipe down from screen-top. You can see notifications, tap on it, it will open that application. This link shows list of major  notification icons for Samsung devices.


How does charging battery in normal, speed and trickle affect battery life? Battery doctor uses different stages of charging:

speed; continuous and trickle (keep charging when the battery is full for some time)

does this really extend battery life?

and can an app change the way the device is being charged anyway?

Proper explanation is fairly technical, so am answering in broad terms (you can skip the links if you don't want to get into nitty gritty)

Charging rate is a measure that governs at what current a battery is charged and discharged. At 1C, a battery rated 1,000mAh charges at a current of 1,000mAh. In an ideal world the battery would be fully charged in 60 minutes. At 1C, the same battery discharges at 1,000mA. Ideal charging rate is accepted to be around 0.5 to ,0.8 C for maximum battery life (battery life is measured in charge/discharge cycles). When you charge a battery at this rate, it goes through three stages of charging (Constant Current Charge,Saturation Charge and Ready No Current). For more information, if you are inclined, battery university has a bunch of informative articles on this.

If you charge your battery with the OEM charger and measure charging rate using 3C Battery Monitor Widget or Ampere, and plot, you will find that the graph fairly resembles to that of the referenced link above of battery university. This would also fairly resemble , the "continuous" mode of your app

If you want maximum battery life, it is best to stick with OEM charger or equivalent charger that is equally rated. Device manufacturers have different algorithms built in to regulate current flow at different stages of battery charging mainly to:

a) quickly charge the battery , typically to charge the battery to 50% as you see advertised as a special feature (on a side note, cheap battery chargers do it the hardware way (and a destructive way). See this to get an idea https://electronics.stackexchange.com/). The disadvantage with this and quick or fast charge is that battery is not charged sufficiently in the saturation charge stage (it spend less time in that stage) and doesn't deliver the same capacity as with regular charge. It's like drinking a bottle of Coke, when you are hungry, you may feel full but your body hasn't got the nutrients and calories as from a regular meal :-)

b) to prevent battery damage due to excessive charging like in cases of leaving the charger plugged in overnight (by limiting charging current to near zero)

There is NO way for an app to over ride the device specific algorithms and it's implementation in the ROM. To change this implementation, app will have to change the system files after the system has booted, which is not possible AFAIK, and these apps cannot possibly ship that across the spectrum of devices and different Android Versions. On the other hand, custom kernels(and associated kernel tweaker apps) can permit a) fast charging or quick charging b) increasing or decreasing the charging current provided the ROM and hardware support. Agni kernel, is one such kernel I have used to charge faster when connected to USB. Note that charging at more than 1C can damage battery as shown in Fig.2 here

Charging in "trickle charge" of your app is similar to charging your battery for longer period in the last stage of battery charging, which is useful if you want to have the battery at 100% charge when you unplug the charger, but is a bad idea, since battery chemistry dictates battery deterioration at high temperatures due to internal stress.

A variation of this last stage charging is called "bump charging", wherein the charger is disconnected upon full charge, discharged for a few minutes and again charged. This cycle is repeated a few times. A bad idea for longevity of battery as can bee seen from Fig.2 and Table 2 here.

Both these methods are not recommended for normal usage but may be useful occasionally, when you have a long day ahead and may not be able to charge like travelling, hiking etc.

(Related aspect- you may have noticed that your battery drop is much faster from 100 to 90%, compared to say 80 to 70 %. Which is actually a good thing, because, it is protecting your battery staying at higher internal temperatures. To understand this, have a look at Your battery gauge is lying to you....not a bad thing. Based on this, IMO, it is better to charge the battery when it drops to 30% and stop charging when it reaches 90%. ( I can almost hear one ask, what about battery life which is measured in number of charge/ discharge cycles, won't that be reduced, if I try this? No, it shouldn't matter, because a cycle is not defined by how many times you charge but what is the capacity of charge you used up. To understand this concept better, read what constitutes a discharge cycle)

Charging in "speed charge (mode of your app)", is also not recommended as it does not go through fully, all the three stages of battery charging at recommended levels and is not good for battery life

Hence, bottom line is these kind of apps are better not used and stick to OEM rated chargers and OEM recommended charging methods.

