What does "messages" mean in the Priority Only settings in Do Not Disturb? In the DND (Do Not Disturb) settings in Android 8.1 there is an option to allow "Priority Only" notifications through. You can set what types of things qualify for priority (e.g., someone calling twice in a 15 minute period).

One of the options there is "Messages" which you can set to anyone, contacts only, starred contacts only or none.

However, what "messages" does this apply to? Is it only from hangouts or the builting messaging app? Is it SMS messages?

For example, I'd like WhatsApp messages from certainly people to come through, but I doubt Android knows how to match up the sending of a message from a third-party messaging to my contacts list?

I checked this about an year ago when I had hangouts installed

All messages (including text) that use GCM were blocked. WhatsApp doesn't use GCM so they will be received


"OK Google" too sensitive, reacts on "OK" only When I want to start an "OK Google" query, I just have to say "OK" and Google Search starts listening.

Unfortunately that makes the features unusable because when on a charger my phone is always active and when anyone in the office says "OK", my phone starts searching away.

Same behaviour when I start the original "Google Search" app and use the hotword.

What to do?

My specs:

 - Device: Samsung Galaxy S4
 - ROM: SlimKat 6.8
 - Launcher: Apex (has OK Google support)
 - Additinal Info: Xprivacy installed.

After searching around, this appears to be an issue with SlimKat ROM itself.

Reading this review of SlimKat or alternative link to article as their formatting is awful, the line that jumped out at me was:

  ....talk to by simply saying "Okay Google" (sometimes even just okay-_-)

suggests this happens on the ROM.

Also there is a theory that the launcher listens to OK G and starts background tasks for the searching.

  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it listens for "OK G--" and then it starts loading voice search while you're still saying "oogle", instead of it listening for "Google" and then loading up voice search, leaving you waiting for a short while?

It is worth noting that a friend with a Nexus 4 told me that sometimes it pops up on "OK" for him but it is rare. I can't find confirmation online.

Also some launchers try to incorporate the OK Google themselves, sometimes not in the correct manner and this can cause conflicts. For example the image below is from Nova Launcher (which I use myself very often) to show you its OK Google screen which is a separate function to the Google Search app's one:

Finally some OEMs have their own "Hi Galaxy" ala Samsung and this can further muddy the water with this functionality.

(source: futurecdn.net)


Creating universal APK form multiple APKs without having *.aab (Android App Bundle) file My question is related to Android apps whose developers push their app to the Play Store in the Android App Bundle format (i.e, *.aab file)
Consider a scenario I installed an app from the Play Store to my Android smartphone and then when I fetched the APK to my PC using the adb pull command, I found there is one base APK and there are some split APKs. Below is the image of the scenario which I am referring to.

Is it possible that I can generate a universal APK from these APKs (base and split APKs) without having the equivalent *.aab file so that I will be able to install the same universal APK to my smartphone?

Split APK file formats
Various app download sites were confronted with the same problem. They solved by defining custom file formats and installer for apps that consist of multiple APKs files:

There is the APKS file format which is is just a ZIP file containing the APK files. They can be installed using the APK Split installer app. Optionally APKS files can contain JSON based meta data (see linked file format spec).
ApkPure uses the XAPK file format. Basically an XAPK file is just a ZIP file containing the APK files plus a manifest.json file.
ApkMirror uses the proprietary APKM file format which can be installed using their installer app. Not sure how to build apkm youself

Manual installation of split APK files
You don't need to pack the downloaded split APK files to e.g. an Android Bundle file. adb is capable to install them again as one app, just use the install-multiple command and specify all the APK files that belong to your saved app:
adb install-multiple apk1 apk2 ...

Re-Building an universal APK
On the Internet you can find a tool named "SAP (Split APKs Packer)" which seems to allow to combine multiple split APK files into one universal APK file (if you have all the necessary split APK files)
This "SAP" tool is available for Linux and Windows, however it is closed source and contains a lot of binaries. I am not sure if it is really trustworthy - I would not recommend to execute it outside of a protected environment (e.g. a virtual machine).
The following blog post describes the SAP tool and provides download links.
For more details see also this forum post How to turn a split APK into a normal non-split APK


Can connect 3T to devices via hotspot, but no internet Hello I have the OnePlus 3T using Oxygen 4.0.3, Android version 7.

I am able to connect my iphone 5s, Macbook Air, iPad 4 and Toshiba Chromebook to the phone. All devices register as connected, the hotspot icon on the taskbar of the Oneplus is on, but I am unable to access the internet on any of the devices. I can connect by bluetooth but still no internet. I tethered to the Macbook with a cable, but no internet. Any ideas?

I use the same sim in my iphone 5 and can connect to thee mentioned devices easily and the internet works.

I've tried all the solutions listed in this forum but none of them work for me. So I'm guessing it is the OnePlus 3T is the problem? Any thoughts?

Thanks again Phillip

I have personally tried this on OxygenOS 4.1.6 on my OnePlus 3, but the solution is the same for all OxygenOS 4.X.X devices.

Note: If you have ADB setup, USB Debugging enabled and the drivers installed, skip to step 7.

Enable Developer Options in Settings > About phone and tapping on the build number seven times.
Next, in Settings > Developer Options enable "USB Debugging"
Connect your OnePlus device to a laptop or computer, and install the appropriate the appropriate drivers from the "CD/DVD drive" that was inserted, then reboot your computer.
Download ADB and Fastboot for your computer from the Android Developers website
Extract the folder, open Terminal and navigate to the extracted folder using

cd path/to/extracted/folder

Type adb devices and accept the prompt on your OnePlus device.
This is the actual command that matters:

adb shell settings put global tether_dun_required 0

Enjoy tethering from your OnePlus device.

Source: OnePlus Forums


Vibrate only when I'm away Is there an option or app where I can set that my phone only vibrates for notificaciones if I haven't used my phone in the last 5 or 10 minutes, but if not just be silent.
I don't to miss my notifications but when I'm with the phone I don't want that it vibrates meaningless.
I'm running Nougat.

The comment made by @Izzy is correct; you can accomplish it with automation. I am using MacroDroid to demonstrate it.

Assumptions: The screen is off (when the screen is on, you are using the phone).

In the Trigger tab, in the Device Events section, select Notification, then Notification Received. Choose Any Application, on the next screen, click OK.
In the Action tab, in the MacroDroid Specific section, select "Wait Before Next Action", then set it to 5 minutes (or any appropriate time length).
In the Constraints tab, in the Device State section, select Device Locked/Unlocked, then choose Device Locked.
Give the macro a name and save it. It will look like the image below.

When the phone receives a notification from any app when the screen is off, it will wait for the amount of time set then vibrates.


Reviving my phone after a small part of it (eg the processor) overheated I tried to compress my 1.6GB video in the Media Converter app by exporting it to mp4(h264,aac) on my OnePlus 3 as per https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-reduce-video-size-on-Android. However, approximately 75% of the way through the conversion (after about 30 minutes) my phone overheated and turned off (with the screen going black immediately and no shut-down procedure). I tried to turn it on in the normal way, but it would not turn on. After leaving it to cool for 5 minutes, I plugged it back into the charger and it immediately turned on automatically (displaying battery at 30%).
I tried to compress the video a second time, this time putting my phone on an ice-pack to keep it cool and leaving it on charge. I touched and checked the front and back of the phone regularly to ensure it was remaining dry, was not cooling too much because of the ice pack, and was not overheating (it remained at something like 20 degrees C, approximately the same as the top of the ice pack, through most of the process - although the bottom of the ice pack remained cold). This time it turned off after 45 minutes, 1 minute before the conversion was due to complete. Immediately after it turned off I noticed a very small area near the speaker (I assume near the processor) was overly warm (though not hot). I assume the heat could not escape fast enough from the hot processor into the body of the phone. Maybe the internal thermometer was closer to the ice-pack than the processor and 'tricked' into thinking the processor was cool. Now my phone is not turning on, displaying anything on the screen, or vibrating, even after plugging it into the charger and unplugging it many times over the past 12 hours. What can I do to try and revive my phone?

I managed to turn my phone on by myself. Hopefully it will continue working.
I warmed up 2 plates in the oven to 80 Degrees C, took them out, and put a third (cool) plate with the phone on top of them. Once they had cooled enough to hold my finger on them, I stacked them into a warm plate-phone-warm plate sandwich, with the top plate upsides down. This warmed the phone up quite a lot, and was meant to allow any moisture to escape. Maybe it also affected the battery. In any case it turned on after 30 minutes of warming.
I would have put my phone on the radiator, but the weather is too warm to turn the radiator on right now.


Samsung Galaxy s3 still vibrating when getting notification, even though I'm on silent mode I have Samsung Galaxy S3 GT-I9300.

When I put it on silent mode, when I get a notification from Facebook, Facebook Messenger and GMail, or any other notification, it's still vibrating. This is very annoying when I'm in the classroom, for example.

Is there any option to completely disable vibration on silent mode?

This is for Galaxy Nexus, but if you long press the power button, it should create a prompt that allows you to switch between Silent Mode, Vibrate Mode, and Sound Mode.


How to add route with busybox (for specified destination and gateway) I tried the code:

alias netstat='/system/xbin/busybox netstat'
alias grep='/system/xbin/busybox grep'
alias awk='/system/xbin/busybox awk'
alias route='/system/xbin/busybox route'

gateway=`netstat -rn | grep ^0\.0\.0\.0 | awk '{print $2}'`

route add -net 1.0.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw $gateway

It doesn't run and print out the manual for route command...

Does busybox support route add -net $des netmask $mask gw $gateway? If so what did I do wrong?

Update: I tried to update to magisk 12.0, and now it just shows applet not found instead...

So I did try /data/magisk/busybox route This gives me applet not found again. Then I tried /dev/busybox/route It prints '/dev/busybox/route not found'. I checked and the file '/dev/busybox/route' exists (as a shortcut), so I am not sure what is going on anymore. BTW, I did run su before I tried to run these commands.

Also if I run these commands line by line, I will get different error message than "not found" when I put them in a .sh file and run sh script.sh

Magisk:

/dev/busybox/route add -net 1.0.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw $(getprop net.dns1)

Busybox:

/system/xbin/busybox route add -net 1.0.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw $(getprop net.dns1)


Blackberry Priv won't connect to Windows 7 for file transfer I posted this question before but it was "protected", so I can't answer it. So I'm reposting it so that I can answer my own question.

