Is it possible to run video over type-C smartphones? Is it possible to run a video from a PC (over type-c, hdmi, or displayport) to a type-c smartphone for VR? What limitations would be faced?

If your PC happens to have a WiFi adapter, you don't need to care about the connection type and can stream video content to your device via an application like Plex or Moon VR Player for example.

The limitations are inherent to the video player you choose to use on your phone.

I assume you are interested by VR headsets since you included the tage "samsung-gear-vr".
For Plex for example, there is currently no native support for Gear VR, so you have to access the web interface by Oculus browser or Samsung Internet browser (it also seems to be supported by PhoneCast). You can also use a more complex setup such as the one described in this post.


How to disable wallpaper blur effect on Samsung Galaxy S9 home screen? I've set an animated wallpaper on my Galaxy S9 (one that was included with the device). It displays correctly on the lock screen, but somehow gets blurred on the home screen. Is it possible to disable this blur effect?

Lock screen (no blur)

Home screen (blur)

Its not blurred wallpaper, it applied two wallpapers, one for lock screen and other for home screen.

To set Wallpaper(single wallpaper for both screens):

Open wallpaper app, and select any wallpaper, and select this option set as Home screen and Lock screen OR Set Both(option in Google wallpaper app) .
Press and hold home screen, the screen will shows three options, Wallpaper, Widgets and Settings(home screen). Tap on wallpaper, and select any wallpaper, the select set as HOME screen and Lock screen OR Both as options mentioned above.


How to prevent apps running in background Possible Duplicate:
  How can I stop applications and services from running?

i've an Xperia X10 Mini. This Android devices is limited in hardware: a 600Mhz processor and 128 mb ram. So i'd like to install new apps, but i don't like to have a lot of apps running in background. For example, Facebook app, GDrive, Dropbox ... are great, but why 'damn' thei must run in background either if i don't want to use them at the moment ? This cause my device to run slowly, very slowly...

I know that facebook app for example, 'must' stay in background so it can inform me for a new 'friend post' .. but i don't need it!
Also Gdrive, Dropbox, Gmail etc: they 'must' stay in background to inform me for something.. but i'm not interested !!! If i want to check mail... i click to gmail.. if i want to check my friend post... i click facebook !

What i want is a responsive smartphone for basic operation (call, sms etc.), and i'm sure a 600mhz processor with a basic 'android'  installation and without background app  can go fast as a double core Arm with 100 running app !!!!

So, at the moment i disinstall them, and my device back to run good, with no slowdowns.

I also have installed Advanced Task Killer, but it kills apps each hour, or 30minutes: it don't prevent an app to run in background.

Does exists an app that kill others app each time they start in background, immediately ?

Though there are apps around that would answer to your request (so-called "Task-killers" and "Memory boosters"), their usage is not to recommend -- simply because it would not help any (see Is it advisable to run a task killer app on Android). If those background processes are designed as services, they would simply restart - as would many other apps as well. Usually Android handles RAM very well, and those background processes should not use significant CPU power -- so on a decent phone this should not be a problem. However, on low-end and small devices with just minimal RAM and CPU, this can become an issue.

So what are your choices then? First, you could see to uninstall all those apps running background tasks -- provided you do not really need them. And, of course, if your device is not rooted, this cannot be done for pre-installed apps; but with ICS and higher you can at least "freeze" them.

If your device is rooted, your choices increase dramatically: you can remove (or freeze) those apps e.g. using Titanium Backup. You can use managers like AutoRun Manager to modify intent-listeners of apps (to prevent the start of certain event-based background processes, including those started on boot_completed). And you can configure thresholds for how your RAM will be used (i.e. when Androids internal Out-of-Memory-Killer should clean up your RAM) using apps like AutoKiller Memory Optimizer (don't mistake that name with a task-killer, it is not) or Auto Memory Manager.

Of course, you can also ask the developer to make those background services configurable -- and to leave it to you whether certain of them should be running at all. There's always the chance the developer sees reason and implements such a feature.


Battery Life on Desire HD Why does the battery for android phones perform much better after 2 or 3 weeks of usage? Is there any logical reason?

I'll agree with Al Everett and say that the amount of playing with the new toy is certainly a factor early on.

I also did not notice any intrinsic changes in the systems battery management over time.  I did however notice a massive increase in battery life by turning off auto-sync, and even mobile on occasion.  With those two on, I'd see a significant drop in battery when I slept overnight, but it doesn't budge with those two off.

I use two power control widgets, the HTC data dashboard and the Android power control widget. Between the two, it's a piece of cake to tweak power settings to make sure I get the most out of the battery.


Is there a service/application that will allow a "friend" to retrieve my location from my phone without my involvement? I'd like to allow my wife to query my location whenever she's curious. There are no trust issues here, so I don't care about acknowledging/approving her "ping" request, whenever she wants to know she can just request my location details.

Is there an app or service that does this? Most of them (understandably) require that the handset owner allow/permit the request, but I'd like this to happen without my involvement (say I'm busy at the office, driving, or getting groceries).

It sounds like Google Latitude does what you want. Once you opt-in you can then share your location data with your wife, and she should be able to check your location anytime. As far as I know, once you choose share your location data with someone they can retrieve it anytime without having to explicitly request your permission.

Latitude is built into the Google Maps application for Android. You can enable it by going into the application's settings and checking "Enable location sharing", then use the setting right below it ("Manage your friends") to choose who can see your location data.


What application turn on wifi/GPS? What application turn on wifi/GPS at specific moment (adb logcat  or what tools to use, what strings look for)?

What installed application able to turn on wifi/GPS? Or more generally how I can get list of all installed application permissions by adb, adb shell or another tools from Android phone/SDK?

Any app with the permission ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION can trigger GPS – unless you've explicitly switched off GPS location with your device settings. To scan for possible candidates, you can use a Permission checker. There's e.g. Permission explorer which allows you to browse installed apps by permissions, so you can limit your watch to relevant candidates.

Permission Explorer: categories, apps by permission; LBE (source: Google Play; click images for larger variants)

If your device is rooted, there are also other means. I'm e.g. using LBE to protect my privacy. Concerning location, I can restrict on a per-app base whether an app can always access it, never access it, or I want to be asked when it tries. The latter method should definitely bring up your culprit – and even in case you missed the event, there are always LBE's logs (accessible from inside the app) you can check.


Dangers of ad modules in apps Nowadays, I see apps containing up to 10 ad modules (maybe even more). While most of them might just be an annoyance, some of them carry a privacy risk, like inMobi ¹ or RevMob ² (for some background, take a look at Beware those snooping mods! on my Android website).

While I know about a few (as listed behind that link), there are hundreds of different ad networks with their modules. One hardly can know them all. So my question is:

How can I tell if an app contains an (ad) module dangerous to my privacy, or otherwise agressive (remember Airpush, do you)? Preferably before I install it?

At least I can check which modules are part of an app if I look it up at Appbrain, where they are listed (if they are available at the Google Play Store that is). But while Appbrain also links to details for each of them, those only include statistics, but don't mention the dangers associated. Yes, there are some apps to Identify Ad-Modules – but most of them haven't been updated within the last 2-3 years. Apart from which, they can only scan apps I've already installed.

So what approaches would you recommend the privacy-concerned user to protect himself against those intruders, and avoid them?

PS: I'm not asking about ad-blockers here, so please do not focus your answers on those.

PPS: As I still didn't find any viable solution, I started a spin-off question on our sister site to build my own: API to access details on modules in Android apps. Input welcome!

¹ inMobi requires access to Internet and Network state – plus uses your location, microphone, calendar (read and write) and more, if accessible to the host app

² RevMob has full network access and reads your device identifiers

Could the "Scan & Google Play" feature of AppBrain Ad detector (: https://www.appbrain.com/app/appbrain-ad-detector/com.appspot.swisscodemonkeys.detector ) help you?
On your Android devices this feature allows a little overlay on top of Google Play so if you click a link to Google Play you can see the ad detector stats already before you install the app.


Wifi connects for sometimes then disconnects and then never connects Their is a big issue of WiFi in my phone when i first bought it...

My phone is a Spice Stellar Mi-439, Android KITKAT v4.4.2, 1GHz Processor, 512RAM, 4GB Internal, currently 16GB Expandable.

The problem is that Wifi connects when i switch ON the Wifi and enter the WiFi network but disconnects after sometime of browsing and never connects again even by switch the WiFi ON-OFF-ON and not even by disabling Data Connection. Neither it disconnects when in Sleep or StandBy Mode, it disconnects during browsing or any time. Whereas other users on that WiFi network don't complain about any issue like that. I have no control over that WiFi Network.

It only works when i reboot the set but again disconnects after sometime.

I didn't got any solution from internet for it.

Any knowledge about this issue?

I have been testing one of my app on spice stellar phones. The problem seems to be with the phones as the Mac ID keeps changing (yes, that right). It starts with a specific Mac and then suddenly the Mac ID exposed to the network changes and the phone is dropped from the network. If I Forget the wifi connection and reconnect, the same behaviour is observed at random intervals.


why i can't take a screen with LG nexus 5 I'm trying to take a screenshot on my Nexus 5 phone following the obvious instructions, which instruct me to press both the down button and the power button at the same time.. nothing happens.

I remember in my previous S3 phone there was some some setting that had to be turned on to enable swiping gestures to take a screenshot.. but i couldn't find anything of that sort with the nexus 5.. any ideas?

Android's hotkey to take screenshots is Vol Down and Power pressed simultaneously for about 3 seconds.

The delay is there to prevent accidental presses.

( Samsung phones hotkey is the Power and Home button )


Saving Notes when I change an Android phone I have a Xiaomi MI3 and I'll buy the new Xiaomi MI6. In my current phone I have many notes (about 150 notes that I have to save).

Is there a way to save notes in order to have them in the next phone? Because I dont'know how to save them using the google account or the Mi account.

Are you using some specific note taking app (i.e., google keep, color note)? If yes, these app has exporting options inbuilt, check out.