PS: Edited your question to add relevant tags


Play store - share button missing Am I blind or is there no share button so I cannot easily send somebody a link to some app from my phone? On a PC, I can copy a browser URL. I am pretty sure there was this share icon somewhere on the phone, but seems like it is no longer present.

This happens when you go to Play Store from within settings > app >app info (depending upon your OS).
If you go directly to Play Store (not from app info of installed app) and search for the app, you can find the "share" option.
I noticed this ever since I upgraded to Pie in January.
One on the left is from within settings and on the right is direct search on Play Store.


Copy YouTube APK from Android Phone to PC My Question is specific to copying the YouTube APK file from My Android device (Micromax Canvas 4 - Android 4.2, Non-rooted device)to PC/Laptop.

The YouTube App is a system app in my device. Below is the path for it.

/system/app/YouTube.apk

I used adb shell pm path com.google.android.youtube command to find the exact path of YouTube APK.

I tried to use adb pull to copy the APK as below:

adb pull /system/app/YouTube.apk

This throw below error message:

remote object 'C:/Program Files (x86)/Git/system/app/YouTube.apk' does not exist

I am also fine if I can copy this APK to external SD-card which is mounted in my Android device (in case if I cannot adb pull it)

Any Hints?

Device Details:Micromax Canvas 4 (Android 4.2) Non-rooted device

(Comments Reference) Since your main motive is to get the APK file, we can try three approaches here:

1) Using a backup app: There are a lot of great backup apps like Titanium, but since its just as a temporary solution with only motive to get the APK file, I would suggest using a simpler backup app like Android Assisstant. Using this, we first backup Youtube APK and then we copy it to PC.

Open the app after downloading from above link.
Go to Tools->Backup and Restore

In the list, check-mark the YouTube.apkand press Backup.
The app APK would be saved in directory /sdcard/AndroidAssisstant_appbackup which you can transfer to PC normally.

2) Using a Root File Manager: Since we dont need to root for reading system, any root browser would work. For simplicity, I would recommend using Solid Explorer (since ES could be a bit too much for first-time users).

After installing Solid Explorer, open the app and press the Jump button at bottom panel and choose Device->System Root.
Browse over to /system/app and copy over Youtube.apk to sdcard. Transfer this file to PC through whatever methods you prefer.

NOTE: Trial version of solid explorer allows you to only open it once. So an alternative would be Root Browser which has a very similar interface.

3) Using Terminal Emulator: Download/Install Terminal Emulator.

Open the app and use the command cp /system/app/YouTube.apk /sdcard/which should copy the APK file to your sdcard that you can tranfer to PC normally.

Hope this helps.


How can I remove vibration when the phone is turned off on my Samsung Galaxy S9 (non-rooted Android 9, One UI 1.0)? How can I remove vibration when the phone is turned off on my Samsung Galaxy S9 (non-rooted Android 9, One UI 1.0)?
I don't have any option item Settings app > Accessibility > Vibration.

This is option is not for user’s control. It’s default for all smartphones.
The main purpose is to alert the user when their phone shuts down otherwise there is a chance that users may not know whether their phone is off or on.
So OEM provides this feature as default and cannot be controlled until the phone is rooted. Rooting a phone will give you a full control over the phone. But this is helpful. If you feel to remove this option, root your device but that is difficult fix to this. Mainly it is not a bug.
Hope it helps!


Turn off text message (SMS) sync to Exchange email account I recently started using a Samsung Galaxy S4 and one of the features in a synchronization between text messages and email accounts.

When a text message comes in it throws a copy into my Exchange email accounts that are one the phone. I want to turn this feature off but cannot find a setting for it anywhere.

Any ideas?

It's in the settings for your Exchange account, hidden rather well.

Go to:

Settings
Accounts
Exchange
Settings
Select your Exchange account
More Settings
Uncheck "Sync SMS"


Can I use 'adb tcpip' on Gingerbread devices if I root them? I have tried using the command adb tcpip 5555 to be able to connect wirelessly to my test devices. It's working fine for devices running Android 4.0+, but every 2.x device (like the Galaxy Ace, running 2.3) I have tried gives the same result:

$ adb connect 10.26.5.215
unable to connect to 10.26.5.215:5555

I haven't been able to find anything online that says this feature only works on Android 4 - is this the case?

Will it be possible to connect ADB over TCP/IP on the 2.x devices if I root them?