I can't get my Blackberry Priv to connect as anything other than charging via USB. My PC isn't recognizing that a device is connected. I've downloaded and installed the Tethering and USB drivers here. I restarted after installing them. On the phone, it never gives a notification that it has connected as a charging device, and I know that's what you'd normally click on to change to file transfer. Also, in the settings options, in Storage and USB, there is only information about device storage, nothing about the USB connection type. I've enabled developer options. In there, I've turned on "USB debugging" and "Allow USB debugging in charging mode". I'm at a loss as to what else would need to be done to get file transfer working, and honestly I'm completely confused as to why it's not showing up in the Storage & USB options. I'm having a hard time finding anyone else mentioning this issue.

This was a hardware issue rather than a software issue. I had the same problem with two different Privs, so I thought it must be something to do with the Android system. But it turns out that, for some reason, my phone didn't like using a USB 3.0 port. That only charges it. Switching to a USB 2.0 port finally got me the charging notification, so I was able to switch. As a side note, setting it to "File transfers" (MTP) didn't work. I had to use "Photo transfer (PTP)" to get it to see the device. And in that case, it only sees the onboard storage, not the memory card. So it's an imperfect solution, but since my photos are on the phone storage, not the card, and I can copy from the card to the phone if I really need to, it works well enough to solve my issue.


Format 64Gb SD without cardreader I've installed CM11 on my Sprint Note II, and that thing suddenly won't recognize my external 64Gb SD (whereas stock ROM used to).

I've googled - seems I need to fix the partition. I've tried different options of partitioning and formating in Clockworkmod recovery, still can't see my card.

Some people suggested to fix it on computer and I don't have neither a cardreader nor a machine with Windows at my disposal. And yet even with those, I still have to know what type of partition it should be. Fat, exFat, ext3, ext4?

So, I'm wandering - is it possible to fix a partition table without taking the card out, maybe using adb shell with fdisk or parted or something else?

UPD:

I've tried repartitioning it with fdisk. First I needed to figure out card's block device id. You can do it either by running blkid command (and in my case my card didn't even show up in the list). Or instead pull the card out and plug it back, and immediately run dmesg | grep mmc1 after that. And that gave me this:

<6>[  555.585323] c0 mmc1: new high speed SDXC card at address e624
<6>[  555.587975] c0 mmcblk1: mmc1:e624 SU64G 59.4 GiB

And then I used fdisk /dev/block/mmcblk1, pressed p and that shows me this:

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/block/mmcblk1: 63.8 GB, 63864569856 bytes
4 heads, 16 sectors/track, 1948992 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 64 * 512 = 32768 bytes

Now based on this information I have to create partition(s), but I have no idea what kind or type. fdisk supports quite a big list. Can you guys advise what to do next?

It should be visible within "Disk Management" (diskmgmt.msc) in Windows. From there you can create, delete, modify and format partitions.


HTC Desire HD with Nokia E52 IMEI I recently bought HTC desire HD from E-Bay India.
I'm in India and the guy in E-bay imported UK unlocked Desire HD,
I recently check for the IMEI details and I'm shocked, when I checked, Its showing Nokia E52's details.
May I know why I'm getting Nokia's detail for HTC IMEI ?
Any Ideas ?

And I couldn't able to connect my phone in USB Debugging mode, Is it because of this change in IMEI ?
Some one please help asap.

Regards,
Praveen

Do you still have a link to the ebay listing, is it active? A lot of the phones on ebay are fake/imitation phones. Some even have user interfaces made to look like Android, but are actually running a basic feature phone OS. Tools like HTC Sync and ADB that only work with the real hardware often fail when tried on these devices.


Why are playlists breeding like rabbits on my device? I use Banshee 2.2 to synchronize music and podcasts to my Android 2.3 device. On the device, I'm using PowerAMP to play music.

When I open PowerAMP and look at the playlists, each one is repeated a dozen times. So, for example, I have a playlist called "Pop". After a dozen syncs with my computer, I now have 12 playlists called "Pop". 11 are empty, and one has the actual playlist in it.

At first I thought this was a problem with PowerAMP, but since I have tried the Android default music player and a few other music apps, the problem is repeated no matter what I use to play music. So it seems this isn't an app specific problem, but a system wide one.

I have scoured the onboard memory and the SD card, but I have no idea where the playlists are stored. (Note my phone is not rooted, nor do I intend to.)

How do I clear out the empty playlists and stop this behaviour?

This sounds to me like a similar problem I have had with duplicating images in the gallery. I fixed this by clearing the gallery data, and allowing it to rebuild next time the media scanner ran.

I would suggest trying the same technique. I would imagine that whereas I deleted the data from the Gallery App, you should try clearing data from the stock Android Music Player, or failing that from PowerAMP.

Settings-Applications-Manage Applications-All-Gallery-Clear data (confirm). This doesn't delete your media itself, just the database that details where the media is. The media scanner will rebuild this database automatically next time it scans.

It would be prudent to backup your phone contents before you try this.


Can I install Google Chrome on a Kindle Fire HD? Is it possible to install Google Chrome on a Kindle Fire HD? I searched the Amazon store and didn't see it there.

Yes. According to the guide here on sideloading apps onto your Kindle Fire HD it should work fine. You will need to allow the installation of apps from unknown sources which can be done in the Device menu. Note that for certain apps, including Chrome, that need a Google account you'll need to download and install the Google Framework and to reboot your device.

I'll provide a quick summary of the link that explains side loading:

The first thing you need to do is install a file manager app. I personally use File Expert, but you can use whatever works for you.
Next you need to get the app file. You can find it by searching on Google: (app name) apk. So in this case you would search 'chrome apk', there's plenty of links from that.
Once you have those, navigate to the Downloads folder with the file manager, and tap the .apk file. Click Install, and you're set!
You can find the app in apps>device, it will not be in Cloud.


How to retrieve photos from stolen phone My phone got stolen last Friday. I never used to backup my photos or anything like that. Is there any possible way I can retrieve my photos?

If you never backup your photos online, the only place those are stored is Phone storage which is stolen. So, the only way to retrieve those photos will be get back the phone with the storage. Otherwise, its a No


How to close Google account on the phone I let my friend borrow my Android phone. She never returned the phone and she is still using my account. Please, help me.

Sign in to your account here and delete it like that:

More info on deletion you can find in help article.
After the successful deletion your account will be signed out from the phone as well and your friend will lose the opportunity to use it.

If you want not to delete the account per se, but to delete it from phone (i.e. log out) without physical access to the phone, you can try to use Device Activity tab and revoke access there:


System ui crashing after installing cyanogenmod This is my first time installing a custom image, so I am really just looking for a nudge in the right direction.

I have a moto x developer edition 2013 that I installed cyanogenmod 12.1 on. However, after its been running for a few minutes, I will get a error that the system ui crashed. It then goes into a loop of crashing.

I tried installing cyanogenmod 11 with the same results. I gave tried wiping the cache (which is the suggestion I see elsewhere about issues like this).

I must have done something wrong if this is happening on two different versions. Any suggestions?

Try clearing the data of the SystemUI application from the Settings->Apps-All Apps menu.

If you cannot operate the phone because the crashes are too frequent, you can do it with a computer through ADB shell command.


Persistent Problem: Internet may not be available I have a J7 (SM-J730F/DS) and noticed a while back that I can connect to WiFi but that on some networks I got the message "Internet may not be available" .... and it wasn't. This message started to appear more and more frequently and on a trip last week I could not connect to any airport, hotel or other WiFi network, with the exception of 1 network at the conference center. Upon return home, I now also get the message at home and at work. Using data roaming to get on the net is not a  problem.

I searched the web and found a number of potential fixes. I did the following:

Reboot (didn't solve it)
Forget network, then retry (didn't solve it)
Switch to static IP (didn't solve it)
Changed time/date and then back (didn't solve it)
Cleared Cache Partition (did't solve it)
Factory reset (didn't solve it)

I'm now out of ideas. Anyone any suggestions?

Thanks.

Turn off automatic updates. Google Play throttles the network.


I it necessary to SIM unlock my Samsung Galaxy S2 to use a custom ROM? I want to upgrade my Galaxy S II to Android 2.3.5, and my provider only has 2.3.3. So I have to use a ROM from samfirmware.com. Do I have to SIM unlock my phone before installing one of these ROMs? Do I have to root it?

The Galaxy S2 has an unlocked bootloader, which means you can install any rom on it, rooting is not mandatory, some roms have root privileges, some don't.


How do I move all the files from a folder (and subfolders) using the command line in Android 7.1+? I tried using this command:

find /src/dir -type f -exec mv --backup=numbered -t /dst/dir {} +

sourced from here, but error messages suggest find requires root on Android. Any other ideas as to how to accomplish this? I want only the files in the destination folder (i.e. without the directory structure, all files in one directory) while maintaining the source directory structure. I've tried Termux, Terminal Emulator, and Tasker so far, without success.

Here's the answer I managed to figure out:

find /SourceDir -type f -exec mv -i {} /DestinationDir ';'


What is the difference between a reminder and an event in Google Calendar? Upon clicking on the plus sign in the Android Google Calendar app, I am offered with the choice to either create an Event or a Reminder.

What is the exact difference between the two?

I had read about this in Google forums I think but can't locate. However here is an article that explains the difference. More details in the article

Google explains that the difference between Events and Reminders is that the former is deleted irrespective of whether the event was attended or not. Reminders on the other hand shows up in Calendar until the task is accomplished — and yea, that’s pretty much the literature difference between the two, so nothing new here Google!
Until a reminder is completed users will be notified of the task by a message displayed on top of Google Calendar. Once the user has finished the task, the reminder can be swiped away from notification area. If you feel that this is a bit irritating then you can set the Reminder to a later time, similar to Events.

Aside, this doesn't work well on my Huawei Honor 6 running KitKat, with reminders getting skipped often- I didn't bother to investigate further


Using SD card from Android 7 in Android 6 I got a new 'phone, with Android 7. I don't like it and plan to continue to use my Android 6 phone.