Color note backup and sync


can i install windows phone 7 on HTC desire? I own a android phone, desire . I wish to install windows phone 7 on it .
 Can I do so ? and if the answer is yes, how ?
Thanks

Nope you can't. Android phones are a bit "blocked" for other OSes to be run and installed on the device... By the way the first approach for this can be found at HD2 ToolBox and Hot Bootloader, which may help developers to build boot some other OSes on top of Android.

Different from the Windows Mobile era, that for example my HTC Touch Pro2 can run Android(fully featured) and Ubuntu(with some restrictions), not to mention al those OSes that have been ported to the HTC Leo(HD2).


How to connect a Nexus 6p to Windows 8.1 in MTP mode When I connect my phone to my Windows 8.1 PC, I can select PTP mode on the phone and the phone immediately shows up under "This PC".  However, I only see pictures related files, I wanted to see other media.  So I try to select MTP on my phone, and as soon as I do the phone icon disappears from "This PC" and does not reappear.  I don't see any error messages, prompts to install drivers, etc.

I read somewhere that in Android, under settings -> storage to press the menu-button and choose usb-connection, but the menu only shows "Help & feedback".

I have tried both with USB debugging enabled and disabled.

On my Windows PC, under Device Manager -> Android Device I see "Google Nexus ADB Interface"; trying to update it says the latest version is already installed.  I tried uninstalling it, and reconnecting the phone, but this just automatically reinstalled the same driver.   I also looked under every other entry in device manager and there isn't anything else related to ADB or MTP.

I don't see any kind of separate MTP driver though.  If I try to update software manually and how compatible hardware, it shows: "Google Nexus ADB Interface"  and "USB Composite Device" and nothing MTP related.

I found my device under "Devices and Printers -> Unspecified". When I tried to troubleshoot, it says "Google Nexus ADB Interface is an older USB device and might not work with USB 3.0.  Plug the device into an available USB 2.0 port..."    But I've only got USB 3.0 ports!  If I go ahead and have it finish the troubleshooting it says:

Problems found:
Google Nexus ADB Interface can't work properly with USB 3.0 (Not fixed)

What?!  The fact that PTP does work seems to contradict this, right?  And since when has USB 3.0 not been backwardly compatible with USB 2.0 devices???

How do I get my PC to recognize the phone in MTP mode?

When you plug in the device you should see in the notification shade something that says USB for Charging : Touch for more options.

If you tap that, you will have a dialog open with the following:

Use USB for

Charging
Just charge this device
Power supply
Charge the other connected device
File transfers
Transfer files to Windows or Mac (MTP)
Photo transfer (PTP)
Transfer photos or files if MTP is not supported (PTP)
MIDI
Use device for MIDI input

You want to select File transfers to have Windows detect the device as an external media device.


multiple zoom levels without multiple tile layers (RMaps Ext + MOBAC)? I am using RMaps Ext (a rmaps mod) on Android, browsing offline maps created using Mobile Atlas Creator (MOBAC). It's working great so far.

The only problem is that when browsing offline satellite maps the zoom level is fixed to the tile layers I chose to download on MOBAC.

But I was wondering since I have already downloaded more detail satellite maps, e.g. zoom level 16, in theory I could browse zoom level 15, 14 to level 10. You just need some fast algorithm to zoom out a big image.

e.g.

The level 16 zoom file size is 80MB
The level 10-16 zoom file size is 120MB

So could the zoom out scaling be done on Android using the 80MB file directly?

It will save a lot of storage space (but spend more on CPU with image resizing)

Thanks in advance!

The expected behaviour has to be provided by the application rather than not from Android services.

I have not used RMaps, but I use TrekBuddy which also uses offline map tiles created by MOBAC.  The working nature of the MOBAC and hence these apps which depends on MOBAC does provide offline map tile in layers. Either Zoom level can be stored in a layer or different map types like satellite image, terrain, normal map etc can be in stored in each layer.

When I create offline maps I create them in various zoom levels say (from 15 to 10) each in seperate layer as shown:

The apps like RMaps and Trekbuddy shows only one layer at a time. To simulate zooming, one has to load the layer with higher zoom level. Say for example, if I am presently viewing a map in zoom level 10, in order to zoom, I should load layer for zoom level 11 or higher.  To ease this operation, Trekbuddy has a feature called easy zoom, with which (once configured properly), once can zoom with volume rocker keys. Pressing volume up will zoom up and pressing volume down will zoom down.  However as expected this feature intervened with actual volume up and down feature and hence it was reported to work in few phones only (not working in mine - a LG Optimus One running Andorid 2.3.3/CM10).


How to Import/Export Group field in Contacts via VCF? OS: 2.1
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S (Vibrant)

When exporting or emailing a VCF file from the Contacts app, the Group data (e.g. Family, Friends) does not get exported.  Similarly, the CATEGORIES property is ignored when importing a VCF file.  Does anyone know how to get this data into/out of the Contacts app via VCF?  Thanks!

You are doing this on the web inside of gmail, right?

I didn't see the groups included in the VCF file either.  But they do seem to be included if you export it as a CSV.  Is it possible that you can use the CSV instead?


Google Now time estimation to work I have an Galaxy SII, and I'm using AOKP JB Milestone 1. That said, I'm experiencing something strange, the Google Now app is running and working just fine, except for one thing, I've set my home and work address, but it just shows me the estimated arrival time for going home, all the time by the way(except when I'm home), and it never showed the estimated arrival time for work.

Is it known, or may be just and ROM bug?

How long have you used the feature? On my GNex, it took roughly 2 work weeks for the feature to adapt to my work hours, which are 8:00-16:00, so not that complicated. If you're working in shifts or by some other schedule, it might take longer for the feature to learn when to show which destination.


I have all Phone apps. But I do not have the Phone Icon Anywhere I have all Phone Apps, but I do not see my Phone Icon Anywhere.
How Can I Put my "PHONE" Icon Short cut back on Tray?

For All those who had the same problem, when an Icon goes missing on your tray or anywhere else, I found a solution.
1)- Download "ES File Manager" From Google Play and Install it.
2)- Go to Apps and select System Apps
3)- Either Find or search for the App you need
4)- Long Press on it and it will become selected
5)- From the Option button Select "Add to Desktop"

The App short cut appears again on the desktop. Now you simply drag it to wherever you want.


Apps don't launch in a separate "window" When, for example, I am in the Gmail app reading an email with a link to a movie on IMDB, and I touch the link to open it, the IMDB app launches and displays the correct thing, BUT the IMDB doesn't launch as a separate app! When I display all running apps, this is what I see:

Screenshot (click for larger image)

IMDB "overtakes" the Gmail "window", and now I can't use both apps at the same time. I want the IMDB app to be in a separate "window". How to do this? Same thing with opening a Youtube link from Chrome, or any other app combination...

The device is Nexus 7 (2013), with Android 4.4.2.

That's not a bug, it's a feature. It's called the "Back Stack".

The idea is that you perform a single task, like reading e-mail, and all Activities, that it's what "windows" are called on Android, are grouped together on the task's back stack.

If you want IMDB "in a separate window", that is as activity of a new task with its own back stack, you can simply open it from the launcher by selecting the IMDB icon.


Multi-window "Pop up view action" not working even if enabled I ran through settings in Galaxy Note8 and from  there I learned about pop up view action gesture and was able to use it.

But  when I finished running through the rest of the settings (top-to-bottom), I found  the gesture is no longer working even if enabled. Now it does nothing. Why?

What could have been toxic in settings items below Advanced settings item? Was it some accessibility setting?  But I canceled each when it displayed warning  about turning off certain other features. Then I only enabled developer mode.
I also soft-restarted the phone, the problem persists.

How can be pop up view action gesture returned to working normally?

Finally I can see it works, but unlike shown in the visual guide, the dragging needs to start at the very corner of the display (either top left or top right), or (ideally) outside the display, enter the display in the corner and then continue to the center of the display. Then the functionality works as expected.

The effect is also achievable using the S-pen.


Outlook Calendar on Samsung Galaxy S7 will not sync I have just bought a Samsung Galaxy S7 (running Android 6.0.1) and installed the Outlook app. Email syncs fine but I see nothing on my calendar. When I tap the top left burger (?) menu "Kevin's calendar" is almost always unchecked. I check it but still nothing shows.

I have also tried resetting my account by going to the calendar settings (cog in the top right, opening my @hotmail.co.uk account and pressing RESET ACCOUNT).

I've also tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app.

It worked fine on my Android S4.

In the hope that this will help someone else.

Uninstall the Outlook app
Go to "Settings" > "Accounts" and remove all accounts relating to hotmail.co.uk
Add a new "Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync" account and enter your details.

Once successful you can view your email by using the pre-installed "Mail" app and you can view your calendar entries by using the pre-installed "S-Planner" app.

If you want to use the Outlook app then follow these further steps

Reinstall the Outlook app
Open the Outlook app and follow the instructions in the setup wizard. Choose "Exchange" account when given a choice between "Office 365", "Outlook.com" and "Exchange".
You'll have to enter your username and password several times and accept all permission prompts.

You should now be able to see your calendar entries in the Outlook app.

(strictly speaking I don't think you need to do step 3 if you carry on doing steps 4 - 6, but I'm not prepared to go through all that again to prove it)


How does AppSurfer work? How to run Android OS on browser? I recently got to know of this website AppSurfer where they actually run Android OS in a web browser. It's interesting and also sleek.

How does this actually work?

The only clue I could find is from their website where they state

  Run Android Apps in the Browser

  Stream apps to any device or platform, on demand

So, it appears they use some sort of streaming technology where the App runs in an Android emulator instance running in their cloud and the content of the display is streamed to the clients browser.

That would mean that technically, Android does not run in the clients browser. The browser just acts as frontend to an (emulated I guess) Android instance.


Installing ICS update I have a problem - a half year ago I installed the 4.0.3 on my Nexus S. I installed it by placing the 'update.zip' file in the \sdcard folder, restarting phone, holding Power+VolUp buttons, then choosing recovery and install.

However, now I downloaded the 4.0.4 update, did the same, but the phone got stuck - upon choosing recovery an android picture with something like a sphere in his stomach is shown for like a second and then the phone turns black - only buttons are lit.

What could be wrong?