N.B. I do not want to install custom kernels or ROMs, I want them to be in as similar a state to stock devices as possible.

Yes, you can, but not through the same steps as on Android 4.0+ devices.

Once your phone is rooted, run the following commands to change ADB to TCP mode and restart the adb daemon (note that you can pick the port number, I am sticking with the default of 5555):

$ su
# setprop service.adb.tcp.port 5555
# stop adbd
# start adbd

You can run the first three commands over adb shell, but will need to start adbd again from a terminal on the phone itself (I had strange problems when doing otherwise). You can now disconnect the USB cable if you want to, and you can connect to the phone over TCP/IP:

mycomputer$ adb connect 10.26.5.215
connected to 10.26.5.228:5555

(if you are using a non-default port you will need to specify it: adb connect 10.26.5.215:5556)

I have tested this on a Samsung Galaxy Ace (GT-S5830i) and a Galaxy S (GT-I9000), and installing APKs and running instrumentation tests are working.


"Route" USB to Android phone through computer Is there any way to plug a USB drive (specifically a micro-sdCard to USB adapter) into my computer, plug my phone into the computer (also through USB), and make it appear to the phone as though I have connected the USB directly into my phone? If that is possible, how can I do it?

If you need anything more, just ask.
Thanks in advance!

Instead of connecting both to computer try using a USB OTG cable.

Because if you connect your phone to computer via USB the computer thinks that you connected a storage and mounts it as a storage drive and same goes with the USB drive (or SD-Card) too. But what you are asking is to mount the USB drive on the phone which is not simply possible unless you are a software specialist with expertise in network and drive handling capabilities.

So, there is no simple way for a USB Drive to show up on a mobile phone connected to the same computer. And I suggest you to use a OTG cable instead if you have a compatible device.


Phone lock enabling using hardware buttons I don't normally like to lock my phone as I find it annoying.

Is it possible to enable the lock or some kind of encryption on the phone in an emergency, for example by holding down a number of the hardware buttons?

Opposing ce4, I see a possibility using e.g. Tasker. In case you don't know it: Tasker is the most complex automation tool available on Android. You connect "events" (as e.g. phone rings, incoming SMS, a given time (clock), a location, ...) with "tasks" (actions to be taken, as e.g. switching mobile data on/off, enabling/disabling airplane mode, adjust volume, and much more) to so-called "profiles".

So here comes an example profile for your problem:

Event:

event->hardware->camera button pressed
event->sensor->shake->[configure details]

Task:

Keyguard On

So with that profile, if you hold down the camera key and shake your device, the configured keyguard (pattern lock, pin, password) will be activated. Obviously you need the opposite action as well: Use the above again with a different "shake pattern" and, of course, "Keyguard Off" in the task.

So initially, you configure your pattern/pin/password to be set on, as usual on Android (so the system knows which one to use). After that, use your configured hold-shake-pattern to activate and deactivate it.

Pretty simple. Though I didn't test it -- but I like that idea, so I certainly will test it soon myself :)


How to prevent apps auto-reinstalling? Almost every time I connect my phone to my PC apps auto-reinstall in the background. I say "auto-reinstall" rather than "auto-update" because the versions aren't changing.

Auto-update is disabled but logcat indicates the apps are being auto-updated:

root@android:/ # logcat -v long *:V | grep -C 1 "Requesting install"

[ 05-05 13:30:27.732  5687: 5687 I/Finsky   ]
[1] khl.a(2): Requesting install request=package_name=com.example.app, version=123, priority=3,reason=auto_update, account_name=[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx], type=0, constraints=((REQ_CHARGING, REQ_GEARHEAD_PROJECTION_OFF, NETWORK=UNMETERED, PROVISIONING_STATE=PROVISIONED, ),)

Why does this happen? How do I stop it?

This is hardly a satisfactory solution, but I've taken to freezing the Google Play Store app (pm disable com.android.vending) except for when I explicitly need to use it (I also use Yalp Store and APKGrabber for updating apps).


Insufficient storage space & Insert SD card I'm using a Meizu M6, and a newly bought Sandisk Ultra micro SD XC 64gb.
Internal storage is about 1.67 gb free out of 16gb.

For the record, I have already checked the wiki tags and similar topics, as well as format, remount, cache clear, and/or reboot, but none of them worked.