When I put the SD card into the Android 7, I vaguely remember something about it formatting - and encrypting? - it, and saying that the data would only be accessible on that 'phone.

When I put it in the Android 6 'phone, Settings/Storage and USB says that there is no SD card inserted.

It also offers me the option to "forget" the card and says that if I do so, all data on the card will be lost forever.

Two important points:

I don't care about the data & don't mind losing it; but I don't want the o/s to believe that there is no SD card slot.
the SD card & SIM slide in together on a little tray and that tray is stuck. So, it is quite probable that the SD card is not physically recognized.

Before I use brute force (and a thin knife) to get the tray out, is there any way to tell the 'phone "hey, you might have an SD card which is encrypted, and I am quite happy with reformatting it, just so long as you recognize it"?

Try to connect your old phone to your computer and copy the data from the SD card to  the computer. Then choose forget on your old phone, try to get the SD card out and put it in the new phone. It will prompt to format the SD card. If it doesn't, go to Settings > Storage and tap on the SD card. It will ask to format it. If that still doesn't work, put your SD card into the computer and format it from there, preferably FAT32.


How to unlock Motorola Atrix 4G for other carriers? I bought a Motorola Atrix 4G MB860 and discovered that it is locked. I received an unlock code from AT&T but I receive the message "network unlock code unsuccessful" which according to AT&T means that it is locked to their network.

After reading a little it seems that I have two options, neither of which I am familiar with:

To wipe the radio on the device.
Sign up for a service on the Internet that claim to unlock the device for me (can someone recommend a reliable service)

Please advise what is the better option or if there are other options, and provide directions on how to proceed.

If your unit was originally sold by AT&T and the unlocking code provided by AT&T did not work - then it means that the invalid unlocking attempts counter was exhausted on this unit. No other "unlocking service on the Internet" will be able to help you.

"Wiping the radio" option (i.e. flashing incompatible baseband processor software, so it would reset internal settings including subsidy lock) would also wipe out the unique phasing (i.e. calibration) data from the unit - which would result in degraded signal reception.

The bottom line... if I were you - I would ask for my money back.


Rooted Galaxy Note 2 cant get internet I rooted my Samsung Galaxy Note 2.  Now I cannot get the internet on it. My purpose was to avoid paying sprint the extra 30 bucks a month for tethering to my Ipad. Now I cant even get the internet on the phone except with wi-fi. I am considering a factory restore because if my frustration. How can I give get internet without restoring to factory settings?

What might be causing this:

The issue is with the new ROM. What company it is of? For example, I tried Cyanogen 10.1 in HTC HD2, and it was running perfect. But had a little speed issue, as when I started GPRS connection by sim card, the phone started to hang out. But that's not the subject. The main issue here is the Internet connection.

Or the Data Connection (Access Point) error. You might be setting access point  which are not correct. Try to get some help from the Network provider or read some blogs online, to check what settings would work for your phone. Android phones have same settings all around, so that means a setting for Sony Xperia would work in Samsung Galaxy too.

What you should do:

I tried another ROM in my current phone, Qmobile noir A8. It was letting me use Internet before the ROM update, so I was worried what to do? As I was also able to use WiFi, but not the data connection. So I first tried to do a factory reset. But all in vain, as I was having the ROM that has been installed, and my Stock ROM was no more in memory. So I tried to get help from there site, INCPak, No help! Then I tried to check my phone's settings. In settings I saw that there is no Access Point set. So I entered the configurations of my SIM card's grps there, and restarted the Data Connections. Bravo! I was able to get the Internet now! :)
Try to get some help from the people who created this ROM, if this is a ROM created by someone who said: "I will not be responsible if you brick your device." then you have no idea what mess you are in to now. Go find a new ROM for your phone as this aint gonna work. But if you got a ROM from someone like Cyanogen then you can get some help by contacting them. Or you try the first method I posted. I am sure, you will get set by that one. If not, then try to edit the settings. That's all what an Android phone can get issues with.


Trying FTP file located in /data/data I'm trying to use WinSCP to FTP a file out of /data/data (well, it's directory is contained in the /data/data directory, which is the important part). But I get a "Code: 5" error from WinSCP, access denied, that is. I've tried to chmod the file I need. But still no luck. Is there any way to FTP a file out of /data/data?

I know the directory is protected. And I know I can use adbd Insecure to pull a file through adb. But I need to be able to pull the file at any time, without a USB connection. And adb tcpip is only good until a reboot. So adb is out of the question, it seems.

Thanks for any help!

You could try to find an ftp server app that supports rooted devices to access system folders. If you don't have to use ftp, you could use airdroid, which also has a remote file manager.

Another option (if your device is rooted) would be to symlink the folder so that it's stored on /sdcard, which you can easily access


What happens to my WhatsApp account if my carrier sells my number to someone else? I'm aware that I don't need a SIM card to continue using my WhatsApp account after the initial activation.

But say, hypothetically, I went into a pool with my phone inside my pocket and my SIM stopped working as a consequence, and I don't want to buy a new since I never use mobile data.

When the carrier inevitably cancels my number and sells it to another person, and said person activates his WhatsApp account with that number, will I still be able to send and receive messages on my account?

Simple answer No you can't use that account anymore

Reason being that WhatsApp is linked to your number. If the carrier sells that number and new owner activates WhatsApp , they will be prompted to authenticate and a new account is created for them. If they don't install WhatsApp you are good to go to the next time Whatsapp asks for authentication

Actions to be taken for change of number before changing number are mentioned in WhatsApp FAQ


WinSCP for android equivalent Is there a drag/drop ssh client for android so I can connect to my home server via ssh and easily transfer files from server to android phone? something like winSCP for Windows?

ES File Explorer is one that can use the secure FTP protocol over ssh protocol.

To get the settings, from ES File Explorer:

Hit menu key, Show Tabs, Local, LAN, FTP, NET appears
Tap on FTP
Then tap on New that appears underneath, a dialog box will appear prompting the different FTP types, tap on SFTP

Enter the details of the ssh server that hosts the secure FTP protocol

ES File Explorer will remember the next time, so tap on the server, and then you can browse the file system of the remote server and upload/download files


Can I run Samsung apps (app market from Samsung) without a SIM and mobile connection? I have a Samsung Galaxy S with Android 2.2.

I have read that now there is a "Kies" app available from Samsung which would allow to upgrade the OS on the phone without connecting it with the USB cable to another computer.

That article said I have to install it through the "Samsung apps" app. So I started it, but it said it won't work without a SIM card.

But I intended to use only WiFi, I don't need the SIM card and the mobile connection.

Why this problem? Is it solvable (without a SIM card)?

No, the Samsung apps market won't start without a SIM card, because the card is used to determine the country of the user.

There is an App called "Kies Air" which allows you to connect your device to the Kies App installed on your PC over WiFi. But I doubt that you are able to upgrade the OS this way. It's more meant for synchronization (calendar, email, ...) use.

IMHO you need a USB cable to update the SGS, either with Kies or Odin/Heimdall.


How to turn on notification light at N4? I have just bought a Nexus 4 and the notification light doesn't work. I have checked the display and put a tick on notification light but still no light.. even when I put it on charge the light doesn't come on. Does the notification light require the internet? I have a temporary problem with my internet line...

Notification light turns only when there is a notification for say Facebook or Gmail etc not for charging and all.

There is no option of turning on the notification light at the time of charging in stock so if you need it then you can use Light Flow
It allows to put custom LED color at different events.


How to root "Infocus M2" (smartphone on sale at snapdeal from March 2015 in India) so that pre-installed apps can be removed? Infocus M2 is on sale at snapdealdotcom. Its specifications are as below:

4.2-inch (1280 × 768 pixels) 355PPI LTPS display
Android v4.4 (KitKat) OS
1.3 GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 processor
Mali-400 MP2 (500 MHz) GPU
1GB RAM, 8GB internal memory, Expandable memory up to 64GB with micro SD
8MP Auto Focus Camera with LED flash, f/2.2 aperture, 5P lenses
8MP front-facing auto-focus camera with LED flash, f/2.2 aperture
Dual micro SIMs
3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 + BLE and GPS
2010 mAh non-removable battery

Would appreaciate help on rooting this mobile. Thankyou

Basically, all you've to do is install USB drivers and use iRoot software to root your Infocus M2.

You can follow this tutorial as it explains everything in detail -

Be aware that this will void your warranty.


Instantly transfer a picture taken to PC I know the Dropbox app allows for synching photos taken between all computers/devices that are connected to your current user account. But I want to know if there's a way I can take a picture, have it delivered to my PC (Dropbox account) and then instantly deleted from my device (kinda like a cut/paste action).

You can do this using the FolderSync app (it is a paid app).

The app allows you to setup local folder(s) on your device which can be synced to various cloud services, a shared folder, or even FTP (see below for a full list). When setting up a "folder pair" you can choose to "delete source files after sync".

There is also a lite version available if you want to test it out first.

Full list of supported cloud services/protocols:

Cloud providers
- Amazon S3 Simple Storage Service
- Box
- CloudMe (using WebDAV)
- Copy.com
- Cubby (using WebDAV)
- Digitalbucket.net (using WebDAV)
- Dropbox
- Dump Truck (using WebDAV)
- GoDaddy (using WebDAV)
- Google Docs
- Google Drive
- HiDrive (using WebDAV)
- Livedrive (using WebDAV)
- MyDrive.ch (using WebDAV)
- NetDocuments (using WebDAV)
- Skydrive
- SugarSync
- Ubuntu One
- WEB.DE (using WebDAV)
- Yandex Disk (using WebDAV)

Supported protocols
- FTP
- FTPS (SSL/TLS implicit)
- FTPES (SSL/TLS explicit)
- SFTP (SSH File Transfer)
- Samba/CIFS/Windows Share
- WebDAV (HTTP/HTTPS)


Enable LTE on Nexus 6 with Lollipop My new Nexus 6 isn't giving me an LTE icon in my cell service - I get the same old H that was showing on my Nexus 4 before I upgraded.

I'd expect to see LTE here :

I talked to my carrier, who said that my data plan includes LTE, so I don't think that's a problem.