Edit: Here is a YT video of my problem, sorry about the resolution, it's recorded on my laptop

This is a known bug in the Nexus S' 4.0.3 firmware when you apply the i9020 update.zip to the i9023 model. Background: The i9020 sports a self-illuminating amoled while the i9023 has a traditional LCD with a backlight. The recovery fails to switch on the backlight and the screen goes black.

You probably downloaded the update.zip from Google and did not use the official update method, right?

In short:
The screen backlight of the i9023 model is off in recovery mode due to that bug but everything else just works

Here's a thread on XDA that covers just this.

Possible solutions to fix it:

Use a strong LED flashlight and illuminate the LCD just for the installation of the 4.0.4, see images below (both show the same homescreen, except the left has a switched off backlight)
Unlock your Nexus S and install a working custom recovery (guide)


Mac Fails to recognize my Android phone through USB I installed ADB via homebrew but running adb devices returns an empty list. I also tried system_profiler SPUSBDataType but I still fail to find my device here. I don't have EasyUSBTethering issues on my system. After connecting to my iMac, my cell phone starts charging, but fails to start USB debugging even though I have turned both "Develop Mode" and "USB Debugging" on. The version of my MacOS is 10.14.4.

There is no problem with the cable because I can USB Debug with it on my PC.

I know this situation seems awkward. Any possibility is welcomed and please feel free for requesting more relevant information about my devices. Thank you in advance!

Finally it turns out to be a cable issue - but very weird! On Windows both USB 3.0 and 2.0 Cables are supported. On Mac, however, only USB 2.0 cables are supported. Initially I was using a 3.0 cable and thus by confirming that everything runs smoothly on PC, I directly denied the possibility of cable issues. I wish my sorrowful experience could help prevent some valueless efforts.


(Marshmallow) Microphone stops working randomly in Viber, Skype etc Every once in a while, the microphone on my S7 Edge (running Android 6.0.1) stops working, which I notice when someone calls on the phone/Viber/Skype, and the other side cannot hear me whereas I hear them. Rebooting always fixes it, but is still very annoying nonetheless. Has anyone noticed this and found a workaround? many thanks..

OK so I accidentally stumbled upon the solution: The problem is caused by the Total Recorder app.


Lollipop (sony experia Z3 compact) - disable mobile data notification I just recently upgraded to lollipop. One thing that is annoying, is with notifications.

Most of the time I have mobile data disabled, because in most places I can connect to wifi (when I need mobile net, I just simply enable it through settings).
But now every time I turn my screen on I see mobile data notification and when I unlock it also in upper left of the screen. I don't see a way to disable it.

Is there a way to do that? Cause I really don't need that (I could really disable all notifications in main screen (that new one, before unlocking).

Update OK so managed to disable notifications on lock (in sound & notification - "when device is locked", choosing to not show any notifications). But mobile data notification in upper left corner is still up there all the time..

Well there was a button near notification (when I hover it over) (like a stairs icon or something). Pressing it cleared notification and now it is not appearing, so I hope it wont show it again :).


Why is my phone vibrating incessantly during calls? Yesterday, my phone started vibrating once every 15 seconds or so during phone calls. I'm running cyanogenmd 7 on HTC thunderbolt. I looked in settings and there is only option to vibrate every 45 seconds during outgoing calls and it is off. How can I get back the old behavior?

i had a similar problem, for me I had to go into the "profile" i was using "default, silent, work, ect.", and change the phone setting for vibrate to off.


What Android Tablets are compatible with 5 GHz 802.11 networks? All too often, I've seen manufacturers go the "cheap route" when putting out products that they can call "802.11n compatible".  Most of the time, what they aren't telling you is that the "compatible" device only works on 2.4 GHz networks.

As I'm potentially going to be in the market for a new Android-based Tablet in the near future, and I have an 802.11n 5 GHz network at home, I'm wondering which of the devices currently available will be able to operate on that network?

I have a Galaxy Tab which works perfectly with my Belkin PlayMax on 5GHZ.


How to delete dumpstate/logcat on Moto E My phone is running out of internal memory. So I searched online and found a solution, which was to dial *#9900# and then delete dumpstate/logcat. But when I dial the same on my MOTO E, I dont see anything happening. It Just says USSD Code running and closes. My phone is running on Lollipop 5.1. Can you please help me delete dumpstate/logcat?

You are running an USSD(SIM specific) code. Once you enter the last character of an MMI code(usually a pound or hash(#) symbol) your phones parses the code and open the menu for you automatically.

Dumpstate, logcat files are stored on the /data/log partition that, unless you root the phone, you and none of the apps you install will have access to it.

Dialing *#9900# and selecting Delete dumpstate/logcat clears the logs even if your phone is not rooted and this seems to work only on some Samsung Phones. So that excludes the Motorola phones.
(based on the comments from this blog post)

Note: If you enter the MMI code in the dialer app your phone's MMI parser will automatically open the secret menu after typing the last character of the code. If the MMI parser of you phone doesn't recognize the code, then it will not work in your phone and pressing the dial button after entering the code will run USSD code to your network provider

You can try using adb commands to see if you can get help clearing logcats of you phone. The following command clears/flushes the entire log and exits.

adb logcat -c

http://developer.android.com/tools/help/logcat.html

But before trying all these things you need to see the frequent questions under the insufficient-memory tag and its tag-wiki for what to do when your phone storage is almost full.


Make all new chrome Windows incognito Is there a way to make all new Google chrome Windows on my Android be in incognito mode? Thank you!

For android you need to have your phone rooted. Then you can go ahead and install IncognitoTab in xposed modules and it will work. If you want private browsing without root then download another browser like dolphin or Firefox.


Outlook Web App *light* version When I access my OWA site on my Android Chrome (Pixel 2), I always get the full version like the one on the desktop. How do I access the light version on my Android phone instead? On my iPhone, the light version is the default either using Chrome or Safari.

Go to Option in the Outlook Web OWA, then select "Outlook Web Version" , then uncheck the box that says "Use the light version of OutlookWeb App"


"Unknown" vs "Private number" on the Samsung Galaxy S3's stock call log I've recently got two calls on my Samsung Galaxy S3 with stock (TouchWiz) firmware. One was marked as coming from a "Private number", while the sender of the second one was apparently "Unknown". Neither of these displayed a phone number when selected in the call log. Can anyone explain the difference between a "Private number" and an "Unknown" one?

A private number is that when the caller holds back his phone number with the help of the service provider and the service provider doesn't send the Caller ID information to the call receiver then it considered a "Private Number".
To activate the feature ,

  Open Dialer > 3 dots > Settings > Call Settings -> Sim related call
  settings > Additional settings > Caller ID

Note: Not all carriers allow hiding the Caller ID. Mostly it is greyed out for security purposes.

On the other hand, when your telephone exchange(service provider) is unable to register the Caller's number, then it is called then it is called "unknown".


When using apps as a second user, why do new screens within apps open behind the main window? I have just set up a second user account on my Nexus 10 (running stock 4.2.2) so that I can keep my work Exchange email account separated on the device. In this new account, the email app works fine in almost all ways, except that when you (for example) open the settings dialog, nothing appears to happen. It is only when you hit the 'back' button that the settings window appears. It's as if new windows are opening behind the original one rather than in front.

Initially it looked like it was on the Email app with this behaviour, but this morning Evernote has started doing the same thing in that account. This is extremely annoying! It only seems to affect this new secondary user. Everything works perfectly in the primary account.

I've tried searching for people having the same issue but have come up with nothing. How do I fix this?

I did resolve this issue eventually. I use App Protector Pro on the main account of the device, but it is not installed in the second user. Somehow having this enabled on the primary account disrupts the screen ordering on the second and subsequent users. It occurred to me that this might be the case, and testing has proved it so.

You need to disable App Protector Pro to resolve.


My xperia x10 is booting again and again I just installed busybox and then my phone is rebooting again and again!!

What can I do to stop it?

I don't know how to boot it into recovery. I did it once (before I installed busybox) by clicking the back button when it's starting, but it's not working now.

I tried to do it from quick boot (while my phone stays on for a minute or less) but it doesn't work.

I have xperia x10 rooted to android 2.2 with cyanogenmod 6

Try holding the "Back" key while turning the phone on.

It sounds as if the phone is in a boot loop.  Why did you need to install Busybox in the first place?  CyanogenMod (and most other custom ROMs) already has it included.  I would recommend re-flashing CM6 again.


Prevent battery from overheating I have the habit of leaving my phone in charge all night while I'm sleeping, but I've read that this is going to make the battery last less time.
Would it be possible to automatically stop charging the battery when it reaches 100%?
I have a Samsung Galaxy A3 with Android Kitkat.

All phones automatically stop charging once they reach 100%. They then carefully monitor and "bounce" the battery level to ensure it doesn't drain too much, but doesn't overcharge, either. But they're definitely designed with this core concept in mind to reduce damage. Besides, if it stopped charging it at 100% and didn't start back up again, odds are by the time you woke up you'd need to start charging again to get back the 20-30% you lost, which is another charge cycle, causing exactly what you were trying to avoid.


AirPlay like app for the Video-out on Galaxy Nexus I am trying to get the video out on the Galaxy Nexus to do something other than mirroring. In a perfect world I want to do something similiar to the iPhone's AirPlay, but instead of streaming the video to an AppleTV it just pushes the video to the video out accessed by the MHL cable. I would be alright with mirroring if I could lock the phone and it would still play video through the video-out, but to my knowledge that hasn't been accomplished pointing to this post and this post over at XDA Developers.

I know Android has the capabilities because of Motorola's webtop software but I'm wondering if there is a hardware issue involved too because if it's solely hardware there no reason why there couldn't be a viable solution to my problem.

Any ideas?

The best option Skifta. It uses DLNA and worked with my media center extenders as well as other Windows 7 computers.


Mobile Network goes off often in my Galaxy s2 I am using Galaxy s2 since 5 months. I have started facing Network problems recently. The mobile network goes off often and it resumes most times by itself.. but sometimes I need to restart my phone to bring it back in the network. I see the Unavailable (circle with a slash) symbol in place of the mobile signal symbol.. Also I see "SIM Refreshing data" often, not sure if it relates to the network going off..
Similar issues anyone and what did you do to fix this..