So my phone and desktop can detect my SD, but:

everytime I tried to create an empty, new folder on my SD, it gave me the "insufficient storage space" message... despite being empty as a clean slate.
everytime I tried to use the camera, it gave me the "insert SD card" message... despite being able to detect it earlier.

Yet I can create new folders and move items to my SD if I connect it to my PC with some card reader.

What might caused this? Any pointers?

you could try using the Windows partition manager to format the micro sd card and create a brand new partition. You could try using the tool h2testw to check if the card is damaged or authentic.


6.5GB of internal storage is missing, how can I free it I have a HTC Desire 510,
Android version 4.4.3, HTC Sence version 6.0 Software number 1.51.401.7 HTC SDK API level 6.25

When I go to storage I see:

Apps 3.56GB
Music 110MB
Photos & videos 60.82MB
Other 3.88GB
Available 400MB

I want to make more internal memory available.
When Clicking on more space (or selecting apps from the settings menu)
I see:

7.59GB / 8.00GB
Apps 1,21 GB
Gallery 47.74MB
Miscellaneous:  107MB

About 6.5 GB of memory use is not listed!

Does any one have an idea what that can be and how I can free it?

Extra information added on 2018-01-21 by request of: Izzy

I understand that the system also uses some internal storage.
The frustrating part is that the "missing" memory used to be less.

It seem something beyond my control is eating away internal storage.  I've followed the instructions at https://www.xda-developers.com/install-adb-windows-macos-linux to install adb and get the following result:

Filesystem            Size   Used   Free   Blksize
/dev                   432M   152K   432M   4096
/sys/fs/cgroup         432M     0K   432M   4096
/sys/fs/cgroup/memory: Permission denied
/mnt/asec              432M     0K   432M   4096
/mnt/obb               432M     0K   432M   4096
/system               2479M  1611M   868M   4096
/data                 4091M  3646M   444M   4096
/cache                 309M   256K   309M   4096
/devlog                 15M     9M     6M   4096
/fataldevlog            15M     8M     7M   4096

I'm fine with a system needing 2GB for other stuff.
What amazes me is the 3.5GB for data when I only have a few small app's installed.
When I want to do an ls for /data I get permission denied.

I've used SD Maid Storage analyzer.
It tells me /storage/emulated/0 has 3.6GB used / 3.9 GB capacity.
Clicking on it gives me only 534MB used.
More than 3GB is gone!
I really want to have it back because I can hardly update any app let alone install new ones.

With regard to the .data directory:
There is one other directory in it with a dozen of files with sizes in KB's (not even in MB's)

The usual question. According to GSMArena, your device has 8 GB internal storage altogether – which is not only the /data partition (where your apps and user data are stored), but also includes the /system partition where the OS resides. Depending on manufacturer and device, the latter can consume up to 8 GB of your internal storage chip (usually devices with heavily modified GUIs such as Samsung's TouchWiz are the ones using the biggest sizes for that).

Though on a device with 8 GB altogether 6.5 GB for the /system partition sounds a bit much, that's the part excluded from your listings. To check how much is consumed by /system you can use a terminal app (or adb shell) to run the mount or df commands (the latter gives easier to read output sufficient here).

In addition to the two mentioned partitions, there're also other partitions consuming some space (e.g. /boot and /recovery), but they're usually rather small (much less than 100M in most cases) while not to be ignored in this context. For a full list, you can e.g. check with this XDA post (which unfortunately does not include sizes).

A more detailed discussion (also on the HTC Desire 510) can also be found at AndroidCentral, and give you additional clues.


Mystery duplicated SIM contacts I recently noticed that while searching for contacts I see the same SIM contacts repeated more than 20 times. In the settings for contacts it says I have 5795 contacts on the SIM card but it's almost all the same contacts repeated over and over again. If I delete one of those contacts every other with the same name is also removed.

I have a HTC Desire that runs Android 2.2. I synchronize contacts with Exchange, Google and Facebook but I don't see how that would affect the contacts on the SIM.

Any thoughts on why this happens and how I can fix it?

Are the contacts also duplicated in your gmail address book?

If it is just on your SIM, it might be worth going into your carrier and getting a new SIM card. It is possible that the SIM card itself is corrupted somehow.


Is it possible to fix hard bricked device? I'm working in electronic repair store as technician and I started 4-5 years ago but something really bothers me .