I've tried to set LTE as my preferred network, but it won't take. I go to:

Settings -> Wireless/More -> Cellular networks -> Preferred network type

choose LTE (recommended)

But the Preferred network type remains on 3G after I make the change.

Is there some other setting I'm missing that will enable LTE? I've power cycled the phone several times and run through every fix I can imagine. I'm on Android 5.0.1 with AT&T.

Chances are most likely that the SIM card you are using is not LTE enabled. You can check with the service provider on upgrading the SIM.

Once the SIM is upgraded, install Open Signal application in the phone and test for 4G signal coverage.


How to provide Internect connection via proxy server in Emulator I am developing an application in my university lab.
   My lab administration provides a proxy server instead of a real internet connection to our university computers.

I don't know how to configure a proxy server with the Android emulator.

Any ideas?

I see this blog post explaining how to configure APN settings to browse through a proxy.  At first, I could not believe that the APN mentioned (as TelKila) in the post will be available in my emulator. But to my surprise I find a APN is available though with a different name (as T-Mobile US).

Since I do not have a proxy server environment, I could not check and confirm this.  However the comment in the blog seems to confirm it.


How to reset Wi-Fi settings? Somehow Wi-Fi stopped connecting on my phone. It is not a hardware issue, as it does work when I perform a reset.

What files do I need to delete to get Wi-Fi back working? I don’t want to reset my phone.

If relevant, model is Sony Arc S, using CM9.

This has happened to me on several occasions, mostly when backing up/restoring Wifi settings using an app such as TitaniumBackup. Here's what I recommend, starting with the safest solutions:

First try going into the wifi settings and removing the problematic network. While you're there you might as well remove any other unused networks:
https://support.google.com/android-one/answer/2819519 > Change, add, or remove saved networks > Remove
If that doesn't work, the only remaining option that doesn't require root access is to delete all of your saved networks.
If you don't want to delete all of your saved networks and you have root access, the wifi network settings are kept in a text file (/data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf), which can become corrupted. I've been able to fix problems by manually editing the file:

Turn off wifi (if you leave it on, the corrupted wifi settings may get rewritten)
Back up /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf
Edit /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf and remove any problematic networks.

If you've made it this far and you're still having problems, turn off your wifi and delete /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf. Of course this will delete all of your saved networks. The file will be recreated the next time you turn on your wifi.
As a last resort, you can delete /data/misc/wifi, but I don't recommend it. If you do decide to do this, make sure you back it up first. The folder should be recreated on reboot with default settings, then you'll need to set your networks up again.


Magisk will fail Safety-Net hereafter. Why? Recently, Google made security changes which make sure safety-net fails check when Magisk is installed.

This was Tweeted by John Wu (Magisk developer) , here and here. Some excerpts:

  So here we go, after years of fun messing around using Magisk, it seems that Google FINALLY decided to "fix" SafetyNet to something useful, and that is to use key attestation to verify device status (after 3 years since introduced to Android's platform!)

  Let's face it. Fun is over guys.

(Emphasis added)

Edit: From Github

  Disable MagiskHide by default

  Since SafetyNet CTS is impossible to achieve, leaving MagiskHide on
  by default no longer serves a purpose.

  For more details regarding the latest SafetyNet changes, please check:
  https://twitter.com/topjohnwu/status/1237656703929180160
  https://twitter.com/topjohnwu/status/1237830555523149824

  MagiskHide's functionality will continue to exist within the Magisk
  project as it is still extremely effective to hide modifications in
  userspace (including SafetyNet's basicIntegrity check).

  Future MagiskHide improvements may come, but since the holy grail
  has been taken, any form of improvement is now a very low priority

It looks to me that Google could/should have implemented this earlier but didn't and the CTS check being done from within Magisk wasn't comprehensive.

Please demystify this in simple terms (to the extent possible) for folks who don't understand the innards of Android (like me).

John Wu (Magisk Developer) posted updates today, which clarifies the reasons.
Earlier, SafetyNet API wasn't fully / correctly implemented, the way it was meant to be :

Key Attestation

From what we've seen so far, key attestation doesn't seem to be fully enforced yet, as devices with incompatible, potentially buggy(?) keymaster implementations (e.g. some OnePlus devices) that result in attest key cmd failures still pass SafetyNet regardless.

Attestation was done locally

bootloader reports the device status via kernel cmdlines, and init will reflect them in properties, and apparently SafetyNet was using those values. All those stuff is in userspace, so Magisk can simply manipulate it

Now, with the Feature Preview: SafetyNet Attestation API evaluationType, there will be two types of evaluation, BASIC and HARDWARE_BACKED for a complete evaluation with remote validation (as against local) :

HARDWARE_BACKED - When we use the available hardware-backed security features of the remote device (e.g. hardware-backed key attestation) to influence our evaluation.

We’re currently evaluating and adjusting the eligibility criteria for devices where we will rely on hardware-backed security features.

Can this new system be hacked?
Looks very unlikely

Even if we force validation to use BASIC method, it won't be hidden

IMO it is theoretically possible to alter control flow in SafetyNet's code to force it to always use BASIC evaluation by using some hooking framework like Xposed, however these kind of code injection is basically impossible to hide (memory space analysis).

HARDWARE_BACKED is serious stuff and unlikely to be cracked since it involves TEE or hardware changes leading to cryptographic compromise (Robert also pointed out in comments)

To hack this thing, you have to either find a vulnerability in TEE firmware (which will be patched ASAP once found) or hardware (less likely to happen) to break the cryptography.

Breaking TEE won't be easy, which is why many security researchers are actively working on it.

(Emphasis added in all quotes)
How to check if Google has implemented hardware Attestation for my device?
Edit Magisk canary has been updated to show evaluation status and once the API is implemented, you will see more details (failing SafetyNet). Or, follow instructions on this XDA post to check attestation method using logcat

For more information see SafetyNet's hardware attestation will make hiding root in Magisk really hard

Edited on 16 December 20
And the final nail in the coffin for  fooling safety net detection
Johnwu in

tweet says

HW based evaluation is impractical to "hack" (except tricks to make it fallback to basic), and I lost all interest in improving the current way of hiding.

Another tweet of 13 Dec 2020

If passing SafetyNet is the only use of Magisk for you, then yeah, bye Face with rolling eyes
( in response to So... magisk is completely useless right now?...)


How can I install ClockworkMOD Recovery on a Sony Ericsson W8? Is it possible to install ClockworkMOD Recovery on a Sony Ericsson W8 with Android 2.1? ROM Manager is asking for the phone model, and W8 is not listed nor any Xperia phone.  Is there a different version for my device?

According to directions on this site, there is a non-official (and therefore unsupported) version of Clockworkmod Recovery for the W8 available here.  It doesn't provide instructions on installing it, but I imagine you do it with either fastboot, or ODIN/Heimdal.

Alternatively, use xRecovery as described in these instructions.  It's very similar to CMR, but according to the site you will need ROMs packaged specifically for this recovery:

  Note: Make sure that the zip files are made for Xrecovery. (zip
  files for cwm are different)


auto sync after changing ROM I had stock rom for my HTC Wildfire S with HTC Sense and facebook. I had joined contacts - Google account and Facebook friends.
Now I flashed to Cyanogen mod 7 and they are not synchronised. But I noticed, that every contact (which was synced before) has Note with hash like: <HTCData><Facebook>id:xxxxxxx/friendof:xxxxxxx</Facebook></HTCData>

Is there any way to put it back together automatically?

Thank you

CyanogenMod does not use the <HTCData><Facebook>id:xxxxxxx/friendof:xxxxxxx</Facebook></HTCData> tag as HTC Sense does, so this can just be deleted.

The Facebook contact sync is setup inside the Facebook for Android app (Settings -> Sync friends with Contacts). This should automatically add Facebook pictures and contact info to Contacts.

However, I have experienced that the contact pictures do not always sync after a reboot, until I have opened the Facebook app and scrolled through my friend list (then the images are loaded). Therefore, I installed another app called SyncMyPix for the picture synchronization.


How do I prevent "No Internet calling account" error? I'm running 2.3-Gingerbread.
Calling was working fine over the telephone network.
I set up the internet calling feature by adding an account to test the featuire out.
Then I removed the account.
Every time I dial a number I get this error:

No Internet calling account
There are no Internet calling accounts on this phone. Add one now?

If I click cancel, it doesn't dial using the telephone network it just returns to the home screen.

I've cleared the defaults for the Dialer application but still the problem persists.

Does anyone know how I can prevent this error?

Do you have an app called "Voice Changer" installed? I've read that it can cause this. Also if you have google voice installed, do you have it set to "Never Dial with Google Voice"?

If those are not the cause, do you have any other "Phone Linking" apps or "Sip Dialers" etc, remove them and see if your issue stops.


Why does charging leads to battery losing charge at times I have a LG Optimus S Android on Gingerbread (The one on the cheaper side with least specs for an Android).

I have found that when I use the USB charger connected to my computer, at times instead of charging my phone, the battery gets drained. (Also I perceive that the battery gets drained faster than normal phone usage at such times)

While I have a fix which is to restart my Android phone. Could someone explain why such thing happens?

Now your typical wall charger on a smart phone provides 1A of charging current. The USB 2.0 on a computer will only supply a max of 500mA, that is half as much. So if your screen is on and you are using the phone then it is drawing more power than it is taking in since the screen is the largest drain on the battery, therefore the battery will drain while charging on a USB connected to the computer.


lineageOS: cannot use internal SD after factory reset: "Failed to find root" (peregrine) I have a Moto G 4G (LTE) peregrine which worked fine with the latest LineageOS 14.1. + twrp-3.1.1-0.
Then i made a factory reset because i wanted to gift it to my mother.