I also have a SGS2, and have had the same problem 2-3 times only. I turn on flight mode, and back. This solves the problem for me since it doesnt happen so ofthen.

if you still have the problem after this, I would re install Android to the newest version. Either do it yourself, or go to a phone shop and pay 10$ or so for them to reinstall your phone.

If this solves your problem, it was a cheap fix. If it didn't work, you can go back to the phone shop where you bought the phone and make them fix it in guarantee.

If you want to try to download and install an awesome rom for your phone, you should read this: http://www.cyanogenmod.com/devices


Unsupported SD format renders my micro SD card useless. Is there a way to fix it? I have just flashed a new ROM and the microSD card is gone. It appears in the notifications as "unsupported SD card". Is there a way to fix it?

Plug it into PC and format it to FAT32. That should done the trick. Or maybe you can format it trought phone take a look for that option in storage settings.


Prevent USB data transfer (when phone is in use) and being charged I would like to know how to protect my data when I use public battery charger in public places. I know that if I do not unlock my screen when  charging, my data is safe, but what if I would like to use my phone while connected to  public charger?

I would like to know how or if it requires to have an app that can help me block data transfer via USB , even if I am using the phone.

Edit: While reading up on this after answering, stumbled upon the name for this threat- Juice Jacking, defined as (emphasis added)

Juice jacking is a term used to describe a cyber attack where wherein malware might be installed on to, or data surreptitiously copied from, a smart phone, tablet or other computer device using a charging port that doubles as a data connection, typically over USB.

Further, mitigation section of wiki says

Juice jacking is not possible if a device is charged via the AC adapter shipped with the device, a battery backup device, or by utilizing a USB cable that has its data cables removed

The simplest way would be to use a cable that only charges but does not allow data transfer. Such a cable is non-standard, since it does not adhere to standards wherein data connectors / cables also play an important role of negotiating the power requirements (1)

These cables come with a disadvantage- charging speed is very slow (often by a factor of 10x as reported in some forums). A work around is to buy a cable of 20 AWG thickness (2)  Since 20 AWG is the thickest cable permitted and by virtue of its thickness offers least resistance , and therefore faster charging.  Such cables are available on ebay as an example. While these cables may charge at a reasonable rate, they are not recommended for regular use, as charging current rate is constant and not negotiable (as desired by battery charging logic)

Other Possible Methods

adb commands/ tweaking your system OS: These may or may not work since it is highly dependent on the way device OS is designed. To get a flavor, see my answer , which is the opposite of what you want to achieve.

Edit: Thanks to Firelord's answer, found a way that hasn't been documented anywhere AFAIK.

You can run this command:

adb shell svc usb setFunctions
This should reset the USB mode/configuration to charging only.

DIY methods modifying the cable or end connectors:  Not recommended unless you have a good knowledge and are adept at such tinkering. For example,  How-to-make-a-USB-no-data-charger-cable- Google search will give you many more

USB Condoms:  I didn't make that up :). These are  implementation of DIY methods, sold as ready for use.  SyncStop/ USB condom is one such product- many are available

Note:  All above methods result in sub optimal charging and IMO not recommended for regular use since charging power can't be negotiated
Interestingly, there is a product Charging Safely over USB marketed last year (currently out of stock as per website). This recognises that doing away with data connectors is a bad idea, and permits power negotiation to happen (although slowly) while denying data transfer  by using capacitors to limit bandwidth only for power negotiation
Bottom Line  Use 20 AWG cable recommended right on top, and as sparingly as possible

(1):  USB charging specifications in conjunction with Battery Charging Revision 1.2 lays down " standard for establishing the proper way to charge a battery from a USB port "
(2):  American Wire Gauge (AWG) is a reference for thickness of cables. In this system, larger numbers indicate thinner wires. USB specification above makes reference to AWG numbers of 20, 22, 24, 26 and 28


How to get rid of "SD Card blank or has unsupported filesystem" notification My Samsung Galaxy S II phone crashed and after I restarted it, there was an SD card notification icon that says "SD Card blank or has unsupported filesystem" with the only option of formatting the card.

However, the contents of the SD card like photos taken or videos is accessible just fine UPDATE: the card seems to be corrupt, at least it's not visible from my computer. I'll try formatting it.

SD Card blank or has unsupported filesystem means your SD Card has corrupted data.

The only way is to get it normal is to Format it.

Now what about the Data on SD Card ?
If you are using Linux Machine then there is something called TestDisk. Install it on your PC. Now connect your phone with SD Card inserted to you PC. Run TestDisk and follow the options that it shows. Backup the Uncorrupted Data to your PC and format the SD Card from your Phone.


I can't format my SD card I just inserted a new 16 GB SD card in my AT&T Galaxy S5. I'm trying to format it but it's asking me for a pin and I don't know what it is its not the last 4 of my phone number and it's not my last 4 of my ssn. Please help!

The fastest thing to do is to insert the 16GB SD Card into another phone, a digital camera, or a computer SD card reader, and format it there.  You'll get the job done faster than any other way.

If for some reason you are set on using a pin, you can try 0000, which works in some cases.


Are there any issues in storing an Android battery? I want to buy a 2nd battery for my i9100 because the phone is getting old and I don't know if parts will be easily available a couple of years on (don't want to upgrade, I like it too much), but I've heard reports of batteries dying after being left in storage for extended periods. Is this true?
Should I just switch the 2 batteries around each time to preserve their life?

Unlike Ni-Cd and Ni-Mh batteries, Li-ion batteries primarily lose their capacity by calender time rather than by charge/discharge cycles.  It's simply a fact of the chemistry.  From the time the cell is assembled, it will lose capacity over time, regardless of whether it's in active use or sitting in a warehouse.

Stored unused, you're looking at up to 15-20% loss of capacity per year (pg 4, figure 5b) with the battery just sitting on a shelf.  Though this is more a worst-case scenario, as the battery is being stored at 35°.

To help prevent this capacity loss, you should store the battery cold.  In the paper above, storing the battery at 5° C (a few degrees warmer than an average kitchen fridge, which is ideally about 1.6° C) reduced the capacity loss rate by about half.

Putting the battery in a nice airtight bag (a small ziplock is good) is highly recommended for fridge storage to prevent unfortunate incidents relating to spills and condensation.


How to check if somebody had done a data recovery on my phone? So I recently lent my phone to my father. He broke its display and took it to a service center for repairs, all unbeknownst to me. I am kinda freaking out now because, only a few months ago, I had various nude photos of me and my girlfriend saved on its internal memory. Even though I deleted them before handing it over to my father, I am pretty sure they can be recovered using appropriate software. Is there anyway to check if such an attempt was made?

Model : Samsung Galaxy J1(2016) (pre-knox firmware)

Status : "unrooted" (checked immediately on deliver from the service center)

You're probably okay. If it was a few months ago, chances are the data has been overwritten by other files. If you're really worried about it, try DiskDigger. It needs root access for the best scan, but a basic one can be performed without.


How can I root my Motorola Fire XT316? I'm new Android user and want to root my Motorola XT316 with Android 2.3.4.

I found this guide but is based on Windows XP, and I use Linux (Fedora 16). Is there another method?

This is an old question, but here are the steps to root this device. I am posting it so the Rooting Index is up to date and has an answer for this device. YMMV

These steps should work for XT311/XT316/XT317, XT530/XT531, XT532, and XT611

Steps are from this thread on XDA:

Looks like this does require Windows

Required Tools / Files

SuperOneClick 2.3.3.0
SUT LR 1.8.2 (Doesn't seem to be working on 64-bit systems)
FXX_PR3_NV.xml and NvDefinition.xml Available On The XDA Thread

Before Rooting

Prepare your phone by doing the following:

Go to Settings > Applications > CHECK "Unknown Sources"
Go to Settings > Applications > Developer > CHECK "USB Debugging" and "Stay Awake"
Connect your phone via USB, when prompted DO NOT select USB Mass Storage.
Extract FXX_PR3_NV.xml and NvDefinition.xml from the attached zip file in to a folder

Rooting

Now, install SUT LR
Run the app
Select the FXX_PR3_NV.xml [ensure NvDefinition.xml is also in the same folder as FXX_PR3_NV.xml]
Your phone will restart.

Here is another solution that looks like it may not require a Windows PC

Extract the file Available On The XDA Thread
Mount /system as RW.
Open Root Browser and copy bootmenu folder from sdcard/XT530 and paste it in /system.
Open Pimp My Rom and Add universal init.d support.
Create 97bootmenu manually. (For this using ES file explorer is recommended)
Steps:

Open /system/etc/init.d
Create a file, name it 97bootmenu.
Open the file as text Type:

#!/system/bin/sh
stop
exec /system/bootmenu/binary/bootmenu
save the file

Change permissions of 97bootmenu to rwx r-- r--
Reboot your phone.
Now your phone will start at bootmenu.
Select Recovery>Custom Recovery

To boot the device normally again, open a console/terminal window, while the device is connected via usb.

cd path-to-adb
adb shell
rm -R /system/etc/init.d/97bootmenu
exit
adb reboot


Can't set data usage warning/limit I have a problem with my Nexus 5 (running Android 5.0 but I already had this problem on 4.4.4)

I played around with the slider for mobile data limits and warnings and it got out of range... My warning now is at 719.806.528 GB and my data limit is also out of range.
Does someone know which app's cache do I have to delete to get this to 0 GB again?

Thanks and best regards

Josef

Try clearing defaults, cache and data(memory) for the dataUsage app.

You could also simply uncheck the "set mobile data limit button" except you really need to use it. You can also try returning the slider to zero.


My alarm didn't go off this morning! I set an alarm up and I can see the alarm symbol at the top in the notification bar. However, the alarm didn't go off this morning! Thankfully I'm still in the crossover where my old phone is still in use.

Does the phone have to remain switched on at all times in order for alarms to function?

It's a Galaxy S running 2.1 still, because apparently we're still waiting for Orange to decide how much bloat they want to pack 2.2 with before release.

Yes, the phone has to remain switched on for the Alarm to work.


Nexus 5 freezing often I have a new Nexus 5. Ever since I got it, it tends to freeze. Once or twice a day, I would pick it up, try to press something and see that the screen is completely nonresponsive. The only thing I can do is press the power button for 8 seconds until it resets.