Why we can't fix hard bricked devices ? Like device's hardware completely fine . Is there some kind of device for that problem ?

I have 5-10 devices just laying dead because of hard brick because some amateur tried flash a ROM without any experience

Also I don't know if here is correct place to ask this question , I'm basically trying to flash a android ROM but if it isn't right place for it I can delete my question and please if you're not %100 sure don't write "you can't fix hard bricked devices" , I heard&said that for a long time

In a softbricked device, critical partitions like a recovery partition is usually preserved which helps to easily recover from the condition, but in a hardbricked device all the software interfaces that provide access to the hardware are unavailable, that means there is no method for you to communicate with the hardware. As Robert has rightly said, you need to physically access the hardware in order to flash a software, which in case of integrated hardware is very difficult. To circumvent a hardbrick situation, Snapdragons have an Emergency Download Mode (EDL).


How do I attach a PDF file to an email? I'm trying to attach a PDF file to an e-mail I'm composing, but clicking on attach option shows only image files.

How can I make it show other files / attach other files ?

(Note: I'm using the e-mail client, not the G-mail one).

You need to add another file browser besides the built in Gallery.

ASTRO File Manager should fit the bill nicely.


HTC One SMS Backup File with no Extension Restore issue I backed up my SMS an year ago via HTC One phone's messaging application. The backup file that was created on SD card had no extension and its name is "SMS_nai_SD_20160625_701301_0".

I was never able to restore that backup but I now need one of the messages in backup and have already lost the phone. If I open the file in notepad, it starts with "HTCMSGBACKUP_V1" and rest of that are special characters. There is another thread related to same issue that suggests either restore the messages or use emulator. I was wondering is there any other way to handle that if we know the starting characters of the file.

Thank you.

Just changing the file extension will not help. As far as I know it's just some kind of encrypted text file. It's either a htc or an android specific file. In order to restore a message from that file you need an android device. It might work with the stock android sms app in an emulator but probably not. I suspect that it's only going to work with htc sms app.

[edit]:
The backup file is an encrypted sqlite database file not just some text file.


Can i mount loopdevice in Android? I have rooted my android phone and get a shell thr adb. I wanna mount a ROM image in android. But I always fail:

mount -o loop /sdcard/myimage.img /mnt
mount: can't setup loop device: No such file or directory

Try: mount -o loop /sdcard/myimage.img myimage. "myimage" is where you can view the contents afterward.


Google Keyboard 'remove suggestion' not working I'm having an annoying issue with the Google Keyboard app on Android 6.0 (and on an HTC One M9 if that matters).

I like to be able to remove erroneous suggested words by long pressing on them and dragging them into the 'remove suggestion' trash can. That used to work fine, but recently when I do it nothing changes - the word is not removed, and keeps being suggested. I'm not entirely sure when this behaviour started. It was certainly after I upgraded from an HTC One M8 to an M9. But I can't remember whether it ever worked on the M9.

I've looked through the settings many times over, and searched Google for a solution, but I can't find anything of help.

If you can offer any advice that would be great. Ideally I'd really like to keep my personal dictionary intact, if possible.

Thanks for your help

On Gboard v7 (Nougat) I've noticed that this long press and drag gesture doesn't work in chrome but seems to be working as expected in Messengers such as WhatsApp. Give that a try


How do in-app purchases work? I'm trying the free version of an app, and I'm considering to upgrade to the Premium version. The said app is Rewire.

From what I see, the Premium version in not directly available on Play Store, and it can be purchased only in-app.

How do these purchases work? If I  uninstall the app then reinstall it later, or if in the future I change my phone, this purchase will still be recognised?

Will I be able to use the full version again without having to pay once more for it?

It appears that the purchase is managed by Google Play:

There are two kinds of in-app purchases — managed, and unmanaged.  The former have more direct involvement from Google and are transferrable between installs.

Managed purchases are generally for things like premium/pro versions and subscriptions, whereas the latter are for one-off purchases.  Unmanaged ones might cover extra donations or things like virtual currency.

So as long as the developer has implemented the right kind of purchase, you should be fine.  If not, and the transfer doesn't work, I would expect that an appeal to Google would result in a prompt refund.

See http://www.androidauthority.com/android-inapp-purchases-need-know-92432/


Forcing an Android tablet to connect to a wifi from PC A while ago, I had a tablet (Coby Kyros MID9742), that got shelved when the screen quit (half of the area of the touchscreen won't recognize touches, split among 2 sections).