After that, no app could access the INTERNAL SD card for storing eg. pictures or downloads.
When you open the "Files" app, it crashes immediately.
Then logcat shows the output here: https://pastebin.com/R2wBL0W8

I tried the following to no avail:

reset with formating data, cache, etc (factory reset)
reset with formating EVERYTHING, including /system, then reflashing lineage-14.1-20170811-nightly-peregrine-signed.zip and open_gapps-arm-7.1-nano-20170813.zip
reset with formating EVERYTHING, including /system, then reflashing some other 7.1 ROM found here in the forum (cannot remember which)
reset with formating EVERYTHING, including /system, then reflashing the original ROM XT1039_Retail_Germany_51_Untouched.zip

the original ROM was rather bad because the keyboard kept crashing and it was totally unusable. still no access to the internal SD card.

messing with the directory structure in LineageOS:

/sdcard is a softlink to /storage/self/primary

/storage/self/primary is a softlink to /mnt/user/0/primary

/mnt/user/0/primary doesn't exist, it only goes as far as /mnt/user/0

so i tried different scripts from this thread https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2211109 to create /mnt/user/0/primary at boot, which all didn't work.

it seems LOS 14.1 cannot run init scripts or user init scripts or whatever.
it didn't work.

also, the external SD card slot isn't reliable anymore, so that's out of the question as well.

I'm rather stuck!
can anybody help me?
any help is appreciated!

Thank you very much!

Thank you very much, @acejavelin!
The solution was to format /data with ext4 instead of f2fs:

connect with adb while in TRWP, get the device name for /data, umount it, format with ext4, mount it again

df -h
umount /data
make_ext4fs /dev/block/mmcblk0p36
mount /data/

Then reboot


How to exit fullscreen in android chrome? I've added one of my regular news websites to my homescreen in android chrome (android 4.4, phone). This works great, it now even opens the site fullscreen to give an 'app experience'.

How can I exit this fullscreen mode? For instance so I get access to the menu so I can share articles.

The 'add to home screen' feature is described here

I don't think you can. The site is supporting the mobile-web-app-capable view which means Chrome displays it like an app, hides the address bar and it integrates into the recent apps menu as though it was a 'normal' app.
I don't believe there is a way to exit fullscreen when using a bookmark to a site like this.

For those who are unsure what the OP is referring to, http://weight.aerotwist.com/ is a site that supports this 'app' mode. If you browse to the site in Chrome and chose the menu option "Add to home screen" this adds a 'bookmark' to your home screen which when used launches the site in Chrome in app mode.

See here for more details.


How to record a short audio clip as quickly as possible I'm trying to figure out a combination of apps/settings that will allow me to record a short audio clip (think reminder note) in as few taps as possible. At the moment I am using the standard voice recorder app. If I'm in the middle of listening to a podcast and want to record a short clip, I currently have to:

hit the power button to wake up my phone
hit unlock
pause the podcast
launch the voice recorder app
hit "record"
when I'm done, hit "save"
resume the podcast

I'm looking for a workflow that will let me launch a recording app and start recording automatically (ideally right from the lock screen) then when I'm done save the clip without being told to and resume whatever was happening before (usually a podcast).

Can anyone suggest apps to look at, or settings that might help?

Might be a job for tasker, the most famous automation tool. Other automation tools might be capable of the same (think about llama) – but as a Tasker user I'll describe it this way (feel free to adapt).

The "task" to be exececuted would be:

Keyguard › Off
Disable screen lock. Might require the SecureSettings Plugin if the native variant doesn't work.
Media Control › Pause
to stop your podcast, music, or whatever media stuff might be running. This can be set as "toggle". You might need to experiment a little here; consider e.g. what would happen with "toggle" when no podcast is currently played – that would have the opposite effect then, so maybe better just "pause" here directly.
Launch App
Select your voice recorder here.

Note that manipulating app controls is more tricky (and might require root). I didn't play with that, so I cannot give advice on it. I just know theoretically that Tasker is capable of that as well. Another tricky thing is the "continue podcast" part, which might not be wanted if it wasn't played before – but you've got the idea, I hope.

Now, we need a trigger and assign it the task from above. Multiple choices here with Tasker alone – and many more with the tons of plugins available (see e.g. my collection of Tasker resources). So I only give an example here which should make sense:

Shake lets you define a shake-pattern. So e.g. "shake the device twice from left-to-right" could trigger above action.

Even limited to the steps I've explicitly described, this would minimize the steps you need to take: Shake the device, hit "record", hit "save", and then (optionally) continue your podcast.


Rooting Huawei ascend G6-10 devices problem I tried to root my Huawei H6 with "RootGenius_en_2.2.6.exe" in windows machine because of storage problems. But this operation interrupted in 75% and This error appeared:

Your phone is so solid to root!

any help will be appreciated.

I don't know exactly why! But this time I downloaded Root Genius which is here, and it worked! But my storage still has problem and a reset factory with backup solved my problem of storage.


Are mics on Android phones with Android 4.3 always registering sounds? Religious question for Shabbat Hi I am Jewish and on Shabbat we are forbidden from creating even the tiniest electrical spark. I recently noticed that on my laptop the mic was always listening and I could see the little green bar register sounds when I spoke, so I turned it off during Shabbat.

I use my phone as a white noise machine with an app for that, so I am wondering if I have an HTC rezound and also a Samsung Note II, will the mic on those phones have the same thing where the mic will always be listening and registering sounds, or when I am not using a call or voice recognition feature will it be truly "Off"?

It depends on the phone, the operating system, and apps installed on it.

Older Android phones do not activate the microphone unless it is required by an app (e.g. phone, voice dictation, etc.)

Newer phones such as Google's Nexus 5 or Motorola's Moto X for example, have a dedicated low-power audio processing module that can be configured to be always on, and listen for particular trigger phrases (e.g. "Ok, Google"), even when the phone's screen is off.  There are some 3rd-party apps that mimic this functionality on phones without the dedicated sound processors, but at the expense of higher battery drain.

Generally such features can be disabled within the system or app settings.

The religious implications of using a phone are up to you and your particular sect to determine.  Such discussions are out of scope of this site.


Where to download new Google Play Game service from Google I/O 13 At Google I/O, Google announced Androids new Google Play game service. From what I remember and from what I've been reading online, it has already been released. Though, I haven't seen it on the Google Play store.

Is this something that exclusive to certain devices?

I have a rooted S3 if that matters.

End users don't need to install anything from their side. Google Play Services APK in your device would have already been updated to support Gaming (You can manually install/update Google Play Services framework if something's wrong). Just find a game which uses Game Services API and enjoy!


Is Hebrew support built into ICS 4.0? Need your help before purchase of tablet Asus T300 with ICS 4.0 in USA.
Will I need to put some updates in order to use Hebrew web pages or use hebrew keybord ?

Hebrew is supported in Android 4.0 (it's there since Android 2.2 Froyo).
You can use it as:
- System language
- Keyboard input language (you can set more than one keyboard to quickly toggle it during use by long pressing 'space' when more than one keyboard setting is active)

Actually, this question has been asked before some time ago:

Is Hebrew support built into Android?


Samsung Galaxy S3 Won't recognize USB When i got my gs3 i plugged it into my computer (Win 7) and drivers installed automatically. everything was perfectly fine i was able to access both sd and phone from my computer. i took it to activation with clear talk and it didn't recognize usb.
I have reinstalled proper drivers from samsung web page. i have also tried kies. kies wont accept it.
I have tried it on linux and didn't work.
Both computers recognize phone but phone wont recognize computers.
The thing is i won't get the option of mtp or ptp on the drop down notification menu.
this is not a matter of drivers or usb debugging.
i have tried to remove battery for 1 min and reset it.
any ideas how to fix?

After frustrating research i found the solution. the guy who flashed my phone from us cellular to clear talk messed up.
soulution
Open Dialer enter *#22745927
When Enable/Disable Menu comes up tap "Hidden Menu Disabled"
Select "Enable" on Popup
Press Home button
Open Dialer
Dial **87284
When PhoneUtil Opens Select PDA
Tap Qualacomm USB Setting
Select DM+Modem+ADB
Tap OK
(Remember after flashing to return and put phone back to MTP+ADB)
All props go to this page
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2270191
there is other devices listed there as well.


Strange behavior on Nexus 4, Android 5.0.1 (issue with Google Play Services?) Apps don't autostart, Google apps don't work, phone freezes Update: Resetting only the Google Play Services app as has been suggested didn't work for me unfortunately, because (in addition to what I've written below) the "force stop" and "uninstall updates" buttons are greyed out.

I decided to do a factory reset, and so far I haven't had any more issues with Google Play Services, but I still don't know what exactly caused these problems (probably an update).

I have a Nexus 4 with Android 5.0.1 (no custom rom), and there have been several issues for a few hours now.

It probably started yesterday when a message popped up 2-3 times (over the course of a few hours) saying that "Google Play services has stopped working".

Now, after booting the phone and getting to the lockscreen, the apps which would usually autostart don't seem to start (messaging apps, gmail, battery widget app etc.) and it doesn't even connect to a cellular network. WLAN works straight away. Sometimes these apps will start (and it connects to the cellular network) more than half an hour after booting the phone.

I've also noticed that for several minutes after booting, the list of running apps contains only Settings, Media, Google Services (not Play services!) and Google Keyboard, and after some time, if Google Play services does show up, it is constantly shown as "restarting".

After using the phone for anything between a few minutes and maybe an hour, it will freeze and not respond to any touchscreen input, sometimes saying that the launcher is not responding. Prior to freezing, it will usually start lagging heavily. It will still respond to the power button though. (turn screen on/off, show "power off" dialog)

Additionally, Google's own apps won't work even when I try to start them manually (I have tried Play Store, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, News & Weather). They either go to a blank screen or don't open at all. The system seems more likely to freeze after trying to open these apps.

I can open the settings menu, but some of the options don't work:
- About Phone > System updates: It goes to a blank screen for about a second, and then back to the "About phone" menu.
- About phone > Status: works only when connected to a cellular network, otherwise I get a dialog saying that the process com.android.phone has stopped.
(these are the ones I found not to work)

What I've tried:

Disabling the Google Play services app and replacing it with the factory version.  Doesn't work because in order to do this, I would have to disable "Android Device manager" from being a device administrator, but its checkbox stays checked even after trying to disable it.  (Is it normal that "force stop" and "uninstall updates" are greyed out for Google Play services?)
Booting in safe mode. Works, but I get the same problems in safe mode.
Wiping the cache partition.  Works, but doesn't fix any of the issues.

What could have caused these issues? I haven't installed any new apps recently. Is there anything else I could try? If not, I guess I'll have to do a factory reset.

The uninstall updates and force stop buttons are greyed out because of the device administrator's setting. As you already know, you must uncheck the checkbox for Google Device Manager as device administrator first, afterwards the buttons are active.