Why is this? What can I do about it?

Why is this?

It's faulty.

  What can I do about it?

Return it to the vendor for repair or replacement. Nobody should expect this kind of problem with a new phone. It's not on you to fix it.


Is It Safe To Root A Samsung Galaxy S5 (or other applicable Android devices) using Geohot's Towel Root Method? A little while ago Geohot released a very simple way to root a Samsung Galaxy S5 (which can be applied to other Android devices as well).

Is it safe or too good to be true ?

It is legitimate. (Or as legitimate as an exploit can be. It isn't malware and if used properly has little chance of doing damage itself.)

Obviously the usual cautions apply with rooting any device. You may void your warranty. Be sure to read through the forums at xda or other guides to be sure how and what can be recovered if something goes wrong because of a change made with root access. You probably don't want to root your brand new phone and then not have any understanding or way to recover if something goes wrong down the road. Just do your research first. It will be worth the time spent.


Fake the Android USB Debug settings I'm trying to get a certain NFC tap-and-pay app to work. It's called Nexi-Pay and AFAIK is only available in Italy. Due to "security concerns" they deny access to the app to rooted Android users. I managed to get past the root check with Magisk Hide, but now the app says that I have to disable "Android USB Debugging" to use it. Now, I tried doing so and it worked, but since it is a feature I use very often, it would be a pain to switch it on and off every time I need to pay for something.

How can I make the app think ADB is disabled while it's actually not, a-la-MagiskHide?

Try installing Magisk and then install the "MagiskHide Props Config" module. After this applications won't be able to detect if ADB is enabled.
Magisk can also hide the root availability. Just enable the hide feature and add the application to the list.
An app I tested reported 5 "security" issues. Enabling Magisk hide (and adding the app to the list) removed 3 of them, and adding the "MagiskHide Props Config" module removed the other 2. One of the remaining 2 is known to be the "Android USB Debugging".
You don't need to do any extra stuff. The module is designed to fool transaction software. In my case the app uses the veritran API, very common on bank apps.


Cannot add users on Nexus 7 I recently purchased the Google Nexus 7 tablet running Android 4.2. This link describes how to manage multiple users on the same device. However the menu item "Users" does not exist on my table under the "Device" item.

The following menu items are visible:

Sound
Display
Storage
Battery
Apps

Do I have to enable some other settings so that this item will become visible?

The problem has been solved. My device (3G) had Android 4.2 installed initially. However the multiple user functionality is only available with Android 4.2.1. My device didn't show the udpate. Today it did - no idea why - and now the item is visible.


Carbon backup discovery issues with Nexus 7 I have made a backup of my Nexus 7 before its bootloader was unlocked with Carbon and the companion Windows app; I then took the Carbon folder from internal storage to my computer disk.

An unlock, root, flash, etc., later, I placed the Carbon folder where it was:

 /storage/emulated/0/carbon

I installed an additional application and backed it up to confirm that Carbon stores new backups there:

Yet, no joy.

I've also copied the backup data to Google Drive. Carbon also fails to find the data there.

You might guess it'd be a permissions issue. As far as I can see, it's not.

This person (thread link) has had similar issues with a Nexus 7 but not a Nexus 4. They've emailed the developers one month ago and didn't report back. I emailed them too , but I'm not holding my breath honestly. and actually got a reply. I'm not posting the full text of the email, since that'd be a breach of privacy, but here's the meat of it.

  You manually moved the backup, which is an unsupported scenario in Carbon. This is why you cannot see the backups. There is no fix, or workaround for this.

What can I do about this?

As it turned out, all the other apps had their corresponding .json file missing. Not a big deal: As badp's answer shows, one can simply use adb restore to restore the backups. But as not everybody might have the SDK (or even a minimal ADB) installed (or even a computer available -- one might be on a journey), my answer will take a different approach.
What we need
First, you will need to make a backup of some app, to get a working .json file. As the question states, there was such one from the Adobe Reader. To visualize it for you, this is what the corresponding file (com.adobe.reader.json) looks like:
{
  "enabled":true,"system":false,"flags":10010180,"packageName":"com.adobe.reader",
  "versionCode":73784,"label":"Adobe Reader","versionName":"10.5.2","locked":false,
  "date":1367072517125,"apk":false,"backup":true
}

You will also need:

a file manager
an editor

Of course, you could also perform the steps below from your Linux computer; using a different OS, take care for the file's encoding and line breaks.
What we do
I pick an example app here: Kindle for Android. In the question's screenshots, it's listed close to the Adobe Reader as com.amazon.kindle. For your apps, just pick the corresponding values based on this example:

copy com.adobe.reader/com.adobe.reader.json to com.amazon.kindle/com.amazon.kindle.json
open com.amazon.kindle/com.amazon.kindle.json with an editor

replace com.adobe.reader by com.amazon.kindle for packageName
replace Adobe Reader by Kindle for Android for label (actually, you can put anything here -- but might prefer to know what you've got :)
optionally, replace the versionName accordingly (it will work without)
save the file

I'm not sure what versionCode or flags stand for, so we better don't touch those. We also can safely ignore the rest:

"enabled"="true" should mean "this app is enabled (i.e. not frozen)"
"system"="false": It's no system app (matches: Kindle is no system app)
"locked"="false": This app is not "protected"
"date" obviously holds a Unix timestamp (most likely that of the backup)
"apk"="false": Ah, data only (Cabon's default is to not include the .apk with the backup, to speed things up)
"backup"="true": Is this a joke? What else could it be?

Now, first let's see whether Carbon accepts our trick. If it correctly lists up Kindle for Android as being available for a restore, you might want to repeat above steps for your other backups as well.


Applications keep restarting Whenever I'm done with an application, I always exit using the back button. Somehow applications like Viber, WhatsApp, Facebook, Videos, Email, Google Maps, etc keep restarting on their own.

I have tried:

Using a task killer
Force stopping the apps in the settings menu
Killing them using watchdog

...but they still restart. Any idea how to solve this problem?

Let me first say: Do not use task killers. You are only making the problem worse.  Why?  Let me explain how the Android OS works.

Unlike normal OSes, Android does not actually let you "close" an application.  You can leave the application, but that doesn't mean it has "closed" or "killed" it. This is because of multi-tasking: when you leave an application, you can come back to it as you were previously.

Instead, the Android OS handles the "killing" or "closing" of applications for you.  It keeps track of a) how much free memory there is and b) how long it has been since you've opened that app.  When memory is running low, Android will garbage collect and kill any unused applications.  Android's OS task killer is very smart and can handle these situations far better than an Android Task Killer app that just kills apps left and right without any "logic" behind it.

Now, when you leave an application via back button or home, this doesn't mean the app is necessarily still running, just that it remains in memory. The only time an app will run is a) it is in the foreground or b) it has a background service.

In your case, it sounds like you are trying to kill background services. When you do so, the app will just go "oh hey, my background service is running any more, let's start it back up!"  And you will then be playing a game of whack-a-mole.  You'll be wasting resources and battery life because applications will be re-starting themselves.  And if an application was writing to disk (your SD card) at the time you killed it, then you could end up with corrupted files and other issues.  Rare, but it could happen.

The only need for a task killer is to stop an erroneous application in one-time situations.  That's what force stop is for. You shouldn't need to force stop every X min.  ONY when the app is misbehaving in rare occasions.

If you don't want all those apps running background services, check to see if they have settings to disable them.  Look for things such as disabling background notifications or other "polling" for information/updates.  Otherwise, uninstall the app.

You can find even more info over here in this thread and this thread.


what is going on with my phone? recently my phone has started installing invisible apps without my permission.
I have three different security programs, and at random times they will pop up in the notification bar with " scanning installed app ". even though I didn't tell it t do that.
at the end, there is no actual app there, so wtf installed?

I'm not sure if it's some virus installing invisible apps, or if it is Google performing unpermissive updates, but I have told Google I do not want it to auto update and it's trying to do it anyway.

I know that whatever this is, it has something to do with Google Play because. have a firewall.
I have told my firewall to block anything from the google services framework and as long as the firewall is on it won't do this.
however, if I turn off the firewall, it goes nuts. trying to auto update, and install all kinds of unwanted garbage.
what can I do? can I just uninstall play store?

Samsung Sch- i110 * rooted
2.36 Gingerbread

Avast! mobile security * firewall
Malwarebytes Anti- malware

Your best bet would be uninstalling those unesecary security programs, seeing if the problem persisits, in my experience android security programs are both unesecary and cause more problems than they solve.


Installing ROM over another custom ROM Am using Samsung Galaxy Y model phone. I rooted my mobile and installed Jelly Blast v3 ROM in my phone. Now how to install a different custom ROM over this ? or if i install a new ROM in my mobile will that cause any problems ? Please help me get through this

You need to install custom recovery and flash new ROMs from this recovery. If you choose the correct custom ROM for you phone and follow the developer's installation guide, there won't be any problem. If you wanna know where you can find custom ROMs for your phone, take a look at this question. I recommend XDA developers. You can find a lot of ROMs with user's reply so you can consider before flashing the ROM.


Battery goes down from 100% to like 80-75% so fast Why does my LG L90 battery goes down from 100% to like 80-75% so fast (about 30 mins) and then the battery lasts quite a while? Is it because the battery has been charged only a few times? Because I bought the phone week ago.

From the question comments, you have not calibrated your battery (in a long time or ever).

You need to do a proper calibration:

Do a full charge of the device's battery.
Use the device until it turns off on its own. Do a full discharge of the battery. One neat trick is to get some game that has wakelock (does not let the screen turns off) and leave it running with the device on a well-ventilated place.
After the device dies of low battery, wait for it to cool down and turn it on and use it a bit more. When it refuses to turn on at all, its fully discharged.
Plug it in and let it charge to max.

This will set the flags for FULL and EMPTY battery, and the meters should be accurate.

If the problem persists, your battery may be damaged. If the device's battery is still under warranty, take it to the service center.