I am trying to repurpose the tablet for use as a video player via HDMI cable to projector, with my old phone (Galaxy S, no problems) as a remote. I have that part worked out, using a 3rd party app.

But the main problem is getting the tablet to connect to WiFi to use the remote software. The screen is broken in such a way that the center strip (top to bottom in portrait mode) cannot recognize touches, and I cannot put in the WiFi password that I need to. The tablet does not know the password for the WiFi.

Is there some way that I can force the tablet to connect to an encrypted WiFi using my PC, via USB cable? The tablet is rooted, but I have not flashed a custom rom onto it.

Also, is there some way that I can force WiFi to turn on at startup, and automatically connect to specified network?

If there is any more information I need to add, please say so in the comments.

You didn't write anything about the Android version running on your device. Assuming it is capable of acting as OTG host (if unsure, you can find out using some OTG Checker), you could try attaching some USB keyboard (and mouse) to it in order to control input. This would allow you to not only activate WiFi and chose the network, but also to enter the credentials when needed.


How do I include contacts when searching in Google Maps? When I search for "Joe" in the Google Maps application, I'd like it to include "Joe Smith" from my Google contacts. How might I make this happen?

I'm using CyanogenMod 11-20140604-NIGHTLY-hammerhead (on a Nexus 5, "hammerhead").

Aha! The trick is to enable Web History. After doing so, I now see addresses for my Contacts (my "People") in Maps when I search for them by name.


When I receive a reply to an exchange email, the gmail notifications show my original message, not the reply I'm having a really odd problem with my Nexus 5X.  I had the problem when I got it (marshmellow) and it still persists when upgraded to nougat.

When I send out an email on my desktop computer, and someone replies to it, i'll see the notification pop up on my phone.  However, the notification shows the text of my original email, not the text of the reply. I have to tap the notification to open the gmail app and see the actual reply.  This is very frustrating because i cannot "at a glance" see what the email is, and instead have to open it, marking it read, which will mess with my flow on the desktop client.

Has anyone else run into this problem?  Anybody have a solution?

You can't do nothing... The problem is in Gmail's app. You must wait for future upgrades/updates or you can send an email to Gmail's developer.


Set default app for file type NOT recognised I'd like to associate an app with a file type that android does not recognize.
I am using a samsung tab 3 with android 4.2.2.
In my case I have a .tex file and 2 apps that can read it, but when I click on the file from "My files" app, it says
"Open file
Unable to find application to perform this action"

How can I tell it it to associate the readers with this file format?

When you do an action like viewing a file, Android shows the chooser to let you choose from all the apps that say they can understand that file or URL. It's up to the app author to tell Android what files the app can understand. If an app doesn't show up in that list when you think it should, it's a bug in the app, and you should contact the app developer to ask them to make that change.

It's possible to use a third-party app to act as an intermediary, to let you send any action on any file or URL to any app of your choice, but the result will almost always be that the 'target' app crashes, or just opens to the main screen without opening the file you want, because it hasn't been programmed to understand that intent.


Is there a way to receive my SMS messages on my desktop? I just purchased an S4 Mini, my first android phone. I was wondering - is there a way to send/receive messages on my Windows 8 desktop when my phone is connected to my machine?

You might wish to run a search on Google Play. One good choice will be Airdroid, which gives you a full remote maintenance suite. And of course you can send/receive SMS using any browser you like.


How do I find out what wifi chipset my phone has? I've got LG Optimus One phone (model LG-P500h). How do I find out what wifi chipset my phone has? Is there a general mechanism that will work for all phones?

Well without some specialized program, there's always dmesg.

Turn on wifi, then run dmesg in a terminal/adb shell/ConnectBot. Towards the end of the file you'll see debug statements about your wireless.

dmesg | grep -i lan can be useful if you have busybox installed.

I get lines like this:

TIWLAN: 1251 PG 1.2
tiwlan0: no IPv6 routers present

The first one isn't interesting on its own, but the second one screams "network adapter" due to driver naming convention for network adapters. "tiwlan0" is closer to OpenBSD's naming convention than Linux's (Linux native drivers would just call it wlan0) but...not unexpected.

A few web searches later - and yep, it's a TI wireless chip.