I did that a couple of times myself because I have the same problems on my Galaxy S4 with the newest Lollipop. There are two problems, though:

Immediatelly after reboot of the phone, this setting takes a while to kick in. Only after one or two minutes the device accepts to remove that device admin setting. So give it some time and several tries.
From time to time, after reverting to factory version of Google Play services, they get auto-updated to the newest version again, regardless of the auto-update settings you might have.

I figured out that for me each version of Google Play services of 7.0 and newer definitely will crash. Version 6.7.76 is the last one that works for me. You can download and install the APK at apkmirror.com. At least for as long as it takes to auto-update it again...


Remove my Google account on other people's device I once had to log in my Google account on my friend's phone and I forgot to delete my account on his phone. Is there any way for me to remotely delete my account on my friend's devices?

Go to Google's security manager page, find the phone you logged in on and click "deauthorize".


How to fix a software bricked android smartphone? Two days ago i began to look after advantages and disadvantages of rooting a device, and i thought that rooting my phone would be helpfull. I rooted my phone succefully using vroot
and i had not any issue after rooting.
     After installing Chainfire 3d which is only for android 2.3(according to my actual knowledge), when i installed the driver asked by this program the phone rebooted and get stucked at the vendor logo and nothing happens after the logo appears on the screen.
My phone model is ALLview A5 Smiley.
     I do not have any backup at my disposition but i can access Recovery mode(vol up + power on).
Please tell me how to fix this.

This is probably too late, but yes, you should be able to get the disk images from your brother's phone and install them on yours.

Short steps:

Install TWRP recovery on both phones
Do a complete nandroid backup of your bother's phone
Restore it to your phone
...
profit.

If more details are required for each step, leave a short comment.


My apps status suddenly become "not installed on the phone", even the google play store! I have been searching online for problem similar to my case but unfortunately didn't manage to find any solution to my case.
INFO
Samsung Galaxy S2 i9100T
droid version 4.03

STORY
I didn't do anything, never took out the SD card, or rooting or factory reset whatsoever all this time and my phone was working fine. But then today suddenly when I reached out for my phone to read one whatsapp message, some kind of error message shown up and need me to close it I think. I can't really remember what its saying, not just for whatsapp but along with several other apps.
Then I restarted my phone, and found in my home screen several shortcut icons missing, some are still there but with android logo. So I went to the main menu and noticed all the apps are there but it became gray colored with the same icon (Android with SD text on right corner).
When I pressed the app a message saying the app is not installed on the phone.
Another important thing is that I am unable to locate the google play store anywhere, even under the Setting->Apps->All. Actually, I can't find all the missing applications -- though in main menu I saw the gray colored play store icon (not google play but play store)
I don't think the SD card is the problem since my music and images are still there just fine, not to mention a few games apps still working fine even though they are also stored in SD.
edit:
Just now I tried to access google play store with internet browser on phone and tried to download the missing apps again but I can't, it gives the message your device already has this item. Even if I want to un-install the missing apps, I can't because I cannot locate them under Settings->Apps->All.
QUESTION
What do I need to do to fix this problem? I really have no idea since I am one that never really follows up with tech development of mobile phone, just take it and use it for granted.

I had the same problem. I fixed it by:

shutting down my phone
removing the battery and SD card
putting it back
turning my phone on.

It's all there again.

If this does not work, try reinstalling the apps.

Don't uninstall the apps with weird icon but go to the store and install them again.

No data will be lost!!! (Tried and tested)


View email previews on lock screen? I am desperately looking for a way to view a preview of a new email message on the lock screen. I would like the screen to light and preview the email for few seconds.

If it is relevant - I have ICS 4.0.4

Try the widget locker app. It will allow the message preview that scrolls across the notification bar to show. if that isn't enough you could install any widget including mail widgets on the lock screen.


Why does Android require porting to each device, unlike Windows? Why does Android require porting to each device, unlike Windows? Or rather, why isn't there a way to simply download a setup program for pure AOSP and install it in any device?

I already read this question, and it says that Android requires specific porting to each device configuration (hardware setup) to even work at all. But my question is, why was Android designed in such a way that requires modification of its base source to suit the device hardware (adding drivers, etc)? Why doesn't it support installation of original AOSP from Google with basic drivers on any hardware, which can then be enhanced to work better with device-specific drivers from the manufacturer?

In contrast, Windows has been designed such that the same setup program can install it on any variant of a hardware configuration. You can come up with a configuration that no one has ever come up with before, and Windows will most likely install and run on it just fine. The chances of a complete failure to run Windows on a particular configuration are extremely low and likely only because of niche hardware.

Even if the correct drivers can't be found for a device, Windows will attempt to find the closest match for the device and attempt to run the device in a basic mode anyway - and the user can then upgrade to the correct driver after Windows installation is complete. And the chances of certain devices failing completely may be higher but still very low, and such failures can usually be resolved by installing the missing drivers.

By contrast, Android doesn't even have a concept of "driver installation", but drivers are added at the source level in a process called porting, which leads to many different ROM variants, including stock ROMs from device manufacturers, and vanilla ports like CyanogenMod, MUIU, etc. This brings the problem that if no one is porting Android for your device, you don't have a ROM to install on it (except the stock ROM it came with) - unless you build one yourself.

I understand that Android is fundamentally very different from Windows and even Linux (which it's based on), and I don't mean to compare apples with oranges. I merely want to understand why such a paradigm shift in device support was necessary for Android.

Windows has been built for working on multiple device types and has the ability to load drivers from removable devices and from a big online reposity (Windows Update). Windows has MANY inbuilt drivers.

Android is much smaller (which is better for smartphones.
So you have to include drivers and other device specific things in your ROM.


Mobile/wifi network exclamation mark I have a problem that almost always my mobile network is marked with exclamation mark and I can't connect to Edge/3G, sometimes this happening to WiFi. I have a Nexus 5 and Android 5.1.1. I'm also trying to enable/disable airplane mode but it doesn't help.

About WiFi, I reload my WiFi router and after it it works fine. Mobile network - it's happening at two cities and seems for everybody around me everything is fine.

The exclamation mark means you have no data connection. Go to Settings and in category Wireless & networks  enable Mobile Networks. This assumes Airplane mode is off.


How can I clone/cast image my cracked screen LG Optimus Zone 3 to Windows 10 HP My screen is completely smashed 100% no visibility, I touch all over the screen and it just does random things. I just want to be able to receive sms on an app or something....

If you know for certain that USB Debugging is enabled on the phone, try Vysor for Chrome. Otherwise I don't see much luck - you'd have to interact effectively with your phone to enable USB Debugging or make other workarounds work.


Does firmware affect GPS accuracy? I am from Philippines, and using European firmware for my Samsung Galaxy S2. Does that affect the accuracy of my GPS? For example, my location is usually off (at the wrong location) when I use Foursquare. But sometimes, it's usually right in Google Maps.

Should I be using firmware for Philippines instead?

Firmware definitely won't affect the quality of GPS reception (atleast in case of original ROMs, as homebrew ROMs might have some bugs - EVEN then it's either the fact that the GPS fix might take longer than usual or the GPS doesn't work at all. Not associated with accuracy.) What affects GPS reception is the quality of the signal. You tend to get a better and a faster GPS fix if you're in the open rather than in a closed building.

I've seen that Foursquare and Google Maps always point at the same location. (No brainer.)


Can people tell whether I've read their SMSes? I'm using Google Hangouts on Nexus-5 with 4.4-KitKat. I wonder if people can tell when I read their SMSes? Does my setup do automatic receipt notification without asking me?

No, there is no way to know whether a SMS is read or not. As of now it is only possible to know whether a SMS is successfully delivered to the phone or not.

This delivery report is not a phone specific or app specific feature but it is provided by the operator, which is usually free.  However the app should sport a feature to enable delivery notification and the SMS that are already sent with this setting off do not get the effect.

Also, you a recipient do not have any means to avoid sending the delivery notification as it is not controlled by any of the phone or app's settings.


How to remove downloads On my Nexus 7, I see in Storage that Downloads are taking 50.56 MB. I tap Downloads and then see "No items".

How do I remove these 50 MB?

Open the app My Files
Tap All Files
You may see Device Storage and possibly SD memory card
Tap either (or both)
Tap Download (or download)
Select files individually, or tap the menu button then Select all
Tap the trash can icon


Can somebody explain how multi-user is implemented in android 4.4 Can somebody please help in giving information on how multi-user partition is achieved on android 4.4.

I was digging into 4.4 code specific to creating multiple users.

There is class called multiUser(added in 4.4 for multi-user) whose members talk with multiUserService to create user space.

I am not getting how exactly secure space is created at file system.

I have below basic question.
1. How FileSystem partition is achieved for multiple users
2. How UI part ( Launcher, different screen icons etc)  is developed and when user switch how it reload default users data.

It works in a very similar way to how one user's apps are isolated from each other. Whereas apps' private data used to be stored in /data/data, now it's stored in /data/users/n, where n is the ID of the user profile. Each user gets their own directory, and each app that user uses gets a directory within that. POSIX file system permissions protect the data directories, not only from other apps, but also from other users.

Because Android uses the existing POSIX process, UID, and file system security mechanism, the same way it does for different apps, the implementation is already secure without needing anything special at the OS level, or a more complicated (and thus battery-hungry) solution such as virtualization. Virtualization would work poorly for this anyway: providing virtualized access to the network, Bluetooth, NFC hardware, etc. such that all users could control it would add a lot of unnecessary complexity to the driver stacks.

When both users run the same app (such as the launcher), there are actually two instances of that app. They share one APK file, but they have two separate processes running under different POSIX user IDs, and they each look in their own data directory. This way, nothing they might write to is shared between the two users, but read-only parts (such as the app's executable code from the APK file) are shared, reducing RAM and storage use. Both instances might be running at once, and switching users just changes which one is the foreground app on the screen. Nothing needs to be reloaded or restarted.

This works the same way whether the app is a built-in one, or one installed by the user. There's an awkward side-effect of that: when one user upgrades an app, the upgrade affects all users, even if the new version needs more permissions.