Android phone Bluetooth connection with Android head unit keeps dropping I recently bought a used car and it has a (relatively new) Android head unit (i.e., the main radio unit is an Android tablet). The head unit itself is pretty slow and reflective in daylight so I want to just continue to use my phone (with a car mount) for navigation and music / podcasts while driving.

The head unit came preloaded with a "Bluetooth" app that pairs with my phone and allows to stream music from my phone to the head unit. However, the Bluetooth connection keeps disconnecting. After the first disconnect in a single ride, I usually can't even get the music playing again via the head unit even though it reconnects. I have Android Auto on my phone which is set up to automatically start when it's connected to the head unit Bluetooth and automatically close when it's disconnected - so I have a pretty good indication that the connection is flaky as it starts and stops several times during my 15 minute commute.

I tried looking for an alternative for the preloaded "Bluetooth" app, but I can't find one that intended to RECEIVE audio.

More details:

There's no AUX or USB port on the head unit.
My phone is Pixel 2.
The head unit is (I think) Allwinner t3 running Android 7.1.1.
My phone has no trouble connecting to other Bluetooth devices - I have a smartwatch and several Bluetooth headphones and it handles them without any connection issues, ever.

The ideal solution for me would be that the head unit would connect to my phone via Bluetooth on boot and do nothing else than channeling the audio to the speakers.

UPDATE: Okay, this is really weird. Upon more experimentation, it looks like the problem is with specific tracks. Using Google Play Music to stream music to the head unit, everything works fine. But with some podcast episodes I'm trying to play in Pocket Casts, the head unit immediately disconnects. I thought maybe the head unit has trouble displaying Hebrew track names, but I ruled that out with other episodes / songs. Any ideas what could trip the connection?

They write that Allwinner T3 head units have USB but (at least some of them) require hardwre modifications to enable ADB mode.
But you can try other possibilities:
Connect ADB via WiFi.
Collect Bluetooth HCI snoop logs from your smartphone for working/non-working cases and try to find the differences.


How to watch chrome history of my friend, who is logged in from my gmail id? What i did - I have signed in, one of my friend's android phone (its samsung j2) with my gmail id.

What i want - I want to monitor his phone's youtube and chrome browsing history using my gmail id

is this possible?

Congratulations! You are a spy now! what you can do? goto google.com & click on search bar & you'll see search history Or just tap on the google search bar on your phone & you'll see last searches.

To get the full activity history click here: https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity


Transfer backed up iphone data to android phone. is it possible? My iphone recently won't charge and it is dead. However, I have managed to backed up the data through itunes sync before the incident. Now I want to get a new android phone. But can I transfer the backed up data to android phone directly?
(I can't turn on my iphone anymore.)

Android will certainly not be able to read anything from your backup. However, there are programs specifically designed to extract data from a itunes backup and copy them to an android phone.

This is one of those programs.


ConnectivityExtension: ConnectivityExt jar file not present When using adb logcat to get debug messages from my phone, I get many of those lines:

04-23 18:16:51.085  1428  1951 W ConnectivityExtension: ConnectivityExt jar file not present
04-23 18:16:51.187  1428  1951 W ConnectivityExtension: ConnectivityExt jar file not present
04-23 18:16:51.658  1428  1951 W ConnectivityExtension: ConnectivityExt jar file not present

Where is this coming from?
What can I do to get rid of those message?

I'm running LineageOS 14.1-20180314-crackling (Android 7.1.2) on a Wileyfox Swift. I don't have any google apps (nor google play services) installed.

After some searching around, it turns out ConnectivityExt is a proprietary Qualcomm file (source - you can see that it is included in the proprietary-files.txt in LineageOS), related to the Qualcomm package com.qualcomm.qti.tetherstatsextension.tetherstatsreporting. I found some code  for this here, line 107 onwards. As it seems to be about TetherStatsReporting, maybe it is related to hotspot? Considering it is proprietary I do not think you can do anything about it.


Can I install CWM without Odin or root? I have an SGS with stock Gingerbread (2.3.3).  Can I install CWM without Odin?

Will installing CWM also root the phone, or do I have to root it ahead of time?

You need Odin in order to install CWM without root (or conversely, you need root to install CWM without Odin).  CWM does not root the phone.

You don't need root for ClockworkMod Recovery, though you do need root for the ROM Manager app.

Edit: You can't install unsigned packages with the "3E" recovery, which was part of some official update packages (most Froyo ones and presumably all Gingerbread ones).  This prevents one from flashing a custom ROM, kernel, modem, or recovery through the stock recovery (since they aren't signed by the manufacturer).

The way to get around this is normally to use Odin to flash a custom ROM or kernel with a custom recovery.  I'm not sure if flashing a signed update to an older official ROM, with the older recovery, would work; it might say it's older than your current version and fail, or it might just work.  I've never been able to try it, and I'm familiar with Odin anyways.


How can I root my Samsung Galaxy S3? Should I defer the system update? I pre-ordered a Verizon SGS3, and it shipped to me before it was even available in stores. Since then I have not updated any programs that were Verizon-related.

If at some point I want to root my phone, does it then make sense to not update these programs? I have heard that in the past, certain over-the-air updates have closed holes which are used to root. Is this the case so far with this phone?

Update: Verizon's Galaxy S3 is locked and cannot as of now be rooted or updated to a custom firmware. See this XDA thread.

As far as I know there are no current pending security holes that can be exploited by circulating rooting apps at the moment.

Samsung does however not lock its phones if you buy them directly from them, i.e. you are free to install aftermarket firmware or modify the existing firmware via Odin quite easily (without having to hack/exploit/etc. anything). Some carriers, including Verizon however do indeed lock it.

If you have an unlocked S3 or as soon there's an exploit for the locked booloader:
CF-Root by Chainfire supports rooting stock firmwares of the S3 models GT-I9300 and GT-I9300T so far in a very easy way. It does not depend on an root exploit but rather modifies the system partition in another way that cannot be closed by a firmware OTA update. Just see the above referred blog post and the linked XDA forum thread  in there for more info.


How to disable SMS preview displayed over a locked screen? On an Android device (HTC Desire S if that matters) with a locked screen whenever an SMS is received it's preview is displayed over the locked screen. This is super inconvenient - anyone who is nearby can see it without even unlocking the screen.

Is there a way to disable those previews over a locked screen?

You can do so by going into the Messaging app, and pressing Menu -> Settings -> Uncheck "Received notification (Show  notification in status bar when messages are received)".

But you won't get the notification on status bar as said above.


my battery charge indicator is continually flashing on and off My battery charge indicator (the screen info saying % full), flashes on/off/on/off, etc. sometimes.

I've switched the battery to a spare to see if that helps but it didn't.

When it does happen, this seems to happen at all the different wall sockets where I am.  It happens a lot in cafe's.... perhaps not surprising... but also in my office building which seems pretty solid for such business services.

The only place it doesn't happen is at home.

My original theory was that it was due to too many people using the same circuit and reducing the amps too much.  However the more places I see this behavior in, the less I think it is likely.

Any idea how to address this?

Have you tried using a different cord/charger?

It seems as if it isn't related to a specific location, so I would suspect that the cable has gone bad.


Does Android have a 2.1GB file size limit? I have tried many voice recording type applications and the best I have found only allows me to do a recording upto a maximum file size of 2.1GB.  I can do many of these 2.1GB recordings as I have a fairly large SD card.

On one of the applications I have tried, the developer has specifically said that his/her app has no recording length limit

So my question, does Android have a built in 2.1GB limit per file?

Short Answer: Yes

More Detailed Answer:

The file size limit is not something specific to Android, it is a limit of the File System.

It may "technically" be a bug in Android though, as FAT32, which is what the file system is for the sdcard, should have a file size limit of 4GB ((2^32)-1 = 4,294,967,295B) but it looks like the filesystem on Android is android is actually using a limit of ((2^31) - 1 = 2,147,483,647B). Which means they could be using signed integers, instead of unsigned integers for the addressing on the filesystem.


Unlock android phone with forgotten password and attached gmail account details too Unfortunately My android phone Sony Xperia Go with got locked. I gave this to a friend for use and he gave this to his friend. Now the problem is no one have any idea which gmail account is linked to this. Neither any one is taking the responsibility... well that's other problem.

I am writing here for help. If anyone can help in this.

The phone is not allowing to enter pattern now. It is asking for gmail account details or security question answer and don't have any of these.

I hope anyone could help me this.

If you don't worry for the data of your phone the everything will be easier.First of all turn off the device.Then open it again, wait 3 seconds and then press the power button and the volume up or down(the reboot may differ from phone to phone) Then, at the reboot you will be able to use it only with the up and down volume buttons.Reset the phone and everything will be deleted (even the password) For more information check here : http://www.greenbot.com/article/2458403/how-to-perform-a-factory-reset-on-your-android-phone-or-tablet.html


Rescue data from an application I was using Secret of Happiness for about three months, and created some notes during this time period. At one point when I wanted to add a new note, the application froze, and I had to force close it.

I tried to look for the directory where it stores data. I hoped it would be some database, XML, or CSV format so I could view the notes data, but wasn't able to find it. I also tried to copy the app's data to the SD card but it's not there either.

How can I find out where this app stores its data, and how can I view my notes again?

Each app gets a storage directoy assigned in /data/data/<package_name>1, so in your case that would be /data/data/com.soh. However, without root privileges, you cannot directly access that directory.

A possible work-around (for non-rooted devices) would be to create an "ADB backup" of the app (see our adb tag-wiki for details), and then "disassemble" that2. You should then find databases (SQLite) as well as "shared_prefs" (XML files) with additional information.

1 see also: Where in the file system are applications installed?
2 see: How do you extract an App's data from a full backup made through “adb backup”?, Is there a way to look inside and modify an adb backup created file?


find: multiple "-exec" for list of files not working? I am trying to figure this out on an Android phone running Oreo / 8.0, with toybox 0.7.3-android.

I am trying to get a list of files inside a folder and their respective mtime. I am running this command:

find . -type f -exec stat -c %n {} \; -exec stat -c %Y {} \; -exec stat -c %y {} \;

or

find . -type f -exec stat -c %n "{}" \; -exec stat -c %Y "{}" \; -exec stat -c %y "{}" \;

In both cases I am only getting the result from the first invocation of "stat". Am I overseeing something or is this the way toybox works on Android?