Only apps with the INTERACT_ACROSS_USERS permission are special. Such apps get access to APIs within the Android framework to look at all the users' data directories at once. The lock screen is an example of such an app: in one instance, it needs to be able to read each user's settings and profile picture, in order to show the "switch users" GUI.


How do I turn off my phone? This might be a dumb question but found some links online which just look dangerous so I better ask.

I have a HTC Wildfire S. How can I turn it off? Is just removing the battery safe?

I want to shut down before I remove the batery. Is there a way to do that?

Try pressing and holding the Power button.  This should bring up a dialog box with several options, once of them being to turn off the phone.


Free movies on Youtube on Android When I use Youtube on my computer, they have a stack of older movies available for free, in the Movie section.  (Ghostbusters for example!  Who ya gonna call?)

To be clear, they still had the rentals, but they had a way to filter or search for free ones as well.

When using the Youtube app on my Android 3.2.1 ASUS Eee Transformer tablet, I cannot find this manner of filtering Youtube in the Youtube app.

Is this a limitation?

I do see what you are talking about. In my YouTube app (ICS version) I can see several categories under "Browse", where it seems movies would fit in, but this category is non-existent. I do know that there are many videos on YouTube that are "Not available for viewing on mobile devices", and I think this is what's happening in this case.

For example, "Talladega Nights" is currently available under the YouTube movie section, but cannot be found in doing a search on the mobile app.

It looks like this is a desktop only feature for now :/


How can I schedule tasks? I've found an application called Silent Time, which allows me to schedule when my phone needs to go into silent mode, and when it needs to come out of it. It's a start, but I'm looking for something a bit more extended.
This is what I'd like;

Monday, tuesday, thursday

06:45

Airplane mode OFF
Silent mode OFF
Data traffic (3G) ON

08:20

Silent mode ON

11:55

Silent mode OFF

12:45

Silent mode ON

16:15

Silent mode OFF

17:00

Wifi ON
Data traffic OFF

22:00

Wifi OFF
Airplane mode ON
Silent mode ON

Wednesday

06:45

Airplane mode OFF
Silent mode OFF
Data traffic (3G) ON

08:20

Silent mode ON

11:55

Silent mode OFF

12:45

Wifi ON
Data traffic OFF

22:00

Wifi OFF
Airplane mode ON
Silent mode ON

Friday

06:45

Airplane mode OFF
Silent mode OFF
Data traffic (3G) ON

08:20

Silent mode ON

11:55

Silent mode OFF

12:45

Silent mode ON

16:15

Silent mode OFF

17:00

Wifi ON
Data traffic OFF

22:00

Wifi OFF
Silent mode ON

23:45

Airplane mode ON

Saturday

09:30

Airplane mode OFF
Silent mode OFF
Wifi ON

23:45

Airplane mode ON
Silent mode ON

Sunday

09:30

Airplane mode OFF
Silent mode OFF
Wifi ON

22:00

Airplane mode ON
Silent mode ON

When I say OFF or ON it actually needs to do that, and not just switch it, so that I can switch manually without disturbing the schedule.

I need to be able to pause the schedule at any time. Being able to add exceptions (days on which to interupt the schedule) in advance would be nice, but is not required.

Is there any app or hidden feature for Android which would allow me to do this?

With Tasker you are able to achieve this. The Tasks can be defined as e.g. Wifi on and there are different trigers for those Tasks. Amoung many others, time can be a trigger.


Android JSON Data interpretation I got this data from my phone, most of it I generally understand, but some of the GPS positional values have me confused:

    "locations" : [ {
    "timestampMs" : "1531422503855",
    "latitudeE7" : 399187535,
    "longitudeE7" : -751663977,
    "accuracy" : 16,
    "altitude" : -28,
    "verticalAccuracy" : 2
  }, {
    "timestampMs" : "1531422474313",
    "latitudeE7" : 399187554,
    "longitudeE7" : -751664138,
    "accuracy" : 16,
    "altitude" : -28,
    "verticalAccuracy" : 2
  },

Now I understand how to decipher most of this, the timestamp is in the epoch format, and the coordinates are a factor of 10^7. But basically, it's these the last three that have me confused. As I understand it, accuracy is defined as the radius of 68% confidence. So I'm assuming the value returned, 16 in this case, is that the GPS is 68% confident that it's accurate within 16 meters(?). But with the altitude and vertical accuracy values, I have NO idea. I know that Altitude accuracy for GPS is very inaccurate for many reasons, but I'm assuming this -28 is negative 28 meters below the sea level...? But to be honest, I'm not sure, along side vertical accuracy. If someone could give me the correct interpretation that would be much appreciated.

Second but small question, the phone recorded two GPS points within 30 seconds of each other, where the GPS basically recenters and gets a more accurate location, is it safe to assume that this second location is the "correct" location with how frequently the device polls the data?

It'd make sense that accuracy of 16 means there is a 68% chance of being within the circle of 16m radius centered on the reported latitude and longitude, as that's what Android’s getAccuracy() method returns. Similarly, the vertical accuracy (which is often 2 for me as well) would make sense as 68% of ±2m (from getVerticalAccuracyMeters). There isn't any documentation that I can find of the format, so it's hard to be sure.

GPS is normally less reliable in altitude than latitude/longitude, but a lot of phones (mine included) have barometric altimeters, which can give much more precise altitude if calibrated (which Google may be able to do from e.g., weather stations).

All that is well in theory, but looking at own Google Takeout data, it appears altitude is off by ~30m (way more than the ±2m it'd be claiming). [Update This is probably the difference between WGS84 altitude and MSL; see http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0703/geoid1of3.html for an explanation and http://earth-info.nga.mil/GandG/wgs84/gravitymod/egm96/intpt.html for a calculator.] And is updated infrequently (it's been showing the same value for me for hours over a bunch of records, and given I haven't traveled anywhere, but you'd expect random variation if it were raw GPS numbers).

I wouldn't assume the correctness of any of this data. Keep in mind what it was gathered for — mostly for statistical aggregation to show you relevant places, ads, etc. None of that requires any given point to be correct. Indeed, in my history, I've got a few points which are accuracy of 1524304 — so, errr, 68% confident which quarter of the globe I'm in?


How can I recover deleted photos and videos from vault app I used vault app to hide some pictures and videos.

I just formatted  my phone after then I re-installed vault and I am unable to find my pictures and videos.

Is there any way to recover my pictures and videos ?

Well, I think, you can try some data recovery tools. If your lost photos are not rewritten by other data, with a third party tool-Android Recovery Mac, you can easily recover them.

Step 1: Run Android Photo Recovery Mac and Select Files to Recover

Step 2: Connect Your Android Device to Mac and Start Scanning

Step 3: Recover Deleted Pictures from Android on Mac

ANother : Gihosoft free Android data recovery software is quite good at this field, and their software is for free, you can download it and have a try.


How to undo "Enable autofill for [website]" in Firefox? My question is similar to [Undo "Disable autofill for [app]" one), but the solution doesn't work for me, so please bear with me.

I'm using Keepass2Android for autofill. It works great in most apps. It also worked in Firefox until one day I pressed Enable autofill for [website URL]. Now it doesn't work for this website. There's no autofill popup, so I can't undo this like I could in other apps. I've also done this in Firefox Preview and it stopped working altogether for all sites in that browser.

What I've tried:

Solution from this question - I don't have the 3 dots button
Reinstall Keepass2Android - no change
Reinstall Firefox - no change
Clear Firefox cache and data - no change

I'm using OnePlus 6T with latest OxygenOS (Android P-based).

External autofill apps change a certain boolean in the Firefox for Android configuration variables, this "setting" can nly set back to the old setting by completely uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox or better by changing it in: about:config

goto about:config
search for: dom.forms.autocomplete.formautofill
set it back to true
refresh your login window and... fixed!


What does it mean when Wi-Fi icon is gray? What does it mean when Wi-Fi icon is gray?

Internet is working at the moment.

Screenshot (click image for larger variant)

It means that your Android device is not connected to the Google Servers. Because of this, your device can't receive any push notifications such a Gmail messages.


Bluetooth file transfer limited to specific file extensions? I send and receive files via Bluetooth with names that end with zip and txt, but not apk or dmp.

Android Nougat

/src/com/android/bluetooth/opp/Constants.java has the following whitelist of mime types:

"image/*",
"video/*",
"audio/*",
"text/x-vcard",
"text/x-vcalendar",
"text/calendar",
"text/plain",
"text/html",
"text/xml",
"application/zip",
"application/vnd.ms-excel",
"application/msword",
"application/vnd.ms-powerpoint",
"application/pdf",
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet",
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document",
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation",
"application/x-hwp",

All other types are rejected.

Update: after looking into the sources more. There is a witelist of devices (with 15 sec timeout) with the following comment: "A list of devices that may send files over OPP to this device without user confirmation. Used for connection handover from forex NFC". It looks like these devices can send other mime types. Do not know in which conditions these devices can be added to this whitelist.


Transferring Phone Ownership I currently have an HTC Desire handset. I am just about to upgrade to a new HTC handset and would like to be able to pass this phone on to my wife.

What’s the best way of changing the account setup n the phone to reflect the new ownership. I intend on using my existing Google account on the new handset to transfer my own settings over.

I would like to keep using the same Google Play account to retain the installed apps, but I would like my wifes telephone contacts to be kept separate and sync independently to my own as well as preventing Gmail emails on my address from pinging up this old handset.

Is this doable?

My current plan is to create her a Gmail account. On the existing Gmail account within the phone turn off syncing of Contacts, Calendar and Gmail. Add the new Google account and turn on syncing of the same.

This /sounds/ like it will work ok, but never having done this before I’m not sure how things will work in practice.

Yes, adding a second account and disabling sync on the original one will work as you are expecting.  You'll retain the ability to install and use apps you purchase with the original account, while having the sync enabled only on your wife's account will ensure the data from your own account is not present on her phone.


samsung galaxy a3: block all notifications except email and sms Device: Samsung Duos (SM_A300H) Android version 5.0.2

I want something very basic: that my samsung galaxy a3 works like a phone and makes sound only for call, sms and alarm. No more FB nor email nor whatever notifications.

I googled and found some answers that doesn't suit my device. They say: Go to Settings -> Device -> Sound -> Default Notification Sound -> Silent. Next, set your text message sound to whatever you want.

I have Settings -> Sounds and Notifications, and there I can silent notifications, but there is zero options for message.

Smartphones are so smart that they aren't phone anymore :(

This is what I see when I press sound button + options:

For most phones with Android Lollipop: on any home screen (while music is off), press the phone's volume down button, then select Priority.

(Click image to enlarge)

NOTE: If you choose None, then you will not be notified of any call, message, reminder or even alarm.

If the volume button shortcut doesn't work, try going to Settings → Sounds → Interruptions. There will be an option to select Allow only priority interruptions. The wording may be slightly different though.

For some Samsung devices, this FAQ  will be helpful.

See also:

Android Lollipop has killed Silent Mode: here's how to use Priority Mode
How to Set Up Android’s Priority Mode (and Get Back Silent Mode)
Set up 'Priority' mode on Android 5.0 Lollipop


Is data/data/com.android.browser/databases/webview.db being encrypted? I rooted my phone (Galaxy Nexus 4.1.1 JRO03C). I am able to access nearly all files under data/data/* folder. However, a few files cannot be opened, such as data/data/com.android.browser/databases/webview.db

I suspect these files are encrypted. Is there any way to decrypt them?

The database file obviously is not encrypted, see: Browser webview.db doesn't store hotmail password, but I can still auto log-in hotmail. Why? which shows the user was able to read data from its tables. But they are protected using "file permissions" -- so aside from root only the owner (i.e. the app) has full access to them.

You now will probably argue you said having rooted your device. So far, so fine. But did you use your "root powers" when trying to access those databases? Just having your device rooted does not mean all stuff automatically runs with root permissions (see: Do all applications run as root on my phone after rooting?). The app you're using to open those files must itself have requested (and be granted) root permissions -- or they might get either no or only restricted permissions on files they do not own.


How to read documents in RTF file type? I'm searching a way to maintain RTF files for open/editing but at least for reading, because I have no support for it on my device.

I tried mobile docs view and yozo office but they didn't support RTF.

To read RTF files you basically just need and app that supports that file format.

Here's a good one that additionally supports many other document types:

Cool Reader by Vadim Lopatin available from Google Play Store.

  Reading books in epub, fb2, txt, doc, rtf, html, chm, tcr, pdb, pml formats.

  eBook reader. Supports epub (non-DRM), fb2, doc, txt, rtf, html, chm, tcr, pdb, prc, mobi (non-DRM), pml formats.


Sync issues Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 on MS Exchange mail account My MS Echange mail sync won't work properly on my Samsung 10.1 Tab.

It shows two flaws - whatever I try:

INBOX Mail sync is simply not complete.
On Push, Manual or Timed delivery I will nog get all my mail in.
In my INBOX a lot of "empty mails" appear, dated 1-1-1970, the beginning
of computer time. I simply delete them, but since they do not appear in my
corporate email account or on the phone, they must be due to sync errors.

Interesting background input is that I also have a Samsung Galaxy SII Phone, looking at the same mailserver and account and this perfectly gets all email in on the Phone. It looks at the same Exchange sever using the same details in settings. So it obviously can't have anything to do with Exchange, but is has to do something with the Galaxy Tab.
Or am I very wrong?

The tabmodel is GT-P7500, Android 3.2, kernel 2.6.36.3
The phone model is GT-I9100, Android 2.3.4, kernel 2.6.35.7.

Please help - I'm getting no response from Samsung and can't find a clue on the net yet.
Thanx in advance!! Rob.

It maybye does make any sense but firmware update buildnummmer htj85b p7510xwkl1, fixes this problem on Android 3.2. Because we are based in The Netherlands and the original question also originated from here, i think a localization problem????


How do I get SMS messages to be sorted in chronological order? I just got an HTC Desire HD, and it's sorting my SMS texts by what the sender has sent up at the top of the conversation page, and what I reply down below. It's almost like two conversations in chronological order, but it's not mixing them together. When it says I have a new text, it's actually the one I sent them and I have to scroll up to read the reply. How do I get the the SMS conversations to read in an answer-response chronological format?

I don't know how your stock messaging app works, but HandcentSMS does this exact thing, and very well at that!


Galaxy Note apps on stock Android I've just ordered a Samsung Galaxy Note, and since I generally don't like manufacturer-installed bloatware (TouchWiz etc.), I'd like to reflash it with a stock ICS ROM. However, one of the main reasons I've bought the Note is for the S-Pen functionality.

Is a vanilla ICS ROM capable of running the Note-specific S-Pen apps that come with the phone? If not, is there at least a way to make the phone look and behave as if it doesn't have TouchWiz?

At first, there's a current Hardbrick warning and a tool to diagnose this for the Galaxy Note (and other Samsung devices).

Here's the Galaxy Note N7000 CM9 team's current issue list, it doesn't mention missing S-Pen functionality (unlike an experimental build #1) so I guess it's fixed.

The CM9 alpha for N7000 announcement on XDA also mentions S-Pen beeing worked on.

And finally, here's the CM9 builds for N7000 and a full update guide.


How does Google test and check Android apps uploaded to Play Store? I have found so many apps on the Google Play Store which are just useless. There are so many apps whose names are like "Useless App", "Nothing" and just rubbish, even in their app descriptions, it is written that this app does nothing, and those apps really do nothing. And the irony is that even these apps have hundreds of thousands of downloads.
How does Google test the apps uploaded?

As per my personal experience, Google does not check each and every functionality of the app, it just does some routine validation check for publication. Whereas Apple's App Store does the opposite, Apple requires working login credentials for checking each and every screen at least.
Now, it is perfectly fine to publish an app in Play Store, which does nothing, i.e., useless till the time it is adhering to the Play Store's policy. Now if you found some apps which are violating the listed policy Play Store Policy, you can always report it to Google and most probably Google will unlist that app for sure.


How to access SysDump menu on Samsung Galaxy S5, Android 5.0 My Samsung Galaxy S5 tells me I have insufficient storage to update apps.  Looking at the storage menu, I have enough space, and it will work if I clear the cache through the storage menu.  This is only a temporary fix, though.  I had 21 updates this morning and I had to clear the cache 6 times just to update them.  Looking on Google I found many people suggesting accessing the SysDump menu and deleting the dumpstate/logcat to fix this issue.  However, everyone says to dial *#9900# in the dialer to access this.  This does not work on my phone, maybe because I have Android 5.0, and most of these articles and posts were written years ago.  How can I access the SysDump menu?

Or is there a better solution for this?  I only have 512MB free of 16GB, however, most apps are <30MB.  I see 5.56GB in Miscellaneous files though when I look through them they add up to 105MB.

Keep in mind to update apps it needs something like 3x the actual size. Not sure why you want a sysdump/logcat as your only real solution is just to clear space from device. Install an app like DiskUsage that allows you to see how the space is being used and start clearing up space.

As to your actual question if you need a logcat, enable developer options (settings/about and tap 3+ times build number), enable adb and use logcat command through the pc using adb.

Also through adb you can you can run adb shell and dump dmesg (kernel log).


Services Google Play and Shop Google Play why both? Why I do I have to have both Services Google Play and also Shop Google Play applications on my phone? They take quite a lot of memory space, which is quite small on my ZTE SKATE. I have an SD card with about 6GB space, but I can't move these over there. And when I try to delete Services Google Play it downloads on its own when I go to Shop. Why is Google doing this? When I got my phone I had only Google Shop there. Now this. I'm running out of space and there aren't any other apps that take a lot of space like this and I could delete/uninstall them.

Can anyone tell me what exactly is the difference between these two apps and why I need to have them both installed? And if I don't need them, how can I get rid of one of them so I have more space?

Google Play Services is a library used by other Google and third-party apps. It allows apps to use:

Google Maps layers to show maps in other apps
Google+ sign-on and sharing
the new Google+ gaming functionality for match-making, leaderboards, and to store saved games "in the cloud"
Google Cloud Messaging to sync data from the Internet to your device efficiently
Location services to set up "geo-fences" so they can respond to locations and activities more efficiently than if they accessed your location directly

It's a lot of functionality that could have been made part of Android itself, but making it a separate library allows Google to update it directly, so app developers can rely on it being up-to-date on every device: unlike Android itself, which some manufacturers and carriers don't bother to update for older devices.

If you were to remove it, any apps that rely on it would stop working or behave unpredictably.


Mobile data offline or timeout whereas hotspot just works How can I troubleshoot the following situation:

during mobile data my phone often is experiencing 100% time outs (ERR_TIMED_OUT) or Chrome states it is offline
whereas my connected laptop through hotspot is not experiencing any issues

My phone states full connectivity and 4g being present.

This leads to my hypothesis that some configuration or malicious app is flooding the local network stack on my phone.

Is there a way to diagnose this further? I really want to get my mobile data connectivity back!

Phone: Lenovo P2.
OS: Android 7.

Edit 15-09-2019
I have reset my phone to factory settings but to no avail. The issue still remains. I also swapped SIM cards with another phone. No effect. The second SIM in my phone does not solve the issue. And my SIM in another phone just works correctly over there.

Edit 16-09-2019
Interestingly, apps that have lots of patience (long time-out policy), such as my mobile park app, and apparently WhatsApp as well, are still able to send and receive data.

Press and hold the Power + Volume Down catches for around 10 seconds or until the gadget power cycles. Permit a few seconds for the Maintenance Boot Mode screen to show up.
From the Maintenance Boot Mode screen, select Normal Boot. You can utilize the volume catches to go through the accessible alternatives and the lower left catch (underneath the volume catches) to choose. Hang tight for as long as 90 seconds for the reset to finish


What's in an update? My Samsung Galaxy S2 just updated to version I9100XWKI4. Is there a place where I can see what's in that update? And in the ones before that?

All I could find was a blog post from a site that shows how to root the device. Isn't there an official change log somewhere?

You can look at the Google Changes for each release of android, but this device uses Samsung TouchWiz. This release contains the Google changes, plus the changes that Samsung made. I do not know of a "change log" page that Samsung has.

I read that this version is the official Gingerbread 2.3.5 release of Android TouchWiz. But also, if you use a USB Jig, that it breaks the that functionality.