The output file should look like this:

./file1.txt
1553516120
201903251315.20
./file2.txt
1549678694
201902090318.14
./file3.txt
1553541066
201903252011.06
./file4.txt
1553515882
201903251311.22
./file5.txt
1585138731
202003251318.51

EDIT: This is apparently a bug in toybox. I reported it and the working fix is currently awaiting to be merged into the source code of toybox.

This should work:

find . -type f | xargs -I {} stat --printf='%n \n %Y \n %y \n\n' '{}'

But Android's limited toybox stat doesn't support --printf formatting. So either use stat binary with full options e.g. from Termux or statically built, or you need to do one step extra:

find . -type f | xargs -I {} stat -c '%n--%Y--%y--' '{}' | sed 's/--/\n /g'


How to Disable Double Tapping? My Galaxy S2 asked me to double-tap and drag to unlock (instead of just dragging) and every time I try to tap anything, one tap only makes a yellow box appear around the app or file or whatever, which is really difficult to deal with and annoying.

Go into the device settings, then from My device, choose Accessibility. From that menu, press TalkBack, then click the switch in the top-right corner to turn TalkBack off.

After tapping something once to get the yellow box (and the spoken description of what the thing is), double-tap anywhere on the screen to click the highlighted thing.


I can only get 2g..how do i get 4glte on my lg optimus L90D415 I have metro pcs and got perfect service lost my phone so using my old lg optimus L90D415 but cant get more than 2 g no matter what i do

D415, being a rather old low-end phone by nature, has no 4G support by hardware design, as indicated by the specs here.

The device does support UMTS on Band 2/4/5, and MetroPCS uses Band 2/4, so theoretically you should see 3G. However, as carriers have shifted their priorities towards LTE, 3G coverage on those bands will degenerate, especially as Band 2/4 are also primary LTE bands for the same carrier.


Remove Bloatware on my Xperia L I'm try to remove bloatware on my old xperia, but then this is happening

shell@android:/ $ pm uninstall -k --users 0 com.google.android.apps.books
Error: Unknown option: --users

and then I try this, but same result

shell@android:/ $ pm uninstall -k 0 com.google.android.apps.books

Failure

It should be --user 0 not --users 0

Also - k flag is optional

But to acknowledge a comment you must be rooted to completely remove bloatware, because if you add another account or work profile that user will have that stuff. You, however, don't


Unable to restore from drive I have an old phone (Asus zenfone) that makes regular backups on drive. If I log on drive from pc I see the backup folder.

I need to restore data to my new phone (Samsung galaxy s7 edge).

The new phone is freshly formatted. When I add my Google account everything is fine (I also receive the email warning for login in new device) but the phone proposes restore from Samsung cloud only.

Actually I also had another backup on drive (made with a third phone) and at the first attempt the new phone proposed to restore from that backup.
Of course I declined, I deleted that backup from drive (keeping only the one I need) and finally retried the restore.

So it seems that the login to Google works but the phone ignores the existing backup.

What could I do to force the restore?

I solved. The old phone has Oreo, the new one had Nougat.

I upgraded the new phone to Oreo, made a factory reset and finally the restore started correctly.


Replace notification bar The default notification bar in Nexus S is very basic. It doesn't have any toggle buttons like others do. Can I replace it?

From what I've seen this is not generally very easy to do. I know that replacing the icons and such requires modifying the underlying framework-res.apk file, and I've never really seen anything that modifies the functionality of the bar itself (aside from custom ROMs with custom frameworks and the like). I'm not completely positive on this, however.

If you just want to get the toggles, though, you could try an app like Notification Toggle. It says that it's a little bit hit-or-miss depending on the device, but I'd imagine that the Nexus S would be on the better end of the scale.


Is it bad for Android phones to install and delete one app multiple times? Can OS become slower by installing and uninstalling an app multiple times?
Can this process make any harm to system, or is it safe to do it?

No, it is totally fine. If you think your phone is slow clean the junk files or the cache using some good app like clean master and after cleaning everything uninstall it so that it doesn't run in background. Install it again when you think your phone has become slow and uninstall it again. Best way is keep a backup of the app so that you don't need to download it again and again.


Un-register service from hwservicemanager I have disabled the fingerprint sensor on my phone by setting the device tree node status to disabled. When I boot up, the fingerprint menu options are gone, but dmesg shows that hwservicemanager is trying to start a fingerprint sensor over and over, but init can't find the service:

[  625.488742] init: Could not find 'android.hardware.biometrics.fingerprint@2.1::IBiometricsFingerprint/default' for ctl.interface_start
[  625.502583] init: Received control message 'interface_start' for 'android.hardware.biometrics.fingerprint@2.1::IBiometricsFingerprint/default' from pid: 669 (/system/bin/hwservicemanager)
[  625.502658] init: Could not find 'android.hardware.biometrics.fingerprint@2.1::IBiometricsFingerprint/default' for ctl.interface_start
[  625.523352] init: Received control message 'interface_start' for 'android.hardware.biometrics.fingerprint@2.1::IBiometricsFingerprint/default' from pid: 669 (/system/bin/hwservicemanager)
[  625.523427] init: Could not find 'android.hardware.biometrics.fingerprint@2.1::IBiometricsFingerprint/default' for ctl.interface_start
[  625.538080] init: Received control message 'interface_start' for 'android.hardware.biometrics.fingerprint@2.1::IBiometricsFingerprint/default' from pid: 669 (/system/bin/hwservicemanager)
[  625.538545] init: Could not find 'android.hardware.biometrics.fingerprint@2.1::IBiometricsFingerprint/default' for ctl.interface_start

How do I tell hwservicemanager to stop trying to start this now non-existent service? I saw here that there is an option to remove the hidl definitions from a manifest file, but I would like to enable or disable the fingerprint sensor at runtime. I can enable and disable the service with start vendor.fps_hal and stop vendor.fps_hal, but I can't stop hwservicemanager from trying to start it.

You can check system/hwservicemanager/ServiceManager.cpp to see when and why hwservicemanager is setting ctl.interface_start to trigger init to start the HAL service.

Unless you are willing to update system/hwservicemanager/ServiceManager.cpp, I don't see a way to achieve what you are trying to do.


WiFi Error: "Failed to connect to network" Intermittently, when I try to connect to a WiFi network, I get the following error message as a toast message:

Failed to connect to network

The message pops up immediately upon attempting to connect, so clearly it isn't trying and failing. I haven't found any mention of an error in the logs. The affected networks are ones that I've previously connected to with no change in settings.
How can I figure out what the problem is?
I've got a rooted Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.1.1 and the stock ROM. This question is related to another question that I posted earlier, but this one is more about how to find the source of a particular error message, so its focus is different.
Additional Details
Here are some more details based on the comments:

I've observed this on my home and work networks. One is identified as WPA2 PSK and the other is identified as WPA/WPA2 PSK.

I haven't powered off the phone as described in the troubleshooting guide mentioned in the comments. However, I have rebooted to no avail (using the reboot command that's available on rooted phones).

Forgetting the network and re-adding it has no effect. In fact, if I forget the network I can no longer successfully re-add it.

The wireless password hasn't changed.

There's no proxy configured when I'm on wireless. However, I run Onavo Extend when I'm on a data connection. Disabling it has no effect.

I've switched from DHCP to static IP addresses. Doing so reduced the frequency of problems and seems to have eliminated my earlier issue where wifi would be randomly dropped.

Wifi sleep is set to "Only when plugged in." I don't think it's relevant because my issue is establishing a connection in the first place (such as when I arrive at home or at work), not maintaining one.

Note that despite all these troubleshooting steps,my initial goal is to find an actual error message or log entry that gives useful information about the problem.

Do you have custom recovery installed? I have had this problem twice on a Galaxy S2, and what fixed it for me every time was running a permissions fix from recovery mode.

If that doesn't work, try deleting your WiFi config file. Not sure what it is on the Nexus, but I'm guessing it'll be something along the lines of /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf or /data/misc/wifi/wpa.conf. Obviously you should make backups before deleting anything. Note that you'll lose all your WiFi settings if you do this.


What does the "eye" symbol mean at the bottom of Telegram messages? In Telegram Messenger, at the bottom of each message, there are two numbers. One is the time that the message has been sent, and the other is a number near an eye symbol. Does anyone know what this number means?

Note that this number is in all messages, not only messages released in groups or channels.
These are two screenshots:

As per Telegram's official blog:

Each post in a channel has its own view counter.

Views from forwarded copies of your messages will be included in the total count.

That eye icon is usually used to depict the total page or post views. For example, Quora uses a similar icon:

You can find some more icons here.


Whatsapp chat history Transfer to android phone Presently, I am using WhatsApp on my Nokia Xpressmisic 5530. Earlier, I had used it in Xiaomi. I need to transfer chats from Nokia to my android phone.

Inside Nokia, it only have two options:

Via Bluetooth
Upload.

My upload function failed. Then, next option is to send through Bluetooth. How can it be send and load inside android device? Is this possible?

You can't restore chat history from one platform to a different platform.

Eg:- Window to Android or vice-versa as in your case. Read the below Whatsapp faq,

http://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/wp/28060005

It tells,

  You cannot restore chat history from any other phone type to Windows
  Phone, or from Windows Phone to another phone type.

The Whatsapp for Symbian S60 OS creates backup file as .bak files and Whatsapp on Android OS  creates backup files as .crypt files(encrypted). So based on this article from Whatsapp on How to save and restore chat history backups. The instructions are given only for

transferring backups from S60 to S60 phone
Backup files are saved in a folder called ‘wa’ and are called MsgStore.bak which will not be recognized by the Whatsapp application in your Android phone.
Backup files are saved in a format to be opened with WhatsApp. If you want to read your conversations on your computer you can send them as .txt file from WhatsApp to your email.

What you are trying to do is export the chat history. And from this Whatsapp article on How do I export my chat history?,

You can't use this .txt file for importing into another phone. So What you do is only for exporting the chat and you can only be able to read it using a text editor.

  it is not possible to restore your chat history from this exported
  .txt file.


Camera settings/features are disappeared There is a Samsung A01 whose default camera settings are like this:

But for some reason, some camera settings/features located at top bar are disappeared. Does anybody know why? How can I restore it?

Approach suggested here worked:

The way I got my camera features back is ... by going into the settings going to device care and then click on battery and then changing power mode to optimize which is the first choice.


Reconnect to mobile via USB without rebooting I am a developer (using eclipse) and regularly have my Samsung Galaxy SII connected to my PC via a USB cable. A few times per day I will unplug the cable and plug it back in again in order to take phone calls, go to lunch etc. About 4 times out of 5 this is all fine. But one time in 5 the PC fails to properly re-communicate with my mobile and eclipse does not recognise the phone as being connected. Repeatedly unplugging and replugging in makes no difference, the connection is lost. The only way I know to fix it is to reboot my PC - which takes ages!... Is there something else I could try?

Sometimes my computer does the same thing, though it doesn't come up too often. In those cases, I try plugging the device into a different usb port. Usually it fixes the problem (though the first port is still 'disabled' for that particular device until I reboot).


How to disconnect a Wifi connection instead of using "forget" connection Suppose I want to disconnect to Wifi connection 'A' so that I can connect to Wifi connection 'B', how do I go into doing it without using the "Forget" connection for Wifi connection 'A'?

There is a Simple way to achieve this.

we have two cases in our hand.

Case A: When The Wifi connection 'B' is already in the Remembered (Saved) List in your Device, then you have to just Open the Wifi -> Just Click on the Wifi Connection 'B' from the list. and it will automatically get connected to it.

Case B: When The Wifi connection 'B' isn't already in the Remembered(Saved) List in your Device, then Open the Wifi -> Just Click on the Wifi Connection 'B' from the list, and you will be asked for the password and then If the Signing process goes well. you are now connected to the Wifi connection 'B'.

Hope this help you.

Izzy's note:  Whenever you connect to WiFi B while a connection to A is active, the latter connection will be canceled (disconnected) automatically as there only can be one WiFi connection active.


Forgot code to access phone. Any way to recover pictures on it? A little while back, I passed on my Samsung Galaxy S6 to my mom. She used the fingerprint scanner to get into the device. Today, her battery died for the first time and because you can't use her fingerprint the first time after a restart and she forgot the backup password, we cannot access the phone.

I thought there was an option to reset the device using her Google account after entering the wrong code a few times, but that option doesn't appear unfortunately. I read about Samsung's Find my Mobile, and while I was using the S6 I activated it and I can find it in my list of phones when I login with my Samsung Account, but I am unable to unlock the phone with it because it says it's offline at the moment (it's online, but I assume it says that because it isn't activated anymore, I reset the phone before I gave it to my mom).

I know that I can enter recovery mode to factory reset the device. The thing is that she really wants the pictures on it. Is there any way at all for me to get the pictures from the device? If I'm correct, it was fully stock.

If it's actually safely built, then no. If the device isn't running the latest software, it's possible that you could use a security exploit to delete the lockscreen settings database, but otherwise you're SOL, I'm afraid.

If you backed the photos up via Google Photos, they might still be there. Also check any other cloud storage or backup services you may have used.

As a last ditch resort, I don't believe there's an option in a stock configuration of Android that locks you out of your phone after so many attempts, so really all you're limited by in getting into it, is your patience of trying every possible combination.


Moto G WiFi reception severely affected by Bluetooth I suspect this may just be a hardware fault that I have to live with or have repaired, but let's see...

My stock 1st-gen 16GB Moto G running 4.4.4 has been working flawlessly for almost a year. A few days ago, we had some WiFi interference issues in our house, which isn't unusual as it's a dense residential area.

I managed to resolve those, but noticed my phone still wouldn't connect. Using WiFi Analyzer (which is an invaluable app btw), I could see that it was detecting hardly any signal at all, while the same app on my Nexus 7, which was connecting fine, showed a good signal from both the access points in my house (not to mention various surrounding houses).

I thought there may just be an unresolved interference problem, but when I took the phone into my office the next day, I had the same problem there.

After a bit of Googling, I read that similar symptoms on Nexus phones could sometimes be worked around by putting the phone into Airplane Mode, then re-enabling the WiFi. Sure enough, that seemed to the trick for me too.

On further investigation, putting it into Airplane Mode, turning on the WiFi, and then turning on Bluetooth too, caused the WiFi to drop out almost immediately again. Here's an example of what I can see where I'm sitting right now, before and after enabling Bluetooth:

As it happens, in this case the WiFi stayed connected when I turned the Bluetooth off, as the one AP I could still see is the one I was connected to. But it would probably have disconnected soon afterwards.

Has anyone else experienced a similar issue? Is a factory reset likely to fix it, or is it really a hardware issue? I can live with it if it is, as I rarely use Bluetooth (and even more rarely do I need WiFi access at the same time), though I'd obviously be concerned about any knock-on effects further down the line.

This may be a bug with BLE, and in that case upgrading to 4.4.4 will probably solve the issue.


Why Inbox app disturbs while notifications disabled? I get a notification each time when receiving an email although I disabled all notifications of Inbox. This fact is disturbing because Gmail app gives a notification too about the same event at the same time.

Fig.  1 My settings of Inbox in Setting > Notifications > Apps

Phone: Oneplus 2
System: CM 13

In your screenshot, the Block all setting is turned off. This means that notifications are not blocked from this app, so they'll appear as normal. If you want to disable notifications, change this setting to on, or turn off the notifications within the app itself.


Clone android phone storage without root Is there any way to clone the internal storage of a phone (huawei honor v10, android 8.0) if the phone is not rooted and USB debugging is disabled? I am currently locked out of the phone, but I want to preserve it's state (so I can recover photos in the future) and make the phone usable in the meantime.

Do you mean you don't know the PIN (or pattern or so), but you might remember it later? I am sorry, Android is designed to prevent it. And if you somehow manage to do it, it is likely to be far more expensive than buying a temporary phone until you remember the PIN.

Imagine what would happen when you were allowed to do that. You would be able to bypass any PIN protection. You would be able to do so even if the data were encrypted by the PIN, as this would allow you to brute-force the PIN.

As far as I know, the data are not encrypted by the PIN (or any key derived from the PIN by PBKFD or so). Instead, they should be encrypted by a key that is released from a hardware-based key storage after the correct PIN is provided. The hardware-backed storage should handle remaining PIN attempts and clear itself after the PIN attempts are exceeded.


How do you root safely? I am thinking of rooting my android.

In general, it seems that one downloads the "unlocked" firmware from a website (not the manufacturer's) and then runs it on the phone.

How do I know if that firmware is safe (in other words, how do I know if the "rooted" firmware doesn't have a keystroke logger, for example)?

It all depends on trust. Go to http://forum.xda-developers.com and search for your device. There are high chances your device will have a separate thread on rooting. Read the entire discussion and try to root.

Just remember one thing, always backup before doing anything. The thread will, most probably, contain a guide to backup your factory image too.


device memory its just full of system memory My internal memory is full of system memory, I have 4 GB and all that is system memory. I cannot instal any apps, cannot take a picture. My phone is rooted. I also try to reset factory setting, but nothing happens.

what will i do?

I think your whole 4GB memory is in System Partition.
If your bootloader is unlocked Download TWRP Recovery and install it. Then reboot into recovery and repartition your System. 500MB-1GB is enough for System Partition.


s4 galaxy phone update gone bad my phone was updating but was disconnected.Now it is only showing " software update failed" with a phone symbol and a command sign with a computer next. whats has gone wrong?

Since updating process didin't complete as expected, Then it's normal to see that sign, In order to recover the phone to it's original state, You'll have to flash it with it's original Firmware using the official tools from Samsung called "Odin", You need two thing (Odin and Firmware), For the Firmware you can always download any of Samsung Firmwares from Sammobile -they need you to be a registered user but it's free-, And download the latest version of the Firmware and it's 5.0.1, Now for Odin you can download the latest one from Odin_All_Versions, Once you have all the files needed you can start the process by following this guide,

Extract the Firmware and Odin to the same folder
Power off the Phone
Boot the phone into Download Mode by pressing (Vol-, Home and Power button)
Connect the phone to the PC using USB cable
Run Odin as Admin
Click on (AP) from Odin then choose the Firmware file
Click (START) and leave it do it's things
After process done you'll see a green "PASS" sign
Now your phone will Reboot one time to "Recovery" and the second one to "System"


Route Application through Mobile Data when on Wifi While on Wifi, Whatsapp won't work on my Galaxy Note 2 due to my work proxy. I have found no proxying application that will work, yet. (My work is using an HTTP Proxy).

Is there an application that will route certain phone apps (such as Whatsapp) through mobile data, while still allowing other apps to use Wifi access?

By default, as soon as WiFi gets connected, the mobile network shuts down -- so you cannot use both simultaneously. Which means: no, even a proxy allowing for exceptions would not do, as the other network simply is no longer available.

Quoting from CyanogenMod Tracker:

  Each time you activate WiFi you'll lose 3g connection. That's normal behaviour of Android network manager.

There were attempts on "hacking" that, as you can e.g. find here. This source from the Stanford university also makes clear on the standard behaviour:

  Given WiFI is connected, then turn on  3G data connection. 3G connection will be automatically torn down by Connectivity Service.
  Given 3G is connected, then turn on WiFi connection. Connectivity Service will tear down the existing 3G connection.

Except from "hacking attempts" as described by the Stanford example, I know of no solution to the issue.


How to force Gmail/Android to request password every time for google account Possible Duplicate:
  Logout from Gmail on my device

I have a Samsung Galaxy Ace running Android 2.3.3. Is it possible to force Gmail or any google related apps to request my password everytime I open them?

I don't like how Android syncs with my account and the only way I can protect my phone is by setting up a screen pattern lock or pin, if I wanted to show my phone to people I can't without them able to fiddle around through my emails once its unlocked or if I leave it lying around before it locks.

IOS has something like that on iTunes or App Store where you always have to put in your password.

It doesn't look like you can do anything natively except disconnect the account you're syncing with every time you're done checking your mail.

However, there are a number of app protect apps out there that let you put passwords on particular apps for just such a purpose.